Tag: review

3-gatsu no Lion – 06 [Child of God part 1 – part 2]

by SuperMario, posted in 3-gatsu no Lion, Currently Watching:

Okay, I think I need to let this out first: What is that screenshot right at the end of preview chapter? I know some other mangaka draw this (Like Miura did in the first episode), but this image of big boob Akira is totally inappropriate with the show. This is a total disaster if you ask me.

This episode takes an unflinching look into the mind of Rei again, but unlike last week where the events were already happened in his past, this episode concentrates squarely on his inner thoughts: on how he perceives the world. The main strength of 3-gatsu no Lion has always been the way the show dig deep in Rei’s insecure self, and this episode really takes a step deeper and darker. While his past is certainly tragic and compelling, if the show relies too heavily on his past to draw sympathy from us, it won’t go anywhere because Rei doesn’t progress. Instead, this episode focuses on Rei’s attitude towards the past and how it affects him even now. Kyouko abusive voice again lingers in his heart, basically devalued his self-worth, but the sad thing is he’s submitted to it. He’s afraid that he doesn’t belong anywhere, this again reflects on his complicated relationship with shogi. Last week, we learned that he chose to play shogi not because he loved it, but because he wanted to spend more time with his father, and later as a ‘contract’ to get out of his trapped life; this week he sheds another light to it: he’s into shogi as a place where he feels himself belong to. But does he really feel belonging? As he continues to swim over countless waves to reach its destination, he begins to lose sights on the big world around, on his next stop. He reaches the island, he reaches his goals but now too afraid to make any more move. That is one hell of depressing thought.

The introduction of Touji Souya, a current meijin (one of the most prestigious title in shogi) serves as a great reference to Rei. The two of them share many things in similar: they are both become shogi professional shogi player when they were middle schools (the 4th and 5th people who do so), and their playing styles are strikingly similar as well. All those players who became professional in middle schools would all later become masters (including Souya), and that made Rei feel pressure towards those “achievements” that the shogi world expected of him (curiously enough when you realize his adoptive father never really give him that kind of pressure). His recent losing streak certainly brings him down and that again made him afraid whether or not he’s worth it. Well, that kind of pressure is not what he needs to care, but thankfully the teacher Hayashida was there to cheer him up. He, along with the three sisters, are the friends that Rei really need to bring him out of his depressions. I am really amazed that the show goes this far to bring out the dark inside Rei, we get to know him better and better now and he becomes one of the most fully realized characters that I’ve encountered in recent years. Thank you Chica Umino!

Speaking of her, I think I need to address on the comedy of this show. Many people complain that the comedy is the weakest part of the show, but for now I interpreted it differently. When you really think about it, for a quiet, slow coming-of-age story, voicing over the cats (and dogs) don’t really make much sense, but here it’s working. The thing is those light moments aren’t supposed to be humorous, or to get chuckles from us, but they serve as a cute, light-heart moments to balance out the dark, heavy inner Rei. There are some comic relief moments, sure, but their main objectives are to contrast with the lonely world of Rei, not for comedic effect; thus to judge it based on its poor ‘comedy’ doesn’t really ring true for me, because it isn’t strictly a comedy.

Lastly, this episode is a perfect example to dissect how well Shaft adapting this manga. When you really look at it, Shaft is one of the most unlikely studio to adapt this story. Of course Shaft is talented enough to bring the right pace and feel to the story, but being Shaft, sometimes they have to make somethings stand out. And stand out is the worst enemy for this kind of slice-of-slice show. With this episode, their marks are all over the place with varying degrees. When Shaft dwell into the mindscape of Rei, the visual language is easily the most striking 3-gatsu no Lion could ever have achieved. A small figure swimming in a dark red ocean, or the very next scene when Rei arrived in a blue island, are Shaft at their finest and those choices fit the theme perfectly. The close-up shots while in a conversation between characters and the head-tilts, on the other hand, are distracting the flow of the story and standing out too much and that were rather mediocre choice. All these cutesy moments are hit or miss at the moment: sometimes it works; sometimes not but I especially enjoy the sound designs of those sequences (like the part when Hina says something unintelligible “Zumomomo” and then run off). All in all, this episode got to be the darkest episode of 3-gatsu no Lion, as it never afraid to show the dark depressing side of Rei and for that I really appreciate it. Rei is a very flawed kid, but that’s exactly why he feels exactly like a human.

Occultic;Nine – 04-06[She Took a Long Cold Look]

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Occultic:Nine

Forgive me for my recent laziness in covering this series. I would like to give you a proper excuse as to why I have been slacking in my coverage of Occultic;Nine but in truth it really is due to a complete lack of interest in my part. My previous episodic reviews have been heavily negative and when tasked to yet again complain about how this show just isn’t interesting I find my motivation just isn’t there.I mean sure I could complain about how the blogger constantly tries to use the tooth key on every lock he finds when just looking at the lock itself would tell him if the key would fit. Seeing as the key is a lever lock type so using it on a lock clearly intended for a standard Pin tumbler lock key is just pure stupidity. There also isn’t any real need for him to find out what it unlocks in the first place as getting involved gets him closer to being arrested, though quite frankly it’s a miracle he hasn’t been arrested already. Then there is the professor who decided the best way to hide information was to fill in the dots on his ceiling to match baudot code and decided the best way to inform people of this was by writing code with his last breath?

One, isn’t there a much easier method of hiding information? Two, wouldn’t you run out of space on your ceiling if you have to write 256 names and some obscure number? Three, what is the point of writing 256 peoples names on your ceiling in the first place? If you want it found then use it to explain the entire situation to them. There’s no point in being obtuse with those whom you intend to have find the message. Then there’s the point of Ryo-tas being a complete worthless character and the detective kid who seems to only go up to people, talk nonsense for an extended period of time, reveal who he is, what he knows and then walks off having learned nothing. See…just pure complaining. Constant complaining is what these episode reviews would be and despite this I appreciated that the show was at least trying to repair the damage done from episode one and at least on some level trying to set up a coherent interesting mystery. Failing at it of course but at least trying. Then episode six happened and I felt compelled to write about this.

I am flabbergasted at what I have just witnessed as it is a repeat of the failings of episode one on a much grander scale. Sudden spitfire dialogue is back and the pacing is screwed to high heaven as we are overloaded with so much information that I wouldn’t be surprised if viewers were brain dead by episodes end. This episode wasn’t just a trainwreck be story standards but a visual trainwreck as well. The editing was scatterbrained and there are just decisions with have me confused as to why anyone in their right mind would consider it acceptable. We have one certain scene were the detective kid is once again acting coy, then shooting off what he knows only to run off having learned nothing. Yet when he is explaining everything he’s investigating, for a straight minute and ten seconds the camera spins in place.

It’s disorientating, annoying and has nothing to do with what the scene is trying to convey. Most of the episode followed a pattern of slow pans that when on for far too long follow by a sudden influx of jarring shot changes. Episode five had an equally weird moment of when the blogger walked into the professor’s room and for some reason they flipped the camera upside down. To highlight the ceiling? Then why follow that with 90 degree flips and having proceeding shots being slanted. What on earth is that supposed to convey? The director seems to be experimenting with shot style but frankly there are certain rules on how to set a scene for a reason. Breaking the 180 degree rule tends to leave the viewer disoriented and considering how much you are demanding they keep up with here that is a serious fault.

So suddenly we have we have Kotoribako and if you have no idea what that is then don’t expect to know by episode’s end as the first minute and a half proceeds to shove information about it down your throat at the velocity of a rocket. Suddenly this thing which was never mentioned before has become the centerpiece of the plot. This is giving serious deja vu of how the D-Swords hijacked the plot of Chaos;Head.(All that stupid nonsense for what is essentially a crappy Zanpakuto) Anyway we also have a sudden Illuminati that has also never been mentioned appear and start pointing out how the mass drowning was some attempt to create some kind of human Kotoribako and….sorry if I didn’t quite get it as my brain was really genuinely struggling to keep up with the sudden influx of information. Either way I don’t think it makes any sense. The creepy boy also seems to be creating some human Kotoribako while mouthing off the defense of infancy as an excuse as to why he can’t be held accountable for murder.

Thing is that defense only works the murderer in question doesn’t have the emotional maturity to determine the wrongness of the act. Considering that the first thing you do when confronted is mouth of the defense of Infancy that clearly shows you do know what’s wrong about the act therefore rendering your excuse complete moot you idiotic troglodyte. But hey he’s a demon child or whatever so it doesn’t matter either way. Thus we have the final twist of the episode and it’s the big one that it’s apparently been building up to. The twist is that….everyone’s dead! Yes, it appears the majority of the cast has been dead all this time and I just…really can’t care anymore. This is one of those twists which upon reveal seems shocking and interesting but when you sit down and really think about it the less sense it actually makes. I don’t know what this show is trying to accomplish anymore and it just seems folly to even try. I plan to finish it but my episode reviews may be more sporadic in regards to it. As you can see, my enthusiasm is at rock bottom when it comes to this.

Flip Flappers – 06 [Pure Play]

by SuperMario, posted in Currently Watching:, Flip Flappers

This episode was magnificent. I always know that Flip Flappers is capable of being inventive, but I’d never have thought that they can pull an episode that emotional satisfying, while never swing away from its main adolescence theme. Moreover, the execution is both awe-inspiring and ambiguous. Seriously I think this series is like a stairway to dreamland, with each step we reach a new high bar and the ambition is getting higher and higher. What’s await us in the destination then? Hell if I know but I am enjoying in every steps they made so far.

First, I actually think it’s a very good idea of Flip Flappers to use its transformation sequence as a transition between the real world and Pure Illusion worlds. We don’t really follow their every Pure Illusion world either so the creators have more freedom to put on whatever they like. In this Pure Illusion for example, Cocona and Paprika have to fight with the multi-eyes spider-inspired monster with its colorful threads, but the important bit is what come afterwards. For the first time, there is an abnormality in this Pure Illusion world – there is an entrance to someone’s memory (So, what exactly is Pure Illusion anyway? Someone’s streams of consciousness? And the fragment? Their memories?); and the rest of the episode goes to completely different fashions than previous ones, instead of seeking for the fragments, they digging deep into someone’s consciousness.

The theme of identity again is apparent in this episode, as the two girls both play the same person: Iro the kid and the plot involves her trying to get her name remembered again. That kid doesn’t have an ideal family life to say the least. Her parents just plainly neglect her, she’s confined in her room, where she keeps drawing as passing time. They even go too far as commenting her drawing “weird”, discourage Iro to paint. She finds herself happy with another parental figure: Obaa-chan (hmm, I can draw a line between this Obaa-chan and Cocona’s grandmother here), who spends the time with her, cares for her and teaches her happiness. The fear of losing someone dear to you because they forget who you are (the theme of insecurity) is pretty poignant. The symbolism of nail polish is pretty dominant in this episode. Nail technicians need to be familiar with nail salon terms. Nail polish, apart from being closed to oil-painting; is also a part of growing up, when at that stage one start to grow self-esteem and attractiveness. I say this episode’s main message is about kid’s development through family issues and the story about Iro and Obaa-chan alone is solid enough on its own because of its emotional resonance.

But the execution is what make this episode stand out. By making Cocona and Papika keep changing roles (but we mainly followed Cocona’s narrative), this episode both maintains its dreamlike structure, and speak well to the theme as well. There are always two versions of young Iro life: an orange-heavy, happy life with Obaa-chan and the blue, almost empty world in her house. Whenever she feels blue, herself painted in blue, as did the world around her (the world has consumed her). The highpoint of this is when she realizes that Obaa-chan forget about her, she turns into blue while the surrounding is still orange bright, stressing her confusion and sadness. The sequence that show her parents in a really trippy, Masaaki Yuasa-inspired art style with very rough, scratchy designs is another highlight of this episode. God, apart from the show usual experiments with colors, this episode shows their willingness to experience with the art styles as well, and boy how it paid off.

Overall, I had believed that the show could never top last week’s quality but it succeeded. This episode has to be the most heartfelt moments Flip Flappers ever commit itself to. Paprika and Cocona’s journeys proved to be everything I could ask for in an adventure: inventive and ambiguous but never forget to be fun and entertaining and always stay true to itself. Remember I said that I have my title for AOTY? Well, at this rate Flip Flappers has a real shot to challenge that top spot.

Sound! Euphonium 2 – 06 [Rainy Conductor]

by SuperMario, posted in Currently Watching:, Sound! Euphonium 2

After the performance in the Kansai competition, we get to a breather episode this week, meaning that there is no actual band training this week, instead we have school festival (geez, how many KyoAni’s school festivals have we witnessed already) and a stormy night where many things happened. Apparently, the show moves to the next arc of the season (we have a full color opening now. Love it), so it’s time for the show to focus on more characters’ development, and there are handful of character’s development to be found in this episode.

Now, let’s talk about Asuka first. Since the last few episodes we’re getting closer to the real Asuka, as there were many instances she dropped her mask and even said out loud what she really thinks. She might be one of the most complex characters in this series (the way she hides her real personality deep down inside), but that doesn’t mean she’s the most interesting characters out there. If the show fails to bring us into her perspective, we have nothing but the cheery, annoying fake Asuka. It’s about goddamn time now to get into her character arc. From the look of it, there seems to be a woman (presumably her mother) who might be the key to open Asuka’s inner mind. She has that strict look so I’m guessing without context for now that she doesn’t like Asuka to spend time playing in the band and that lead to Asuka having some responsibility issues, but I’m sure we will get the real answer soon enough. From what we did know about her characters though, she has a cynical outlook to everything and it’s always a question whether she really cares about the band and the performance at all. At the moment, it becomes clearer that she concerns about the performance and wanted to try her best for her last high school competition. Look like next episode will focus on her issues and I really hope the show will take proper time to heighten the drama, not to resolve it too quickly like that Yoroizuka arc. Speaking of which, am I the only one who found Yoroizuka’s affection to Nozomi very unhealthy? And after all that big talk from Yuuko about the problems of leaning too much to Nozomi, and that Yuuko treats her like real close friend (unlike Nozomi), she just basically devoted herself to Nozomi? (oh, and Nozomi seems to be back to the band without any more fuss. Good for her). Talking about creepy!!

Taki-sensei also get a good amount of development this week, as we realize how much he still loved his wife and where his determination come from. It’s good to see that Hashimoto-sensei and Niiyama-sensei back to help the club band as I mentioned before that they can still support Taki and through them we can know more about the past of Taki, but their immediate return made the whole farewell sequence last week feel rather pointless. The teacher himself sure doesn’t feel at all comfortable to talk about his wife or his past, and his conversations with Kumiko later in the car; while awkward, still deepen his narrative. There are only hints throughout this episode but it seems like this is Taki and his wife’s anniversary day, so even with the typhoon on its way, he still puts on his wedding ring and goes out the storm to buy her flowers. Even later when Sapphire conveniently points out the meaning of those flowers, the message is still beautiful. He, more than anyone else, really wants to take the National golds for his late wife and now understand that we can root for him. But still chasing the ghost is kind of problematic itself, right? Talking about problematic, yeah they really go for Reina’s affection to Taki. While admiration is certainly more of the case here, she’s actually capable of pushing things too far and I don’t really like that direction at all. Feel like she’s smashing her head against thick wall in this case.

And finally, this episode gives some more conflicts to our main heroine as well. I’m really glad that Shuichi is back (well, he never actually gone) after a rather muted last arc. The relationship between Kumiko and Shuichi still in its awkward phase, which is fairly normal for kids with opposite sex that age. Kumiko might be insensitive towards Shuichi, but she actually needs some interactions with boys (especially at friends level) once in a while. Focus too much on training and girls will do you no good Kumiko. I love their brief time together so I hope we will get to see more of them. Secondly, her home drama seems to take its turn now as her sister declared that she’s quitting college for reason yet to explain (well she doesn’t need to explain to be honest). As I had been through uni I know that the drop rate is always high and many of my friends eventually dropped out so this gives me no surprise. But it will affect Kumiko as she always looks up to her sister and now with this happen they get themselves into high-tension mode. It’s good to shake things up a bit for our Kumiko so I don’t mind some little drama and romantic plot revolving around her.

Sounds like I have complained a lot in this episode but truthfully I enjoyed the hell out of it. As a breather episode, there is not a lot happening but I love how all the little dramas are set up. Sure, they feel unfocused at times but that is precisely why it feels like the world we live in (now the more I think of it the more I don’t like that Yoroizuka’s arc): randomness but ultimately true to life.

Zaregoto Series OVA – 01 [Day 3 (1) The Savant Gathering]

by SuperMario, posted in Currently Watching:, OVAs and Movies:, Zaregoto Series

Another NisiOisiN’s light novel series adapted by Shaft?

Count me in as I admit that Monogatari series is one of my beloved shows. Well, certainly one of the shows that I spend the most time with. I always love the writing of NisiOisiN, and I understand that many of his trademarks are not for everyone: his long, rather meaningless chatter banter; his sexual overtones and his rather oblivious main boy protagonist could easily turn readers off; but the things I love the most about his writing is that he cares for his characters, they are flawed people but they’re always growing, and his arcs have a tendency to end strong, indicate that he understands his stories well (something quite frankly I have my doubts on the majority of anime out there). Zaregoto appears to be his first writing efforts back when he was… 21 years of age and we already encounter many of his usual quirks here. Shaft adapting this anime meaning that we have a lot of impressionist backgrounds, scenes that call attention to itself and the visual switches freely depending on the mood of the scenes and most noticeable of all heaps of frantic editing. To say all that I’m not here to compare this one with Monogatari series (even if they have the same overall feeling and that male protagonist is so far another version of Araragi-kun), so I will try my best to shut any of the comparison from now on and just talk about Zaregoto. Now, let’s begin:

Zaregoto presents the many settings in which an unnamed protagonist (I, or li-chan) has to encounter and the mysteries he eventually has to resolve. This OVA will focus on the first book of the LN series, titled The Beheading Cycle: The Blue Savant and the Nonsense Bearer which take place in an isolated island, owned by the lady Akagami (who is cursed with a disease that cause people want to kill; as a result she was exiled to that island). If I have to comment on the characters of Zaregoto in this first episode, I’d say that they are completely over the top. After all, they are all geniuses to begin with. And of course, genius people all talk like their heads are in the clouds. The show followed our MC interact with each of them through a one-on-one fashion. Through his eyes, we have encountered 4 of them so far and each of them have their own voices. With this episode’s main focus is to introduce the cast members, they already add something to the overall picture. But like one of the character already addressed, what they appear so far isn’t their true self, or rather, what his current impressions about them are all wrong.

I’m rather curious on the notion of “genius” because firstly the cast members are exceptional in varying fields: one is an engineer, the others range from academic, chief, artist to fortune teller. They don’t really have anything in common except they’re extraordinary in what they do. In relation to others, they don’t really see eyes to eyes in most of things as the academic girl and the artist girl hated each other guts (and I love the irony in naming as of course the 7 chosen people among the chosen have to be named The Seven Fools, right?). Another interesting point around that notion of genius is in many instances, the blue hair girl Tomo is addressed as Blue savant. Now, in contrast to prodigy, savant is actually a developmental disability and most of people who have savant syndrome suffer brain damages. The most distinguished features between those two often are by their IQ. People who have savant syndrome has low IQ overall but they possess exceptional skills in other areas. Also, the first part of our MC talking with some strange woman is about that very theme of being genius: because they are a prodigy, they unintentionally trample others without knowing the consequences of those actions. The theme of genius is set up nicely so far so I’m eager to see how they make use of its theme in later episodes.

Shaft’s styles in this anime have been solid as expected. I actually like the wide ranges of worlds/ territories settings in Zaregoto and this setting of an isolated mansion is overall impressive. In some parts of this episode, Shaft uses panning shots to both keep the conversations as its main focus, but slowly shifts our attention to other characters. For symbolisms though, while I’m pleased to see each female characters have their own coloring (you can see for yourself in those screenshots), I’m not so sure the use of variations of chess in this episode. We know that the academic girl talks about shogi, but in the beginning scene the boy and that strange woman are sitting in a ordinary chessboard. Hmmm. Maybe our MC’s just meant to be a pawn in that chess? His clock was stopped at one time by someone and I think it could be an important detail for later episodes. Anyway, the big event (the murder) is yet to come so this episode mainly introduces the cast to us. In that vein, I’m quite satisfied with the execution of this episode. The only downside would be we have to wait for another month to catch up, but I have my fingers crossed that the wait is worth it.

Thunderbolt Fantasy Review – 84/100

by SuperMario, posted in Anime Reviews, Reviews by SuperMario, Thunderbolt Fantasy

Sometimes you dread for the current state of anime: high school settings, cute girls, fan-service jokes, idol madness… that you wish for once to see something different, and out of nowhere an oddball like this just pop up: a wuxia puppetry show influenced by Taiwanese glove puppetry written by Gen Urobuchi. The sheer fact that it was greenlit at all was mind-blowing enough, but the most absurd things was the audience it aimed: the anime medium. Because no matter how you look at it: this isn’t an anime at all. Well, not even an animation to begin with. I’m not going to detail about it as I already addressed it in my weekly post. The fact that this is a wuxia puppetry show already makes it a unique show among anime world and all the more reason to watch it. But on top of all that, the show’s writing and execution are really excellent and refreshing. If the show just relies on its gimmick of being a puppetry show, it will fall apart very quickly, but Thunderbolt Fantasy understands that their characters are the real stars of the show, so they spend a huge amount of them talking to each other, explore their philosophy of life and the campy dialogues are entertaining and humorous.

Set in a fictional Eastern Asia settings, the show tells a story of a merry band in the quest to retrieve a legendary sword that was stolen by Mie Tian Hai, a skilled swordsman with a history of black magic. Our MC Shang Bu Huan is a mysterious swordsman who came from another area, that’s why he doesn’t know much about this place and thus got tagged along to the quest by Gui Niao, a cool-head strategist and the bunch of misfits including the naive guardian girl, the One-Eyed archer, the young Spear-wielder, a demon necromancer and the bloodthirsty assassin. The group, each has their own unique appearance and personalities with different set of goals head up to the Seven Sins Tower, and there were double-crossing, triple-crossing, blood-splattering, heads rolling and even demons, undead, skeleton birds join in along the way. Indeed, half of these characters here are easily villains in other story and the fun here is to see their huge ego crashing with each other.

Because this is a puppetry show, there are many elements that you won’t find in other anime. The characters, for example, have very static faces. Especially when they are in close-up, it’s hard to tell apart what they are thinking because of the lack of expression in their faces, but this issue actually works in the show’s favor, for how else would one portrait a group that double-crossing is the norm? Second, the practical effects are truly what set it apart from other anime. There is little amount of action for a true-action show, but when the action kicks in, it’s a feast to the eyes. Bloods squirming all over, bodies blowing up, heads rolling that you can actually feel the weight of the blood dripping are refreshing to say the least. Lastly, I have to highlight the costume designs because they really go all in for the costumes to make the characters as distinctive and stand out as ever.

The characters themselves is easily the show’s best strength. Each character is elegantly designed and all of them have their own unique mannerism, assisted greatly by the use of puppetry, something that ordinary anime usually lack. My favorite characters in that vein is the demon lady Xing Hai, as whenever she talks, it feels like she’s singing and whenever she walks it feels just like she’s dancing. Like Mayoiga, those characters all have interesting traits and utterly over the top but here in this show they can actually get loose and carry the story. Like for example, the show spends half an episode for Sha Wu Sheng the Roaring Killer Phoenix challenging Mie Tian Hai (and then loose despite knowing it all), simply because these characteristics are unmistakably Sha Wu Sheng. In Thunderbolt Fantasy, those characters embrace their roles to the bitter end. As a main character, Shang Bu Huan is like our blank-state who unfamiliar to this world (like ourselves) and he’s being the most sensible person in this whole madness. I particular love his stunning reactions every time something absurd happens. Moreover, he bounces off other characters very well, creating a rather great chemistry between them and the dialogues maintain the campy sense that so entertaining to watch. There are pure gold moments throughout the series like when Shang Bu Huan talks to each member of the group to find their real motives, or simple quick remarks like “the temple smells offensive” or even “it’s already a sitting fight before the sword fight” because of course they’re too awesome to fight it normal way. Like a puppetry show, these characters are just there to perform their larger-than-life roles, but they perform it so well that I have a very good time following them.

But this show is not only about characters having fun, there is a theme for the show if you want to look deeper. The notion of the sword is both mentioned various times throughout the series and the show twists that notion around quite wonderfully. In this world, swords represent power of destruction. Mie Ting Hai seeks out the most famous sword because he believes his technique deserved the best. The demon Yao Tu Li was put to sleep for 200 years because of the sword. The characters kill off hundreds of people through their swords… As long as you are good at swords, you have the ultimate power in this world. But not for our two mains Shang Bu Huan and Gui Niao. In fact, the series showcases two extreme spectrums from Shang Bu Huan that go directly against with the above notion. The “sword’ that Shang Bu Huan always carries around is just a piece of wood painted silver, because he doesn’t want to cause more deadly troubles with the swords, but when in needed, he could pull out 36 legendary swords (that he said he was about to expose them, sly guy!) to send the monster to the black hole (quite literally!), Gui Niao also hates using swords as a mean of killing. The legendary sword that everyone seek in the end was destroyed meaninglessly.

Thunderbolt Fantasy is the most entertaining series you will encounter this year. Plain and simple. Urobuchi writing is excellent in this show, both leaving enough room for the group to act, and maintaining the plot that both is fast and unpredictable, but always makes sense and a lot of fun. It appears that we will have an entirely new cast on the second season, plus our mains Shang Bu Huan and Gui Niao and if that’s the case then I’m totally on board. After all, Shang Bu Huan’s only weakness is his trust towards people and Gui Niao happens to be the master of manipulation; so I’m eager to see how our MC get himself dragged into Gui Niao’s little scheme next time. Like this first season already demonstrated, the world is simply too small for the two of them.

Drifters – 05[Bring Back Love]

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Drifters

I can’t be the only one who was sad that the opening didn’t play for this episode. I mean it’s great we get more content but that opening really does get you in the mood for Drifters. So on to our episode and Oda has a plan to take on the soldiers coming to slaughter the elven village. And that plan is shit. I mean literally, the plan makes use of fecal matter quite a bit. For one he’s throwing the bodies of the dead soldiers into a pit in order to make Saltpeter which is likely so he can produce gunpowder. They buried the heads to pay respect to the dead but the bodies are nothing more than raw materials to them, a fact which causes the Octobrist official to be revolted. All things considered it’s fairly practical to make use of your enemies corpses as well as prevent disease by leaving lying around. But it is fairly morally repugnant to make use of human bodies like compound fertilizer. This does show that while the show is rooting for our protagonists, they are not necessarily heroes. The Drifters for the most part are the lesser of two evils and while there actions are right for the moment, who really knows just how much of an effect the Drifters will have on this world over time. Though this was undercut by the comedy which really doesn’t know when to come on screen. I think trying to make boob jokes after discussing how you were using corpses as compost is a bit too much of a segway.

We also have Oda getting the Elves to make a makeshift barricade and to anyone who knows their history will recognise just what Oda is talking about when he says he stole the idea from Hideyoshi. For one standout moment of the warring states period was when in an effort to take over a stronghold, Hideyoshi constructed a castle in a day right beside it. Oda’s is significantly less impressive but it suits the need. When the soldiers mentioned the shit in the well I thought Oda was aiming for some kind of methane explosion. But as it turns out he was planning way dirtier tactics. The method of covering arrows in shit reminded me of a old Warren Ellis Comic I read quite a while ago that was called “Crecy” and that really showed me just how crap can be used as a weapon. The comic was about the battle of Crecy which was battle between the English and the French.

According to the comic the English covered their swords in shit with the basic logic that if a sword wound doesn’t kill them, then the infections they get afterwards most certainly will. As a tactic it’s pretty solid though ungraceful, in this case it really helped to kill the moral of the troops here. People are much less willing to fight if getting hit with one arrow will lead to a slow agonising death. As the commander said, if they all rushed Oda’s makeshift barricade then they would win but people aren’t quite so brave to rush something when it would mean a large majority of them will die. Yoichi doesn’t seem too keen on Oda’s use of tactics but he seems to be from the oldest age where honor was more prevalent. On a side note I wonder if anyone else didn’t actually figure out that Yoichi was a man by this point. Honestly I was seeing him as a woman up until episode two as his design is fairly effeminate. Most likely on purpose.

So the village subjection team is slaughtered and our main characters use the armour to fool the lord into letting them into the castle. Thus the Elves run to rescue their women. Alls well that ends well? Well…I will be blunt in that upon hearing that the army takes away the elven women once a year that I had suspicions of what they would find. Quite frankly I doubted those girls were sitting back and knitting tea cosies. But I was at least had a tiny hope these guys would be racist enough that they wouldn’t have sex with an “inferior” race. You know then the women would be a bit beat up and a little worse for wear but at least they wouldn’t be…this.  It looks like I give them way too much credit. Master Race huh? I say if you can do this kind of crap and still walk away without shame then I say it proves you aren’t some superior race, instead you lot have forfeited the right to call yourselves human. So Toyohisa I agree very much with your judgement. Killing an unarmed man is a moral shame, but these things are not what we can call men. So I hope there’s a nice bloodbath next episode and lastly, I hope that the episode title isn’t some cheap joke on the ending scene. For that would be in bad taste.

3-gatsu no Lion – 05 [Agreement – Over the Cuckoo’s Nest]

by SuperMario, posted in 3-gatsu no Lion, Currently Watching:

In a typically 3-gatsu no Lion fashion, the first chapter “Agreement” starts in the show’s most comfort zone: flashbacks inside Rei’s head. When you really think about the overall structure of this chapter, you can see that it’s the busiest chapter so far of the show. They begin with Rei’s memory on the father’s best friend (soon to be his adoptive father), continue with the current day detailing Rei picking up Momo, then dig deep into his thoughts again reflecting the day that his adoptive father decided to bring him home. Those three parts are masterful reflected his very journey to eventually end up in the household of Kouda family; with little happiness and a lot of sadness. And that theme is exactly what made this chapter one of the most complex chapter this show ever put on.

The first part of this first chapter is a memory of Rei towards his adoptive father, Kouda, as his father’s best friend and long-time shogi rivalry. Kouda, along with his own father, were in the Association together when they were young. The Japan Shogi Association has a society where all the players under 24 years old trained to become professionals and basically the only way to become to a shogi pro. Those who can’t achieve 4-dan by the time of that age will be automatically discarded. He’s the only one outside of his real family who would treat him with respect, so he was always looking to play shogi with him. There’s a brief but happy moments for Rei, as he enjoys himself playing shogi, something that later in his life becoming more like a “contract”, more like a thorn among the roses.

Later, when he picks up Momo from school and tends the wounds for her, her little helpless arm reminds him a lot of his deceased little sister. That must be one of the sadness, darkness period for Rei when suddenly, all the people that were once important for him were gone forever, and he was too young to fully understand that they will never come back, nor did him know about the situations surrounding him. Then his father’s rival came, asked him if he really loved shogi, and he lied. With Rei, he was never passionate about shogi, he just did it to please his father(s) and moreover he just happened to be very good at this. His accepting to live with Kouda family really reflect the complexity of Rei’s character. He knew that it was a chance for him to not end up in the orphanage, so he took that chance and as far as he is now, he achieved what his adoptive father expected of him. Could anyone blame him for that?

Unfortunately, there were still someone who blamed Rei for what he did, as we witness later on the next chapter, Over the Cuckoo’s nest. Those were the children of Kouda’s family, Kyouko the sister and Ayumu, about his age. In a family with a strong and proud tradition of shogi, the children know that they had to be good a shogi in order to catch their father’s attention. You might think of that as an exaggeration but believe me when I say that in a sports or art’s family, this happen more often than you would think. The family spends their entire time to work on the sports/ arts they loved and they eventually have their standards that they want their children to follow, and sometimes to the child those standards set by their parents become their institutions. Things started to fall apart within the Kouda family when Rei was better at shogi than the two. Kyouko begin to lash out her temper at Rei, while the little brother holed himself up in his room playing video games. Now we know the person that harassed Rei in his memory from last week was Kyouko (but they seem to be older in that flashback). Having a very strict personality himself, the fallout of his own kids doesn’t mean that he had anything against Rei, as he continued to support Rei (the strongest shall survive), but that very attitude made Rei feel guilty towards the two so he decided to move out. When your own success results at an expense of others, how could he be happy with that? The symbols of cuckoo’s life appropriately reflect his situations, and towards his feeling to his adoptive father, he’s still very much respect the man and in his own way care about him.

As I said before, the show is at its strongest when it digs deeper to Rei’s sad past and further reflects his inner emotions as he is now and eventually learn to express and live a happy life through the help of the sisters and his friends. While his past is indeed heavy, this episode never cheapens his emotions by showcase how miserable his life was, but by detailing how he was able to continue to climb up and progress despite things might turn out ugly at times. 3-gatsu no Lion remains a very solid show.

Flip Flappers – 05 [Pure Echo]

by SuperMario, posted in Currently Watching:, Flip Flappers

And Flip Flippers is back in business; with a style. But guess what, instead of the girls adventuring in a new Pure Illusion world like last week’s cliffhanger suggested, it appears the show has some time skip. So here in this episode we witness them preparing to go on another Pure Illusion, and then learn that Cocona and Papika at least had 2 more new adventures and all lost to Yayaka’s side. Whether the show will get back to those two or skip it entirely is anyone’s guess. But based on the little screen shots that we saw regarding those adventures (robot and plant worlds? Count me in!), they look fantastic enough so I hope they get back to it. But then again, I’m not really sure why they skip these Illusion worlds? Isn’t the main plot point of Flip Flappers being the girls adventuring those worlds? So they must have an overarching plot? But what overarching plot, then?

It seems more apparent to me that Yayaka really care for the wellbeing of Cocona that made them more like a rival than an enemy. Let put it this way, Papika just meets up Cocona and declares that Cocona’s the one she been looking for and follows her around since, whereas Yayaka knows and understands Cocona back from childhood and has been her only friend ever since. That is to say Yayaka’s genuine care for Cocona is much more grounded for me, compared to Papika’s. There is that conflict between Papika and Yayaka that later become an actual fight and I see the conflict as a running theme for the series. Adding to that, the girls have no idea what they get themselves into. They are easily lost track in their worlds, sometimes being irresponsible for themselves and when being asked what they really want for collecting the fragments, their answers are uncertain. These fragments might hold a powerful, and maybe hideous, power that could change the world and the girls at least need to know what all the deals are instead of being manipulated like that. The other group, on the other hand, goes to such extreme of modifying the physicals and the brains of Yayaka and the twins in order to gather these fragments.

It’s always so fun to speculate about each week’s Pure Illusion world, and I’m not suggesting that there are more hidden, deeper meaning behind those worlds. The show is what it is- a whole mess of many intrigued ideas and symbols put in together- so that it’s best to just take it at face values, but again it’s really compelling to sit back and wonder how they come up with these symbols and motifs for their worlds in a first place. So what do we have in this week’s settings? The creators sure don’t hide their impressions on this world: it’s obviously dark and creepy. From the typically “dark and stormy night” settings (the rain that causes blood!), to students with no faces (once again addresses the theme of identity and personality), distorted voices, creepy dolls, and the endless loop of that hell and the teams literally run into time to break that loop. I also can’t help but laugh at the goofiness our main heroines are this time. Remember previous episode where they were overpowered gung-ho fighters who jump up the sky and smash the earth? This week they constantly got scared and run for their lives by the faceless creatures. Yeah, keep running while your arms raised up, girls! It’s interesting to note that, unlike other Pure Illusion worlds that we encountered so far, this world is based on their real world. The school is there, the clock tower is still there, the dome that reminds me again of Utena, and Yayaka and the twins are already there in those new uniforms before Cocona and Papika arrived (the twin boy looks hilariously cute in his female uniform dress).

I say another main theme for this world’s Pure Illusion is the ability to break out from the vicious cycle, from something that keep luring you out of your initial goals. Like the Hotel California, the self-destruction place where once you’re in, you can’t get out because you lose tracks of why come in for. Lastly, the theme of underlying sexual-awakening is again presented here (“hot and bothered”, as the episode put it). Well, this time, again Papika and Cocona have a chance to take bath and sleep together, and Papika has to suck Cocona’s finger over and over again. All that sexuality, yuri motifs are hinted everywhere in that dark society (tea time, that lily flower, piano-leisure time, book reading) and this world is a steep contrast to the bright desert world in episode 3.  While that in that particular episode the theme is more Papika-wise (dealing with finding your true self) and it’s Cocona who got sucked into that world, I could draw the parallel here as well. In this world, they got sucked into the neat society, the expectant of being a part of the whole group, repetition means stable here, something sounds much more like Cocona and this time it is Papika who is lost into that world. These worlds are really extreme versions of an ‘ideal’ worlds that have their own sets of rules, promote certain types of values and Papika and Cocona need to confront those in order to learn more about themselves and grow up. That is a best kind of coming-of-age story for you right there. This episode further confirms its willingness to go wild and trippy without relies on plot or continuity and personally that attitude is all I could ask for. I have fun following them, writing about them and now I can rest assured that Flip Flappers will never betray itself.

Sound! Euphonium 2 – 05 [Miraculous Harmony]

by SuperMario, posted in Currently Watching:, Sound! Euphonium 2

What a bravura piece of performance! Usually if a show wants to showcase how good a music performance is, they’d go for cheap tactics like fast cuts, over-the-top sparkling effects, key still frames, and drawing reactions from audiences. Not with KyoAni. They’re confident enough, and of course talented enough, to play out the entire piece and let that speaks for themselves about the quality. This is easily the highlights of this season so far and will be the one that fans will keep coming back to.

But the first half by no mean is no duds either. By following Kumiko and the band go through a day leading up to the Kansai Competition, the show again excels in showing many subtle moments and development that blink and you might miss it entirely. First, Taki announces to the band that his friends’ duty has ended, which for me was quite sudden because I still don’t know what their real roles are in the whole picture. I think the reason they are presented is to support and shed more lights to Taki’s character, but they actually didn’t do much except being either an info-dumper, or an obvious setup for Reina to get fired-up nonsensically. I hope they’ll be back soon as I still don’t see the show used them to their full potential. While on the train, Hazuki (who sadly was under-developed this season) gives a really light but on-point touch on what she is thinking the upcoming tournament. Being one of a few who isn’t qualified enough, it’s understandable that she sometimes feels like she was left behind by her friends. But being Hazuki, obviously she’s sad, but she isn’t the one who’d disheartened by that. Instead, she vows to work hard to get her place for next year, and encouraging her friends to make it to the Nationals so that would inspire her is a really nice characterization by the show. Aiming to the Nationals not only mean a whole lot for the competitive members, but for the rest of the team as well.

When Kumiko got back home that afternoon, she receives a phone call from her middle school friend, Azusa (who briefly appeared in the first season). Her school Rikka High School will compete in the morning, moreover she asked Kumiko to not to speak with her that day. That again is a nice touch from Sound Eupho because the show keeps adding more perspectives from other cast, making more layers to the story. I totally agree with Azusa here, they might be ‘best friends forever’ but on that one day they’re competitors (I love how Kumiko keeps picking up her toes), and like Kumiko later said the amount of time and efforts all of them put in to practice for that one day affects pretty much everyone in the band, so “no one can think straight now” isn’t an overstatement at all.

I have to give it up for Yuuko for again being shine in her brief moments. She basically acts like herself this episode but the moment feels truly earned. Although qualifying to the Nationals is their goals, the team (especially the third-year students) knows that it’s a hard goal to reach. In addition, for the third-year students, this might be their last performance so they sometimes feel like they’re at the end of the road. This sentiment is echoed by Kaori this week as she tells Yuuko to keep looking after then band or Asuka last season when she said that the fun of practicing is about to conclude when the competition ends. But Yuuko points out correctly that their journey isn’t going to be done yet, let’s try and reach the Nationals together. In other notes, while Sound Eupho never really a show that is strong in terms of comedy, this episode has its absurd moments. Upon hearing Yoroizuka saying that the she will play a solo piece for Nozomi (which still doesn’t sound right for me either), Reina asks Kumiko if she can play the solo part for her. I know Reina isn’t the one who is easily affected by other people so this is really more like the show poking fun on the very notion of playing the piece for someone else. In fact, the very last moments of the episode when Yoroizuka expresses that she’s happy with the competition sadly is the weakest part in otherwise flawless episode for me, as I see for much of her struggle, she comes out as too clean a cut, the drama of her last episode pretty much resolved everything that I don’t feel her grow is natural at all.

But this first half’s best moments come directly from the speech of Asuka. As this show has many times addressed this issues, while Asuka isn’t the president of the club, she has a leader traits and clearly everyone sees her as more influential figure than Haruka the president. This time, she speaks up for the whole band and for once, she lets herself loose and being direct in front of everyone. She wants to try to reach to the Nationals. I noticed the brief exchanges between her and Kumiko during the performance and at this moments I’m not really sure what those exchanges supposed to be. The very nature of concert band is teamwork as everyone contribute their parts to form a collective whole, but for those from the same sections sometimes it means they have to fight each other for the roles. This will put our main Kumiko in an interesting position as Asuka and she both playing Euphonium. I reckon Asuka and Kumiko relationship is going to be the main focus for the latter half of this season, which I will totally be on board.

And now to that wonderful second half performance, it’s just simply mesmerizing. KyoAni always has been very consistent when it comes to the production values, but even with their standard the performance is still a standout. I noticed they used some footages from the previous performance last seasons, but overall the whole performance flows magnificently. Some might say it’s not fair to just focus on the band’s performance so we don’t know how good other bands are, but that’s essentially the point here. When the announcement starts, we’re rooting for them not because how incredible their performance was, but because we have witnessed how hard they tried to produce that piece of music so the results are satisfying because we know they deserved it. And you deserved it too, KyoAni.