Thunderbolt Fantasy – 10

This week is a calm before the storms episode, as this episode is all about scheming and no actual action. But things slowly progress to an epic final.

Shang Bu Huan again gets the short straw by letting Gui Niao manipulates him into his plan. With the help of the magical hood that transforms anyone wearing it into… wait for it…. Gui Naio himself, he makes the laughable impossible scenario become possible. Shang Bu Huan, in Gui Niao disguise, will travel with Mie Tian Hai to retrieve the real guard (I thought it was a handle last episode); while the real Gui Niao will stay at the tower to steal the handle. Sound like they could pull it off, right? Until you realize that the plan only needs one Lin Xue Ya in play: the best option would be him to go with Mie Tian Hai, and TELL Shang Bu Huan about the whereabout of the handle and how to open the safe. Our poor MC not only could be easily exposed by the big boss (remember by just a glance he could tell that the guard is fake), he also has nowhere to run, and worst of all he doesn’t even know where the guard actually is. How did you agree on such a lame deal like that Shang Bu Huan? All odds are against him indeed.

One thing that I didn’t pick up last week was that Shang Bu Huan carries a dull blade. That explains a lot on his not-too-sharp attacking style a while back. Now either his dull blade functions like Kenshin’s reverse blade sword that reduce the damage to the opponents (because he’s too awesome to carry a real sword), or this is a legendary ridiculous long-lost sword style that no one but him could master. From the reaction of Gui Niao though I think it’s more of a latter, as he himself called it a dreadful weapon. It happens too often with the wuxia/ martial arts universe, sometimes those ridiculous fighting styles just pop up from nowhere and become an ultimate martial-arts moves that make absolutely no sense in real life whatsoever. My favorite has to be a drunken boxing style (which actually based on a REAL martial art, Zui Quan), where you have to be… ahem… drunk to triggers all the secret moves; and of course the only one who could master it was the only person who allergic with alcohol.

The ridiculous humor in this show still bright shines, as I can’t help but laugh with the claims Gui Niao made on his schemes that help putting the villains to live out their days quietly (Sha Wu Sheng, for example, had been quietly killed off everyone that might have a connection with The Enigmatic Gale); or Juan Can Yun after 5-minutes of extreme cautious when rescue a damsel-in-distress Dan Fei, suddenly came to realize that Shang Bu Huan, along with his actual prison-cage, were vanished. Keep that humor up Thunderbolt Fantasy.

It seems like the final battle will be at the Limitless Temple (remember that place? Yes, the place with offensive smell that is). Looking through a preview next week, there will be a big stand-off there. There are Shang Bu Huan and Mie Tian Hai group, Juan Can Yun and Dan Fei also make their way to the temple, and most surprisingly, Shou Yun Xiao the archer and Xing Hai the necromancer will be there as well. Gui Niao has mentioned to our MC that the main reason to he included Shang Bu Huan in the first place is to serve as a distraction for those two, so that they don’t have time to scheme anything against him. Well, it still doesn’t justify how Gui Niao so desperately to keep the man that he offers his own head to Sha Wu Sheng, but I let this pass for now. For now, what I’m interested the most is the intrigue role of the Archer and the Necromancer. Are they going to be comrades and help the gang to get back the sword safely; or are they going to be every man for himself, Tarantino-villain mode where every heads will roll? Right at this moment I would say the latter, but really the story could go anywhere depending on how high Gen Urobuchi was when he wrote it; and that thrill is precisely the reason why I’m still waiting for more Thunderbolt Fantasy week after week.

Berserk(2016) 09 – 10 [Blood Flow of the Dead & Hell’s Angels]

Greeting my fellow Berserkers. I know it’s been quite a while since the last post, and it is understandable if you thought that the series has been once again dropped from the blog. But I gave my word that I will see this to the end, and well intend to keep that promise. I originally planned to cover every single episode with its own separate entry, but after completing episode 9’s review came to the realization that due to the action-oriented nature and fast pacing of the episode it became a much shorter post than the previous ones. Hence I planned to do a multi-review that covered both episodes 9 and 10. But between the premier on Friday and tonight I had a series of setbacks that caused another unforeseen delay, and pushed the whole thing back over a few days. But better late than never I guess, so here’s the review to at least catch us up before the release of the semi-final episode.

The Ninth episode starts off with the high priest informing Farnese of her orders to withdraw. We get the Vandimion namedrop yet again, and aside from backstory, this also serves to illustrate the great influence of her family in both the affairs of Midland, as well as the Holy see. The Vandimion family is a noble house of Vritannis, which happens to be the seat of the Holy See.  Their standing with the church allows her father to demand her return from the perceivable dangerous situation in Albion. She is hesitant of leaving, and snaps on Serpico, who she rightfully believes to have spied on her on behalf of her father. She hates losing control, and relieves her stress by going off on the only person who would unconditionally follow her.  Yet as events unfold she won’t get the chance to comply to her father’s will, even if she was convinced of doing so.

As mozgus tries to “cleanse” Casca in the iron maiden, all hell breaks loose within the basement of the tower, prompting everyone to flee towards the higher levels. The CG used here for the animation of the ectoplasm is actually effective, as it gives the entity an unnatural ghastly quality. It also features a violet hue, which admittedly lightens up the scene quite a bit. Guts, having just entered the tower, kidnaps the only person of authority which he happens to recognize right away, and Farnese is forced to come face-to-face with the source of her misery. It’s strange how Serpico would miss this, given his established sagacity up to this point. Guts doesn’t give Farnese much time to ramble, and again showcasing his ability to make any scene more enjoyable by vicariously carrying out the sentiments of the viewer.

Next we get the displeasure of another scene with Nina wallowing in her misery. These are taken directly from the manga, and although the series has been keeping them brief, they always come off as slightly irritating, to say the least. And then again on mark, Luca comes to her rescue, surely making everyone wish they had someone like her to care for them. At least Nina is aware of her undeserving kindness, making her a bit more sympathetic. She might seem like a hopeless failure, but to be fair, who wouldn’t despair faced with such dire circumstances. Jerome is featured here as well, serving as a reminder that not all knights of the Iron Chain serve the same unreasonable sadistic ideals. Berserk is a mixed bag of characters who inherit different levels of depth and likeability, but at least they are not all made of the same simple mold.

Down in the basement we see that Mozgus is not being so rational, and challenging the creeping phantasm with a ‘come at me bro!’ level of bravado. There’s a quickflash of the Egg Apostle, as he stings Mozgus and his elite torturers with the protruding stingers. I’ve noticed that some viewers had various degrees of confusion regarding this, so I try to clarify the point: Mozgus and the torturers were not apostles. They were just ruthless tools of the Holy See, and it is this quick instance of injection that sires them to the level of Apostle Spawns; similar to the Great Goat of the cave cult. The next scene features a pillar of flame that blasts thru the gate of the cell, which much to my surprise, was animated traditionally.

Luca’s sacrifice of letting go in order to spare Nina, is just one more attempt at resurrecting the proverbial horse so it can be beaten to death once again. Her rescue by the Skull Knight might be a nice surprise to tv viewers, and hence a nice little development. The term she actually uses to describe Skull Knight is ‘Shinigami’, which they translated to “death” in the subs, but most anime fans will recognize to actually mean the Japanese entities known to be gods of death, comparable to the western grim reaper. Given his visage and abilities, I don’t really blame her.

Episode 10 starts off with Guts facing off against the newly-transformed Mozgus party. We’re now starting volume 20 of the manga, again reminding us of how fast the new series has been adapting the manga. I always enjoyed the designs of the Mozgus Apsotle Spawns, but the CG depletes a lot of that charm by obscuring details and making all models simple and symmetric. The undertone of evil beings with angelic features is one that has a longstanding tradition within the Berserkverse, and quite frankly one of the more interesting and subversive aspects of the original manga. This has somewhat been diminished by time and latter imitation, yet it is a testament to the potency of Miura’s iconic style.

After a quick scuffle between the Egg Apostle and the Skull Knight, we see it retreat while managing to snatch Luca at the last moment. I feel that Skull Knight’s hesitation to follow is due to the desire of tracking its lair, and reassuring of its purpose. The Apostle brings Luca to a creepily romantic candlelit vigil by the foot of a Hawk idol made from disposed bodies. It then proceeds to confide in her his backstory as a rejected feral child, that upon coming into the possession of a Behelit, offered the world as a sacrifice in exchange of becoming the Egg of the New World. I personally envisioned him as a twisted child, so it was a bit jarring at first to hear Hiroyuki Yoshino’s voice coming out of him. If he sounds familiar it’s because you have most certainly heard him as a VA in one series or another; given that you’ve watched more than a few anime series. He has done everything from Meow in Space Dandy, to Favaro in Rage of the Bahamut. It doesn’t take long to get used to this however, and instead intrigued by the peculiar order of events that has led to this moment. There is more than just coincidence at work here, and I will hopefully get much deeper into that in the following reviews. Last thing of note in this sequence is the Skull Knight swallowing the Behelit, which comes into play at a crucial moment much further down the line

Next we are taken back to the Tower of Conviction, as a heated battle is taking place between a lonesome Black Swordsman and the entirety of the Mozgus party. This is old news to Souls fans, but I’ll take the moment to note that the original inspirations for the Titanite Catch Pole, Saw Cleaver, and the Logarius’ Wheel are all featured here within the same shot. The choreography is actually nice, but again the editing does its best to make the fight as incomprehensible and disjointed as possible. I will give credit however, that in this one instance the infamous Dragonlayer CLANG! Is used in the right situation for once, as the blade violently clashes against the breaking wheel. The beating that Guts endures after that is frankly quite ridiculous, as that places his durability even beyond some of the Apsotles that we’ve seen in the series, let alone an already beaten up human being. Guts has been brutalized so many times that an X-ray of his chest will resemble that of a suitcase full of dog-treats under the airport’s luggage scanner. Unfortunately this will only get worse as the story continues. The use of the handcannon although predictable, is always satisfying. I however was incredibly disappointed at their portrayal of Guts’ signature canon-spinning-slash, which was damn near impossible to discern through the horrible editing.

Finally, we get to see the camp dissolve into chaos, as the encroaching evil makes it a hellscape that holds back no punches. This escalating horror and familiar imagery is a clear indication of what is about to take place here. We see Mozguz boasting about his powers that he deems as ‘divine’ and calls out for Casca’s burning at the stake to uproot the evil. Unfortunately the CGI phantasm looks much less pleasing here, as the bigger size stretches the textures to a bare minimum. Mozgus says he will be granted a “miracle to defeat the Hawk’s power”. I saw people confused about this line, since the Holy See idolizes the Hawk as a sign of the divinity. They have done a poor job at explaining, but the religion believes in the duality of good and evil, and envision a Hawk of Darkness that stands in opposition to the will of the Hawk of Light. That is what Mozgus is referring to in this instance.

The episode comes to an end as Guts realizes the nature of what is about to happen, and slashes past the augurs of the Godhand to rush and save Casca. I was lucky, as these two episodes were of very equal pacing, content and overall quality. The tone has slightly improved, but continues to be hit-and–miss, with great disparity in quality from scene to scene. I still believe that the use of traditional animation has been on a steady rise, but this only makes the switch to basic CGI models that much more jarring. The next episode is titled “The Shadows of Ideas”, and appears to be the first half of this cour’s finale. This would be a good chance at another dual review, but due to the tardiness of my last few posts I will cover the next episode separately as soon as possible. Expect things to heat up even more, as we move towards the climax of this entire arc. Let’s all hope that it manages to surprise us, and shine a redeeming glimmer of light on the show, instead of further derailing its quality.

 

orange – 10

Orange has a much better episode this week compare to the shipwreck last week, mainly because it has a much more solid material to dance around with this time, and the animation is actually good enough to carry the emotion abroad. I have mentioned last week that I’m no fond of the way the group forced Kakeru to feel happy. Even if those actions come from good intention, it doesn’t mean that he himself feels happy, because he doesn’t actually do any damn thing to earn it. Indeed, in this first half Kakeru is rather melancholy, because his mother just passed away and he thinks that he’s here having fun is an irresponsible act to his mother. In a sense, this is a valid thought. Kakeru is an insecure kid, he has always feel responsible for his mother’s death, blames himself for what happened and is unable to talk about his problems to his friends. Kakeru can only get better if he can be able to talk about it with his friends and let his regrets all out…

Well, if you have followed my orange’s weekly posts, you’d realize the last sentence was originally from my previous episode 7 post, which brings me to my main point: While that scene itself is satisfying, they basically repeat the same notes over again. We have already seen the group pushing Kakeru to lay bare about his inner feeling before with a greater emotional impact, in a sequence when Suwan and Naho directly confronted him about his suicide thoughts. In addition, it doesn’t help either that the metaphor they try to convey becomes as obvious as it gets. Here in the middle of the festival run, Kakeru and Naho have to do an errand by carrying the mattress. As they themselves realize that it’s a hard task for just two people, the group appear to help them carrying the burden, both literally and figuratively. This is as in your face as you can get, thus making the final result much less impactful.

Finally, the moment we had been waiting for the last few episodes arrives: the relay, which not-so-coincidently the final, decisive game in the festival. I originally worried about the relay, considering how the animation quality dropped drastically for the last few episodes. But I’m happy to say that the sequence is very solid. Kudos again to the director’s decision of focusing on the emotional impact of the group rather than the race itself. The relay is a perfect set-up for the group to explore their chemistry because they have to reach to each other, again both literally and figuratively. The metaphor again is too on-the-nose, as each member of the group tries to send their heartbeat message to Kakeru: “Don’t lose. Promise me. We’ll always be together. Even ten years from now. We’ll be waiting”. This is a whole other level of subtlety! Again, I don’t hate the relay sequence and I think it does its job, but I will put it simply: the more obvious the feeling they try to convey, the lesser the impact.

The sports event seems to be the end of this middle arc and we head off to the final chapter with its 3 remaining episodes. It is clear from those 10 episodes we have seen that the story has stretched a bit too thin for a full cour season. We spend nearly 2 episodes for the sports festival for example and I could easily cut 2-episode material to make the story tighter. Yet 3 episodes remain and we still have the Valentine day, and the day after that when Kakeru in the original timeline has committed suicide to cover. As for the theme I can see that Kakeru has gotten much better than himself of the original timeline, so I don’t know how he’s going to end up in this timeline. At the same time, I feel that the current development is too good and light-hearted to be true. Well, at least that is something I’m still looking forward to see in next couple of weeks. Surprise me orange!