Last week, some people were like, “Yo, it’s cool that you’re blogging this shoujo.” Yeah well, I don’t want to give you guys the wrong idea. It’s… it’s not like I like this show or anything. Seriously, though, if you like this show, you probably don’t want to read this post. I’m not joking.

– “I’m going to improve our team’s vibe! So I can unite our feelings.” Man, my feelings are my own, lady. Hands off.

– So the kids have to play some sort of scavenger hunt. This is quite an elaborate setup just to teach a bunch of class representatives how to lead and work together as a team. Maybe class representatives in Japanese schools have a ton more responsibilities or something, but I doubt it. I mean, most workplaces don’t have teamwork training retreats this elaborate, and co-workers generally have to be together for 8-plus hours a day, five or six days a week. And yes, I’m sure these kids spend a good chunk of their lives at school as well, but most of that time is learning time.

– Is it just me, or is it really, really irresponsible to take the kids’ cellphones away then have them wander around the woods aimlessly? Seriously, though. First, you expect them to know how to read a map. I’m not saying all kids are too stupid to read a map, but there’s bound to be at least one group out of the whole bunch to get confused. Second, if they get lost, how can they call for help? Do you just magically assume that the teachers will be able to find them?

– What a convenient-looking river.

– Man, I hate crybabies. This shit isn’t cute. It’s just pathetic. You wanna know what’s scary? Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica.

– Wow, Yuri’s fallen in love with him already. One act. Seriously, one good act out of the countless times he’s been a short, ill-tempered asshole.

– “Kou… he really is amazing. He completely calmed Yuri down.” Yeah, by being a cute bishie. That’s some real talent right there.

– Meanwhile, Futaba must have sprained her ankle trying to cross the river. Lemme guess… Kou’s going to pick her up and carry her the rest of the way at one point?

– Yes, yes he is. Fucking shoujos.

– Uguu, if you insist…

– “But… it’s like he’s saying he wants me to be there.” That is what he’s saying, dumbass.

– In the end, through the power of teamwork, our four manage to find… a streetlamp. Fucking sweet, son. Yes, they came in dead last, if you are curious.

– “Today got complicated, but it was fun, wasn’t it?” That’s easy for her to say. She got a piggy-back ride for a significant portion of it. Plus — and maybe this is because I’m just not an outdoorsy kind of person — but I don’t really see what’s so fun about getting lost in the woods for hours and hours on end.

– “I’ve been by myself for a long time, but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t lonely.” Uh, I think that’s the definition of lonely.

– Yuri and Futaba share a moment in the middle of the night, but it’s honestly putting me to sleep. Ever since Yuri and Futaba became friends, there’s nothing remotely interesting about Yuri anymore. There’s nothing to explore, nothing to contemplate, nothing to discuss. She’s just a good friend who will never abandon Futaba. Ain’t nothing wrong with a good friend, but that doesn’t make for a good story. This might be cool to see at the end of the series, i.e. as a way to wrap things up and put a neat, little bow on their friendship. But in the fifth episode of the series, when I’m hungry for some real plot, this bores me to tears. You can argue that their friendship is realistic, but I’m not disputing that. But y’know what? Storytelling isn’t always about realism. You can argue, too, that you have friends like that in the real world. But so what? We’re not here to watch you and your friends come to life in an anime. I’m here to hopefully watch an interesting story. Unfortunately, I’m not getting one, and that sucks.

– I feel ya, Shuko, Must be obnoxious to listen to those two giggle all night when you’re trying to fall asleep after a long, hard day.

– Later that night — seriously, how much later can it be? — Futaba spots Kou out on a walk. I guess he can’t sleep. I guess she can’t sleep either. They both just spent the whole day hiking, and yet, they’re not dead tired. Well, Futaba didn’t spend the whole day hiking, if you know what I mean. But still, it’s hilarious how these two keep having magical, one-on-one moments in the middle of the night.

– “I can’t tell if you’re nice or not,” says Futaba. “I can’t tell if you’re incompetent or capable,” says Kou. Nice or mean, it’s like whatever. He has to admit he can be a jerk at times. Hell, it doesn’t even have to be nice or mean. It could just be nice or neutral, because all she says is “nice or not.” The not could mean anything. On the other hand, Kou basically says he can’t tell if Futaba’s a dumbass or not. That’s pretty mean, man. Despite this, however, she just stares at him with those wide, shoujo eyes. Seriously, what’s going through your head right now, girl? U-uguu? You think I’m capable?

I was wrong; what’s going through her head is much worse: “The time between night and day… That’s what we are.” Yo, he just admitted that you seem like a dumbass half the time. Instead of standing up for yourself, however, it’s like, “Yay, we’re the same! Imagine me and you, I do. I think we’re like day and night, it’s only right. I’m dumb and you are mean to me. Please hold me tight. We’re happy together!”

– Then he throws his jacket on her. ‘Cause he cares. He cares so much that he just chucks it at her head. Tee-hee, do you think he’s being nice or not here?

– Futaba asks, “But won’t you be cold, Kou?” He just goes, “Just do it.” Dammit, woman, just fucking listen to me! I just know what’s best for you, okay?!

– In the end, the two of them invite the rest of the group to come out and look at the sunset. Oh boy, more team-bonding!

– “I don’t think I’ll ever forget watching the sunrise with everyone like this.” Shit, and all I’m doing is writing a blog post. Darn…

– According to Aya, “People should save the stoic act for when they get all old!” He’s not necessarily wrong; I just find it funny. Kou is stoic because he has had to grow up and experience a lot of pain and turmoil. Unless Aya comes from a broken family too, he can’t really talk. I’m not saying Kou’s in the right, either. My stance hasn’t changed. I still think he needs therapy to talk out his issues instead of taking it out on the people around him, especially his brother who’s desperately trying to connect with the guy. I just think it’s funny. People will tell you straight to your face that you’re too young to be this serious in life, but they don’t actually know anything about you. Maybe we should stop telling people what to do until we actually get to know them.

– Kou then retorts that he doesn’t think Aya will ever mature: “I don’t think you’ll ever change, even when you do grow old.” The group then proceeds to have a nice, hearty laugh. Haha, that’s so funny, Kou, you jokester. No, I get it. They think Kou’s just ribbing Aya. Still, there’s some honesty to what Kou’s saying, too.

Obviously, I don’t love Ao Haru Ride. So why do I keep watching it? Because it’s almost twisted in a way. Kou’s saying all these hurtful things because he himself is coming from a place of hurt, but because people are conditioned to be so goddamn positive and optimistic all the time, his blatant cries for help are going right over their heads. It’s like a thought experiment. What would happen if you take a broken person, and drop him or her right into a happy-go-lucky shoujo environment? Y’know, before things get all melodramatic and shit. Watching these characters interact with Kou, the results are fucking hilarious. Kou literally calls Futaba a dumbass, and she takes it as some special bond between them: “We’re night and day!” Kou then says Aya is incapable of maturing, and the rest of group giggles over it. Sure, what he says could be taken as jokes… in the proper context. But what’s the proper context here? Kou comes from a broken family, doesn’t get along with his brother, and constantly pushes people away from him. That’s the proper context.

– “I’m starting to learn things about Kou. He hates celery. He likes cats. His teasing is only superficial.” Bahahahaha. You know nothing, Futaba Snow. I know this sounds crazy, but there’s teasing, then there’s “I can’t tell if you’re incompetent or capable.”

– “I know him now.” Because he likes cats and hates celery? You don’t even know why he’s changed. You don’t even know what happened to him and his family. You don’t even know that he and his brother are having trouble connecting. You don’t know anything but the superficial shit. Hey, I know my girlfriend likes the color pink. OH BABY, IT’S TRUE LOVE. MARRY ME!

What’s the theme this week? A true hero takes milady’s punishment with grace. As always, let’s take a look at last week’s poll results:

Oooh, so close. One of these weeks, Rokujyoma no Shinryakusha!? will finally win… or lose. Whatever it is. But for now, Seirei Tsukai no Blade Dance is up 3-0. With that out of the way, let’s now dive into the fourth week of the season.

Rokujyoma no Shinryakusha!? Ep. 4

00:29 — The girls play one of those lottery games and win a trip to a hot springs resort. Why, of course they did. Every time one of these stupid lottery games show up in an anime, the grand prize is almost always a trip to some fancy inn. The most recent example? See ImoCho.

03:39 — We go shopping for swimsuits with the girls because, well, this episode is also doubling as the season’s requisite beach episode.

04:20 — More jokes about Theia’s flat chest, ’cause we just can’t get enough of them.

04:50 — The harem lead makes sure to ask Sanae, the ghost, whether or not she needs a swimsuit. She assures him that she still has one from a long time ago. Plus, she just can’t wear any regular bikini off the sales rack. It’s got to be an ectoplasmic lil’ number.

06:00 — Using alien technology, Theia helps the rest of the group save money by opening a gate directly to the hot springs resort. The harem lead then pats the flat-chested tsunderekko on the head to signify this approval.

Yep, not even done with a wink.

06:32 — When they get there, it turns out the inn is nothing more than a rundown apartment building.

06:43 — And it turns out their room is just exactly what they’ve been living in this whole, entire time anyway. Hey, they shouldn’t have any trouble getting settled in, then! Still, is any of this supposed to be funny? Hoho, you thought you were going to have a fancy vacation, but… you’re not! What. A. Gut. Buster. Oh yeah, the room is haunted too. Are you laughing yet?

08:10 — Still, the gang heads to the beach anyway…

08:46 — The harem lead learns that Harumi is here too, because her summer vacation home is nearby. They may as well just have stayed home, ’cause nothing has changed whatsoever. Why even bother with the pretense of going on a vacation?

09:41 — The girls are finally in their bathing suits, and naturally, they draw the crowd. The harem lead’s girls are always the hottest girls around. No exception. Normally, girls would want to check guys out as much as guys check them out. But not in an anime. In anime, the girls are totally oblivious to any other guy but the harem lead:

I mean, just look at Koutarou:

What girl wouldn’t want such a magnificent specimen all to herself?

10:23 — Alas, despite the haremettes’ various cute and/or sexy bathing suits, Harumi-chan with her white summer dress and parasol combo takes the lead anyway. And of course she does. She’s your typical, boring, understated Japanese beauty. A girl like Kiriha might have giant breasts, which harem fans are content to masturbate to, but let’s not kid ourselves. Simply because she dares to wear a two-piece bathing suit, she is automatically considered inferior to someone like Harumi. A true Japanese waifu would never show off her goods like that in public for other men to see!

10:53 — The rest of the girls are jealous. So what do they do? They decide to beat up on the harem lead for, uh, not drooling all over them.

11:04 — The harem lead wonders what he’s done to deserve this fate. Harumi tells him he doesn’t try to understand women’s feelings. So if women are seeking your approval, you better give it to them or you get abused.

11:52 — Sanae looks a little gimpy.

11:57 — The girls look and see the harem lead laughing and enjoying his time with Harumi. How dare he! He’s supposed to stay buried in the sand and be miserable on this vacation!

12:18 — So the girls threaten to split his head open with a large stick. Irrational jealousy is so funny! I’m so glad Rokujyoma no Shinryakusha!? has such a perfect handle on how women think and act. I now know never to go to the beach with my female friends, ’cause you never know if they are secretly in love with you, and therefore, would go yandere on you out of nowhere! Haha, women are so crazy.

13:23 — Those two guys in suits who had run the lottery are here too, and they’re trying to capture Sanae for some reason. I’m sure it’s a stupid reason. The rest of the girls do what they do best, so they beat up those two guys in suits.

14:15 — With two-thirds of the episode down the train, our harem lead finally gets to enjoy a dip in the hot springs.

14:31 — “Everyone else was getting along pretty well, too.” What are you? The Haremette Day Care Center?

14:40 — Theia confesses that she’s trying to “prove [herself] as a worthy successor in order to protect [her] mother, the current Empress.” Obviously, getting the harem lead’s loyalty proves you’re ready to rule.

Someone then says, “So, you want apartment 106 to help protect your mother.” Someone just said that with a straight face. It’s not even a joke, ’cause tender, contemplative music was playing in the background. In fact, why don’t we just drag everyone’s sob story out in the open while we’re here. Sanae won’t stop haunting the apartment, because she’s waiting for her parents to return. Hint: they’ve forgotten all about you and they never loved you in the first place.

16:40 — We now see the girls fast asleep. I guess I’m mildly surprised the harem lead didn’t walk in on them while they were bathing in the hot springs. Mildly.

16:52 — A sleeping harem lead rolls over, and snuggles Ruth. He’s really dreaming about a beetle in a tree, though. Yeah… a beetle. Don’t ask. Naturally, the girl gets mad at a guy for not dreaming about her. So she beats him up. Then the rest of the girls get mad at him too. Top-notch comedy.

18:05 — Don’t worry, buddy. I’d rather dream about beetles than any of these girls too.

18:35 — Forced out of his room, our harem lead goes for a stroll on the beach and runs into Kiriha. I love how the girl’s breasts are practically falling out one second…

…only to be covered up another second. Top-notch animation.

19:06 — Kiriha has in her hands a card she received from someone she liked. She just hasn’t seen this person since. I wonder who this person could be…

19:38 — Sanae sneaks up on the two of them, but when she surprises them, the harem lead’s special charms shock the ghost and send her flying to the ground…? Has he been carrying those wards on him this entire tim-… actually, I don’t care. Anyway, Sanae storms off because she’s offended he even has those charms in his possession. How many more times can the guy piss off one of his haremettes in just a single episode? Seriously.

20:43 — Those mysterious men in suits are still up to something. Up to something nobody cares about.

21:32 — The next day at breakfast, Koutarou and Sanae argue some more. I’m just a spirit. You’re just a boy. We’re destined to be enemies! Uguu, we can never be friends! So she storms off again. Oh boy, drama out of nowhere.

21:59 — The credits finally roll. So what have we learned this week, kids? We learned that it’s okay to flip your shit for whatever reason you want.

Seirei Tsukai no Blade Dance Ep. 4

– Just look at the determination in our harem lead’s eyes. This cross-dresser means business.

– In fact, what am I even looking at?

– These eyes, man, these eyes. Who’s behind this anime, again? TNK? Who the fuck are they? Oh… ooooooooh… they produced School Days and Kenzen Robo Daimidaler. It’s all beginning to make sense now.

– Lots of still shots with action lines on top follow. I don’t know what’s funnier, to be honest: this show’s horrible animation, or the fact that something as highly-budgeted as Mahouka still had to resort to the same lazy trick.

– Meanwhile, you have Claire battling these spirits with nothing more than her whip. Needless to say, she isn’t doing very well:

But I don’t know… I think we need more action lines to convey just how much danger she’s in.

– “Why am I so weak?” the girl wonders. So that the harem lead can show up in the nick of time to save you!

– Unfortunately, Claire’s impatient, so she uses that evil magic she had been given at the end of last week’s episode. In doing so, this… ugly thing comes out. Holy shit, nothing looks cool in this anime, huh? “Give me your poor, your tired, your ugly ass Pokemon-rejects,” says Seirei Tsukai no Blade Dance.

– The new, evil spirit then corrupts all of the other spirits, causing them to turn against their masters. You get to see hilarious shit like this giant bird turd flipping the fuck out.

– Apparently, that ugly thing is a twisted version of Scarlet. Poor fire-cat.

– Kamito has no choice but to summon his loli sword and enter the battlefield himself.

He tries to reason with the girl, but uh, she just says, “Shut up! I need power!” Good writing. Good dialogue. Good everything. Best anime of the season right here, folks.

– After a series of flashbacks, where we see more of Claire’s sob story, she argues, “Uguu, you don’t understand how lonely I am!”

– So the hero goes, “I’ll be here for you, idiot!” Naturally, Claire reacts with infinite grace by whipping him across the face. This is what it has come down to, folks. True love means allowing a girl to beat the shit out of you. You saw it first in Rokujyoma no Shinryakusha!?, and now you see it here in Seirei Tsukai no Blade Dance. You ain’t a true Nipponjin if you don’t let your haremette beat you whenever she’s mad. Then naturally, once you get married, the tables are turned.

– Claire then has the nerve to ask, “Why didn’t you dodge that? I wasn’t trying to hit you.” Babe, I only threw the punch because I thought you’d avoid it!

– Our gentlesir’s answer? “Claire, I love your flame.” So whip me all you want! In any case, he re-iterates his desire to be her contracted spirit. Yo, asshole, you’re not even a spirit.

– Uh…

– Twisted Scarlet is having none of this bullshit, though!

– Best part is, Claire only finds out now that her precious Scarlet is still alive. What did she think that thing was?

– In just a single strike, however, the harem lead destroys the red crystal on the twisted Scarlet’s head, and that is enough to turn the mad spirit back into a cute fire-cat. So much for that, huh? Obviously, if we waste any more time with this scene, we won’t be able to have all the juicy harem hijinks that are soon to come.

– Afterwards, our gentlesir asks the girl if she’s okay. She just tells him to shut up, or she’ll turn him into cinders. Man, what an amazing girl.

– Tired of this charade, Restia shows herself to the harem lead.

– Aaaaaaand she’s off again. Not before she brings this stupid golem thing to life, of course.

– Claire: “I don’t really care, but I’m going to ask. That girl… Wh-Who is she to you?” I don’t really care, guys.

– The timing of this conversation is just stupid. The giant-ass golem is still on a rampage, bringing the whole coliseum down. But we can’t escape yet! We have to discuss who Restia is to the harem lead!

– Since Kamito still won’t snap out of his Restia-induced funk, Claire plants a kiss on him:

But uh, it’s not like she cares or anything! She just wants to save the town!

– I’m not going to describe the fight between Kamito and the giant-ass golem. It’s just poorly animated and ugly. I mean, look at this. It’s horrendous. And that thing attached to the golem’s left wrist? Yeah, it’s Claire’s whip. Somehow, it grew in length and size. Not only that, it’s strong enough to hold back a giant-ass golem. B-b-but it’s not like she wants to save Kamito or anything!

– Kamito has to use a lot of Ren Ashbell signature moves to take down the golem. As a result, Claire can’t help but think, “Could it be…. could Kamito and Ren Ashbell be the same person?” Yeah, they are, but I mean, can’t people copy other people’s moves? Why would using the same moves be indicative of anything?

– After the fight, Kamito passes out once again, ’cause using that loli sword drains a lot of his juices, if you know what I mean. When he comes to, he finds himself in bed again with, of course, his naked loli:

But it’s different this time! ‘Cause Claire wasn’t around the last time Est was naked in Kamito’s bed, so obviously, we need to redo the scene with gusto! And spirit!

– Elsewhere, another haremette arrives on campus in a horse-drawn campus. But enough. Enough. I’m done. I’m out. Fuck both of these shows.

Vote away, vote away…

Finally, a plot-laden episode for once that doesn’t deal with Akashi’s feelings. And what’s the juicy plot we’ve been wating for? “We even forgot that we were the ones who created the Lightless Realm.” Yep, that’s the “bombshell” in this week’s episode. But y’know, that’s always the twist in these sort of stories. When something dark and horrible appears, the truth will somehow always come down to “Man’s corrupt nature is truly responsible for this mess.” I’m not saying it’s a bad trope, but it’s so overused by this point that I don’t have any confidence in M3 pulling it off. I mean, Okada’s botched everything else in this show. Now that we’re only hearing the truth behind the creation of the Lightless Realm, I expect the story to feel rushed with many elements left unexplained.

Anyway, when Akashi asks Tsugumi what she and Minashi even mean by this, Tsugumi shows him and Mahmu a vision of their past. We thus see a bunch of men in hazmat-like suits setting fire to an entire village. That’s another thing, too. Lots of these Japanese “horror” stories often involve quaint villages in the countryside in some form or fashion. I suppose it’s similar to a The Hills Have Eyes sort of thing that we have in the West. Beware! You have no idea what sort of fucked-up shit occurs in the countryside! Same thing here, I guess. Most villagers, I’m sure, are very nice people, but we seem to like to think they’re harboring some sort of dark, twisted secret from the rest of the world. Oh, what about us? See, we’re too busy enjoying the decadent lifestyles in the big city to have secrets! Those villagers, though…

According to Tsugumi, she, her sister Sasame, and Minashi were all born on Yomijima, some island. Not only that, Tsugumi and Sasame used to be priestesses, but we kinda saw that already in an older flashback. Like every fucked-up village in anime, these people worshiped a peculiar sort of deity, but not only that, they could call forth their deity too! Oh man, villagers with their crazy powers. I wonder why us city folks are so incapable compared to them. Our two priestesses are then told to revive the Corpse from a “Lightless Stone,” a chunk of fuchsia-colored rock. This way, they can take revenge on IX and “bring Admonitions down on those sinners.” Makes sense. Wipe out my village, will ya? I’ll just create this bizarre Lightless Realm that’ll take even more lives. The anime still won’t tell us why IX had to torch the village and thus escalate this nonsense into the creation of the Lightless Realm. I’m sure the show will tell us eventually, but it’s just a matter of when. I really hope they don’t drag this out. Still, there are some clues.

For instance, the villagers seemingly have the ability to communicate with each other telepathically. I wonder how the rest of the cast got this power too. Maybe through osmosis. Since IX dealt with “ability development” of some sort, they probably took a keen interest in the village and its people’s telepathic abilities (among other things). Still, this doesn’t come close to telling us why IX not only torched the entire village, by why they even had the authority to do such a thing. You don’t just murder an entire group of people. That sort of thing needs clearance, y’know? Ah well… We later see the kids attempt to sneak the Corpse, still in its child-like form, into Tokyo. Then once they had found IX’s headquarters, they brought forth the Lightless Realm in some park, but that’s when the rest of the cast — y’know, Akashi, Iwato, Raika, et al — stumbled upon the three of them. The anime will now try to tell me that Tsumugi fell deeply in love with Akashi from this one chance encounter alone.

So afterwards, the kids had fun playing with each other without any of adult supervision. The show makes it seem like they hung out for days upon days upon days. What did they eat? Where did they sleep? Where they did they bathe? Oh wait, the anime does bother to answer that question. Apparently, there’s a convenient hot springs in their vicinity. According to anime, i can walk a mile in any direction and find myself some hot springs to bathe in. Anyway, the rest of the kids — y’know, not the weirdos from the village — eventually found out that the city had been majorly fucked by the Lightless Realm. I’m sure this ended up breaking their minds. I mean, Heito was a positively sane child back then! Look what you’ve done, you crazy villagers!

Not surprisingly, the kids flipped their shit and tried to run home. Without the protection of the glowing tree, however, they succumbed to the effects of the Lightless Realm. Minashi and Sasame were then forced to run around, slipping fruits from the Arbonine into the kids’ pockets. Where wasTsugumi in all of this? Still trying to play hide-and-seek. When she stopped counting and looked for her friends, she found them all missing. So what did she do? Feel deeply and thoroughly betrayed by her friends’ actions because they were gone for just a short bit. But y’see, they all promised not to abandon her! So by literally being gone for maybe an hour at most, it’s proof that they broke their promise! I’m not even joking. This was literally her reaction:

It’s so fucking dumb. “All of you are children of sin,” Tsugumi says, “Everything is all your fault.” ‘Cause she stopped counting down for hide-and-seek, and couldn’t find them for a while. That was it! That was enough for our priestess from some crazy village to go all yandere on everyone. It’s just too much of a leap. We barely know what Tsugumi was like as a child, but I’m just supposed to accept the fact that she felt deeply betrayed over not being able to locate her friends afterwards. The flashback then sort of ends there, so we don’t really learn how the children escaped, especially with Tsugumi bearing down on them on that Corpse. But this does sort of imply that Tsugumi has, well, been living in this Lightless Realm the entire time. She’s not dead or anything, right?

Again, what has she been eating? What has she been doing in her spare time? Just sit around, thinking about Akashi for the past ten or something years? These may seem like minor questions, but the add to the show’s overall immersion. If I can’t answer these questions reasonably enough, then I can’t help but feel as though I’ve been taken out of the story. Hell, what’s even the point of all of this? They’ve taken their revenge on the city folk. Now what? Just sit there with the Lightless Realm and let it slowly expand? To what purpose? Ultimately, what has been Tsugumi’s motivation this entire time? Just wait until Akashi eventually made his way back to her? What if he never did? Or did she just somehow know he would? Even when M3 has a big blowout episode that tries to answer a lot of the story’s questions, something just feels dissatisfying about it all. The characters’ actions just don’t feel well thought-out.

Meanwhile, Admonitions are now attacking the IX headquarters. This guy — who is he, the CEO? — even bites the dust. Unfortunately, but naturally, Natsuiri escapes. Even when an Admonition chases him down, Raika dives headfirst into the danger to save the evil bastard. Iwato even said it himself, “We don’t need to save people like him.” But I guess Raika just saw this as her one chance to play the hero. She’s been relegated to the sidelines now for weeks and weeks on end. As a result, she drags Iwato into the fight, too. Predictably enough, his mecha gets impaled by one of the Admonition’s spike. Welp. Raika always wanted to be a hero, right? I’m sure she’s about to get an MA-Vess for herself very soon. Even as the guy is dying, she has to go, “If only I could pilot an MA-Vess.” The girl realizes what she’s said and tries to take it back, but it’s too laaaaaaate. Self-sacrifice, son! It’s how anime characters express their love!

Anyway, don’t you guys feel as though we should’ve gotten this episode a long, long time ago? Doesn’t M3 feel as though it should’ve just been a one-cour anime series? I just don’t see why they felt the need to stretch this out for so many episodes when, ultimately, the story isn’t even that complicated or complex. Okada simply withheld information for us for four straight months, then decided to answer almost everything within a single episode. Sure, we still have questions, but there’s no reason we couldn’t have seen this sixteenth episode, well, ten episodes ago.

Honestly, I doubt the rankings for the top four shows will ever change. Most of the movement will naturally occur at the bottom of the barrel, because one of the many things a good show gets right is its consistency.

Dropped: DRAMAtical Murder, Bakumatsu Rock

After thinking about it carefully, i.e. less than a minute, I decided I have no reason to care how either of these shows turns out.

19. Rokujyoma no Shinryakusha!?

Still the worst anime I’m watching this season. The worst part is that the show’s not even a trainwreck. An actual trainwreck can be admired and studied for where it all went wrong. Rokujyoma no Shinryakusha!?, on the other hand, is like the anime equivalent of gruel.

18. Seirei Tsukai no Blade Dance

It’s bad, but at least it’s a trainwreck.

17. Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei

For endangering his imouto, Tatsuya takes his rage out on the Chinese gangsters in just about the most boring way possible: vaporizing them and their underlings from a mile away. Michael Bay was hired to add excitement to Mahouka, but he swiftly resigned after spending just an hour on the project: “I just can’t. Every time I try to add explosions and jive-talking robots to the story, my contributions instantly vanish into thin air. It’s inexplicable!” At the moment, researchers are busy investigating Mahouka‘s bizarre ability to repel any sort of excitement that comes near it.

16. Free! Eternal Summer

Everyone swims in the qualifiers. Some people make it, some people don’t. All of the main characters qualify, though. As if they wouldn’t. Exciting swimming footage. Exciting “reach your hand out at the last second and touch the wall” footage. Other than that, not much to chew on.

15. Captain Earth

Hey, remember those Ark Faction guys from the first four or five episodes of the series? Well, let’s dig up their dessicated corpses, because we need to buy some time until the grand finale! If you could also spin your wheels and strand yourself in the middle of an Australian desert, that’d be great.

14. Rail Wars!

Standard episode where the tsunderekko oscillates between tsuntsun and deredere. Mostly tsuntsun. She also finds herself in various states of undress. Add all of this up, and you have yourself the best train anime ever.

13. Akame ga Kill!

Boring set-up episode. The show finally introduces us to the much hyped-up Esdeath, but she’s just another sadistic, overpowered lunatic. But hey, she’s got big breasts, she wear heels, and people tell me she’ll fall in love with our bland-as-fuck hero. Instant hit character!

12. Sword Art Online II

Take everything you know about MMOs and online games, then throw all of it out the window. Next, have the cute girl undress herself in front of the guy, then slap him. Bam. Instant anime hit.

11. M3 – Sono Kuroki Hagane

Oh my god, there’s actual plot progression for once. I’m so proud of you, M3! You finally decided to move the story forward! I mean, it’s still nonsensical, but at least we’re getting somewhere!

10. Glasslip

So… so boring. Holy crap, other than the pointless “I can see into the future!” nonsense, which the anime has barely utilized, Glasslip is the literal definition of slice-of-life. And fine, fine, our lives aren’t always interesting and exciting, so bravo, Glasslip. Brav-fucking-vo on imitating just how unexciting and uninteresting our lives really are. You really nailed it! Seriously, though, there isn’t a show out there about my life. There isn’t a show out there about your life either. In fact, we’re sitting here, watching these shows precisely because our lives are relatively mundane compared to the fiction we consume. So why — oh why, why, why — would I want to go and watch someone else’s relatively mundane life? I don’t get it. I just do not get it. I literally just watched a girl go over to a guy’s house, meet his dad, sit down to eat some pasta, then go out to a nice, serene meadow in the woods. She proceeds to lie down next to him until a finger of hers — a damn finger — grazes one of his fingers (GAAAASSSP!), so she blushes and excuses herself. Why did she even come over in the first place? ‘Cause she had something to tell him. But she didn’t. In the end, she runs off before she could tell him anything important. In fact, the only thing she manages to say the entire episode is, “EHHHHHHHHHHHH? EHHHHHHHHHHHHHH? EHHHHHHHHHH?!”

EHHHHHHH?! — The Touka Life Story

Anyway, Sachi’s going back to the hospital, and Yana finally confesses her feelings to Yuki. I hope a train really runs one of these characters over like it has been foreshadowed.

9. Shirogane no Ishi: Argevollen

You dense idiot. Tokimune even asks this question loud enough for the entire base to hear it. Basically, Tokimune’s sister died for unknown reasons. Well, her death was officially ruled an accident, but our hero doesn’t accept it. As a result, he intends to climb through the military ranks until he’s an influential enough figure to demand some answers. Not only that, he hopes to use the fancy Argevollen to aid him in his cause. Jamie thinks this is idiotic, because he’s just recklessly risking his life. So she gets frustrated with him, and neglects to eat a single meal. Everyone loves overreacting in this anime, so a bunch of people tell Tokimune to consider the girl’s feelings. Since Tokimune’s as dense as a rock, he mistakes her feelings of frustration for feelings of actual love. After five episodes, bro? Really? You think the girl is already in love with you? Oh, I’m sure she’ll develop feelings for him later, because we can’t help but shoehorn in a crappy love story into everything, even an anime about war. But I mean, even if she was truly in love with him, why would you ask her that question in front of everyone? Whatever happened to discretion? Other than this, however, the episode was — like every other episode we’ve seen thus far — a complete bore. Still, here’s the best part of the whole episode:

Lorenz: “Tokimune?”
Tokimune: Yes?””
Lorenz: “I think I just fell in love with you a little.”
Tokimune: “I see… Thank you!”

It’s the excitement in his “Arigatou gozaimasu~!” that really gets me.

8. Persona 4 – The Golden Animation

Marie still has her amnesia, but gives up on trying to recover her memories because she finds it painful. The rest of the gang then set up an elaborate quiz show just to show her that memories are super special, yo. Anyway, this may as well be Marie’s Life Story – The Animation. Yeah, I realize her story’s the only major addition to the PS Vita remake, but I just don’t care about her or her amnesia. I mean, let’s face it, none of these characters’ stories are strong enough to carry the entire story by themselves. What makes the Persona games unique is that they’re each a collection of stories that somehow ties into a bigger tale about saving humanity from utter extinction at the hands of these crazy deities. Furthermore, these stories are fine in small doses, i.e. perfect complements to the big picture. On their own, however, they’re really nothing special. Truly, truly nothing special. Marie’s dilemma is no exception. As a part of a long series, sure, I wouldn’t mind seeing a few episodes about her and her issues. When the entire series is all about her, though, just kill me, please.

7. Ao Haru Ride

Got some flak for my post this week, but what can I say? I think it is absolutely nonsensical that anyone can entertain the notion of entering into a relationship with Kou. Dude needs therapy, but in the magical world of anime, the shoujo heroine will ganbatte it up and fix him one episode at a time. Hell, who even needs trained professionals anymore! Just find your “soul mate,” and make her do all the dirty work! In the meantime, he can insult her and her friends, but it’s okay! People, people, he’s willing to stay with her at the train station until her mom arrives to pick her up. He’s willing to put himself out there and watch over the girl in one of the safest metropolitan cities in the world. This totally makes up for everything he’s said and done.

6. Re:_Hamatora

Yes… how dare you make yourself cry? Anyway, the good guys continue to suffer more and more side effects. In fact, it feels like they are really up against it this season. In Hamatora‘s first go-around, everyone had fun solving cases and beating the bad guys up, In the sequel, however, things just keep getting worse and worse for our heroes. Three is roiding out and running away from Honey. Even Nice and Murasaki can’t confront Art like they would want to, allowing Art to escape with the Freenium members. This is just the fifth episode, too. I wonder how much further these guys’ powers will continue to decline as Art builds his army of freedom-seeking Minimum Holders. In the end, Gasquet bites the dust, but… well, to be honest, I thought he died last season when Moral assumed his identity in one of the episodes. Ah well, that just shows you how closely I’m paying attention to this story.

5. Tokyo ESP

This is the most neutral anime this season has to offer. It’s not good, but it’s not bad. It’s just there. As a result, Tokyo ESP acts as the perfect buffer between the overall good and the overall bad anime of the season.

4. Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun

It would be great if the more Chiyo learns of Umetaro’s bizarre personality quirks and oddities, the less she romanticizes him like a stereotypical shoujo. Even better, what if she learns to move on with her life? I doubt any of this will ever happen, though. Too bad.

3. Aldnoah.Zero

The anime is starting to disappoint me in its execution. Luckily, the action is still well-choreographed, and the political machinations are still intriguing if hastily developed (the emperor flip-flopped hard). It’s just a pity that after five whole episodes the characters, i.e., the primary drivers of the plot, are still flat and two-dimensional, especially Inaho.

2. Tokyo Ghoul

1. Terror in Resonance

Just for fun, let’s do a quick poll:

Nineteen years ago, members of the religious movement Aum Shinrikyo “released sarin on several lines of the Tokyo subway, killing 13 people….” When I saw our terrorists plant a bomb on a train in this week’s episode, I thus wondered, “Is the anime brave enough to go there?” Invoking 9/11 imagery in the show’s first episode is one thing, since the Japanese public have not actually had to live through such a tragedy. Well, not to that magnitude, anyway. Attacking the Tokyo subway, however, is different. 1995 is a long time ago, but for people my age in Japan, seeing an attack on the Tokyo subway might still be hitting it a little too close to home. So I suppose it should come to no surprise then that the tables have suddenly been turned. Instead of the authorities racing against the clock to defuse Nine and Twelve’s bombs, it is ironically Nine and Twelve who must race against the clock lest they stain their hands with the blood of innocent people. And instead of a Sarin gas attack killing thirteen people and injuring many more, Nine finds it necessary to throw down a gas canister in order to disperse the crowd and thus save their lives. Ironies upon ironies, Nine couldn’t defuse his own bomb in time. In fact, he could barely save a napping woman on a train.

But it’s strange, isn’t it? Our two intrepid terrorists are not — nor do they want to be — serial killers:

Twelve: “At this rate, in a little over an hour, we’ll be mass murderers.”
Nine: “If worst comes to worst, we’ll have to use this to deactivate it.”

This is why the riddles are so easy for Shibazaki to solve; again, the boys don’t actually want to take any innocent life. Still, what if their assumptions about Shibazaki had been incorrect? Nevermind the guy being too dumb to solve their riddles, ’cause we know he’s not. But what if Shibazaki had suddenly fallen ill that day? What if he had gotten into an accident? Hell, even assuming Shibazaki or someone else could solve the riddle, what if the bomb squad had screwed up and failed to defuse the bomb correctly? Sure, you could point to the fact that until Five intervened, Sphinx could’ve just deactivated the bomb remotely with their cellphones, but even then, there’s a small but nevertheless plausible chance that technology can malfunction as technology is often wont to do. If the boys don’t actually want to endanger anyone’s lives, then why even play with something as dangerous as bombs? Isn’t it a little too crazy to assume that — barring any outside influence from another super-intelligent individual much like themselves — everything would go according to plan? Or does this whole scenario nevertheless require a little suspension of disbelief from the audience? The answer perhaps lies somewhere in the middle. Honestly, you’d have to be a little crazy to become a terrorist.

Still, it’s clear now that while Nine and Twelve have been trying to have some fun with the authorities — and humiliate them in the process by leaking the details of the investigation to the public — they are also looking for a special individual like Shibazaki at the same time. And now that they’ve found him, they’re hoping to point the wizened detective in a certain direction. After all, who would take a pair of runaway kids seriously? Even if Nine and Twelve had all the evidence in the world to implicate some very important people in the Japanese government, they know they need someone on their side that the rest of the country can take seriously. That someone is Shibazaki. In any case, the detective has connected the dots, linking the boys’ attacks to four individuals belonging to some organization known as the Rising Peace Academy. In fact, he’s the only person within the department who is willing to even consider the idea that the boys are trying to send a message. The topic of this episode’s riddle is hardly accidental either. Sphinx forces the investigators to dredge up a case where a school had overstepped its boundaries, thereby causing four kids to suffer from a heatstroke. The abuses of power, especially against Japanese youth, appear to be what Nine and Twelve want to bring to light. What they have failed to predict, however, is that while they are hesitant to take innocent lives, the powers that be are not.

The upper ranks told Shibazaki and the rest of the investigative team to stand down. The upper ranks also assured Shibazaki and the rest of the team that another team — a special assault team — would take care of the bomb. That didn’t happen. The bomb was allowed to go off, and if Nine hadn’t intervened, it would’ve killed a bunch of people. And y’know what? The upper ranks have devilishly realized that they can afford to allow such a tragedy to occur. In their mind, so what if the bomb goes off? The public would just blame Sphinx anyway. Sphinx have directly implicated themselves with all those online videos they’ve streamed to the public. People were content to laugh at the authorities so long as none of the attacks had taken any lives, but we came oh-so-close in this week’s episode to actual bloodshed. And had a tragedy actually occurred, it would’ve just rallied the public opinion against the two boys, thereby concealing the motives of the upper ranks even further. Whatever the two boys were hoping to accomplish — whatever message they were hoping to send — would’ve just been lost in the sea of anger and cries for vengeance. The truth is, Nine and Twelve’s stunt in last week’s episode may have gone too far. As a result, we finally meet Five, and the timing couldn’t have been any more apropos.

Shortly after Nine and Twelve had humiliated the authorities, the upper ranks immediately called upon another super-intelligent individual for help. The lady isn’t called Five because it’s a quirky, little name. She’s Five because she used to attend that mysterious institute with the two boys. The upper ranks aren’t dumb; I’m sure they’ve realized by now what they’re up against, and you gotta fight fire with fire. I mean, let’s take stock. Two super-intelligent boys had escaped from a mysterious institute and gone off the radar. Just a while ago, some plutonium was stolen from a nuclear processing facility. And now, incredibly well-thought-out and coordinated attacks are striking key locations in Tokyo and humiliating the authorities all at the same time. It has taken Shibazaki a few episodes to connect the dots, but that’s because he doesn’t have all the details; he knows nothing about a mysterious institute full of super-intelligent children. These upper ranks, however, do have all the details. And after the information “bomb” in last week’s episode, they must have realized by now that if they delay any further, more serious information will be leaked. As a result, they’re willing to risk the lives of the people on the subway today. Nine and Twelve have now entered a very dangerous game, because, unlike themselves, their opponents are willing to become murderers.

‘Cause forget the details of the current investigation. That’s just fun and games for Sphinx. Our two boys, however, are after something bigger. You don’t just point your fingers at several very important people in Japan if you don’t have something juicy to eventually reveal to the entire world. As a result, the upper ranks are done sweating bullets. The boys are now the ones who have to hide in this cat-and-mouse game. What’s interesting, however, is how things have stayed the same even after so many years. I’ve already mentioned how the sarin gas attack of 1995 is related to the gas “attack” in this week’s episode. The only difference is that some form of gas is now saving people’s lives rather than the other way around. There are, however, other interesting coincidences to consider. Once Nine realized who he was up against, we immediately see a flashback where a younger Five had seemingly terrorized him in a game of hide-and-seek. Fast forward to the present, Nine must continue to hide as Five looks for him and Twelve. As for Shibazaki, he already lost his job once investigating people he had been warned not to investigate. Thanks to the boys’ clues, however, he again finds himself in an all too familiar position: “To have to collect evidence against people from the police department again…”

With all these coincidences, the fact that this week’s episode centers around an attack on the Tokyo subway is likely not an accident either. Life seemingly stays on-rails until something comes along and knocks us off our tracks. That being said, not everything has stayed the same for our characters. There’s one variable no one on either side of the fence has accounted for, and that’s Lisa. At the moment, it seems as though Lisa doesn’t really belong anywhere. She doesn’t belong in the real world, nor does she belong with the boys either. Hell, the authorities don’t even know she exists. Meanwhile, Nine and Twelve only keep her around because she has nowhere else to go. When the situation turned dire in this week’s episode, Lisa became invisible to them as well. At some point, however, Lisa’s story will have to tie into the bigger picture. At some point, she will need to become the catalyst that alters the path that these boys are currently on. I mean, just how much longer will she remain a weak, vulnerable character for them to pity? How much longer will she remain useless, cooking up burnt dishes and smoking out the entire apartment (this could’ve alerted outside attention to the boys’ hideout)? I suspect Lisa will derail the currently cyclical nature of the story; it just remains to be seen how she will do so.

Stray observations:

– Twelve can’t help but continue empathizing with the girl: “She ran away from home, wandered around, was caught by the police and then puked… It looks like she doesn’t have anywhere else to go. She said she wanted to escape from this world. She said she doesn’t have a place to belong….” Like I’ve suggested in last week’s post, everything Twelve says about Lisa is probably ordeals he and Nine have had to go through. Nine, however, tries to remain practical. He re-iterates over and over that she isn’t one of them. Not only that, if Twelve truly cared for her, then it doesn’t make any sense to take her in: “…nothing but misfortune waiting for someone who gets involved with us.” Does that mean misfortune awaits them as well? Despite the boys’ many victories thus far, it seems as though they realize the authorities will catch up to them sooner or later.

– When Twelve tells Lisa about the various things on their work table, the music makes the scene sound almost whimsical, almost like we’re in a toymaker’s workshop. In a way, Lisa has slipped through the rabbit’s hole. I mean, she wanted so badly to escape from her own world of domestic troubles and schoolyard bullying that she is now standing in the middle of a terrorist’s den. From an overly-attached mother to two boys aiming to reveal Japan’s biggest conspiracy. It’s a bit of a surreal change in circumstances, isn’t it?

– There’s a neat moment where Nine walks forward from the light into the shadows.

– I kind of wish our American FBI operative didn’t feel the need to dress herself in a sailor fuku. I mean, there’s nothing special about the way Nine and Twelve look, so why does Five have to be so… anime-ish in her appearance? Still, her presence in the story is interesting, especially considering the fact that she’s from the US. Is the Japanese government developing super-intelligent individuals just to sell them to other nations? Or is the conspiracy even crazier than we can possibly imagine?

– During another meeting, Kurahashi expresses the need for the team to  “increase our efforts to capture the culprits.” I have nothing meaningful to add. I just thought this was a strange thing to say. I mean, it kind of implies they haven’t been exerting 100% of their efforts in trying to capture Nine and Twelve.

– We get more glimpses into what life at the institute was like. According to Twelve, eating itself became just another mundane task. I suppose this isn’t all the surprising. After all, they’re willing to strip you of your name to destroy your identity. They just want you to be a compliant robot. Naturally, a robot doesn’t need to enjoy its food. Still, it makes me wonder if we’ll ever learn Nine and Twelve’s real name before the show comes to an end.

– When Twelve teasingly suggested that Nine was putting a lot of trust in Shibazaki, this almost seemed to offend Nine. Still, this may foreshadow a future partnership between Sphinx and the detective. They don’t see eye-to-eye, but I’m sure both sides have a bigger fish to fry now that the upper ranks have taken the situation seriously.

When we pick up where we had last left off, the fully-powered Touka makes quick work of Shu in a scene that, well, could have looked a whole lot better. Who knows? Maybe the censors just don’t want impressionable Japanese youth to become dangerous ghouls after watching this show. And can you blame them? Any way you slice it, ghouls — even the powerful ones — seem to have a difficult life. Shortly after snuffing out Shu’s last breath, Touka turns her attention to Kimi, a human who knows too much. It’s not that I can’t understand the young girl’s position. You can’t account for everything, and even if Kimi is absolutely devoted to Nishiki, how would Touka know anything about that? She’s not privy to the details of their relationship. All she knows is that their livelihood — and more importantly, her livelihood — could be threatened by a mere woman. And logically, why would you ever put everything on the line for the sake of a single person? Not only that, the person is not even one of your kind. But she does eventually risk everything; Touka does not end up killing Kimi. At the end of the day, our heroine has a little compassion for the human girl, and a requisite factor appears to be irrationality.

I’m willing to bet most of us do not want to see Kimi die at Touka’s hands. Not only would it be tragic and rather pointless for Kimi to still be killed after all that these characters had been through, especially after Nishiki had done everything in his power to protect her, but this act of murder — or self-defense, if you want to look at it that way — would irreparably change the way we look at Touka. She would become yet another cold-hearted ghoul looking out for herself in a world full of like-minded ghouls. People like Yamori and Rize represent the dangerous extreme. They only look out for numero uno, and thus, they live a dangerous life full of strife and conflict. In any case, Nishiki’s character arc is defined by the fact that he has now learned to trust again, so it would be silly if Touka had killed Kimi. Ultimately, however, none of these appeals really matter. What matters is something altogether too irrational: when Kimi comes to and sees Touka’s kagune, she can’t help but remark, “How pretty.” As much as the good ghouls — ghouls with a conscience, eco-ghouls, ghouls that drive Prius’s, etc. — would like to fit in with the human world, there’s still this notion that an impassable gulf divides them from human kind.

A lot of the individuals in this universe seem to have this idea that humans are humans, ghouls are ghouls, and while we can try to co-exist with one another, should the truth ever come out ghouls live amongst humans, all hell would break loose. That is the reality of an “us vs. them” mindset; we naturally fear the worst and become distrustful of one another. Sometimes, it even feels as though logic goes out the window: “Looking at [Hinami and her mother], I thought, families sure are nice. I thought, the affection between mother and child doesn’t care about being human or ghoul. That shouldn’t be a surprise, but until my body ended up this way, I didn’t have any idea.” From an impassioned outsider’s perspective, it doesn’t make very much sense for Ken to think this way. Why wouldn’t ghouls, who are like us in almost every way, not have mother-daughter relationships? It’s irrational to think this. But these things happen. Lots of times, when one ethnic group spends time with another ethnic group, the former can’t help but think, “Oh, they do that too.” And the only difference there is skin color. The differences between humans and ghouls are, at least, more than skin-deep. Still, it’s irrational to think ghouls are so different from humans that Ken needs to acquaint himself with the idea that ghouls can have families.

And maybe that’s what it comes down to: you need one irrational thought to beat out another irrational thought. When Kimi remarks, “How pretty,” she’s making a personal, subjective statement. She didn’t make a case for herself. She didn’t argue from a logical standpoint that she deserved to live. All she did was comment on the aesthetics of Touka’s appearance. This and this alone, however, was enough to change Touka’s mind. The girl even proceeded to isolate herself for a week or two, probably due to an existential crisis. She had firmly entrenched herself in an us vs. them mindset. Sure, she is willing to co-exist with humans in their society, but this is out of a moral obligation. She just doesn’t want to be a murderer. If she feels threatened in any way, however, she doesn’t have any qualms about taking a life. It’s just self-defense. That’s why Kimi needed to find Touka’s kagune beautiful. All of a sudden, Touka doesn’t know what to think. This one irrational thought throws a wrench in her us vs. them mindset. To be fair, she isn’t the only one who’s confused. I can’t help but notice that Ken still wears his eyepatch. This is likely because he doesn’t have full control of his body yet. Nevertheless, there’s a sense that Ken hasn’t given up on the idea of being 100% human again.

The show’s protagonist is basically the poster child for the peaceful union between humans and ghouls, and yet he seems reluctant to take up this noble cause. He shies from what appears to be his ultimate purpose in life. Lots of people have complained about Ken’s ineffectual character. To them, it feels as though he’s running away from his own show, afraid to be the hero that the people around him need him to be. Nevertheless, the anime’s OP hints at the possibility of us getting a different Ken by the end of the show. What this tells me is that in the end all of the ghouls will have to deal with their existential crisis eventually. Nishiki once saw humans as nothing more than prey, but Kimi taught him he could trust humans again. Touka, likewise, couldn’t trust humans because she didn’t think humans could ever see any value in her and her kind. Again, Kimi served as a catalyst for change. Ken finally embraces his true nature, but in a different way. Unlike the other ghouls, Ken puts himself on the human side of the us vs. them divide even if he doesn’t want to admit it. He has to realize, however, how destructive this ultimately is. Still, it may not work out for Ken as neatly as it has for Nishiki. Rather than landing somewhere in the middle, who’s to say Ken won’t be pushed deep into the other end of the spectrum?

People like like Mado are dangeorus because their limited perspectives blind them. Seeing Hinami’s mom sacrifice herself for her daughter, Mado says, “Is that supposed to be mother-daughter love? It makes me sick.” At the moment, one can only guess why Mado is so incapable of compassion. Maybe he’s lost a loved one to a ghoul or something. Still, he is essentially a hypocrite. He considers himself superior to ghouls simply because he isn’t one, but ironically, he has more in common with a villain like Yamori than characters who are, well, actually ghouls. That’s because actions are ultimately what defines us. And at the end of the day, all that separates Mado from Yamori is the latter’s need to consume human flesh. Mado hunts down ghouls? Well, it seems as though Yamori does the same thing too when he feels like it. Yamori, like every ghoul, fights with kagune? It appears that Mado can only stand toe-to-toe with a ghoul because he fights with weapons he has fashioned out of a ghoul’s kagune. Ultimately, Mado is locked into his us vs. them mindset, and that’s why he’s just another sadistic predator much like Yamori. The only thing that puzzles me is, how are the people around Mado so blind to his sadism? Surely, the us vs. them mindset applies to someone like Amon as well. But is it so strong that he is ignorant of his partner’s lack of moral character? I have no doubt Mado will meet his end. I can only wonder if Amon will go down the same path…

Alright, alright, let’s see what Naoto and his boobettes are up to this week. I never even intended to blog this show, but you guys asked for it. And you know I can never disappoint my five readers.

– “Dealing with Sakurai can really drain a guy.” You don’t say…

– Apparently, after the events in last week’s episode, everyone’s being detained in their homes. Naoto has nothing better to do than to play with his miniature train set. Meanwhile, one of his haremettes is busy exercising hard at a gym because she wants to be useful!

– Haruka goes on and on about how the body metabolizes fat and glycogen, but it seems like she’s staring at her breasts and thinking, “If I don’t change, I’ll just be a burden.” Oops, did I say exercising in the gym? I really meant getting sweaty enough to justify a hot shower scene. Did I say shower scene? I really meant symmetrically docking with my superior for no particular reason other hurr durr skinship.

– Nana wonders if Haruka is only working out for Naoto’s sake. The girl blushes profusely. Naturally. Sigh, since last week’s episode was all about Aoi, I guess this week’s episode is going to be all about Haruka. Don’t worry, guys, I’m sure one of these weeks will be all about trains… one day…

– What’s the story this week? Naoto had received a suspicious-looking letter in the mail. The letter says something like, “Today could be your last day…” Yet another accomplice is out there? And he’s targeting the protagonist? You’d think the dumbass could just open the letter and read it carefully before jumping to conclusion, but no, that would be too smart of a thing for Naoto to do. He thus calls Haruka up so they can meet and discuss the contents of the letter privately.

- They’re having trouble finding a private place to have a chat, so Naoto grabs Haruka’s hands and drags her from location to location. I really don’t think it’s that difficult to find a quiet place to talk, but that’s anime for you. Plus, if he doesn’t do this, then Haruka wouldn’t suddenly be reminded of the time her grandfather held her hand. Yes, her grandfather. How very romantic.

– So after running around for god knows how long, this is the location our hero finally settles upon:

Yes, right outside a bar. Excellent choice, buddy.

– The two of them then call Aoi to warn her about the accomplice. But when Aoi answers her phone, a gust of wind was so strong, it made her drop her cellphone and scream all at the same time! Yes, a gust of wind. No, y’see, it was going to blow her skirt up, and you can’t hold your skirt down with just one hand. Just more brilliant Rail Wars! logic for you. In any case, Naoto and Haruka are now under the impression that Aoi is in danger.

– If you’re wondering about Sho and what he’s been up to lately, he apparently entered a curry-eating contest and won it easily. Good for him…? Still doesn’t get you any lines in any of the recent episodes, though.

– Aoi now walks out of a store (she had to replace her phone) and spots Naoto and Haruka gazing into each other’s eyes. Uh-oh, drama! Christ, why don’t you just call Haruka back and ask what’s going on?

– Aoi goes, “[Naoto's] not just spineless. He’s using it to get her in the sack.” So the red-head proceeds to whip out her handgun… yeah, in broad daylight in a civilian area. She even tries to aim the gun at his head as she says, “Good thing I got my gun back, so I can put a bullet in his brain.” T-that’s a reasonable response. First, I’m amazed the other two haven’t noticed Aoi just standing there, brandishing a gun in the middle of the streets. Secondly, love the sex-shaming. Trying to court Haruka? Hah, take hot lead, bastard! Third, this is anime, so she’s just jealous.

– A penguin mascot then bumps into Aoi from behind, and a shot actually goes off! The safety wasn’t on! She actually intended to shoot the guy!

– The other two, being the idiots that they are, think they’re under sniper fire. Haruka’s immediate reaction is to dive into Naoto’s manly chest.

– Aoi then has the nerve to get mad at the mascot: “Shut up! You made me shoot at them!” I don’t need to leave the safety on! I wasn’t going to shoot at them! She then gets mad at her friends: “And why’re those two getting the wrong idea?” You. Have. A. Cellphone. Use. It.

– Instead, she tries to jaywalk, so a traffic cop yells at her. Naoto and Haruka are literally just across the street, but they don’t see or hear any of this. Just a pair of Japan’s best train employees in action.

– Naoto notices that someone — it’s Aoi, but he doesn’t realize this — is chasing them. Good! He notices something for once! Let’s see what Haruka thinks: “Don’t look back! Just focus on running away!” Man, it’s so difficult to do two things at once. Who on earth can run and look at the same time! Then again, you’d think Aoi would’ve just called her friends by now…

– Haruka tears her dress trying to climb over a fence. Naoto trips and falls on her. Japan’s best train employees in action!

– The two of them try to call Nana, but they can’t reach her. When a flower pot falls over, Naoto thinks they’ve been found. But how! Haruka suggests, “They must have triangulated your location via that cellphone!” Excellent deduction from the best and brightest train employees in Japan! So she tells him to get rid of the phone! Even better! The camera then pans up to reveal the true culprit!

– Dumb and Dumber finally find the time to catch their breath in some carpark. Dumb expresses her happiness that she can help the hero out. Yes, you’re really helping him out. All of a sudden, however, they are beset upon by an army of cats! Man, what the fuck is this? It’s one thing to have fanservice on and around trains, but this episode literally has nothing to do with trains. Literally nothing.

– When a cat leaps for Dumber’s head, Dumb bravely pushes him out of the way with her head. Watch out! Those cats are even more dangerous than a trigger-happy, jealous redhead! Naoto rewards himself with a little upskirt action.

– Dumb: “I’ve read in books that people can train dogs as assassins. Maybe that’s what these cats are!” What fucking book was that? Are you sure it was a book? Are you sure you can even read?

– Oh. My. God:

The truth is that there was just the scene of canned fish on Dumb and Dumber’s clothes, so that’s why they were being chased.

– Even without dangerous assassin cats chasing them, Dumb can’t help but tear her skirt more and more. It’s really difficult to walk, man.

– So Dumber sneaks the girl into a Transportation Museum: “Maybe they’ll forgive us when we explain it’s life-or-death.”

– But the assassin cats are back! Dumb decides to strip down even further to distract the cats. Good thinking!

– “Uguu, Dumber, you have to take care of yourself. If something happens to you, I… I…”

– Dumber then sees a poster for a restaurant, then proceeds to reminisce about the time he and his parents once ate there. Uh…

– Elsewhere, Dumb and Dumber’s superiors get a phone call alerting them to the alarms being tripped at the Transportation Museum, so we know there’s someone there with them. Still, when the anime cuts back to Dumb and Dumber, the latter’s just going on and on about the place. They nicknamed a steam locomotive “The Lady!” Isn’t that just fascinating!

– Dumb can’t help but grab on to a corner of Dumber’s shirt like so. I-it’s just so they don’t get separated! You gotta hold on tight, too! All these people at this closed museum might force them apart!

– All of a sudden, Dumb asks Dumber about a time exactly eight years, three months, and fifteen days ago. That’s… that’s oddly specific. But Dumb is very serious about this. This is her trying to purse her lips. Y’see, a single chance encounter eight fucking years ago is enough to make the girl fall deeply in love with the train-loving Dumber forever. That’s how love works, guys.

– Aaaaaand here are the bad guys. They’re completely unrelated to the “suspicious” letter, of course. In fact, it’s just a complete coincidence that Dumb and Dumber have run into them.

– Still, the bad guys are now chasing after Dumb and Dumber, but it’s okay! Aoi and company have now made it to the Transportation Museum themselves!

– One of the bad guys grabs onto Dumb’s shoulder, but when Dumber knocks the bad guy out of the way, somehow this causes Dumb’s shirt to get ripped off cleanly. CLEANLY.

When we see her again, she’s completely lost her top and… her bra too? Or was she just not wearing a bra the entire time? Wait, c’mon, you’re not telling me a girl that endowed has been running around the entire episode without a bra on.

– Dumber can’t believe his partner is now completely topless. I can’t believe it either, Dumber. I can’t believe it either…

– Dumber then locks Dumb away in a closet; he intends to fight the bad guys all by himself! Luckily for him, his superiors are here to beat up the bad guys. And Aoi is here… to beat him up.

– Meanwhile in the closet, Dumb thinks back to that day from eight years and three months ago. Dumber had protected her loli self back then too! Luckily, she wasn’t naked at the time. Rail Wars! may not be about train, but at least it doesn’t have naked lolis. Still, never grow up kids. When you do, you just keep losing your fucking clothes.

– Welp, time to free the naked girl from her prison:

Wait, what did he even do again? But it doesn’t matter, ’cause Aoi gets even madder. That’s basically the harem dynamic in a nutshell. Get with one girl, the other girl gets mad at you. Get with the other girl, the first girl stabs you in the gut, then chops off the other girl’s head.

– In an attempt to explain himself to his superiors, Dumber hands over the threatening letter… which turned out to be just a promotion for life insurance. Hey, can you blame him? Dumber can’t read! Is it a crime to not be able to read?!

– But despite being stripped down to just her panties, Dumb feels as though she had a fun day with Dumber! Yay, all’s well that ends well in Boob Wars!

Hey, I found this neat piece of fanart out there on the internet! Alright, alright, let’s watch this terrible show.

– Dork Gun: “But whether you’re a fake using his name or the real one… Someday, I’ll kill you.” Alright, right there and then, you know this guy can’t kill people through the game. Why? Because what kind of loser goes, “Someday, I’ll kill you?” If you’re actually a badass who can kill anyone you want, you’d just do it. Why would you hesitate, especially if it’s the infamous Kirito? But Dork Gun can’t just kill you in-game. Dork Gun has to be able to track you down in real life. And hey, GGO allows anyone to put in their real name and address to receive prizes. It all fits! The only question is how can Dork Gun kill people in real life and also appear in-game at the same time, but this can be easily explained too: it’s a multi-person operation.

– Kirito is really shaken up by the encounter, though. Since Laughing Coffin wasn’t particularly well-developed in the original series, we now see a flashback in which Kirito and a group of people from the Aincrad arc had attacked Laughing Coffin’s base of operations.

– Just more reasons I’m disappointed with SAO:

Bad guys look like Death incarnate! But the good guys wear white armor! If you actually look at a real MMO, however — any MMO, in fact — people wear all sorts of outfits regardless of who they are or what clan/guild they belong to. As such, the first SAO was just a fantasy anime pretending to be about an MMORPG. And now, SAO II is a shitty, futuristic anime also pretending to be an MMORPG. Sure, it has competitive FPS elements, but it also has levels for people to gain? And stats to develop that no competitive game would ever have? Like honestly, who would watch an e-sport where the victor is simply someone who has done more stat-grinding than the loser?

–  If you take notice of this scene, it’s just the same animation being looped over and over. SAO still felt the need to show it to us twice. It’s hilarious that an anime as famous as SAO still needs to cut corners in its animation budget.

– Then at some point, the action simply gives up. Instead, we’re treated to still shots of people fighting as Kirito resumes control of the narrative, telling us flat-out what had happened afterwards. Yawwwwwwn.

– Sinon drops by to check on Kirito, but he’s still shaken up. She doesn’t know what’s getting to him, but seeing the guy… I guess triggered would be the right word, it reminds the girl of herself. And uguu, we can both be triggered together! Do I buy Kirito’s trauma? No, not really. I’m not saying it doesn’t make sense. I think most people in his shoes would react the same way. But the problem is that most of us aren’t Gary or Mary Stus. So y’know, we have real reasons to be scared. We’re not invincible. And you could argue that Kirito isn’t invincible either, but that’s only true in theory. He’s actually been quite overpowered in the story. So honestly, I feel like it’s cheap when a character who is overpowered 99% of the time suddenly starts shaking with fear. I feel like he’s only vulnerable when it’s convenient. In fact, you could argue that a personality like Tatsuya of Mahouka fame makes more sense story-wise. Tatsuya is overpowered, and he knows it, too. As a result, he acts and talks accordingly. With Kirito, on the other hand, he’s overpowered as shit, but we’re supposed to believe he’s also shit-scared of some chumps? Eh, I don’t buy it.

– Another thing that makes the GGO arc rather lame is that, well, the original SAO was at least an adventure. The characters would go from places to places, see different things, complete various quests, fight dragons and whatnot. Here, Kirito sits in a room until it’s time for his match. He is then whisked to some random battlefield we’ll never see again where he does the same thing he did last time: kick someone’s ass in a short minute or less. Ho-hum.

– Oh dear, our previously shaken-up Gary Stu has now gone berserk. So that’s what it has come down to: his one small window of vulnerability is just another reason to make him become even more overpowered than before! Sure, he suffers a few scratches, but he also wins in record time.

– Then immediately after this match, we see Sinon’s next match. It’s just not interesting or fun to watch. It’s just one series of drab matches one after the other, all in these boring, concrete-filled locations. It’s one thing to watch a competitive e-sports game play itself out on the same maps over and over. If you’re watching a CS:GO tournament, you’re not exactly there to admire the environment. You’re there to see the players’ skills and organization. Since SAO is not a real e-sports tournament, it makes no sense to admire the players’ “skills” unless you’re emotionally a child and are thus thrilled by Kirito’s displays of overpoweredness. The truth is, there’s nothing interesting here to see or look at at all. There’s no visual narrative whatsoever. Just pretty anime characters doing things in brown and grey locations.

– Uguu, Sinon can’t concentrate ’cause she keeps thinking about Kirito.

– And y’know, it’s boring enough playing a sniper in a real FPS game. We now get to watch Sinon win her match by taking a single shot. She literally wins by sitting in one place and pulling the trigger. Ex-citing.

– Finally, it’s time for Kirito and Sinon to face each othe-… alright, I officially declare A-1 Pictures unfit to draw any asses from now on. Please, stop. You guys are just ruining asses for all of us.

– Kirito ends up psyching Sinon out by walking directly at her. As a result, she misses her shot. The guy doesn’t even dodge, but she misses her shot. She then misses again and again and again. This has to be the dumbest way this match could unfold. It’s obvious that Kirito doesn’t want to fight, especially since Sinon is one of his precious haremettes. But how insulting! No, I get it. He only wants to make it into the actual tournament, so the results of this match doesn’t matter to him. He has nothing to gain from fighting her. But you know what? It’s called respect, man. Have some respect for both your opponent and the tournament itself. Even when, say, the Miami Heat had their playoff seed all locked up by the end of the season, they still sent their subs out to play the game. The subs still, y’know, tried. What Kirito is doing here is just a blatant slap to the face. And it’s hilariously dumb on another level: SAO tries to make it seem like MMOs and virtual realities are stuff we’re supposed to take super-seriously ’cause they’re just like real life, y’all, but then our Gary Stu goes and pulls this stunt. Not only does he not respect Sinon’s intent to duel him, he also makes a mockery of the tournament. Who cares if the results don’t matter? It’s called sportsmanship.

– Sinon then decides to run right up to her opponent to ask him, “Why?” What a great MMO, huh? You can’t even message people or talk in general chat. If you want to talk to someone, you have to get within hearing distance of them. Why, it’s almost like this is not an MMO. It’s like the anime’s just pretending to be about one!

– But then the guy fucking flip flops in a span of a minute. Holy shit, way to stand by your convictions: “It’s only a game. It’s only a single match. But that’s why we need to fight as hard as we can. Otherwise, we don’t have the right, or reason, to live in this world.” Gee, thanks for coming to that conclusion now rather than earlier so we could actually have some real action. You’d think he would’ve known this already from his experiences in the original series — hell, the previous MMOs were such serious business that he got a girlfriend out of the whole experience — but no, it took Sinon’s tears to remind him what he had always believed in the first place. He just conveniently forgot, that’s all. But please, fuck up the actual match instead, so that you and your haremette can have a tearful exchange in front of everybody. After all, this is Talking Art Online, is it not?

– So to make up for his blunder, Kirito proposes a duel to decide this match. Unfortunately, this is still dumb. Why? Because talk about wasted potential. I’m not even joking when I said there was actual potential here. After all, Kirito and Sinon’s fighting styles couldn’t be any more different. Armed with a sword and a handgun, Kirito has to get up close and personal to win a match. In reality, this shouldn’t be easy. Kirito would have to use the layout of the battlefield to his advantage. Instead, every single one of his matches have come down to the Gary Stu running headfirst at his opponents, blocking bullets with his sword like some shitty Jedi Knight.

Meanwhile, Sinon is a sniper, so she has to keep her distance, maybe even lay out traps so her opponents can’t get close to her, and plan out multiple escape routes in case they do. But like with Kirito, we don’t see any of this. She literally sits in one place, takes a single shot, and wins. So what happens when Kirito and Sinon meet up in the finals? It’s one magical shitstorm of un-creativity.

First, Kirito doesn’t even want to fight. Meanwhile, our sniper has the easiest target any goddamn sniper out there could ever ask for, but she can’t hit him! She magically can’t hit him, because she’s too goddamn psyched out. Who wrote this shit? It’s like watching a game of horse between the NBA’s best players, but when we get to the finals, Kobe (let’s assume he’s in his prime) pulls out a lawn chair and Lebron shoots airballs.

And now, they’re going to have a duel. They’re going to have a one-shot takes all duel. Between two contrasting fighting styles, the match comes down to a competition that doesn’t highlight either player’s strengths and/or weaknesses. Instead, it’s just another opportunity for Kirito to display his overpoweredness by cutting Sinon’s one bullet in half at such a short range. Then, he bullrushes her only to catch the girl with one hand, and shove his long energy sword in her face with the other hand. Meanwhile, people are spectating this shit. This is so unbelievably stupid.

– Sinon: “He’s strong! That strength goes beyond a virtual game.” OH BABY, JUST TAKE ME ALREADY. IF I’M NOT SCARED OF YOUR GUN, I WON’T BE SCARED OF ANY GUN.

– Sinon wants to be as strong as Kirito in real life. But he says he’s not strong. ‘Cause he doesn’t know if he has what it takes anymore to pull the trigger that will save the people he cares about (really?). But he can pull her closer…

…dokidoki…. YO ASSHOLES, THIS IS STILL BEING STREAMED TO THE OUTSIDE WORLD.

– But hey, I know why he didn’t tell Asuna about him playing GGO. Wouldn’t want her to be watching this shit, huh? It’s funny how the story even needs a new girl for every new arc. It’s like if we don’t swap out girls, we’ll get bored of them or something.

– Remember that thing I said about respect? Y’know, respect for both your opponents and the game itself? KIrito goes, “…would you surrender? Killing girls isn’t my thing.” Yep, more chauvinist bullshit. Can’t kill you, ’cause you’ve got a vagina! So please, just submit to me.

And we’re going down with it! I hope you guys are happy.

– First, someone goes, “Illegal aliens are arriving ashore from a small cargo ship in Cargo Pier 5.” Then shortly after a pair of investigators blow up said cargo ship — I really hope there weren’t illegal aliens on the ship, but knowing this anime, those illegal aliens are probably all baby rapists or something —  we cut to a bunch of dirty Chinese people infiltrating Yokohama through… a well? An underground tunnel? It doesn’t really matter. What matters is how every single arc has been about Chinese people and what dirty, manipulative scum they are. First, a Chinese organization recruited Japanese youth and tried to stage a rebellion. Then, Chinese gangsters tried to rig the Nine Schools Competition. What now? Seriously? What now? Are they going to assassinate the Prime Minister? Or, even worse, kidnap Tatsuya’s precious imouto?! More importantly, the creator has some major hang-ups about Chinese people. It’s really fucking pathetic. It’s like Stormfront level, but for anime.

– After the opening credits, it is now apparently a new school year. Not only is Miyuki now the vice chairwoman of the student council, Azusa is somehow the chairwoman of the whole shebang. Yes, Azusa… I personally always thought she was an idiot.

– So what has our Gary Stu been up to these days, you ask? He’s been studying alchemy so that he can one day make a philosopher’s stone. Yes, the fabled item that can not only turn worthless metals to gold, but have also doubled as the elixir of life in countless tales! But… can it make this robot feel? That’s the ultimate question!

– Oh, of course, we now get a lecture on what a philosopher’s stone is and what it can do. Riveting stuff.

– “…we’ve got sustainable nuclear fusion through Gravity-controlled Magic in our sights.” I don’t think it is physically possible to roll my eyes any harder.

– All of a sudden, Miyuki takes a knee, then he pats her on the head like she’s a dog. There isn’t a reason why this happens. Just because, I guess.

– After pretty much singlehandedly winning the Nine Schools Competition for First High, Tatsuya is now being recruited for the Thesis Competition. So basically, some author came up with a character who is a walking, talking weapon of mass destruction…. only to stick the character into a high school setting and have him participate in relatively juvenile competitions. In different hands, this would’ve been a parody. But no, Mahouka is completely earnest. Say, why don’t I go back to kindergarten and own the playground with my brilliant monkey bars skills. Those little punks’ll never know what hit’em. Oh, but if anyone asks, I’m only here to protect my imouto. But still, this is funny in a very different, more crucial way. Tatsuya can crush entire armies by himself, but we still have to watch him attend high school and do mundane high school things like have student council meetings. In other words, the creator can make the character as overpowered as he wants, but he can’t even imagine what said character would be like in the real world. That would, y’know, require a modicum of actual maturity, emotional or otherwise. So back to high school we go, the one stage in childhood development that apparently the author is still hung up on.

– What I’m laughing about right now: this guy’s tiny, tiny head:

– God, it’s the same fucking story every time. You want to recruit me into the disciplinary committee? Are you sure? But I’m a Weed! Will that sit well with everyone? You want to recruit me as an engineer to help calibrate the athlete’s CADs? But I’m a Weed! This has never been done before. Will that sit well with everyone? You want me to take over the freshmen Monolith Code event? Are you sure? I’m entering the competition at the very last minute! Will this sit well with everyone? Finally, once more with no passion whatsoever: you want to recruit me to the Magical Thesis Competition? Are you sure? I didn’t even sign up! Will this sit well with everyone? Holy shit, dude, come up with a new story. But again, this is all about a lack of emotional maturity. Someone is still sadly and pathetically hung-up on high school, so he’s created this fantasy Gary Stu character who keeps going back and sticking it to all the cool kids. Neener neener, I’m a reject, but they still want me to join their respective clubs, teams, organization, etc.

– What’s the topic of the proposed? “[T]he technical feasibility of a Gravity Control-type Magic thermonuclear fusion reactor.” Oh, how convenient! Tatsuya was just looking into that! Man, isn’t it nice how things just come together like that? Tatsuya’s waist deep in his own Perfektenschlag.

– So let’s see… in the first arc, Tatsuya proved himself to be a beast on the battlefield as he maintained discipline and crushed the student rebellion. In the second arc, he proved himself to be a beast in athletic competitions. In this arc, he’s going to be a beast in the classroom. I hope in the fourth arc, he invents a time machine, goes back to the 60s, and shows the Beatles what true music really sounds like.

– But like every arc we’ve seen thus far, the story mostly involves the characters sitting around in a room, talking about a topic in the driest way possible. Right now, Tatsuya is hearing all these exciting details like venue locations, deadlines, more deadlines, and thesis submission approval process. Sure, we saw some action… we saw a pair of new faces blow up a cargo ship carrying illegal aliens. Oh, trust me, the author would never pass up on a chance to blow up some illegal aliens. But other than that, it’s talk, talk, talk like it has always been.

– Finally, a scene where the characters sit around and talk has finally ended. We now cut to… another scene where characters sit around and talk. Between The Irregular Conversations at Talking High School and Talking Art Online, I have no idea which of these two shows is better! They’re both just so… talky!

– It’d be one thing if they were talking about something new and different in each and every single scene. But they’re not! They really are not! In the previous scene, Tatsuya was carefully informed about the competition and his responsibilities within the team. In this next scene, he’s now informing his friends about the competition and his responsibilities within the team. Holy shit, I like the Sisyphus of anime bloggers. I watch one shitty scene, I think it’s over and done with, then I get to watch another scene that’s just like the previous one. Back to square one, bitch. Watch the fucking scene again!

– And every time Miyuki’s present, everyone’s talking but her. She’s just creepily staring at her brother the entire time.

– When the two siblings return home, they find that their step-mother has let herself in. Miyuki even has to hide herself behind her brother’s back, because according to anime, women are weak and easily scared.

– Aaaaaaaand of course their stepmother has giant breasts. ‘Cause y’see, unless an older woman in anime is an obaba, anime refuses to draw them with an older face. Their faces must look young and pristine as if they’re teenagers. But how do you distinguish an older woman from a shoujo like Miyuki? Why, you give the older woman giant breasts, of course! On the flip side, of course, every single older male in this show has been drawn with square jaws and broad shoulders to distinguish them from the younger male characters. But can you imagine if the same logic had been applied equally? Oh man, every older male character would be distinguished by giant balls swaying to and fro around their ankles.

– Tatsuya tells his sister there’s no rush to prepare dinner, and that she should change out of her school clothes first. Miyuki then goes, “If you have any requests as to my change of attire as well… Whatever your desire, Brother, I’ll be happy to wear it!” Really? In front of your stepmother too?

– Sayuri, the stepmother, gripes that the two siblings still resent her. Tatsuya valiantly leaps to his imouto’s defense: “She may look mature, but she’s just a fifteen-year-old girl, after all.” Nah, I don’t think anyone in the real world thinks she looks mature. Obviously, her breasts are too small.

– Take notice at how Sayuri continually has her arms crossed, propping her giant, mature breasts up for everyone to see. Like c’mon, who has their arms crossed for that long?

– Alright, so what does Sayuri even want? She wants Tatsuya to return to the research lab, but this would require him to drop out of high school. Wha…? Quit…. quit high school? And join the real world? And interact with adults? I… this is all too much! I’ll just use the “Miyuki needs a guardian” defense, ’cause obviously, women can’t protect themselves. This is despite the fact that, y’know, First High is full of girls from all these prestigious families, and they all seem quite capable of being on their own. Not only that, none of them are even as overpowered as Miyuki. Let’s not forget that Miyuki’s a Mary Sue herself! Sure, Tatsuya’s Gary Stu-ness has overshadowed the girl, but she’s still overpowered as fuck too!

– Since none of Sayuri’s arguments will work — and c’mon, he’d never abandon his imouto — she will bring the work to him:

I don’t know what it is, but it needs analyzing! And it needs to be replicated! Why? Meh, do you think I care enough to learn why? I pretty much just tune out the details when any of Mahouka‘s characters start going on and on about “magic.”

– Oh god, she finally uncrossed her arms. Hallelujah!

– Yeah… yeah… sitting around talking about a rock. What of it?

– Sayuri eventually leaves in a huff, but Tatsuya has a hunch that she’ll run into trouble. That Tatsuya just has a nose for damsels in distress. So he tells his sister to lock up and wait patiently for him to return. He then hops on his motorcycle, ’cause that’s just what Gary Stus do nowadays; Kirito had one too.

– Such brilliant animation. And once again, the streets are practically empty. I fucking swear, the show’s environments are as soulless as the main character himself.

– Tatsuya was right; bad guys are attempting to steal that Maga-whatsit away from Sayuri. You can see her here practically suffocating in her car:

Why didn’t the bad guys attempt to steal the relic before Tatsuya had gotten home from school? That’s why you chumps keep failing, man.

– “I didn’t expect this guy coming!” I’m speechless. But seriously, you know what smart people would’ve done? Had a spotter to see “this guy coming.”

– But then…!

Tatsuya got shot! Wait, Tatsuya got shot?! Not like it matters. The wound closes up as if he’s the T-1000. Funny part is, the T-1000 displayed more emotions in a single 2-hour film than Tatsuya ever could.

– Our Gary Stu then uses his superior intellect to trace the path of the bullet back to its original location. When the sniper smugly looks to fire a second shot, our Gary Stu is already prepared. What a joke. Can we ever lose a battle? Nope. Can Tatsuya just run away from a fight for once? Nope. People tell me they’re okay with this, because they’re tired of weak, ineffectual characters. But where’s the middle ground? Where’s the moderation? Why must we go from one extreme to another?

– Because everything’s got to be fucking binary, man. It’s too much work to draw the line right down the middle. It’s too much work to create a character that has realistic strengths and weaknesses — flaws that he might have to work around! It’s not like discerning tastes will care either, so why not make the hero as Gary Stu as fuck?

– Afterwards, Tatsuya returns home to an imouto desperate to show off her new apron to him:

Nope, no incest here, guys. What? You’ve never had a woman — let alone a sister — model an apron outside of a bedroom before? C’mon, guys, what is this? 2014? Puh-leeze. We’re still in the 50s!

– Tatsuya: “You look lovely in it. So much that I want to secretly display you in a glass case just for me.”

Aight, I’m out. There’s an additional scene after this, but I am fucking out. That’s enough Mahouka for me this week.

Let’s get the good stuff out of the way. If I ever need to scratch that action itch, Aldnoah.Zero would still do the trick. Mecha series have been pretty unimpressive lately in this department. Captain Earth has no imagination whatsoever as its mechas just float around in space, shooting energy blasts at each other until the good guys magically win — and the good guys always win. And don’t even get me started on Argevollen. I could buy this, put the stupid toy together, then film myself smashing it to bits with a hammer and still have better action than whatever you’d find in Argevollen. So if there’s anything Aldnoah.Zero has going for it, it’s certainly the action. I just can’t deny that the show is well-choreographed and well-animated. You can clearly see what’s going on in its action scenes, but more importantly, you can clearly see how the good guys win. This is the crucial element that so many anime series tend to overlook. Too many shows simply take it for granted that when the good guys magically turn the tables on their enemies, the audience will just accept it.

Yes, I know the bad guys have to get the upper-hand at the start of any given battle in order to create tension and drama. I also know the good guys will eventually have to win it in the end because if the good guys die here, we’d have no show to watch. Nevertheless, when you go from point A to point B, it has to make sense. There has to be a causal link between the two points. Recently, however, mecha heroes will just sit there and take a pummeling until some arbitrary time limit has passed. Then all of a sudden, the good guys will to pull some superduper magical power out of their asses, and thus easily and conveniently defeat the bad guys in thirty seconds or less. That’s not fun to watch. In fact, it’s downright boring, Captain Earth. What works for Aldnoah.Zero — for now, anyway — is that the good guys have no special powers. They can only rely on their ingenuity, and even then, it’s not an instant victory. Yes, yes, we all know Inaho’s the problem. He’s the only person who gets to display any bit of ingenuity, and that totally sucks. I agree. But insofar as how the battles play themselves out, Aldnoah.Zero gets it right.

But yeah, even though I still enjoy the anime’s action scenes, Inaho saves everyone’s hides once again. Sure, sure, Slaine shows up at the last minute to heroically knock the last missile out of the sky. So great, the other hero gets a tiny portion of the victory pie. But still, everyone else is useless, especially Marito, and Inaho had to buy them enough time for Slaine to make his fashionably late appearance. It’s just disappointing to see a show with such a promising start come to this. The worst part is, after six episodes, Aldnoah.Zero is likely set in its ways. Inaho likely won’t become a well-rounded character. He’ll just keep kicking ass with nary an emotion on his face. If anything, he’ll become even stronger in the future. I mean, the tells are pretty goddamn obvious in this week’s episode. First, Asseylum tells the guy all about Aldnoah technology, and how only the emperor and his descendents can bestow super special Aldnoah power onto others. Then when Femieanne shows up — she’s our latest Kataphract of the week — she specifically remarks, “An inferior race with no Aldnoah Drive.” Well gee, won’t the egg be on her face when an Earthling shows up with an Aldnoah Drive!

Of course, it’s not that it’d be a complete lost cause for the anime if this is what truly happens next. In fact, I’m quite curious how the Orbital Knights would react to such a development. After all, only the emperor or his descendents can grant people the power of Aldnoah. So if Inaho, Slain, or even the both of them show up to a battlefield one day with Aldnoah-powered Kataphracts, then the bad guys’ reaction will be quite enjoyable to watch… I think. Still, the main issue here is that Inaho’s just a boring character with no depth or complexity to him. Sadly, he isn’t a side character; he’s the main character. And even if he gets an Aldnoah Drive, he’d still be boring to watch. The anime has taken no time whatsoever to develop his character. As a result, he’s just this super brilliant tactician who saves the day over and over and over again. Sure, Inaho isn’t as annoying as, say, Kirito of SAO or Tatsuya of Mahouka. So great, Inaho’s character doesn’t exude these Gary Stus unique blend of arrogance and smugness that makes them so insufferable to watch. At the end of the day, however, Inaho’s still a Gary Stu whose only flaw seems to be that he lacks emotions.

To make matters worse, no one else in the anime even comes close to being as useful or capable as the kid. If other people ever do anything right, it’s because they’re just following Inaho’s suggestions. When anyone ever tries to act on their own, they either screw up or are just hilariously ineffective. Once again, Marito tries to do something. ‘Tries’ is the operative word. When the action breaks out, our veteran wants to hop into a mecha straight away, and despite Calm’s warnings, Marito doesn’t care if the vehicle hasn’t been tuned up properly! How badass! But when he gets inside the cockpit, he freezes again. It’s the sixth episode, and we still haven’t seen any progress whatsoever on this front. Okay, I get it. War sucks. War fucks with people, too. I certainly don’t go up to war veterans and tell them to suck it up. But within this narrative, what is the point of Marito’s character? I’m not asking him to get over his mental block, but why is he even here if he’s just going to be the same static character over and over? What does he even add to the story? In fact, when the veteran isn’t freezing up, he’s just pathetically desperate for attention.

Seriously, don’t you feel as though he’s always eavesdropping on the kids? For example, a bunch of the kids will be sitting around, having a conversation, then Marito will interject out of nowhere. With the kids, he’s always jumping into the middle of a conversation, walking into the scene from offscreen. This week, it’s blatantly obvious he’s fishing for attention. He goes, “No one’s seen any war for the past fifteen years. The ones who did are all dead. That goes for the Martians too. All the combatants on both sides are virgins, just like you guys.” This is blatantly untrue, because this is what Marito had said in the first episode: “For fifteen years they’ve been waging war up where the Moon used to sit. Fighting to survive until this day.” So which is it? Are they virgins to war or are they not? Not only that, he himself is a survivor of the last conflict. So naturally, Inaho corrects him because Inaho corrects everyone, apparently (see: that stupid blue sky scene with Asseylum). This then gives Marito the perfect segue to launch into his whole “Oh ho ho ho, they silenced my report” spiel. Ask me, kids! Ask me about my time in the war! OH GOD, WON’T SOMEONE ASK ME. But oh no, it doesn’t end there.

Later, we see Marito sitting on the deck of the ship with a bottle of alcohol in front of him. Soma, the ship’s doctor, then walks up and comments on the bottle, because hey, it’s early in the morning. C’mon, Marito, I know your inner demons are haunting you, but you gotta set a good example for the kids. You can’t be getting smashed every damn morning! But, y’see, it was a trap! The bottle isn’t for me, Marito proudly states! The bottle is for my dear dead best friend! Do you want to hear about my dear dead best friend who died in a battle that was covered up by the authorities? Do ya? C’mon, you want to hear all about it, right? Marito then dramatically throws the bottle into the ocean as an offering to his dear dead best friend! Uh-huh. Question: why didn’t Marito just do this? Rather, why did it feel as though he was waiting for someone — anyone — to walk up and ask about the booze before he could throw it into the ocean? ‘Cause Marito needs an audience. He can’t just fucking toss the bottle of booze into the ocean and keep that shit to himself. Someone else has to be there to see it. Someone has to ask him about it too. Tell me your story, Marito. We want to learn from you, o’ wizened veteran who can’t seem to do anything in any episode!

…

Blah.

Stray observations:

– So nothing has really changed on the bad guys’ front. The Vers Empire officially declares war, but we already knew that. People are after Slaine, but Saazbaum wants to interrogate Slaine simply because Slaine’s father had done research into Aldnoah.

– Old Man Marito being a cynical windbag as always: “We’ve always been at war. We just chose to pretend otherwise.”

– Someone as smart as Inaho should know that a blue sky is odd to Martians. I mean, c’mon…

– So Asseylum’s grandfather found Aldnoah technology and built an entire empire with it within his own lifetime? Sure, he has kickass technology at his fingertips, but c’mon, there’s more to building an empire than mere technology. For instance, you can’t just stick people together in one place and expect them to feel as they belong to a single nationality. These things take time. More than a person’s lifetime, too, I’d imagine. Unless, of course, they’ve been brainwashed…

– Oh hey, Magbaredge believes Marito’s story! Why? Because her real family name is none other than Humeray! DUN DUN DUN! Not only that, she believes Marito is responsible for her brother’s death! Oh man, the drama. How come the adults have all the drama and the kids are so boring in comparison?

Alright, let’s get this over with.

– Daichi tells Akari that an unknown group had attacked them. Really? Unknown? I mean, let’s think for a second… who else on this godforsaken planet would have the means to A) sabotage the kids’ return trip to Earth, B) know the exact location where the kids had crash-landed, and C) attack them with unmanned drones. I mean, c’mon…

– Apparently, Salty Dog has a lot of influence over Australia? Why? Shrug. It’s just a convenient plot device to send the three kids on yet another wild ride! But alright, what’s plan B? Or C? Whatever the fuck this is, what’s the plan? Well, to the north of them is a “relatively undefended” base. You’d think a “relatively undefended” base would have nothing of interest, but it does! It truly does! It has a “newly deployed heavy transport craft!” Wowza! Conveniences upon conveniences.

– Oh, did someone say they like it when things are convenient? Teppei is already familiar with this “newly deployed heavy transport craft,” so they don’t even have to break out the instruction manual for this operation! Our former Kiltgang member’s got this shit down pat!

– I like how Plan C, D, E, or Z hasn’t even been discussed with Tsutomu, the guy who is supposedly in charge of this whole clown show: “If you do something like that inside a base, it’ll give them a reason to shoot you down.” But it’s okay! Akari already has our heroes covered by hacking into “Central Command’s main computer” — they only have one, y’see — and shutting it down! Did anyone feel the need to run any of this by Tsutomu? Pfft, shut up old man! The kids are taking over! Tsutomu’s only response? “What?” Tsutomu asks as he facepalms himself, “I wish I hadn’t heard that.” Woo! Leadership!

– Hana has something important to tell Akari about her mom! But no, don’t tell me, Akari exclaims. You… you can tell me when you get back. CUE HOPEFUL ANIME MUSIC. That’s all fine and dandy in fiction, but can you imagine how Akari would feel if Hana had screwed up? Shit! What was the important thing my mother wanted to tell me? Now I’ll never know because I refused to give the girl the ten seconds she needed to tell me that very important thing!

– Tsutomu should be worried out of his minds, because the kids are about to pull of a stunt that none of them had discussed thoroughly beforehand. But what is Tsutomu thinking about right now? “Lately, she’s really begun to smile a lot more.” Awwwww! C’mon, you guys, awwwwwwwww! The kids are smiling! Cue flashback from when Hana wasn’t smiling a lot! Keep playing that hopeful anime music.

– So what do we get next? A voiceover as we watch Teppei and his buddies fly off with the transport craft. And what does the voiceover even teach us? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. The disembodied male voice first tells us that Central Command had been hacked, something we already knew would happen. He then tells us that the kids used this opportunity to steal the Bravnik. Holy shit, we literally just saw them steal the ship. Why are you doing a voiceover for something I literally just watched with my own two eyes. He then tells us the kids are headed for Tanegashima. We are literally watching them fly the plane to Tanegashima. We’re watching it right now. Right now! And you’re still narrating it! Why? Jesus fucking christ, why? It’s “show, not tell,” not “show and tell in case the audience can’t visually comprehend the very narrative that is unfolding before their fucking eyes.” But what if I’m wrong? What if this is the revolutionary new way to tell stories? In fact, I should get into the habit of narrating every single thing that happens in my life. Otherwise, how can I understand my very own actions? I woke up this morning still groggy and half-asleep. I took advantage of the chaos of the situation to scratch my balls. It felt good.

– The disembodied voice then tells us that the three kids will soon be under attack. Great! Keep giving me previews of what’s to come! No, not previews of the next episode. Previews of the very next scene! Aw yeah, that’s what I’m talking about. My ADD is so bad, I will lose interest unless you literally tell what will happen next when the scene changes. In 90 minutes, I will heat up some rice. I will eat it. I will eat it with last night’s leftovers. It will be tasty. In 6 to 12 hours, I will probably take a dump because of said rice.

– Meanwhile, Hana’s just sitting over there giggling, ’cause I’m sure this experience has been a blast. Oh, we’re stranded in another country. We’re also being hunted by unmanned drones from an organization that is supposed to be our ally. But teehee, we stole a ship! Kawaii Pirate Daichi Manatsu!

– We then cut to Puck and Hitomi — this new scene doesn’t even last a minute — and here, we see Hitomi rejecting Puck’s advances. And that’s it! What a useful scene.

– Next, we see Moco walking into a room wearing nothing but a pair of panties. She tries to hit on Amara, but he rejects her! Aaaand that’s it. What another useful scene! Oh, how could I forget! We learn the very crucial bit of information that the Kiltgang are hoping Puck will move them to an area high in libido. ‘Cause, y’know, this bit of information literally makes or breaks this week’s narrative. Alright, we fulfilled Amara and Moco’s quota for this week’s episode. We don’t have to see you guys again for the rest of the episode! See ya next week!

– We return to the command room where the characters literally — I literally keep using the word literally — discuss the dangers of the upcoming unmanned drone. Bravo! Bravo! You guys are listening to my advice! Yes, yes, keep previewing the story for me. Tell me exactly what this unmanned drone can do, so when it finally attacks our heroes, I won’t be the least bit surprised!

– Rita goes, “We were right to send Salty Dog’s observer back.” Tsutomu replies, “I didn’t do anything.” You can’t make this shit up. You’re right, buddy: you didn’t do anything. In fact, what would you say… you do here?

– Speaking of Salty Dog’s observer, we now see her talking to the rest of her organization. And what is she talking about? She’s singing praises about the Tanegashima Base. No one — absolutely no one — in this entire episode has anything important to say. Nothing. Uguu, the young and the old are working together and they have mutual respect for one another! What an amazing, wonderful work environment! What the fuck? Get on with the fucking story, already.

– The guy on the other end of the cup re-iterates, “But we need Hana Mutou, no matter what.” We know this. Actually, I’m not sure I’m coming through loud and clear enough. WE. KNOW. THIS. We’ve been knowing this since the very early parts of the season. Shit, I feel like I knew this before I was even born. Before mankind ever knew anything — before our ancestors could even vocalize our innermost, deepest thoughts — their collective unconsciousness probably knew this!

– Cut to Tsutomu, who thinks to himself, “They need Hana badly.” Yaaaaaaaaaaay.

– But wait! It’s not time yet for the Sarama-whatsit Engine to attack the three kids. Quick, use more shots of their transport ship gliding over the ocean! Not enough? You’re telling me after all the pointless conversations we’ve just trotted out, we still haven’t bought enough time? Fine, let’s have a flashback scene where Tsutomu and Peter Westvillage talk about their first encounter with Hana, but we won’t have to animate anything. Nothing at all! We’ll just have these red lines scan the girl’s naked body. First, her legs! Oooh. Then, her torso! Wooooow. Wait, wait, her chest now! Amazing! Seriously, though, how many times do I have to watch a bunch of fucking red lines move themselves slowly across a girl’s naked body before I get the picture?

– Blah blah blah, Daichi was the only person who could get Hana to leave the Blume.

– Gasp! The Sarama Engine will intercept the Bravnik at 20:25 JST. Keep those previews coming! I think I’m almost emotionally ready for it to happen, but I need more previews!

– Now I see Puck in Kube’s body talking to the original Puck. Apparently, Peter Westvillage had tried to reach out to Kube on the topic of eternal life. I’m too tired to break their conversation down. I’ll just say this: Puck and Puck eventually arrive at the same theory that perhaps the Livlasters are the ones who are truly trying to take over the galaxy. And do what? Enslave us all with their phallic imagery? Egads!

– Fourteen minutes into the episode, the children are… under attack? Wow? Why is this happening?! I’m so surprised by this sudden twist in the narrative! Who would want to attack them? It must be an unknown force! And what would the enemies do if they succeed? W-would they try to kidnap one of the kids? What for?! And this new enemy has multiple components to it! Oh my god, Captain Earth hasn’t prepared me for this! The narrative is too complex! This is such a shock to the system! I… I think I need to lie down and collect my thoughts! So please, put a hold on the narrative. Show us, uh… a flashback or something.

*hopeful anime music plays*

*lameass Hana monologue begins*

Hana: “I was in a world where everything was veiled in darkness.”

Alright, you heard the lady. Everything was veiled in darkness. Very scary. Now keep listening to the pretty girl while I go back and rewatch the episode for clues.

– Y’see, this is all a veiled critique on China’s flawed one child policy. The naked Hana floating in a body of water that you see here clearly represents the unborn child in the mother’s womb. The child’s gender is, however, still up in the air. Hana ultimately gets to decide if she wants to be a boy or a girl. Unfortunately, her “parents” desperately want her to be a boy, so she clings to the Livlaster with confusion in her heart! They want her to fire the gun, i.e. go on to father many children and continue the bloodline. But one day, Daichi calls out to her. And because of Daichi and Daichi alone, Hana is finally able to decide which gender she truly wants to be! She therefore accepts her role as Captain Earth‘s hot, fanservice character, and heads towards the light. The rest is history.

– Alright, we’re back from the flasback! Not surprisingly, even though the Bravnik and the Sarama Engine have both entered Japanese air space, the air force won’t do anything to help the kids out! Hana and Daichi thus climb into their respective mechas to save the day.

– Like every Captain Earth episode ever, the bad guys have the upper hand as the Sarama Engine knocks Hana into the deep ocean blue. Then just as the unmanned drone was about to eliminate Daichi and Teppei for good, the Blume magically surfaces from the ocean and destroys the Sarama Engine! This Hana Mutou has finally reached maturity, and she don’t need no mecha! How nice of the Blume to be right there for the girl to pilot, though. Plus, how did she even get from her mecha to the Blume? Teleportation? Yeah, it’s probably teleportation.

– In any case, because Hana is now back in the Blume, she can’t come back out… unless Daichi comes to get her? Whatever that even means… The show makes it sound like she’s making a huge sacrifice, but she’s right! Since this is an anime, if the male protagonist dies, the female protagonist would just die from heartbreak anyway. And hey, she’s naked and floating in a sphere of liquid again! What’s that? You ask if this is objectification? Of course it is! She’s a fucking ship now! You can’t get any more objectified than that!

– Uguu, Daichi-kun…

…can it be cuddles time now?

Do it Daichi. Take one for the team.

Alright! Let’s see who’s going to die senselessly this week? I can’t wait to find out!

– For some reason, Tatsumi and Leone are in the red light district. Once our heroes have infiltrated one of the many sordid buildings, they find that the bad guys are using and abusing these “dumb slum broads.” Basically, they get these girls hooked on drugs, take advantage of said addiction to force the girls into the sex trade, and if any of the girls refuse or are no longer capable of fulfilling their duties, they get beaten. Naturally, one of the victims just happens to be someone Leone knows personally. Wow, you know, this all sounds really horrible. I sure do hope our heroes take the bad guys out and help these girls. And that’s what happens… noooooot exactly.  The reason why Akame ga Kill! feels so depraved is because it doesn’t actually care about the victims in its story. The anime continually conjures up all these horrific scenarios full of pain and suffering and for what? They’re just cheap justifications for our heroes’ relentless bloodlust.

Case in point, Tatsumi asks, “What’s going to happen to all those girls?” Good question, my shounen buddy! Leone’s compassionate reply? “That isn’t our responsibility, is it?” Wait, what? No one’s asking you to personally take care of each and every single one of these girls, but surely, you can do more than this. Leone then adds, “In the slums, there’s an old, retired doctor. And he’s still pretty skilled. I’ll explain the situation and have him take a look. He loves young girls, so I’m sure he’ll do it.” Oh, well, isn’t that just nice? The skeevy-sounding, retired doctor likes girls, so he’ll take a look-see. He’ll surely get to all of these girls, and make sure they’ll get right back on their feet. And even though he’s retired, he’s “pretty skilled!” He’ll magically help them out! What’s that? You don’t buy it? Yeah, me neither, and this is the basic, fundamental problem behind the anime.

I mean, sure, you could get past the stupid characters. You could get past the lousy shounen action. You could even get past the comically pathetic villains. But my biggest beef with Akame ga Kill! lies in the fact that the anime is willing to exploit these incredibly horrible topics only to justify our heroes going on their vengeful rampage. The bad guys are this bad just so our heroes can kill them without any guilt or remorse. But when it comes to the actual crux of the issue — y’know, the part where you actually help the victims — all we get is a couple brief, throwaway lines. Oh, someone will look after those drug-addicted, physically and emotionally abused girls. It’s not really our responsibility, though. Our job is the fun job! We get to gut and torture the bad guys! As for the victims, eh… out of sight, out of mind, I say… I mean, c’mon, we’re badass assassins!

– The best part, however, is when the anime pats its characters on the back: “When all is said and done, you’re pretty nice.” Oh wow, way to go, guys. Way to put in 1!0% for the weak and the helpless! In fact, Leone even says the only reason she’s helping these girls out is because she knows one of them. Normally, she’d too cool to fucking help them and shit, but gosh, since she knows one of them, she may as well lend a hand to the rest of them. Uuuuugh, I can’t believe I’m even taking time out of my day to do this!!! Those “dumb slum broads” better be thankful!

– Leone then marks Tatsumi to be her mate. ‘Cause y’know, it’s the important thing to do right now. She then wonders if her friends are doing okay… uh oh, that can’t be good!

– The anime immediately cuts to Mine and Sheele attempting to make their getaway after a job well done (supposedly). Unfortunately, Seryu, the crazy dog lady we had just met last week, is lurking in the shadows. Alright, you just know someone’s going to die. Seryu looked so harmless in the previous episode, right? This just means she’s extra dangerous, because that’s ironic and unexpected! And the viewers will be caught totally by surprise when Seryu kills one of these two girls, or maybe even both! Well, probably not both. That’s just a waste of suffering that we can exploit later!

– Oh good, more shounen bullshit: “I didn’t feel her presence at all.”

– But despite the whole presence nonsense, Seryu blocks Mine’s hail of bullets by summoning a giant Snoopy reject:

She then fights back with a pair of, uh, well they appear to work like submachine guns, I guess:

Seriously, what the fuck am I watching? We haven’t even gotten to the part where Sheele pulls out her giant pair of fuck-off scissors. Honestly, in another universe, this shit would’ve been a funny parody of bad shounen action. Hilarious, even. But then I’m reminded of Esdeath forcing a warrior to strip down naked and lick her boots like some sort of bondage slave. Then when she was tired of him, she kicked him to death. And just like that, I’m reminded that the show is dead serious. Why? Because who on earth thinks that sort of shit is funny?

– …sigh:

The action is so unimaginative. First, Snoopy will punch the same area a hundred times, which Sheele will have no problems blocking by holding her scissors up in one place. Okay, now it’s your turn, Sheele! Attack the same area a hundred times! Don’t even bother to strafe, swing high or low, or any of that fancy shit. The audience won’t notice. Yeah, you’re right, DBZ popularized this nonsense… over twenty years ago. You’d think after all this time, shounens and their ripoffs could come up with something a little more impressive-looking. If you’re going to borrow from the past, at least put your own spin on it. That’s not too much to ask, is it?

– At some point, Sheele manages to chop off Seryu’s arms, but if you think the crazy dog lady is down for the count, you’re dead wrong:

Yes… she has, uh, a gun in her right arm. Don’t even ask me how this is supposed to work. I like how her gun is shiny, too.

– So Sheele chops Seryu’s arms even further, b-b-but you haven’t even seen my final form! And by my final form, I really mean Snoopy’s final form. Great.

– After slamming back a few protein shakes, Snoopy is now able to crush Mine in its hands–… uh, I mean paws. Wait, does that dog have opposable thumbs? Wow, Imperial Arms are impressive!

– Anyway, this forces Sheele, who had been fighting Seryu by herself, to hurry back and save Mine’s life. But even though these characters have shown off their super speeds and perfect reflexes this entire time, this minor distraction is enough to allow Seryu to shoot Sheele in the back:

But wait, do you mean to tell me Seryu has even more guns hidden in her body?! Yes, yes she does:

Seriously? What’s next?

Hey man, I wouldn’t put it past this anime!

– Oh wait, we haven’t killed Sheele hard enough! C’mon, a bullet isn’t enough! We’re talking about Akame ga Kill! The anime has a reputation to uphold! Quick, do something cool and bloody, Snoopy!

Aw yeah, that’s what I’m talking about!

– Mine wants revenge, but Seryu’s backup has arrived. But it’s okay, because even though Sheele has been severed in half by Snoopy’s vicious jaws, she still has enough energy to blind everyone around her with her stupid pair of scissors. This then buys Mine enough time to make her getaway. Man, imagine if the good guys had been smart and thus retreated from battle in the first place! But then we wouldn’t have this prolonged tragic moment to behold! Y’know, the super duper tragic moment where Sheele can still blind her enemies, turn her head, smile at Mine, and think to herself, “Mine, I’m glad I was useful in the end.” Jesus Christ, how are you still alive? Just fucking die already.

– Wait, wait, the dying victim now envisions her friends one last time! In fact, we get a montage of all the happy moments she shared with Night Raid, our group full of rascally assassins!

– She even apologizes to Tatsumi in her final, dying moments. Behold, history’s longest death scene.

– So I’m now actually watching a scene in which we see nothing but Sheele’s giant pair of scissors lying forlornly on the ground:

It even begins to rain as the camera pulls back slowly. Someone actually thought this would be a  poignant way to cap off Sheele’s death. What a sad, powerful moment!

– And that’s that. Mine returns to the base to deliver the bad news, which gets Tatsumi super worked-up. To make it sadder, everyone has to discuss the matter out in the rain. No one has the foresight to go indoors first.

– Blah blah blah, Tatsumi wants revenge, blah blah blah, Night Raid tells him he’s stupid to jump into action without a plan. Heh, Mine and Sheele should’ve heeded that advice. But that’s the end of that, and I couldn’t care less. I mean, Sheele literally had half an episode of character development, so you can’t expect me to get too emotional about her senseless death.

Yuri now likes Kou, so naturally, Futaba’s starts acknowledging her feelings for him too. I mean, isn’t that how it typically works? No, I’m not trying to imply that she’s falling in love with Kou just to spite her best friend. In fact, shoujo heroines are usually too goody-goody for that. I’m just saying that when you’re trapped in your own head, it’s easy to just plain ignore how you truly feel about a person you like. But with Yuri around, she’s highlighting Kou’s strong points (what strong points?), which forces our heroine to acknowledge them too. Sure enough, Futaba tries to repeatedly avoid Kou in this week’s episode to prevent her feelings for him from deepening. But as fate would have it, she keeps finding herself spending one-on-one time with Kou. As a result, we now have ourselves a half-baked love triangle. I say it’s half-baked, because I don’t think it’ll really last. First, both girls are too nice to really make this a drama-filled love triangle. Second, Kou’s feelings matter too, and I doubt he’d ever really give dating Yuri a serious thought. Still, it’s the first point that I want to focus on: these heroines are too good.

The problem is, we’re stuck in this binary mindset where we often think, “Gee, if so-and-so has to learn how to become a good person, it means so-and-so is a bad person now!” No, not necessarily. By convention, these shoujos revolve around high school kids. And as most of us already know, high school kids aren’t exactly saints. It doesn’t mean we were all bad people at that age, but we had a lot of maturing to do. Futaba, however, isn’t really flawed. Even her friends aren’t really flawed. In fact, the only female characters with any flaws in this anime are the bullies in the first two episodes! They had bullied Yuri, and after Futaba told them off, they disappeared off to God knows where. But this is what I’m talking about. No, I’m not saying that Futaba should become a bully, then slowly redeem herself over the course of the anime. But a large part of why I even took an interest in Ao Haru Ride in the first place was because its heroine didn’t appear to be perfect. Unfortunately, that lasted for all of about two episodes at best. Since then, Futaba has become the cookie-cutter shoujo heroine.

Yes, Futaba’s clueless about the matters of the heart, but who wasn’t at that age? Yes, she’s not exactly the brightest bulb out there, but we’re not all super Gary Stu geniuses either. Point is, Futaba’s a good person where it counts; she has no real character flaws. There’s nothing about her character that would doom her if she doesn’t change her ways. There’s thus nothing about her that compels me to become invested in her character and how it develops. But man, the buck doesn’t even stop there. Yuri, too, is a good person with no real character flaws. Sure, she’s shy, but so what? Even Shuko is a good person with no real character flaws. I’m not denying that these girls don’t have their own fair share of troubles. After all, Shuko’s in love with an older man, but c’mon, does that really count as a character flaw? It’s practically a given that most young girls will develop a crush on an older man at one point in their lives. That’s not a character flaw. That’s just some coming-of-age bullshit that people have associated with young girls, but I digress. Again, these girls are too close to perfect. They’re not actually perfect, but they may as well be.

At one point in the episode, Kou teasingly manhandles Futaba a bit because she had, well, teasingly mocked him. In an attempt to look cool, Aya says loudly for everyone to hear that he would totally never treat a girl like that. ‘Cause, y’know, he’s a gentlesir, and a gentlesir would never even think of harming a single strand of hair on a girl’s head! What am I getting at? This is what Ao Haru Ride feels like. It feels like we’re afraid to scratch any of these pristine porcelain dolls. They’re just all wonderful people, and if Kou wasn’t so flawed — and could clone himself — these girls would live happily ever after. But it’s Kou’s fault! He’s not perfect! He had to go and suffer through a broken family. He then had to change his personality and become mean. As a result, the onus is thus on the… guy… to change… I don’t know, I just find that maddening. When I delve into a story, I want to identify and empathize with the main character. I want to see the main character change and grow over time. I want to see him or her succeed, ’cause it will then inspire me to succeed.

There’s this weird reversal now, however, where shounen/seinen series are full of Gary Stus heroes, and the world will have to conform to them. And on the flip side — like Ao Haru Ride, for instance — I feel as though our heroine is already feature complete, to borrow a software term. Sure, there are a few minor bugs and stability issues, but she’s done for the most part. No, I’m not saying Futaba is anywhere near as bad as a Gary Stu, especially the recent ones we’ve been getting, but still, she’s already a good person. Rather, it’s up to Kou to make himself worthy of her love. Kou is flawed. He’s the primary love interest, so he gets to be well-rounded. He gets to have actual strengths and weaknesses to his character. And as long as he still has weaknesses, we’ll sit here and judge him. Tut tut, you’re not good enough for Futaba just yet! Wait until you get over your trauma and character flaws! So y’see, Kou gets to have an actual character arc. Meanwhile, we treat the girls with kid gloves. And I just find that totally weird, man. Somewhere along the line, we stopped reaching for the mountaintops. Rather, we’re magically already there, and now we’re waiting for others to reach us.

Just one stray observation:

– The way the episode ends is just weird. Futaba acknowledges that she wanted him to get off the train. In other words, Kou’s actions didn’t make a lick of difference. Had he stayed on the train, it wouldn’t have erased all of Futaba’s feelings. Him stepping off the train, on the other hand, merely strengthened what she had already known in her heart: she’s already in love with him. Despite the acknowledgement that this single moment isn’t really all that significant, however, the anime still plays it up as though it was super-duper important.

The camera faces the girl. She has her eyes closed. We don’t know if Kou had stepped off the train or not. Oh my god, the tension is mounting! Quick, play the insert song! The anime then teases us with multiple camera angles, but none of them reveal to us Kou’s true location. But then Futaba slowly opens her eyes. We then see Kou’s torso! Wait, wait, hold on! The camera pans up to reveal… to reveal…! He had stayed, you guys! He stepped off the train! Hallelujah! Pop the champagne, the fucker stayed! This is it! This is the one true moment that defines our shoujo’s love!

Bzzt. No. True love is a series of moments, not just one. The girl isn’t not going to deny her feelings for the guy simply because he had stayed on the train. The main character knows it too: “I’m a liar, I guess. … I pretended to be struggling with it, but I’d already decided what I wanted to do.” It’s like Ao Haru Ride can see the stupid cliches coming from a mile away, but embraces them anyway.

Seriously, way to many tsunderekkos this week. As always, let’s first take a look at last week’s results:

Finally! That’s what I’m talking about. Rokujyoma no Shinryakusha!? just sucks, man. And it’s going to keep sucking from now until it ends. Still, the score at the moment is 3-1 in Seirei Tsukai no Blade Dance Ep. 5’s favor. Let’s see, however, if this week’s episodes will continue to tip things in Rokujyoma no Shinryakusha!?‘s direction.

Rokujyoma no Shinryakusha!? Ep. 5

For the first time, the anime tries to be serious, but it fails spectacularly. As you’ll recall, the harem lead and the dumb ghost had a bit of a falling out after last week’s episode. Everyone treated the harem lead like a punching bag, but hey, he gets mad once and all hell breaks loose. So the dumb ghost wanders off on her own, and as a result, the weirdo ghost hunters manage to capture her.

Fantastic. Good riddance. Bon voyage, mon petit fantome. What’s that? The cosplayer wants to save the dumb ghost, but then she herself gets carried off by other cosplayers. Oh man, real funny. I’m laughing ’cause I’m 12. But if you think that’s sad, just wait until you see the harem lead get a lecture on niceness from the boring knitting girl.

Seriously, boring knitting girl actually has to spell it out to the harem lead that he had hurt dumb ghost’s feelings:

Boring knitting girl: “We’re fellow Knitting Society members, yes?”
Harem lead: “Yeah.”
Boring knitting girl: “But I could also say this: ‘Satomi-kun and I are strangers who just happen to be in the same club.'”
Harem lead: “What? But that’s…”
Boring knitting girl: “I’m only telling the truth, right? I would feel awful if you said something similar about me. How would you feel?”
Harem lead: “It’d hurt my feelings too.”
Boring knitting girl: “That’s exactly what you did to your friend, though.”

Yeah, kids, being mean is bad. You want to be nice! You don’t want to be mean. Armed with this epiphany, our harem lead thus charges off to rescue the dumb ghost. But first, he needs to gather up the rest of his haremettes. What a great plot.

And no, I haven’t fail to notice the ghost lady who had tried to corrupt the dumb ghost. I just don’t care about her existence, because she’s just a dumb plot device. Naturally, the harem lead will succeed in saving the dumb ghost and all will be well. You know it, I know it, we all know it. these shows operate like clockwork. There won’t be any curveballs. by the end of the episode, the dumb ghost will be gleefully and giddily clinging onto the harem lead’s side like a dumb dog. But uguu, we gotta create drama! We gotta create tension! Therefore, enter the ghost lady: “Hurr hurr, your friends will betray you!” The dumb ghost thus believes her in order, and this creates doubt in the audience’s mind! If you’re an idiot, that is. The way I see it, it doesn’t change anything. The ghost lady is just there to waste time.

Dumb ghost literally sees that the harem lead is coming to save her, but because this is written by babies for babies, dumb ghost tells herself, “No, we’re enemies. No matter how close we are… He’ll always hate me because I’m a nuisance.” Uh-huh, sure, whatever you say. This episode is totally full of suspense because I don’t know if the dumb ghost is right or not! What if she is?!

The harem lead then dramatically breaks down the doors to where the dumb ghost is being kept. Is the dumb ghost thrilled that he has come all the way here for her? Nope. She calls him a jerk: “I didn’t ask for your help.” Welp, you heard the dumb ghost. Let’s go, guys.

And that is what happened. The harem lead turns around and leave, and Sanae dies… even harder.

…

…

Unfortunately, we can’t have nice things, so we’re in the darkest timeline. As a result, the harem lead doesn’t leave. Instead, he and the rest of his haremettes fight off an army of spirits just to rescue the dumb ghost. What a waste of time and animating budget.

A bunch of really shitty action follows. The same charms that had repelled the dumb ghost in the first place ends up helping the harem lead rescue her. Top notch irony, Rokujyoma no Shinryakusha!?, top notch irony. Go ahead, pat yourself on the back. And just like that, the dumb ghost is back in the family. Like anime always says, keep it in the family. Do you guys realize, however, that we’ll have to go through similar such episodes for the rest of the girls? Ugh.

Seirei Tsukai no Blade Dance Ep. 5

For some reason, the episode kicks off with some twintailed shoujo being chased by an evil tree:

I just hope the creators of this anime don’t happen to be fans of Evil Dead. Just when the tree is about to make mincemeat out of the girl, however, the hero shows up out of nowhere and fights the tree off:

Great, fantastic, very original. This also reminds me of harem convention #135: if you’re a haremette, I’ve likely saved you before. Therefore, you owe me. You owe me sex. But I didn’t save you for sex. ‘Cause I’m a nice guy. But still, you owe me sex. Anyway, there’s this really dumb moment in which the twintailed shoujo gawks at her hero only to suddenly remember that she should cover herself up:

Really? I mean, this tiny, little moment doesn’t even last two second nor does it add anything to the narrative. Nevertheless, the show’s creators felt strongly that it should be included in the scene. Alright, then…

So the harem lead quickly disposes of the evil, rampaging chunk of wood, but if you think the twintailed shoujo is thankful, think again. C’mon, she’s a twintailed shoujo, so it’s pretty much a given that she’s going to get mad at him. Keep up with me, folks. More specifically, however, this haremette is not quite as dumb as the redhead haremette, so she recognizes right off the bat that our harem lead is none other than the infamous Ren Ashball. Blah blah blah, what a shame it is for the Blade Dance to be corrupted by the mere presence of a Y-chromosome. But even so — dokidoki — I, this twintailed shoujo, am forever in love with you. Why? Harem convention #67:

Every harem series must contain at least one piggyback ride. Uguu, you lost your shoes fighting a tree. Let me carry you all the way back to the village. You know, in the two decades and some odd years that I’ve spent living on this planet, I have never once felt the strong desire to give any girl a piggyback ride. The thought has simply never crossed my mind. And yet, look at these shows. Piggyback rides are a dime a dozen in them. And why?

Often times, these shows make a big deal out of the fact that the harem lead can feel his haremette’s soft breasts pressed up against his back. When you’re both wearing clothes, I can’t even imagine how this is remotely possible unless your clothes are simply made out of tissue paper. But still, this is something worth considering. Do we see piggyback rides all the time in these harem series because it’s the cleanest, most innocent way the harem lead — and thus the male audience projecting their desires onto the bland harem lead — can feel up a girl without receiving her strict consent? Is this just another example of the nice guy doing something nice just to get a sexual favor in return? Gee, I dunno…

Blah blah blah, he introduces himself to her, they share a conversation as he carried her home, the nighttime sky has two shitty moons. Let’s just move on, or we’ll be at this all day. The only thing you need to know is that the harem lead had promised to meet the twintailed shoujo again after the Blade Dance tournament… but he never did. Naturally, girls can never let anything go. They always have to bring up your past mistakes! As such, when we return to the present, the girl — all grown up now, of course — has tracked him down. But uh, not because she likes him or anything. Nuh-uh! She just hasn’t forgiven him for breaking their promise! Yeah! She doesn’t have twintails anymore, though, so… let’s just call her Stalky.

Elsewhere, our harem lead is still feeling up his naked sword. She’s a sword, but also a silver-haired loli. Confusing? Not really. After all, the harem lead is, well, the harem lead, but also the greatest female champion that the Blade Dance tournament has ever seen. Obviously, Seirei Tsukai no Blade Dance is really about a confused transgendered girl coming to grips with her fluid gender identity.

In any case, our harem lead is still asking the same dumb questions he had asked weeks ago. ‘Cause nothing ever changes in these anime. Therefore, harem convention #189: one haremette will try to make a move on the harem lead, so the other haremette can walk in on them and get mad:

Yep, yep. This is fresh and original stuff, guys. Keep ‘em coming.

Afterwards, we learn that these kids form teams of five in order to participate in team battles. What’s so important about team battles? The top three teams get to enter the Blade Dance tournament. Unfortunately, the harem lead’s team only has two members: the harem lead himself and the dumb redhead. As a result, they keep losing to other teams. Hey, it’s not easy to compete when you’re short-handed. Therefore, you know what this calls for: the generic “Let’s go around and recruit friends” subplot!

I like how their teacher doesn’t really give a shit that the harem lead’s team is short three people. Hah, you’re my student, but if you think I’m going to give a shit about you, think again! I also like how the headmistress had personally recruited the harem lead to this school, but she won’t bother to ensure his entry into the actual Blade Dance tournament. What if he failed to make friends? What if he couldn’t find three additional members to fill out his team? Oh, what am I even saying! It’s the harem lead! Of course he’ll find three haremettes to fill both his team and his pants out!

While the characters are just sitting around, having lunch and discussing the harem lead’s loneliness — don’t ask — the blonde haremette conveniently shows up. Gee, I wonder if this is candidate #1 to join the team. Problem is, everyone’s a tsunderekko, so even though blondie over here totally wants to have lunch with the harem lead and the dumb redhead, she won’t admit it. The harem lead naturally invites blondie to join them, but then it’s the dumb redhead’s turn to go all tsuntsun on us!

Yep, yep, nothing more fun than to have a bunch of girls treat you like shit. That’s how the harem lead knows the girls like him. Obviously, all of our real life relationships are doomed to fail, because we just get along too well. Hold on, lemme go tell my girlfriend real quick to hate my guts. It’s for the sake of our future, baby! You have to hate and physically abuse me or this relationship’ll never work!

Elsewhere, Stalky is getting ready to transfer into the harem lead’s class. As you can see, she’s grown up in more ways than one. Hey, someone has to make up for the fact that the rest of the haremettes are flat-chested or moderately-endowed at best. Plus, this becomes another convenient way for Grumpy, the dumb redhead, to get mad at the harem lead again:

But wait, there’s more!

The loli sword who just can’t keep her clothes on also decides to throw in her two cents:

Tsunderekkos all around! In fact, I’m sure Stalky’s a tsunderekko too, seeing as how she is still mad at the harem lead for breaking their oh-so-precious promise. But it ain’t just any promise. It’s a yubikiri, which is ten billion gajillion times more contractually binding than anything you can draft up with a bunch of lawyers. In fact these girls can’t even resist being tsundere with each other:

Blondie: “Oh yeah, did you manage to get team members for the Blade Dance?”
Dumb redhead: “Not yet.”
Blondie: “That’s unfortunate.”
Dumb redhead: “We’re having trouble finding members that match my expectations. What about you? You found people?”
Blondie: “I just can’t find individuals that can make it to my level.”

Ugh, just admit it. You both want to be teammates.

But of course, when the dumb redhead asks Blondie if Blondie wants to join her team, Blondie returns with, “You sure you’re not the one who wants to join my team?” What team? You have nobody. At least the dumb redhead has a team of two. But whatever, this is way below my pay grade. Let’s just skip this bullshit to…

Ah yes, the Frigid Warrior Princess, yet another tsunderekko to add to the mix. She’s here to recruit the harem lead to her team. Great stuff. This team stuff is really fascinating. We’re all just delaying the inevitable anyway: they’re all going to be on the same team. Is this shit over yet?

No, no it’s not. The headmistress summons the harem lead just to meet Stalk–… bah, I’m done. Here, have one more tsundere shark for the road:

Vote away, but if you ask me, Rokujyoma no Shinryakusha!? still sucks more.

More M3 goodness! Even though, honestly, I think there are less than ten people still watching this trainwreck…

– Oh man, I hate it when anime can’t stop “anime’ing” it up. Iwato dives on top of Raika because one of the Admonitions is still alive. Raika insists that he’s too injured to be protecting her. When the Admonition just ups and flies away, she blushes and shoves him off of her. I thought he was injured, lady. So why are you shoving an injured person around like a ragdoll? Obviously, it’s because she’s embarrassed, and uguu, male-on-female contact is so hazukashii! But c’mon, who acts like this in real life? It’s frustrating when an anime series cares more about upholding its shitty conventions and cliches than just having its characters’ actions make sense. She obviously cares about him. She obviously sees he’s injured. So can we just forget about the whole “Love is so embarrassing!” bullshit?

– So blah blah blah, Tsugumi re-iterates her belief that her former friends are children of sin. As a result, it’s, uh… all their fault? Where I come from, something’s usually not your fault unless you had something to do with it. Sure, the girl’s crazy, so she has crazy logic. Even so, however, this is just another missed opportunity by the anime. I mean, I barely know anything about Tsugumi, so the fact that she’s unhinged just doesn’t have any impact, y’know? If you’ve known a character this entire time, and he or she turns out to be nuts, then it’s like, “Fuuuuuuuuuuck. I used to like that character! Maybe the signs were there all along!” So you go back and rewatch the old episodes, hoping to see how the story had subtly hinted at said character’s craziness. That’s how good storytelling might unfold. But in our case, Tsugumi has gotten almost no character development. She just shows up, saves Akashi’s life, then we get this flashback where she goes all yandere on us because people failed to finish playing hide-and-seek with her. It’s just dumb.

– Akashi: “It’s true that we all left this place without telling you.” That’s just it, though. That’s really just it. All this stupid angst simply because they ran away. It’s just not a satisfying story. The whole “torching your village” stuff at least makes sense. Yeah, if you murder my entire village, sure, I’ll go crazy and take revenge on you guys.

But this wasn’t enough for Okada. She just had to include this ridiculous subplot where the kids didn’t finish playing hide-and-seek with Tsugumi, so Tsugumi calls them children of sin!!!! And just like that, her character motivations go from understandable to looney tunes.

– From this angle, it looks like Raika has no right arm. But anyway, we see her treating Iwato, so I guess he won’t become a LIM module quite yet. Hell, I wonder if last week’s events were a fake-out, and Raika will ultimately be the one to sacrifice herself.

– So the Corpse is back, and it’s now fighting both the Sable and the other mecha (I’ve forgotten its dumb name already). Just standard mecha fare, honestly. Nothing to write home about.

– The good guys are failing to stop the Corpse because, apparently, Minashi and Sasame feel guilty about having ditched Tsugumi all those years ago. Tsugumi then goes, “Yeah, my sister also stole my man away from me!” So dumb. This is just so, so dumb. She literally knew him for what? A week? And she’s acting as though her sister had slept with her longtime husband and stolen him away. Man, I don’t particularly enjoy soap operas, but at least their drama makes sense. And yeah, this is basically soap opera-level drama. In the realm of adults, however, this shit makes sense. In a soap opera, maybe Tsugumi and Akashi would’ve actually been together for years, so Sasame’s betrayal would actually be a betrayal. Between kids just playing hide-and-seek, Tsugumi being this worked up over a week-long non-romance is just the dumbest thing ever. It’s just kids playing at being adults without understanding the very adult problems they’re attempting to mimic. Uguu! You stole my man! He plays hide-and-seek with me, hussy!

– We then get a flashback that is, uh, supposedly supports Tsugumi’s position. Akashi was sitting there with the two sisters at his side. Tsugumi says, “It’s pretty, huh?” Then Sasame looks awkward, and runs off… Seriously? It’s “love” between a bunch of kids. It’s so fucking meaningless.

– Elsewhere, Suzaki is preparing to enter the Lightless Realm by herself. She thinks if she only stays in there for an hour, she’ll be fine. Seems foolhardy to me. Sure, it’s their last resort, but if these kids and their fancy mechas can’t go in and out of the Lightless Realm in a timely matter, it doesn’t make much sense that some lady can just waltz in and out of the place herself.

– Meanwhile, the Corpse continues to brutalize Minashi and Sasame, and naturally, this means we get to see a naked Sasame writhing in pain. Seems kind of cheap and exploitative, y’know? That’s why I wonder if Raika wouldn’t sacrifice herself instead, so we could see her naked as well.

– Tsugumi: “Crybaby Minashi and spoiled little Sasame. Neither of you could do anything without me.” Yeah, says the girl who’s been sitting here in the Lightless Realm for the past ten years and doing nothing. Says the girl who is still hung up over some childhood puppy love.

– Then, of course, another flashback shows us Tsugumi getting progressively crazier and crazier as she ages before us. Meh. It’s just sad. This whole Lightless Realm thing comes down to a petty squabble over a boy. Like yeah, this whole thing started because the village got torched, but the primary conflict right now is all because of Tsugumi’s jealousy. It’s just sad. Even when a woman writes this shit, the story is still about girls getting all irrational with each other over a boy.

– So Akashi finds the Reaper and races back to his friends with it. He and his bro now have a strong link simply because Akashi is determined to save Sasame. Of course, this just means the mecha is highlighted in white.

– So Akashi beats down the Corpse, and tries to convince the crazy girl to leave the Lightless Realm with him. Lemme see… oh, it’s just the 17th episode? Yeah, naturally, Akashi’s plan doesn’t work. But that’s it. The good guys finally leave the Lightless Realm after being in it for… what? The past five episodes? Still, we’ve got to be coming up on the final end stretch, right? The thing is, the story just feels small. There are no grand ideas here. No big thematic significance between the Lightless Realm. It’s just a love triangle gone bad.

If you’ll recall, I put up a poll in last week’s post, asking people to name their three most underrated shows of the season. According to my readers, those three shows are Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun (18% of the votes), Terror in Resonance (12%), and Tokyo Ghoul (8%). I can understand Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun‘s placement, because even though I have it ranked fourth every week, I rarely ever talk about the show. But the other two shows getting so many votes just doesn’t make much sense, especially Terror in Resonance. Don’t most people consider it the best anime of the season? And yet you guys still think it’s underrated? I mean, it’s okay to vote for a show you don’t particularly care for. As long as you think it’s underrated, it doesn’t matter if you like the show or not. If it’s underrated, it’s underrated. But whenever a poll like this shows up, people tend to just vote for the best shows. Ah well, I should have expected this. Oh, if you’re curious, Persona 4: The Golden Animation came in dead last with a single vote.

By the way, anything below fourth kinda sucks, so don’t make the mistake of thinking a show is good just because it’s sixth or something.

Dropped: Free! Eternal Summer

I’m just too lazy to bother.

18. Rokujyoma no Shinryakusha!?

Boring.

17. Seirei Tsukai no Blade Dance

Slightly less boring trainwreck is still superior to just plain boring.

16. Akame ga Kill!

The worst part about this week’s episode isn’t Seryu’s laughably stupid guns. The worst part is the show’s exploitative nature. Countless female characters are brutalized and tortured just to give our heroes a reason to go on their blood-filled rampage. Then when the dirty deed is all said and done, those brutalized and tortured female characters get nothing more than a throwaway line: “Oh, some doctor will take care of them.” That’s beyond messed up.

15. Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei

Surprise, surprise: the new arc fellates Tatsuya just as hard as the first two.

14. Captain Earth

The latest episode had unbelievably bad storytelling. It was so bad, I’m embarrassed for Bones. The show still tops Mahouka, though, because the latter has always been an embarrassment.

13. Rail Wars!

Every single week, readers tell me how stupid this show is. And every single week, the latest Rail Wars! post will outpace the latest Terror in Resonance post in views. I’m not complaining; I just find this really funny.

12. Sword Art Online II

Death Gun’s True Identity Revealed!

The show might as well call itself Talking Art Online, and sadly, what little action we get is uninspired. Worst of all, Kirito’s thought process still just incredibly stupid week in and week out. I won’t get into it too much here, however; I’ve talked about the episode’s flaws enough elsewhere.

11. M3 – Sono Kuroki Hagane

Boy troubles take center stage again in yet another Okada-led anime series. You can wish for anything you want when you win enough matches! Okay, I wish to bang my brother! We can make the Lightless Realm go away! We just have to convince Tsugumi that her sister didn’t steal her man! Yeah, it’s pathetic.

10. Glasslip

Y’know, Yuki’s a giant baby, but Kakeru’s just weird, man. Did you see the way he smiled after Yana dragged Yuki off? Like he planned the whole thing for Yana to take action. Fine, I don’t really have a problem with that. But when a concerned Touko considers going after her friends, he screams out, “LET THEM GO!” Dude, what the hell is wrong with you? He then spews out shit like, “Pieces that I need to make my fractured self solid and whole.”

Yeah, you said it, girl. Plus, what was up with the sideway-flying bird?

Sigh… The only thing this show has going for it is its “good” animation, which, in actuality, is just plastic-looking and sterile like most P.A. Works productions. Last but not least, can we get it a rest with the crooked mouths already?

9. Ao Haru Ride

Oh hey, another anime in which two girls fall in love with the same flawed asshole! On the bright side, at least the shoujos here aren’t literally trying to kill each other over Kou. Still, high school drama is high school drama, and really not worth all the undue attention it always seems to get.

8. Shirogane no Ishi: Argevollen

The scenes with Jamie just drag on and on and on and on… Yeah, I feel sorry for the girl. She ain’t a soldier, and she has no business being on the front lines. Still, that doesn’t make her scenes interesting to watch. Just a clumsy girl tripping over rocks, tearing her pantyhose, etc. It’s just all incredibly boring to me. The small bit of intrigue between Samonji and the 3rd Cavalry is, on the other hand, intriguing. Unfortunately, it takes up such a small part of this week’s episode. Maybe we’ll see more sabotage as the story unfolds, but until then, Shirogane no Ishi: Argevollen still has little to keep my interest.

Case in point, Jamie eventually reaches the Argevollen and gets it back on its feet. So the battle will finally kick off, right? Nah. The anime skips ahead to the aftermath where the good guys have captured the enemy base. Pretty anti-climactic; the fighting was so raw, we didn’t even get to see any of it! There’s also a very short and terse exchange between Samonji and his superior, but it ends up being rather short-lived. Instead, we get more interactions between Tokimune and Jamie, a couple with no chemistry whatsoever. But hey, this is a 2-cour series, so we’ve got all the time in the world to force these two together.

Oh, one more thing: some people think the fights in Argevollen are better compared to the other mecha series currently airing this season, and thus more entertaining. Hey, if you like the show, more power to you. But don’t start casting aspersions just because we disagree.

7. Persona 4 – The Golden Animation

Just the same ol’, same ol’. If you like Persona 4-related fluff, this is the perfect show for you. Otherwise, stay away.

6. Tokyo ESP

I’ll cover last week’s episode along with this week’s episode on Friday.

5. Re:_Hamatora

C’mon, there’s no way Murasaki’s really dead, right? Then again, just how many times will the show overuse this “You thought he was dead, but he’s really not!” gimmick? Anyway, the show’s getting better with every passing week, but I still hesitate to recommend it to anyone. After all, the build-up was so painfully slow and boring.

4. Aldnoah.Zero

I mean, yeah, the anime is still entertaining to watch, but my frustrations with the show are starting to mount. Yes, what we currently have is fine if all you want is a mindless action series, but Aldnoah.Zero could have been so much more. Unfortunately, it seems to be following anime’s recent trend of centering its story around a flawless, emotionless protagonist.

3. Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun

Third?! Well, it’s not because the anime is anything special. It jumps Aldnoah.Zero this week simply because the latter is starting to fuck up.

2. Tokyo Ghoul

I think the adaptation is doing fine.

1. Terror in Resonance

This show probably won’t budge from the top position unless the ending is a serious, serious trainwreck.

Let’s do another poll, and feel free to let me know why in the comments:

Lisa desperately wants to find a place that she belongs, so it isn’t surprising that we find her doing the boys’ laundry at the start of this week’s episode. When Lisa later asks if there’s anything she can do to help them, Nine is incredulous: “Blow things up? Kill people?” Yes, he and Twelve have blown things up, but it’s odd that he’d mention killing people. Neither him nor Twelve can kill people either. It’s not about whether or not they’re physically able to. If they can make bombs, it’s plainly obvious that you can physically kill people as well. But the two boys risked a lot at the end of last week’s episode just to prevent the bomb on the train from killing anyone. Therefore, I’m suggesting that they can’t kill people on a more meaningful level: they are mentally and/or morally unable to. So when Nine wonders if Lisa can kill people, he is perhaps projecting his own insecurities onto Lisa. At the same time — because he sees himself in her — he is trying to push her away. For whatever reason, he can’t save himself. The two boys know something — something very big and earth-shattering — and with this burden of knowledge comes responsibility. They have to complete this mission that they’ve given themselves, whatever it is. Lisa doesn’t have that burden, so Nine doesn’t want her to get involved. He’s trying to save her from having to go down the same path; he’s protecting her in his own way. And hey, for what it’s worth, they still haven’t kicked her out of their apartment yet.

We later see Lisa again on the rooftop, where white sheets are drying on some clotheslines behind her. White sheets on a rooftop often symbolize death in anime, e.g. Mawaru Penguindrum and Sakamichi no Apollon. I thus believe Lisa is strongly considering suicide during this scene. Hell, the thought of suicide must have crossed her mind at least once when she was out on the streets. The morbid thought perhaps subsided when the two boys had taken her in, but after the way Nine had rejected her, she is likely considering it again. As a result, she now stands on the rooftop, gazing out at the sky. Not only that, she’s clinging to the chain-linked fence as if it’s the only thing separating her from certain death. Lisa then asks Twelve what he thinks: “It’s better if I’m not here, isn’t it?” The key thing to consider, however, is where would Lisa go if she is not here. The truth is that she has nowhere else to go. She can’t return home, so her only other option is to return to the streets. The last time she attempted this, however, she fell ill, so you can imagine her body might not survive a second go-around. The problem is that Nine is pushing Lisa away, thinking she’d just return home. He and Twelve might not realize, however, how close to the brink she is. To be fair, he knows nothing about her domestic situation. He also has far weightier things on his mind at the moment, so you can’t really blame him for not considering Lisa’s feelings. Nevertheless, I wonder what Lisa would have done if Twelve hadn’t extended some comforting words her way. In fact, he crosses through the white sheets just to talk to her face-to-face.

Lisa is jealous of the bond that Nine and Twelve share, but not in a malicious way. She just wishes she had someone she was close to. Twelve replies, “Well, we’ve been together for a long time.” He then looks wistfully off to the side. The anime immediately cuts to those white sheets swaying in the wind as Twelve continues to say, “Just the two of us.” We don’t get to see his expression. He sounds resigned as he says it, too. The anime then lingers on the white sheets for a short moment. It almost seems as though Twelve has accepted his and Nine’s eventual deaths, but on the plus side, they’ll die together, i.e. “Just the two of us.” Just earlier in the episode, there’s a peculiar scene where we see Twelve just standing alone on the rooftop, looking to at the sky as white feathers float up around him. There’s something angelic about the scene, almost suggesting that he’s looking forward to the peaceful release that accompanies death. For now, he and Nine have a mission to accomplish, but when they reach their destination, they will be free. In a way, he and his partner have always been prisoners. They were imprisoned at that institute, and even now, they are imprisoned by the memories of their past. For example, Nine frequently suffers from nightmares. As a result, the two boys — Twelve, specifically — may see death as a solace. What’s clear, however, is that Nine and Twelve are always prepared that they may die anytime they go out.

Once again, Five intends to lure the boys into a trap and force them to play games with her by planting a bomb at the international terminal of a big airport. Nine notes that there are 1500 surveillance cameras at the international terminal alone. They are thus walking into Big Brother’s own lair. More importantly, how can you beat your Big Brother? If knowledge is power, how can Nine and Twelve compete with Five? What can the two boys do? Twelve thus suggests that they use Lisa. After all, Lisa is truly the wild card in the story. Lisa is the one person no one on the other side can expect. Five thinks she’s going up against two masterminds like herself, and she isn’t necessarily wrong. When you are that confident in your own predictive abilities, however, you end up developing blind spots. After all, the prediction game is not about looking at the whole picture. Rather, the prediction game is about eliminating from the whole picture unnecessary information. Lo and behold, Lisa’s specialty is that she is no one special. She is just an average girl with average looks and average intelligence. She’s even clumsy to boot, perfectly incapable of cooking even a simple meal. The only rare thing about her that we’ve learned so far is the “color” of her voice. To most people, she is unnecessary information. She is thus the perfect pawn to sneak into the enemy’s backlines.

Of course, Nine initially refuses to include the girl in their plans, but when she personally appeals to him by voicing her desire to become one of them, he finally relents. He doesn’t really have any other option. Hell, Nine initially felt as though there was a good chance their mission could go very wrong: “We just have to move on the assumption that we’ll be caught.” But between that and allowing hundreds of innocent people to die, the two boys have no choice but to act. With Lisa in the mix, we don’t know if Nine feels as though their chances have improved, but it must have if he’s willing to finally take her with them. As for Lisa, it must be frightening and perhaps even irrational to get yourself mixed up with a pair of terrorists, but again, she has nowhere to turn. All she can do is either join the two boys on their mad quest, or go back out onto the streets. And again, considering how her first attempt to survive on the mean streets had gone, the second go-around might’ve spelled death. The problem right now, however, is that Lisa doesn’t know anything. She thinks they’re still playing with bombs and blowing stuff up. She might even think she will have to take a life. The boys have moved past that stage, though: “Isn’t it weird for us to go and stop the bomb?” As a result, even though Lisa is now a provisional member of the team, she still looks lost and isolated. She must be wondering what she has gotten herself into.

Throughout this week’s episode, Terror in Resonance isn’t shy about comparing Five to Big Brother. In Five’s message to the the two boys, she even says, “VON voyage.” This just goes to show you how well Five knows the two boys, a fact which Nine confirms: “She’s telling us that she’s seen through everything.” The anime then cuts to Five as she stands motionless before a wall of monitors. The more important question, however, is who’s more dangerous here? The two boys playing games and blowing things up? Or a government willing to take on such a Big Brother-esque role? The anime is thus toying with appearances and expectations. The two boys appear to be terrorists on the surface, but deep down, they do not wish to kill anyone. On the other hand, any government will always claim it’s acting in its citizen’s best interests, and this is why it will do whatever it needs to do to protect us, even if this might include all sorts of unethical actions such as limitless surveillance. Not only that, the government here is prepared to suffer countless civilian deaths. Yes, Five is calling the shots, but the higher ups are condoning her actions. Hell, take the following exchange between Nine and Twelve. The latter can’t help but wonder if there’s really a bomb at the airport. Nine replies, “…she can just let it blow up and let the police say it was us.” The anime isn’t completely cynical about the government, though.

Rather, the anime feels as though there are special individuals within the government who can still turn things around. Once again, the investigation team is stymied. Once again, the higher ups claim that a different bomb disposal team will take care of the situation, but after last week’s fiasco, we know that they won’t. Even so, the director adds: “It’s an order from the superintendent general. I shouldn’t have to say this, but don’t do anything on your own.” You expect, of course, for Shibazaki to ignore this warning. After all, as this scene is playing out, Shibazaki is transfixed on the riddle on his phone the entire time. In the past, he had to hold back because he had a family to consider. But nowadays, what does Shibazaki have to lose? He appears to be estranged from his own family, and his career is going nowhere. He only joined the investigation out of Kurahashi’s respect for his talents. Otherwise, Shibazaki would still be toiling away in the archives. Ironically enough, Shibazaki ends up not even having to act on his own, because several members of the investigation team ends up joining the old man on his way to the airport. And hey, technically, the director warned them not to act on their own. With a team of five, Shibazaki and company are hardly on their own. But on a more serious note, the anime feels strongly that we can trust the police, even if Nine and Twelve have outwitted them from start to finish. The police apparently have their heart in the right place. At the moment, Terror in Resonance seems to suggest instead that it’s the politicians we can’t trust,

Stray observations:

– At the start of the episode, Five asserts, “That’s why I’m the only one who can catch you, Nine.” She’s smart enough to know that Twelve is there with Nine. It seems, however, she’s only focused on Nine. I wonder why she’s so obsessed with him and almost thinks nothing of Twelve. Later on, Nine has a nightmare of the time he and Twelve escaped from the institute, but Five was left behind. This time, however, the Five in Nine’s dreams starts to cackle evilly as an unnatural light pours out of her orifices. It appears that Nine fears Five’s retribution, but what’s peculiar is how even though Twelve has his own concerns about Five, he is not traumatized by the memory of her. According to Nine, Five could’ve escaped too, but she didn’t: “At that time, if she wanted to run away, she could have.” Is this really true, or is he just telling himself this to assuage any potential guilt he might feel from having left her behind? After all, if his conscience is spotless, then why the recurring nightmares? Why he is he so hung up on her if both he and Twelve had done her right? Could it be that he could’ve helped her escaped back then, but willingly chose not to?

– Here’s the big question: “But why is the FBI sparing their esteemed personnel to work on a domestic incident in Japan?” The official response from Clarence is that America is personally invested in what had been stolen from the nuclear reprocessing facility, but there has to be more to it than that. Did certain important members within the Japanese government request for help or is help being forced upon them? I only ask the latter because this is what Kurahashi noted when he entered the room: “All the higher ups were sitting in a meeting submissively.”

– So Five isn’t an actual field agent of any sort. Rather, before she came here, she was working as a researcher in America. She’s nevertheless been called to Japan… likely due to her past connections to Nine and Twelve. Someone out there is pulling the strings, but who?

– Shibazaki fears that a cornered Sphinx might use the stolen plutonium in their possession as a last resort. While this is a contingency worth considering, knowing what we know about Nine and Twelve, I don’t think they would go there.

– Twelve tells Lisa that he has synesthesia, the strange ability to associate colors with your other senses. And apparently, Lisa has a rare “pale yellow” voice. Does she symbolize a golden ray of hope or something?

– Shouldn’t the investigators find it odd that the latest message from Sphinx isn’t a video? Only Shibazaki finds the latest situation peculiar, but for other reasons: “It’s too practical. It doesn’t feel like there’s an underlying message.”

– Twelve always has a goofy smile on his face no matter what he’s doing.

– Gah, Five’s English accent is distracting. It can’t be helped — I mean, I don’t expect Japanese voice actors to speak English naturally — but it’s still taking me out of the viewing experience.

– When Nine and Twelve reach the international terminal, they learn that Five wishes to finish a high stakes chess match that she and Nine had never finished. Lisa, then, truly is the pawn that everyone, including a lot of people in the audience, seems to underestimate. Let’s see if she will manage to become a queen by the end of the series.

In my most recent Everything Else post, I’m asking people who they think is the best heroine of the season. Well, thus far, anyway. While I won’t reveal the results of this impromptu poll just yet — nor is it even a comprehensive poll by any means — but so far, it seems as though a lot of you guys think Touka is a pretty cool anime character. Personally, I don’t dislike Touka, but here’s the thing… I feel as though a large reason why she stands out from the crowd is due to, well, Ken’s relative ineffectiveness. At the moment, Ken is very green, very idealistic, and very much a wimp. Despite this, I actually don’t mind the guy’s character, but I won’t deny that he can be a bit helpless at times. So understandably, a lot of viewers are frustrated with him. I also think he’s supposed to be somewhat frustrating, though. In fact, I think his actions and reactions make a lot of sense within the context of the story. C’mon, guys, he’s just a dorky bookworm.

Out of nowhere, this nerdy college kid is thrust into the world of dangerous ghouls and sadistic anti-ghoul “doves.” After living the majority of his life in relative comfort, he’s now lost in a world where it’s kill or be killed. He now has to scavenge for dead bodies, because he’s unwilling to hunt innocent people for food. His world has been turned upside-down. So with that in mind, what do you expect Ken to do? Become a battle-hardened veteran overnight? Pursue the doves with reckless abandon? The thing is, the anime’s opening even outright tells us that the guy will eventually get there — that his heart will eventually to turn to stone one day. But I guess we just don’t have much patience nowadays for the coming-of-age process. Even though we deride the Gary Stus of the season for their unrealistic ability to power through every conflict with ease, we seem to be riding Ken’s ass just as hard for his all-too-human reluctance to embrace his ghoulish fate. I don’t really get it.

But back to my original point, because Ken is currently weak, Touka often makes up for what Ken lacks. Touka is a capable fighter. Touka is no-nonsense. Touka does take action. But y’know what? It isn’t always smart to leap into action, It isn’t always wise to take a no-holds-barred approach to life just because you feel as though you have an unerring sense of justice. But first, some context. Last week, we saw Hinami’s father meet his end, and even though her mother survived to see at least another episode, Mado still eventually kills her at the start of this week’s episode. Needless to say, an enraged Touka desperately desires revenge. And I don’t disagree with her necessarily; I certainly don’t disagree with her feelings. Evildoers must be punished, we must attain justice for the weak, blah blah blah. That’s all fine and dandy, but… we can’t always act on our feelings.

When Touka tries to take matters into her own hands, she is not only being very foolish but selfish as well. First, Touka’s foolish to think she could single-handedly take out the four doves by herself. What does she know about them? Does she know what they’re capable of? Why would you pick a fight when you have no information on your opponents? More importantly, however, Touka ignores Renji’s very reasonable argument: even if you do take out the doves directly responsible for the deaths of Hinami’s parents, the anti-ghoul bureau will just send more doves to the 20th ward. Even if you achieve revenge, you’d just endanger the lives of every ghoul in the area. Yes, Touka will be able to quell the anger and hatred in her heart, but is it worth putting everyone at risk? Touka says she’d “feel sorry for [Hinami's mother] if [they] can’t take vengeance for her.” But would killing the doves really make Hinami feel better? Is that the best way to help the grieving child right now? Touka says she can’t bear it when someone like Hinami’s mother has to die, but I still can’t square this logic with putting the entire ward at risk.

Once again, Ken could do nothing but watch. Even though Hinami had run to him for help, all he could do in the heat of the moment was cover the young girl’s eyes and muffle her cries lest she be heard. But honestly, what else could he do? He’s in no fighting shape. He can’t take on Mado alone, much less Mado and his partner. Hell, even Touka finds it difficult in this week’s episode to fight Mado one-on-one. Ken wouldn’t have stood a chance. You might then say, “He should put his nose to the grindstone right from the get-go, and become the strongest ghoul out there!” But it’s only the seventh episode. And the kid has other responsibilities. I don’t think it would have made very much sense for some green ghoul to just go toe-to-toe with a senior anit-ghoul investigator. There are trade-offs here. You could certainly turn Ken into a super-duper fighter overnight, but you’d destroy the credibility of the narrative. Plus, do we need another Tatsuya, Kirito, or Inaho?

Yoshimura seems cold when he denies Touka any assistance, but he isn’t just responsible for her life. He’s responsible for every ghoul out there who depends on Anteiku. Plus, he warned her not to make a move. They all did. She deliberately ignored their better advice and acted on her own. She willingly put not just herself but everyone in the 20th ward at risk. I can’t fault Yoshimura for his actions. We then see that Amon is more determined than ever to change “this wrong-way world of ours.” Violence just begets more violence. Mado kills Ryouko, so Touka kills Kusaba Ippei, one of the doves. Now, Amon wants revenge, and the cycle will just continue on forever. Luckily for Touka, however, she isn’t alone. Yoshimura has too much on his plate to run off on some misguided crusade for justice. Ken is alone, though. He has no family, and he has only one close friend. As such, our ineffectual hero can afford to help Touka out. He even says he’s tired of not being able to do anything. It has been a process, but Ken’s getting there. Most of all, I think he’s getting there organically, and I hope Touka will also gain something from this experience.

Plus, they’re the main characters, so it’s not like anything’s going to happen to them anyway.

This is an anime about trains.

– What’s the gimmick this episode? The entire team will undergo JNR PSF advanced training. I love acronyms, by the way. They make me feel SVFH. IYDLIYCSMD.

– Dear god, he actually has a line. He has a line in this week’s episode!

– What does our hero find so awesome? Literally just a train entering a tunnel. But look at him. He’s like a pathetic puppy around trains. But guys, it’s the steepest slope in the entire country! Naoto even goes, “Look, Sakurai! Your drink’s slanting! That’s how steep this thing is!” Mind. Blown. Somehow, all the girls want this guy’s dick.

– Wait, this again? Did Rail Wars! just decide to drag out the unused animation frames from the first episode? Well, let’s face it: since they’re reusing the training subplot, recycled fanservice is fair game.

– Haruka’s face in this shot.

– Aoi goes to comfort an exhausted Naoto just to find that Haruka has beaten her to the punch. Is it time for the girls to compete for the dork’s heart already? FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT!

– Hell, let’s make this a harem while we’re at it. We’ll just drag this familiar face back into the picture. Who knew an anime about train would end up being a harem? Maybe I should have included Rail Wars! in Harem Hill, but silly ol’ me actually thought the show would be about trains… and people trying to privatize the train industry. Speaking of which, is that particular plot ever going to rear its head? Or did some guy actually write light novels after light novels of nothing but filler episodes?

– Ooh, wrong move, dude. In anime world, however, both Haruka and Mari don’t seem to think much of Naoto randomly dissing Aoi out of nowhere.

– Everyone just orders the same damn thing: five plates of katsu curry (three of them are for the guy who never talks).

– Only Naoto gets pickled veggies on his plate because he has “this thing with leeks.” Mari just knows him that well, and all of the other girls are jealous of their closeness. In other words, the harem battle has begun. But seriously, pickles with curry? First, the instant brown curry paste that may as well be concrete mix, but hey, I didn’t complain. Then, the stupid apples to make my curry way too sweet, but still, I said nothing. And now pickles? Stop ruining curry!

– Afterwards, Naoto and Aoi are back at the shooting range. Naturally, the harem lead can’t hit the broad side of a barn, so the instructor instructs him–… no, he tells Aoi to do help Naoto instead. Dokidoki, she has her arms all over me even after I dissed her in front of all my friends. But still, it makes you wonder what the instructor is even for if he’s not there to teach.

– Didn’t we already have a hot springs episode? But y’see, this isn’t the hot springs! It’s just a bath! Plus, this episode is all about recycling! We’re undergoing training again! We’re meeting Mari again! We get to see Haruka and her comically-flopping breasts on the tracks again! Naoto and Aoi at the shooting range again! And sure, why not, let’s all take a bath again. Recycling is good for the environment, you guys. Ergo, recycling is good for anime. That’s why these anime shows are all the same. You have to conserve storylines. If you keep coming up with new stories, we’ll run out of story resources, and the world will end!

– Uh-oh… drama! Aoi selflessly volunteers to spend time with the harem lead and help him learn how to fight. Naoto reveals, however, that he has no intention of joining the PSF. He only wants to drive trains. So, uh, why the hell is he even here, then? He answers, “That’s because I heard we’d get to drive an EF63.” That just cracks me up. The guy is such a baby, but in anime world, he’s got multiple girls pursuing him.

– Personally, I wouldn’t care. Even if the guy was my best bro, I’d be like, “Well, you gotta do what you gotta do, man. And if it makes you happy to drive trains — as silly as that sounds to me — go for it.” But not here, nuh-uh. Haruka is speechless, but an infuriated Aoi storms off in a huff. Not before she blushes with embarrassment when he points out how happy she was to train him, of course:

Uguu, how dare you! I thought we were going to be co-workers together forever!!! I mean, it’s not like you can’t still have a relationship just because the guy intends to be a train driver. How many people actually work with their significant others? Oh, I’m sure many do, but my point is that many more don’t. And it doesn’t seem to impact any of us! But in anime world, you gotta have this contrived drama where it’s the end of the world just because the harem lead won’t join the PSF.

– We later see Naoto in the bath, confused over Aoi’s reaction: “What’s wrong with wanting to be a train driver?” Her feelings are not really that difficult to decipher, dude.

– For some reason, we see a flashback in which a younger Naoto had collapsed in the cold when he was trying to photograph a moving train. Back to the present, a grown-ass Naoto has collapsed in the bath, forcing Haruka to pull him out. Oh hey, what do you know? The bathing times for the two sexes have overlapped! You object, but how else would we get delicious fanservice?

– A delirious Naoto proceeds to lie there and tell the girls his life story. Someone inspired him to be a train driver, you guys. A brave and amazing train driver saved him when he had stomach troubles. And from then on, he just knew he had to become a train driver!

You’d think a show like this would go for an inspirational story that is a little more dramatic than a dude saving a kid with diarrhea. Like maybe a pregnant woman is going to die if they don’t get back to civilization in time, but oh no! A landslide is impeded our path! The brave, heroic train driver nevertheless figures out a way to rock on through the obstruction! Hurrah! But no, we get nothing crazy or silly like that. Just shota Naoto having some stomach pain.

– Y’know, other than the fanservice, the show has been so mundane ever since we had that silly “LEARN TO SHOVEL COAL INTO THE RIGHT AREAS!” training exercise. You’d think a show like this would go for broke to at least entertain the people who aren’t here for T&A, but sadly, this is not the case.

– “I want to be him,” Naoto confesses, “A driver who appreciates life most of all…” Uh, okay. If, like, the train driver had saved Naoto’s life at the cost of, say, meeting a crucial deadline, I would understand what the harem lead is getting at. But he’s being awfully dramatic about a dude who simply stopped to save a little boy from his stomach troubles.

– Haruka tries to assure the guy that Aoi understands his feelings, but Aoi has already left the room. Oh well, that didn’t work out too well. What else you got for me, Haruka?

This is an anime about trains. This is an anime about trains. This is an anime about trains.

– Naoto goes, “Sorry about last night. You must think I’m a kid.” This is how Haruka reacts.

– The harem lead notices that Aoi is still avoiding him, so he’s all bummed out about it.

– All of a sudden, someone starts lecturing us about the Usui Pass. Then, exciting train diagrams! See, this is what I thought the show would be like! Not a show that has — let’s be honest — managed to out-harem the two actual harem shows I’ve been following this season. I mean, bitch about Seirei Tsukai no Blade Dance’s shitty story all you want, but at least it hasn’t shoved a girl’s labia in our face. So far, only Rail Wars! and (not surprisingly) SAO have had that distinction. Still, I don’t give a fuck about trains, so let’s fast forward through this nonsense.

– But why did I start watching this series then if I don’t care about trains? When the first episode aired, I was curious to see what the show would be like, so I blogged it on a whim. Then, Day told me afterwards that people wanted me to follow this show, so it was like, “Fine, I guess!” And what do you know! Only SAO has managed to beat Rail Wars! in terms of views! Shh, shh, it’s okay Terror in Resonance. I still think you’re the best show of the season.

– We now see Naoto driving his precious old-ass train, but a bitter Aoi still won’t talk to him. So even though he wants to break, she keeps speeding them up. Yeah, that’s pretty much the extent of it… TRAIN DRAMA! WE SPEED UP WHERE YOU SLOW DOWN. CAN YOU HANDLE IT?

– Naoto has no choice but to hit the brakes at their speed, which then causes the whole train to derail… but it’s okay! None of it is even real! We have a train anime where the train action is all simulated. Fucking sweet!

– A now-morose Naoto confesses to Mari that he’s probably not cut out for the PSF, so she tells him to believe in himself. That’s enough for him to say, “You really understand people’s feelings.” Great writing.

– I’ve just noticed it now, but it’s weird how empty the entire academy is. You’d think we’d see other students walking around, but no, it’s just our four heroes, Mari, and a single instructor. The anime feels like a ghost town. I guess we only have a budget for fanservice, not animating extras.

– With a day off tomorrow, it’s up to Naoto to personally invite Aoi to join him and the rest of the team to enjoy a night out on the town. He elects to send her a text message. How impersonal.

– The next morning, the girls are all dressed up. Meanwhile, Naoto looks like he’s still sitting at home, playing with his train models. and Sho is wearing a wifebeater. And Asian guys wonder why they are not often seen as sexy…

– But our casanova over here is just so smooth!

– Nana suddenly calls the harem lead, and she needs him to pick someone up at a nearby church. When our hero gets there, he somehow finds Aoi there too:

And of course, the tsunderekko now looks all girly-girly and shit: “What’s it to you? I like this stuff too.” Of course you do. The two are about to share a moment when all of a sudden, a teary-eyed Haruka shows up, and accuses him of lying to her.

Holy shit, is she going to go yandere on us? It feels as though Rail Wars! is aware of this sudden serious turn in the story, however, so it pulls back and reveals that Naoto was supposed to pick up Noa, the idol from the beach episode, all along:

And now, all the girls are mad at him. The harem ending never works, you guys. Just pick one girl and settle down with her.

Gotta admit… I’m still not super excited about this show, so I’ll make this quick and painless.

What I liked:

– Peggi’s cool.

– We have a bit of a reversal in the damsel-in-distress storyline: Kyotaro’s trapped in the big bad baddie’s lair, and it’s up to Rinka to get stronger and save him. Of course, there’s no guarantee that she will end up saving him, but it’s shaping up to look that way. But seriously, what we have here isn’t exactly groundbreaking, but Rinka’s the lead of her own show, so it’s nice to see the story play out that way.

– The fighting on the tanker was alright. In fact, the whole tanker scene was kinda cool in concept.

– Rinka’s strong, but not overpowered. As cliche as it is to see her train with her overprotective dad. at least she’s actually training.

– The bad guys get away with it… for now. It’s a minor point, but at least it’s something. After watching shows like Captain Earth where every little conflict is wrapped up by the end of the episode with a nice, tidy bow, it’s not to see the bad guys get the upper hand every now and then.

– There are even actual consequences to the bad guys’ actions. I’m not happy to see anyone in pain, but it is so unbelievable when there are no actual casualties. Again, in Captain Earth, we have yet to see a single person lose their life even though the anime repeatedly tries to convince us that the Kiltgang aliens have the potential to wipe mankind off the face of the planet. When bad things happen, people do die. We shouldn’t celebrate it, but we shouldn’t shy away from reality either. I feel too many shows are off in la-la-land, and as a result, I just can’t get emotionally invested in them. That’s not to say I’m emotionally invested in Tokyo ESP yet, but… well, it’s not a bad show. A decent popcorn anime, I guess. Nothing something I’d sit down and analyze, but not something that would make you facepalm either.

What I disliked:

– Generic “Have you taken this seriously yet?” plotline.

– Kyotaro’s personality isn’t very inspiring. Actually, he puts me to sleep.

– As cool as the tanker scene was, the animation when the characters started fighting was a little choppy. That was disappointing to see.

– I imagine the Professor is the primary villain of the series? Well, at least he is for this arc, anyway. Sadly, he’s not very interesting. There’s nothing wrong about his character per se. It’s just been done before. Basically, he’s the one releasing all the glowing fishes into the wild, which causes people to awaken to their “latent powers.” Why? He intends to create a new world order where, I’m sure, espers like himself are the rulers of the world.

This story is perfectly fine… except we’ve seen it a billion times before. It’s not Tokyo ESP‘s fault that others have already beaten it to the punch, but I just can’t get excited to see the same ol’ plot unfold each and every time I watch a story about humankind waking up to special powers. Sure, there are slight variations every time we see this particular trope play out, but that’s not enough.

– After all these episodes, I still don’t see why the first episode was necessary. The knowledge I got from watching it hasn’t exactly enhanced the viewing experience of episodes two through six. In fact, I’ve mostly forgotten about the first episode.

– Rinka seems to have developed a crush on Kyotaro. On paper, I don’t care who pairs up with who (Rinka’s father and Kobushi is probably a bad idea, though). In fact, I kind of like seeing romance in the shows that I watch. A good romance just give you that warm, fuzzy feeling when it’s done right. Having said that, I’m not trying to imply that the budding romance between Rinka and Kyotaro is a disaster, but the way it has developed just doesn’t seem all that convincing to me. I feel as though they barely know each other. So when I see her blushing and thinking about the guy at night, I just don’t buy it, I guess.

It feels like the romance has been rushed or shoehorned into the story simply because the two main leads are of the opposite sex (but thankfully not related).

What I hated:

– Creepy pervert panda. I don’t care if his name is Master Roshi. Sexual harassment wasn’t funny then, and it isn’t funny now.

– Pointless censorship. There’s no need to elaborate on this.