Yes, yes… donuts will cure all ills. If someone’s going to be stop being your friend even though you’re both enjoying a delicious apple fritter, then they’re not worth the trouble anyway! 100 yen donuts are pretty expensive, though. It’s just fried dough and sugar. Man, now I want donuts. My girlfriend makes killer churros, too…

– So what’s going on now? Oh right, right, Futaba will definitely tell Yuri that she’s in love with Kou now. Definitely ’cause we can’t drag this out any further!!!

Futaba: “But still… I bet I’ll still lose my nerve when it comes down to it.”

Welp.

– She then tells herself she’ll get a crew cut if she fails. I kind of want to see that, because anime shoujos almost never give themselves an ugly hairdo. Because of that precise reason, however, you know she’d never go through with it.

– Yuri naturally wants to invite Shuko, because the more the merrier, right? Futaba frets, however, because she obviously wants alone 1-on-1 time to confess her feelings: “Are you saying I have to talk about this in front of Murao-san?!” Well, why don’t you just take the time to call Yuri later that night? Why do you have to talk to her in public? Why do you have to talk to her face-to-face? This isn’t a break-up. Hell, I even think it’s silly when people go, “Did you know he didn’t even break up to me in person? What a coward!” It’s really weird, though. In a lot of these anime series, the characters only ever use the phone as a necessity, not as one additional form of communication.

– Of course, it’s an anime, so watching two people talking on the phone isn’t as exciting as if they were talking in person, but I guess I just don’t put much stock in this conversation. Honestly, this is how it would play out between a friend and me: “Hey, look, I like the same girl as you. It just happened; I didn’t do it to spite you. You cool?” And if they’re not, oh well. Why be friends with someone who gets mad at stupid shit like that? Part of growing up is realizing when to cut your losses. But this is fiction, so any potential loss of a friend is treated like you’re witnessing an earth-shattering event.

– Asumi, a former friend, suddenly chimes in and asks, “Are you seriously hanging out with Makita Yuri?” Non-friends in any anime are so toxic, man. What is wrong with you people? Why are you guys so mean? More importantly, why do you guys even care?

– Oh my God, these people are so weird. Yuri extends her invitation to Shuko, but she goes, “Why?” Why what? You’re just eating donuts with two friends. Do you really need to ask why?

– But back to Futaba for a moment, she reflects that she really has changed since the start of the series. Eh…

– She then says, “Yuri’s not ‘in name only.’ She’s a real friend I care about.” Odd thing to hear, in my opinion. Even if her former friends were shallow and mean, I’m pretty sure Futaba cared for them too.

– Apparently, the donut place is called “Nuts Donuts.” Okay then.

– So finally, they’re at the donut place, and Futaba is freaking out as we expected. That’s why I said to just do it over the phone.

– But after much hand-wringing, the girl finally spits it out. Well, I’ll give the show one thing: we’re only five minutes into the episode. Still, it shouldn’t have been this painful. In fact, kids go through all sorts of nonsense at school, so it’s kind of silly that these shoujo anime are fixated on love and nothing but love. How about the problem of stress from exams? Or stress from the pressure to get into a good school? Other forms of bullying? Pressure to have sex? Eating disorders? Self-harm? The are so, so many, many serious issues to talk about and yet all we ever talk about are boys. I would love to watch an anime that deals with a teenage problem besides whether or not the heroine will get together with the hot guy. And y’know, people always tell me how these anime series speak to them: “Wow, growing up, I totally identified with so-and-so, especially because she wasn’t perfect!” So I can’t help but think, “Man, how many teens going through self-harm, for example, would identify with and be inspired by an anime character who manages to battle through the same problem?” But screw that! BOYS BOYS BOYS BOYS.

– Hell, we needn’t even stray very far from the source material itself. Kou is facing problems at home right now, but we see nothing but “Uguu, I don’t to have dinner with you, oniichan!” How can this be such a neglected topic? I know Futaba’s the star of the show, so fittingly, the perspective of the story is fixated on her. But c’mon, we’re not talking about some minor problem afflicting a minor character. The main love interest comes from a broken family! That deserves some attention, no? But Kou’s issues are relegated to the background for some odd reason. It’s like we have to hush up about serious issues. Love problems? Well, that’s okay! But the inner details regarding Kou’s domestic issues? Almost nothing. Almost nothing at all. It’s like we’re afraid to talk about it, which is just very silly, in my opinion.

– Anyway, Yuri takes it well. She does go off to the restroom later to kind of collect herself, but obviously, the girl isn’t going to like Futaba any less over this. Man, I’m tired of this topic already.

– So then Shuko feels the need to confess her love for Kou’s brother! Oh my God, who caaaaaares? In some alternate universe out there, however, I bet shoujo anime are all about, say, eating disorders, and a different me is whining about how we never see shoujo anime focus on teenage love… naaaaaaah. This is mundane shit any way you slice it, especially when you’re in love with a grown adult who can’t (or rather, shouldn’t) reciprocate your feelings. ‘Cause honestly, I don’t care who anyone likes. The truth is that most high school relationships never work out in the long run anyway, so knowing that, I can’t take any of this seriously. You might chime in to say, “Well, I’m still with my high school sweetie!” And that’s great! I don’t begrudge you your happiness! But that doesn’t change the fact that you’re an exception, not the rule.

– Wow, I hadn’t realized Nuts Donuts was actually in a 2-story building. Fancy donut place.

– And Aya likes Shuko, but we already knew that.

– Futaba tells herself she can now get close to Kou without feeling guilty, so who should she run into? Kou! What a small world!

– Oh my God, what a drama queen. Kou is worried that some stray kitten isn’t getting enough to sleep, so Futaba suggests that he take the kitten into his own home. Sure, that makes sense. So how does Kou respond? No, I can’t! If I take the kitten in, I’ll have to care for it! And “[c]aring for things brings a lot of trouble.” It’s a cat, not a pair of bickering parents. The cat isn’t going to divorce you. This is what I mean, though. Kou is so fucked up on the inside, he’s afraid to adopt a fucking cat when cats are so easy to care for. The anime should focus more on this guy’s pain, but instead, we’ve spent time at some leadership retreat, spent time hand-wringing over falling in love with the same guy, blah blah blah.

– What’s even dumber is how Kou is practically screaming, “I’m hurt on the inside!” with that previous statement, but Futaba says nothing. She just stares at him until he gets up and leave. What about the kitten? What about spending 100 or 200 yen to get it some cheap tin of food? CARING FOR YOU ONLY INVITES TROUBLE, KITTY. YOU’LL JUST TAKE A DUMP ON MY HEART AND BURY IT IN LITTER!

– Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!! We’re still on the “Caring sucks” statement from Kou. What does Futaba think as the guy walks away? “U-uguu, does this mean he doesn’t care about school or his friends either?” Really? Really?! That’s what you take away from his statement? Instead of “Man, he seems to have some trust issues, so I should try to be someone he can confide in,” she wonders if he even cares about his friends. That is so bullshit. He’s obviously done nice things for his friends. Remember how he helped Yuri cross the river? Remember how he constantly stayed behind to watch over Futaba or keep her company? NO DUDE, THAT’S NOT REAL CARING. DOES HE REALLY CARE? I NEED TO KNOW! Holy fuck, how self-absorbed do you have to be that this is the first thought that pops into your head?

– Futaba then goes, “Hearing something like that… It makes me anxious.” Greeeeeeat. You’re anxious. And then she ditches the poor cat.

– She then proceeds to stalk the guy. That’s just… I don’t even know, man. The guy has trust issues, and he didn’t want to tell her where he was headed. So the first thing she does is betray his trust by butting into on his personal life? How does that make any sense?

– In the end, Kou ends up meeting with a bunch of other people his age at some outdoor plaza, and everyone seems to be having a decent time chatting. But let’s ask Futaba what she thinks! “Kou looks like a person from another world, she says, “I don’t like it.” HOW DARE YOU TALK TO PEOPLE I DON’T RECOGNIZE! YOU USED TO BE SHY. YOU USED TO BE SHYYYYYYYYYYYY!

– Then she actually walks up to him and blows up: “What are you doing?” When he asks why she’s even mad, our heroine makes up some excuse about how he should be studying. Man, let’s follow the guy when he didn’t want to be followed. Let’s then make a scene in front of his friends. Let’s make up an obvious lie when he asks you why you’re mad. You’re 3-for-3, girl! Go for the cycle!

– So feeling attacked, Kou lashes back immaturely: “…she’s got chubby legs, and she doesn’t have a trace of femininity.” Ugh, I hate all of you. You’re all assholes.

– One of the friends makes a comment about Futaba’s breasts, which disgusts Kou. As a result, he ends up going home even though he had only gotten there. Good job, Futaba. Good job. She’s all gleeful and shit as she runs after him too. Good lord. I don’t even see what the problem was. He went to hang out with some friends at night. Who the fuck cares? This girl does, apparently.

– The girl continues to stalk the guy even after he tells her not to. Flip the genders. After the girl yells and tells him off, imagine a guy going, “But… I just can’t stand it!” It would be scary and creepy as fuck for the girl. But uguu, she can’t stand it, so it would be so cute if she just follows him like some sad puppy!

– Eventually, Kou takes a break and even buys her a drink. I guess stalking the shit out of him works. Take notes, girls! Stalk your love interests!

– Kou even admits he only hangs out with those people to kill some time. Again, it seems pretty harmless to me. Futaba, however, has the nerve to ask, “Do you do bad things, Kou?” What? He met some people and hung out with them! Did they look like hoodlums or something? Were they doing drugs? Were they starting trouble? I don’t get it! What am I missing? Kou comes to the conclusion that she’s asking if he’s drinking or smoking, but what the hell? I didn’t see anyone do drugs. And why the fuck would you drink out in the open like that?

– Eventually, the girl blurts out that he could just talk to her if he needs to talk to anyone. So how does he respond? “Aren’t you letting your guard down too much? You could get assaulted.”

Man, fuck this shit. You people are all messed up.

Mmmm, tasty bugs. Unfortunately, this guy doesn’t look like a bug you can eat. Anyway, all I know is that this OVA is supposedly a prequel to an upcoming fall anime series. Other than that, however, I’m going into Terra Formars rather cold, and I have very little idea of what to expect. I’ve heard some basic details about the premise, but that’s about it. Oh yeah, I’ve heard so far is that the currently ongoing manga features a pretty high level of violence and gore. Despite Sidonia no Kishi‘s dystopian feel, the anime adaptation’s aesthetics kept it from ever looking too raw or unsettling. There’s nothing particularly scary about plastic-looking Gaunas. Maybe Terra Formars can make up for that shortcoming. Of course, things change when you’re broadcasted on televsion. I have no doubts the TV series itself will be censored in some form or another. But this is an OVA so… who knows? We might even see something juicy in it. But anyway, before I get started, if you have read the manga before, I would highly prefer it if you could keep yourself from posting any spoilers. Not everyone has read the manga or, like myself, even reads manga.

The OVA’s story focuses primarily around BUGS 2 and their failed mission on Mars. Needless to say, BUGS 1 had failed as well. Basically, humans tried to terraform the red planet by releasing a special moss and cockroaches onto it. The idea is that when the cockroaches died, they would serve as food for the moss, thereby allowing the moss to spread around the planet. Due to the planet’s harsh conditions, however, the cockroaches suddenly evolved rapidly in just 500 years. By the time BUGS 1 landed on the surface, the descendents of the cockroaches look more like humans than they do bugs (although they do retain certain bug-like features). Oh yeah, they hate humans too. Isn’t that nice? So of course, the evolved cockroaches, now dubbed Terraformars, murdered the entire BUGS 1 crew. In their infinite wisdom, Earth decided to send another group of humans to Mars, and this would be the BUGS 2 crew. In the anime’s intro, however, we learn that BUGS 2 had only two survivors. One of them is Shokichi, and we now get to see what he had to live through on Mars.

Shokichi and his childhood friend Akita find themselves on Mars due to a series of unfortunate circumstances. Because of the danger that the Terraformars pose, no one really wanted this job. Unfortunately, the members of BUGS 2 can’t get hired anywhere else. Akita, in particular, was swamped with debt and “living like a maggot” according to one of the other team members. As for Shokichi, he once protected his friend from rape by murdering her father. Naturally, he was only defending her, but you know what these stories are like. Likely branded forever as just another violent thug, Shokichi had no choice but to sign up for this expedition. Sadly, even though he was able to protect Akita then, he is unable to protect her now. They quickly encounter a Terraformar on the surface of Mars, but for some reason, they think it’s just a Martian…? Anyway, the evolved cockroach then instantly snaps Akita’s neck. Just as Shokichi was about to retaliate, however, the dying girl uses every last ounce of her strength to tell him that she doesn’t want to see him lose control of himself again. Even when she’s dying, she thinks he can just talk it out with the cockroach-thing. Yeah, I don’t even know…

As you watch the OVA, it becomes clear that Mars has become the site for some twisted experiment. After all, if you really intend to exterminate the Terraformars, you would simply send robots or some unmanned drones to get the job done. This is the year twenty-five-something, after all. Even if we can’t somehow can’t perfect robots by then, I expect us to have some pretty impressive unmanned drones for this sort of job. The powers-that-be, however, don’t appear to be interested in that. This Newton guy, obviously evil from the way he looks, sounds as though he’s relishing the chance to watch BUGS 2 engage in mortal combat with the Terraformars. He even comments that he’s not sending humans to fight the evolved cockroaches. Rather, thanks to the BUGS procedure, which endows people with the power of bugs, the members are BUGS 2 are arguably no different from the Terraformars themselves. So what’s going on here? After seeing the results of the BUGS 1 expedition, did some evil people decide to send combatants to Mars just to see how the Terraformars would adapt?

One thing for sure, I have a natural aversion to the human characters’ insect powers. I realize what the story is going for: the story wants to make a direct comparison between the enhanced humans and the enhanced cockroaches. This is a tale of man-driven evolution gone wrong. We essentially have the horrors of transhumanism, but instead of nanomachines dehumanizing us, it’s the ability to insert other species’ DNA into our own bodies. But still, it’s a little too on the nose, don’t you think? What do I mean by this? I’m sitting here, watching this God Lee guy put his palms together and shoot out a fireball like he’s Ryu from Street Fighter II. Shokichi, on the other hand, can apparently sting his enemies like an angry hornet. You then have some corny narrator describing each member’s powers, and it just takes me out of the story completely. People are dying left and right, but the guy just drones on and on like it’s some fucking documentary. Ho ho ho, these two over here are the only ones who thought to hunt! The premise isn’t bad, but the execution leaves me wanting; the battles feel like they come from a cheap shounen.

Ah well… unless you’re a major character, your insect powers do nothing for you anyway. Eventually, everyone begins to drop like flies (no pun intended); it’s one of those shows where few will survive — if any — and the ending will be grim and bittersweet — if there will ever be ending. On the bright side, there isn’t any out-of-place fanservice here nor will you find any misplaced humor. It’s just straight up murder, one gruesome death after the other. Donatello may have bought the rest of his team — minus Tejas’s head, of course — enough time to escape, but escape to where? The Martian landscape may look beautiful in the sunset, but it has nothing to help the fleeing humans. And maybe that’s the point. In this strange land, we’re the cockroaches and they’re the humans. Their blind hate for us is no different from our blind hate for them. Of course, we hate cockroaches because they’re a vector for disease and what not, but shhh, let’s not get bogged down too much by the details. In any case, when part two of the OVA finally comes out, we’ll find out how Shokichi and Ichiro, the other lucky individual managed to escape back to Earth.

Stray observations & misc. notes:

– It’s funny how somethings will never change. I am specifically referring to the architecture of the future. Ask yourself if you’ve ever seen the inside of a futuristic building not look like this. The aesthetics of the future are typically utilitarian, austere, cold, etc. So of course, both the walls and floor appear to have been made of stainless steel. They are also uniform in color. At the same time, what’s with the random lines running about. I highly doubt they actually mean anything other than “this looks like the inside of a machine.” How long have we seen architecture like this and how much longer will it continue to define the nebulous future for us?

– “We can talk this out, right?” That seems… unwise. Why would you ever decide to get so close to the creature, especially when it is so much bigger than you?

– Did you ever wonder what it would look like to see a bunch of evolved cockroaches hold guns? Well, here you go…

– I think this was supposed to be funny.

– Here are some natural questions that arose through the course of watching the OVA. How smart are the Terraformars anyway? And do they have a society? Do biologically female Terraformars look any different from the biologically male Terraformars? What do they eat to survive on this rock full of nothing but dirt and moss? It doesn’t look like they’re interested in eating their human victims, after all.

Yes, I am free of Rokujyoma no Shinryakusha!? forever. The voting was close…

…and a lot of you guys wanted me to keep watching that dreck, but in the end, cooler heads prevailed. So let’s just get on with our lives and laugh at Seirei Tsukai no Blade Dance until the new season begins.

– Fianna has a nightmare about her encounter with Claire’s sister, but we don’t really care about that, now do we?

– Nah, what we care about are three instances of the heroines being tsundere in just the first five minutes alone. Kamito has come to Fianna’s room to discuss their mission to the mining town (yeah, remember that little subplot?). Fianna, of course, teases him, but she is taken aback when he treats her nicely. As a result, she goes, “No, why…”

Not to be beaten, Claire tries to listen in on the conversation. When Fianna tricks Kamito into saying something incriminating, Claire bursts into the room with her whip, and threatens to abuse the harem lead. Okay, we’ve got the tsuntsun part down. Where’s the deredere part?

She doesn’t really hate him! She just wishes he’d pay attention to her and tiny chest, uguu. Elsewhere, Rinslet spots Kamito running off with Fianna, so she expresses how she suddenly feels agitated. When her maid teases her about liking Rinslet, she exclaims…

Wow, so many tsunderekkos in one place. Whoever wrote this story just has a thing for girls abusing him. Naturally, the one girl who isn’t tsuntsun with the main character is the maid. Why? Well, she is the maid. Class matters, man. Why do you think tsunderekkos exist? And why do you think they are often strong or headstrong characters with a tragic past? Notice how Claire and Fianna are both nobles who have since been disgraced for one reason or another. Claire carries the burden of her sister’s transgressions. Meanwhile, Fianna can no longer summon her family’s guardian spirit, and as a result, she is ostracized for it. Rinslet has not been as prominent in the story as the other two, but her story’s no different. We’re not supposed to know this yet, but Rinslet is also related to a sister who has done something wrong and is thus cursed for her actions. I think Fahrenfart is the only one without a painfully contrived tragic past, but she nevertheless has a lot of pride to match her social rank.

Now, you might say it’s obvious why the maid isn’t tsundere. After all, she’s a maid, and they’re supposed to be submissive to their goshujin-assholes by default. But that’s not really the point I’m trying to make.

Rather, the larger point is that tsunderekkos only exist so that there can be successively torn down. Whether you’re literally of the noble class or just headstrong, the idea here is to bring you down to a level beneath the harem lead. The reason why the guy endures these girls’ punishment is because the story knows they will be weaker than him, so there’s the satisfaction of having turned the tables around on one’s former abuser. It is all the more special, of course, when your abuser is now a slave to fulfilling your every desire. But how is this often achieved? Well, these girls’ tragic pasts will catch up to them, and they’ll find themselves compelled to jump into the harem lead’s manly arms for his help. It’s why these girls are often from a higher class. We’re breaking class barriers, but in a rather misogynistic way. In the end, the differences in class don’t matter, because biotruths will eventually prevail and make the noble girl fall in love with the guy anyway. Resistance is futile. He is man and thus you want his cock.

The lack of any other male in the story is just pure laziness, because you’d have to justify why these girls are falling for the same harem lead. Some shows do pair the harem lead up with a best friend type character, but the latter is often offset by his extreme pervertedness, which makes it easy for the girls to shoot him down.

– Anyway, for every instance of these characters being tsundere, I will post an equally tsundere shark. It’s the only way to restore balance to this universe.

– Rinslet and Claire proceed to have a deep conversation about breasts. Claire reveals that she had once gone into the forest to look for a large-breasted spirit, ’cause maybe said spirit could give her larger breasts. Sadly, such a spirit doesn’t exist. Great stuff, you guys. Rinslet, however, claims that she knows of a way, but she’ll only reveal it if Claire does something for her. You’ll find out later that Rinslet really only wants to accompany Claire on this mission to the mining town. So y’know, Rinslet is being tsuntsun about her true feelings, and you know what that means:

– Elsewhere, the harem lead finally remembers who Fianna is, and this is what it took:

She may have had the same face this entire time, but guys don’t pay attention to your face, girls! It’s the hair!

– When Kamito asks Fianna why she’s come to this school, she tries to tease him: “But I wanted to make out with you, of course.” Naturally, her teasing backfires on her:

Oh! Is that a girl being tsundere? Shark time!

– Like everyone else, Fianna wants to win the Blade Dance. And because she knows that the harem lead was once Ren Ashbell, she wants to use his strength help her win. And what’s in it for her? “I’d get my position and my honor back.” Fianna wonders why, however, the harem lead doesn’t seem to mind the fact that she’s using him. Well, why should he mind? He’s already won. Like I’ve said, the once proud princess needs the lowly harem lead’s help. Biotruths win out. He needs nothing else. This is the kind of story we’re in, after all. In a world where 99% of the elementalers are women, it’s a guy who won the last Blade Dance. I mean, c’mon. It doesn’t get any more obvious than that.

– Fahrenfart shows up, because she’s also headed for the mining town. Why? She needs to restore faith to the Sylphids, because the Jio guy from last week’s episode had embarrassed them. It’s not quite a tragic past, but again, you have a female character who has been disgraced. At the moment, she thinks she can solve the problem all by herself, but she’ll soon need Kamito’s help.

– If you’ve been wondering about Rinslet’s secret breast-enlargening secret, it’s nothing you haven’t heard before: “…you just need to get the guy you like to rub them.” Just typical anime bullshit. Naturally, Claire can’t help but fantasize about Kamito rubbing her breasts:

Oh, that tsuntsun girl showing her deredere side…

– Claire wonders if she could just rub her own breasts to do the trick, but she starts moaning as she does so. Uh-huh, every woman has a near-orgasm every time anything even touches their breasts. Why do you suppose they wear bras? But unfortunately for the red-headed girl, Kamito suddenly walks in on her at this exact moment, then immediately walks out.

– The day of the mission arrives, but you’d never know it anyway. The entire group, which consists of Kamito, Claire, Rinslet, and Fianna, spends most of their time arguing. Basically, Fianna clings to the harem lead the entire time, and the other girls aren’t even subtle about their displeasure.

– Eventually, the group comes across Fahrenfart getting her ass kicked by that Jio dude deep within the mines. Oh well, what else is new?

– There’s not much to say about the fight. Just two boring characters rubbing their swords up against each other. Since the fight ends on a cliffhanger, we’ll just wrap up the post here.

Anyway, I think it’s much better that I don’t blog another second of Rokujyoma no Shinryakusha!? Harem Hill is about breaking down what makes harem anime so flawed, not boring the shit out of myself because some anime thinks it’s funny.

Naturally, I’m just dying to discuss last week’s wonderful anime. But first, we must discuss our least favorite male leads of the season.

Week 7’s Poll Results

To nobody’s surprise, the contest was a dead heat between the season’s two primary Gary Stus. Sword Art Online II‘s Kirito, however, inched out a small victory by claiming 25% of the votes. For once in his life, Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei‘s Tatsuya could not perform a miracle, and as a result, he barely lost to Kirito with just 23% of the votes. Between the two of them, I would’ve personally voted for Tatsuya. Why? ‘Cause he isn’t even human. Kirito has a lot of annoying things about him, but at least he has emotions. Even if you think his emotions aren’t authentic or compelling, then at least he pretends to have emotions. What really rubs me the wrong way about Tatsuya was that one episode he went “ape-shit” (in reality, he still showed no emotions) on the Chinese gangsters simply because they had put his sister at risk. It’s like every neckbeard’s fantasy to portray themselves as this paragon of logic and intelligence, but ah, there is nevertheless that one trigger that will make him lose control. Tatsuya is basically this pathetic sort of self-insert character, but made even worse because his trigger is his own brocon imouto. So in my book, he’s the king of shit male leads… at least for this season if you want to be conservative. But hey, he’s probably the worst male lead this year. Speaking of which, if I’m still blogging when December rolls around, I should do a year-end poll for these same questions.

I don’t even know…

Even though people have been bashing Aldnoah.Zero‘s Inaho all season, he did not take third in last week’s contest. Of course, this doesn’t mean people don’t nevertheless think he’s the third worst male lead. It’s possible that the people who would’ve voted for Inaho ended up voting for either Kirito or Tatsuya instead. As a result, Inaho only pulled in 6% of the votes. Personally, I think Inaho’s a pretty boring character, but he doesn’t offend me nearly as much as he seems to offend you guys. Hell, I don’t even think Aldnoah.Zero is that bad, but a good portion of my readers nevertheless think the anime’s just as bad as SAO and Mahouka. Oh well, let’s just say I disagree and leave it at that. As perfect as Inaho can be at times, he doesn’t ooze smugness. It’s this small distinction that separates him from the twin Gary Stus at the top of this shit heap.

Akame ga Kill‘s Tatsumi grabbed 7% of the votes, edging out Inaho by a nose. He’s not a great character, but I’m not sure there’s any one thing that makes him so unlikeable. No, no, I’m not saying he’s not unlikeable. I’m saying the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Tatsumi sucks because he is unremarkable in every way, and they all add up to this amalgamation of dullness. Even his character design screams bland. I mean, look at him; he’s just some dude in a sweater. Even when he inherits Bulat’s Incursio, Tatsumi becomes a mini-Shredder reject. He is mediocrity defined.

Tokyo Ghoul‘s Ken won as many votes as Inaho, actually, and he’s probably the most controversial male lead of the season. Yes, Kirito and Tatsuya both take this contest by a landslide, but that’s my point; everyone can agree that those two suck. On the other hand, people either love or hate Ken. I’ve discussed the matter enough, so I won’t launch into another long defense of the guy. Again, I don’t think I’d like him as a person, but he’s fine as a character within a work of fiction. I can separate the two ideas, so I have no problems with how Ken is portrayed.

Other notables:

– Terror in Resonance garnered 5% of the votes, but how many of those votes are simply due to people misreading last week’s question? Then again, maybe someone out there really hates Nine, Twelve, or perhaps both. Unless they speak up, however, we’ll never know…

– Tokyo ESP grabbed for itself a couple votes, but in my opinion, it should’ve gotten more. Kyotaro’s character is just flat as can be. You could call him vanilla, but that’d be an insult to vanilla. But as usual, Tokyo ESP doesn’t get much attention ’cause, well, not a whole lot of people are really watching it.

– Free! Eternal Summer also got two votes, but someone else will have to explain why either Haru or Rin rubs them the wrong way (I’m not sure you can consider anyone else in that cast a male lead). The way fans talk about this show, I’m not sure those two guys could rub anyone the wrong way.

– Ao Haru Ride did not get a single vote, which isn’t surprising in a world dominated by Gary Stus. Kou is a pretty big jackass, though.

– Captain Earth took home five votes all by its lonesome. I only bring Daichi up, because his anime fizzled hard after what a lot of people seemed to consider a solid start. I remember how at the start of series, people went on and on about how deep the show was. People also sung praises about Daichi, because he wasn’t weak and whiny. Since then, Captain Earth has been dying a slow, painful death. It’s okay, buddy. I’ll be here to document your final death throes.

– Despite fans’ almost universal distaste for this season’s train anime, Rail Wars!‘s Naoto slipped by mostly unnoticed with just as many votes as Daichi. To be fair, he isn’t really a character. He’s just there to fill a gap — a horrible, lonely gap in the void that is Rail Wars!

– M3 – Sono Kuroki Hagane’s Akashi cried his way to only three votes. Like Tokyo ESP but to an even greater extent, few are watching this forgotten show.

– Persona 4‘s MC got a single vote; that’s probably CSRae’s doing.

– And again, I voted for Tatsuya all the way, baby.

Week 8’s Rankings

Dropped: Rokujyoma no Shinryakusha!?

Good riddance.

17. Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei

Still the worst anime I’m watching by far. This current arc is so boring, I’d have more fun reading a random manga. People think the re-emergence of the show’s latent xenophobia will suddenly make things more interesting, but it hasn’t. The characters are doing even less than they did in the previous arc. Maybe Madhouse is getting fed up with the story too, because they could’ve nevertheless salvaged these episodes with some tongue-in-cheek campiness. But they didn’t, so here we are. How are those Blu-Ray sales, though? Will this shitty anime actually justify a sequel? Or will ardent fans of the novels get to hope and pray that the show somehow receives a do-over (pfft)?

16. Seirei Tsukai no Blade Dance

Just more tsundere girls farting around. When I first started Harem Hill, I had five amazingly dumb shows to blog about. If one show slipped up, I’d still have four other shows to provide me with material to mock. These days, I’m lucky if I can find even one show to deride… to be fair, I could’ve included shows like SAO and Mahouka into the Harem Hill, but they’re just so special in their own little way that they deserve their own posts!

15. Akame ga Kill!

This anime just held a colloquium on how to suck the fun out of shounen fights. I hope you guys took notes. It was quite a fascinating presentation in laziness.

14. Rail Wars!

The train-anime-that-isn’t-about-trains still had more action in it than Mahouka, which is quite a feat for our little anime that could. I’ll even go out on a limb and say I prefer the action here over what you’d find in last week’s episode of Akame ga Kill! I’ve seen plenty of idiots stand still and swing their swords around at super speeds, but how often do you see a 90 pound shoujo attempt to keep a small train from derailing? Game, set, match Rail Wars!

13. Captain Earth

Let me see your qualifications.

You don’t need to see my qualifications.

I don’t need to see your qualifications.

This is not the same guy who once worked on Utena and Star Driver.

This is not the same guy who once worked on Utena and Star Driver.

We can let this anime die quietly.

You can die quietly.

Move along.

Move along… move along.

People really need to stop creaming their pants every time they see Enokido Yoji’s name. Star Driver wasn’t even special.

12. Glasslip

Aaaand we’re right back to nothing but weird shit happening. What was up with Yana’s random nudity in the middle of the episode? What was up with the show doing three consecutive freeze frames of her stripping her clothes off? Talk about gratuitous. Then there’s this…

Our girl has gone through the rabbit hole and ended up in Frozen. My best guess is that she’s seeing the various different ways her life can play out. Y’know, alternate realities and shit. But my best hope is that the two main characters are just slowly dying from an incurable brain disease, and this explains all the visions that they are seeing. As for the rest of the group, they are selfish anyway, so they can just cannibalize themselves for all I care. In the end, Hiro, the man with two grunts in this week’s episode, can run off into the woods and become a hermit.

11. Ao Haru Ride

The heroine stalks the love interest, who then pins her down to the ground just to prove he can totally assault her if he wanted to. Fan-fucking-tastic.

10. Sword Art Online II

It’s less boring than the shows beneath it, but someone’s going to get their panties in a twist over its placement on this list anyway. Look, every show below Tokyo ESP is shit anyway (and Tokyo ESP itself isn’t even good), so you guys are just getting mad over nothing.

9. Persona 4 — The Golden Animation

Apparently, Adachi had done his best to bond with the Dojima family, but he felt replaced and discarded when Yu came along. So even though he was already a bit screwed up in the head, this was, as they say, the straw that broke the camel’s back. Eh, I don’t know how much I buy this. It just felt so haphazard. I could maybe understand Adachi’s mindset if we had spent more time developing the guy’s character, but we basically got an episode and a bunch of wordless flashbacks from his time before Inaba. It’s the equivalent of “Oh, by the way…” I don’t have a problem with humanizing the villain. Hell, I always thought it was kind of lame that in the original story Adachi was just this guy who went nuts. His motivations then were simple and straightforward: he was just a miserable loser. As a result, giving some context to that pathos makes sense on paper. Still, what we see here was rushed and unconvincing. Plus, if he and Yu are meant to be foils, because of the MC’s nature — being a blank slate and all — he doesn’t hold up his end of the bargain. Being a foil to a blank slate is hard, man.

Oh yeah, Marie recovered her memories and thus had to leave the real world, but I stopped caring about her character a long time ago anyway.

8. Shirogane no Ishi: Argevollen

I dozed off during the extended rematch between Tokimune and Schlein. It just wasn’t fun to watch.

For me, there are two primary ways to go if you want to make a battle scene compelling to watch. First, and perhaps the simplest way, you could just make the combat look cool. I didn’t see the artistry here, though. I just see two hunks of metal going at it. And in general, this is not necessarily a problem. Clearly, Argevollen wants to show off this sort of gritty, down-to-earth mecha combat. The problem here, however, is that gritty usually entails attrition. Even in a show like Captain Earth, the Impacters would come away from a battle somewhat worse for wear. As gritty as the battles in Argevollen may seem, however, Tokimune never comes away from them sustaining anything more than a scratch. So even in this supposedly “raw” presentation, these mecha battles don’t seem life-threatening; they lack weight. I don’t feel as though the hero could lose something valuable every time he fights.

What’s the second way, then? Well, you could portray the battle in a way that the internal conflicts within the characters come forth. What we’re supposed to take away from this rematch is that Tokimune has rededicated himself to being a soldier. Yes, he wants to find out what had happened to his sister, but he’s going to do what he needs to do first, then worry about uncovering the past later. As a result, his “Link Level” with the Argevollen deepens or whatever, and he’s able to repel and defeat Schlein. Well, that’s what you’re supposed to take away from the episode. I just didn’t feel it. It just looked like our hero screamed louder, then all of a sudden, his mecha could dodge Schlein’s attack. Also, it’s really lame that his synergy with the Argevollen is literally represented by a number. There’s this stupid need in anime to bog everything down with “power levels.”

Anyway, I wonder how Samonji felt to see the trampled sunflower field…

7. Re:_Hamatora

Finally, the story delves into Hajime’s past. Apparently, she’s the reason why everyone’s losing their powers; she has the Nihilist Minimum. And because Murasaki spent some time working with her, he suffered the worst. Still, Hajime’s story is nothing special. She used to be a test subject, had no hope, didn’t even have a name, blah blah blah. Naturally, Nice comes along, names her, and gives her a burger. Finally, she has learned what it means to be alive! That’s all it takes, fellas! I hate these stories, because they’re everywhere. Hell, you don’t even need to look very far to find something similar. Hana from Captain Earth, for instance, was a test subject who knew nothing about the world until the special shounen came along and literally saved her from her prison… twice! Basically, these stories are played out and no longer interesting to watch. They’re a dime a dozen. We’ve been waiting for more than a season for the show to finally tell us Hajime’s story, and this is what we get. Pass.

The only interesting thing about this week’s episode was how Koneko and Master knew where to find Hajime. In fact, Koneko wasn’t even sure she should send that information to Nice… what are their true roles in this story?

6. M3 – Sono Kuroki Hagane

I’ll have more on M3 in tomorrow’s post, but for now, I’ll just say this: it’s ranked sixth this week just for this screenshot and this screenshot alone:

Cya, nerd.

5. Tokyo ESP

This show is basically anime’s Mendoza Line. Sometimes, Tokyo ESP can’t help but take a dip below the line too!

4. Aldnoah.Zero

Last week’s episode was really heavy-handed with its execution. Inaho and Slaine are foils, you guys! In fact, let me play this hopeful piano piece as a grown man whips the shit out of a skinny boy, because technology can’t beat a good, ol’ BSDM session.

3. Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun

The only screenshot you need.

2. Tokyo Ghoul

Only held back by its fight scenes. At best, they’re simply adequate. At worst, they’re just as lame as every other shounen mess we’ve seen this season. As a little cherry on top, the battles are often ridiculously censored anyway.

1. Terror in Resonance

Fun fact: I’m only calling this show by its English name, because some people are annoyed if you don’t use an anime’s Japanese name, which, in this case, is Zankyou no Terror. It’s just a name, people. Who gives a shit what you call it if everyone knows what you’re talking about?

Week 8’s Poll

If you’ve read my Everything Else post, you’ve probably seen that Natsuiri bites the dust in this episode. Let’s see how the show managed to accomplish such a momentous feat!

– Natsuiri: “You all come back as ghosts even though you chose to die yourself. You really are idiots.” Uh, they suffered in life, so they chose to die. Now that they are ghosts, they can haunt you. Makes sense to me.

– Pointless narration #2294: “The black of human grudges gone stagnant and sour. Now, another darkness is born.” Plus, grudges being stagnant and sour sound like they’re pretty weak grudges, if you ask me.

– If you can’t make the “darkness” look scary and intimidating, then at least make it look symbolic. At least give people something to chew on mentally if you’re not going to scare them. Unfortunately, M3 chooses to do neither.

– This is not scary. I mean, what am I looking at? An anemone from Hot Topic? But try as I might, I can’t see any significance in why these things look the way that they do. Why black and red wiggly stuff? When the artists designed these things, what were they going for?

– I’m not sure why Natsuiri just stands there and tries to reason with the physical manifestations of the dead villagers’ regrets. Seriously, does he think he can? I realize he’s managed to get his way all series long by talking and talking, but that’s because everyone at IX — including the kids — are dumb as fuck. Remember when the guy grabbed Sasame and literally tore her shirt off? And nobody did anything? Yeah… Still, you’d think a brilliant but insane scientist would be smart enough to realize that he can’t reason with actual monsters. In fact, why did he come all the way out here? Did he not expect this to happen? How can you not expect it?

– The others run back to the carrier only to find that it has turned into Necrometal. Minashi has disappeared off to do God knows what. And Natsuiri is twirling in his mecha like a ballerina to fight off the tentacles of regrets. Just M3 doing M3 things.

– For some reason, we get to see the same flashbacks we had seen in the previous episode.

– And in that mass of black tentacles, the one room with all the experimental pods are still in tact somehow. And by turning those pods on, Natsuiri manages to repel his enemy. It doesn’t make any sense to me, though. Even if that room is the only room that hasn’t turned into Necrometal, since everything surrounding it has turned, there’s no way that one room is still functional. Unless, of course, it’s magically battery-powered!

– We find out Minashi had gone to look for the Arbornine tree (the big one?), but it too has withered. Still, he seems to have realized something about his sister’s dreams of everyone being connected through their thoughts. No thanks, buddy. My thoughts are my own.

– The emo anemone thing shatters, which pleases Natsuiri, but then he finds out he’s turning into Necrometal himself. You’d think the guy would freak out, but instead, it looks like he’s having an orgasmic experience. Hell, he’s even licking the Necrometal on him. Supposedly, your nerves are enhanced or something. Too bad you also, uh, die.

– We now get to see some flashbacks from Mimei’s perspective, and it just makes the story worse, honestly. Why? Well, through her own eyes, Natsuiri didn’t even seem like a bad guy. In fact, the two of them seemed very happy with each other. She encouraged and supported him, and even though he wasn’t really super affectionate in return, the guy seemed… normal. So there’s this disconnect. How did he go from that to, well, whatever the fuck he is now? At one point, he just went balls-to-walls insane, gleefully torturing the villages without remorse. And remember, IX didn’t pull out from the project until people had started committing suicide left and right just to avoid his experiments. So the way I see it, there’s this missing extra step. Had Natsuiri’s descent into madness been gradual, I wouldn’t mind this too much. But the number one thing for me here is how he took a supportive woman’s hopes and dreams, shat on them, and felt nothing. We haven’t seen a tiny pang of hesitation. It’s fine to show me a good side of Natsuiri before everything went to shit. The problem is that he just went nuts overnight, and I think that’s just bad character development.

– So now I’m watching a grown man throw a tantrum in his mecha because his artificial girlfriend (he tried to copy Mimei’s memories and personality over to a computer) is dead. Well, that’s just bog standard for otaku.

– Minashi puts a hand on Akashi’s cheek, so the latter naturally knocks it away. But no, he’s “still trembling and closing off [his] heart!” If you want to be true friends, you gotta let Minashi cup your cheeks, Akashi! Do it!

– I get the general idea that Minashi is going for, but I just don’t agree with it. With words, we can sometimes say the wrong thing and misunderstand each other. Words are sometimes hard to say, too. You can’t let your feelings be known if you’re scared to say them out loud. Still, this whole “open up your heart” nonsense is not the solution. I seriously don’t think we’ll have less misunderstandings just because our thoughts and feelings are connected. Thoughts and feelings are impulsive, man. Sometimes we just get intrusive thoughts we don’t really mean. Like when I’m holding a watermelon, sometimes the thought of smashing it just creeps into my mind. That doesn’t mean I want to do it. But I’m using a benign example; you can certainly replace the watermelon with something much worse to smash. There are much worse intrusive thoughts that I’m sure nobody would want to share. They don’t mean anything, but you’re telling me people wouldn’t misunderstand your thoughts anyway if they saw you think those intrusive thoughts?

– Plus, boundaries and all that jazz. They’re kind of important. Sometimes, we need to be alone. If we’re constantly connected by our thoughts, then that’s messed up. If you say, “Well, you don’t have to be constantly connected,” then what’s the substantive difference between this and just talking? It’s the same fucking thing. If you’re not brave enough to say the words that you need to say, what makes you think you’ll be brave enough to transmit the thoughts you want to transmit? So I don’t think it’s that. I think the idea is that we’re supposed to share everything, and well, that’s not happening. Even between our closest friends, we have our own personal secrets we’d never reveal.

– We now see Mimei’s flashbacks of when shit had hit the fan. See, this is what I’m talking about. We go from Mimei cradling the guy, being happy to Mimei begging the guy to stop hurting her people. There’s no in-between, and the sad thing is, the in-between stuff are usually most interesting. We got two extremes, and they’re pretty straightforward. I want to see the tug-of-war in Natsuiri’s heart. I want to see what eventually tipped him over to the dark side. I don’t know why Okada avoided this, opting instead to show us the before and after instead of the middle.

– But anyway, while Natsuiri was busy reminiscing about the past, the Lightless Realm had spread to him, so he’s boned. He probably doomed himself when he fought more for his suckers than her keepsake.

– Revenge won’t end a grudge, yadda yadda yadda. In the end, everyone escapes on Natsuiri’s boat. They also resolve to return to IX and… do something. ‘Cause people depend on them and shit. Oh well. We’re probably in the seventh inning stretch. This nightmare will be over soon.

Highschool of the Dead would’ve been proud.

Over the years, I’ve left a lot of shows unfinished for one reason or another. Well, the desire to go back and tidy up some unfinished business has been nagging at me for quite some time now. I’ve finally decided I’ll make this a weekly thing. Granted, there are some shows I barely even started, so I won’t bother to finish them; I’m not going to watch 90% of a series in one night. But for shows like BTOOOM!, I was literally three episodes away from finishing the damn thing. Since BTOOOM! is easy enough to watch — ’cause hey, it’s a pretty dumb anime — why not start off this weekly feature with it? And I think that if I’ve blogged at least… oh, half of a show, it merits going back and writing a final post on it. It’ll take some time for me to go through all the unfinished series of posts to figure out which shows to finish, but I’ll get a post up on a meatier show next week. I know there certain shows people keep asking me to finish writing about… But anyway, enough about the logistics. Let’s talk BTOOOM!

For those who don’t remember what the anime is about, BTOOOM! is about a game with the same name. The game exists in two places, actually. First, it’s a player vs. player video game where you battle your opponents with BIMs, which are more or less bombs. There are all sort of BIMs. Remote BIMs, timed BIMs, so on and so forth. It’s not really important to identify them all. When I first watched the anime, I expressed the disbelief that any competitive game could rely on nothing but bombs, but oh well. It’s just anime. Anyway, the other version of BTOOOM! is basically BTOOOM! come to life. Yeah, you actually die, and throughout the course of the anime, many people do. Nominated individuals are sent to some tropical island somewhere in the Pacific, supplied with nothing but BIMs and a chip on the back of one of their hands. They must compete against each other and collect defeated players’ chips. Find eight and you can get off the island! Oh yeah, this is apparently a reality TV show that everyone is watching. The scenario is completely outlandish, but hey, I never said this was a good anime.

As you can probably guess, BTOOOM!‘s main character Ryota Sakamoto is a NEET who was really good at the video game with the same name. Long story short, he was a loser who punched his stepdad, didn’t listen to his mom, and honestly thought he could get a job as a video game developer… even though he did nothing but play video games. So of course, his own mother nominated him for real life BTOOOM!, and we watch the event through his eyes. The show’s other main character is Himiko, a girl Ryota had met in the same video game. What a coincidence! Not only that, they had gotten married in the video game! Wow! Naturally, she has big boobs, and even more naturally, she is the source of probably 95% of the show’s fanservice. You wouldn’t think a life-or-death game out in the tropics would bother with fanservice, but that’s where you’re wrong! Himiko almost got raped at one point! Technically, she almost got raped twice…

So what are the character arcs? Well, Ryota was a loser who looked down on everyone. And oh yeah, even though he’s a great BTOOOM! player or something, he’s kind of passive in real life. As for Himiko, she was sent to the island because she managed to get away from a bunch of gang rapists, but her former friends didn’t. Yes, her former friends nominated her for the game. They’re a bunch of swell people, aren’t they? So anyway, Ryota’s a selfish manchild and Himiko can’t trust men. Do they grow throughout the course of the anime? Actually, yes. I don’t think the anime is very good. But that’s the thing. I don’t think the ending is all that bad. It’s one of those endings that aren’t really an ending… if you’re a plot-driven kind of person. I don’t really want to recap the entire story of the series, so at this point, people who are new to BTOOOM! are on their own. For those who still remember details about the show, read on.

Like I’ve said, you get an ending that, from a certain point of view, isn’t really an ending at all. Nothing is accomplished, and nothing is resolved other than that, of course, the NEET gets the bosomy girl with blonde hair. In my opinion, what’s even stranger is that there are almost no moments of catharsis in the last three episodes. When I last left off, Ryota was going up against his former best friend Nobutaka. Naturally, the battle kind of comes to a draw so right there and then, the anime already reminds me how dissatisfying it is to watch. I’d say, however, Nobutaka got the upper hand since he came away from the counter with slightly singed food. Right then and there, you have a battle that has no resolution. We then see a flashback in which Ryota recounts his former high school days with his former best friend. Apparently, he got NTR’d by the guy. Basically, Ryota liked a girl, but he was too shy to act on it. When said girl confessed to Nobutaka, Nobutaka slept with her even though he had a girlfriend of his own. That’s cold, brother. But like everything else in the story, this plot thread isn’t resolved whatsoever.

Everyone in this show has such awesome best friends. You almost wonder why people even bother forming friendships. Maybe that’s why the real life BTOOOM! game even exists; everyone just treats each other like shit. Back in the present timeline, Ryota and Himiko are betrayed by Masahito Date, a guy who had already played this game before, but somehow finds himself on the island once more. He must be a real scumbag to be nominated twice. So after a brief fight, Masahito is down for the count. Shiki, the lady that Masahito had betrayed the first time he was on the island, finally has the chance to get her revenge. After all these years, the woman finally had her chance to put the asshole out of his misery. He’s a a shitty doctor, a murderer, he’s betrayed a countless number of people, and he’s shown no remorse until he was helpless. So what happens next? Shiki decides to care for the guy and help him recover. Goddamn.

Finally, as if one betrayal wasn’t enough, Kiyoshi turns on our heroes too! You can somewhat understand his motives, though. Sick, hungry, and injured, the guy felt Ryota had abandoned him. And oh yeah, he wanted to get back home to his kids. Ryota realizes this too, so even though Kiyoshi is trying to kill him, Ryota tries to talk some sense into the guy. In the end, Kyoshi commits suicide as a bunch of lizards surrounds him. No catharsis again. What’s even left? Indeed, what is even left. At this point, there is literally just half an episode left in the series. All of a sudden, Ryota realizes that Himiko, i.e. the Himiko he had met in the video game BTOOOM!, had been by his side the whole time! She offers to give him the chips in her possession, including her own chip. Yeah, that means she’d die. But no, he’s all, “We’ll leave this island together!” How sweet! So she offers up her… body? But even then, in typical anime fashion, the two lovers — if you can even call them lovers — don’t screw like rabbits.

And just like that, the series is over. Ryota and Himiko are still stuck on the island. There are no hints whatsoever that the game will end anytime soon. There are no hints whatsoever as to how the heroes would even escape. That’s your non-ending ending for you. But ehhhhh, it could’ve been worse. At least the story wrapped up the character arcs. That’s all I can give BTOOOM!, but I can see why we won’t see the rest of the story. Even though Himiko offered Ryota a chance to escape, he didn’t. In fact, he was almost too trusting, almost letting himself get killed by Masahito. But still, he stopped being a selfish, bitter nerd; he even tried his best to save Kiyoshi’s life. So yeah, kudos to him. And Himiko… well, Himiko learns to trust a man, I guess. It’s kind of shitty, since she never really proved herself to be very useful. And when she thought Ryota had died, she pretty much stopped fighting. But for what it’s worth, her character arc — as flimsy as it was — did come to completion.

…no.

But that’s why the ending doesn’t bother me too much; the character arcs are done and over with. Had the story continued, what would there be left for us to see? Just a bunch of pointless random battles, and eventually, the good guys will escape. You can even imagine how everything would unfold for yourself. There’ll be lots of explosions, lots of fake-outs where you think a main character had died but they really didn’t, and in the end, the good guys will collect the chips and escape. As for the characters and their development, their stories are over. Ryota has already learned his lesson, Himiko’s sort of learned her “lesson,” and that’s that. So really, there’s no drama left. Granted, the ending does sort of make you think, “That’s it?” But it’s all about perspective, really. If you think the story is really about the real life game of BTOOOM!, then you’re going to come away dissatisfied. But if you see it as a story about the NEET character and his personal growth, then it’s done. That doesn’t mean I think the anime is good. Nah, it still sucks, but in my mind, it at least the ending doesn’t bother me very much.

It’s one of those episodes where a lot of things are happening in the background in preparation for the story’s next arc (the adaptation’s final arc?), but nothing is happening with the main characters. So depending on how you look at it, it’s kind of a slow episode. Hell, it’s slow enough that the first five minutes are devoted to a flashback. In it, we get to see how Amon initially came to team up with Mado. At first, Amon rejected the demented investigator’s ways, but when the latter saved his life, the former started taking the veteran’s lessons to heart. See, I don’t understand why we didn’t see this flashback earlier. Had we, Amon’s reverence and respect for Mado would’ve made some sense. I wouldn’t have been scratching my head, wondering why someone as level-headed as Amon would turn a blind eye to Mado’s oh-so-obvious cruelty. I’m not saying that a five-minute flashback is enough to dispel my misgivings about these two’s working relationship, but it’s a start. Now that Mado’s dead, however, I don’t really see the point in learning about their working relationship anymore.

Anyway, Hinami has moved in with Touka, and as a sign of her maturation, she’s even given herself a new look by cutting her hair. Maybe she’s hiding it to some extent, but she seems to have gotten over the death of her parents enough that she can finally move on with her life. But what does this mean? Is she going to go to school? Who’s taking care of her when Touka is at school? Oh well. As for Touka, she’s still shaken up over the fact that Mado had had a family. In fact, we see his own daughter visit the man’s grave in this week’s episode. I wonder what role she’ll play in the episodes to come, but knowing anime, she’ll probably follow in her father’s footsteps or something. But for now, the bigger concern is the sudden appearance of Touka’s younger brother. First, we see a flashback with Touka, her brother Ayato, and her father as well (I don’t recall if we are given his first name). They seemed happy enough back then. Since Touka is alone now, I assume something terrible must have happened to the other two, especially the father. As for Ayato, he’s now a part of some group headed for the 20th ward. Like Yamori and some guy by the name of Banjo, everyone’s converging on the 20th ward in search of Rize.

It’s odd to me that these characters haven’t realized by now that Rize has died. But in any case, shit’s about to go down in the once peaceful ward. Not only is Ayato headed there — and he even mentions how he has a useless, peace-loving relative in the area — but Yamori, too. None of these guys look to be very nice people; when they find out Rize is no longer alive, I think they’ll just go for the next best thing: Ken. But what is so important about Rize? Why are her origins also so mysterious? During the downtime, Ken goes to see Itori to ask about Rize, but our information lady knows little about Rize either: “You see, one day, she just showed up. Nobody knows where she was, or what she was doing before then.” Rize is special in every way, I guess. Even her origins are a mystery. So of course, she tells him to go to the 11th Ward to find out more about the lady. Maybe this is foreshadowing, ’cause with the ghouls converging on Anteiku and thus Ken, I’m sure he won’t have the chance to do his own investigation. Not only that, it just so happens that Amon has joined a special task force assigned to the 11th Ward as well. But yeah, that’s pretty much it for the episode.

The rest of the episode concerns some peculiar odds and ends:

– For some reason, Anteiku has taken in a foul-mouthed cockatiel. Since it likes to say “Hetare!” over and over, its name is also Hetare. And did you know that Touka is apparently afraid of birds?

– HIdeyoshi sure does seem to know a whole lot about ghouls for a human. When asked about it, however, he pretends as though he’s getting all of his information from some book. Ken’s too oblivious to press the issue any further, but it seems to me that Hideyoshi has done a bit of his own investigation. I wonder if this is just his way to look out for Ken since Ken won’t confide in him. Still, in a world where ghouls have all sorts of super powers, Hideyoshi is at a severe disadvantage. If he keeps this up, I can’t see things turning out well for the guy.

– Ken bumps into someone who has a delicious smell. This someone also picked the main character’s pocket, which I’m sure viewers will just submit as yet another piece of evidence in their “People vs. Ken Kaneki” trial (“Oh my God, who actually gets their pockets picked!”). Anyway, this is all we see of this mysterious character.

So yeah, short post this week, but the episode didn’t leave me with much to think about. With only a few episodes left, however, let’s hope we can go out with a bang. Hey, the main character’s hair turns white, so the upcoming arc has got to be good, right?

I think there’s something very odd about the way Aoi’s right breast has been drawn, but details details! What I want to know is whether or not our heroes had managed to deliver the organ on time! So let’s have a look at that, shall we?

– Even when a character is bringing her superior some hot tea, it’s really just an opportunity to stare at her large rack. And naturally, there’s ‘caeki’ to go with said tea.

– Alright, alright… now we’ll hit up Naoto and company. And as you can plainly see, he is being delicately mounted by his drenched coworker. The man can barely talk under all that pressure.

– What follows next is an exciting footage of the train entering a tunnel. I’ll let you guys connect your own dots. Oh yeah, we ain’t slowin’ this caboose down!

– Hell, look at those killer light trails. Rail Wars! isn’t sparing any expenses for this week’s SFX budget!

– Once again, the train is taking a sharp corner at “high” speeds, so it might tip over. Aoi and Sho look to be on the job, buuuuuuuuuut this tunnel is just too tight!… what? Oh, get your mind out of the gutter! We have a life to save!

– So what does Sho do? He launches himself against the tunnel wall only to fall back down onto the train, and… and, well, that’s it. He balanced the train by throwing himself against the tunnel wall. This is cutting edge shounen train action, man. This is uncharted territory. Never have seen such death-defying attempts to balance a draisine as it careens through a tunnel at a little over 40 km an hour. In twenty years, we’re going to watch the Train la Train where a bunch of sexy trains do battle, and we’ll have Rail Wars! to thank for blazing this new path in anime.

– Next, they’re about to enter the longest tunnel in the line (that’s what she said), so they really, really need to slow down. What follows is a bunch of mechanical talk about trains that I didn’t pay any attention to — something about lining up the cogs with the rail — so… we’ll just skip ahead to the action.

– Naoto tries to pump the breaks, but it’s too difficult! So Aoi comes up to him, places a hand on his shoulder, and says, “Don’t give up.” That’s s-so inspiring! Yeah, one more time, dude. Pull on the breaks once more! Aoi even places her hand on his to show the guy that she’s there for him. You totally needed a pep-talk in order to pull a fucking lever.

– I’ve never had to scream “Enter!” with my partner before.

– This entire time, Sho is busy biking for his life. So if he’s the brawn, and Haruka’s the brain, what does that make the other two? Well, Aoi’s kind of the brawn too, but I don’t quite feel right saying Naoto is the other half of the brains…

– Me too, buddy. Me too…

– We may have left the longest tunnel, but we still have plenty more tunnels to plumb. So, uh, sit back and enjoy the tunneling action.

– At one point, Aoi somehow loses her footing and falls right out of the goddamn vehicle. Think fast, harem lead! She proceeds to hang there in midair for quite some time. It’d be hella unfortunate if they were to come up upon a pole or something…

– Doki doki…

– I wonder if Haruka’s steaming through this entire scene, ’cause turn on the deredere! Aoi lets out a tiny little whimper: “…gomen…” Oh lawd, that’s enough to melt any train otaku’s heart.

– Holy crap, how many more tunnels do I have to sit through?

– Overhead action!

– Delicious rear action!

– Michael Bay action!

– So yeah, while Naoto is confident that the last S-curve on the trip will be a piece of cake, it looks as though the train is falling apart. What now, buddy? What now?!

– We’re just back to the whole “let’s hang off the side of the train” action. Booooooring. The only difference now is that Naoto’s replacing Sho, who had hurt his foot in his “let’s kick a tunnel wall” attempt.

– Yeah, this is the harem lead all the girls are chasing.

– Aoi’s helping him, so she suggests that he screams whatever he wants during the curves. Y’know, to hype himself up. Naoto is whitebread as fuck, so naturally, he screams “I’m going to be a train driver no matter what!”

– Aoi; “You did pretty well, compared to yourself, Takayama.” Woo, compared to myself! Moe Sucks is the best anime blog ever! Compared to itself, of course…

– One last curve! Let’s do it, guys–… what, what the fuck are you doing here? Then who’s holding the organ!

– What the fuck?! You, too? Where’s the organ!

– Apparently, we needn’t worry about the organ because both girls are literally holding onto the train with one arm as the train is tilting. Safe practices, guys.

– Finally, our heroes have made it to the destination! There’s just one problem: Sho breaks the lever that’s used for pumping the brakes.

– Oh well, there’s nothing left to do but to stop the multi-ton car using nothing but your damn shoes!

– But Shou then manages to break even more of the train. Welp.

– Time to tuck and roll! Heroic leap! Naturally, the characters are no worse for wear.

– In fact, Aoi is like a cat, so she has no problems jumping off of the train and landing on her feet. Her boobs just had to through a painful-looking distortion, then her head became misshapen. All in a hard day’s work.

– Afterwards, Haruka apologizes for dragging him into this mess. ‘Cause y’know, wanting to deliver an organ on time is selfish. But hey man, this is the perfect opportunity for her to mention how she had once lost someone precious to her, so that’s why she was so hellbent on delivering that organ! Very organic storytelling.

– Aoi interrupts this little touching moment between Haruka and the harem lead, however, by flicking the latter’s forehead. Ain’t nobody’s winning this thing. After all, it’s a harem, a genre defined by its ability to infinitely defer the big payoff wherein the main character chooses one of the girls.

– Any final words, captain?

That’s what she–… nevermind.

– The ever-inspiring Naoto then blames himself for all the troubles they had to go through. Man, what girl doesn’t love a guy with no confidence!

– Remember that train-driving simulation from two episodes ago? Yeah, me neither, but the characters manage to pass it this time, so kudos to them.

– That what sh–… goddammit, anime, stop trying to set me up.

– Afterwards, everyone’s headed for one of Noa’s crappy concert. Mari offhandedly mentions that Noa’s her rival, but it goes over the harem lead’s head.

– The harem lead then catches Aoi staring at some feminine clothes, but she pretends as though she doesn’t look good in them. Naturally, Naoto tells her otherwise, so…

Aoi: “Wh-What’re are you saying, you idiot? B-But if that’s what you say, I’ll look for [the dress] again.”

Classic harem move.

– The episode ends with both characters re-affirming their different career paths: Naoto wants to be a train driver, and Aoi wants to be in security, but this time around, there’s no drama: “I have no choice but to protect the train you’re driving for you.” Who knew the anime about trains would end up being the best harem of the season?

Man, every week, it just feels like Tokyo ESP sneaks up on me. Usually, Thursday has some great shows (Terror in Resonance was sadly MIA this week, though). Then Saturday is basically the Night of the Living Gary Stus. As a result, you have poor Friday, tucked in between these two eventful days. And what does Friday have to offer? Nothing but Tokyo ESP. And, well, there’s JoJo, but I ain’t watching that.

– Oh, this mom only cares about her career: “If people find out that you’re an esper, I will lose the trust of the public!” There are slight variations with every story, and this is Tokyo ESP’s twist. Problem is, Ayumu has been so thoroughly unlikeable since his introduction that I have a hard time sympathizing with the guy. I just think they overdid it with the “I hate women” nonsense.

– Hey, hey, guess what…? People are still training.

– So protests against espers are mounting, and while this doesn’t look to be a smart move, I can understand where the anger is coming from. The way I see it, none of the non-espers have done anything. Since the beginning of the show, it has been espers fucking up in one way or another. The Professor dropped that tanker and hurt a lot of people. Then racist or not, some asshole tried to kill Ayumu’s mother. So y’know, what do you expect non-espers’ reactions to be when all this shit happens to them? Hell, even Rindo made a big giant mess at the start of the series because he’s one of those overprotective dads. These shows always sweep the damage to infrastructure under the rug as if it’s no big deal, but that shit costs billions of yen to repair.

– But at the end of the day, we’re still watching the same boring story. Special snowflakes start appearing among the general populace. Some snowflakes start trouble, so normies start hating them. Things escalate until the whole thing somewhat resembles a race war… somewhat. And that’s the problem. Not only is Tokyo ESP treading very, very familiar storytelling, it’s not taking the steps to make the story its own. A lot of these tales about mutants or people with special powers are only ever vaguely about racism and discrimination. They don’t refuse to just come right out and take a stand, thereby making the story much more personal and much more powerful.

– Furthermore, the story plays out in exactly the same way too. I have no idea why there’s a presumption that if special snowflakes emerge, a large contingent of them will suddenly go renegade. Remember that show about queerats and shit? Remember the history lesson about how strong psychic users emerged? What was the first thing that happened? People went on a raping and murdering rampage, then war broke out. In the end, normal people were enslaved and civilization declined, yadda yadda yadda. Here, some dude automatically shows up and drops a tanker on the Tokyo Tower. I just think there are several ways to explore the idea of special individuals emerging within a populace that doesn’t always have to resort to an all-out “race war.” But everyone wants to write the same sort of story, apparently.

– Do we really have time for flashbacks? ‘Cause nothing is happening in the story. I totally get flashbacks if they show us something new, or if the story has been so fast-paced, the narrative needs to slow down and remind us some past crucial details. But man, all we’ve seen as of late is Rinka train, train, and train some more. Yet here I am, watching a flashback of how she had to choose between a dying mother and trying to save Kyotarou. Plus, her relationship with Kyotarou is weak, so I don’t understand why the girl is pining for the guy. Maybe if the initial episodes had developed their bond a little better, these scenes would be more meaningful.

– Yeah, it may sound like I’m ragging on the anime. If you just want something easy to digest, then Tokyo ESP works. It’s a mostly inoffensive anime that has action and special powers. On the other hand, the anime is also really, really generic, and I think it’s worth understanding why it is so bland.

– Oh god, really? More flashback? This pacing is horrendous. As a result, we see Rinka visit the amusement park all by her lonesome. I know what these scenes are for, but they’re just not effective because we don’t have an effective relationship between the two main leads to begin with.

– Yet another ESP terrorist tries to stir shit up, but she makes the mistake of targeting Rinka. Our heroine has no problems subduing the girl, and with Peggi’s help, the latter’s powers are gone as well. So the takeaway here is that anyone hoping to join The Professor must first prove themselves by performing an act of terror. In fact, he’s using his daughter to go around as a recruiter. On the other hand, our heroes can fight back by slowly removing people’s problems. That’s going to be one fat penguin by the end of the series.

– Sad thing is, The Professor doesn’t even have a compelling story. He’s just selling himself as the new God of mankind.

– Man, the female characters all have the same face, so I initially thought I was looking at Rinka in some sort of disguise. But no, it’s actually a different character.

– Elsewhere…

What the fuck? For some reason, I’m watching a cook sexually harass a girl by the name of Rin, because she refuses to allow customers to molest her… Essentially, whenever someone is troubled, the school of fishes show up to give them powers — powers to give the downtrodden a way to fight back. With Minami following the fishes, she can quickly recruit them to her cause. While this might partly explain why espers are so eager to cause mayhem, it’s not quite enough in my opinion. Take the girl being harassed in the alley, for instance. You can’t tell me she is willing to become a murderer overnight. Hell, it’s even a stretch for the girl we’re seeing right now. I think the story just too easily accepts the idea that people can kill and maim without any qualms.

– Plus, how nice is it that The Professor is surrounding himself with hot girls.

– According to the bad guys, Minami is carrying everything on her shoulders. Uh-huh. Another hastily developed character.

– Minami: “Saving the world without hurting yourself and hating others isn’t even an ideal.” What?

– Anyway, Minami is cynical whereas Kyotaro is the dorky shounen who believes. So all of a sudden, she lets him go. She’s given up on trying to change his mind, because as long as Rinka lives, Kyotaro will have something to believe in. Therefore, if you want to mindbreak the dude, you gotta kill his woman.

– A random scene where we check up on Ayumu, since we haven’t dealt with him since the start of the episode. It’s kind of like, “Oh, by the way, this is what’s going on with the kid…” Yeah, Murasaki made him cookies, so I guess we’re going to pair everyone up or something.

– The next day, Rinka is on her way to school. I guess even if the world’s at stake, an anime character can never neglect her studies. It’s just silly.  Seeing the heroine suddenly decide to take a break in the middle of her training to attend class just doesn’t make any sense. There’s a terrorist organization out there hellbent on enslaving humanity, and not only that, her main squeeze is still, in her mind, a prisoner. Nevertheless, the main character’s got to go and study hard. Why not just make the main characters adults and never have to worry about this nonsense?

– And even now, we get flashbacks. Aye yai yai.

– Just as Rinka thinks to herself, “…but Azuma-san still hasn’t returned,” look who returns!

Oh boy. But it looks like after all those boring flashbacks, we’ll get some action next week. It’s just too bad I’m not terribly excited about anything this anime has to offer.

Welp, it’s that time of the week again.

– So Kirito’s harem is watching footage from an MMO tournament… in their own MMO. It’s kind of silly, really. I’m sure there are better ways to hang out with friends than to log online and sit in some virtual bar. Hell, if you look closely, they even have drinks in their hands. Drinks! What are you drinking? A virtual drink?! The sad part is, unlike most online friends, they actually live close to each other. They have the luxury to go outside into the real world and hang out with each other. But dude, hanging out in this virtual bar, drinking virtual drinks is just so fucking awesome! Yeah, we play MMOs so we can pretend as though we fighting fire-breathing dragons and whatnot, but let’s not pretend as though drinking virtual drinks with friends online is somehow better than the real thing.

– I like how Klein isn’t allowed to sit next to the girls. He’s here to make sure nothing happens to Kirito’s precious harem, but he better watch himself!

– Leafa: “Onii-chan’s not getting much screen time.” I think he gets enough, brocon girl.

– Klein: “[Kirito] may not seem like it, but he’s the strategist type.” Oh lord.

– Regarding the “Why didn’t Pale Rider use a sword if he likes to get up close to people” discussion from last week’s comments, eh… If I had those acrobatic skills, I wouldn’t necessarily use a sword just because I could. If you can get up close to someone, why not just use a knife for easy kills? I think a sword simply overdoes it. At that range, you have shorter, easier swings with a knife, and can probably hit more vital points than a sword.

– On the other hand, this is just a shitty anime, so who gives a shit what they use! I only make fun of the main character for using a sword because he wants to be super special.

– Man, we already saw this shit where Pale Rider gets owned, and yet for some reason, we need to rewatch it just so we can see how Kirito’s harem will react. It’s like one of those shitty Youtube reaction videos. Like yeah, sometimes they can be amusing if the person actually offers up some interesting commentary, but we’re talking about Kirito’s harem. And all they do is describe the plainly obvious. Oh, Pale Rider got paralyzed? Tell me more! “It’s like the wind magic spell Thunder Web.” Fantastic. I surely will appreciate the anime more now that I’ve received this knowledge.

– I like how the camera angles are all bad too even though we’re watching footage from another video game. As a result, you can put the camera anywhere you want to give your viewers a clear picture.

– Why does everyone react to Death Gun as if he’s scary? First, he looks goofy as fuck, but more importantly, they know nothing about him or the Death Gun rumors. They have no idea Death Gun can actually kill people in real life. As a result, they have no reason to be scared. They should just be like, “Wow, that guy’s a tryhard.”

– I like how Kirito told Sinon to take a shot, but he himself doesn’t try to do anything. What a badass hero.

– Oh my God, Death Gun even has to step on the “DISCONNECTION” sign. Grr, now you’re truly dead!!! Please, stop, you’re hurting my sides.

– Asuna and Klein both recognize the guy. Good for them. Too bad they’re not allowed to participate in the story, so this is all just empty talk. But hey, somewhere out in there in some alternate dimension, you guys probably get to be heroes too…

– So after seeing Death Gun, are Kirito and Sinon afraid? Are they going to move from their location to somewhere more secure? Nah, let’s just sit here and talk about Death Gun. I’m sure he won’t come after us. Of course, he won’t come after them because he can’t actually kill them; I’m sure he has to track them down in real life. Still, the characters don’t know this yet.

– Sinon can’t find the guy on her terminal, so she concludes that he must be hiding in the water just like how Kirito had done so in last week’s episode. As a result, the two of them can get a jump on Death Gun! But Kirito tells her to stay far away! What if… what if his virtual bullet can kill you too?! I mean, yeah, three people have died already, but this isn’t rocket science. Can these VR headsets kill you or not? Do they even have the capabilities of doing so? No? Then what the fuck are you scared of? And why haven’t you come to the conclusion yet that there are multiple people involved? It’s that simple.

– “That player in the cape, Death Gun, killed lots of people in the VRMMO I was once part of.” That was then, and this is now. Back then, the headsets could kill you. They. No. Longer. Can. Kirito, however, is just being a dense motherfucker as usual. It’s not just Kirito, though. It’s the people who have hired him to do this job. They, too, should have come to the plainly obvious conclusion that the deaths are the result of killings happening in the real world, and the online shit is just for show.

– Christ, just look at their bodies and how big their heads are in comparison.

– Sinon: “Someone like that is really playing GGO?” What does that even mean? Anyone can play any game.

– Kirito wants to split up, so he goes dashing off and running. Not at full speed, mind you, but he has quite a head start. When Sinon calls out to him and he turns around, however, the girl is right behind him. Makes sense.

– Look at this tsundere shit. Sinon’s going to team up with Kirito. D-Don’t get the wrong idea though! If he dies to Death Gun, they won’t be able to have their duel. That’s the only reason why we have a new girl instead of just stick with Asuna. She’s boring now. She’s all deredere. People want to feel as though they can conquer the tsunderekko, and it ain’t happening with Asuna.

– “I don’t like it,” Sinon says, “but it’ll be safer to work together temporarily and knock him out of the running.” Uh-huh, sure, you don’t like it.

– All of a sudden, the two of them come under attack from this Genghis Khan-looking motherfucker. I’m just laughing at the idea that some poor soul logged onto GGO, excited to see what he’ll be playing at, and this is what he gets. “Aw man… I guess I’ll just have to play as this ugly avatar since there are no other cool MMOs out there to play!”

– Sinon stares in awe as our hero… as our hero…

…yeah. In fact, this episode is just full of quality.

– Hey, let’s check up on Klein and Kirito’s harem: “In SAO, there was an unwritten rule to never let someone’s HP reach zero.” Of course… I mean, I would hope so! But hey, more flashbacks about Laughing Coffin! ‘Cause it isn’t enough to hear exposition about Laughing Coffin from Kirito’s perspective. We need Klein’s perspective too!

– Is it just me or is Leafa’s breasts just getting bigger and bigger with each passing episode? This isn’t even her real self, so the implication is that she paid for some character makeover service (for non-MMO players, MMOs let you adjust your character’s looks for a small fee), then slid her breast sliders to max.

– Asuna’s determined to get some answers from Kirito’s employers. I doubt she’ll get any answers, and I doubt she’ll play any significant role from here on out anyway. There’s nothing she can do. Log into GGO? You know that won’t happen. The story wouldn’t let her steal Sinon’s thunder. Walk away and try to live her life? C’mon, what Japanese waifu would do that! Her only option left is to sit and wait for Kirito to get the job done. I’ll laugh though if she literally goes to his bedside and waits for the fucker to wake up.

– Sinon and Kirito are in hot pursuit of Death Gun, and by “hot pursuit,” I mean they have no clue where he’s gone. But that’s okay, because Detective Sinon is on the case! “‘Gunner’ is like the ‘Gun’ of ‘Death Gun.'” Ooh, do tell! “And the ‘X’ is like the cross gesture he made. Or is that too obvious.” Gosh…

– There’s this awkward pause when both characters confess that their real life names are similar to their online handles. Uguu, I know your real name noooow. How hazukashii~

– “This is the only time I’m helping you, okay?” Sinon says this as she clutches her rifle tightly to her breasts. Yes, yes, let the tsundere flow through you, and soon, the Gary Stu will too.

– According to Sinon, “only Gunner X is in the city.” Kirito then quickly concludes, “In other words, Gunner X is Death Gun.” Hoo boy, I don’t think it’s that easy. It’s an MMO, after all. Maybe Death Gun has hacked the code somehow to make himself appear offline to the satellites.

– After all, the people running this game don’t even seem to care that this Death Gun guy is running around, killing their players. I doubt they give a fuck if Death Gun has somehow managed to bypass the satellites.

– It’s like a bad horror movie where the characters always feel the need to split up. Kirito has Sinon stay behind to back him up because this way, he can “fight without fear.” Oh, okay.

– Sinon suddenly thinks about how she and Kirito will go back to being enemies when they take Death Gun out: “I’ll never seen him again.” Oh, the horror! Luckily, Death Gun won’t go down easy; it appears as though he has gotten the jump on Sinon when a shot from offscreen hits and paralyzes the girl. Man, splitting up just so the Gary Stu could fight without fear sure was a good plan!

– All of a sudden, Death Gun appears out of thin air. Yep, he was invisible this entire time. It was so obvious, too. This is the one trope every crappy story falls back on.

– Once again, A-1 Pictures can’t get Sinon’s ass right. Either that or she’s taken a massive dump in her pants. I’m sure some fans are into that sort of thing…

– It even turns out Death Gun uses the same gun Sinon had used in real life to kill that psycho, so she gets triggered all over again. I don’t really care about her, though. And yeah, the fact that Death Gun is using that gun is just another obvious clue that her friend is involved, but people already figured this shit out anyway.

– The anime then fades to black as you hear a shot ring out. Yay, generic cliffhanger! Once again, SAO is not even trying.

Looks like the girl has finally gone crazy.

– So is something finally going to happen in this anime or what? Nah, it’s just a crow familiar stalking our Gary Stu and his equally Mary Sue-ish imouto.

– When some upbeat soundtrack started to play, I really thought we’d be treated to a high-speed chase scene, except, y’know, with a bird. But nah, we don’t even get that. Tatsuya quickly arrives at his laboratory, which is coincidentally being hacked by the the Chinese badmen at the same time.

– By the way, Tatsuya then takes one look towards the sky and vaporizes the crow tracer with his mind. Magic. And all this over a stupid relic.

– Elsewhere, the Chinese badmen intend to send people to eliminate “that little girl.” I assume they’re referring to Chiaki, ’cause we then see a scene where Tatsuya tells Chiaki’s sister that they will sweep all of her crimes under the carpet. Yeah, after what looked like a potentially exciting start, the episode is back to being a giant borefest.

– The next day, Tatsuya goes to debug some stuff at the Robot Research Club. What stuff? It’s a robot maid named Pixie. In a better world, our Gary Stu would find a kindred spirit in this robot maid and fall in love with her. At least this would be funny.

– Tatsuya: “Maybe I pushed myself too hard.” Haha, sure. And sure enough, he only feels tired because the room has been filled with sleeping gas! The robot maid quickly brings him a gas mask, but he tells her he has no need for it! This Gary Stu laughs at sleeping gas! You can pass whatever gas you want, it won’t faze Tatsuya!

– Tatsuya then pretends to be knocked out by the sleeping gas so that the culprit will reveal himself. It is none other than Isao!

– Who’s that, you ask? It’s just some guy we met in last week’s episode, but I don’t think you care because I don’t care. Just think of it as yet another beta male who loses to Tatsuya. Here’s his ugly mug trying to defend himself from Chiyoda.

– Chiyoda: “Calling out your enemy’s name… how pointless.” That’s true. If only the anime was more self-aware, because she then goes on to say, “You try too hard to be cool, Sekimoto.”

– For some reason, the anime cuts to Mari and her boyfriend Shu (short for Naotsugu) at some detention center. The guy simply says that he wanted to be with her. Mari’s response: “You don’t have to come out and say such an embarrassing thing…” Man, everyone in this show is so repressed. You can’t even tell your own girlfriend that you want to be with her. No doubt people will just defend this nonsense as innocence, purity, or some other patronizing nonsense. When being honest with your own damn feelings is looked down upon — except for when it’s between siblings — you’ve really jumped the shark.

– Lu Gonghu, one of the Chinese badmen, has infiltrated the detention center, because he’s on a mission to kill Chiaki. Zhou What’s-his-face sees this, however, so he hits a riot alarm which sends Shu jumping up the stairs like some banshee. When they see each other, they utter each other’s full names and nicknames. Who does this?

– Ooh… ooooh! A fight scene’s about to break out! Holy shit, an actual action scene in Mahouka? You’ve got to be joking me!

– Yeah, it’s a bait-and-switch. While the two men do fight, what we see instead of Shu swinging a short dagger that Lu Gonghu nevertheless feels the need to block like so:

Obviously, there’s magic involved, but if I can’t see said magic, it’s not very impressive, now is it? Eventually, Mari joins the battle, which forces the Chinese badman to retreat. Needless to say, the animation is shit.

– Afterwards, Lu Gonghu receives a new set of orders: forget Chiaki! Go after Isao instead! B-but if you were repelled the first time, what makes you think you will succeed this time? In fact, these Chinese badmen seem pretty goddamn dumb to me. They keep asking hapless high schoolers to do the job, then when said high schoolers naturally fail at being top-notch spies, the Chinese badmen must kill the the high schoolers. And of course, the assassination attempt is yet another risky thing to worry about. It just sounds to me like such a stupid, stupid plan.

– Yo, why don’t you actually send one of your actual spies — y’know, people who have actually been trained to do this sort of espionage bullshit — to do the spying? It’s like you want to fail, because you and your entire Great Asian Alliance have been written by a hack.

– Sure enough, Tatsuya and Mari intend to pay Isao a visit in the near future. Obviously, we can’t just see another character (Shu) be a badass and be done with it. Now we gotta watch the Gary Stu in action. Still, we had some false tension in which Chiyoda initially refuses to allow Tatsuya to see Isao. Why? Cause trouble follows the Gary Stu, and she just won’t have it! Pfft, as if anyone could ever refuse the Gary Stu. All in all, a pointless display of impotent anger on the girl’s part.

– What the hell is wrong with her head? But yeah, Zhou has come to erase the girl’s memories of him.

– We then see Mari use the same “scent-based mind control” technique on Isao in order to interrogate him. There’s nothing too juicy here. He’s just looking for information on the Relic with a capital ‘R.’

– But then the alarm sounds! Lu Gonghu is here!

– Man, this assassin doesn’t even try to be sneaky or anything. He just fucking walks his ass right down the hallway at a slow pace. I like how he looks all burly and shit too, but he’s as dumb as a rock.

– It’s hilarious. The Gary Stu has proven himself to be positively overpowered all season long, but Mari wants him to stay back and guard Mayumi. Oh well, if you’re going to be stubborn about this…

– First, Mayumi pelts the guy with ice shards. Oooh, scary. Then, Mari tries to whip him to death. Lu Gonghu simply pulls himself back, then runs around Mari. Gee gee.

– But now it’s the Gary Stu’s time to shine. The guy literally stands there and stares at Lu Gonghu. That is enough for this… this miasma thing to appear. And just like that, Lu Gonghu is heavily injured. Are you fucking kidding me? Everyone else has to physically exert themselves, but Tatsuya merely stares at someone and defeats them.

– But that’s the thing. Even if you enjoy watching an overpowered character, it’s not even being done in an interesting way. He’s just looking at people. He looks at them and they lose. Overpowered can mean a lot of things. Overpowered can be fun to watch if it’s visually or hell even thematically interesting. But it’s fucking boring as shit when the guy just stares at his enemies and they collapse to the floor. What is this? How can this be enjoyable? Would it kill you to make the Gary Stu break a sweat?

– The two girls then easily take down the now-weakened Lu Gonghu. So essentially, Tatsuya did all the hard work. If looks could kill…

– Afterwards, Tatsuya is informed that the entire mobile espionage unit has been taken into custody. It was that simple. For what it’s worth, Chen Xiangshen did get away for the time being. But this arc has been so shit. Who knew Chinese badmen infiltrating the country would amount to be a bunch of half-assed spying from a bunch of high schoolers, and then a single look defeating the so-called Man-Eating Tiger. This is somehow the worst arc yet.

– In fact, every single arc has been worse than the previous one. I remember how people were like, “We Mahouka fans agree that the first arc is the worst arc. It gets better!” Naw, man, naw… it’s worse than ever. The first arc was at least short and funny in its random conservative bullshit. On the other hand, the second arc dragged on forever and ever as we watched one girl after the other compete in the lamest fucking contests I have ever seen. Mirage Bat? Seriously? Are you fucking kidding me? A bunch of girls leaping up into the air to bat at some pretty lights? Then now, you tell me that evil men from China are here to fuck shit up, and then nothing happens! And shit, the Crimson Prince put up a better fight than Mr. Lu Gonghu. How do I feel right about now?

– You’re still here? You still want to know what happens at the end of this week’s episode? Guys, it’s just Miyuki being a creepy imouto again. Yeah, nobody gives a fuck. Y’all ain’t missing nothing. Go on, get on outta here. There’s a whole world out there! There ain’t nothing left here for you to see!

Are you prepared to watch an episode that has a surprising dearth of Inaho? No, seriously! It only took us nine episodes too!

– Damn, Saazbaum just comes right out and admits that he’s the one who tried to assassinate the princess. And yet, he’s trying to befriend Slaine, claiming that he’s just repaying a debt to the kid’s father. Obviously, the man cannot be trusted, but is he telling the truth about Dr. Troyard? Is he also telling the truth about the incident fifteen years ago?

– After the opening credits, we see Yuki busy helping Inko as the latter puts herself through a combat simulation. It’s nice to see the two of them take steps to make themselves useful. You almost get this hope that they’ll come into their own as side characters and not just pawns for Inaho to play with. Still, I’m sure when shit inevitably hits the fan for the umpteenth time, Inko and Yuki will just default to following Inaho’s orders. All the training scenes in the world are for naught if nothing they teach gets put into practice.

– Calm still hopes to find himself in a combat position. I’m sure he feels this great need to avenge his fallen allies, but on the other hand, he should thank his lucky stars he doesn’t have to put himself into the direct line of danger.

– Even though Rayet is not yet a soldier, she wants to try the combat simulation too. Well, may as well get her to do something. Otherwise, she just seems to mope around the ship. Yeah, it makes sense that she still isn’t over her father’s death, but at the same time, her character isn’t actually doing anything interesting either. All that pathos is going to waste if you don’t develop her character.

– I think this picture says a lot. I still think Inaho is somewhere on the autism spectrum, so he’s going on about something in a very dry, monotone manner. Asseylum’s too nice and/or polite, so she goes along with it. Oh, I’m not saying she’s faking her interest. I’m saying she’s one of those people who are so nice, they actually make themselves interested. As for Eddy, she’s just an annoying, little brat, so I’m not surprised at all that she’d openly yawn like that.

– Suddenly, the topic turns to Inaho’s love life, which quickly grabs Inko’s attention. Yuki seems rather pleased with Inaho’s current trajectory, though: “…if he marries a princess, my little Nao would be marrying into serious money!” First, you don’t really think a princess could just easily marry a commer, could you? Second, not just any commoner, but an Earthling! There’s still that whole “most of the Martians hate our guts” dealio, but hey, “serious money!” Ka-ching!

– Inko seems mad about these developments, though; it bothers her enough that she cut her own simulation training short. Don’t tell me she likes the guy too. I mean, that guy? He has no personality! Bam, right there and then, the important part is out of the way. But let’s not kid ourselves. Not everyone’s interested in a person’s personality. Shit, Calm knows what I’m talking about. But even if we look at the shallow qualities that might make Inaho appealing, I don’t see it. He’s not rich, he’s not powerful, and he’s not accomplished. He might be smart. That’s about all I can say about our plain-as-fuck main character. Ah, but of course, he’s the main character, and quite a bit of a Gary Stu himself. Not as offensive as, say, SAO‘s Kirito and Mahouka‘s Tatsuya, but still, a Gary Stu in his own rights. So of course, every girl wants him. Luckily, Yuki doesn’t. It’s kind of sad that the only thing we can take solace in is that there’s no incest in this anime… yet.

– Uh… whatever you say, sis. I mean, I can understand. Here’s my own face when I’m on cloud nine.

– Apparently, Inaho’s “ultimate expression of affection” is simply listening to a girl for more than five minutes. Yeesh, I don’t think that will be a very emotionally fulfilling marriage. Knowing how some Asian marriages turn out, though, maybe that’s perfectly fine in Yuki’s mind.

– Yuki then starts teasing Rayet too. I mean, I guess it’s possible, but her too? She’s got too much baggage.

– When the scene changes, Darzana and Kaoru are discussing how they can avoid Martian detection as they fly the Deucalion to their destination (I think they’re headed for some location in Russia). Out of nowhere, Darzana goes, “Would you like to know why you can’t get a date?” Fine, why? Why can’t your executive officer find a man? According to Darzana, it’s because Kaoru always plays it safe! Man, we’re failing the Bechdel test hard, aren’t we? If you think she’s just playing it too safe and you don’t approve of her plan, then just say so. I don’t see what dating a man has anything to do with anything.

– And frankly, it’s pretty ridiculous and unprofessional for a captain to mention someone’s personal life like this. But hey, they’re women and single women to boot! I’m sure in the writers’ minds, there’s nothing single women would love to talk about more than how to find a man!

– So Rayet’s doing well in the combat simulation, ’cause she’s gamer. Or so she claims. Obviously, she’s hiding her past. She then has Yuki turn up the difficulty. As a result, she now finds herself face to face with a simulation of Trillram’s mecha. Uh-oh, traumatic flashback time! Naturally, the girl panics and fails the simulation horribly. Man, first Koichiro and now Rayet. Who else wants to lock up as they’re attempting to pilot a mecha?

– Honestly, the second Yuki heard Rayet screaming like that, she should’ve shut the simulation down.

– Oh lord, now the Doc wants to get his hands on the simulation program too. Yuki asks if he’s “joining the fight,” but we all know whom it’s for. But hey, at least Koichiro’s story will finally be moving forward, right…? Right?

– Soma’s intended therapy for Koichiro isn’t unheard of, but it’s also pretty dangerous. Considering how the latter hasn’t made any progress whatsoever, I question the decision to dump Koichiro into such a realistic simulation. Like usually, don’t you want to build the guy up slowly so that he can finally go back and confront his nightmares? I don’t think Koichiro is equipped to relive his traumatic experiences. He locks up the minute he climbs into a mecha. Shouldn’t he manage that before attempting anything else? Making him see the horrors of the past is like telling a beginner to climb Mt. Everest. Plus, Soma is very likely just a medical doctor, not a psychiatrist.

– Even now, we see Koichiro sitting by himself, taking swigs from a flask as he thinks about his late friend. Dude’s not ready, man.

– Speaking of people who are frozen in time, we cut back to Rayet. She keeps seeing her father’s death over and over. Man, this is a downer episode, and it isn’t letting up. Something tragic’s about to happen, isn’t it?

– Asseylum wants to join Rayet for lunch, clueless about the latter’s hate. Meanwhile, Eddy continues to be a giant sourpuss in every single scene that she’s in. Didn’t anyone teach her about manners in maid school?

– Rayet then starts bring up all sorts of things at once. First, she wonders why Asseylum revealed her identity. Then, she mentions how the princess’s own people had betrayed her. Unfortunately, Asseylum is too lame to say anything in return. So instead, we just have Eddy as a indignant mouthpiece as Rayet rudely walks away. Rayet’s questions aren’t necessarily bad questions, but I was hoping for an actual discussion. But like every goddamn anime ever, no one ever sits down and just talk. I really wish these two characters would’ve just talked. I’m not asking for them to come to a resolution and become friends right this moment, but that was a golden opportunity for both characters to reveal more about themselves through dialogue. But because the scene is cut short, there’s no character development whatsoever. We just have the status quo where Rayet storms off, the princess looks sad, and Eddy is being Eddy. It’s so lame.

– And now we’re back with Koichiro and Soma, those two crazy adults. It really looks like Soma’s going to go through with his plans. Yeah, this is going to be ugly. You’re making a huge mistake, Doc.

– Yo Vietnam vets, wanna go back to the jungle? We hired some Vietnamese people to climb the trees and make fake gun noises. Ratatatatatatat! It’s okay! This is going to treat your PTSD! Hey man, you gotta confront your trauma head on! Don’t be a wuss!

– So apparently, Koichiro was the Platoon Commander, and he ordered all the tanks to attack the Martian mecha. Basically, he feels responsible for all the deaths and shit. Humeray begged for Koichiro to save him, but the latter failed. There was nothing Koichiro could’ve done, though. The guy’s legged was pinned and the whole tank was going up in flames. Sadly, the human mind doesn’t work like that. Even if we logically understand that we’re not at fault, our feelings betray us anyway. To make things worse, Koichiro had to shoot his friend to put him out of his misery (though in all honesty, flames that hot would’ve made the guy’s mind shut down quickly anyway). So I’m not questioning Koichiro’s trauma. I’m just questioning this entire treatment. Seeing as how this is anime, however, I bet you it’ll magically work.

– Nah, I don’t think he’s okay. He just had to relive the most traumatic experience in his life…

– Then we cut right back to Rayet, who is now naked and in the showers! On the bright side, there’s a surprising lack of Inaho. Sure, the characters have talked about him, but other than that, he’s practically nonexistent in this week’s anime. But then again, we’re now staring at a naked Rayet.

– Essentially, Rayet is all fucked up because of what she’s been through. She can barely keep it together. On the other hand, Asseylum has been just the most perfect princess anyone could ever ask for even though her own people tried and are still trying to assassinate her. This stark contrast not only confuses Rayet, but it really pisses her off. Why does the princess get to be so composed, but I can’t? She’s obviously angry and hurt at the Martians, but she’s just one girl. She can’t do anything to the entire Vers Empire. The princess is symbolic, though; the princess is the perfect target to redirect your anger and hatred. The fact that Asseylum is so calm and composed is just yet another thing for Rayet to get worked up about.

– Oh goodie, we’re back to the two odd couples, Saazbaum and Slaine.

– Saazbaum has never had chicken before. Apparently on Mars, you only eat chlorella, a type of algae, and krill, a teeny, tiny crustacean. So, uh, you guys eat like a bunch of sea animals…

– Saazbaum: “I feel nothing but indignation towards the Terrans who so offhandedly sent them as relief supplies.” He’s talking about the chicken meat again. Damn, man, are you really that worked up about something so petty?

– He also claims that he only started this war so that he can expand his territory. It’s his duty to his vassals, you see… It’s hard to read the guy if only because the man’s motives can’t be that simple, can it? But then again, Aldnoah.Zero hasn’t exactly proven itself to be a very intelligent anime. Not since the first episode, anyway.

– The topic then turns to culture, and we now see the two extremes coming to the forefront. Mars has all this amazing technology at their fingertips, but Earth has culture! Well, be careful what you wish for, ’cause you never know what culture you’ll end up with.

– There’s an interesting line in this scene, though: “[Asseylum] is royalty. Her very lineage is her crime.” Saazbaum is not happy about that incident from fifteen years ago. Heaven’s Fall resulted from that short-lived war, and this caused Saazbaum’s betrothed to lose her life. Basically, the count is out for revenge. But that’s not the part that interests me. I mean, such a personal vendetta like that… meh. As always, it’s the class revolution stuff that has potential: “We are a people oppressed under a feudal system centered around Aldnoah.” Apparently, the Vers Empire is not as prosperous as we have been initially led to believe. Rather, it is quite impoverished, and the royal family can only maintain order by whipping people up into a frenzy against Earth. When you fan the flames of war, you shouldn’t be surprise when war actually breaks out.

See, this is the kind of shit I want more from Aldnoah.Zero. The mecha action is fun, but the characters have proven to be a bore. Give me some political machinations to chew on. This stuff is in more in my wheelhouse. I mean, think about it. The princess is on a peace mission to Earth when her own people is suffering. Is it possible that she’s clueless about their plight? Even if Saazbaum is misguided — and obviously, he is misguided if he thinks starting a war with an entire planet is the solution — the Vers Empire will still have to unfuck itself by the end of the story or we won’t really have a happy ending. And maybe the only solution here is to stop being a bloody empire.

– Slaine is lame, man. He holds a knife to the count’s neck, but then merely says, “Please don’t kill her.” Please? Please? Puh-leeze, dude.

– Speaking of the princess, it’s now her turn to be naked. The scene’s a bit gratuitous in the way it pans slowly over Asseylum’s naked body. But nevermind that for now, because Rayet is stupidly trying to choke the princess out with a necklace. I-Isn’t the princess the only reason this damn ship can fly?

– Sure enough, the princess falls unconscious, and the entire ship starts going down. Welp, you’ve done it now, Rayet. I like how she managed to keep her breasts covered with one arm as the ship makes a crashes to the ground. More importantly, however, we all know the princess isn’t dead. So when she recovers, what will she do? Will she say that Rayet was the person who attacked her? Or will the girl keep it a secret for some foolish reason? With her lame, peace-loving attitude, I’m not sure what she’ll do.

Lame.

– Bulat just died last week? First things first, let’s have Mine topless at the start of this week’s episode. It’s the only way to counter last week’s tragedy!

– But BFG girl is now fully healed! I guess we didn’t have enough tsundere goodness in the last couple of episodes, so here we go again.

– Mine rushes to the courtyard to find a sparring partner. What should she find there, though? Oh, just Tatsumi and Lubbock doing push-ups while Akame and Leone sit on them. I don’t think that’s good for your backs, you guys. But even if you insist, I think they could’ve found suitable weights to put on these two characters. Akame herself doesn’t even look like she weighs much.

– In all seriousness, I know they’re all like, “We have to keep it together! We can’t allow ourselves to feel sad and mourn an ally’s death. We knew people would be killed! Blah blah blah blah.” Fine, great, that makes sense. But at least give the guy one fucking episode before you move on. Otherwise, you make it feel like it doesn’t even matter that these characters died. Hell, when Sheele died, Tatsumi and Akame both had their lil’ sob session in the middle of the night. I mocked the execution of the scene, but I don’t question the scene’s importance.

– But instead, we see Mine all blushing and shit just because Tatsumi is determined to use the Incursio properly. Oh boy, have we started the deredere train already?

– Najenda shows up to tell the gang that she’s got a delivery job to do. Speaking of which, what does she do besides this? I never understand why we don’t see her out in the field.

– Oh right, she’s going to go recruit some new members. Just more new faces to slaughter. I don’t they’ll hang around for long.

– Hearing that they need to find Bulat’s replacement, Tatsumi blames himself for being weak. Najenda then goes, “Yo, you guys stood up against the Three! The Three!” Yeah, more like Bulat did 99% of the work.

– Najenda: “When the Revolution takes place, you’ll have helped mitigate a huge concern.” First, it’s the Revolution. And I can’t help but laugh at the idea that by taking down the Three, Tatsumi has helped anything. This is shounen logic, after all, so there’s just an endless parade of powerful bastards lining up to replace the Three (just like how Najenda will conjure up two new members for Night Raid).

We already see it happening anyway; Akame’s sister is being pulled to the capital just for this very job. These stories will never end. It’s like a sad game of whack-a-mole. Kill one guy and another one just pops up in his place. But naw, dude, Tatsumi totally saved thousands of Revolutionary Army soldiers from having to fight the Three later!!!

– Great, now Tatsumi is crying like a baby. It’s not because the group Bulat’s death or anything. Tatsumi is crying because Leone had told him what Bulat once said: “HURR THE SHOUNEN HERO CAN BE STRONGER THAN ME ONE DAY!” A-Aniki! You died too soon!

– The anime then cuts to Esdeath paying the Three’s graves a visit. Holy shit, the enemy does a better job paying respects to the dead than the good guys. In her own way, of course: “You guys. So that means you were weak. It’s only natural that weak people are eliminated.” But hey, that still doesn’t make a mass murderer a cool character, you dorks.

– By the way, if you haven’t noticed by now, I’m paraphrasing most of the characters’ words, ’cause it just ain’t worth the trouble to pause and rewind the video over and over.

– We then meet Wave, who looks like any other bog standard shounen hero. Unfortunately for him, Tatsumi has already laid claim on this shitty anime. Plus, he’s a seaman. As a result, he’ll be joining Esdeath’s special forces squad instead. Let’s meet them one-by-one. According to Esdeath, each member is quirky, so I can’t wait!

– Oh goodie, the show’s trying to be all funny again. This is Bols, and apparently, he’s a very shy person. Uh-huh. I know some of you guys say the manga is like a parody of shounens, but I can’t reconcile the rape and death of thousands one page and lulz meta shounen humor on another page.

– Next, Wave meets Kurome, and like her sister Akame, Kurome is protective of her food. So wacky, you guys!

– Who’s next? Who’s next! Oh good, it’s Seryu. Wave thinks she looks normal, but little does he know, she probably has gun shoved up every orifice.

– Seryu then introduces Dr. Stylish. What a terrible group. Not a single one of them looks interesting whatsoever.

– Last and very least, we meet this guy, who simply looks like a grown-up version of Nyau. Great. Now they’re recycling character designs. This entire time, however, Wave is just bitching up and down about how nobody looks normal. They’re really trying to make Wave some kind of “What if Tatsumi had joined the wrong side” character, aren’t they?

– Esdeath suddenly bursts into the room, and starts fighting everyone. She’s testing them, you guys! Testing them! And here they are, all wearing tailored suits for some reason.

– Now I’m watching Wave and Bols cook assorted seafood as the main course for the rest of the group. Christ, why am I watching this? This is so fucking boring. Who cares what they’re cooking?

– Apparently, Sheele’s stupid pair of scissors are still in Esdeath’s possession. And oh yeah, she’s going to hold a contest to see who gets to win it. Hm, considering how the start of this conversation was all about Esdeath looking for love, this is… suspicious, to say the least.

– Next, we see Tatsumi, Leone, and Lubbock meeting up in a secret hideout in the capital. Oh god, Tatsumi’s going to enter this contest for Sheele’s Imperial Arms, isn’t he? And what’s her face is going to fall in love with Tatsumi of all people, isn’t she?

– Tatsumi wants to know just exactly how strong Esdeath is, so obviously, it’s story time. Some tribe rebelled against the Empire, and the Empire had trouble putting them down. Y’know, guerrilla tactics and all that jazz. The tribe’s village was also separated from the Empire’s army by a strong current. Ah, but y’see, Esdeath has the power to freeze an entire body of water. So then the army just marched right over and murdered the tribe in cold blood. Wait, wait, Esdeath doesn’t stop there. To her army, she goes, “…it’s time to enjoy ourselves.” The anime doesn’t come right out and say it directly, but it’s pretty obvious she had her army rape the women in the village. Naw, man, they’re just wrestling with their clothes on! Ugh, disgusting. See, this is why I don’t buy the parody argument. While the manga may contain elements of satire in it, at the same time, you have a general commanding her troops to rape an entire village with a straight face. And none of this is really necessary. This isn’t a meditation on the brutality of war. Esdeath’s troops rape and kill people just to make the story seem edgy. That’s it. And that’s what we call gratuitous.

– God, Tatsumi is stupid:

Leone: “I wonder how many hundreds of thousands of kills it took for [Esdeath] to gain that evil aura.”
Tatsumi: “She must be a monster for you to talk about it like that, Sis.”

D-Did you not just hear a story about how Esdeath had her troops rape a village just to make the tribe hate her even more?

– Esdeath gives the emperor and Honest a list of what she’s looking for in a man. The list basically describes Tatsumi to a tee right down to the “pure, innocent smile.” Welp, it’s happening. The super evil but super hot enemy general is going to fall in love with our bland-as-sfuck hero.

– Afterwards, we see that Esdeath’s tournament is already underway, but the lady finds herself bored: “Since they’re boring subjects, the battle itself is boring, as well.” Heh, implying that Tatsumi isn’t a boring subject too.

– So Tatsumi shows up and wins his last fight easily. He even smiles big at the end. Oh… OH! What’s that?! Is that yet another strong, powerful female character succumbing to her nature?!

Yes, yes it is. Pathetic.

– Esdeath then puts a collar on Tatsumi and drags him back to her room like a dog. You think Esdeath has the advantage now, but Tatsumi will just break her heart later when he inevitably escapes and tells her he can’t be with someone so evil. Then we’ll get to watch the general cry, which I’m sure just makes here seem more moe to her fans. What a dumb anime.

More talk and the fanservice isn’t good. Is this it? Is this all that Captain Earth has to offer? Yes, yes it is.

– This will be a quick post because there’s nothing to talk about.

– How does the episode start? With exposition about how the heroes will link the Kivotos up to the Blume via an Entangle Link. They need to do this in order to get the Kivotos all the way to Uranus. Pfft, a real trip to Uranus would be better than this shit.

– But oh my god, you guys, a human has never undergone an Entangle Link before. Will they make it? Will they?!

– All of a sudden, Akari brings up this Planter Unit thing that Globe had been trying to develop. Wanna know what it is? It’s supposed to allow Hana to pilot the Blume remotely. This way, she doesn’t have to go inside the ship, which is risky since Daichi is the only person who can remove her. Buuuuuuut Globe never managed to get the Planter Unit right, so I don’t even know why the characters even bothered to bring this topic up.

– So we then cut to the Ark Faction dorks, and they are busy talking about how they won’t allow the Intercept Faction to ruin everything for them. There’s nothing new being discussed here. Nothing at all. They’re literally just talking about how they will retake the Blume no matter what. Oh, well, there’s one thing: “Rewinding the clock to the Ark Plan is still possible.” Yeah, keep this small nugget of information in mind.

– Then after the credits, we see Kube sitting around, talking about what he’d do with eternal life. Remember that? Remember how Westvillage had asked him this question a while ago? Well, Kube finally has an answer: he thinks he’d be annoyed by the fact that the world is so small, and there are still so many things he does not know. Whee! What an awesome scene to see.

– Then we cut to the Kiltgang. What are they up to, you ask? They, too, are sitting around, talking about super interesting topics. They finally plan on attacking Earth en masse! Oh boy! It seems, however, that Moco is having second thoughts. She seems to think being a Designer Child on this planet was not so bad. Great!

– Are we done talking yet? No.

– We now cut to the Tanegashima Base, where Westvillage has finally gotten Kube’s answer. Then the heroes contact Tsutomu to talk about…?! The Planter Unit! Which they can’t use anyway! Sure, maybe the damn thing will show up in a later episode, but it will not show up in this episode. I know it doesn’t. As a result, Captain Earth is just talking about shit that still do not matter.

– And oh yeah, they know the Kiltgang are about to attack, so they painfully repeat this information back to us.

– Finally, nearly halfway into the episode, everyone sees the Midsummer’s Knights off on their mission. We’ll finally see some action, right? After all, seven — that’s right, seven! — Kiltgang robots are headed for Earth. If there aren’t any action coming up, I’ll be sorely disappointed!

– No, there is no action. We cut to the heroes aboard the Kivotos. Hana is just about to enter the Blume and use the Entangle Link thingie to get them all to Uranus. Meanwhile, Teppei and Daichi are passing that stupid necklace back. Sigh…

– So then we cut to the Designer Children again. What are they talking about now? Just exactly what we already know. The heroes are on their way to destroy the Oberon. Humans have never had to endure the Entangle Link. Daichi is a neoteny. Blah blah blah. It’s nothing new. Nothing new at all! Nothing whatsoever! And you know what? We’re already through 75% of the fucking episode!

– When we return to the heroes, they are finally under attack. But from who? From the Kiltgang? Hah, surely you jest! Instead, our heroes find themselves fighting a giant garlic clove.

– The giant garlic clove then send Cerberus after our heroes. Remember Cerberus? Yeah, it’s the unmanned Impacters from a few episodes ago. Well, they’re back! Yay! Let’s reuse old shit in the 22nd episode of the season!

– What does it take for Hana to drag her friends kicking and screaming to Uranus? For her to grow a giant penis of her own:

Oh man, I can hear it now. “Tee hee, how can you take the anime seriously?! I’m just watching her hold a giant dong and laughing?” Sorry, but there’s nothing funny about this. It’s just stupid.

– Daichi had to go out in the Earth Engine to fight off Cerberus. Although he does manage to do so, Hana completes the Entangle Link before Daichi could return to the ship. The garlic clove does some shit, then both the Kivotos and Blume end up ramming themselves into said garlic clove. Can you guess what happens next?

– Daichi wakes up in his old bed and wonders if it was all a dream! Yes! Is this a dream? Or did they go back in time? Who the fuck cares! Because we now know that the 23rd episode will involve Daichi running around as a student, pretending as though the last 22 episodes were not real! Great! What an amazing turn of events! I’ve just sat through three straight episodes wherein the anime stalled the story like people’s lives depended on it, and now we have this!

– In the last few weeks, Captain Earth has gotten progressively worse and worse with each passing episode. How is that even possible?

Every new episode is somehow more frustrating than the previous one. But even though only a handful of people even read my posts on Ao Haru Ride, the show must go on.

– Futaba is staring at Kou so hard, it’s kind of cringeworthy. Wait, no, this is more cringeworthy: “He’s laughing like he’s having fun. But maybe he doesn’t really care about school or his friends?” Like you can’t hang out with people and have fun unless you care about them. Like school is something you have to care about. Like you can really take the guy’s words at face value. Seriously though, if someone said to me “Caring for things brings a lot of trouble,” I’d just roll my eyes and tell the person to stop being some a dramatic, little b-… bunny. Yeah. But Futaba is actually sitting here, debating whether or not Kou cares about anything. Oh and what a shocker it would be if he doesn’t even care about… *whispers* …school!

– Later, the rest of the girls gather and gossip about Kou. Yes, they’re gossiping. I like how Futaba’s wonders whether or not Kou truly likes his friends, but here she is, airing his dirty laundry to the rest of the group. What the hell, man? If she cares about him, then fine, pull up your big girl panties and talk to the guy. Otherwise, I think it’s pretty fucking low to blabber about his private life to others, even if they’re your two best friends.

– I don’t think Kou’s a stand-up guy or anything, but I think these girls are pretty fucking nuts. The thing is, Kou is obviously fucked-up and needs therapy. He needs an actual guardian and not the weak, ineffectual Tanaka who does nothing but look sad. Like seriously, way to step up, big bro. But my point is, no matter how much help Kou needs, everyone deserves a measure of privacy. And it’s pretty sad that these girls are all judging him when they know nothing about him or his situation. Yeah, even Futaba knows nothing about Kou. After nine episodes, she doesn’t have a clue what he’s been through at home. Their behavior at the start of this week’s episode is disgusting.

– Hah, thanks to Futaba’s big mouth, even Yuri wonders if the oh-so-wonderful time they spent with Kou at the leadership retreat was a lie. Then Futaba tries to pull it back: “I’m sure that Kou has his own reasons for saying something so sad.” Oh, you think so? You think maybe we shouldn’t reveal what was said between two people in a private conversation to others because they might not have the proper context nor information to properly assess the situation?

– Futaba then suggests, “We just have to get so involved in his life that he won’t say things like that anymore.” Ugh.

– Hearing this, Yuri replies, “I feel like, Futaba-chan… you’ve become really pretty lately.” What the fuck is wrong with you girls? I feel like my brain is melting as I try to watch this stupid fucking show. I just can’t grasp these characters’ bizarre thought processes.

– So Futaba’s all worried and shit that Kou isn’t studying hard enough, right? So what does she do? Distract the guy in class, thereby getting him in trouble with the teacher.

– Does Futaba then take some responsibility for the situation? Kou’s primarily at fault for insulting the teacher, but the girl isn’t guiltless. Well, the answer is no; Futaba takes no responsibility for anything.

– Oh lord, Yuri’s like a sad puppy: “This? This is the CD I borrowed from Mabuchi-kun earlier!” Yes, yes, we saw this in last week’s episode. What? Is that what you’re going to do all series long now? Drag that damn CD around with you wherever you go, even when it’s lunchtime?

– Ahahaha, Kou then walks up to Futaba and wipes off the lipstick from her bottom lip. What a fucking asshole. So what if he doesn’t like it? It’s not his body; he doesn’t have a claim on whatever she puts on her face. Even if they were fucking married, he isn’t allowed to do this. But if you’re a hot bishie in a generic shoujo anime, you totally can!

– But in the distance, Yuri’s watching the whole thing and looking sad. She’s sad because what? He doesn’t treat her like shit the way he treats Futaba like shit? “U-uguu, I wish he would also lay claim on my face like he owns me…” The implication here is that even though Futaba is pretending to be mad at Kou, it’s a good thing that he did what he did. Because it shows that he cares, girls! Otherwise, why would Yuri look so sad?

– What the hell is wrong with this guy’s face?

– It turns out Kou used to be in the advanced classes. Yeah, this hot bishie is also totally smart too. He just doesn’t apply himself, mm-hmm.

– Naturally, these two new guys are taunting Kou for dropping out of the advanced classes. The rule applies with guys too, but to a lesser extent: if you’re not friends with the main characters, then you’ll be portrayed as an asshole. There’s no in-between. Applying that logic to real life, there were 2,000 other assholes at my high school. Damn, no wonder high school sucked!

– The anime then cuts to Yuri, who’s sitting all by herself with… with?! You guessed it! That fucking CD! But oh my god, Mabuchi-kun lent it to me!!!

– Yuri’s sad though, because it looks like she’s already given up on this little contest between her and Futaba. How pathetic. Giving up before you’ve even done anything. Really, she hasn’t done anything besides borrow one of his CDs. This is the 21st century, girls. It’s okay to pursue guys. You’re not a whore if you’re interested in boys. And if people call you a whore for it, fuck’em. Life’s too short to worry about haters. But somehow, I get the feeling that girls like Yuri only want to passively sit there and look cute, expecting guys to do all the courtship.

– But seriously, the more I watch this bullshit, the more it pisses me off. These characters are so goddamn vapid. I find it laughable that Kou was even in the advanced classes.

– Tanaka-sensei has decided to take a seat next to Yuri. The girl then asks about Kou’s bad grades, and I’m actually surprised that Tanaka replied with “That’s private information, okay?” Seriously, I’m actually surprised. The characters in this anime have been so dumb, I expected Kou’s own brother to talk shit about him too. But whoops, that’s right, some of us are actually adults and we don’t talk about people’s private problems to others.

– That doesn’t mean Tanaka won’t share a childhood memory of Kou to the world, though!

– Later that night, Yuri texts Futaba, wondering if the two of them can help Kou with his studies. Jokes on them: he’s actually in the advanced classes so he’s probably smarter than our two shoujos. He just gets bad grades ’cause he doesn’t care. No amount of study dates will fix that. Still, they meet with Aya the next day to rope him into this mess too.

– Early Saturday morning, Kou wakes up to find that his friends have invited themselves over to his home. His front door was literally unlocked, too. I know Japan has a low crime rate and shit, but I’d never be comfortable leaving my doors unlocked. And it’s hilarious how Futaba bothers to ask Aya if he’s free, but no one — no one — bothered to ask Kou if he even wanted this fucking study date. It’s basically an intervention, then.

– But first things first, Yuri drags out that fucking CD: “The CD you lent me. Thank you.” Oh man, I can’t stop laughing. There has been a total of one scene in this entire episode where Yuri didn’t have the CD on her. One. Every other scene, she’s had it on her. Ahhhhhhhhhhh.

– Futaba: “We’re all going to teach you about the subject we know best!” Butting into people’s lives? Hypocrisy? How to be judgmental? Speaking of which, what is Shuko doing here? Doesn’t she think of Kou as nothing more than a brat? Oh right, she wants to him to repent to Tanaka. Literally, that’s what she says: “Then you’ll repent to Tanaka-sensei.” Anime characters are either too nice or too gutless. I would’ve thrown them all out. But then again, I’d never be Kou either so here we are.

– Yuri: “Mabuchi-kun only just woke up. Maybe we’re too energetic for him?” Or maybe you pretty much staged an intervention on the guy, and he’s already got enough baggage to worry about. But oh-em-gee, we gotta ganbatte it up so he never feels sad with his friends!

– In reply to Yuri, Futaba goes, “Good point. Anyway, we’re going to get started.” I thought you were here to help the guy study. If he’s not studying, what’s even the point? What is there to get started on if the person you’re trying to help isn’t looking for help?

– Kou inevitably joins the rest of the group in their studying… as if he wouldn’t. Futaba’s heart even goes all a-flutter simply because he asked her to teach him… stuff.

– Afterwards, Kou goes to get some glasses for the rest of the group. Yuri tries to help him, but then… something happens when she accidentally knocks over a bag of potatoes. I say something happens, because the anime won’t tell us. Instead, Futaba comes down to check up on them only to find that Yuri looks hella guilty. Whatever. I don’t really care. I’m also not rooting for any potential couple. They all kind of suck. I firmly believe you should have your major problems sorted out before you get into a relationship anyway.

Every so often, someone will ask me what my favorite anime openings are. The truth is that I don’t really care about them. Still, that doesn’t stop those questions from regularly appearing, so let’s do this… I’m going to go through some of what this season has to offer (I won’t do them all ’cause that’s just boring) and tell you guys what I think of them. In doing so, I might just give you guys an insight into how I react anime openings, and we can lay this opening question to rest for good.

Aldnoah.Zero

I really like how the song starts. It lends a sense of urgency to the visuals, which fittingly features Inaho and Slaine looking as though they’re preparing for war. But once the ballad part starts, the rest of the opening kind of fizzles out into a generic montage. Nothing egregious here, but nothing to write home about either.

Akame ga Kill!

For one of the more hyped up show this season, this opening is really lazy. For a good chunk of it, the characters strike a pose as they pass by somewhat of a transparent bar. Whatever the bar touches, the stuff behind it becomes a negative. What is this supposed to accomplish? Does it tell me anything about the show? No. Does it even look cool? No. So I don’t really get it. Eventually, we get a montage of the characters in combat. Ho-hum. The song, like most songs you’ll find on this list, is whatever to me.

Ao Haru Ride

It’s one of those generic shoujo openings where cute feminine things litter the screen for no reason. Cute bear thing? Sure! Nail polish? Double sure! Then everything has a slight watercolor look because gosh darn it, that’s just what shoujo anime has been for God knows how long. At one point, we even get a background of spinning jelly beans. Spinning jelly beans! What am I supposed to think? Also, the opening makes me think the heroine is caught in a tornado, because her tie is just going fucking nuts. If I wasn’t so lazy, I’d make a gif of it, but sadly, you’ll just have to dig up the opening for yourself if you’re that curious. I guess my point is that the opening makes me laugh but not in a good way. At one point, the hot bishie looks positively fucking bored with everything — life, girls, family, etc. — but the girl is looks up at him like an overeager puppy. How can I not laugh at that? So yeah, I guess if Ao Haru Ride set out to make me laugh, it worked.

Captain Earth

I much preferred the first opening to this one. Still, I’ve always tolerated Bones openings more than others and I’m not exactly sure why. I think Bones just tends to pick songs I don’t mind listening to as much, and that plays a large factor. And hey, Captain Earth‘s opening makes the show look exciting. Man, look at all these mechas dynamically doing battle with each other! Look at all these characters screaming at something offscreen. Man, that looks like an anime I want to watch! Too bad the actual show itself has less action than opening itself. Whoops.

DRAMAtical Murder

Lazy opening. We get mostly still shots of all the hot bishies. Only the main character gets to do anything, and since this is an opening, he’s running. Running towards what? Who even knows… at one point, he enters some cyber world and starts flying ’cause running by itself is just boring. This time, the main character is flying towards a bright light. But yeah, I think this opening sucks ’cause the characters just don’t do anything. But if this is a sign of things to come, i.e. the show’s rather poor animation, then I guess the opening serves as ample warning. I’m also not a big fan of the song.

Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun

I think this opening is decent. I like how the characters are introduced. They start out as sketches then quickly become manga panels. Does it blow me away? No, but it’s a neat effect. The opening is a bit generic at time, especially when it has its characters just randomly walking to some location — which practically every anime opening is guilty of — but oh well, it’s tolerable. The song’s okay. It reminds me I’m not watching a standard shoujo.

Hanayamata

The animation looks nice. I can’t help but roll my eyes at the girls dancing in a line, but that’s literally what the show is all about. So if I have that much revulsion to just the opening alone, then I know the anime itself won’t suit me. So the opening works; I don’t love it, but I gotta say it was effective in warning me to stay the hell away from the actual anime itself. Kudos to you, Madhouse. The song is whatever. It fits the anime, I guess.

JoJo’s Bizarre Adventures – Stardust Crusaders

Visually, I think it looks amazing. There are some really cool stuff being done here that I just can’t describe with words. It’s just too bad I don’t like the show at all, but the opening is cool. So JoJo has that going for it.

Mahouka

People keep telling me there’s no incest in this anime, but it seems like the number one objective of the opening — and this is the second one — is to tell me all about Tatsuya and Miyuki’s creepy relationship. Oh, they’re naked and reaching for each other. How nice. Afterwards, the opening tries to introduce us to the anime’s zoo of the cast, and because the anime has so many characters, their personalities can’t really come through in such a short amount of time. But it’s okay. If you watch the show, you realize they have no personality anyway. I mean, shit, I don’t even remember who half of these people are. Eventually, the opening opens up to some action scenes. But since the actual show itself is full of boring talk, I gotta say the opening sucks for trying to mislead its audience! Naturally, the opening comes to and end with those two creepy siblings staring at each other again. But hey, no incest!

Rail Wars!

After introducing the characters of the show, the opening then has a bunch of blue and white train models just rotating in front of us for God knows why. But funnily enough, the opening has a higher train to T&A ratio than the actual anime itself. There are random shots of buildings for some reason. I know these are important train buildings, but even if I was a train otaku, I can’t imagine myself getting too excited because I saw some random government building. Also, every time Haruka appears, her breasts just have to bounce once. It’s so stupid. The music sucks too.

Re:_Hamatora

Man, I think the visuals are a mess. There are just waaaaaay too many things going on at once. At one point, we’re careening through a tunnel and the walls are full of clips from the actual anime itself. Even the little character vignettes are full of visual noise. As the characters stand there and pose, random patterns overlap them. I just don’t see the point. It makes me think the show has ADD. As for the song, it’s tolerable. I guess it gets the heart pumping for some decent action. Too bad the actual anime itself kind of under-delivers on that front.

Sabagebu!

I hear a lot of good things about this anime, but the first episode failed to draw me in, so I’ve never bothered with it since. The opening really sucks too. First, the girls are introduced with gun diagrams behind them. Okay. Then we see the main character run as words scroll by behind her. Words on a completely blank background, I must add. Again, it’s just boring and lazy. Then we get some close-up of guns being loaded or fired. Then finally, each girl shows up one by one, firing their gun(s) as they rotate with a completely pink and white mesh behind them. It’s literally just girls and guns. You can argue that this is what the show is all about, but at least have them shoot those guns with a pretty background behind them or something, jeez.

Space Dandy 2

It has style. I like Dandy’s silhouette dancing to the song as the visuals slowly scroll by. I chuckled as his tears turned into a stream of stars. Space Dandy isn’t my thing, but I appreciate the fact that right from the very start, I know what I’m getting into. I even get a feel for the main character’s personality. Maybe it’s just a reflection of how boring other main characters can be, but in a lot of other anime openings, the main characters don’t do anything but strike a generic pose. If there’s ever a time to showcase what you’re all about, however, why not in the opening? So yeah, Space Dandy 2 has one of my favorite openings of the season even if I don’t watch the show.

Sword Art Online II

Every week, I try to skip through this opening as fast as I can because I just hate how the singer sounds. Her singing just sounds so goddamn tortured right from the very first note. Mayowazu ni imaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa~!!!! Lady, please. Still, I think it’s fucking hilarious that the opening so far has captured the spirit of the show to a tee. First, we see Kirito and Sinon looking positively bored with real life as figments of their online selves randomly appear around them. Eventually, the two of them enter GGO while the rest of Kirito’s harem are seen in ALO. And hey, that’s exactly what we see in the anime! The side characters don’t do jack shit. They just sit in ALO and talk about the main character. So I gotta commend the opening for at least capturing that. But anyway, if you can strip the song away, the opening is probably the best thing the anime has going for it. Why? It’s got all the action you’ll ever see. Go ahead. Watch the show. The superfluous sword attacks that you see in the opening are the same shit you’ll see in the anime itself, but at least everything’s condensed in the former. The latter makes you sit through episodes upon episodes of overwrought character drama before you get to any juicy action scenes.

Terror in Resonance

As much as I like the show, I’m not a big fan of its opening. The song does nothing for me, but more importantly, the visuals are kind of a jumbled mess.

Tokyo Ghoul

I actually wrote about the opening in one of my posts on the show. Basically, I liked the way the opening echoed the show’s themes on duality. This is mostly accomplished through the use of mirror surfaces and reflections. Also, I like how the song starts. Then once the electric guitars come in, then it’s whatever. Still, I think the opening is overall pretty decent.

With just one show now, no need to call this nonsense Harem Hill anymore. Let’s just laugh at Kamito and his merry band of tsundere girls. As for the future of Harem Hill, it doesn’t look too bright.

– When we return to the action, Kamito and the bad guy are still fighting, but we’ve seen it all already. The bad guy taunts Kamito for being weak because he cares about others. So y’know, the sky is blue, water is wet, anime villains still suck…

– All of a sudden, Fianna gets in the way and her breasts start glowing. Yo, I’m not even joking.

– The girl then attacks the bad guy with a move called Magna Carta. Yeah, Magna Carta, a.k.a. the Great Charter. Yeah, take that, bad guy! Eat… uh, a list of promises that you won’t abuse your power, asshole?

– When the harem lead asks Fianna what that was all about, she answers, “The blood of the spirit god, a blood stone.” Makes sense.

– All of a sudden, the discussion turns to Fianna’s fake breasts. No, she doesn’t haven implants. She apparently pads them to make them look bigger. It’s to hide the blood stone, y’see. And “I heard all guys like girls with large breasts.” Look how Claire beams when Kamito tells Fianna that some guys like small breasts. Her expression quickly turns, however, when he adds, “Though personally, I do think it’s better to have some than none.” Welp, you know what that calls for:

But thanks, Kamito, on telling us what you think of breasts.

– So Fianna reveals that she’s lost her contracted spirit. As a result, she’s been hiding spirit stones in her body. Yeah, that’s how she cheated her way through the school’s entrance exam.

– Why, Claire wonders, why! Why would you cheat just to enter this school? Fianna half-jokingly suggests that she did it just to kiss Kamito, so of course, Claire prepares to murder him. Haha, so funny, you guys. Abuse is cool! But really, that’s the thing. These shows normalize this sort of thing and make you believe that they’re commonplace. These shows suggest that guys’ eyes are always going to wander, and it’s okay if their main lover abuses them for it. ‘Cause blah blah blah, girls are girls, and they can’t hit hard or some bullshit like that.

– But the more serious reason as to why Fianna is here is because she wants to win the Blade Dance. In a moment of clarity, Claire admits she doesn’t understand why Fianna would want to join her team. Well, Fianna wants to join them because she’s a reject too. You’ve got yourself the Calamity Queen’s sister, a male elementaler who likes to cross dress, and now a princess who’s lost all rights to being a princess. What a winning group.

– This entire time the three of them are having a conversation, I keep thinking, “Where the hell are Fahrenfart and Rinslet?” Didn’t they come here with Kamito and the rest of the harem?

– Despite all her latent jealousy for anything with boobs, Claire accepts Fianna onto the team: “You’re my comrade in arms.” Aw, how sweet… With that out of the way, they quickly begin to argue about their breasts sizes.

– There’s no time! There’s no time! Jormungand is about to awaken… and bore the hell out of all of us with its boring characters.

– Oh, there’s Fahrenfart! I guess she was just chilling in the corner, listening to all this delicious talk about breasts.

– Sword girl knows where to find Jormungand’s altar. Why? ‘Cause she just does. Isn’t that convenient? And for her troubles, she requires a reward. Yeah, the show is full of bullshit like this. The plot never gets going because our harem lead has to stop every once in a while to placate these caricatures with boobs. Still, a pat on the head is enough to make the other girls sad. C’mon, it’s a sword spirit. What’s the guy going to do? Fuck a sword? Best you can get is a sword fight.

– Meanwhile, Fahrenfart admits her team’s defeat, and leaves the rest of the mission up to Kamito and gang. C’mon, just get it over with and join the harem lead’s team already.

– Somehow, Rinslet drops out too. I guess the animators can’t be assed to animate too many girls at once. I’m dying to see how the Blade Dance tournament will play out.

– Elsewhere, Restia tells the bitter Jio that Kamito is the true demon lord, so the former won’t able to defeat the latter. It’s hilarious how every demon lord in anime seemingly has a harem, but because it’s anime, there’s never any sex. This badass demon lord can’t even get laid.

– Even though Kamito’s on his way to reseal Jormungand or some shit, he’s still suffering from the effects from the last battle. He ain’t about to show weakness to Claire, though! So the girl gripes, “I mean… we’re partners–… actually, can’t you just trust your master more?” I-I’m really dismayed at the lack of trust between us, especially when I whip you all the time for looking at other girls!

– But damn, the harem lead cuts deep: “…you’ve got no friends, so I don’t think I should take you seriously.”

– Eventually, our heroes reach the seal that Fianna will have to reinforce. But ah, she can’t just dance and magically make things better! She’ll have to purify herself, which ironically requires her to strip naked in front of everyone. Naturally, Claire wants to bathe too! Shit, let’s all just get naked and frolic in this underground spring! Oh, what’s that? Jio, the bad guy, is still at large? B-but boobs!

– Here in Seirei Tsukai no Blade Dance, we ask the controversial questions others are too afraid to ask!

– Obligatory girl-on-girl molestation, because if it’s hot, it’s not sexual assault!

– Of course the main character isn’t getting aroused as he hears the two girls frolic behind him! He’s too busy thinking of Jio. The harem lead just has a thing for bad boys and their tattoos, I guess. Plus Jio kind of looks like Kamito anyway. It’s not bad or lazy art! It’s just pure masturbation.

– Speaking of the devil, Jio finally shows up to crash the party. so we’re back to some shitty fighting.

– Kamito confronts Jio with the truth: he’s not an elementaler at all! Like Fianna, he’s just abusing sealed spirit. That’s right! There’s only one male elementaler in this universe, and it’s the harem lead. It’s funny how these stories always come down to the main character being an all-too-special snowflake. Look at how SAO’s Kirito is the only person in an entire MMO to use a sword. An entire MMO full of people, and not a single person uses a sword but Kirito. And here, Kamito infiltrates a female-dominated world and makes himself the only male elementaler out there. It’s ludicrous, really. But if we’re going to go this far, I can’t wait to see the first pregnant male in anime. C’mon, you may as well take that over too.

– I’m not really sure why Kamito is now beating Jio handily. Every previous fight thus far had been in the latter’s favor, and hell, the anime even made a point of highlighting Kamito’s injuries from the previous encounter. All of a sudden, our harem lead is winning this without breaking much of a sweat.

– This awesome animation, though…

– But then Jio does something to Kamito’s sword (it’s probably syphilis), and as a result, our harem lead hesitates. This leaves Kamito open to a nice, ol’ gutstabbing.

– Hey, isn’t that the relic from Mahouka?!

– But really, what’s the source of Jio’s power? “The power of Nebuchadnezzar that allows you to control many spirits.” I’ll never look at the Babylonian King in the same light again.

– All of a sudden, Fianna starts dancing, and because Jio’s body is like… a shrine to spirits or something? Anyway, it’s a shrine to spirit, so her dancing works on him. Ho-hum. Just watch the guy’s body twist unnaturally even though the animation budget can’t keep up.

– Unfortunately, Restia shows up to interfere with the fight. Does she want to help Jio? Not necessarily. She wants to awaken the demon lord in Kamito, so she lends her power to the bad guy. In the end, Jio lunges for Fianna, which forces Kamito to bear the brunt of the attack. And just like that, Fianna has already fallen in love.

– And somehow, even though Fianna had previously lost her ability to summon her contracted spirit, she can summon it now in this dire situation. Yeah, that’s right, you can’t summon a spirit if it simply means you can rule a country. You can only summon it if it will help you save a cute boi~!

– Well, that’s it. The good guys beat Jio, then the anime fades to black. When the show returns, we see that Kamito is back in bed. You think he’d find a naked Est under those covers, but in actuality, it’s (a clothed) Fianna instead. Oh boy, what a twist. So with that, let’s end the post here. Hope you guys enjoyed yet another slate of sharks pics.

Alright, time to rank these shows again according to my arbitrary standards! But as always, let’s first discuss last week’s poll results.

Week 8’s Poll Results

I don’t think anyone should be surprised to find Aldnoah.Zero at the top of last week’s poll. After a promising first episode, the anime has been… well, pretty mediocre. Some of you want to go even further and say that it’s shit. I’m not quite there yet, but there’s still time. But really, Aldnoah.Zero has let me down in every way except for its action. I can honestly get past the emotionless main character, because Inaho isn’t really annoying; he’s just boring. Rather, the primary problem with the show is its lack of nuance. Almost every single character has a simplistic, straightforward motive, especially the villains. Luckily, the villains have also been dying left and right.

Oddly enough, however, Saazbaum has recently come into his own. Yes, he started a war over a vendetta against the Vers royal family, but hey, he’s a villain. He’s supposed to be fucked up. What I like, however, is that there are multiple things at play here with Saazbaum. Yes, he wants revenge, but he also feels as though he has a duty to his vassals to conquer new land. He also feels bitterness over the fact that Earth has culture and the Vers Empire, which has only sprung up overnight, has nothing. So as you can see, there are multiple things at play here. In just a few minutes in the last episode, Saazbaum has gained some much needed depth. Now, if only the anime could do the same for the rest of the characters.

Akame ga Kill! came in second, but I never had any expectations for Akame ga Kill! The synopsis made it sound like a dumb shounen, and surprise, surprise… I got a dumb shounen. But with added rape! But yeah, it seems plenty of people enjoyed the manga for one reason or other — some claim its satirical, others say it’s a guilty pleasure — so as a result, Akame ga Kill! is our second most disappointing show of the summer season.

Captain Earth and Glasslip are both tied for third. I can understand why Captain Earth is disappointing, because Bones usually does a decent job. Plus, the show did start off… okay. I didn’t fall in love with the show right from the get-go, but I never thought we’d get what we got. It felt like other bloggers were really enamored with the show, though. If I recall correctly, they really wanted Captain Earth‘s sexual metaphors to pan out. I just never really saw it. Captain Earth felt aimless to me right from the very start, so I guess I’m not too surprised by how the rest of the show eventually turned out. Still, I can’t say the show didn’t disappoint me. For what it’s worth, the animation has been solid even at its worst. But that’s really all I can say about the show. The plot is dumb, the characters are flimsy, and the mecha action is practically nonexistent. What a pity.

Glasslip getting so many votes surprises me a bit. I know a lot of you guys have enjoyed P.A. Works last two offerings, but one look at Glasslip synopsis was enough to set my expectations at zero. I pretty much thought we’d get Tari Tari except with glass-blowing. Of course, that’s not we got. Instead, we got a convoluted mess of a narrative that still somehow manages to be slow and boring. The thing is, that’s not even the most surprising thing about Glasslip. The most surprising thing is that 90% of the characters are so eminently dislikable. More on what I mean later in the post. Anyway, I’m half-expecting Touko to ‘fest’ it up anytime now.

Tokyo ESP came in fifth. The first episode pretty much felt like a poor man’s X-Men so the show hasn’t disappointed me. It’s pretty much what I thought it would be. But maybe the people who voted for the show have read the manga, and expected the adaptation to be better or something, I don’t know. For me, Tokyo ESP‘s primary problem is that it’s just very safe. It doesn’t do anything special nor does it even look like it’s trying.

Terror in Resonance actually took sixth, but I can understand this somewhat. First, I think the allusions to Oedipus really rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. Now, I personally like that kind of thing, but I can see why others might find it pretentious. I think the bigger problem, however, was that giant chess match between Five and Nine. With each passing episode, the situation is getting more and more unbelievable, and while the chess match itself didn’t bother me as much as it had bothered some of my readers, it isn’t exactly smooth sailing from here on out for the anime. It still has the chance of slipping up and veering too far into these ridiculous scenarios. I like the show, but if the writers feel the need to one-up the chess match, we might be in for a disappointing finish.

Other notables:

– Tokyo Ghoul got a modest amount of votes. According to fans of the manga, the adaptation is a very, very abridged version of the actual story. Even so, I still quite enjoy the show, so personally, Tokyo Ghoul has exceeded my expectations.

– Not surprisingly, Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun only got two votes. I think it has been the most surprising show of the season thus far. I mean, it’s nothing special, but I didn’t expect the anime to be such a decent time waster.

– Persona 4 – The Golden Animation also got a modest amount of votes. I admit it; the show got one of my three votes. The adaptation is just too niche. Unless you’ve played Persona 4 before, you have no hopes of understanding what you’re watching. But even as an actual Persona 4 fan, I just don’t give a shit about Marie. Her character sucks, and I’m quite amazed this adaptation was even made in the first place just to showcase her social link. I still think Persona 4 – The Golden Animation had potential, though. If the story had explored the idea of the main character reliving the events of the game but through the lens of the New Game+ mechanic, that might’ve been novel. As it is, however, the adaptation is a bore.

– Shirogane no Ishi: Argevollen had as much votes as Tokyo Ghoul. I didn’t vote for it though, because the promotion video was less than inspiring.

– Rail Wars! got a decent chunk of votes. I don’t get it, really. Who the hell out there actually expected an anime about trains to be any good? If anything, the anime is exceeding expectations in how much of a harem it has turned out to be. Honestly, I think this is simply the case of people voting for what they perceive to be the worst show of the season rather than what had actually disappointed them.

– DRAMAtical Murder also garnered some votes. I think it’s more a matter of the anime being a poor adaptation more than anything else, though.

– Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei sits somewhere firmly in the middle of the pack, and I think that fits. Maybe some people thought it’d be a great show or something, but one look at Tatsuya and Miyuki in all of the promo material was enough to convince me that the anime would suck. Still, I played nice for a couple weeks just to give the show a chance. So much for that, huh?

– Free! Eternal Summer got some votes. I didn’t expect it to be anything but a boring slice-of-life anime, so people who actually voted for the show will have to explain why they did so.

Week 9’s Rankings

Dropped: Persona 4 – The Golden Animation

I just don’t care anymore.

Unranked: Terror in Resonance, M3 – Sono Kuroki Hagane

Well, Terror in Resonance didn’t air in the past seven days, so I can’t exactly include it in this list. As for M3 – Sono Kuroki Hagane, I just haven’t gotten around to watching the latest episode.

14. Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei

Here’s last week’s plot in a nutshell: Tatsuya farts in Lu Gonghu’s direction and beats him. The end. Naturally, the anime finds itself at the bottom of my rankings once again.

13. Seirei Tsukai no Blade Dance

At least this harem lead had to lift a finger to beat his enemy.

12. Akame ga Kill!

Every single action in this story is meaningless. If you take the bad guys out, more will just pop up in their place. Shit, the same applies to the good guys too. But worst of all, the super evil, super powerful Esdeath has fallen in love with the main character. Now the anime has really lost it. It’s bad enough that the main character is bland as fuck, but Akame ga Kill! just had to go and make him the object of women’s desires too. What a joke.

11. Captain Earth

I don’t even know…

Stalling, stalling, stalling…

10. Sword Art Online II

I’m already tired of this Death Gun fella. The mystery’s too obvious, the action is flashy but soulless, and Sinon has already turned into another boring tsundere character. Worst of all, the idea that SAO explores the possibilities of VRMMOs definitely feels like a distant memory now. With every passing episode, I’m just reminded more and more that the anime has such a poor grasp of online gaming and its communities. Good job, Kirito. You’ve ruined another MMO.

9. Rail Wars!

What can I say? It’s the best harem of the season.

8. Glasslip

Sachi is such a terrible, terrible person. She continues to use Hiro even though she knows the true extent of his feelings. She literally has the guy read a bunch of short stories (by Natsume Soseki, no less), just so he could eventually explain an idiom to Touka. This explanation then ends up being Sachi’s indirect confession to Touka. That has got to be the most convoluted love confession I’ve ever witness in all my years on this planet. Worst of all, Sachi continues to have no real regard for Hiro’s feelings. Yo, you don’t have to like the guy back just because likes you. But for the love of god, stop stringing the guy along. Is it so hard to be a decent person? Seriously, is it really that hard? Hell, they’re supposed to be a close-knit group of friends! What kind of friends are these?!

As for Kakeru and his stupid fragment nonsense, I’m just ignoring it for the time being since it doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. But really, I’m ignoring everything but the subplot with Hiro, ’cause everyone else sucks. I don’t care at all what happens with the incest siblings.

7. Ao Haru Ride

I swear, these characters are just getting dumber and dumber by the episode. The problem is that no one’s likeable. There’s no one in Ao Haru Ride that would make me think, “Yeah, he or she seems like someone I would want to hang out with.” I just happen to think Glasslip has a more insufferable cast of characters.

6. Shirogane no Ishi: Argevollen

Not much to say about last week’s episode. Here’s a brief summary of Conrad’s contribution to the story:

Anyway, it didn’t feel like the story moved forward even the slightest bit, but I guess Richthofen now has a real reason to hate the Argevollen. It may seem like I’m not giving the show much of a chance, but it really, really does not grab me at all. I keep watching it in the hopes that a central thrush to the narrative would take shape. For a while, it seemed as though the mystery surrounding Tokimune’s sister’s death might do the trick. But then I get this episode. The two main characters were barely in it. Hell, Richthofen was barely in it too. As a result, I just didn’t really care all that much about what was happening.

5. Tokyo ESP

Too many flashbacks bogged down a show that was already lackluster to begin with.

4. Tokyo Ghoul

I know last week’s episode was trying to set the stage for the adaptation’s final arc, but what can I say? I gotta call a spade a spade, and last week’s episode was boring as hell.

3. Re:_Hamatora

Things are coming to a head as Doktor advocates the extermination of stray Minimum Holders. Meanwhile, Art becomes a cult figure as he rallies Minimum Holders to his cause. He wants to establish an area (Yokohama, to be exact) “where Minimum Holders can live freely without being under surveillance.” Gosh, this… this sounds kind of familiar to another anime I’m watching this season. I’m just amazed how similar the basic plot structure for these stories are turning out. Naturally, the devil’s in the detail.

First of all, Art has way more of a personality than Tokyo ESP‘s Professor. Second, the Professor lacks a foil; there’s no one like Doktor in Tokyo ESP. Still, is this actually a plus? Does Doktor’s existence make Re:_Hamatora slightly more interesting to watch? The problem with Doktor for me is that he lacks depth. He’s just a straightforward bigot. On the other hand, you’re not exactly sure what Art is after. At first, it seemed like he wanted to steal everyone’s Minimums so that everyone would just return to normal. But then here he is, delivering a speech you could basically steal straight from X-Men. Likely, it’s all just a front, but I can’t quite put my finger on what Art will do if he manages to accomplish his goals. But I digress. The point is that even though Doktor adds yet another source of conflict to the story, he’s a pretty flimsy character.

Anyway, I also prefer Nice and company over Rinka and company, but that doesn’t say much. You want to know what Hamatora‘s heroes are doing? They’re staging a play. Yes, a fucking play. I don’t care about Nice’s real feelings for Hajime.

2. Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun

Could this be the first time this anime takes first place in the rankings?

1. Aldnoah.Zero

No, Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun won’t be taking first. I actually somewhat enjoyed our mostly Inaho-less episode of Aldnoah.Zero. Plus, it developed Saazbaum’s character, which didn’t hurt. Is this a good anime? Not really, but I’d still rather watch last week’s episode over anything else on this list.

Week 9’s Poll

People always ask me which upcoming fall shows I’m looking forward to the most. I will soon post my previews for the following season, but until then, let’s turn this around on you guys. Which of the upcoming fall shows are you guys looking forward to the most?

Two things come to mind as I watch Tsugumi agonize and cry over Akashi’s apparent lack of love for her. First, I can’t really relate to her because, well, her obsession over Akashi doesn’t make sense. I think the show wants to frame Tsugumi as some tragic figure, screwed by mere circumstances, but I can’t even pity her. I just think her story is ludicrous; she literally met Akashi for just a few days back when they were kids, and yet she’s been despairing for his affections ever since? How am I supposed to react to this? Should I feel sorry for her? I think the opposite effect is achieved instead: she is pathetic but not in a good way. And it’s funny too, because I would’ve bought it if it had been Mimei who turned into the show’s primary antagonist.

Furthermore, what makes characters actually feel like real people as opposed to just a concept is when you can imagine their lives outside of the story you see before you. It’s like paying attention to the notes that the jazz musician doesn’t play. You start to appreciate the notes that do get played even more. My point is, I assume there are twenty-four hours in a day, because I doubt M3 exists in some alternate universe where the Earth revolves around the Sun at a faster or slower pace. I also assume that there’s relatively little to do in the Lightless Realm, especially when you’re by yourself. Everything is in ruins, and there’s not another soul in sight (except for Team Gargouille’s misguided forays, of course). So ask yourself, “What on earth does Tsugumi do with her time?”

Seriously, what the hell does Tsugumi do with her time? Don’t get me wrong, this is not something I literally need to see with my own eyes. I don’t need her daily routine to be animated. I simply want to know if, well, she does anything. And this is partly why I don’t buy her character whatsoever. You may not think it’s important to consider what Tsugumi does in the Lightless Realm, but for me to consider Tsugumi anything more than a flimsy plot device, I have to be able to imagine her as a fleshed out character. And honestly, I just don’t see it. I can’t imagine her just agonizing and crying over Akashi all day, but at the same time — knowing what we know about the Lightless Realm — I can’t imagine her doing anything else either. All this tells me is that’s an empty character.

It’s funny… I’ve never liked Natsuiri’s character, and I’ve always wished for his death. But now that he’s dead, there’s an undeniable gap in the story. Y’see, IX is supposedly this big organization, but the story never bothered to develop anyone but Natsuiri. Hell, forget develop. M3 haven’t bothered to introduce anyone but Natsuiri. I mean, there was that bald, old man who died a few episodes ago, but I don’t even remember his name. So anyway, Natsuiri is dead, right? But even though he’s dead, the IX superiors still demand Team Gargouille to head straight back into the Lightless Realm. But who are these fuckers? That’s what I mean when I say there’s an undeniable gap in the story. I’m watching Susan argue with these guys, but as far as I’m concerned, they’re just faceless nobodies to me.

Anyway, two big developments this week. First, remember that abandoned hospital early on in the series? The place where Emiru and Heito had stumbled upon the Argent? Natsuiri used to run a lot of shady experiments there, but somehow — just somehow — Kasane is able to find very useful data on one of the hospital’s servers. Yeah, the computer is still operational. And yeah, Natsuiri just happened to have crucial, life-changing data hidden away on some server he hasn’t used in years. Not only that, Kasane literally takes one glance at the files and instantly discerns its usefulness. But if you think that’s convenient, there just happens to be an Admonition lurking in this abandoned hospital. I seriously wonder why our characters didn’t run into it the first time they visited the hospital, but Kasane definitely runs into now. And as a result, she quickly becomes the damsel in distress.

As for the second big development of the week, the resonance between Akashi and brother has apparently bcome strong enough that the latter’s voice can be heard. Hell, he can even assume control of the Argent. Unfortunately, he has to use his new freedom to protect Kasane from the Admonition. Although Aoshi does manage to defeat the Admonition, he ends up overexerting himself and truly dies for good. The thing is, like Tsugumi, Aoshi has never really been much of a character. He’s often talked about, but because of the nature of his existence — he’s literally a body trapped within a mecha — he can’t actually talk. For 90% of what we’ve seen thus far, he’s been nothing more than the target of Akashi’s hate and bitterness. So like Tsugumi, he’s always felt like plot device. As a result, his death, like a lot of supposedly emotional high points in this anime, does nothing for me.

It’s kind of funny when the first thing that comes to mind is, “Well, shit… how is Akashi going to pilot his mecha now? Akashi and Kasane’s loss should be sad and tragic, but it’s like… eh…? Anyway, storywise, I think it only makes sense if Sasame becomes Akashi’s next LIM. What about Minashi? Eh, I always felt it would only be fitting if he died to end this whole mess. Then everyone from that blasted village can meet their demise, and we’d be done with this mess for good.

At the start of the episode, we see Lisa sleeping soundly as Twelve stands on the rooftop and smiles toward the sky. He seems almost content with himself. Elsewhere, however, the real world has consequences: most of the detectives are not only taken off the case, they’re suspended for three months. Shibazaki, on the other hand, is suspended indefinitely. He nevertheless tries to reveal the truth, which is that Sphinx wasn’t responsible for the bomb at the airport. His immediate superior was not ready, however, to entertain such an idea. But of course, this doesn’t really mean anything in practice. I can’t imagine these guys would just sit idly by as Sphinx and Five play their little games. Not only that, it sure as hell looks as though Sphinx needs all the help they can get against Five. It’s not that she’s that much smarter or anything, but the crucial factor here is her willingness to kill. When you’re ready to cross that line, when you’re unbound by the worries of right and wrong, you can do whatever it takes to win.

There are more allusions to Greek mythology as Shibazaki continues to launch his own investigation. Apparently, the group called the Rising Peace Academy had tried to “implement something called the Athena Plan.” We find out later that it was a plan to educate gifted children, but naturally, “details of the project cannot be found anywhere on the public record.” I think it’s safe to say the Athena Plan involved those children at the Institute. Our suspended detective questions a member of said Rising Peace Academy, but naturally, the guy feigns ignorance. I’m curious, though; how is Shibazaki managing to get his foot in the door to even ask any of these questions when he doesn’t have his badge? Without one, he just looks like any other white-collar worker. Well, they wouldn’t have his unkempt hair, that’s for sure. As an aside, he looks like a rock star trying to fit in with the rest of Japanese society. When the official from the Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare predictably stonewalls Shibazaki’s attempts to dig into the mystery surrounding the Athena Plan, the detective is forced to use his trump card: extortion. Apparently, the official’s son is a bit of a hooligan. As a result, Shibazaki was able to gather some juicy bits of information.

According to the politician, the Rising Star Academy took gifted children from orphanages around the country. With Hamura’s help, Shibazaki puts in some field work, and goes to the various orphanages to look for any potential leads. In the end, they find themselves looking for Souta Aoki, a former director in the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare. Shibazaki then enlists Kinoshita’s cyber expertise to locate the guy, but I can understand the young man’s reluctance to get involved. I mean, just look at this picture. People have a family they have to worry about. You can argue that if Shibazaki and company don’t do something, then the whole country is in danger. As a result, everyone’s lives would be threatened anyway, including Kinoshita’s family. Still, it’s hard to think that far ahead when you have immediate concerns to worry about — immediate concerns that involve both your pregnant wife and your young son. Hamura can probably afford to help Shibazaki out from the get-go since he’s younger and thus has less at stake. Plus, he could always work at his parents’ grocer or something, though I wonder if his pride could really accept that. In the end, Kinoshita helps Shibazaki out anyway, and they discover something potentially earth-shaking… Unfortunately, the anime won’t tell us just yet what Shibazaki has learned.

But enough about the adults. At one point, Five sends a bomb to the apartment where Sphinx and Lisa are hiding. Needless to say, the girl could barely escape before the entire place goes up in flames. I’m kind of surprised how the explosion felt so much like an isolated incident. Nobody seems to really talk about it other than the people actually affected by the bomb. You’d think there’d be a media sensation over an apartment blowing up, i.e. “Was this where Sphinx was hiding out the entire time?!” Anyway, Nine blames the incident on Lisa for accepting the package, but let’s assume nobody died from the explosion. Had she not accepted the package, the delivery man would’ve had to keep it on him. Assuming the bomb is not remotely detonated, the delivery man would’ve died. I don’t think Sphinx would’ve wanted that. Plus, the media would quickly pin the death on them. Or maybe he had been told to leave the package there anyway even if nobody answered the door. In that likely scenario, there’s really nothing Lisa could’ve done anyway. In the end, I think Nine just feels the need to direct his anger at someone or something, and Lisa makes an easy scapegoat. After the ordeal at the airport, she now has to face this. It’s really too much for a girl who had been a schoolgirl just a week ago.

With Five in the picture, Nine wants to use “that thing” and thus accelerate “the plan.” I’m sure we’ll find out about these two things soon enough. On the other hand, Twelve begins to have his doubts: “I was thinking… Maybe we should stop this…” Nine feels duty bound because of what he’s been through, but he wonders if Lisa is the reason why Twelve’s resolve is faltering. As a result, he thinks they should no longer involve the girl in their plans. There’s no doubt that Lisa makes them vulnerable; she’s by far the least capable of the three. She can’t hack, she can’t make bombs, she can’t do anything but follow simple directions. And even as a pawn, she’s not that useful anymore, because they’ve seen her face. Lisa was only effective at the airport because Five did not initially suspect that a random schoolgirl would be involved with Sphinx. But now that Five knows everything about Lisa, including what she looks like, what can the girl do now? At the same time, however, abandoning Lisa would just leave her defenseless. It seems like Five would have no problems locating Lisa, and unless Nine and Twelve are there to protect the girl, she would likely die or get tortured. Not only that, the boys really needed her help in the previous episode, so it seems cold and callous to just ditch her like this.

The thing is, Sphinx’s unwillingness to incur a death count, while commendable, can still be explained away as something that ultimately benefits them in the long run. In other words, they’re not being completely selfless when they save people’s lives. Having Lisa around, however, humanizes them. All of a sudden, they have to worry for Lisa’s sake, even when if she’s nothing but a hindrance. After all, look at what the Institute has done to Five. She has absolutely no regard for human life. She’s just toying with the boys, especially Nine, and it doesn’t matter to her if innocent people die in the process. She’s singly focused on playing her game to the point that Clarence has to tell the girl to pull it back a bit. Doesn’t that sound familiar? Isn’t Nine singly focused on accomplishing whatever it is that Sphinx originally set out to accomplish? The way I see it, no matter which side of the coin you’re on, the Institute dehumanizes you. It strips your name away, it isolates you, it mentally abuse you, so on and so forth. Even though Nine doesn’t really want to incur a loss of human life if he doesn’t have to, he was ready to give up on Lisa in the previous episode. He was ready to let her die.

From a pure logical, “tactical” standpoint, there’s no reason to keep Lisa around. Like I’ve said, if anything, she’s a hindrance because she lacks so much knowledge and practical skills. Hell, she can’t even cook. But Lisa has nowhere else to go. She can’t physically survive the streets, and she can’t bear the mental anguish of returning home to her emotionally abusive mother. Oh yeah, that’s not to mention the bullying she had to endure at school. For all intents and purposes, the boys have become her family. Running with a pair of alleged terrorists is hardly any young girl’s dream, but she’s accepted her place amongst them. So if the boys accept this fact that Lisa is dead weight, then they lose sight of the bigger issue: that in order for the Institute not to win out in the long run, they have to prove that despite all the dehumanizing shit that the place had put them through, they’re still capable of caring for others, establishing close bonds with others, etc. It’s sounds trite, but Lisa represents their redemption. Nine may not be convinced of this just quite yet, but I think Twelve already is. Still, Nine’s words manage to reach Lisa, forcing her to run away from her own home for the second time in the series.

Sure enough, when Lisa throws herself back onto the streets, Five immediately captures Lisa. Five then goes on a spiel about how she wants to help Sphinx. Furthermore, if the boys continue to try and do what they intend to do, then there will be no redemption for them. Obviously, Five likes to play games, and her words are not something Lisa can take at face value. Still, I agree with what she says… in a way. Even in this very predicament, Lisa tries to protect the two boys: “I… I don’t care what happens to me. But please, let those two…” In just a short time, she’s come to view them as important people to her; like I’ve said, they’ve become her new family. Naturally, Five devalues Lisa’s humanity: “To have that idiot woman following them around. It must have been annoying for those two.” Five is merely using the same tactics she picked up at the Institute. Remember how in one of Nine’s flashbacks, he had heard a lady say “But for you [kids], the abandoned, love does not exist.” This is in effect what Five is trying to do. She’s trying to make Lisa compliant by making the girl feel isolated, unwanted, and thus vulnerable.

The crucial thing about this scene, however, is the way LIsa continues to genuinely care for the two boys despite the fact that her very life is being threatened. As I’ve said in previous posts, the girl is similar to Sphinx in many ways as a victim of abuse. Bhe’s also unlike them in one very important way: she still has her humanity. She hasn’t been stripped of it by some heartless Institute. She can care for other people as if they’re her family. Predictably enough, Five sends a message to Sphinx with images of Lisa. Nine states the obvious in identifying the very obvious trap Five has laid out for them, but Twelve knows this too. Twelve’s no idiot; he knows Five is using Lisa as bait. His desire to rescue Lisa despite the fact that he’s walking into a trap, however, shows that he’s closer to his redemption than Nine is to his: “I’m going because I have no time…” In other words, if Sphinx doesn’t save Lisa now, they won’t get another chance to redeem themselves. If I’m right about Lisa, the boys will have to take the first step towards their redemption by saving her. The only question is how long it’ll take Nine to realize he needs to help Twelve, ’cause I doubt Twelve can do this alone.

Stray notes & observations:

– This song at the start of the episode is not pleasant to listen to.

– According to Kurahashi, Five is really from the ISA, which is apparently “[t]he US Intelligence Support Activity special ops unit,” and that makes her a spy of some sort. Whatever that means… No doubt they’re working for some American entity, but honestly, I find it very difficult to believe that any FBI agent would have locked Lisa onto a bomb-strapped plane like Clarence had done in the previous episode. Blah blah blah, he thought she was a terrorism. So what? FBI agents have morals, too. FBI agents don’t just doom a child to her death just because there’s a strong presumption that she is a terrorist.

– Oh look, it’s Shibazaki’s actual daughter. As such, Lisa very likely isn’t his daughter, but I guess it’s not completely ruled out. Lisa might have a sister she doesn’t talk to or something, but if this is really the case, it doesn’t make much sense that Lisa would run away and not reach out to her sister. Plus, it would seem cold for Shibazaki to visit one daughter and not the other one.

– Anyway, it’s a bit sad, that this brief father-daughter reunion only takes place because A) Shibazaki being suspended and B) he’s curious about whether or not an ordinary person can turn plutonium into a bomb. The first reason is somewhat understandable; if he’s busy stopping terrorists from destroying the country, then yeah, he’s not going to have time to see his daughter. But still, I’m sure there’s plenty of people he could’ve asked. It needn’t be his daughter. Hell, a quick Google search would tell you that you can very much make a bomb. I’m not surprised his daughter would thus have the following reaction: “Huh? Don’t tell me this is for an investigation?” Even so, according to Shibazaki’s daughter, the primary danger in making a nuclear bomb is exposing yourself to the radiation, which makes sense. It also raises another question: where have the boys been storing that plutonium? And to follow up on that, have they exposed themselves enough to the radioactive element that their lives are already in danger? I don’t know, I just get the feeling that either Nine or Twelve — or perhaps even both — will die at the end of all of this. Maybe I’m wrong, but it’s just a feeling from watching them.

– What were those purple sticks Lisa just dumped into the curry…?

– When Five sent a bomb to Sphinx’s apartment, how did she knew where to find them? Before the bomb had gone off, Nine speculated, “They saw her face. They might find this place eventually.” I’m not quite sure I get how seeing Lisa’s face would lead to them finding their apartment so quickly, though.

– Oh, now Clarence thinks Five is going too far: “The American government’s orders state that securing the object is our top priority.” He seems to care only about this “object,” though. There’s just such a wanton disregard for the potential loss of innocent lives. Yeah, Lisa got away from the building in time, but are you telling me she was the only person in the place when the bomb went off? Well, knowing this anime, a news report will conveniently tell us that there were absolutely no casualties or injures from an incident involving an explosion downtown…

– As soon as Clarence leaves, Five begins clutching her head in pain. Is this in reaction to something she saw, or does she naturally get headaches of that sort? The latter isn’t implausible. Who knows what she went through at that Institute? We can assume she went through quite a mental toll before she was unleashed on the real world.

– Cheekily enough, Sphinx’s next base of operation is an arcade: “Well, we can play all the games we want.”

– Sphinx seems to have some fans, especially from people around their age. This isn’t really surprising. As much as we condemn terrorism, since no lives have been lost, it just looks like a bunch of boys striking back against “The Man.” I can see powerless, disenfranchised individuals identifying with Sphinx’s mayhem and perceived anarchism: “Yeah, there have been young people recently who treat them like heroes.” Shibazaki even acknowledges that in a different era, Sphinx wouldn’t be considered terrorists. Young people can’t do anything about their impotent rage and frustration with modern society, but they can live vicariously though Sphinx’s exploits. I know Nine and Twelve have a specific goal they would like to accomplish, but that’s not something outsiders would know about. Either way, Sphinx is lashing out against the powers that be, and that will always have a certain appeal in any age and society.

– How did Five locate Lisa so quickly? Does that means she knows about Sphinx’s new hideout already? Furthermore, where are all of this cameras? From the footage we see, it almost looks like the cameras aren’t fixed. Rather, they’re following Lisa as the girl picks up her speed and starts running. The whole thing puzzles me; it feels like an oversight on the narrative’s part.