Y’know, I like Kill la Kill, but… I was satisfied with the way the series ended. And by this, I mean was satisfied enough to move on from the story. I don’t feel the need to watch another minute of Kill la Kill. I guess it’s nice that we got this 27-minute OVA, but I’m just not excited to watch it. It’s like when you’ve eaten a hell of a dinner, but the chef feels the need to trot out yet another course. Yeah, I realize it’s been months since I last watched a minute of Kill la Kill, but I still feel full, if you know what I mean. I feel satiated. I’m not hungering for more the story, especially when Senketsu is dead. He is dead, right? You’re not going to drag him out of thin air just for a single OVA, right? But hey, maybe this 25th episode can convince me otherwise. So have at it, Kill la Kill. Convince me that this OVA meaningfully adds to what I’ve already consumed and enjoyed.

– So the episode kicks off with Sanageyama challenging Satsuki to yet another battle. It’s to settle the score between them, y’see. Of course, Satsuki barely has to do anything and she still wins. Or to put it more accurately, she has no resolve to fight, and this makes Sanageyama want to give up too. I’m not surprised by this; It’s time to move on. Satsuki had to stop Ragyo at all costs, and with Ryuuko’s help, she did. But with the death of the mother also comes maturation. In a way, Kill la Kill is just another stylish coming-of-age story. Ryuuko and Satsuki basically cast off their overbearing mother in order to make their own choices in life. And now that Ragyo’s dead, it’s time to move onto adulthood. It’s time to leave your uniform behind, to leave your high school behind, and to leave these petty schoolyard fights behind. I wouldn’t say Satsuki lacks resolve. I’d say she’s just trying to move on and grow up. It’s not that she’s done fighting; she’s just done fighting these battles. Everyone is still wearing their school uniforms more or less. Satsuki, however, is in a simple robe. And that’s not surprising at all.

– Oh yeah, judging by the way Satsuki’s hair is still long, this OVA takes place before ending sequence in the original series’ final episode.

– I’m more surprised no one’s bothered to wipe the blood off those overgrown barbs in the background. Seriously, can we get some help around here or what?

– Kinda sad that not a single person is rooting for Sanageyama. Kinda funny too, but sad.

– I don’t see any changes in the OP. That’s kind of disappointing. I guess I just expect a new OP for every new stage in the story, I guess, and the OVA should be distinct from the second cour of the original series.

– Watching everyone in the slums pack up and leave, it’s sort of funny. I wonder if Satsuki ever feels guilty about the way she had enforced harsh class stratification on her society just to separate the weak from the strong. I suppose you could always hand-wave this away by claiming that even the people in the slums never really suffered. Just look at the Mankanshoku family. They’re always happy as clams. On the other hand, the guy who stole the Goku Uniform definitely seems to have lost his life, though.

– Aikuro pays Ryuuko a visit to see if she’s okay with moving on with life even though she still has Life Fibers within her. I thought we settled that matter already…

– So far in the early going, this is like one of those extended epilogues that tells you all about what everyone will be doing after the story ends. Basically, moments like these are only here to please the fans and give them more fodder for their fanfiction stories. I don’t personally need to know that Gamagoori will be working in the iron works, nor do I need to know that Jakuzure will inherit the Jakuzure Corporation. But obviously, I can’t speak for the average Kill la Kill fan.

– According to Ryuuko, Satsuki is still trying to put down her sword for good. I guess it’s a bit of an existential crisis, but what’s the hurry? The episode even said that it has only been two weeks since Ragyo’s demise. Hell, most of us have never had to go to battle for any reason, and we still don’t know what we want to do with our lives. Why should Satsuki have to make her decision so soon?

– You could even argue that she needs to “mourn” her mother’s death in a way. I’m not saying she should cry buckets of tears over Ragyo’s death, but still, the lady was an important figure in Satsuki’s life for nearly two decades. I’m sure she feels free from her mother’s bondage, but at the same time, it’s a sea change that you need to process. Two weeks don’t really cut it.

– But unfortunately, Satsuki won’t get the chance to relax…

– In fact, “shadow versions” of the Elite Four show up too. As a result, the battle rages on. It’s like the past doesn’t want to let go of the present.

– Here’s your palette-swapped version of Satsuki in her Junketsu. It’s like I’m playing an MMO all over again.

– The villain of this OVA? It’s none other than Hououmaru Rei, a.k.a. Ragyo’s fanatically loyal secretary. You didn’t think Ragyo or Nui would be making a comeback, did you? But at the same time, it’s just Rei, so it’s like, “Really? Not only are you fighting shadow version of ourselves, the big bad baddie is just the secretary?”

– The episode keeps repeating Rei’s previous defeat over and over, so the more I see it, the more comical it gets.

– I guess you could say Rei is haunted by the fact that she can’t move on with life on her own terms. Ragyo and Nui got to die for their cause, so even in death, they got to go down in a blaze of glory. They died fighting for what they believed in; their deaths symbolized their cause, as misguided and evil as that cause was. But that’s the thing: Rui believed in that cause just as much as they did. She, however, didn’t get the same meaningful, martyr-like death. Her story thus lacks closure, so I guess there’s nothing better to do than to prevent others from getting their closure as well. As a result, the past comes roaring back to haunt our heroes in the form of their shadow selves. I mean, if you think about it, just because the Elite Four are ready to move on doesn’t mean the rest of the school is too, y’know? Like I’ve said, a good portion of the society was forced to live in the slums. Satsuki and her small circle dominated this school for a long, long time with an iron fist. And now they’re just going to live the rest of their lives out in comfort? Where’s the justice in that? Don’t you guys need to repent for your crimes?

– We then learn that twenty years ago, Ragyo, in a navel-bearing tank top and loose camo pants, had saved Rei from some indistinct African nation. The thought of this alone is comical, but let’s just go along with it. Anyway, the point is that Rei knows firsthand what it’s like when the strong prey upon the weak, and maybe if Ragyo had succeeded in her plan of turning everyone into Life Fibers, then equality would be achieved in some twisted, scorched earth sort of way.

– Rei activates the school’s Final Defense Apparatus, something which the good guys never got the chance to use in the final battle against Ragyo. Satsuki tells Rei that if she dies, then the Final Defense Apparatus would stop working. Rei has come prepared with a back-up plan, though. For some reason, Mako can also be used to activate the damn thing. Well, she’s always had a surprising amount of strength. She simply spent 90% of the original series as a noncombatant because she never felt the need to fight.

– Rei comes right out and explains that the shadow versions of Satsuki and the Elite Four are merely physical manifestations of the fear remaining in the hearts of the No-Star students. Like I’ve said, it never really made sense that Satsuki and crew never had to pay for their crimes. Sure, they did what they thought they needed to do in order to build an army strong enough to resist Ragyo, but at the end of the day, a lot of people suffered under Satsuki’s fascist rule.

– The OVA is being too obvious about it, though. Rei ends up talking too much and not letting the action speak for itself.

– Mako does her usual thing of being wacky, adding levity to counterbalance the show’s seriousness. She reasons that the Elite Four, as a whole, are better people now than they were before. Eh, so what? I still think some sort of reparations to the No-Stars are necessary. Simply becoming better people doesn’t absolve you of your sins. But in the end, like always, Mako’s words inspire her friends to fight.

– Then out of nowhere, the spirit of Senketsu summons the Scissor Blades from the deep of space and into Ryuuko’s hands.

– Needless to say, the Scissor Blades undergo yet another ridiculous transformation in order to defeat Rei once and for all. And just like that, Ryuuko cuts through the school with her giant pair of scissors, and frees everyone from Honnouji forever.

– Meanwhile, Satsuki shows her maturation by not fighting back at all. Instead, the once combative Kiryuuin tries to use words and words alone to reason with Rei: “I can’t imagine what kind of hell you’ve lived though… But because people don’t understand, the world needs you.”

– I know a lot of people like Rei feel that they can only strike back against the privileged by resorting to violence. And y’know, for a lot of people, their lives are threatened each and every single day. There’s no denying that. Living our normal, privileged lives, we’ll never know what it’s like to fear for our safety every single waking moment.

So yeah, we do need to take a step back and listen to the people who have been through hardships we’ll never have to face. And I’m not talking about the first world activism that seems to dominate the Internet as of late. I’m talking about the real shit in far-off countries, stuff we never hear about unless we actually look for them. Stuff that don’t get any airtime on TV.

– But in the end, Rei is just lucky. She manages to stumble upon Satsuki, one of the few people in the Kill a Kill universe who is not only willing to listen to what she has to say, but strong and influential enough to do something about the injustice in this world. The episode thus wants to end on a hopeful message, but instead, it leaves me in a strange place. Why? Because I know it’s just not that simple. And an anime telling me otherwise won’t magically hand-wave away the misgivings I have about the real world problems that Rei’s character merely alludes to. Just like how the Elite Four magically becoming better people won’t fix all the problems of the past, there aren’t Satsukis in the real world for the downtrodden to depend on. That’s not even to mention the fact that the downtrodden don’t really want to put their fates solely in the hands of great men and women anymore.

– Satsuki finally cuts her hair short.

– Final word? There’s a lot more of the same for Kill la Kill fans to enjoy. All the familiar characters and their familiar mannerisms are back. Only Satsuki undergoes any major character development, if you think about it. So if you enjoy over-the-top shounen action and a reunion with some old pals, then the OVA won’t disappoint.

Storywise, the OVA is potentially thought-provoking at times, but it doesn’t quite hit the spot. Everything’s resolved in a very simplistic manner, but then again, that’s just Kill la Kill‘s schtick. The anime is certainly smarter than the average shounen, but like most of us, it can only rely upon hopeful platitudes at the end of the day. Take that for what it’s worth. For a lot of us, I suspect this is hardly an issue to worry about.

The episode opens with ghouls ripping through one of the many anti-ghoul branches. According to a victim, these perpetrators are from the Aogiri Tree. I’m not sure the anime has ever fully explained what the Aogiri Tree really is. All we know is that they’ve taken over the 11th ward, and they’re big enough — 200 members, in fact — to directly attack an anti-ghoul branch. Obviously, there will be repercussions for their actions, but the superiors in this Aogiri Tree must be confident enough in the organization’s strength that they can repel any counterattack from the doves. Anyway, these new ghouls certainly are a colorful bunch, though. Previously, ghouls have looked like normal people we might encounter on the street. Shu may have appeared somewhat dandyish, but he’s normal enough to walk about in the crowd. The Aogiri Tree ghouls, on the other hand, look like rejects from some shounen anime series. Not only that, their leader has a nickname: the One-Eyed King. I’m a bit wary of this new direction the anime has taken, but I’ll just wait until the end before I make my final judgment.

Banjo, one of the many people looking for Rize or someone who smells like Rize, is the first to reach Anteiku. This means the others can’t be too far behind. Naturally, Banjo’s an idiot, so he quickly mistakes Ken as Rize’s man simply because he smells her scent on our protagonist. I’m not sure why that’s enough to enrage the guy. Maybe he had a thing for her, but it’s not something the anime has bothered to develop whatsoever. And to show that Banjo is as weak as he is stupid, Ken inadvertently manages to knock the guy out cold. He then apologizes profusely when he finally listens to Ken’s explanation. Honestly, I don’t know what to make of Banjo’s character. He just seems like a straight-up clown; he’s useless, and at this late stage of the game, I’m not sure his character is necessary. As soon as Banjo is done feeding us exposition, Ayato immediately crashes the party. It seems that Touka has known nothing about his whereabouts until now, but their reunion is short-lived as Yamori makes his appearance as well. It’s just one big party at Anteiku, and neither Yoshimura nor Renji are close enough to lend a hand.

The doves are hardly helping the situation. In one big assembly, the director stirs shit up by declaring that there will soon be war between humans and ghouls. After having drummed fear into the investigators’ hearts, he then demands that they turn their lives over to him: “This is an order, by the way! You have no right to refuse me!” Whoa, okay there, buddy. The thing is, there will never be peace in this world because both sides are full of chest-thumping, power-hungry jackasses. On the other hand, nice, kind-hearted people like Ken know nothing about what’s really going on. Of course, Ken is the exception, but that’s my point. The average person or ghoul in the Tokyo Ghoul universe certainly live in fear of the other side, but they are mostly ignorant to the events unfolding around them. As the saying goes, bad things happen because good people do nothing. But you can extend this even further: good people do nothing because they know nothing. Anyway, the kid with all the stitches on his body finally shows his face. It turns out he’s just Shinohara’s underling, i.e. another anti-ghoul investigator. Even the doves are looking sillier and sillier too.

Back at Anteiku, Yamori finds what he’s looking for, and he quickly overpowers Ken. I’m still curious what they are after. Yamori asks Nico if Ken would do, so apparently, they have some plans to do… “stuff” to Ken’s body. At the same time, however, they had no idea he was a half-ghoul. When Ken reveals his true nature in an attempt to resist Yamori’s brutality, everyone in the room suddenly look shocked. What were they intending to do with Ken before they realized he was a half-ghoul? Of course, Ken isn’t strong enough yet to defeat Yamori, so Yamori quickly recovers from Ken’s sudden increase in strength. The giant ghoul then stab the protagonist with his kagune. Touka tries to save Ken, but Ayato knocks her out before Yamori could do anything. Essentially, her otouto is still protecting her; he’s just doing it in a rather roundabout way. Ayato’s character is simple. Unlike Touka, he’s not content to live alongside humans. Rather, he wants to prove that ghouls are superior to humans. In a way, this is not so different from two of the other shows currently airing this season. But Tokyo Ghoul has a lot more heart, and a lot less fluff, so I’ll stomach it.

Anyway, Yoshimura and Renji finally return later that day to a trashed Anteiku. Touka’s slumped over, and Ken is nowhere to be found. As the days pass, we learn that the doves will soon attack Aogiri Tree head on. When they do so, it’ll only be a week since Aogiri Tree had stormed the 11th ward’s branch. Seems pretty quick on their part. Do they even know what they’re going up against? Nobody seems to even know anything about this One-Eyed King. In any case, storm clouds are brewing overhead as members of Anteiku debate their next move. Yoshimura suggests, “You’ll be served not thinking we’ll ever see Kaneki again.” Like before, he’s responsible for everyone’s lives, and he knows perfectly well what they’re up against. If we’re being realistic, our heroes are even worse off compared to the doves. But he’s not heartless; he just wants them understand what they’re getting into. They will try to save Ken, but they will likely lose their lives in the process. If anyone wants to turn around now, this is their chance. That’s when the group gets a very unlikely pair of hands to help them: Shu, the dandy?! I thought he was dead! I can’t wait until the story explains how he managed to survived the incident at the church.

Stray observations:

– Yamori continues torturing Ken in a rather gratuitous scene. I don’t really understand why the scene had to go for so long as the anime cut from one grimacing face to another. I already know Yamori’s a sadistic asshole. It seems like the anime is trying to prove a point it doesn’t need to make. Even Nico tries to calm Yamori down only to get punched through the gut himself. But it’s okay, because Nico apparently enjoys this abuse.

– Speaking of Nico, I know anime in general has never been portraying gay men, but Nico’s character’s fucking ridiculous. I’m not saying I expected Tokyo Ghoul to do any better, but I’m disappointed nevertheless. Nico is yet another ridiculous gay caricature; it’s like they’re not even trying to not be offensive.

– I’m not sure I understand why Shinohara is so afraid of the director making small talk with Juuzou. Is there something I’m missing?

– Amon’s one encounter with Ken continues to haunt him. Apparently, Ken managed to stir up old memories in Amon that he doesn’t want to remember. We briefly see a younger Amon entering a darkened room to an blood-covered old man saying, “Kotaro, who said you could come in?” But then the flashback ends there. Maybe the old man was a ghoul and had eaten someone close to Amon. In any case, there still seems to be plenty things to learn about the characters in Tokyo Ghoul, but knowing that the adaptation will soon come to an end, I’m afraid a lot of these questions will likely go unanswered.

– It turns out Mado had left Amon one of his quinque in a will. Knowing what we know about Mado, however, I don’t think it’s a good thing he’s passing anything of his down to another generation.

– We see Juuzou look up to the sky and address someone by the name of Rei. The kid also seems obsessed with quinques.

– I’m surprised members of Anteiku allowed Hinami to be in the room as they discussed such dire topics. But who knows? Maybe she’s mature enough already to handle it.

After weeks and weeks of training, our characters don’t quite throw down like I had expected at the end of last week’s post. Instead, the bad guys just flat-out win. This isn’t necessarily the problem; lots of stories do this sort of thing. As the saying goes, “The darkest hour is just before the dawn.” So the bad guys will have their way, and our heroes will just have to pick up the pieces somehow. Therein lies the drama. Basically, Minami and her posse of catty girls attack Rinka’s school simply because Rinka is there. They make an example of her in case anyone else tries to stand up against them. To facilitate this, they even broadcast Rinka’s beating to the entire country. So Rinka gets beaten up, Kyotaro can’t lend a hand because he’s being mind-controlled, and even Peggi gets kidnapped. In fact, Rinka was beaten up so badly that the magical fish left her body, thinking she was dead.

Then afterwards, as an overreaction to a school being attacked, the government establishes an Esper Detainment Force. Keeping true to their namesake, they go around detaining espers regardless of where those espers stand. This is likely what the bad guys wanted. This now gives them the carte blanche to do whatever it is that they want to do, and, well, we’ve already seen the first episode of the series. We know the Professor and his cronies will take over the Diet. We just don’t know how Rinka will recover in time to fight back. As I’ve said, the girl’s lost her powers. Not only that, both Rinka’s dad and her master gets captured trying to help escape. Afraid that she’ll hurt Murasaki too, Rinka despairs and runs away to God knows where. Meanwhile, Minami has stranded Kyotaro on a tropical island. So… that’s where we stand. The good guys are basically in ruins. So was this an effective episode? Eh…

The problem for me is that I don’t buy the bad guys’ actions. First, we get a bunch of flashbacks from Minami’s perspective. These flashbacks are supposed to shed light on both her and her father’s characters. In her youth, he had returned home one day heavily injured around the face. He also confesses to Minami that her mother had died. One night, the Professor cried over the loss of his wife. Unbeknownst to him, Minami was standing nearby. The sight of her father in such a vulnerable state left such a mark on the girl that she promised to protect him at all costs. Then we see how Minami came to get her powers. Apparently, she was almost gang-raped by three hoodlums. Thanks to a magical golden fish, however, she was able to avoid this fate, but in the process, she had killed three… three rapists. Still, anyone would be shaken up by their first killing, much less three. So long story short, she and her father cast off their humanity!

Minami and her father intend to rebuild the world from the ground up, and this new world will be the one where Minami’s mother never would’ve died! The problem is, I don’t buy it. First, I think the Professor’s story is very weak. Yeah, the world is full of injustice. Yeah, your wife died. But you’re going to murder countless of people, instigate a race war, and throw society into chaos because your wife died? That is pathetic, dude. Seriously, I’ve seen plenty of similar characters. They often wrestle with their feelings. Obviously, they feel a lot of hate towards the world because a loved one has just died. But at the same time, they’ll ask themselves, “Is this what my wife would’ve wanted me to do?” I don’t see that level of character development from the Professor. I don’t see that level of introspection. The thing is, the Professor acts like he’s Magneto (har har), but he doesn’t have Magneto’s story.

Magneto does what he does because he’s had to live through the fuckin’ Holocaust. He’s had to see millions of his own people systematically murdered and slaughtered at the hands of the Nazis. I can thus understand his extreme hatred and distrust for humanity. But even then, Magneto had more heart than the Professor. I don’t recall Magneto sending his thugs to beat up schoolchildren just to prove a point. Meanwhile, all the Professor did was lose his wife. That can’t be it, can it? So out of curiosity, I looked up some spoilers. It turns out there is a big government conspiracy, and that’s the reason why his wife was killed. Apparently, the guy who killed his wife ended up slitting his own throat in the middle of an intersection, and in the Professor’s mind, this proves without a doubt that the enemies are super powerful or something. And as a result, the Professor no longer believes that this world can’t be saved. Uh, okay. Y’know what? This makes the story dumber than I had previously thought.

You’re going to hurt millions of people just because of a small group of people involved in a government conspiracy? Really? Magneto wants to establish a new world order because he’s seen first hand how people — normal people, even — can a blind eye to the horrendous treatment of his people. Meanwhile, the Professor gives up on the world because a government conspiracy killed his wife, a conspiracy few people even know about! How can you just give up on the world because of a handful of people? No, the Esper Detainment Force is not a good excuse either, because it only came about as a result of the Professor and his group’s actions. Likewise, his underlings make no sense either, and I’m talking about these girls that Minami just recruited. I know that they’ve been through a lot; I know one of them almost got raped or whatever (apparently, everyone almost gets raped). But who the fuck goes from that to beating up a school in such a short amount of time?

I don’t care if I have a lot of anger towards society. I don’t go and beat up a school full of children because of it. As such, I don’t understand the bad guys’ actions whatsoever. The Professor’s crimes aren’t proportional to his pain. He’s not a compelling antagonist. He’s just an asshole. The same is true of the girls in this week’s episode. Blah blah blah, they’re the bad guys so they’re being bad. But that’s what I mean. This is boring good vs. evil nonsense. Antagonists can simply be people who have a skewed world view because of what they’ve been through. What I’m saying is that the bad guys in Tokyo ESP haven’t been through enough shit to justify the skewed world view that they have. They just look like a bunch of bullies and thugs. And if that’s what you want to portray, fine. But the way I see it, if the antagonists’ stories and motives aren’t compelling, then the narrative will suffer greatly because of it.

Oh yeah, the animation was pretty bad in this week’s episode. Embarrassingly bad. I guess Argevollen got all the bigger budget. Oh well, it does have a fancy mecha to sell…

Wait, is this blonde girl supposed to be the reverse trap? ‘Cause honestly, that’s the least convincing reverse trap I’ve ever seen. Gosh, I just can’t wait to hear her story, so let’s start the show.

– The episode kicks off with Aoi running laps around Naoto. Sure, the harem lead isn’t very athletic, but I’m more concerned by the fact that someone seems to have turned on the super deformed mode on this anime.

– Naoto then trips and falls, but Aoi’s breasts naturally breaks his fall. Y’know the drill. It’s just standard harem fare. The girl goes, “You know I’m only here because you said you wanted to retrain, right?” Mm-hmm, yeah, tell us how tsuntsun you are as you wrap the harem lead’s dainty lil’ ankle in bandages.

– Really though, this tsundere act is so bipolar, it’s hilarious. She kicks him in the ankle, but then tells him with concern that he really needs to see the doctor about it. Then why did you kick him?

– Naoto is reading some news article about a prince, so Aoi goes all rawr rawr feminism on us: “What’s so great about a story where the girl has to rely on a man to live happily ever after?” Hey, it’s not like I disagree with her. Hell, she’s preaching to the choir. I just laugh because, uh, this is Rail Wars!, where these girls’ happiness sure as hell do hinge upon the harem lead’s existence. It’s just one of those “Are you kidding me?” moments. Say what you will, Aoi, but nobody buys your bullshit.

– But yeah, this week’s episode involves some fancy prince from a foreign country. But as you can already tell from the picture at the top of this post, this prince ain’t got no balls. She sounds like a perfect match for Naoto, actually.

– Naoto says, “Whatever guy tries to seduce you, Sakurai, is in for a lot of pain.” Then for some reason, he and Aoi stare into each other’s eyes awkwardly. Okay then.

– Even though Sho is in this scene, there’s nothing to say about ’cause he doesn’t say or do anything. Anything important, that is. The guy spends the majority of the scene polishing his rod. Yeah, really. Again, I’m not sure why he’s even in this show.

– Later that day, Naoto’s about to meet a prince, but instead, he blushes as a train arrives at its station. So Rail Wars! is a harem, but at the same time, it’s an impotent harem (of course, what harem isn’t impotent?) because the harem lead is too busy getting turned on by trains. You can’t make this shit up.

– Traps almost always sound and look like girls, huh? But the hilarious part is that reverse traps almost always sound and look like girls too! At least Yu Kashima actually looks somewhat androgynous, but she’s not pretending to be a reverse trap.

– Prince Bernina. Her name is Prince fucking Bernina. You’re not even trying.

– And like Naoto, our “prince” blushes as sh–… I mean, he rubs against a train. Only in anime.

– Lots of train talk follows. As always, I just tune these scenes out. When I say I want this show to have less fanservice and be more about trains, I didn’t literally mean the anime should tell me stuff like how “the DF51, the greatest diesel engine on narrow-gauge railways, runs on the non-electrified sections.” Man, I don’t care about that shit. Rather, when I first heard about Rail Wars!, this was the first thing that caught my attention: “On top of that, an extremist group called “RJ” plots to privatize the Japanese National Railways.” So tell me… have we gotten a single episode that even comes remotely close the sentence I just quoted?

– So even though Prince Bernina isn’t from this country, “[t]he JNR engines have a special place in [his] heart.” Sounds legit to me.

– Seeing a kindred train otaku spirit in Naoto, Prince Bernina pounces all over the guy. Gosh, this is awkward! Hugging a man and all, that is! Oh, if only you were a girl, Bernina-kun!

– Naoto: “You’re really good at Japanese, Bernina.” C’mon, dude. Every damn foreigner in anime lately is fluent in Japanese. But it turns out Haruka used to know Bernina from their childhood! And Haruka taught Bernina how to speak Japanese fluently (sure). So uh, does Haruka know about Bernina’s true gender? Ooops, I forget we’re not supposed to talk about that yet!

– Apparently, Haruka used to study overseas in England. Okay. Look how seriously she looks though as she says, “Really, that’s all.” Like she really, really doesn’t want Naoto to get the wrong idea, i.e. Haruka and Bernina share a special boy-girl bond. Naoto’s oblivious as fuck, though, so it’s not like he even cares if Haruka’s close to another guy or not. He casually tries to take his leave, but then Haruka pulls that stunt that every fucking female anime character does. Y’know, they grab onto a corner of your shirt and like that’s supposed to be cute or something. But really, Naoto-kun, Haruka isn’t lying! Bernina means nothing to her! NOTHING! I mean, we wouldn’t want to offend the harem lead. This does seem to suggest that Haruka thinks Bernina’s a boy…

– We cut to a not-so-subtle ass shot of Aoi. That skirt does not look comfortable, especially since it looks like it’s made of rubber.

– Aoi spotted someone looking suspicious, so being the action hero girl that she is, she’s in hot pursuit of the perp. She swears she’s doing this to protect Naoto. Uh, awkward. Anyway, she misses the train as a result of this. I don’t know why Naoto looks so distraught over this, though. I guess he’s concerned about her? But she’s always proven she can handle herself so…

– Who doesn’t knock before they enter a room? But had he knocked, then we wouldn’t get to see this delicious shot of Haruka’s blurry ass behind a layer of pantyhose. Oh boy, Rail Wars! bringing out the big guns!

– It… it doesn’t even look like he’s looking at her as he’s speaking. Actually, what the fuck is he staring at? This is kinda creepy!

– So basically, Sho will stay in his room and wait for trouble to rear its ugly head. At the same time, Haruka will be in Bernina’s room to act as a decoy. Did you really have to put a girl inside Bernina’s room, though? Why couldn’t you put the more capable Sho in Bernina’s room? As for Bernina… naturally, the harem lead will hang out with the prince “all night for protection.” Everything’s clear for take off…

– Bernina’s location is supposed to be a secret, right? But despite this, Naoto knocks loudly on the prince’s cabin door, saying “Bernina” loudly. Good job, bro.

– When he opens the door, he finds that the prince is missing! Oh dear! Did someone abscond with our royalty?!

– Naoto: “What is this, a suspense thriller? Who attacks another person on a train?” I know, right? Who does that!

– But it’s a false alarm, guys. The prince is fine; the prince is just busy drooling over the train.

– Oh hey, Mari is here too. I feel like she’s a stalker.

– These breasts don’t even look attractive.

– Bernina continues to cause a ruckus because the prince wants to explore the train. Welp. She’s a reverse trap and she’s spoiled.

– Eventually, Naoto does manage to corral the prince, but this episode is just full of great animation, I’m hardly paying any attention to the story.

– The prince eventually wishes to take a shower, but first, Naoto must promise not to peep. We all know he will, so this is all for naught anyway. Plus, isn’t it just goddamn sad that the harem lead will inevitably peep on a showering girl? It happens all the time that we’ve come to accept it. We’ve come to just accept the fact that the main character will violate the girl’s privacy. But first, Naoto is quick to point out that he’s not gay: “I’m not about to peep on a guy showering.” C’mon, guys, no homo! Let me make this very clear! NO. HOMO.

– Just earlier, Bernina was like, “Well, I’m fifth in line to succeed the crown, so unless something terrible happens, I won’t be king.” Then what do we see next? A news report saying how “[a] car carrying the King of Atela and four members of the royal family was in an accident today.” This is such bad storytelling, it’s farcical.

– But this is apparently news that Bernina needs to hear right away. Like right away. I mean, sure, who doesn’t want to know their family had gotten in an accident? But Naoto couldn’t wait until the prince had gotten out of the shower? Really? She’s stuck on a train. It’s not like she can do anything about the situation. The guy can afford to wait and not walk in on a naked person, girl or otherwise.

– But he’s the harem lead, so of course he can’t wait. That face, though…

– But first, we must stare at a set of bra and panties. Yo, maybe the prince just likes to wear women’s bra and panties. Are you kink-shaming, bro? Are you kink-shaming?! I can’t even! I literally can’t even!

– Naoto wonders if he’s in the wrong room: “The doors look so similar!” Yeah, sure, dude. He then fantasizes that it’s Haruka’s room. And because it’s Haruka’s room, she would come out of the shower with nothing but a towel on. But then he snaps back to reality when Bernina calls out to him from behind the shower door.

– Bernina manages to faint in the shower (she apparently heard the news about her family in the shower), and this forces the harem lead to kick down the door and carry the naked prince out of the shower. Scandalous.

– When he finally sees that Bernina is actually a girl, I love how soft piano music starts to play. You’ve discovered this girl’s secret! She’s naked before you! She’s completely vulnerable and defenseless! Time for a romantic piano piece to play, uguu…

– Um, this… this doesn’t look right… Oh wait, it’s just anime, so all girls are nipple-less.

– Our harem lead proceeds to rub the girl down with a towel, because he wouldn’t want her to stay wet and catch a cold. I’d say throw a big towel on her, but again, this is anime. Have you seen the towels in anime? They’re hardly towels at all. They may as well be tissue. Except this guy.

– Bernina stays unconscious until Naoto tries to leave and get Haruka. Then magically, the girl wakes up and tells him to stay. Why? Because even Haruka knows nothing about Bernina’s secret. Aw, don’t you feel special now, harem lead?

– Good lord, what do you fucking think?

– Well, since Naoto couldn’t promise not to peep, he can now promise not to reveal Bernina’s secret to the world.

– You’ve got to be kidding me.

– Sho wonders why the harem lead didn’t invite Haruka to get some coffee. According to Naoto, Haruka didn’t answer when he knocked, so he just left her alone. Uh, isn’t she the decoy? Shouldn’t he worry that something might have happened to her? Oh right, right, we’re only allowed to worry about one haremette at a time. Anything more would just frazzle the guy’s tiny brain.

– All of a sudden, this bald guy brazenly walks into the dining room to try and attack the prince. But because this is lame ass anime about trains, this assassin didn’t even bring a gun. Instead, he has a stun gun. A stun gun. This has got to be the worst assassin I’ve ever seen.

– But despite the threat on their lives, Naoto tells Sho not to hurt the assassin.

– Another assassin shows up, and he too is equipped with nothing but a stun gun. But just look at how heroically Naoto endures the shock attack. What a beast! What reverse trap wouldn’t wet her panties over that?

– Somehow, our harem lead continues to talk quite lucidly as the stun gun is up against his goddamn neck. His neck!

– But he’s just a lame-o harem lead, so he eventually goes down. I just didn’t expect to get an ahegao in this week’s episode of Rail Wars!

– Out of nowhere, Aoi shows up to knee the bad guy in the face and save Naoto’s ass. She still feels the need to praise the harem lead, though. Good job, harem lead, for eating those stun gun attacks like a chump.

– And with that, we’ve come to end of this week’s episode. Just fantastic. Just another truly fantastic episode of Rail Wars!

We’re back once again. And what do we have? Oh, that’s right! It’s an SAO heroine lying around helpless, waiting for Kirito to save her! I don’t recall a girl ever saving Kirito, actually.  Remember how Asuna briefly saved Kirito’s life from Kuradeel only for him to have to jump back in and save her life just minutes later? The Gary Stu can never be topped, baby! Oh yeah, that was the moment he lost one of his e-hands. Wait a minute… he loses his hand…. he uses a lightsaber… a relative of his is in love with him… DEATH GUN?! IT WAS STAR WARS ALL ALONG!

– So Sinon sees the person she killed in the eyes of Death Gun simply because the latter is using the same handgun she had used to kill the guy. So… so what, actually? I just think the girl’s trauma here is unnecessary and gratuitous. It was always ludicrous that they had to provide Sinon with some super tragic backstory just to give her a reason to play GGO. Like she couldn’t just play the game for fun or something, y’know? She had to play GGO because she has a fear of guns, and this is like the world’s shittiest version of exposure therapy. Check that, Aldnoah.Zero‘s last episode had the world’s shittiest version of exposure therapy, but I digress. My point is that Sinon could’ve just played GGO for the sake of playing GGO, but naw, that wasn’t good enough for SAO‘s creator. We needed some ridiculous sob story about how she’s traumatized by any form of guns in real life, so she’s going to surround her with guns and a veritable sausagefest by playing GGO. Alright, fine, have it your way. Give the girl some stupid backstory. What gets me is this need to dredge up the girl’s drama in the middle of this Death Gun conflict. It isn’t bad enough Death Gun’s about to “kill” her, Oh no, we must add the girl’s trauma to the mix too! So in the end, you just get this jumbled, unfocused mess of a story. Is she afraid of dying? Or is she haunted by her past? Apparently both! This isn’t complexity, though. This is just a guy throwing anything he can at the wall and hoping it sticks. Someone whose brief success has made him think he has the storytelling chops, so he’s going to try his hand at telling some sort of poignant story about psychological trauma. Dude, it’s a harem in an MMO. Get a fucking grip.

– Even when a girl’s getting traumatized and shit, there’s nothing quite like a sweet crotch shot! I love how every curve around her taint has been so tenderly rendered. Stay classy, A-1 Pictures.

– So what’s going through Sinon’s mind right now? Uguu, I thought if I studied the Gary Stu carefully, I’d get the meaning of strength. But if I die, how will I study him?! B-But it’s not like I want to watch him or anything! I just don’t want to give up. Yeah, uh, I can tell you one thing. If I think I’m about to die, I sure as hell wouldn’t be thinking about some random asshole I just met in an MMO. How ’bout my family? How ’bout my unfulfilled dreams? Oh wait, haha, the Gary Stu and his flowing locks of hair are her unfulfilled dreams! My bad!

– Needless to say, Kirito saves Sinon at the last minute. Yawn.

– Oh my fucking god. With Kirito carrying Sinon in his arms, the girl now looks up with him with that doe-eyed expression and goes, “That’s enough… leave me!” I thought you said you didn’t want to give up, dumbass. See, the writer thinks he’s adding emotion to this scene, but he’s not. It’s just stupid. The girl literally just cried for her life a minute ago, and now that her safety is more than guaranteed ’cause she’s in the Gary Stu’s arms, all of a sudden she wants to give up. It’s not poignant, man. Stop trying so hard. Just embrace the fact that, at best, you’ve written a dumb popcorn anime series! But that’s SAO at its best. SAO in its current form is this pretentious, overwrought piece of shit that thinks it can be more than anything but an action harem anime series. Enough, Gary Stu-kun. Leave me to die! To die on this e-battlefield! Save youuuuurseelf!

– I love how this shot rings out and hits a sign, but the sign doesn’t even fall anywhere near our heroes. The anime had a chance to add some action to the scene, but it’s like, “Nah, nah… we don’t need action.”

– Conveniently enough, Kirito comes across a place where he can rent buggies or horses. Yeah, mechanical horsies. ‘Cause a real horse would’ve been too unrealistic, but mechanical ones make perfect sense in this futuristic gun MMO.

– Sinon even has to tell the Gary Stu that the mechanical horse is too difficult to control. Still, I seem to recall a certain somebody telling Kirito that GGO vehicles are too difficult to control only for him to prove her wrong. But it doesn’t matter. He ends up picking a buggy.

– With Sinon in the backseat, Kirito tells her to quickly destroy the mechanical horse. How does he know Death Gun would pick the horse? What if Death Gun picks a buggy? But anyway, apparently in GGO, you can destroy vehicles before anyone can even use them. But what’s funny here is that Sinon can’t shoot the horse. She literally can’t even! Seeing that handgun at the start of the episode had triggered the girl so hard, she now can’t pull the trigger! Oh my god, this works on so many levels! What a genius story! Anyway, I love how the girl can pick her rifle up, line up the shot carefully, and put her finger on the trigger, but when it comes to actually pulling her finger back just hard enough to fire a shot, she can’t do it.

– As Kirito drives away on their buggy, he tells Sinon to stay sharp. Too bad she’s useless now.

– Oh good lord, Death Gun does pick the horse. The fucking horse. I get it. He’s a personification of Death, and he’s riding a horse. If you’re going to go this far, why not just give the fucker a reaper while you’re at it? Oh right, right… only the Gary Stu is allowed to have melee weapons in this game.

– And the entire time this is happening, Sinon just continues to whine. Nande?! Naaaaaaande?! Every goddamn heroine in SAO just turns into this useless blob of helplessness. Have you noticed that? They always start off as these no-holds-barred female warrior only to eventually become a quivering mass of uselessness. Shit, Asuna spent an entire arc being useless. And all Leafa could do was whine from the get-go about how she couldn’t bang her cousin.

– RIP, tough female anime character. Here lies Sinon, a girl with a giant rifle in her pocket. We hardly knew ye.

– Kirito tells Sinon that she has to fire her gun and distract the bad guy long enough for them to get away. Sinon insists she can’t. Yeah, c’mon, Kirito. We just told you that she literally can’t even. So of course, he suggests that they swap places, and he’ll fire her gun. All of a sudden, Sinon’s all, “Uguu, Hecate’s a part of me! No one can fire her but me.”

– First, doesn’t Kirito feel fucking dumb now that he didn’t even bother to pick himself up anything but a lightsaber and a handgun? Second, of course it would take the Gary Stu’s words to give our anime babe the strength that she needs to overcome this ordeal. Nuh-uh, that strength’s not going to come from within. Rather, it comes from the Gary Stu. He smiles down on us all and provides us with his warmth.

– By the way, can we give it a rest with the shiny, sparkly guns? It’s like every time I see a gun, it has to sparkle in the sunlight.

– Kirito and Sinon proceed to have a goddamn conversation as they’re driving down this long, incredibly straight road.

Sinon: “I can’t fight anymore.”
Kirito: “No, you can. Everyone can fight. It’s just a choice of whether you should!”

Wow, such inspiring words! But whine, whine, whine, the girl continues on to say that she would choose not to fight. It’s a video game. For the love of god, something just occurred to me. Why don’t you fucking log out then? There’s nothing keeping you in the game. This isn’t the Aincrad arc. This entire time that Sinon is whining, why doesn’t she just log out?

– This road is so straight, Kirito can reach back and guide the girl’s hand. Baby, baby, I know you can’t shoot… but I’ll shoot with you. Use the force, Sinon. Use the Gary Stu force. This entire time, Death Gun is just riding straight at a rifle, not even shooting back or anything. Hmm, they seem to be talking over there! Durr, let’s just keep watching those two!

– Sinon wonders how Kirito can stay so calm. He’s the motherfuckin’ Gary Stu, baby!

– Good lord, everything goes to slow-motion as Sinon feeds us a corny-ass monologue. The Gary Stu gives it his all! The Gary Stu doesn’t make excuses! This is the source of the Gary Stu’s strength! Barf.

– So Sinon misses, but she conveniently hits the gas tank of a nearby, parked vehicle. The resulting explosion allows our heroes to escape.

Kirito: “Great shot, kid! That was one in a million!”
Sinon: “Aw shucks, it was nothing! I used to bullseye crazed robbers in my T-16 back home!”

– Well, with the Death Gun threat neutralized for now, Kirito and Sinon proceed to hide out in a cave. Why do I feel like a long, boring conversation is about to take place? Ah well, this is Talking Art Online, after all.

– Welp, it’s time to fill in the gaps in the story!

– First, Sinon wonders if there’s a chance Death Gun had died in the explosion. Of course not. According to Kirito, the bad guy jumped off his robot horse at the last second. Hilarious.

– Next, Sinon wonders how Kirito was able to return so quickly to save her. Apparently, not only is Gunner X really Musketeer X — yeah, really — it’s also a woman. And if you think Sinon’s outfit is silly, here’s Musketeer X’s get-up. Nothing like gunning enemies down in a mini-skirt and bikini top. Don’t hit on me, boys! I realize she has some kind of tight-fitting pants on underneath the skirt, but c’mon. Anyway, Kirito promptly finished Musketeer X off.

– Kirito tries to be nice; had their positions been reversed, she’d be the one saving him! Nah, knowing Sinon, she would’ve aimed for Death Gun at a distance, see that handgun, then proceed to freeze up anyway. Not that it would’ve mattered, mind you. We’ve already pretty much guessed that Death Gun is a multi-person team, and someone is running around in real life, killing people off. I doubt that someone has already tracked either of our heroes down, so the only thing they would’ve suffered is a disqualification from this shitty tournament.

– Sinon: “I’m being consoled by the man I thought was my rival…” First, no one rivals the Gary Stu. No one. Second, let the tsundere flow through you. You know you want the Gary Stu’s love. You know you need it.

– Sinon: “He knows I’m broken and weak. And he’s trying to console me like a child.” I don’t even know what this means. What’s consoling someone like an adult in this scenario?

– Holy shit, look at Sinon’s legs. How can she even stand?

– Kirito: “If he points that gun at me again, I might abandon you and run.” As if anyone would buy that. But anyway, Kirito claims he can’t just throw his life away, because he has people he has to protect in both the real world and the virtual world. Y’know, his waifu and his e-daughter. So knowing this, why did he take this dumb job? Naturally, the first argument is that he’s the only who can stop Death Gun, but I don’t believe that. That’s just a story contrivance.

– Sinon suggests that they just wait it out until the tournament ends. Kirito claims he can’t allow this, because who knows how many people Death Gun will end up killing if they just sit here and do nothing. Again, Sinon can’t help but think that the Gary Stu is super-duper strong. Well, that’s really heroic and all, but I seem to recall you sitting there and doing nothing as the Pale Rider took Dyne out. Sure, sure, the Pale Rider wasn’t Death Gun, but at the time, Kirito didn’t know that for sure. Plus, when Death Gun did show up, all Kirito could do was yell at Sinon to shoot her gun. A real hero would’ve jumped into the fray and tried to save Pale Rider. So again, don’t buy the Gary Stu’s bullshit.

– But whatever. Yo, if you can’t afford to sit around and wait, why not just win the tournament? Y’know, go around and take the other competitors out before Death Gun can get to them. Not only would you save their lives (not really), you’d also win the goddamn tournament. It’s fucking win-win, bros.

– Inspired by Kirito’s empty heroism, Sinon steels her resolve and claims that she’ll go out there and help fight Death Gun. They then argue a bit over this, because Kirito thinks she’ll just die. That’s when the girl drops the bomb: “I don’t care if I die.” Sinon feels she’s even weaker than when she was five years ago, so she’d rather die than be like this. Yo, why didn’t you come to this realization a few minutes ago, when you could’ve actually fought back against the bad guy? Sure is convenient to have an epiphany now in some cave!

– Kirito: “No one dies alone. When someone dies, the part of them that lives inside someone else also dies. You already live inside me.”

– Oh man, it doesn’t stop.

Sinon: “That’s impossible. I haven’t given myself to anyone else.”
Kirito: “WE’RE ALREADY INVOLVED, WOMAN”

I know they’re safe from the satellites in this cave, but could you imagine if Asuna could watch this entire conversation take place? Oh man, what would her face be like? Probably this.

– Wait! Don’t touch that dial! We’re just getting started!

– This scene just keeps going and going. Apparently, Sinon’s ruined for marriage ’cause she’s a murderer. Can Kirito really hold the hands of a killer? Can he?!

– So fucking poignant, bro.

– There’s just something quite transcendent about watching a tsunderekko cry as we stare at her bizarrely-shaped ass.

– Then afterwards…

Holy shit, when will this end? For the love of God, when will this end?

– Sinon finally tells her sob story to the Gary Stu. Yes, yes, confess your sins to the Gary Stu. Only then will you be forgiven…

– The girl is literally telling us she’s scared to die, but that doesn’t mean the camera won’t take the opportunity to lingeringly pan across her tiny, nubile body.

– Then Kirito tells his story to the girl. Alright, there’s nothing new here. I’m done, my friends. I’m fucking done. How do I feel about this week’s episode, you ask?

Mahouka will show you how!

– So Chen Xiangshan goes to… man, I don’t even remember these people’s names anymore. This other guy is supposedly one of the arc’s primary antagonist, but he has had so little presence up until now that I can’t even remember who he is or where he came from. I could look his bio up, but I’m sure it’s not worth the trouble. This entire arc isn’t worth the trouble. In fact, if you feel the urge to tell me all about Zhou in the comments, don’t bother. I won’t read it.

– With SAO getting progressively dumber by the week, Mahouka has been falling by the wayside hard and fast. Kirito may not be as overpowered as Tatsuya, but he’s got the best Gary Stu lines. Meanwhile, even though Mahouka has been nothing but talk, talk, talk, the last month or so has been so utterly forgettable. Anyway, as I was saying, Chen Xiangshan has come to what’s-his-face for help even though the Great Asian Alliance will be sending him a warship. Yeah, a warship. Don’t get your hopes up, though. Tatsuya will probably just fart in the warship’s direction and sink the damn thing.

– I like how Chen Xiangshan, the fearsome Chinese spy, looks like someone who just walked out of a tennis club.

– Supposedly — and this is just what the characters tell us — shit will soon go down as Chen Xiangshan strikes back against our heroes. But this is Mahouka, so nothing interesting will happen.

– After the opening, Erika and Leo practically begs Tatsuya to let them serve as his bodyguard. Heh, implying that he needs a bodyguard. Mikihiko stupidly wonders if anything would even happen at the magical thesis competition. Thankfully, the Gary Stu assures us that the magical thesis competition is targeted every year. These high school events are a big deal, man. So naturally, something big is going to go down at the competition this year.

– Elsewhere, some girl — Suzune, I think — meets with Chiaki to tell her that, uh, the latter is so insignificant, her actions won’t even register on the Gary Stu’s radar. No, seriously, that’s what this scene is all about. You guys remember Chiaki, right? Well, I wouldn’t blame you if you don’t, but she was the one who tried to sabotage Tatsuya’s work. Well, Suzune basically says that Tatsuya’s too godly to bother with a worm like Chaiki. Seriously, this whole scene is all about how awesome the main character is: “Shiba scored so high that he left everyone below second place in the dust. In particular, he achieved an astonishing perfect score in Magic Engineering.” Gee, tell me more about this Tatsuya character, why don’t you?

– We then get right to the crux of the issue. Apparently, Chiaki is the person to score the second highest on that test. Suzune then claims that the could totally surpass Tatsuya one day. Please, don’t lie to the girl like that. That’s so mean!

– In case anyone actually makes the mistake of thinking that anyone could surpass Tatsuya, Suzune leaves the room and says, “Seriously… I’d make a fine con artist, wouldn’t I?”

– Suddenly, we cut to the two dorks from Third High. Oh, remember them? Crimson Prince and Curious George, his loyal pet monkey? Gee, what have they been up to ever since Tatsuya embarrassed them at the Nine Schools Competition? Oh right, right… the magical thesis competition is coming up and no doubt the monkey is involved. I guess these two just want another beating.

– As if the story doesn’t jump around enough, we cut to yet another pair of characters: Toshi-something having dinner with Kyouko. The pacing for this story is all over the place. There are too many characters, but each episode only gets a little over twenty minutes to cover everything. Seriously, I can barely remember half of these characters’ names, so it hardly needs to be said that I hardly know any of them. Mahouka desperately wants to be an epic story with a billion characters, but they’re all cardboard cutouts. They’re all empty vessels, and the only character who has any impact on this story whatsoever is Tatsuya. Even his sister has pretty much faded into the background. Those like Erika and Leo don’t even live their own lives. They spend hours upon hours training their bodies and just for what? Just to protect Tatsuya! All these characters and they do nothing. It’s quite feat.

– Blah blah blah, they make preparations to attend the magical thesis competition, and make sure nothing bad goes down. Gotta protect that Gary Stu!

– The next day, Kyouko visits Tatsuya to tell him that the “Mobile Suit… has been completed.” Oh dear, we’re going to see some hot Gary Stu in mecha action. After we do all this talking, of course. She then warns him that something’s about to go down, which is kind of pointless because Tatsuya himself has already told us that something will go down in the same episode. And yes, that’s basically three out of the four scenes in which the characters have assured us that something — oh my god, something! — will go down. Are you ready, audience? Are you fucking ready? Have we not watched the previous twenty-two painful Mahouka episodes in preparation for this?!

– Later, the Crimson Prince and Miyuki have their little reunion. The guy says how he hasn’t seen her since the dance party in the previous arc. Aw, isn’t that cute? He thinks he has a chance. Of course, Miyuki apologizes for not keeping in touch. We all know, on the other hand, that she’s been too busy squirming for her brother to care about anyone else, but shh, that’s our little secret.

– Apparently, the Crimson Prince is here to make sure shit doesn’t go down either. Have you heard? Shit’s going to go down! Shit!

– C’mon, dude, what next time? You lost like a chump.

– Erika: “Would you mind not lumping me in with [Leo]? All I did was bestow some skills and weapons on him… There’s nothing at all between us beyond that!” Please, Gary Stu-kun, don’t throw me out of your show! I haven’t done anything untoward! But seriously, the shaming in this show is strong. Boob-shaming (remember Miyuki giving Mizuki shit for her outfit?), friendship-shaming, etc. What a sad, repressed little world.

– Shit’s going to go down, but what’s one more boring conversation between two people! Another one can’t hurt! So we get to watch as Haruka and Kyouko share a conversation. Wow! Apparently, Haruka is known as Ms. Phantom. As for Kyouko, she’s the Electron Sorceress. Are you cringing at their nicknames yet? I am.

– The two ladies aren’t even talking about anything interesting. Kyouko merely suggests that they stay out of each other’s way. Blaaaaarrgggh.

– Kyouko receives news that Lu Gonghu has escaped. Like it matters. We’ve already seen him lose to a bunch of high schoolers. Do we really need a Lu Gonghu Incident Part Deux? What would it even prove? That it now takes two Gary Stu farts to take him down?

– By the way, I’m really trying. I’m trying so hard to make these episodes seem interesting. Mahouka just won’t cooperate. There’s no overwrought displays of sentimentality like “You already live inside me!” Lately, watching Mahouka is like sitting down to a bowl of saltine crackers, and you’ve been given no liquids to wash it down.

– More characters! We need more characters as the anime cuts to Jumanji and friends. No, it’s not enough. We need to check up on more characters before shit can go down! In fact, I bet shit won’t even go down in this episode at all! Gasp! B-But the characters promised!

– Heh:

Jumanji: “Is there anything about the current situation that feels off to you?”
Hanzo: “There seems to be too many foreigners around here now.”
Jumanji: “You think so, too, Hattori?”
Hanzo: “Yes.”
Jumanji: “What about you, Kirihara?”
Takeaki: “Yes, sir. Compared to the convention center, the atmosphere in the city seems more strangely menacing.”

Oh, you don’t say! Damn those menacing foreigners!

– Finally, First High’s presentation begins. A bunch of students stand around the convention center to stand guard. Yeah, students. There are like no adults in this world. In fact, the inside of the convention is full up on people, but like always, the outside world is strangely and creepily devoid of life. Look at this. Mahouka‘s world is completely dead. Elsewhere, the bad guys stand around smirk. Great. They’re smirking.

– This presentation is too boring to talk about. We could sit here and break the ideas down if we want, but it has nothing to do with anything.

– But this is a sad, sad world, so we can’t have nice things. Even though there’s only a minute left in the episode, what do we see next? A conversation between Tatsuya and Curious George. The latter swears that he’ll beat Tatsuya in this magic thesis competition.

– All of a sudden, a loud explosion rocks the convention center. And just like that, the ending credits proceed to roll. Great. That’s just great. Yeah, it’s not like I actually expected shit to go down. I just found it amusing that the characters kept alluding to this event only for us to get nothing but an explosion. Twenty-plus minutes of boring conversations and all we get is one measly explosion for our troubles. Oh well, that’s just Mahouka for you. All talk and no substance.

Time to see how Inaho saves the day once again!

– Eddy is kind of slow. If the Aldnoah Drive can’t shut down unless the princess is dead, then let’s put two and two together, guys.

– Asseylum has no breathing or pulse, so the princess is actually dead for the time being. Oh man, you’ve really done it now, Rayet. Inaho proceeds to use the defibrillator on the girl to try and revive her. Had Inaho being a normal character up until now, I wouldn’t have even blinked at this. Knowing how perfect he’s been though, I can’t help but think, “Wait a minute, this ship has an actual doctor…” And even if you say that the doctor is nowhere nearby, it’s still kind of silly how it has been contrived for the protagonist to save the day once again. Darzana even asks if he needs her to help or take over. Naw, dawg, naw… I got this.

– Anyway, the princess obviously comes back to life. I don’t think there was any question. But what will she say about Rayet? And will the bitchy Eddy warm up to Inaho now that he’s save her hime-sama? But more importantly, Asseylum has saved Slaine’s life, so Slaine is in love with her. Therefore, it only makes sense that Asseylum is now in love with Inaho because he’s save her life. Then Slaine just has to save Inaho’s life, then… ooh, now wouldn’t some of you guys like the show to go there?

– Welp, Rayet doesn’t even give Asseylum the chance to fing–… hm, wrong change of words. Ahem, she doesn’t even let Asseylum point her out in the lineup, yeah. If you thought Rayet had dug herself a deep enough hole, Rayet grabs Darzana’s gun and aims it at the captain. Even funnier, however, is that Rayet is still undressed. This entire time, she’s been lurking around the corner in nothing but a bath towel. Oh female anime characters…

– Rayet identifies herself as Martian, but not a Vers. Not that the distinction matters all that much in practice, to be honest; there are no other civilization on Mars. Anyway, Rayet blames the princess for everything. Her father’s death, the war, everything. From our cool and collected vantage point, we know this is bullshit. We know it’s not really the princess’s fault. But Asseylum has already felt somewhat guilty about the war. I thus can’t help but wonder if Rayet’s despair — justified or not — will send Asseylum into her own bouts of self-loathing. Just look at how she tries to cover hear ears; she can’t bear to hear another word. Speaking of which, Asseylum has no one to really confide in but Inaho. Man, that’s even more depressing!

– So Asseylum gets up and tries to approach Rayet. I like how her towel is now wrapped tightly around her body too. As a result, you now have two girls in bath towels approaching each other. Awkward.

– Asseylum apologizes to everyone for making things worse on Earth, but it’s not really her fault. She’s just shouldering the blame, ’cause y’know, emotional teenagers and everything. Inaho should take a note or two of the situation. But yeah, Saazbaum and his gang are the ones who made things worse. Funnily enough, you could even argue that Rayet’s father had a bigger hand in making things worse.

– Seeing the princess shoulder all the blame and forgive Rayet for her actions, the latter can’t bear to kill the princess. So she turns the gun on herself. Then like a banshee, Inaho somehow runs at Rayet and subdues her before the girl could hurt herself. I just love how Aldnoah.Zero had a bunch of people gather in the doorway behind Rayet, but the person to save her life is Inaho anyway. C’mon, man. Let someone else do something for once. Plus, had Rayet been anything but a cute shoujo, I think the story would’ve let her die. But ’cause she’s a hot anime babe and we got to see her wrestle Asseylum naked, so yeah, let’s keep this girl around!

– Hahahaha, the guy then gives the gun back to Rayet. Yo dawg, you know that gun actually belongs to Darzana, right?

– Rawgh, I don’t care if you’re Martian or Terran! You hate our enemies and that’s good enough! Uh, you’re not really the captain of this ship, though. Why not let the adults decide what to do with Rayet? Seriously, man, seriously…

– Rayet asks Inaho if he really trusts her. I think you should ask the entire ship if they trust you! How ’bout the goddamn princess, the person you just tried to kill? How ’bout Darzana, the person in charge of this whole clown show! Why are you asking if Inaho trusts you?

– In any case, Darzana puts Rayet under custody anyway, so we could’ve just cut out all the bullshit and jumped immediately to that. But no, I need to know if Inaho-sama trusts me!

– Oh good lord, not only did the Soma engage in a questionable form of therapy — questionable because it’s likely he’s not trained as a psychiatrist — he proceeds to hand Darzana a CD containing Koichiro’s medical file. Dude… dude… you are by far the worst anime doctor I have ever seen. Are there any rules you won’t break?

– Ahhhhh, he even pretentiously adds, “It’s also my prescription to you.” Hilarious. Just hilarious. Darzana then gets to watch Kochiro at his lowest. This is just fucked up, man. Soma wouldn’t have said he was violating patient-doctor confidentiality if he had asked Koichiro permission to do this. Not only that, wouldn’t it have been more meaningful if Koichiro had just had a heart-to-heart with Darzana, breaking down and admitting that he had killed her brother? Why is the current situation better than that? You can argue that Koichiro wouldn’t have had the guts to do that, but then so bet it. I think there’s something incredibly wrong with what Soma has done. I would never trust a doctor like that.

– Anyway, the Aldnoah Drive is back online, so the Deucalion returns to the air. All in all, this incident has been nothing more than a momentary distraction.

– Uh, according to Saazbaum, the Deucalion used to be his betrothed’s Cataphract. Compared to all the others, that’s one mighty big Cataphract.

– Saazbaum says that Mars is still held back by the fact that it lacks water and air. Yo, haven’t you heard? Moss and some cockroaches will handle that. On a more serious note, I’m surprised that with all their technology, the Martians haven’t found a way to terraform Mars. Granted, that process might take a long time, but still, you’d think the Vers would have figured something out. For example, water can be retrieved some asteroids floating around in our asteroid belt. Air is a little trickier, considering Mars’s lack of a magnetosphere to protect it. Still, Saazbaum tells us that dust storms make it hard to grow anything on the planet. Why not rely on things like domes then? In domes, you could regulate the temperate, air currents, humidity, etc. I can’t believe the Vers Empire can pop up overnight (relatively speaking) and not have solutions for these problems.

–But that’s enough about that… You can question the realism of the scenario all you want, but the important takeaway is that the majority of the Vers people live in abject poverty. Saazbaum might be misguided in his actions–… check that, he is misguided in his actions, but true victory here isn’t just peace being restored to the two planet. I’m afraid the Martian royal family will have to give up their rule.

– Whenever they show angry crowds in fiction, these crowds are almost always 100% male. This is a bit of an aside, but I was rewatching old episodes of Psycho-Pass, and although I liked the show, it always bothered the hell out of me how all the troublemakers — the people manipulated by Makishima to stir shit up and help bring down the system — were men. Like fine, that has historically been the case, but history is also full of disenfranchised women. I thus find it hard to believe that in the distant future, with the sexes being more equal than ever, women wouldn’t want to become anarchists themselves.

And to bring this back to Aldnoah.Zero, you could hand-wave this away and claim that perhaps Martian culture is a bit more “traditional” in nature and thus chauvinist, seeing as how they have counts and viscounts, kings and princesses. Having said that, I still don’t buy the idea that women wouldn’t be found in a crowd of angry Martians.

– Anyway, this is just an extended exposition scene. Kind of a lame way to tell us the story, guys.

– We then see a clip of how Orlane, Saazbaum’s betrothed, had died, but eh… the scene doesn’t really answer any questions.

– What’s with the Hitler-looking fellow?

– Oh ho ho: “It’s like one of those Japanese comic books.”

– But yeah, after a long trip, our heroes have made it to United Earth HQ. I’m just wondering why it’s in Russia of all places. Not only that, this giant base is six hundred meters underground, can house a ton of refugees (if they had actually made it here), and still have enough supplies to last three years (assuming max capacity). Kind of a fancy place…

– We see a scene in which Asseylum personally thanks Inaho again for saving her life, but you know that crazy Inaho and his silly answers: “…I wasn’t out to save you personally.” Still, she calls him a good person, and he looks surprised. Hell, I’d venture to say this is the most emotive he’s ever been. By the way, Eddy still grimaces when Asseylum praises Inaho, so I guess our short maid is still a bitch. After ten episodes, none of the characters have made any real stride in their development. Everyone’s stayed the same as when we first met them. Maybe Rayet has had a change of heart… maybe.

– Asseylum then gives a speech to the entire world explaining the situation and placing the blame squarely on the Orbital Knights’ shoulders. So what now? Will the war stubbornly continue? We know Saazbaum won’t stop just because the princess is still alive, but what about the other Orbital Knights? Cruhteo proved that not everyone was in on the conspiracy. Are there any Orbital Knights left who are loyal to the princess? Or are they all like Saazbaum now that Cruhteo has died?

– Speaking of the dead Cruhteo, Saazbaum has retrieved the Tharsis. Not only that, he’s already pinpointed the princess’s location. Wow, not such a secret base, then. Plus, a bunch of refugees are hiding out in that base. Man, maybe the princess should’ve given her speech in a different location…

– Last but not least, Saazbaum then gives Slaine the choice to fight with him or escape to Earth. The episode then comes to a close as the count’s castle prepares its descent for Novostal’sk, Russia.

– Despite the big exposition dump midway through, I enjoyed this week’s episode. It kind of sucks that the refugees won’t get much of a respite from the fighting, but I guess we gotta keep things moving. Where do we go from here, though? Can Slaine really stomach fighting alongside Saazbaum? Will his obsession with Asseylum make him join the bad guys? And how much more can the relationship between Inaho and Asseylum deepen? Also, what are the good guys going to do with Rayet?

Oh good, the general is just another clichéd anime babe!

– We kick things off with the Jaegers just outside a bandit’s fortress. Honestly, I don’t expect to see anything but a bunch of gratuitous slaughtering of human life to follow. But hurr, we gotta see the Jaeger’s powers firsthand!

– Tatsumi sees Seryu and rage insantly washes over him. He totally wants to avenge Sheele, but still, he holds himself back; he obviously can’t pick a fight here. Unfortunately, it sure as hell doesn’t look like he’s holding himself back.

– Tatsumi is clenching his teeth and shaking with anger, and even though Esdeath is in love with the guy, she doesn’t notice a goddamn thing. I think that’s just stupid.

– It’s just one of many quirks or flaws of the medium, depending on how you want to look at it. Characters always telegraph exactly how they feel through their facial expressions, and no one around them will notice. Personally, I don’t think this sort of facial emoting is necessary. You should just let the voice actor convey his feelings and emotions through the delivery of his lines alone.

– Speaking of Esdeath, she’s busy blushing because she’s put her hands on his. U-uguu… I’m in rabu~

– By the way, I don’t normally look at anime forums, but one of them linked to me and I couldn’t help but notice this brilliant gem:

“Esdeath is such an intriguing character, she’s supposed to be the enemy after all because she’s the wall that houses all these demons in the empire. Yet I have to say I really like her because she knows she’s dealing with demons, and realizes how weak they are.”

What a joke. Let’s just blithely ignore that Esdeath is a piece of shit herself.

– So Seryu’s gain a gigantic drill for a weapon. Something something pierce the heavens. She has other weapons but they’re too boring to even mention. And yeah, the Jaegers are just slaughtering scores upon scores of faceless bandits. There’s no real point to this scene other than to see the bad guys rip people to shreds. Not only is this scene pathetic in its cruelty, it’s also boring. ‘Cause, y’see, being over-the-top means you literally go over the top to the point of ludicrousness. Akame ga Kill! isn’t really offering up anything new, though. I’ve seen bloodier and more gruesome action elsewhere, so it isn’t over-the-top. It’s just a cringeworthy pretender. That’s why it has to rely on gimmicks like mass rape for shock value. The action just doesn’t hold up. And if anyone ever complains, “That’s just war for you!”

– The rest of the Jaegers show themselves off one-by-one, but I don’t care enough to describe any of the “action.” None of it is interesting enough to comment on. I don’t even care what their Imperial Arms are and what they do anymore. This scene is just neither interesting nor necessary. The whole thing is just masturbatory. There’s nothing important being conveyed here other than “Look how cool these mass murderers are!” And why would I be impressed? What am I, 12?

– Yeah, it’s escapism, but that’s the thing. Akame ga Kill! isn’t taking me anywhere I haven’t been. I can easily find a manga with a lot more fucked up shit than Akame ga Kill! Or I can just as easily start up Saint’s Row 4, murder people on the streets with a giant, purple dildo, and scream out stupid made-up names for my moves as if I’m in a terrible shounen. Escapism should take me somewhere I can’t go. Indulging in shallow, juvenile fantasies, however, is not that difficult.

– Uguu, it’s the first time Esdeath has experienced being in love. She’s not just literally a virgin when it comes to sex. Rather, she’s a virgin in every way! The lady who commands her troops to rape and murder a village is just so pure and untainted by the touch of a man… People, people, she’s a monster, not a whore. Let’s keep our priorities in order!

– Tatsumi then stupidly thinks he could convince Esdeath to become an ally. Yeah, seeing the suffering of thousands upon thousands of innocent people won’t even stir the tiniest of heartstrings, but this bland motherfucker over here thinks his shounen charms will do the trick.

– Our hero says it’s time he steps up and becomes a man. We then cut to him sitting on Esdeath’s bed as she showers nearby. Oh boy! Convince her with your dick, bro! Implant those seeds of contrition in her! REPENT WOMAN, REPENT FOR YOUR CRIMES!

– The sad thing is, Tatsumi’s just as big of a virgin as Esdeath, so what you’re about to see will just be maddening and dumb. He’s already wondering to himself how he got to be in this oh-so-messed-up situation. James Bond, Tatsumi is not.

– Great.

– Esdeath: “Well, I’m not quite sure what to do in this situation, either.” Trust me, I’ve always closed my eyes after telling my troops to rape people. I-I have no idea what it is that they do, uguu…

– Yeah, yeah, Tatsumi tries to turn Esdeath to the good side, so the lady just slaps him across the face. But let’s be honest: it’s pretty fucking stupid to try to convert the fucking general of the Imperial Army to your cause. But she quickly goes back to deredere form by licking the place where she slapped him, then assuring the shounen hero that she won’t have any other lover. ‘Cause that’s what’s important here.

– Truth is, Akame ga Kill! is too chicken shit to even take Esdeath’s character where it needs to go. She’s this super cruel, take-no-bullshit general, and yet she turns into just another boring lover in bed. Ah, but she’s a virgin! So she wouldn’t yet indulge in the cruel side of sex just yet. But that’s exactly my point. Even when a woman is a fucking mass murderer, God forbid she has a harem. God forbid she knows a thing or two about sex. We have to please the fans! And the best part? The implication here is that raping and killing people won’t piss the fans off, but making the general a sex-haver? Ugh, no!

– It’s always funny when people preach survival of the fittest without realizing that helping the weak survive ensures survival of the fittest civilization. But I suppose that shit doesn’t matter. We only care about the fittest individual. In any case, Esdeath will try to change Tatsumi, but we all know she won’t be able to because he’s the hero. It’s just too predictable, I’m not sure why the story even bothers. A better story might have the hero waver, unsure of what to do because he’s only human. But then again, a better story wouldn’t have Esdeath, so we’re back to square one. So we get to watch Tatsumi pout as he swears to Esdeath that he won’t ever change. Sweet.

– It doesn’t even matter what Tatsumi does anyway. The more he defies Esdeath, the more she just falls in love with him.

– Bols: “The trick to capturing your beloved heart… Never give up!” A restraining order means she’s just playing hard to get!

– The next day, our genius protagonist has a very difficult time coming to the conclusion that Kurome might just be related to Akame. The girl pretty much has to tell him straight-up that they’re related.

– Esdeath: “Mount Fake is Fake Mountain, of course.” ‘Kay.

– Lulz, we’re so meta. Needless to say, they have similar Imperial Arms.

– I then get to watch Tatsumi and Wave find off a bunch of sentient trees… one-eyed, walking pieces of wood… there’s a joke in here somewhere.

– So our protagonist uses his Incursio to escape, but Wave still chases him down. The latter just doesn’t realize that the Incursio user before is none other than Tatsumi. At the same time, I’m amazed Esdeath even let the main character out of her sight. So much for breaking his spirit and making him hers. Lots of intelligent people in this anime.

– Wave accuses Night Raid of committing murders and assassinating people. Tatsumi’s only retort? “No, we’re not evil!”

– Since Tatsumi won’t fight back, Wave does enough damage to the hero that he even starts to cough up blood. But it’s okay, because you can go into stealth with the Incursio! As a result, Tatsumi hides out long enough that… that…? Akame shows up to save him? Where the fuck did she come from? How did she even know where to find him? What? You’re going to tell me she just had a feeling she would find him atop this “Fake Mountain?”

– And just like that, Tatsumi has escaped from Esdeath’s clutches. That’s pretty lame, isn’t it? The badass general can’t even keep her own man secured.

– Afterwards, Wave gets punished, and Esdeath tells her underlings she won’t prevent them from killing him if they feel the need to. But the truth is, she doesn’t think he’ll die anyway. After all, if he did die, he wouldn’t be much of a man anyway! Survival of the fittest, after all! ‘Cause who’s the little, wittle shounen hero? That’s you! That’s yoooou!

– Elsewhere, Akame tells her team that Esdeath does have a weakness. Oh yeah? Let’s hear it. What’s her weakness?

Akame: “That she’s alive. She has a heart and a pulse. Given that, I’ll slay her.”

Wow, you really thought long and hard on that one, huh?

– And to put an end to this week’s episode, we see Dr. Stylish hot on Night Raid’s trail. I guess we know who’s dying next.

I actually think the first two-thirds of this week’s episode is pretty neat. There’s a surreal, dream-like quality to most of the episode. Daichi basically relives the first couple of days of the series, but at every turn, the Designer Children try to distract him in a multitude of ways. Ai tries to seduce him, Lin runs her bike into a bus just to prevent Daichi from reaching the festival, Zin appeals to Daichi’s vanity, and Baku suggests that there other ways to become a captain. Naturally, the good guys are there too. I’m pretty sure Peter Westvillage, Tsutomu, and Akari are in Daichi’s dream, but we just don’t get to see their faces. And oh yeah, that little girl from the very first episode makes her reappearance, but she doesn’t do much of anything but play a recorder.

The most interesting scene, however, occurs midway through the episode when Daichi finds himself having a one-on-one conversation with Setsuna. The girl mourns the death of her caretaker. She acknowledges that the caretaker had taken advantage of her, but at the same time, she too is taking advantage of the people around her: “In the end, I’m living in a way I hate. And that makes my heart heavy.” If any of the Designer Children can be redeemed, Setsuna has to top that list of candidates. It’s especially telling when Daichi suggests that she change the way she lives: “No, I don’t think I’m going the same way as you yet.” The word ‘yet’ is what gives me pause. She obviously has her doubts about the way the Kiltgang goes about their business. And it isn’t impossible for them to change their ways; just look at Teppei.

I like the episode’s soundtrack. I felt it added to the tension of the scenes. I like the way scenes would just instantly go dark when they come to an end, lending to that dream-like quality. The streetlights flowing by as Daichi rides the bus also adds a hypnotic feel to his conversation with Setsuna. As Daichi talks to Baku, every time the camera would cut back to the latter, more Designer Children would unnaturally appear behind him. The feeling of deja vu can also feel like a nightmare, and to some extent, this episode of Captain Earth feels like one. If anything, Bones should have taken advantage of this even more, i.e. play with our perceptions to a greater extent. Maybe Daichi could’ve repeated the same few days over and over until he made a significant decision (either keep his promise to Hana or leave for that villa with Amara).

But of course, Daichi must inevitably wake up and return to his friends. In fact, this occurs earlier than I expected it to. All it took was for our hero to visit a shrine and see Pitz. Then bam, he knows what he has to do. At that point, the somewhat nightmarish dream comes to an end, and we just watch as Daichi say inspiring words about life, choices, and how humans continue to live on in the memories of their loved ones even after they’ve long died. By affirming this beliefs, Daichi wakes up in the real world, fires his Livlaster at the giant space garic, and that is that. So what did this episode really accomplish? Even though I rather liked it — or to be more specific, I rather liked its tone — what was the point of this episode? Honestly, I’m hard-pressed to say the story isn’t still stalling for time.

I think it’s pretty apparent Daichi was stuck in a dream. Not only that, I suspect the dream was self-imposed. The kids are moments away from fulfilling their final mission, i.e. destroying the Oberon and ending the Kiltgang threat once and for all. And for some reason, Daichi suddenly has a short bout of existential crisis. What if he could go back in time? What if he could go back to before it all happened and make different choices? Should he have stayed on the track team? Should he have tried to be normal and gone with his friends to that villa? This existential reflection might seem a bit odd because there doesn’t seem to be much of a reason at the present for Daichi to even doubt his current path in life. After all, he’s always been an upbeat, happy-go-lucky guy, so why all of a sudden worry about what he could have done differently?

Well, when Daichi recovers and wakes up, we see that barely any time has past. He’s still in the Earth Engine Impacter, and the Kivotos-Blume hybrid is still moments away from colliding into the space garlic. As a result, that one moment of existential doubt probably didn’t last more a second of real time, if you get my drift. But that’s the thing. Daichi either gets the job done or he and his friends fail spectacularly. There’s no in-between. If he doesn’t fire off a good enough shot, it wouldn’t destroy the space garlic. If the space garlic isn’t destroyed, then his friends would have rammed themselves headfirst into it, thereby derailing humanity’s best laid plans. So even though Daichi’s moment of self-doubt very likely took up no significant amount of real time at all, the gravity of the situation made it feel as though Daichi could live through a couple days and revisit his old choices in life.

Was Captain Earth stalling for time again? Yeah… but it was somewhat of an interesting episode. In any case, I’m still ready for this series to end. And I wonder if the show will ever shed light on the little girl with the teal-colored hair, or how the Livlasters are really extradimensional lifeforms.

Back to the shoujo anime that couldn’t… yay… If you’ve forgotten where we last left off — and who could blame you! — everyone’s over at Kou’s house, but something might have just happened between him and Yuri. Oh dear, love triangles are so much fun.

– Being a considerate friend is easy. You just put yourself in another person’s shoes and imagine what it would feel like to be them. So whatever happened between Yuri and Kou, she knows that being evasive about it would just make Futaba feel worse. But does she put herself in her friend’s shoes? No. Because everyone on this show magically turns into a sucky friend whenever it’s convenient. We need drama! Quick, have Yuri suddenly say nothing even though the two girls are open to each other about their love for Kou! Futaba can then agonize over this moment, wondering if something had happened!

– Naturally, the study session’s atmosphere is all awkward and shit now. And of course, Futaba tortures herself thinking about Kou and Yuri. Predictable. Boring. Dumb.

– By the way, Kou is smart and picks stuff up quickly! As a result, he’s barely studying at this study session at all. What a shocker! But didn’t they all get together for his sake? I love how people always say, “These friends aren’t perfect, because they’re like high school kids in real life! We weren’t perfect back then! This is realistic!” But then no one seems to mind the fact that Kou is tall, handsome, cool, and incredibly intelligent. Is such a person impossible to find in real life? No, of course not. But it sure is funny that every goddamn shoujo ends up hooking up with one. So you honestly have to make a decision. If you’re going to go the realistic route — as opposed to just telling a good story — then why is Kou so perfect in every non-fixable way?

‘Cause that’s what it’s all about. Kou isn’t perfect, obviously. His personality is shit. But ah, personalities can be fixed, and this shoujo certainly has the patience to fix it. Why? ‘Cause he’s got all the other shit you can’t really change, i.e. his height, his looks, his intelligence, etc. Sure, the guy can get fat, but you get my point. Really, no one wants to fix a dummy. No one wants to fix an average-looking guy. No one wants to fix a fat guy. No one wants to get over the fact that a guy is short (except Lovely Complex, apparently). But if he’s an asshole who wipes lipstick off my face when he wants to, pins me down just to prove he can assault me if he wants to, and insults me when he wants to, well golly, that’s a bishie worth fixing!

– Kou says he doesn’t study because he doesn’t feel the need to. All of a sudden, Yuri has a cringeworthy emotional outburst about how everyone would be sad if Kou was held back a grade. Honestly, I don’t know if that’s such a bad thing. I feel like Kou’s problem right now is that he isn’t being held responsible for anything. He never has to face the consequences of his actions. Fine, fine, his parents broke up and his family situation sucks. Whatever, man. Life doesn’t give you a break just because you’ve had it tough, recently. You still have to face the consequences when you fuck up. The thing is, Kou has absolutely no adult supervision because anime just loves it like that. Asian parents can be overbearing, and maybe this is why anime parents are often non-existent, but this is ridiculous. Kou basically lives by himself and does whatever the fuck he wants to do. His brother is doing a shitty job looking over this high school kid. Seriously, Yoichi’s way too hands off with someone who’s about to be held back. A bloo bloo bloo, he doesn’t want to have dinner with me! Who the fuck cares? You’re his older brother, not his fucking mate. Why are you not getting your brother’s ass in gear? I’m telling you, everyone in this anime fucking sucks. It should never have come to this point. A classmate shouldn’t be the one making an emotional appeal to Kou. Yoichi has failed as a brother and a teacher, ’cause he’s made the number one mistake: he wants to be friends with his asshole of a brother.

– Uguu, if you have to take supplementary lessons, we can’t hang out together as tomodachis! Uguu, I’d like us all to hang out together. This is so lame.

– The study session is over, but Yuri still won’t do or say anything to help allay Futaba’s fears. Of course, you don’t have to tell your friend exactly what happened, but you could at least not boldly lie about it. But like I’ve said, we have close friends magically turning shitty for no reason. Thanks to this, Futaba watches her friends leave, then storms back to Kou’s place. She just to know!

– Naturally, when Futaba finally returns to Kou’s house, she suddenly finds it hard to be direct. Great. Suddenly, she finds every reason to stay at his house, but can’t just ask a simple question. Sigh.

– Eventually, the girl does get around to her one question, but Kou’s just as evasive as Yuri. But y’see, I already know that Kou’s not going to be the most considerate guy out there. On the other hand, Yuri’s supposed to be Futaba’s best friend so she doesn’t get a free pass.

– So anyway, the subject turns to what Kou’s been through. Y’know, he’s changed and shit, and Futaba wants to know. He finally shows her the altar he has for his late mom. I don’t know, for some reason, I just didn’t find this scene as heartbreaking as it should be. I mean, I expected something like this anyway. So in my mind, it just makes it even more maddening that Yoichi’s nonexistent in this guy’s life. He’s lost his mom, and his dad is nowhere to be found, and big bro can’t even be a proper guardian.

– All that happened with Yuri was that she saw the altar too. So again, what was so hard about being somewhat open and honest about this with Futaba? Like Kou said, it’s not like he was hiding the altar. I’m not saying Yuri should have blabbed about everything she saw, but there was absolutely no need to blatantly lie to your best friend’s face by repeatedly saying, “Nothing happened.” Just say something like, “I accidentally stumbled upon something personal in Kou’s home that I don’t feel comfortable talking about without his permission. You should just ask him about it.” Is that so hard? It isn’t. Hell, I’m beginning to suspect Yuri had ulterior motives in being so evasive, because being a good friend just isn’t difficult. Futaba blames herself for getting worked up about the situation, but I’m not going to absolve Yuri of blame: Kou and Yuri both were thinking about the feelings of people other than themselves.” Not really, but if you just want to show us a shot of Futaba crying, sure, say whatever you want.

– So what does Kou do? Pet Futaba’s head like she’s a dog and call her annoying for crying so much.

– Futaba’s emotions spill out, and she tells the guy she wants him to not quit school. All of a sudden, big bro decides to now show up. Just look at this guy. I’m weary about this episode already, but there’s about ten minutes left to watch.

– Kou eventually leaves for his job, which comes as a surprise to Futaba. C’mon, you don’t even know he has a job. You want to be with the guy, but you don’t even know he has a job. I didn’t know he had a job either, but I ain’t trying to get with the guy.

– Apparently, Kou can’t forgive his brother because Yoichi had put too much responsibility on Kou’s shoulders when their parents split. Then when Yoichi became a teacher, he didn’t have time to visit their mom in the hospital.

Yeah, that’s a terrible situation, and Yoichi should’ve been there for his family. But still, what’s done is done. Alright, so you guys don’t get along. Now that Yoichi’s the de facto guardian, however, getting along isn’t a priority anymore. I just think he’s way too friendly with a kid who’s about to fail out of school. Hell, both of them need therapy, if you ask me. Too bad therapy seems practically nonexistent.

– The next day, Futaba apologizes to Yuri, but the latter then admits, Part of the reason I didn’t tell you about Mabuchi-kun’s mom was because I wanted to become more special than you.” Who would’ve guessed! You guys suck.

Alright, alright, here’s my preview of next season’s anime. So y’know, you guys can stop asking me on Ask.fm if I’m going to do one. Also, in last week’s “Everything Else” post, I asked what you guys were looking forward to. I still intend to discuss the results; it’ll just happen in a post later this week. In just twenty-four short hours, even. So if you were looking for that, just hold your horses. Alright then, let’s get started.

The “Stuff for Kids” Tier

Kaitou Joker
Magic Kaito 1412
Tribe Cool Crew

I don’t think these shows are worth previewing.

The “I Just Won’t Watch It For Some Reason or Other” Tier

Aikatsu! 3
Studio: Sunrise
PV: Who knows, who cares…

Synopsis: It’s a show about girls training to become idols at some prestigious school. Somehow, it got two sequels, and this is one of them.

Will I Watch It? Not in a million years.

* * * * *

Denkigai no Honya-san
Studio: Shin-Ei Animation
PV: Here

Synopsis: A slice-of-life comedy about some doujin shop and the people who work there.

Will I Watch It? Snore.

* * * * *

Gugure! Kokkuri-san
Studio: TMS Entertainment
PV: Here

Synopsis: A 4-koma adaptation about a little girl who summons a bishie with fox ears. Throw in a dog spirit and a tanuki spirit as well, and you have yourself an anime series, I guess.

Will I Watch It? That ain’t my jam, dawg.

* * * * *

Sora no Method
Studio: Studio 3Hz
PV: Here

Synopsis: There’s hardly any information on this show out there. Something about a bunch of girls’ wishes coming true, and there’s a floating disc in the sky. Yeah… I’m bored already.

Will I Watch It? The characters look way too young. The guy who wrote this also worked extensively on Kanon, and that’s not a plus in my book.

* * * * *

Yowamushi Pedal: Grande Road
Studio: Toho Company
PV: Couldn’t find one.

Synopsis: This is the sequel to Yowamushi Pedal, which was about an otaku joining a bicycle racing club.

Will I Watch It? I didn’t watch the original series, which had thirty-eight episodes. I sure as hell am not going to start now.

* * * * *

Yuuki Yuuna wa Yuusha de Aru
Studio: Studio Gokumi
PV: Here

Synopsis: This is what ANN tells you:

The story takes place in the era of the gods, year 300. Yuuna Yuuki lives an ordinary life as a second year middle school student, but she’s also a member of the “Hero Club,” where club activities involve dealing with a mysterious being called “Vertex.”

Buuuuuuuuut…

Will I Watch It? …if you watch the preview, it just looks like a bunch of cute girls doing fun shit in a club. Fun fact: Wikipedia has this anime categorized as a seinen! Unfortunately, the preview looks boring as hell, so unless Studio Gokumi deliberately lied to us about what the anime is about, I’m not interested.

The “I’ll Likely Watch Just One or Two Episodes” Tier

Amagi Brilliant Park
Studio: Kyoto Animation
PV: Here

Synopsis: A high school kid becomes the manager of some shitty amusement park. He then proceeds to hang out with a pair of moeblobs. Maybe there’s more; I don’t know, and I don’t really care. I just know that one of them thinks of herself as a real princess, so I guess we’re still obsessed with delusional girls, huh?

Will I Watch It? They dub this a “slapstick drama,” whatever that means. But we all know what Kyoto Animation is all about. Technically good but soulless animation, cute girls doing moe bullshit, and boring slice-of-life narratives are the name of the game. If you’re wondering why the Full Metal Panic! bear is in the promotional material, it’s because it’s written by the same guy. Does this change anything? Might this show be similar to Full Metal Panic! Fumoffu, an anime that I actually liked? I don’t know. It’s been a long time since Fumoffu, and I’m more inclined to use recent history as evidence. I’m not writing the show off completely, which is why it’s in this tier instead of the previous one. Still, the chances aren’t good that I’ll become a fan of this show, since early indications seem to suggest that the anime will be very fanservice-laden.

* * * * *

Gundam Build Fighters Try
Studio: Sunrise
PV: Here

Synopsis: This is the sequel to Gundam Build Fighters. Basically, in the future, Gunpla builders compete in tournaments to see who’s the best, but honestly, the trailer above explains the premise a lot better than I can, so just have a look if you’re interested (I’m not).

Will I Watch It? Probably not. I didn’t find the first series very appealing.

* * * * *

Nanatsu no Taizai
Studio: A-1 Pictures
PV: Here

Synopsis: A princess seeks the help of The Seven Deadly Sins, a group of knights that had once served the region of Britannia. With them on her side, she hopes to take the kingdom back from the Holy Knights, who are apparently evil bastards…

Will I Watch It? The art direction doesn’t appeal to me, but the manga supposedly has over five million copies in circulation. That sort of success has got to warrant watching at least an episode or two, right?

* * * * *

Orenchi no Furo Jijo
Studio: Asahi Production
PV: Here

Synopsis: A high school kid finds a hot bishie merman in his bathtub, and I suspect the merman won’t leave. Oh, the hijinks they will have…

Will I Watch It? The anime sounds like it’ll be a boring comedy with some BL potential. Since I’m not into BL, we’ll just check an episode or two out and be done with it…

* * * * *

Ore Twintails ni Narimasu
Studio: Production IMS
PV: Here

Synopsis: See my tweet on this anime.

Will I Watch It? Is this a harem? I’m not sure, since the guy spends quite a significant amount of time as a girl. I mean, it could still be a harem, but not a very traditional one. I’ll just play it safe and put in this tier instead of the next one. Anyway, the premise sounds stupid enough that the show has a small chance of being ironically funny. In all likelihood, however, it’ll probably be boring like 90% of the shows on this list.

* * * * *

selector spread WIXOSS
Studio: J.C. Staff
PV: Here

Synopsis: A CARD GAME IS VERY SERIOUS BUSINESS. Oh yeah, it’s the muuuuuuch-anticipated sequel to selector infected WIXOSS.

Will I Watch It? Yeah, I wasn’t a big fan of the original series. I’ll check out a few episodes out of morbid curiosity, but chances are not good that I’ll watch all of it. Plus, I could probably use a break from Mari Okada, ’cause M3 is just breaking my balls.

The “Dumb Harem” Tier

Daitoshokan no Hitsujikai
Studio: Hoods Entertainment
PV: Here

Synopsis: An adaptation of an adult visual novel coming straight to us from the Hood(s Entertainment). Hell yeah! Get this… at some fancy, prestigious academy (these places are always fucking prestigious), the harem lead is the only member of the Library Club. Uh-huh. None of the other smart, rich kids want to read books. Yeah, definitely. But some “shepherd” keeps arranging it so that our harem lead runs into cute girls. Naturally, those cute girls will go on to join the Library Club, then together with the harem lead, they’ll work to make the school a better place! Wowee!

Will I Watch It? It sounds dumb enough to laugh at. Will I revive Harem Hill for this show though? Eh…

* * * * *

Girlfriend (Kari)
Studio: Silver Link
PV: Here

Synopsis: An adaptation of a mobile game where you date girls.

Will I Watch It? Would this anime be entertaining to mock by itself? See, I don’t know… For Harem Hill, this show would make sense, but by itself, I don’t think it deserves a post. And if I’m not going to write about it, I sure as hell wouldn’t watch it.

* * * * *

Grisaia no Kajitsu
Studio: 8bit
PV: Best one I could find…

Synopsis: So the five haremettes in this anime are fucked up in some form or fashion, and as a result, they must attend this school where they are isolated from the outside world. Why? ‘Cause they need to repent. Yeah, repent. Christ, why don’t you just make them wear chastity belts while you’re at it. Needless to say, this girls-only school is hardly girls-only, because the harem lead has just shown up. He’s about to rock these girls’ worlds!

Will I Watch It? This harem sounds even dumber than the library one, so yeah, I’ll likely watch it. But don’t just take my word for it! The visual novel was awarded the grand prize from the 2011 Moe Game Awards! Neat!

* * * * *

Madan no Ou to Vanadis
Studio: Satelight
PV: Best one I could find…

Synopsis: There are seven “Vanadis,” and they are feared because they’ve each been bestowed a powerful weapon from some Black Dragon. Oh by the way, did I mention that these Vanadis are also hot anime babes? Anyway, our harem lead gets his ass kicked by one of them, but instead of killing him, the girl decides to take him prisoner… didn’t see that one coming.

Will I Watch It? Those boobs in the picture above do not even look nice… Plus, what is this? A harem renaissance? After seasons with nothing to mock, you’re really going to do this to me, anime? You’re really going to shove all these harems down my throat?

* * * * *

Trinity Seven: 7-nin no Mahoutsukai
Studio: Seven Arcs
PV: Here

Synopsis: A bizarre incident caused the harem lead’s cousin to get sucked into another world. To bring her back, he enrolls himself in a magical academy, where he meets seven beautiful magic users. Do I even need to mention that they’re all female?

Will I Watch It? Sigh, throw it on top of the harem heap. We’ll sort these shows all out later.

* * * * *

Ushinawareta Mirai o Motomete
Studio: Feel
PV: Couldn’t find one.

Synopsis: An old school building is closing down, so the students hope to throw one great cultural festival to see it off. Strange things, however, are beginning to happen. People say they can see ghosts in and around the old building. Others are afflicted by sleeping sickness. Then of course, the school receives a transfer student and she’s probably the magical catalyst that will turn the school upside down. Well, maybe not.

Will I Watch It? Oh my god, it’s another harem. It’s also another visual novel adaptation. What’s going on here?! Fun fact: the title, which translates to “In Search of Lost Future” in English, is apparently a reference to a Marcel Proust novel. Still not convinced? The visual novel apparently sold very well in Japan. Eh? Eh?!

The “Meh…” Tier

Akatsuki no Yona
Studio: Studio Pierrot
PV: Here

Synopsis: So some princess falls in love with a guy, but they can’t marry for some reason or other. Oh, did I mention that they’re cousins? Anyway, she goes to tell her dad that she still loves this cousin of hers, but what should she find when she gets there? Her cousin killing her dad and usurping the throne! Gasp! I-I’m sure it’s just a misunderstanding! But anyway, a servant, a hot bishie in his own right, helps the princess escape from the castle. They eventually embark on a quest to locate the four legendary dragons, because this will help them somehow.

Will I Watch It? It sounds like a shoujo that doesn’t take place in a school. It sounds like a shoujo that might actually have some adventure and swashbuckling to it. Okay, maybe not the swashbuckling part, but… eh, I’ll probably watch it.

* * * * *

Cross Ange: Tenshi to Ryuu no Rondo
Studio: Sunrise
PV: Here

Synopsis: So in the future, the discovery of “Mana” has allowed society to subjugate all wars, starvation, pollution, etc. Uh-huh. So what do I read next? Normal people who can’t use Mana are treated like heretics. Oh, what do you know! We can wipe out starvation and war by treating a certain class of people like shit! Well gee, I guess we’re all rich in America! Oh, those poor homeless “people” you see on the street? They’re “things,” so they don’t count. But I digress. Some princess (they’re all princesses, apparently) finds out one day that she’s a… normal person!!! So she gets bullied and ostracized for it, and ultimately decides to go to some distant island in order to isolate herself. There, she encounters other hot anime babes just like her. Then they hop into mechas and battle invading dragons from another dimension. Yeah, I shit you not.

Will I Watch It? The anime sounds dumb, but it has action so I’ll probably blog it just to say how dumb it is. If it turns out to be any good, then I’ll be pleasantly surprised. It’s a win-win!

* * * * *

Fate/stay night: Unlimited Blade Works
Studio: ufotable
PV: Here

Synopsis: It’s another adaptation of Fate/stay night, but this time, the tsundere Rin Tohsaka will be the primary female character! Yay!

Will I Watch It? Nothing from the Fate/stay night universe has ever really captured my imagination, but maybe the third time will be the charm! Hah…

* * * * *

Gundam Reconguista in G
Studio: Sunrise
PV: Here

Synopsis: Some kid encounters a Gundam (they always do), and decides to join the Pirate Corps to fight the Capital Army.

Will I Watch It? Most Gundams are pretty mediocre for two reasons: their focus, and their underlying themes.

The problem with the focus is that Gundams are primarily made to push model sales. To sell more models, Bandai needs more shows to promote the mobile suits featured in new model kits. This tends to cause Gundam shows to fall into a flavor-of-the-week cycle, and this sucked all the soul out of Gundam Seed (in addition to the fanservice and shitty writing). On the flip side, this was a boon to God Gundam which had some fun with the need to sell new model kits. This is also why a lot of the Gundam OVAs are pretty decent, because in most cases, there aren’t new mobile suits to sell, except maybe one or two that the show is named after. 08th MS Team wasn’t treading any new ground, so the plot could focus on the characters instead of new enemy type G.

The antagonists always have a dearth of different mobile suit types in development for precisely this reason. Though in the case of the Universal Century timeline and Zeon, it successfully draws historical parallels to the Nazis since they too were racist fascists who loved coming up with a whole bunch of wacky shit.

As for the underlying theme, just about every Gundam show out there follows the same basic formula: boy finds Gundam, boy gets caught up in intrasolar conflict, boy uses his superpowers to force a victory for pacifism. War is bad, but unlike Paul Baumer, a Gundam protagonist is generally equipped with genetic superiority or pre-destined bullshit that gives him the edge to overcome pretty much any obstacle except for other ubermenschen. It’s not at all clever, and makes the protagonists really hard to identify with.

The protagonist in Turn A Gundam, on the other hand, doesn’t have anything particularly special about him compared to the average person. As a result, he has to learn how to pilot the Turn A Gundam through experience and without the assistance of superhuman reflexes. Also to its credit, Gundam 00 takes the boy supersoldier trope and accepts the third world school of soldiery. Warriors are raised, not born, and while the two Gundam pilots are genetically engineered, the others are by all accounts normal dudes who just happened to have really fucked up childhoods, thereby making them the perfect candidates for some super soldiery.

So uh, I guess I’ll watch Gundam Reconguista in G…

“B-b-but I thought you said you don’t watch Gundam?

You should know by now that I say a lot of things.

* * * * *

Hitsugi no Chaika: Avenging Battle
Studio: Bones
PV: Here

Synopsis: This is the sequel to Hitsugi no Chaika, which was a story about a girl trying to recover her father’s remains in order to give him a proper burial. Oh yeah, her father used to be the Immortal Emperor Gaz, so people aren’t too keen about this. They think she might try to revive him and bring back the Gaz Empire. Then there are some other stuff to worry about like how there are multiple Chaikas… I can’t really describe the whole story in just a few sentences, so you’ll just have to watch the first season if you’re that curious.

Will I Watch It? I honestly thought the first season was pretty mediocre. It was watchable, sure, but it was one of those shows I instantly forgot about as soon as I stopped watching it. But like I’ve said, it’s watchable so I’ll cover the second season. I’m just not excited about the prospect of doing so. Hopefully, we’ll get some real answers to some of the story’s bigger mysteries. Also, nice pose there, Akari.

* * * * *

Inou-Battle wa Nichijou-kei no Naka de
Studio: Trigger
PV: Here

Synopsis: Kids in a club wake up one day to find that they have superpowers. That’s cool. But they still have to go to school, so…

Will I Watch It? I’m not going to get excited for this anime just because it’s produced by Trigger. First, it’s a light novel adaptation, which I’m already wary of. Then, I see that the main lead is surrounded by a bunch of cute girls, so it looks like a shitty harem. I’m not saying that it is a shitty harem. I’m just saying that the set-up seems haremish. Finally, the premise sounds dumb as hell:

However, the members still look forward to the possibilities of adventure, and continued to believe that with each day, they were getting ever closer to those days of fantasy. Their days of romantic comedy and battles with extraordinary powers begin!”

Hopefully, Trigger is keeping mum about some twist that will make the anime worth watching, ’cause otherwise, Inou-Battle wa Nichijou-kei no Naka de looks mundane right from the get-go. But hey, sometimes we just gotta make money…

* * * * *

Log Horizon Season 2
Studio: Satelight
PV: Best one I could find…

Synopsis: Naturally, this is a sequel to Log Horizon, which was yet another anime about people finding themselves trapped in an MMO world.

Will I Watch It? I’ll soon have a post up on what I thought of the first season. Long story short, I wasn’t a big fan, but I’ll probably blog the second season anyway since it’s about an MMO.

* * * * *

Ookami Shoujo to Kuro Ouji
Studio: TYO Animations
PV: Here

Synopsis: Some girl pretends to have a boyfriend, but she picked the wrong photo to show her friends. The guy in the photo is actually a classmate of hers, so she quickly tries to get him to play along. Unfortunately, the guy’s an asshole (he’s a shoujo bishie, so of course he is), and he proceeds to take advantage of the situation by… uh, treating the girl like a dog.

Will I Watch It? I highly doubt the girl is as vain as she’s supposed to be. She’ll probably have a good heart, and even though the guy treats her like shit, she’ll fall in love with him. And I highly doubt that the bishie will be as sadistic as he’s supposed to be. He’ll eventually want to protect her, pat her on the head like a dog, and do all the other mundane bishie shit. But we’ll see…

* * * * *

Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso
Studio: A-1 Pictures
PV: Here

Synopsis: Some kid used to be a piano prodigy, but his mom died. The anime’s description even makes it a point to say that our hero’s world has been monochrome since then. Trauma is a helluva drug. His life slowly starts to improve, however, when he meets a female violinist. All of sudden, his life gains color! Technicolor! Oh god, I hope the girl doesn’t turn out to be a manic pixie dream girl.

Will I Watch It? I kind of dislike the way the characters are drawn, but it’s not a big deal. The anime seems harmless, actually. I’m not excited for it, but I’m not turned off by what I see either. Actually, check that. In the preview, there’s a moment where the heroine plays a melodica as she’s dancing barefoot. Meanwhile, a bunch of birds flutter around her just to add drama to the scene. I’m not quite sure what the anime’s trying to convey here, but it looks corny as hell. I feel as though my arteries got clogged just watching it. Yeah, yeah, her free spirit will sweep the melancholy male lead off his feet, but ugh…

For what it’s worth, this will share the noitaminA block with Psycho-Pass 2. Of course, something like Nanana’s Buried Treasure also got a noitaminA slot, so by itself, this isn’t much of a distinction.

* * * * *

SHIROBAKO
Studio: P.A. Works
PV: Here

Synopsis: Five girls try to make it in the anime industry.

Will I Watch It? Oh, a show about working girls. That might have potential–…

Oh… nevermind then. I’m somewhat kidding, of course. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have stuck it in this tier. But P.A. Works has burned me plenty of times before…

* * * * *

Terra Formars
Studio: LIDEN FILMS
PV: Here

Synopsis: Humanity sent moss and cockroaches to Mars in an effort to terraform the red planet. When humanity returned five hundred years later, the cockroaches had evolved into Terraformars, a bunch of man-killing, bipedal descendents…

Will I Watch It? I wrote about part one of a two-part OVA here; the OVA is a prequel to the anime series. But long story short, while the premise sounds intriguing, I was disappointed by the story’s heavy reliance on shounen-esque action to carry the day. Also, commenters who have read the manga seem to believe the story has racist undertones. Since I haven’t read the manga myself, I can’t comment on that.

* * * * *

World Trigger
Studio: Toei Animation
PV: Here

Synopsis: A gate to another world opened up, allowing monsters called Neighbors to come through and attack humanity. All seemed lost until Borders, a group of people using the power of alien technology, showed up to fight back against the invaders. Since then, everything has been relatively peaceful until a humanoid monster comes through the gate one day…? That’s all I can gather about this show.

Will I Watch It? The premise doesn’t sound like anything special. Once again, a bunch of children have the power to change the fate of the world. The character designs look a bit youngish, and that’s not really appealing to me. ‘Meh’ perfectly captures how I feel about this show with the little information that we’ve been given.

The “It Might Have Potential” Tier

Garo: Honoo no Kokuin
Studio: MAPPA
PV: Here

Synopsis: First, I know nothing about the Garo tokusatsu drama series, but apparently, the anime is only related to it by name and name alone. So why not just create a whole new story? Oh well… Second, the PV tells me nothing other than that there’s a lot of fire, and some dude in a set of armor will likely kick some ass. Finally, the Wikipedia page for the anime says one thing, but the various anime charts I’ve found say another. According to the Wikipedia page, the hero will help some prince and his mother reclaim the throne from the late king’s evil advisor. But according to the anime charts, some Makai Knight will save a girl from death after she’s been tainted by demon blood. So which is it? Maybe the anime will be about both sets of stories, but if I had to pick, give me the one with all the demons.

Will I Watch It? I guess. I have nothing much to go on, but MAPPA has been doing a pretty good job with Terror in Resonance. Oh yeah, if anyone cares, the screenwriter is the same guy who worked on Attack on Titan. This doesn’t matter to me, but it might mean something to some of you.

* * * * *

Kiseijuu
Studio: Madhouse
PV: Here

Synopsis: Parasites from outer space enter through our ears and noses in order to take control of our brains. Luckily for Shinichi, he was wearing headphones, so Migi, one of the parasitic aliens, could only burrow itself into his right hand. Since Shinichi’s brain is still intact, he and the Migi decide to form a bit of symbiotic relationship. They then fight other parasite-controlled humans.

Will I Watch It? If you take a look at the preview, there’s potential here for some interesting moments of body horror. Unfortunately, Madhouse is handling this adaptation, and they haven’t impressed me in years (no, I do not enjoy Hunter x Hunter). On the one hand, body horror… but on the other hand, Madhouse… body horror, Madhouse, body horror, Madhouse…

It turns out my girlfriend actually read this manga, and she thought it was okay. She’s even less of an anime/manga fan than I am, so y’know what? Fine, I’ll stick this in the “It Might Have Potential” Tier. Don’t disappoint me, Madhouse (you probably will).

* * * * *

Sanzoku no Musume Ronja
Studio: Studio Ghibli
PV: Here

Synopsis: The anime follows Ronja, a young girl who belongs to a tribe of bandits. In fact, her father is the chief. Anyway, she makes friends with the forest animals, and even meets a young boy from another tribe. I hesitate to say more because I’m not sure how closely the adaptation will follow the original story.

Will I Watch It? Oh, a Studio Ghibli production about a young girl going on adventures? You don’t say… I know a bit about the Swedish book that this anime is based on, so it’ll be interesting to see what changes the story takes on as it crosses cultural boundaries. In any case, I don’t expect to be enthralled by the show, but at the same time, Sanzoku no Musume Ronja feels like a safe bet.

* * * * *

Shingeki no Bahamut Genesis
Studio: MAPPA
PV: Here

Synopsis: I have no clue. I just know it’s based off of some social card game.

Will I Watch It? So why is it in this tier? ‘Cause the preview makes the anime look cool as balls, man. I really have no idea what to make of the anime. Plus, I don’t particularly care for card games. But for what it’s worth, I don’t see any card games in the preview. Instead, I see people riding dragons. I see a giant statue of a knight come to life, ready to wreck stuff up. I basically just see a bunch of action. So yeah, I think the anime has potential. Plus, it shares the same director with Tiger & Bunny, and that can’t be a bad thing, right?

The “It Can’t Possibly Disappoint Me, Can It?” Tier

Mushishi Zoku Shou 2
Studio: Artland
PV: Can’t find one, but this show doesn’t really need one.

Synopsis: Basically, Mushishi is a very contemplative anime series about human nature and the world around us.

Will I Watch It? Without a doubt.

* * * * *

Psycho-Pass 2
Studio: Production I.G
PV: Here

Synopsis: More Psycho-Pass goodness. If you didn’t watch the original series, it’s a futuristic story about a future where the Japanese state actively monitors its civilians’ mental states. Even your future career is based on a score determined by the government. Anyway, when anyone shows a high disposition for crime, they are immediately put under arrest. In some cases, they can be killed outright. Who or what makes all these determinations? Something known as the Sibyl System. Needless to say, this seemingly utopian society is not what it seems…

Will I Watch It? Will Akane be proven right? Will someone eventually pull the plug on the Sibyl System? Can Akane’s Psycho-Pass continue to remain spotless despite all that she’s been through? How capable is Akane as a leader? Can another villain fill the gap Shogo Makishima left behind? Will Shinya play a large role in the sequel? There are so many questions for the sequel to answer… The original series certainly had its flaws, but I really enjoyed it nonetheless. Sure, Urobuchi won’t be writing the script for the sequel, but the set-up’s all there and Tow Ubukata is no slouch (I wasn’t a fan of Mardock Scramble, though). Since we don’t have to worry about world-building anymore, perhaps the story can take off right from the get-go.

But what about the movies?!

Uh, what about them? Truth be told, I’ve never previewed movies in these posts, I don’t feel as though I should start doing so. But uh, let’s see if there’s anything interesting on the horizon. Here, listen to some music while I go look…

…other than Expelled From Paradise, nothing else looks too appealing to me.

More tsundere sharks this week? Gosh, you never know…

– You know how the harem lead cross-dressed and kicked butt as Ren Ashbell? Of course you do. The anime’s only been telling us this lame story over and over again. And at the start of this week’s episode, we get to see it from Fahrenfart’s perspective. As a young girl, she was supposed to watch and admire her sister in the Blade Dance tournament. But naturally, a boy (in disguise) won the tournament, so she grew up idolizing Ren Ashbell instead. The thing that gets me is that not a single one of these girls had a contrary opinion of the harem lead. You’d think at least one of them would dislike Ren Ashbell, because hey, we’re all different. And gosh, who better than Fahrenfart, who had to watch her sister fall at the sword of Ren Ashbell. But like everyone else, Fahrenfart falls in love. Love the harem lead. Praise the harem lead. Wash the harem lead’s cock.

– Anyway, this is the ninth episode, so the story should start ramping up to the finale, right? I mean, you can’t possibly tell me that this is a 2-cour anime, right? The thing is, I don’t see how we’re any closer to resolving anything, but I bet the story will just end at some arbitrary cut-off point, and we’ll forget Seirei Tsukai no Blade Dance ever existed.

– Kamito happily wakes up to find that there isn’t a naked sword in his bed. Oh gosh darn… Elsewhere, his haremettes are busy cooking a meal for him already. Ah, the life of a harem lead.

– Fianna is adding crushed newt to her dish, because crushed newt is apparently an aphrodisiac. This causes Claire to freak out, ’cause she believes every dumb shit she hears. Rubbing your breasts will make them bigger? Sure! Random nasty bits from a newt will make a man horny for you? Sure!

– By the way, Fianna wants the harem lead to lose all restraint and attack her at night: “…wouldn’t it be nice if Kamito had his way with us every once in a while?” If she wants it so badly, why doesn’t she just attack him at night? Oh that’s right, haremettes can’t be a sex-haver.

– They say it’s a bowl of cinders, but it looks like a bowl of animal feces. You be the judge. In fact, it was supposed to be chocolate. Oh well, chocolate, poop… there’s a fine line.

– There’s a festival coming up where people give chocolates to their crush. Who wants to bet the girls shit all over Kamito?

– Oh god, the turd fest never ends.

– When it rains, it pours.

– Fianna: “…so you like this kind of thing, Kamito-kun?” You literally stuck chocolate between your breasts. Don’t start taking the high road.

– Then Fahrenfart shows up to get mad. Yawn…

– Oh, I guess we should pay attention to the storyline. Uh, “Murders,” whatever they are, have infiltrated the city to sell cursed seals to the students. Whatever that means. Alright, back to more stupid harem hijinks!

– Aw, it’s just a battle between Team Scarlet and some other faceless team we’ll quickly forget about. Oh yeah, it’s still a 3v5 because Claire can’t swallow her pride and convince her best friend to join the team.

– It’s amusing to see Kamito struggle against these random girls when he’s supposed to be the kick-ass Ren Ashbell. Sure, sure, he’s a lot weaker now, but c’mon. He and his friends just took down some wannabe Demon King who had a billion spirits up his sleeve. How can your classmates be formidable by comparison? Yeah, the harem lead eventually wins, but it shouldn’t even be difficult. It’s funny how in some anime, the battles should be close, but they’re not. And here, the battles are needlessly difficult when they shouldn’t be.

– A girl’s Adamantine summon is able to block Claire’s fire spells. So she just whips it to pieces. Right. Fire < a whip.

– All of a sudden, Fianna gets tentacle-raped by a water spirit. Welp, it was bound to happen sooner or later.

– Kamito valiantly saves Claire’s life, and this is the thanks he gets. I guess this season is all about the harem lead getting abused. I wonder what the theme will be for next season’s crop of anime.

– So Team Scarlet wins, and they’re discussing their potential upcoming opponents. They might have to face Velsaria, a.k.a. Fahrenfart’s sister. The older ‘Fart is apparently the strongest elementaler at this school, but we just saw her get destroyed by Ren Ashbell in the cold opening. Ergo, the strongest elementaler at this girls-only school is still weaker than a cross-dressing boy. Makes sense. Then the conversation segues naturally into Claire accusing Scarlet of burning too much of her boob fat. Cool.

– Some girls show up to taunt Claire some more, but I’m not really paying attention. Rinslet also shows up to defend her friend, but claims that she’s not. Uh-huh. Then she suggest the location where Team Scarlet can have their victory lunch, but s-she’s not trying to eat with them or anything! Snore. What a bore. Unfortunately, the harem lead has to split off from the rest of the girls, because he has to take remedial classes or something. I’m not sure what I heard, but that sounds about right.

– In Kamito’s remedial class, he runs into Fahrenfart. Oh good, they’re both clods. Fahrenfart says she only fails her classes because she has to fulfill her duties as a knight. Maybe we shouldn’t let students guard the school. Or if we really had to go that route, maybe we should pick people who can juggle both school and work at the same time. Whoops, don’t mind me. I obviously don’t know what I’m talking about.

– For some reason, Fahrenfart decides to apologize for this morning’s ruckus. Guess we have nothing to talk about, so let’s turn on the girl’s deredere side.

– The harem lead asks Fahrenfart if she’s making turd chocolates too, so the girl replies, “I would never waste time on something like that when I could be helping the school!” You’re failing your classes! You ain’t doing shit!

– Uguu, studying together is so hazukashii~

– And just like that, they have a study date later that day. Oh, how deredere of Fahrenfart… But that’s how it is. The strong swordswoman is actually a dumbass who needs tutoring from the male lead. In a show full of tsunderekkos, they must each have some crippling weakness that he can use against them. Fahrenfart’s weakness is that she’s dumb. Cool.

– Afterwards, Kamito goes to eat with his team. It’s just a bunch of boring scenes that don’t say much of anything other than that Claire’s birthday is coming up. Yeah, I really care about that. He’s just going to get her some cat-shaped pendant. The girls then whined that Kamito spoils his loli. Well, hey, she’s the only one willing to get naked with him.

– Here, have another picture just because this episode was so boring:

So kawaii~

A shorter post than usual this week, since I’m a bit exhausted these days.

Week 9’s Poll Results

The top 5 finishers

– Not surprisingly, Psycho-Pass 2 takes the majority of the votes.

“I, what most people have probably done as well, voted for Psycho-Pass 2. I’d rather stick with something I’m familiar with, than a completely new series.” — Ax_v

“Doubt psyho pass will be as good with out Maki to carry the show.” — BoyTitan

As I said in my fall ’14 preview post, I don’t expect the anime to disappoint me, but at the same time, I don’t expect it to be brilliant either. I think I’m mostly watching the show just to see where the story goes. The first season proved that Psycho-Pass can be a bit hazy when it comes to handling its themes. The sequel has a different writer helming the story, but I think Tow Ubukata won’t stray too much from what Urobuchi had established.

– Old franchises are getting the nod as Fate/stay night: Unlimited Blade Works grabs a distant second place.

“Hmm, next season looks lame, aside from Psycho pass and maybe Fate/stay night.” — Anonymous

The visual novel simply has way too many fans for this anime to go unnoticed, even if this version of Fate/stay night is merely taking a different route.

–Again, sequels or reboots continue to rule the poll as Mushishi Zoku Shou 2 settles down in third.

“Mushishi is one of my favorite shows ever, ranking in my top five comfortably sandwiched between Ghost in the Shell: SAC and Kino’s Journey. Seeing a sequel to it makes me so conflicted because I want some more Mushishi but sequels RARELY as good as their predecessor.” — Anonymous

The voting is starting to get closer now, though. Yeah, I certainly think Mushishi is a great anime, but when the show actually airs, few people will talk about it. It’s just one of those shows that gets no attention even though most people consider it a top tier anime.

– Kiseijuu barely finishes behind Mushishi Zoku Shou 2.

“I loved the Parasyte manga. And Madhouse is a good studio when they aren’t adapting awful LNs to rake all the money. Too bad they are using new character designs instead of the original super 90’s looking ones.” — RoboMambo

“I’m really excited for Parasyte, some trusted manga readers have told me that it might beat Ping Pong as anime of the year if it lives up to it’s source (or improves on it).” — Good Taste

I can’t deny that the trailer looks cool, but I’m always wary of Madhouse. Of course, I’m being a bit pessimistic, but that’s only because it’s fun to rib Madhouse for their recent efforts (Mahou Sensou, Mahouka, BTOOOM!, etc.). Still, it’s the first show on this list that’s neither a reboot nor a sequel. That’s gotta count for something, right?

– Aaaaaand we’re right back to the sequels as Log Horizon 2 grabs the fifth and final spot.

“Log Horizon an MMO fantasy done right.” — FlameStrike

I think the poll results have been a bit conservative. Anime fans seem to prefer what has already worked over newer and possibly more exciting possibilities.

Other notables:

– The Chaika sequel comes in at a distant sixth, but still far ahead of the other fall shows. Again, I’m not quire sure what people see in it. The anime has nothing interesting to say.

– Gundam: G no Reconguista barely edges out Gundam Build Fighters Try with five extra votes in the battle of the Gundams. In other words, Gundam, Gundam, Gundam!

– Madan no Ou to Vanadis is the only show to take zero votes. I guess we’re just desensitized to big-breasted anime babes with powerful weapons.

– Inou-Battle wa Nichijou-kei no Naka de to do better, since everyone loved Kill la Kill and thus Trigger by association. It, however, finished below the likes of Amagi Brilliant Park, Terra Formars, selector spread WIXOSS, and World Trigger. I personally thought selector infector WIXOSS was a disaster, but I guess it has enough fans wondering if Yuzuki will ever get to bang her twin brother or not.

– There’s little hype for Garo: Honoo no Kokuin, and Shingeki no Bahamut Genesis only got four measly votes. I find this odd because the PVs for both these shows look decent enough. But again, people go with what they’re familiar with. Plenty of people have read the manga for Terra Formars and World Trigger. Few people seem to know what the hell Shingeki no Bahamut Genesis is supposed to be.

Week 10’s Rankings

16. Seirei Tsukai no Blade Dance

Nothing’s happening. Nothing’s really taking shape. I wonder if the show even has a plot. But hey, Kamito’s slowly winning over the ‘Fart girl, so that’s cool…

15. Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei

Nothing’s happening here either. The show keeps telling us something big’s about to happen — and the good guys even ship our Gary Stu an ugly-ass mecha for this eventuality — but I see nothing. I see absolutely nothing happening with the plot except an extremely dry and boring science presentation. On the bright side, there’s been less Tatsuya lately. Since I’m such a generous guy, I’ll bump the show up a spot.

14. Rail Wars!

“This show still has trains in it! It’s still a train anime!”
“It’s more moe now than trains. Twisted and evil by shiny boobs and glossy butts.”

13. Akame ga Kill!

Anyone surprised Esdeath quickly turned into yet another quivering moeblob? I’m not. It’s funny how an all-powerful general would allow her boy toy to slip out of her grasps. In my book, that’s just lazy storytelling.

12. Sword Art Online II

Hilariously stupid. Dramatically stupid. Spiritually stupid. Ecumenically stupid.

11. Ao Haru Ride

More shitty people pretending to be best friends with each other. Worst part is, we’ve finally reached the “Will they or won’t they?” part of every generic shoujo romance. Everything else is done. We’ve established the characters. We’ve established the love triangles. We’ve finally learned why Kou is such a tortured character. Now we just get to sit tight and watch this awkward dance between him and Futaba.

10. M3 – Sono Kuroki Hagane

If Aoshi dies and nobody cares,  does anyone uguu? Hell, if anyone in this show dies and nobody cares, does anyone uguu?

9. Glasslip

– Sachi claims she’s confessing to both Touko and Hiro. Pfft. Words are ultimately meaningless. Sachi has done nothing but manipulate Hiro, so that’s all that should really matter. I mean, name one selfless thing she’s done for the guy.

– Even though he’s temporarily lost his “powers,” Kakeru continues to blow us all away with his intensity. Everything he does is intense. His philosophy, his questions, his stares, his lop-sided face, so on and so forth. If Glasslip ever gets a live-action adaptation, I hope Tom Cruise gets to play this amazing role.

– Touko and Kakeru’s parents crawl into Kakeru’s tent to talk about how weird he is. Oh, the irony…

– “You… kiss me! I don’t know what I’m thinking, because that wasn’t even the first time I’d seen it! What’s happening to me?!”

Teenagers fantasizing about kissing each other? Nah, that’s not possible. Things like that never happen, so this is truly a deep mystery that we need to solve.

8. Captain Earth

Still flawed, but last week’s episode managed to keep my attention for the most part. That’s more than I can say for the shows ranked below the anime.

7. Shirogane no Ishi: Argevollen

Okui visits his hometown, the good guys tussle with Ingelmian troops, and… well, honestly, the episodic nature of this anime is putting me to sleep. Sad thing is, we’re just going to get more of these episodes. If they’re going to bother fleshing out Okui’s character and origins, why wouldn’t they do it for the rest of Unit 8? Once again, an explosion nearly kills Tokimune, but he somehow manages to survive. I really wish something big had happened, e.g. the explosion separated Tokimune from the rest of the team. Let’s see Tokimune on his own, because he’s not very interesting when he’s with his team.

6. Tokyo ESP

The characterizations here are weak, but at least something actually happened. I’m even kind of curious how the good guys will recover from this latest setback.

5. Re:_Hamatora

I like how Hajime leaves the group just because she doesn’t want to be a danger to her friends. Then what does she do? She falls right into Momoka’s hands. Good job, girl! So this allows the evil lady to lead Nice and company on a wild goose chase in a futile attempt to save Hajime. Something about this just feels contrived. Anyway, Nice duke it out with Ratio isn’t very original, but at least the stakes are high.

4. Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun

3. Tokyo Ghoul

See below.

2. Aldnoah.Zero

With Tokyo Ghoul‘s plot lately having less of an emphasis on its characters’ mental states, I find myself looking forward to watching Aldnoah.Zero more and more. This Aogiri Tree arc just isn’t very compelling to me. Maybe the next episode will convince me otherwise.

1. Terror in Resonance

Questions about Five’s realism aside, no other show this season has engaged me as much as this one.

Week 10’s Poll

Alright, it was fun to look ahead, but let’s focus our attention back on the current season. For this week’s question, I know some of the shows below will continue well into the fall season. Still, just think of the end of these shows’ first halves as their unofficial summer finales.

Not exactly the most romantic place for our two lovers…

– Kasane says her final goodbyes to Aoshi, but elsewhere, Mahmu isn’t reacting well to the news that LIMs can die. Also, who the hell is the new girl?

– Iwato stupidly considers turning himself into a LIM so that Raika can pilot the Reaper. I just don’t understand why people aren’t trying to be more resourceful. Everyone just assumes that without three LIM-powered mechas, defeating a Corpse is impossible. Two just ain’t gonna cut it, apparently. Plus, everyone else who has turned themselves into a LIM had to, well, do so. It was their only recourse. Had they not chosen the path of the LIM, they would’ve become 100% Necrometal. Iwato doesn’t have that excuse, which is why he happens to have that vial of Corpse juice with him! Holy shit, does nobody keep important stuff under lock and key? Why can anyone just get their hands on this thing and trot it out to the beach like that? Who’s in charge of security around here?

– Elsewhere, Kasane’s trying to log into one of Natsuiri’s old computers. If she couldn’t get in before, how did she know the computer contained anything useful? She claims it contains “[a]lmost all of the research data from 10 years ago,” but that’s not how computers work. How can you see its content without knowing the password to begin with.

– Even though Minashi tells the guy, “I’m sorry about your older brother,” Akashi hasn’t looked too worked up about the tragedy. That’s why I wasn’t a big fan of last week’s development. Okay, so we killed off Aoshi. No one seems to worked up about it, honestly. Kasane cried for a short bit, and… yeah…

– Minashi continues to spout more bullshit about how the spoken word sucks, and I could buy that. I really could. But y’see, the thing is, thinking still uses words. When I have a thought — any thought — it’s in English, so there’s nothing here to make me think, “Yeah, yeah, telepathic thoughts are superior. We should just link our minds up and misunderstandings will go away completely!” And you just can’t take words away. We don’t have a universal “thought language” to substitute in, and even if we did, it’d still be a language of some sort. Let’s just face it: communication with others will always be flawed unless we literally share the same brain. But at that point, who’s to say we are distinct individuals anymore?

– Not only that, our thoughts aren’t always clear even to ourselves. Sometimes, I don’t know what to think or what I really want. Hell, opening up our hearts could lead to even more misunderstandings, ’cause until I sort my feelings out, they’ll be a mess. How will that be of any use?

– And like I’ve said before, we sometimes have intrusive thoughts that don’t even make sense. Can I trust others to see those thoughts and not think poorly of me?

– Minashi: “Because you were clamming your heart shut, neither Tsugumi nor Sasame could understand you…” Yeah, well, that has nothing to do words passing each other by or whatever. That’s just Akashi being Akashi.

– And besides, I can hardly see how it’s Akashi’s fault that Tsugumi is a crazy yandere girl. How will Akashi “opening up his heart” solve anything? She chose to freak the fuck out just because she couldn’t find her friends during a game of hide-and-seek. Sometimes, people are just nuts, and opening up your heart to them won’t do shit.

– But anyway, her despair is causing the Lightless Realm to expand, I guess. People are busy getting the fuck out of town; everyone but IX will abandon the place. They even give the kids a choice to leave if they want.

– So Kasane managed to get into those password-protected files. Apparently, she just had to read Mimei’s old blog. Alright then, did the computer contain anything useful? Not really. They can revert the effects, but they still need to defeat the Corpse. Welp, time to step up to the plate, Iwato!

– Buuuuut he chickens out at the last second. He got a kiss out of it though, so… I guess chickening out is the way to go. Dude, close your eyes at least when you kiss. Not content with just one, he continues to blubber even more afterwards. What? Does she need to fuck you before you suck it up and get over it?

– So the rest of the team are going to try and defeat the Corpse with two-and-a-half mechas. Wait, that was the plan, but Minashi wants to take his mecha and go see Tsugumi alone. This guy, man, this fucking guy. He keeps going on and on about how important it is that they be connected with each other, but he then goes and acts on his own like this. Fine, I get it, he doesn’t agree with Akashi; he thinks Akashi is selfish for closing his heart. But what about the rest of the team? What about his other friends or does he even consider them to be his friends? And isn’t Susan in charge? Why doesn’t he try to communicate his ideas to her or the rest of Team Gargouille if he thinks his ideas are so fucking great? If others agree with him, then maybe they’d even help convince Akashi! I just don’t understand Minashi’s thought process. Why is it all about Akashi and Akashi alone? Why doesn’t he seem to interact with anyone else? This just seems like lazy writing, but that’s what we’ve been saying all season long.

– Minashi comes right out and says he intends to save Tsugumi. Again, if he thinks he’s got the right idea, why isn’t he telling others about it? Why is he only telling Akashi?

– Um, awkward…

…but that’s one way to be connected, I guess.

– What’s funny is that Sasame hesitates to follow Minashi’s orders, so the two of them aren’t even all that connected! What a dumbass. Here he is, going on and on about how he’s the only one who can save Tsugumi, but Sasame doesn’t even understand him fully.

– So everyone’s in hot pursuit of Minashi, but an Admonition conveniently shows up and slows them down. Elsewhere, Minashi offers himself up to Tsugumi, so now the good guys have less mecha.

– But hey, remember that Heito dude?! We can always turn him into a LIM! Sweet! I guess we gotta fight one crazy with another crazy.

– By the way, it’s been so long since Heito had any lines, I almost forgot what his voice sounded like.

First things first, let’s address the elephant in the room. The first half of the episode is a very extensive exposition dump regarding the Athena Project. Shibazaki and Hamura have tracked down Souka Aoki, a former director of the Ministry of Health and welfare. Luckily, the old, lonely widower is more than willing to confess his sins. As suspected, the Athena Plan had hoped to create “humans with abilities beyond the norm.” This would apparently be accomplished by artificially inducing the Savant Syndrome in young children; some Japanese pharmaceutical company had accidentally created a drug that could do such a thing. Unfortunately, the experiment eventually proved to be foolhardy: “…the new drug was only effective on developing children under the age of five.” I’m curious as to what Aoki means by this. Are there a batch of successful trials on children under five? In any case, the harrowing implication here is that the Athena Plan would’ve continued, but the US caught wind of it and ended the plan. Still, America did not put anyone on trial nor did they hold anyone responsible for the Athena Plan. In return, they got Five. So in summation, the Athena Plan had experimented on twenty-six children, but only three survived. I don’t think I need to say who those three are.

An interesting exchange occurs at the end of the exposition dump. The hot-headed Hamura yells at Aoki, leveling the charge that the latter and his ilk are not human for what they’ve done to the twenty-six orphans. Aoki does not defend himself; in fact, he paints himself as a weak, ineffectual pawn: “I couldn’t go against the orders of the person in charge…” The old man knows what he did was wrong, but at the same time, he wants to pretend as though there was nothing he could do to help those children. He’s not completely wrong, either. It seems that several people have been permanently silenced in order to keep the Athena Plan from coming to light. Hearing Aoki’s excuses, however, Shibazaki couldn’t help but Godwin this whole shebang up: “I’m sure the people who performed the selection of inmates at Auschwitz said the same thing.” Sure, we could bring up the Nazis, but why go outside the country? Japan has its own sordid, little history regarding human experimentation. Not only that, America has had a history of turning a blind eye to obvious war crimes.

During a World War II, Japanese researchers had done horrific, barbaric things to people under the name of science. More relevant to the subject at hand, however, is the fact that “[m]any of the researchers involved in Unit 731 went on to prominent careers in post-war politics, academia, business, and medicine.” Like with the Athena Plan, the US caught wind of Unit 731 and their crimes against humanity. The US believed, however, that the data acquired by Unit 731 was useful even if it had been obtained immorally. As a result, most of Unit 731 researchers were not put on trial for their crimes. I can’t help but wonder if the same had happened here. In exchange for a super genius like Five, America simply shut the Athena Plan down and nothing more. In any case, I don’t think the Terror in Resonance‘s writers are dumb, so I don’t think they’re deliberately ignoring the Athena Plan’s very obvious parallels to Unit 731. At the end of the day, it just isn’t prudent for a cartoon to be throwing accusations left and right at its own country, especially a country in which some politicians — not all, mind you — had tried to censor history textbooks.

But that’s enough about that. Let’s turn our attention back to our heroes, Japan’s wannabe terrorists and their groupie Lisa (I’m being facetious, of course). When we last left off, Nine begged Twelve not to leave. He knew that any attempt to save Lisa would lead them right into Five’s very obvious trap. Unlike Nine, however, Twelve seems to have been harboring doubts about whatever it is that they intend to do. He even broached the idea of calling the whole thing off. We still don’t know what Nine wants to accomplish, but we know it has something to do with the “object” they had stolen from that facility at the start of the episode. Well, we finally learn this week that this “object” isn’t just a bunch of raw plutonium lying around. Rather, the two boys had stolen a prototype atomic bomb that Japanese researchers had been developing in secret. Considering how Japan is still the only nation on this planet to see the effects of an atom bomb firsthand — two, in fact — should this prototype atom bomb and its research ever come to light, the public outcry would be enormous.

America has its reasons for wanting to secure this bomb, and we can sit here all day and speculate about it. What’s interesting, however, is how Clarence is slowly starting to get fed up with Five’s myriad games. So rest assured, detractors; even her own partner is starting to have his doubts about her. Sure enough, Five straps a bomb onto Lisa, and sticks her in an amusement park. When Twelve arrives to save Lisa, he finds himself having to defuse a bomb as the two of them share a rather romantic ride on the ferris wheel. Clarence can’t help but wonder if any of this is necessary. After all, he only wants to retrieve the prototype atomic bomb, not indulging in Five’s convoluted and contrived scenarios. Still, the setting is not without its merits. The ferris wheel, the insert song, the closeness between Twelve and Lisa, the way the full moon that peeks out from behind the clouds at just the right moment — if not for the bomb on Lisa’s chest, it would seem as though the two of them are on a date!

Watching Twelve risk everything to save Lisa’s life, Five starts to get a painful headache. On a literal level, she’s likely suffering from the side effects of the drug she had taken as a child. Y’know, the one that had killed all those other children? Yes, she’s survived for this long, but who’s to say she won’t eventually succumb to the ill effects of the drugs? Maybe her days are numbered, and she’s playing all these games with Nine and Twelve because she needs closure. But that brings up the other thing I want to talk about. It can’t be a coincidence that her head starts to hurt as she watches how Twelve genuinely cares for Lisa. Lisa is in a lot of physical pain, but how much emotional pain is she harboring as well? After all, one of Nine’s flashbacks made it seem as though he and Twelve had abandoned Five. They could’ve escaped with her, but they didn’t. She was left behind at the Settlement, and she had to watch all of the other kids eventually die. In the end, she was taken away to a foreign country, isolating her even further from the two people who would even come close to knowing her pain.

But even then, Five is not in a team with Nine and Twelve. Compared to Five, Lisa is a nobody. She’s just some random girl who got caught up in this whole mess. Nevertheless, Lisa got to run around with Sphinx. And here we are, watching Twelve put everything on the line — his life, his relationship with Nine, Sphinx’s original goals — for Lisa’s sake. The way he defuses the bomb is almost intimate; it’s like he’s performing surgery on the girl, and she is completely vulnerable to him. And as it becomes obvious that he won’t defuse the bomb in time, they confess their sins to each other. If this isn’t romantic, I don’t know what is! But what about Five? Does anyone out there even care about her? It’s not like the US really cares about her. She’s only a tool that they can use to get what they want. And it’s clear that Sphinx doesn’t really care about her, yet they seem to care about Lisa. As a result, Five gives Twelve a difficult choice: if the latter wants to save both himself and Lisa, reveal the location of the prototype atom bomb and thus betray Nine. In fact, Five relishes the opportunity to taunt Twelve: “Nine will not forgive you, you know. He’ll never forgive you. You’re a dirty, little traitor.”

Still, Five’s target has always been Nine. She has focused on him ever since she returned to Japan, and it’s now obvious why she has her sights on him. Five has engineered this whole scenario with Lisa and the bomb just to make Twelve betray Nine. And for what? Why is it so important that Twelve betray Nine? It’s simple: Five wants Nine to know what it feels like to be betrayed. Five wants Nine to know what it feels like to be left behind and abandoned by a friend. Five’s games may seem unnecessary. They may also seem unrealistic. Hell, they seem crazy. But of course they seem crazy, ’cause I don’t see how anyone could go through what Five had gone through, and not end up a little crazy. Nine and Twelve managed to escape from the Settlement, but not only that, they had each other. When the two boys escaped, Five was alone. Whenever Nine had his nightmares, Twelve was always there to ask him about them. It’s likely that Five has her nightmares too, but does she have anyone to talk to? Does she have a partner in crime? The answer to both these questions is no. Five has no one. So she’s come back to Japan, but she doesn’t care about some stupid bomb. She wants her revenge.

Stray notes & observations:

– I like the contrast between Shibazaki and Hamura. Shibazaki still jots down notes like some hard-boiled detective. Meanwhile, Hamura relies upon technology. Hamura is young and hot-headed. Thanks to his experience, Shibazaki stays calm through it all. At the end of the day, however, they want justice. Shibazaki gives Hamura one more chance to turn and run. After all, he’s still young. He’s got his whole life ahead of him. Does he really want to endanger himself in this vast government conspiracy? Hamura visibly shakes as he puts down his recorder, but he eventually steels himself. Anyway, my point is that I like how they’ve handled Hamura’s character development. He hasn’t just faded into the background like I had expected.

– Shibazaki demands to know the identity of the person in charge of the Athena Plan, but that man is already dead. In fact, it was the politician that put Shibazaki’s career in jeopardy in the first place. So what now?

– On the ferris wheel, Lisa seems to have come to terms with her need to be needed. She tells Twelve to leave and return to Nine’s side, since Nine needs him more than she does. Is this true? Well, Lisa doesn’t really have anyone to return to. Still, I’m more impressed by the way Twelve finally takes responsibility of the situation. He never should’ve talked to Lisa in the first place, and Nine even warned him not to. He’s thus responsible for her ending up in this predicament, and it was nice to see his character own up to it. As I’ve been harping on for several posts now, the Settlement tried to strip these kids of their humanity. Five’s blatant disregard for the lives of innocent people is likely the result of their efforts. At the same time, Twelve’s compassion and remorse shows that the Settlement wasn’t entirely successful.

– Couldn’t Twelve lie about the location of the bomb? Five has no way of knowing if Twelve is telling the truth until her people get to the location. If he’s afraid that Five will kill them both if he lies, then he has no reason to think she’ll let them go if he tells the truth.

– I’m surprised the bomb is just hidden in some high school locker. Don’t they do regular locker checks everywhere?

– The countdown turning green was kind of lame.

There’s a lot to dislike about this week’s episode. A lot. So the all-out war between CCG and Aogiri Tree is a joke. To set the stage, CCG can’t seem to break through Aogiri Tree’s first line of defense, because a pesky sniper’s nest is holding them back. So what happens? Marude grabs a gun, stands completely upright and in the open, and manages to take out two of the snipers all by himself. Uh, is there a reason why a sniper’s nest couldn’t headshot a guy who didn’t even try to hide behind cover? But if you think that’s dumb, Juuzou commandeers Marude’s motorcycle much to the latter’s chagrin. First off, what is the dude’s bike even doing there? Do you mean to tell me he rode his bike into a fucking warzone? Second, I had to sit there and watch Marude contort his face as if I’m watching some sort of stupid comedy. Finally, while Juuzou was flying through the air on said bike, no one took a shot at him. Not a single person decided, “Gee, this looks like trouble! Let’s shoot the lil’ fucker out of the air!” Nope, the entire sniper’s nest sat there and gawked until the oh-so-wacky Juuzou careened his way through a window. He then proceeded to murder them all down without taking any damage in return. What. The. Fuck?

What happened to the show and its heavy emphasis on character development? Why has it devolved into this action movie wannabe schlockfest? Even when the episode tried to delve into Yamori’s backstory, it’s a sorry, pathetic attempt that doesn’t live up to Tokyo Ghoul‘s own standards. And that’s what I find so maddening about this. For the first eight episodes, the anime had set the bar at a relatively high level. I wasn’t about to call Tokyo Ghoul the best anime of the year or anything like that. I’m not saying it was that good. Still, I enjoyed the show, and it gave me plenty food for thought. All of a sudden, the final arc rolls around, it’s like, “Welp, time to cram in as much shit as we can before the season’s over!” As a result, Yamori’s story became an afterthought. Yo, guys, he was totally tortured. And like, he was tortured so bad, he invented a different personality to protect himself. One day, he broke free and that’s that. Did you enjoy that dry and boring exposition on Yamori’s character? No? Well, too bad, ’cause that’s exactly what I got in this week’s episode. Some guy sat on a bus and pretty much read the Cliff’s Notes to Yamori’s character out loud to Amon. You may as well wipe my ass while you’re at it. It’s so incredibly disappointing what the story has become.

The rest of the episode isn’t any better. Just look at how Ayato dispatches his enemies. What the fuck is this? His kagune has become a protective “tornado” around him? Yeah, obviously, you have to suspend your disbelief a bit when watching anime, but this isn’t even cool looking. This is literally a guy with “tornadoes” around him. If you’re going to give me shounen action, give me slick, well-choreographed shounen action. Not Ayato standing there, letting the CCG soldiers shoot at him for some arbitrary amount of time, then finally pressing the “I win” button and murdering them all. That’s just boring. If you want wacky shounen action, fine, whatever. But for the love of God, at least do it right. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t want the show to become a shitty shounen, but since it looks as though we’re headed down that path anyway, at least get the job done correctly. Then there’s more of that negative image shit because we wouldn’t want children to pretend they were ghouls. They might grow kagunes and start murdering their classmates! But what really gets me is that we still get these stupid color filters even though there isn’t any gore on screen. Here, we have Touka deep in introspection, as she wonders if, by killing Mado, she’s responsible for Amon’s anger. Why has the image gone negative for this? Why?

But what do I find most damning about this week’s episode? Right before the ending credits roll, we see locks of flowing white hair. Now, it’s probably a safe bet that we’re staring at Ken’s hair. Yamori’s brutal torture has been so profound that Ken has finally embraced his ghoul’s side… well, that’s the idea, anyway. Unfortunately, the execution has been absolutely terrible. So terrible that Ken’s ultimate transformation — the watershed moment in his character development — has gone to complete and utter waste. Why? Because I hardly feel his torture, man. I hardly feel it at all. It sounds physically painful, but that’s about it. And not only that, the torture amounts to… what? Maybe ten percent of the episode’s runtime at most? No, I’m not asking for an explicit, gratuitous look at Yamori’s torture techniques. I don’t need to see the hyperdermic needle puncture and slide its way into Ken’s eyeball. What I do want, however, is for the anime to convince me that there’s no turning back. I want the anime to convince me that Ken had to turn. He had to embrace his ghoul side, and abandon everything he had been fighting to hold onto all series long. This torture should be so profound because it literally shakes the very core of Ken’s foundation. But I don’t fucking see anything. Some blood has been spilled, and our hero has moaned and groaned a whole lot…. BAM, white hair.

C’mon, Tokyo Ghoul, what is that? The show doesn’t have to be the anime equivalent to Martyrs, but you gotta admit this shit is weak. I expected both physical and mental anguish, but moreso the latter than the former. Unfortunately, I got hardly any physical anguish, and you can just forget about the mental part. Here, have Juuzou do an air jump with Marude’s bike instead.

Y’know, as a kid, I always thought penultimate meant five times as ultimate. But I digress. We’re here to see how an anime about trains is really an anime about boobs… for the 11th time! Man, have we really watched ten episodes of this nonsense? Oddly enough, however, Rail Wars! gets the most views out of all my posts. Now, I can understand why something like Sword Art Online gets the most views, because the mighty Gary Stu really does bring the community together. No matter your race, your age, your creed, etc., we can all laugh at Kirito’s insistence that a haremette is already inside him. But Rail Wars!? The train anime gets the most views? Maybe you guys are just tsuntsun for the anime after all. As for me, well, c’mon, I just know where my bread is buttered. Alright, enough chitchat. Time to see how the story with the reverse trap resolves itself.

– I had already forgotten the reverse trap’s name, so I had to dig up my previous post just to find out what it was.

– So Bernina grabs onto Naoto and tells him not to get hurt just for her sake. Well, I don’t know what to tell you, but that’s kind of his job. Somehow, the reverse trap’s voice has taken on a particularly whiny inflection to it that makes her rather grating to listen to.

– Aoi tries to ruin this romantic moment, but just for that, she gets a swift kick to her side. Never interrupt the harem lead! But the mohawk guy is back, and I guess he wants to see more of Naoto’s ahegao. Why else would he be armed with nothing but a stun gun? See, if you were actually serious about assassinating the prince (should I start calling her princess now or what?), you’d actually bring a gun or at least a goddamn knife. I mean, the least you could is bring a knife. But like I’ve said, he’s only here to force our hero into a dangerous game of erotic electrostimulation, which is apparently a thing.

– But not if Aoi has something to say about it! So at the start of the scene, she had been swiftly kicked away by the bad guy. And now we see this. All I can think is that the girl picked herself back up, ran as fast as she could into the room, then instead of tackling the mohawk guy out of the way — y’know, the sensible thing to do? — she opts instead to jump in between the stun gun and Naoto. Uguu, have my ahegao instead~

– Aoi musters all her the strength she had left, and goat-kicked the mohawk guy out of the room. She then collapses all over Naoto, showing her shiny tush to the world. Okay then.

– But it’s a time to share, and as a result, even the mohawk guy must show his o-face. But y’see, that right there is Sho doing all the hard work. What about the harem lead? Well… couldn’t be better, I suppose. I’m not sure why they couldn’t make Naoto at least somewhat capable. Instead, he can’t seem to do anything but drive a train, and he’s not even good at that. But despite Aoi and Sho getting the job done again, Mari tells Naoto that he sure does pull into some crazy stunts! Look at his shit-eating grin in this frame. That’s the face of someone who knows he didn’t do jack shit.

– Unfortunately, all is not well. Haruka has gone and gotten herself kidnapped! See, she didn’t want Naoto to feel bad, so she’s made herself useless as well. But really, I don’t know what the heroes expected. Who should we put in Bernina’s room as a decoy? The girl who can at least fight back? Naw, let’s use Haruka, whose only contribution to this anime is her giant breasts. And uh, she can read train manuals really fast. In any case, the bad guys won’t give Haruka back unless they get Bernina in return. Aoi replies that they don’t negotiate with terrorists. Yeah!

– This unnecessary shot of Nana’s ass is supposed to be titillating, but I’m just following the two shiny dots on her ass as if they’re eyes bobbing from side to side.

– And in more ways than one!

– I don’t even know what Aoi and Naoto are arguing about. Is Aoi mad that Naoto called up Nana for help? She then insists that Haruka can take care of herself. Uh… I think someone’s just jealous. Mari’s only contribution to this scene? Gosh, I’m sweaty! Let’s shower, Aoi!

– Uh, is this what girls do? Oh no, a friend of ours has just been taken hostage! Lemme strip naked in front of you, uguu. Even so, Aoi thanks Mari for cooling her off. With what? Her vagina? So Aoi, in her graciousness, tells Mari to stick close to her “prince,” ’cause he’s sure to protect her! Sounds like a death wish, if you ask me.

– So nothing kind of happens for the next few minutes. The funniest thing is that they’re on a moving train, so there’s really nowhere for the bad guy to hide with a suitcase big enough to fit a hot anime babe. Despite this, however, our heroes can’t locate either him or Haruka whatsoever. Meanwhile, Bernina has pretty much all but disappeared from the anime. Seriously, she just drops from the story like a rock.

– By calling Naoto a prince, however, this has given the harem lead a wonderful idea. They’ll definitely trade the prince for Haruka… except Naoto will be wearing Bernina’s clothes and pretending to be the prince. I like how he can just put on Bernina’s clothes and they’ll magically fit. I also like how the hostage takers want to kidnap the prince, but they don’t even know what “he” looks like, so they will somehow be fooled by Naoto’s shitty plan. Last but not least, I like how the prince is a goddamn foreigner, so some nipponjin wearing the prince’s clothes will be a dead fucking giveaway that something’s up, but no, no… this is going to work, you guys.

– Sho tries to say something to keep his friends’ spirits up. Aoi quickly decides to take a shit on his efforts. This is probably why he stays quiet all the time. I would too if I had to work with these assholes.

– Naoto recalls a conversation he had with Bernina right before she left the train: “It’s our job to make sure you enjoy your journey. And if someone wants to get in the way of that, no matter the reason, we have to fight back.” Something about this just strikes me as silly. Yeah, they’re trying to kill you, but we will make sure you enjoy this fucking train ride! Also, that’s the best balled fist I’ve ever seen, harem lead. Keep it up!

– Look at this! I knew it! Bernina is like an entire fucking head shorter than the guy. How on earth would Naoto fit in her cloth–… it’s Rail Wars! Actually, the animation here has fucked up; it looks like Naoto has grown some really wide and broad shoulders out of nowhere.

– How is this exchange going to go down? Why, by having Haruka in the sexiest pose possible, of course!

– Ah, of course, the bad guy instantly realizes that the prince is really not the prince. Way to go, Naoto. Your plan definitely worked. I don’t know what the bad guy is looking at, though. It’s like he’s gotten an epiphany upon realizing that he’s been bamboozled. W-what am I doing with my life? What would my mom think if she knew I was a petty thug? In any case, this small distraction buys Aoi enough time to shoot the gun out of the bad guy’s hands. Why wouldn’t just shoot him in the fucking head?

– Thanks to Aoi not killing the bad guy for some reason, Naoto chases the thug with the shitty Steven Segal ponytail into the conductor’s car, where I’m sure they will now fight to the death for Haruka’s life.

– Haha, nah. Sho saves the day once again. I’m tellin’ ya, Naoto doesn’t do shit. But who gets all the love? This guy.

– All’s well that ends well, right? Nope. There’s still one more bad guy. He just didn’t help out in the hostage exchange because… because reasons, yo. And somehow, the controls to the train got shot up… I don’t even remember when this happened.

– The good guys will use signal flares to flush the bad guy out of his hiding! Now, if only they could remember where the signal flares are… Haruka puts her hand on Naoto’s hand so they can mind-link or some shit, and instantly, she recalls something. See, I told you guys. All she can do is read manuals and defy physics.

– I love the eyes in this show. They’re fucking hilarious. Naoto calls for Aoi, but it looks like he’s got his laser-focused stare locked on her ass. As for Aoi, who the fuck knows what she’s even looking at. Probably having an epiphany of her own too: “Damn, I do have a sweet ass.” That screenshot instantly cuts to this one. Their faces. I lost it. What is Passione doing next? I definitely need to catch their next anime. They’ve made me a fan for life.

– So Aoi shoots some pipe-thingy, and it causes white smoke to fill up the area. Still, the bad guy continues to fire his gun. But it’s okay, because we all know white smoke absorbs bullets. This way, Aoi can just run up to the guy from the front and kick his ass.

– Final boss subdued? Can we finally go home now? Naw, we can’t. Our heroes are on yet another train that is going way too fast. C’mon, guys, just hang off the side of the train, and use your feet to slow it down. This worked before!

– With none of the controls working, Naoto makes the oh-so-hard decision to detach the engine cars from the passenger cars.

– Sweet animation, bros.

– Unfortunately, Aoi had hurt her leg in the previous fight, so she can’t jump from one train car to the other one. Naoto then makes his second oh-so-hard decision: he’ll stay behind with his haremette! D-don’t get me wrong though: “I was just too scared to jump.”

– Again, awesome animation.

– For some reason, Aoi decides that this would be the best time to take off her stockings. C’mon, you can’t make a sexy pose look sexy with that face.

– What’s going on here, you guys?!

– He’s just bandaging up her ankle, you sick fucks.

– Aoi blushes and says, “Don’t stare. I don’t have pretty legs.” Our harem lead replies with, “You think? You’re pretty enough to me, Sakurai.” Smooth. She’s pretty enough. That’s the key right there. We wouldn’t the girl’s ego to get out of control, bro. Gotta neg and put her back in her place.

– Aaaaand now the bandage on Aoi’s left ankle is gone. Yes, the bandage was definitely on her left ankle. Go check the previous screenshot if you don’t believe. Animation!

– It almost looked like the harem lead and his haremette were about to have a tender moment, but Captain Gonou just had to show up and save their lives. Ugh!

– Naoto then explains to us in a rather dry way how this rescue is going to go down, but we don’t even get to see it. Literally, the next thing we see is the guy carrying Aoi from a stopped train. The girl still promises that she’ll always protect him, though. Aw!

– Well, that’s it, folks. Tune in next week for the exciting Rail Wars! finale! Will Japan’s coveted rail system resist privatizatio–… ah, who am I kidding? That has never and will never be the anime’s story.

I’m not hearing great things about this episode, but hey, let’s see for ourselves why it’s so bad.

– So things have gotten worse ever since the esper detainment law went into effect. Sure, a school got attacked, but I wonder what the politicians are thinking now. Do they think it’s okay for the entire city to go into chaos for some indeterminate amount of time if it means they can lock some espers up? The disappointing thing about these kinds of stories is that they rarely get into the mindset of these side characters even when it could lead to an interesting discussion. Some politician out there has to disapprove of what’s going on, right? Well, we’ll never know.

– Remember how Samurai Champloo‘s Masayoshi also found himself on the lam? He encountered a homeless guy, who ended up giving our hero the inspiration he needed to fight on. Here, Rinka encounters a homeless guy of her own, but he just shoos her away. It’s interesting to see how similar scenes play out. Samurai Champloo never stopped championing the human spirit, though.

– So here I am, watching Rinka wander through a city and opining for her love. And oh yeah, we get a ton of flashbacks. Like a lot of flashbacks. This is not exactly the most compelling episode.

– We cut back to Kyotaro, and he’s back on that island again! Apparently, Minami had saved him. She then tells him that his teleportation powers aren’t strong enough to get him back to Tokyo, but how is she here? How did she get out here? And what? She was just staring at him teleporting the entire time, waiting to swoop in and save his life?

– No, let’s not answer any of those questions. Let’s just have the girl take off her shirt instead. Cool! And even in this dire moment, Kyotaro has to look away and blush. ‘Cause not looking at the girl’s boobs is what’s truly important here.

– Minami tells Kyotaro she hasn’t killed people for nothing. After all, he doesn’t know the real reason that her mother and Kyotaro’s parents died! That reason alone will justify murder, folks! Boy, I can’t wait to hear it.

– Buuuut we cut back to Rinka, who has been taken prisoner. And this is lame because her dad had sacrificed himself so that she could get away. But instead of hiding out with Murasaki, she went and got herself captured. It’s really hard to sympathize with the girl right now since she deliberately screwed herself even after so many people had tried to help her.

– So the espers have been branded with both a number and a barcode. That’s not heavy-handed, guys!

– Roshi shows up to tell Rinka that this place is actually quite comfortable. Well, that’s nice. Except for people like Rinka’s father. They are apparently too powerful to control, so they “are forced into a medical sleep.” This makes Rinka’s actions even lamer than ever; her dad suffered for nothing.

– We finally return to Kyotaro, and we immediately jump into a flashback. On the bright side, this is at least a flashback we haven’t seen. This one involves both Kyotaro and Minami’s parents. They’re in some foreign country, looking for… well apparently, the Professor had found the Ark of the Covenant. No, really, the Ark of the Covenant.

– And what’s inside? The two tablets that the ten commandments had been carved upon. Christ… Somehow, Butterfingers over here managed to drop one of the tablet even though they’re likely made out of stone and thus not slippery whatsoever. When the one tablet shattered, glowing fish began to pour out of the broken pieces.

– So everyone experimented with their new powers… Again, the Professor can create illusions. Remember Butterfingers, though? He’s apparently a general of whatever country they’re in. He wants to keep the powers of the Ark of the Covenant to himself. The Professor quickly realized that he, his wife, and their two friends must quickly leave the country before anything bad happens to them. Well, so much for that. They got lured into a trap, and a bunch of soldiers shot everyone to death. The Professor only survived ’cause his wife used her last remaining strength to save him.

– Finally, we hear the whole story about how it all went down. Except, well, nothing I’ve just seen really explains the bad guys’ motivations. I’m not saying that the villains should be justified in what they do, ’cause obviously, bad guys shouldn’t be justified. But at the very least, they should have compelling motivations. Instead, the Professor got fucked over in some foreign country, and now he wants to punish the rest of humanity for it? Really? Like I said in the previous post, Magneto saw millions of his own people die. Meanwhile, the Professor is fucking millions of people over because he lost his wife. Then blah blah blah, he returned to Japan just to find a cover-up. I’m not saying his life doesn’t suck, but for a supervillain, his story is lame.

He’s just another petty thug, not someone with some grand but misguided vision. Even in Aldnoah.Zero, a show that has plenty of flaws, Saazbaum didn’t start a war simply because his betrothed died. There are other contributing factors like how the people of Mars are suffering from poverty.

– Minami: “Can you say from the bottom of your heart that revenge is wrong?” That’s not really that hard. Her story isn’t any better either. She saw her dad cry, almost got raped, and then it’s like, “Welp, time to murder everyone!” I mean, let’s not downplay the tanker incident. Plenty of people died. Rinka couldn’t save everyone. This is what the Professor and Minami have chosen to do. Great, expose the conspiracy. I’m not disagreeing with that part of the Professor’s plan. I just don’t see how dropping a tanker and killing a bunch of people will accomplish anything.

– And then the episode just ends. Kyotaro stretches, picks up a couple of sticks, then the show fades to black. Okay then… There can’t be very many episodes left, so I have a feeling we’re going to get a rushed ending. Oh well, just gotta watch and see, I guess.

Sigh. Man, all of a sudden, it feels as though I’ve aged a thousand years. Oh, what’s that? It’s another episode of Sword Art Online II. Yip…pee…

– I thought that maybe we had moved on. It’s a new week, a new episode, a new start. Why not let bygones be bygones and put the past behind us, right? Wrong. This sappy scene is still continuing.

– WOMAN, PLEASE, I HAVEN’T GOTTEN OVER ANYTHING. I STILL HAVE NIGHTMARES!!!

– I just don’t understand how they can afford to sit there and talk about this shit. I thought we were in the middle of both a tournament and a mission. Like fine, if this conversation had taken place outside of BoB and maybe even GGO as well, it would make some sense. I’m not against characters talking about their feelings. I praised Tokyo Ghoul for focusing on Ken’s feelings. I just don’t think yet another discussion about Kirito’s goddamn trauma. Shit, we spent an entire episode on it. But more importantly, Death Gun is still out there. He can still kill people. I thought our “heroes” wanted to stop him and save lives. So why are we just sitting here, talking about our feelings?

– And again, it’s stupid how the two of them can just hide out in this cave, and it’s magically safe to do so because the satellites can’t see them. So how many of these “save spots” exist out there on this map? It was bad enough Kirito could just strip naked and avoid detection in the river, but this is so much worse because at least he was vulnerable doing that.

There’s no risk here! How many asshole contestants can just extend this game indefinitely by camping out in some cave for however long they want? Oh wait, lemme guess: Kirito’s the only genius in this entire game to think of hiding out in some cave, right? I just think the entire idea of Kirito and Sinon sitting on their asses, having all the time in the world to “recover” and talk about their feelings is incredibly ludicrous. This isn’t just some hastily thrown-together, amateur tournament. This is supposedly one of the biggest e-sport event in SAO‘s universe. This isn’t even the first BoB tournament. And yet, if Kirito and Sinon really wanted to, they could honestly just hide out in this cave until most of their competitors have died. Fucking skills, son! I totally proved I’m the best PvPer in the land by hiding! But really, if you’re going to write about MMOs, esports, and online gaming in general, for the love of God, get a fucking clue about them. Seriously.

– Kirito tells Sinon that he’ll never forget the faces and voices of the people he’s killed. Sinon then wonders, “What do I do?” I don’t know…? Get therapy? Stop trying to use an MMO as a form of exposure therapy? Don’t fall in love with the Gary Stu? Don’t mind me… I’m just throwing random things out there.

– Our Gary Stu then goes on and on about how he thinks it is necessary to never forget: “Doing that is the bare minimum of atonement I can do.” What atonement? This is so needlessly dramatic, and this applies to the fucking both of them. Believe me, I’m not the first person to defend the Gary Stu, but he killed a bunch of people who took joy in killing innocents. Laughing Coffin was a bunch of asshole PKers. Yeah, it sucks to have to take a life, but he did what he had to do to prevent more from dying. So y’know what? He should actually be proud of himself. That’s the hilarious thing about this whole thing! He should be proud that he had protected other people by taking out a bunch of irredeemable PKers. But I guess praise has become too passé for the Gary Stu. He’s bored of praise. He knows what really moves the hearts of the people, and that’s pity. Oh, woe unto me! I have killed (a bunch of evil bastards). Give me your pity, for I am a wretched murderer!

– What’s even sadder is that you can’t even compare his trauma to Sinon. Look man, he killed people in an MMO. So what happens when you kill someone in an MMO? They just disappear into thin air right? Right, because it’s an MMO. Yes, his victims died in real life, but it’s not like Kirito had to sit there and watch them bleed to death. It’s not like he had to listen to their death rattle. It’s not like he had to see his victims’ eyes stare back at him as life ebbed slowly out of them. That’s not the case for Sinon. She had to actually watch someone die right in front of her. The two situations aren’t even really all that comparable. I know the show wants to be all, “MMOs are just as important as the real world!” But I watched the first season. People did not die in gruesome, bloody ways. They just disappeared. There’s no visceral quality to death within the games whatsoever. So y’know, I can somewhat understand Sinon’s trauma, but fuck Kirito. It feels like he only even has any trauma so we can get on this trauma train, and ride it all the way to motherfucking Pitysexville. Baby, baby, please… I too know what it’s like… let’s fuck.

– After the opening, we’re still in a cave. Fuck me, man… In fact, Sinon’s head is back in Kirito’s lap. Whoo, the taming of the tsunderekko is complete. Trust me, I would never let some girl put her head in my lap when I have a girlfriend.

– Sinon: “Death Gun… Whoever is wearing that cape is a real person, who actually exists, aren’t they?” Thanks for this stunning conclusion.

– The anime keeps panning to this red-colored pool, because it’s like, “Shit, what do we even have to pan to? It’s a cave! Go back to the pool!”

– So Kirito and Sinon are just sitting there, wondering how Death Gun is managing to kill people by simply shooting them–… are you serious? Are you fucking serious? Somehow, Sinon’s ass gives the Gary Stu an epiphany.

– Yeah, yeah, Death Gun can only kill people by getting to them in the real world. We all came to this conclusion episodes ago. B-b-but how does Death Gun know where to find his victims? Why, at the governor general’s office, of course! Remember? You can enter in your name and address in order to receive a cash prize from BoB should you manage to win the whole thing! For some reason, Sinon initially thinks it is impossible that Death Gun could’ve stolen people’s sensitive information this way. Yo, the dude has an invisibility cape.

– But man, this just brings up yet another stupid thing about the MMO in this universe, and that is how they submitted sensitive information like their address by going to a terminal within the game. Like really? You couldn’t do this in a more secure way like say visiting a site outside the game where it’s harder for people to spy on you? You really had to go to some location within GGO? The whole setup for this universe is stupid. Like yeah, I can understand making certain things realistic to add to the immersion of the world. For instance, I’m currently playing an MMO where a cow mount will also take dumps in the middle of the road, and if player characters try to pick up the cow shit, they can pass out from the stink. It’s silly, but it harmlessly adds to the immersion of the MMO. Meanwhile, there’s absolutely no good reason why anyone should ever have to enter in their real world information by logging into GGO, walking to some terminal, and physically typing out their name and address. This is something that could have and should have been handled outside the game, but again, the writer doesn’t seem to give a shit about the logistics of MMOs, esports, and how the two of them should realistically operate. It’s all contrived bullshit to create his ludicrous story.

– More unnecessary shots of Sinon’s ass. Even A-1 Pictures is like, “Man, this scene sucks donkey balls. The viewers are going to be bored if we keep panning back to that pool, so let’s just stare at the girl’s ass.”

– But Sinon’s ass isn’t big enough for how long and boring this scene is, so sadly, we must inevitably return… to the pool! But there’s a lizard this time! And yes, by staring at the lizard‘s ass and noticing that the animal has two tails, Kirito comes to yet another brilliant epiphany: Death Gun is really a multi-person operation! Gaaaaasssssssp! I never knew asses could be so inspiring! SAO II and the magical asses that could!

– Double Death Gun? What does that mean…?! P-plus, how can the killers just break into someone’s home and kill them? Well duh, our victims thus far have been MMO nerds living by themselves. Oh no, who else lives by herself!

– It really does make you wonder why these headsets are so… well, unsafe. You’re completely unconscious in the real world when you log into any of these VRMMOs. People can literally break into your home and do whatever they want, and it’s unlikely you’d realize the predicament that you’re in. Why is there not some sort of detection system so that if you’re in game, you will be alerted if there’s any noise or movement around you in the real world? Or maybe just set up a camera feed, so that you can always check your surroundings while you’re in-game.

– Sinon’s only purpose in this entire scene is to offer up weak ass refutations to Kirito’s theories that the Gary Stu can easily shoot down.

– Haha, look at this corny ass shit.

– Guys, guys! What if doing the cross motion is just a way for Death Gun to check his watch? In other news, why does he even need to wear a watch? Even the most ratchet MMO out there has a clock built into the UI. BUT NOT GGO, DAWG! THIS IS THE REALEST MMO OUT THERE. YOU WANNA KNOW THE TIME? YOU BETTER WEAR A WATCH! IMMERSION, BITCHES.

– Kirito asks Sinon if she lives alone. Yeah, but the door’s locked! Oh no, the chain! The chain! Fuuuuuuuuuck. Kirito speculates that Death Gun’s partner could very well be in Sinon’s room right now! No, like right now! He (or she!… nah, who am I kidding, the major villain is always a woman in SAO) is just waiting for the go-ahead to kill Sinon! So this is where the girl disqualifies herself from the BoB tournament, logs out of the game, and makes sure she’s safe, right? Right? I mean, you can’t tell me some dinky esports tournament is more important than your fucking life, right?

– Uh, why did the anime just cut to this? Well, to be honest, this is the most action I’ve seen so far in this week’s episode.

– So Sinon starts freaking out and her heart rate goes up. Kirito then goes, “No, Sinon! If you automatically log out now, you’ll be in danger.” Uh, why? First, he doesn’t really  have any proof that the bad guy is already in Sinon’s room. Second, if they have a rule that they stick to so badly — and the rule is that the Death Gun won’t kill someone unless they can do it in-game and in the real world at the same time — then why would logging out be any less safe than staying logged in while your body remains unconscious in front of some asshole?

– Well, it’s time for a change of scenery, so let’s check up on Kirito’s harem! And guess what? They’re still watching the BoB feed even though nothing — absolutely nothing — is happening! Anyway, you know Kirito’s employer? The guy who recruited our Gary Stu into this whole mess? Yeah, he actually shows up at this bar to talk to the characters. No, you can’t log out and meet each other in real life. It’s much easier if the government official logs into his elf character to discuss these very important matters.

– The best part about this scene? It contains absolutely nothing new. This Chrys guy is just telling Kirito’s harem exactly what we had learned in the first goddamn episode. Would it have been too difficult for the anime to treat us to a time skip?

– More importantly, why is a government official even answering these kids‘ questions? So what if Kirito’s harem is oh-so-concerned for their Gary Stu? Like seriously, just because they demand to know what’s going on doesn’t mean he should actually tell them details about an active investigation. It’s just not how this sort of thing works. This is not how any of this works.

– Oh my God, this is all old information. Leafa is now telling us how scared her brother looked last night. But we just saw this episode a few weeks ago!

Do I really need a reminder already? SAO‘s pacing sucks ass. It’s so goddamn amateurish. Just random recaps and flashbacks for no apparent reason!

– Klein tells himself that he would’ve converted to GGO if he had known what Kirito was up to. Yo, you think the Gary Stu wants your ass around, stealing the spotlight?

– So after an extensive recap of the situation for no apparent reason, the characters have proceeded to suck the Gary Stu’s dick. The haremettes are all shedding tears, moaning on and on about how heroic Kirito is. Uguu, he didn’t tell us ’cause he wanted to protect us! What a manly Gary Stu!

– Lisbeth: “In fact, he’s probably protecting someone who’s supposed to be his enemy right now.” Really? Really?

– Asuna demands to know where Kirito’s body is currently located. And of course, the government official will spill the beans because why wouldn’t he! This anime babe in ALO is just so intimidating! So intimidating!!! Look how she stomped her foot and made dust kick up! Bwaaaah, don’t hurt me, little girl! I’ll tell you everything about the investigation, including the location of my agent!

– But oh god, Asuna’s going to now rush to Kirito’s side and just wait for him to log out, huh?

– Yes, yes she is. Action heroine Asuna was first reduced to a bird in a cage, and now this. Oh man… then when we move onto the next arc, Sinon can be just as useless as well!

– Alright, now that we’ve figured out what Asuna’s going to do for Kirito, let’s revisit the Gary Stu! Oh, there he is! He’s just embracing another girl!

– So what’s Kirito’s plan? It’s so easy! They just have to defeat Death Gun: “Then his partner will disappear, unable to do anything.” ‘Cause look, if I see my partner-in-crime about to die in-game, which doesn’t mean anything anymore because this isn’t Aincrad, I, too, would just disappear like a fart in the wind. I wouldn’t try to kill you! I wouldn’t think to do anything at all! I would just leave this defenseless girl lying there in her bed, every strand of hair untouched! But so help me God, if you log out before you defeat Death Gun, then I will kill you! Yeah, yeah, this logic makes perfect sense.

– The truth is, this is all just contrived bullshit to keep Sinon logged in at all costs. The tsunderekko is never allowed to leave the Gary Stu’s side! But shh, this can be a secret between the anime, my readers, and me.

– So what now? They’re going to leave the cave and prepare to defeat Death Gun, right? Wrong. They will sit there and discuss how formidable Death Gun is.

– Sinon then warns Kirito that other players will soon realize that the two of them are hiding out in this cave. So I guess there’s only one fucking desert cave, and everyone’s closing in on them.

– Kirito then has to fucking tell the girl that she’s a sniper, so she should stay out of sight during the actual battle. Good lord.

– Oh look, the live broadcast camera has found our two lovebirds. I hope Kirito’s haremettes are watching.

– B-baby, please! When I’m in GGO, it’s all about you! Actually, Kirito’s only response is, “Hurr, people will think we’re lesbos!” But our tsunderekko doesn’t mind, because this means less people will pursue her! Wouldn’t want others to get in the way of her love for the Gary Stu!

– They’re still talking! For the love of God, do something with the one minute of runtime you have left in the episode!

– These two are so boring, the live broadcast camera literally left.

– The characters wonder what Sterben means as a name, then the episode just… sort of ends. Not with a bang, but not even with a whimper either. The episode is just over. Whatever.

– Another week, another boring episode of SAO full of pointless chatter. And people think this season is superior to the first one. I’d take the first season’s uninspired world-building over this train wreck any day of the week.

So let’s make him stronger. Yeah, that’s our Gary Stu blocking a hail of bullets with just his right hand. After weeks and weeks of buildup, the bad guys have finally decided to attack. Unfortunately, this is Tatsuya’s world, so he just karate chops the guy’s arms clean off. No, really. Not only that, Tatsuya seems proud of his handiwork. Yeah, yeah… everyone was like, “Oh, you haven’t seen anything yet,” but I have. I have, man, I have. This is nothing we haven’t seen before. This is the same overpowered-as-fuck Gary Stu that we’ve been watching since the first episode. And same as it was in the first episode, the action is still as boring and uninspired than ever. Tatsuya turns and looks in someone’s direction, then they die. Yawn. Anyway, let’s do what I’ve always done with Mahouka posts…

– Does Miyuki even care that her brother has just killed someone before her very eyes? Even if this someone is just a bad guy — even if you try to claim that the bad guy hasn’t actually been killed — watching someone lose an arm is, uh, not pleasant. But Miyuki is just as robotic as her brother! Hell, maybe even worse! Do you want to know the first thing that comes out of that girl’s mouth? It’s this: “Brother, let me remove those bloodstains.” Holy shit, at least make her human. Yeah, she wants to bang her brother. Yeah, she hasn’t been a well-developed character. Yeah, she has nothing to contribute to the story. But man, she’s even less human than the Gary Stu himself. Let me remove those bloodstains? Let me remove those bloodstains?! Someone just lost their fucking arm!

– So Miyuki presses a button, Tatsuya shimmers for a bit, and now his uniform is all clean again. What. Is. This?

– Somehow, Miyuki’s sudden need to do her brother’s laundry distracts the bad guys enough for the rest of the students to safely fight back against these men with assault rifles. Yeah man, the evil Chinese badmen may have been planning this attack for months and months, making sure that everything goes smoothly. But it’s okay! Just relax! They’re foreigners with puny brains, so they’ll be easily confused by our women’s superior washing skills!

– Next thing I see, the Chinese badmen are all in cuffs. Cuffs! A bunch of trained soldiers with assault rifles have lost this battle, and the good guys didn’t even incur a single casualty! We can thank Miyuki’s domestic prowess for that!

– Tatsuya’s harem immediately rushes to his side, wondering whether or not those bullets had hurt him. Yo, you’re gazing upon a golden god. Pay some damn respect! These bullets obviously symbolize the foreigners’ tiny dicks, and all the tiny dicks in the world can’t dent this Gary Stu’s masculine superiority!

– Our Gary Stu and his friends were just about to leave and kick some terrorist ass when Curious George suddenly pipes up. He thinks Tatsuya had just use some super top-secret ability, but of course, if it’s so top-secret, then how come Curious George even knows anything about it? It turns out Curious George doesn’t know what he’s talking about, so Tatsuya’s technique is even more top-secret! The Gary Stu then storms out of the place. Gosh darn, we don’t get a dry and boring explanation of his magical abilities? Why? What’s wrong, Mahouka? What’s gotten into you?

– Outside, explosions rock the streets, but the streets are empty anyway, so who cares? We eventually cut to some people running away from the Chinese badmen with their assault rifles, but c’mon! Just send high school kids after them, and the Chinese badmen will be subdued. Easy peasy! Elsewhere, we see that the highways are magically are clogged even though every other time we’ve seen highways in this damn anime, they’ve been empty as fuck.

– Azusa apparently has the power to calm everyone down. This basically involves her summoning a green bow of energy and plucking the drawstring. In doing so, waves of green light washes over the room, then everyone just calms down just like that. Funny thing is, Mayumi claimed she would take responsibility for Azusa’s actions, implying that the lattter was about to do something totally forbidden and unethical. But like everything else in Mahouka, even the forbidden is boring as fuck.

– The city is under attack from an unidentified ship! The Chinese badmen have come over on a boat to fuck us! Not only that, they’ve been living amongst us this entire time! I told you guys we should’ve built a giant fence around the island!

– Why does Mayumi even need to make this speech? Why not just show us shots of the students evacuating from the convention hall? That would’ve been enough. I don’t need to know that there’s a rescue ship in so-and-so pier. I don’t need to know that some underground shelter might not withstand an assault from the enemy. This is all superfluous details that the audience can just fill in for themselves. Stick to the action, man. Let the action speak for itself. You don’t need to spell everything out as a writer, especially when certain things are just fucking obvious.

– Elsewhere, the Shiba siblings continue to be OP as all hell. All Miyuki does is close her eyes, and she somehow freezes all of the enemies’ bullets around her. This shit isn’t even fun to watch. But my question is, if Miyuki can do this, why didn’t anyone else think to do the same thing? Why haven’t the actual professionals, i.e. the people actually trained and hired to fight back against the terrorists, even come close to doing anything remotely as useful as instantly freezing all the fucking bullets in the invading army’s arsenal? And if your defense is that Miyuki is stronger than these “professionals,” then why is she even attending high school? What’s even the point!

–  Tatsuya proceeds to run through the enemy… literally. Yeah, your eyes aren’t fooling you. The Gary Stu is karate chopping the bad guys in half. All of a sudden, Mahouka is just as violent and gratuitous as Akame ga Kill! We’re just missing the latter’s penchant for raping women.

– The rest of the students proceed to kick terrorist ass too. And by kick terrorist ass, I really mean that they’re killing people. Just high schoolers killing people like it’s no big deal. Sure, Mizuki and Honoka look all concerned and shit, but Erika acts like she’s a battle-hardened veteran. I mean, it makes some sense at least that our Gary Stu wouldn’t bat an eyelash at all this bloodshed. After all, he’s a robot, he has no emotions, blah blah blah. But what’s the deal with the likes of Erika and Mikihiko? How can they just kill people and act like it’s no big deal? Are they robots like the Gary Stu too? Or is this just shit writing? Leo even has the gall to complain that he didn’t get the chance to participate, i.e. he didn’t get the chance to kill people. Gosh darn, I wanted to chop those foreigners in half too! Why did you guys have to hog all the kills?!

– Shizuku brings her friends to the convention hall’s VIP room, where they’ll magically be able to get all sorts of invaluable information about the bad guys and what they’re up to. Just like that, you guys, just like that. She even knows the access code to the room. It’s so convenient!

– For the next few minutes, the characters just stand around and talk. Well, what else is new, right? Madhouse even passes up a prime opportunity to show us some action. For instance, remember how everyone was being evacuated through an underground passage? Well, Tatsuya is concerned that they’ll run into the enemy forces down there. A few minutes later, one of the girls tells us that Tatsuya was right, but it’s okay! Hattori is also doing down there, and the small enemy force will be taken care of soon enough. That’s it. Madhouse could have shown us a battle that doesn’t involve the Gary Stu, but nah. Apparently, a couple sentences on the matter will suffice. Since the anime doesn’t even want to bother animating a potential battle, let’s just skip ahead in the episode.

– Everyone’s busy talking about what they should do next, but Tatsuya somehow senses that a truck is headed right for them! The truck is not even close, but ah, that’s right! The Gary Stu is omniscient! But don’t forget that he’s omnipotent too, because by merely staring in the direction of the truck with his gun-shaped CAD extended, the entire vehicle literally vanishes into thin air, leaving behind just a single Chinese badman. Magic!

– JUMANJI ON THE MOVE!

– He finds that a bunch of missiles are headed the convention’s way! But that’s okay! If there’s anyone out there as beastly as the Gary Stu himself, it’s none other than Jumanji-kun! And just like that, the missiles explode in the air all thanks to yet another high schooler. It’s like one big contest to see who can be the most boring person at this school? Oh yeah? You can vaporize an entire truck? Well, look at me! I’m vaporizing missiles!

– More assholes meet up in the conference room to discuss troop movements and shit. Pass.

– Eventually, Tatsuya’s classmates learn that he’s actually an officer in the JSDF, so they gasp in shock and shit. Not Jumanji, though. Nothing shakes this man!

– As a soldier, Tatsuya must mobilize in defense as well. But right before he leaves, Miyuki calls out to him. He then takes a knee before her, so that she can lean down and kiss his forehead. By doing so, the entire room is awash in light and… wind? That’s right! Tatsuya’s limiter has just been removed! You thought the Gary Stu was overpowered before? Well gosh, he was just being held in check. But thanks to the power of incest, Tatsuya will now beast it up. Get ready, Chinese badmen!

SSJ Gary Stu has just been unleashed!