Is this the second to last episode for the anime’s first cour? I think so…

– I know the start of the episode overlaps a bit with last week’s episode, but I want to touch on this anyway. The princess is right in that Inaho has saved her plenty of times now. But even though this is the case, Eddy still hasn’t changed. She grimaces when Asseylum calls the hero a good person. Whether or not this is true, why does it bother Eddy so much? You’d think that she’d be grateful, so why can’t the writers at least soften her character gradually over time? It’s just one small thing to make the tiny maid feel less inert as a character, but instead, the writers want to remind us that she hasn’t changed. Odd. Or if you’re feeling less charitable, it’s just bad writing.

– Well, the big, expansive UE base is short-lived, but I’m not sure why everyone is so surprised that one of the Orbital Knights would continue to attack. The princess just said that there was an assassination attempt on her life. With Mars still over a hundred million miles away from Earth, why would any of the characters think the traitors within the Vers Empire would give up? Oh man, the princess is alive! Better just surrender! The traitors have been planning for the princess’s assassination and the subsequent invasion of Earth for a long time. They’re not just going to give up because Asseylum is still alive yet nowhere near safety.

– The ensuing battle unfolds pretty much how you expect it to if you’ve been watch Aldnoah.Zero this entire time. The Martian forces are currently laying waste to everything in their path. It doesn’t even look like the UE forces stand a chance, but… hey, we’re just biding time for Inaho to enter the battlefield. Anyway, the action looks cool, but after eleven episodes, it’s also starting to be a bit predictable.

– Even the princess doesn’t seem to understand why this is all happening. C’mon, it’s not that difficult. Why wouldn’t one of the Orbital Knights attack you? You just implicated them as the ones truly responsible for your assassination! Think about it. Think about it. What’s even dumber is when she says her life was irrelevant from the beginning, and yet, Saazbaum just landed his fucking castle for her and her alone.

– Darzana: “How do they plan to negotiate if they wipe out the government?” Aarrggggh, they don’t want to negotiate!

– Oh great, Koichiro shows up just to say exactly that. But it’s funny coming from him, ’cause he hasn’t actively participated in a fight since the start of the episode, he feels the need to drink during the day, and he’s got a bunch of mental issues to work through. So for Koichiro to show up on the bridge and act like he’s some wizened character is hilarious. It’s not like he has anything profound to say. He sounds like he’s reading to us the introductory paragraph to some freshman history essay: “This is the way wars have been fought since the dawn of man. Pure and savage.” Yo, can we get the drunkie out of here or what?”

– Haha, Darzana doesn’t even respond. She just turns and asks someone an unrelated question about Asseylum.

– Speaking of the princess, she won’t sit around and say a bunch of pointless mumbo-jumbo about the nature of war. She at least wants to do something about the current situation, and at the moment, that involves dragging her ass to Saazbaum’s castle in order to shut down his Aldnoah Drive. Could the princess have been better written? Maybe, but she’s not bad. I mean, compared to Inaho, Koichiro, etc., the princess could’ve been worse.

– I don’t know what’s crawled up Yuki’s butt all of a sudden, though. Inaho volunteers to escort the princess to the enemy’s landing castle, so Yuki goes, “How can you say something so outlandish with a straight face?” First, why is it only bothering her now? Inaho’s always been this placid, so if she wasn’t going to complain about it before, why now? Second, it is especially stupid to complain about it now, because Saazbaum is on a warpath for the princess. They have no other choice but to do what the princess suggests. In any other situation, where are a multitude of options, then sure, let’s pause and hash this out. But I don’t think the good guys have a choice in what they can do, and for the probably the first time in the series, I don’t mind Inaho’s unnatural calmness. When you’re backed up against the wall, all you can do is stay calm. Hell, this is Inaho’s time to shine.

– Yuki: “Logic is all it has going for it.” Uh…

– Then all of a sudden, it’s Asseylum’s turn to say something silly: “And now the princess of the Vers Empire will turn on her own people.” They’re trying to kill you! You’re not going back to Mars and laying waste to your own cities. You’re defending yourself against people who are directly trying to kill you! Just fight, man, just fight. This melodrama is just silly. She then claims that the war is her responsibility and her responsibility alone. Oy vey…

– Hey, you have the maid getting airtime in a vehicle, so that’s kind of novel…

– If you’re wondering what Slaine’s been up to, I think he’s trying to reunite with the princess. Little does he know, however, that the princess is going to throw herself at Saazbaum’s castle.

– Asseylum looks pleased to see the girl who tried to kill her. I’m sure Rayet has changed and everything, but in the princess’s shoes, I’d still be a little apprehensive to see my attempted murderer running alongside me in a mecha.

– So who comes up with the plan to get Asseylum safely to the castle? Inaho, of course. Yeah, he’s actually giving a mission briefing to a room full of adults. Oh well, I guess he’s just a military savant.

– And despite Koichiro not doing anything since the start of the series, Darzana puts him in charge of forming the assault team. Ahhhhh, I hope he didn’t have to much to drink this morning.

– All Yuki does is whine about everything Inaho has to say. Is the mission briefing room really the best place for these emotional outbursts? You might say no, but no one else seem too bothered about it.

– During the jump, one of the Cats tell Inko not to be scared, because bullets are attracted to cowardice. Then he gets shot. Whoops. But the drop itself wasn’t bad to watch despite Inaho’s need to narrate. I don’t love the insert song, but it fits the scene well. So at this point, we should just accept that Aldnoah.Zero is all style and little else. Inaho’s boring personality detracts from the action, but eh, I guess after being exposed to it for so long, I’ve developed a bit of an immunity to it. Plus, with Kirito’s over-the-top sob sessions and Tatsuya going SSJ on us, Inaho is a distant third on my list of offenders.

– When Saazbaum shows up out of nowhere to shoot down the Deucalion (I wonder what happened to Rayet), Darzana decides that there’s nothing else to do but to ram her ship right into the enemy base. And, well, that does it for this week’s episode.

– All in all, I thought the episode was entertaining enough. There are always going to be stupid things about the show to harp about with Aldnoah.Zero, but since this week was mostly action, the anime didn’t get the chance to be too stupid, if you know what I mean.

– I guess we’ll wrap up the first cour next week? Then how long will we have to wait to see the second cour? All I’ve heard is that it’s scheduled to air sometime next year.

Once more with passion… not really.

– Right off the bat, it looks as though Leone was stabbed in the throat by one of the bad guys, but shows like Akame ga Kill! are very predictable. If the anime was really going to kill Leone off here, it would’ve made a big, big deal out of it. Remember how dramatic it was when Sheele died? Or how long it took for Bulat to finally bite the dust? So no, Leone is not dead. The story would never off her character without an extended, over-the-top send-off, and this is why shows like Akame ga Kill! just aren’t effective. They’re way too predictable, and the twists and turns in their narrative can only fool the most gullible amongst us.

– So what are the bad guys like? Well, Lubbock is fighting this dude who seems to be wearing a mask-plus-garter-belt ensemble. Very chic. This girl over here has enhanced hearing, because she, uh, literally has giant ears. As you can see, Akame ga Kill! is very creative. You can defend the show by claiming that the girl’s ears are supposed to be wacky, but wacky to what effect? You can’t seriously tell me the sight of her giant ears is enough to make you laugh, is it?

– There’s nothing too interesting to talk about in the early going. Just the good guys chopping down the faceless underlings with impunity. At least give us some juicy action, right? Akame simply waves her sword around, and entire army goes from this to this in a matter of seconds. Yawn, wake me up when a fight actually breaks out…

– This dork’s name is just Toby. It’s just Toby!

– What if Dr. Stylish had been smart? What if after tracking Tatsumi to Night Raid’s base, he had called for backup? I don’t think anyone in Night Raid can defeat Esdeath, right? Our heroes would be forced to flee! But y’see, these possibilities are reserved for a better anime — an anime that can actually have an interesting story. Here, you just know that the good guys will kill Dr. Stylish, and that’ll be that.

– I don’t even care to comment on Tatsumi’s fight with some Kakusan dude, because who cares? Who really cares? It’s just another boring, underdeveloped villain. He’ll die, and another one will appear in his place.

– There’s especially little to talk about when the bad guy stupidly jumps headfirst at Mine’s giant gun. All he has is Sheele’s pair of scissors. You’re really going to bring scissors to a gunfight? So naturally, Mine destroys him with one giant blast from her gun. That’s it. Fuck man, those flash animations with the dueling stick figures have better fight choreography than this.

– And just in case you forgot, Mine patronizingly explains to the audience that her Imperial Arms gets stronger when she’s in a pinch. Akame ga Kill! is not only boring, it thinks we’re idiots. But no doubt, someone’s going to defend the show anyway. Blah blah blah, this is what every shounen is like! Who cares? If it sucks, it sucks.

– Najenda finally returns, and she does so by riding a giant air, uh, manta. And oh boy, she’s recruited two new members to join Night Raid. I feel for those guys. No, really, I do. They’re going to die all just so the core members of Night Raid can shed some tears for the camera. They won’t die this week, they probably won’t even die next week, but being the newest members of the group, I just have a feeling their days are already numbered. How do I know? That’s just Akame ga Kill!‘s schtick. Cheap and exploitative is the name of the game.

– An actual exchange in this episode:

Bad guy: “Tasteless… How dare you stab me from the side?”
Lubbock: “The base and my people are in danger. I don’t intend to just sit and watch.”

There’s just too much dialogue. The show would improve by a ton if everyone would just shut the fuck up.

– Case in point, as the bad guy breathes his last breath, he asks Akame why he lost to her. She then takes the time to explain to him why he failed. Who cares? Seriously, who cares why some faceless loser lost to Akame, the titular character of the anime? She doesn’t even say anything interesting anyway. Blah blah blah, the guy was careless. Great.

– Oh look, Leone’s back. Who would’ve guessed? And obviously, she survived ’cause the previous attack never punctured her throat at all. Instead, she had bitten the knife! Y’know, you’d think the bad guys would stop to make sure if someone was dead, but nope… nope, that’s just not how you do things in the real world. Y’see, I’m just a sheltered blogger who thinks bad guys should double-check their work.

– Akame looks super elongated in this shot.

– Somehow, Dr. Stylish’s poison works on everyone but Tatsumi. But really, this is just an opportunity for the two newcomers to show off their abilities. They’re going to die anyway, so we may as well give them the spotlight if only for a short bit. So the first guy, Susanoo, has spinning blades on his weapons, which he uses to cut up the bad guy.

– When parents warned us about TV desensitizing kids to murder, I thought I’d become a murderer myself! Who knew I’d be so bored looking at all this gore. Sad thing is, Akame had just done the same exact thing to these faceless soldiers in this same episode. So enjoy watching the same thing again, I guess.

– Apparently, Susanoo is a living Imperial Arms, and he can regenerate his missing body parts so long as his core is intact. Sure, whatever. Everyone has exotic powers, so I’m not really surprised. It’s just whatever.

– Spotted by Najenda, Stylish falls back on his trump card: he transforms himself into a Danger Beast. He then eats his own underlings to “level up.” Just Akame ga Kill! trying to be meta, I guess, but without humor or insight, these references don’t add up to anything. They’re just sort of there.

– Still, Stylish loses like a chump. Thanks to the power of teamwork, a somewhat-paralyzed Akame is still able to get close enough to the bad guy and cut him with her katana. And that is that. We just wasted an episode on killing this nobody, and the story hasn’t moved forward at all.

– This really was a pointless episode since nothing really changed with any of the important characters. And at this point in the story, there are really only three important characters as I see it: Tatsumi, Akame, and Esdeath. The others don’t matter. Stylish dying doesn’t matter. Night Raid recruiting two more people to die for their cause doesn’t matter. This was a wasted episode through and through.

Yeah, I’ve seen Uranus before, and this is definitely not it. Good call, Akari.

– Apparently, our heroes have stumbled upon Hyperion, which is one of Saturn’s many moons. Y’know, if they where this close to Hyperion, you’d think they’d be close enough to notice Saturn too. But more importantly, why have we stopped all the way out here? Oh god, please don’t tell me that the story is still stalling for time. I mean, we can’t stall for time, right? There’s nothing here but a lumpy moon! The story has no choice to push on, right?

– The characters speculate that last week’s episode was due to a psychological attack from the enemy. Psychological attack or not, there’s still some grain of truth in what Daichi saw. I stand by the idea that he had doubts he had to clear away. The Designer Children wouldn’t have been able to trap him for that short bit of time if he didn’t.

– So Baku shows up to intercept our heroes. According to him, because human lives are so short, they’re no different from dreams. Well, okay, that’s not really deep or anything, but we can pretend it is, if you want. But seriously, just by virtue of the fact that the Kiltgang are having a tough time dealing with Daichi and crew, you’d think they’d come to the plainly obvious conclusion that human beings can nevertheless leave a mark on history even if their lives are finite. I know he’s hung up on the fact that his true love died, but therein lies yet another problem about Baku’s philosophy. By degrading humanity, he also degrades the woman he once loved. That’s the problem with these shows. Instead of making the villains smart and multi-faceted, the writers opt instead to have them spew out catchy quips. These quips will sound smart and whatnot the first time you hear them, but there’s no substance to them, and thus no substance to the villains.

– Teppei magically warps in front of Daichi, thereby allowing him to fire a blast strong enough to repel Baku. Captain Earth fights are now just silly. Because of the magical powers of the Livlasters, anything can happen. Baku is literally beating the tar out of Daichi, but it doesn’t matter. Ironically, nothing the immortal being does even matters. Thanks to our heroes’ feelings — and I’m not even being snarky — anything can literally happen. Remember when Teppei slipped into another dimension temporarily just to save himself from Daichi’s powerful attack during the asteroid strike? Well, the kid can now warp from one location to another. Of course, he didn’t really warp; Teppei managed to Entangle Link out of nowhere. Still, an asspull is an asspull, and anything goes because of the Livlasters. You don’t really have to construct a coherent fight scene that eventually results in one side winning through a gradual accumulation of tiny advantages. You can have any result you want with the Livlasters; Entangle Link or not, the end result is that Teppei still appeared out of nowhere to beat Baku even though the latter had been winning the fight without much trouble. But seriously, while these asspulls might be easier on the writers, how can this be remotely satisfying to watch for us viewers? And shouldn’t that be the most primary concern?

– By the way, it looks as though they’ve destroyed Baku’s Ego Block. That was, uh, easy? And so much for Baku, huh? He finally shows up to fight, and he’s down for the count before the episode is even half over…

– Our kids then proceed to sit around and discuss the fact that the Livlasters can Entangle Link. Great, great, we’re still stalling for time.

– Then all of a sudden, Teppei tells us that he’s found God… or rather, a god to believe in. Still,  really, Captain Earth? Sigh…

– Now, I don’t know what’s going on at all. Daichi says again that the Designer Children were trying to shake him up in his dream. Akari turns to Teppei and asks if this is possible. Teppei says no, and this is because they have Ego Blocks… I don’t follow. So were the Designer Children fucking with Daichi’s dream or not? But whatever, I don’t even care that much about the story anymore anyway.

– I just want the anime to get on with the story, but the kids are still talking.

– Oh hey, I was wondering where the OP was. It’s just ten minutes into the episode. Great.

– After the OP, our heroes finally make it to the bad guys’ ship. Also, I could’ve sworn that they had been calling the enemy ship the Oberon for the past twenty-three episodes. Why the sudden change to Auberon?

– Both the Earth Engine and the Nebula Engine kick off to carry out the mission. I can’t help but think how wasted the Flare Engine was, though. Hana got to use it like once… and now she’s stuck like this. Kind of an unfortunate position, no? The boys get to hop into their mechas and do cool shit. Meanwhile, Hana just gets to float there all naked and everything as electricity continuously surges around her. And hell, Akari’s role is boring too. All she ever does is sit in one place and type away on some keyboard as though her keystrokes-per-minute is what truly defines her character.

– With the help of a bunch of explosions, the Kivotos manages to penetrate the enemy ship. Yep, yep, the symbolism is very meaningful. I bet you the Kiltgang didn’t see this coming. Heed the lesson, kids: no protection out there is a 100% effective.

– Inside the Auberon, it’s all purple for some reason. And there are a bunch of purple spikes, too. The writers’ imaginations are really going out of control. Eventually, the kids reach the core, a.k.a. the bad guys’ cocoon.

– Naturally, the bad guys won’t go down without a fight, so the rest of them — minus Baku — finally show up to do battle. The dialogue sounds like something you’d find in a cheesy 16-bit RPG. So naturally, Amara will make Daichi an offer he will refuse. Yes, why not join the bad guys and destroy all of humanity! What? You don’t want to? You’ve been spending the entire series trying to save humanity, so you’re kind of attached to it? Gosh darn, I didn’t think you’d turn me down!

– Setsuna shows up, cries some tears, and Baku magically returns to life. Laaaaaaaame. I guess the good guys aren’t the only ones who can perform asspulls. And blah blah blah, Setsuna can give everyone Ego Blocks. Join our nakama, guys! Just throw down your Livlasters! Here’s where we awkwardly zoom into Hana’s Livlaster.

– All of a sudden, Puck shows up! And he attacks Setsuna, because she’s somehow a threat to the AI. What’s going on, guys? What is the AI even doing here? Hell, do the good guys even know Puck exists? I’m not sure if Daichi and crew have ever even interacted with Puck once in the entire series. Is this where the Kiltgang realizes that Puck is the true villain of the series, and they must reluctantly join the good guys in order to take down the rogue AI once and for all? Puck now has the ability to install his ego into every sentient life form in the galaxy, so I guess he’s god. And since this is anime, god is always the biggest threat. This is a bit of a lame turn in events. I mean, the true villain is just a powertripping AI. Two lifeforms went at it, but in the end, it’s technology that we must be wary of. And again, the good guys don’t even know who or what Puck is. It’s just lame. Daichi tries to take Puck out in one shot, but oh no, you haven’t seen my final form yet! When the smoke clears, Puck reveals his next iteration!

And… it’s a giant Ego Block…

– Tune in next time for the exciting conclusion to Captain Earth. I’m excited! Aren’t you?

There’s really not much to say with regards to the first nine or so minutes of the episode. It’s like a sadness bomb just exploded in my room. Yeah, we see a flashback of a younger Kou struggling with his mom’s illness. She had lung cancer, and it was beginning to spread to the rest of her body. Needless to say, she didn’t have long to live. The prototypical Asian son thus flayed himself for focusing too much on his studies. He regretted not spending enough time with his mother, a divorcee who might have been battling with loneliness and low self-esteem to begin with. We also see that the distance between him and his brother isn’t entirely due to resentment. Kou felt guilty over the fact that he couldn’t take care of his mother even though he had told his older brother that he would. Naturally, her death wasn’t his fault, but I guess he could have done a better job looking after her emotional well-being. Still, he was only a child, so… it was really too much for any kid to bear.

But seriously, that was a sadness bomb. There’s little to discuss here except that Kou’s tragedy confirms what I’ve always suspected about the show: it needs to drop the romance bullshit. People like Kou need therapy, and I’m not trying to be flippant here. It’s the 21st century, and we need to start taking mental health seriously. The problem is, shows like Ao Haru Ride don’t help. A character like Kou can do a lot to fight the stigma surrounding depression and other mental health related illnesses. Unfortunately, 90% of the show is about Futaba’s futile attempts to form a relationship with what is essentially a sick person. And if you think calling Kou sick is too harsh, this is exactly what I’m talking about. If you have cancer, are you or are you not sick? Yes, of course you’re sick! You need help! You need to go to the hospital right away and get treatment! In fact, if you have cancer, the last thing you should worry about is your love life.

So let me ask another question. Let’s say your mom died from cancer, and you continue to be so depressed over it that you isolate yourself from your family and friends, your grades suffer, you want to drop out of school, you think life has no meaning, and you start taking long walks at night. Well, are you sick or not? Yes, you are sick. If it isn’t depression, you’re definitely sick with something, and your mental illness is just as valid as any physical illness. And if a cancer patient shouldn’t burden themselves with love, romance, and relationships, why on earth should a person suffering from depression subject themselves to thosesame things? The truth is, people like Kou aren’t ready for relationships. They need fix themselves first before they worry about love and getting a goddamn girlfriend. But that’s not what Ao Haru Ride is about, is it? Ao Haru Ride isn’t primarily about Kou’s battle with depression. Rather, it seems plainly obvious to me that the anime is about Futaba’s conquest.

As a result, fixing Kou’s mental illness isn’t an end in itself. He is only depressed so that he, as the primary bishie of the story, will have a tragic backstory. Why does he need a tragic backstory? It somehow makes the romance between him and Futaba more meaningful, because watching two healthy, loving people get together is just boring. We need at least one of the lovers to be fucked up in some way! Ao Haru Ride feels exploitative. It really does. ‘Cause what will we see next? Will the show focus on Kou’s quest to heal himself? Will we see him seek therapy for his anger, sadness, and frustration with the world? That sort of anime would actually be novel, because how often do you ever see such a show? But we’re too far down this romantic bullshit to turn back now. So instead, we will see Futaba try her damndest to help Kou, and we’re supposed to admire her for her resiliency, her sacrifice, and her unconditional love for the boy in her heart.

Ao Haru Ride is a story that should take a different direction. It should really be about Kou’s battles with his depression, and perhaps Futaba accepting the fact that there isn’t anything she can do but be supportive of her friend. Then maybe later, when he’s healthy again, they can even consider love. But instead, the story’s trapped in the constraints of a stereotypical anime shoujo. So in the second half of the episode, his friends “ganbatte” it up and force the guy into yet another study session. Then when the guy makes his escape, his friends sit around and plot how they can force themselves into his life even more. Oh, we could go to the mountains! Or the amusement park! Like really, as if this will solve anything. I realize that Kou’s friends only have good intentions, but again, mental illness needs to be taken seriously. You wouldn’t try to cure cancer with good intentions, would you? If cancer was preventing a friend from focusing on their studies, you wouldn’t bring a study date to them, would you? So why would you do the same with depression?

I’m not saying that depression is as bad as cancer, but we shouldn’t be making these comparisons anyway. They’re both bad, and it does no good to dick-wave about how one tragedy is worse than another. Plus, depression can and has driven people to commit suicide, so it’s not something to take lightly anyway. My point is, Ao Haru Ride is frustrating to watch. You see a guy that needs real, professional help, but the message of the story is that just hanging out with his friends will do the trick. Futaba will just forcefully ingratiate herself into Kou’s life until he just “gets over it.” And if he doesn’t appreciate his friends’ efforts, well then, what a dick! But is that really the right message to send? Should someone who has just lost a loved one throw themselves at the mercy of their friends, and hope that their friends have the infinite patience to help them out? Or what if the depressed person hates themselves too much to even have friends. What then?

Futaba insists to Kou’s brother that she’ll just break her way into Kou’s heart. See? This is not about helping Kou. It’s not. Ao Haru Ride is about admiring Futaba and her never-give-up attitude. She will keep trying, and we’re supposed to think she’s fucking awesome for it. It’s about her quest to find a pretty but broken boy, then fix him up to her liking at all costs. Then she can pat herself for finishing this DIY project. Inspiring music begins to play as she takes off running. Futaba calls a depressed person a brat for avoiding her. Then she says bullshit to herself like, “Just like Kou opened the door to my heart, I’ll do the same for his!” In the end, the only reason why Futaba’s words even reach Kou is because this is a cheesy shoujo, and we need to tie things up with a pretty, little bow. But it’s fucked up. It’s fucked up because the anime doesn’t take mental illness seriously. Pretty boys only have mental illness to keep the romance interesting. It’s sadness porn, basically. I feel nothing as Futaba sits on top of Kou and sobs, because it feels cheap and exploitative as fuck. You need a doctor for this, not a fucking anime shoujo.

We’re only up to episode ten, guys. There are possibly two more weeks of this nonsense left to go.

– Kamito meets up with Fahrenfart for their little study date. Just the mere mention that he saw her in the city is enough the make the girl blush. Yeah, anything can make a girl blush. According to anime, girls can only get mad, blush, and get madder.

– The girl blushes some more when she bravely suggests that they study in her… r-room!? Oh dear, how scandalous. I’m telling you, entering a room that belongs to the opposite sex is a big deal. Shit, you may as well get hitched at that point. But on a more serious note, I guess if you’ve never been in a girl’s room before, you automatically assume that doing so constitutes some sort of significant event. But I’m telling ya, girls’ rooms are not very interesting. Guys’ rooms are not very interesting. In general, bedrooms are pretty fucking boring.

– Case in point, Fahrenfart’s room is equally boring as shit, and the watermelon color scheme is tacky as hell.

– Seeing Fahrenfart’s stuffed animals, Kamito remarks that the girl’s “got pretty girly tastes.” Yeah, like I’ve said before, whenever you see a tsunderekko, the goal is to gradually tear away at her character until she’s reduced to yet another bog standard girlie girl. No matter how tough the tsunderekko may seem at first, biotruths will eventually win out.

– And sure enough, Fahrenfart emerges from another room with her hair down and her breasts heaving.

– When Kamito claims that he doesn’t like maids, Fahrenfart assumes that he wants something even more perverted. Biotruths, guys. Girls are girlies, and guys are all sex fiends. Except, of course, harem leads sometimes has the luxury of defying his gender expectations. Meanwhile, every haremette eventually ends up the same way…

– Even when a haremette tries to be dominant, she is really only begging to be submissive. Fahrenfart sticks a sword to Kamito’s throat and makes him admit that he loves maids. Then after he does so, she “threatens” him some more: “Now tell me what you want me to do.” It’s like asking for women’s suffrage, then voting for a law that keeps women in the home.

– Kamito wonders if Fahrenfart can do anything that isn’t dangerous. Lo and behold, she’s decent at cooking. We already have two haremettes pretending to be good cooks. Do we really need another one? Couldn’t we have given Fahrenfart anything else to be good at? No, domestic abilities only.

– Then bam, the harem lead is treated to… uh, what is this? But anyway, you get the whole works. She calls him master and all that, and it’s funny how the haremette never makes herself anything to eat. I mean, I guess this makes sense if your only interaction with the opposite sex comes from a maid cafe. But just a small piece of advice: you typically want to eat together with your girlfriend.

– Naturally, Fahrenfart’s good at cooking. She’s always threatening to turn Kamito into a food dish, so she has to be good at cooking! Or, y’know, the other girls suck at cooking, so we gotta have at least one girl who is. And who better to sticking cooking skills onto but a girl who likes to appear tough? Oh! The swordswoman is actually a beast in the kitchen! This makes up for the fact that she’s a battleaxe. She is thus a legit candidate for the harem lead’s love!

– Kamito is the king of compliments: “It’s hard to make something normal like this well. You’d make a good wife.” Fahrenfart’s only reaction to the good wife thing is to feed the harem lead herself. Have my girlfriend ever cooked for me? Of course. Has she ever fed me herself? Sure. But of course, I’ve done the same for her and we’ve been together for years. In harems, a.k.a. the land of biotruths, the haremette will hardly know you, but she will nevertheless throw herself at any opportunity to spoonfeed you. She just can’t resist it. Some small part of her reptilian brain just kicks in so she sees nothing but the imperative to pamper some manchild she barely knows.

– Afterwards, we see the two of them in a courtyard. I guess the “study” date is over. Not only that, Fahrenfart is sad that the harem lead won’t be able to return to her room in the near future. Why? ‘Cause her sister is coming back to town, and her sister hates men! Well, we’ll see about that…

– Fahrenfart then asks the harem lead to join the Sylphid Knights. Apparently, her group can’t recruit anyone else because people have lost confidence in them. Well, when your captain is busy turning herself into a maid to please the harem lead, I’d lose confidence in your group too.

– Taking pity upon the once proud tsunderekko, Kamito accepts her request.

– Kamito later returns to Claire Rouge, and of course, she is also cooking. Yeah, those pots and pans are all necessary to make chocolate. Silly me, I thought all you had to do was melt chocolate chips in a double boiler, add whatever extra ingredient you want, then pour said melted chocolate mixture into a mold. But what do I know?

– The harem lead makes the mistake of telling Claire that Fahrenfart had treated him to a meal at her place. Or maybe it isn’t a mistake at all, because Claire is now super jealous and depressed over the news: “Did you go into her room?!” Like I’ve said, you may as well get hitched if you go into a girl’s room.

– Claire only gets madder when Kamito reveals that he’s also joined the Sylphid Knights. Oh boy!

– Talk about an overreaction: Claire starts to cry uncontrollably as a result of Kamito’s actions. This seems like an abusive relationship, man. You can’t even do anything without the girl getting violent mood swings.

– Reverse the genders. Have the guy rant and rave just because the girl hung out with another guy friend. Have the guy start crying even though he and the girl aren’t even dating! Everyone would tell the girl to get as far away as she can from the abusive asshole. But here, Kamito’s supposed to feel bad that he broke his promise to be Claire’s spirit or some shit.

– Oh well, I’m sure the harem lead doesn’t mind, since he gets to wake up to his naked sword loli. Yeah, even though he has to sleep out in some ruins or some shit, girls are always within reach.

– Later that day, Kamito officially joins the Sylphid Knights, but Fahrenfart’s older sister steals his thunder. I think I’ll just call her Oldenfart.

– Remember Silvia’s older sister in Seikoku no Dragonar? Of course you do! Everyone reads these terrible Harem Hill entries! But anyway, Oldenfart is no different from Veronica of Dragonar fame. They’re both older sisters, they’re both abusive to their younger sisters, and they’re both giant bitches to everyone else. Funny how different people can write these stories and end up writing the same exact characters.

– The thing is, the harem lead’s already conquered Oldenfart. He simply did so as Ren Ashbell. Let’s see if he can dominate her again, but this time as a guy.

– We have good animation as always. And naturally, Oldenfart’s first act is to destroy school property all just to see if any of Fahrenfart’s “pawns” are strong. But it’s okay. In bullshit anime like this one, any damage to buildings will magically repair itself by the next episode.

– But despite Oldenfart’s unhinged personality, the other girls in the Sylphid Knights are more than willing to join her team. Hilarious. Not Kamito, of course. He’d never betray the “fire-cat’s team.”

– After that is all said and done, Kamito turns to Fahrenfart and casually says, “We need to get going, too.”

– And apparently, a part of “get going” is battling a floating jellyfish. I guess Kuragehime has been having trouble finding work after her terrible dresses wouldn’t sell.

– But oh man, all this work has made the harem lead pretty damn hungry. Good thing Fahrenfart came prepared with her world famous ‘Fart bento lunches! And no matter the time period, no matter the setting, every bento in anime looks the fucking same. And shit, Kamito is the only person here with a vaguely Japanese name. But it doesn’t matter. The food is still your average bento shit with the weiner octopuses and the rabbit-shaped apple slices.

– Kamito notices Scarlet spying on him, so he chases the cat until he runs into Claire. Oh good, hungry for more abuse, I see. Kamito tries to invite Claire to join him and the Sylphid Knights, but the girl’s too proud to say anything but, “You’re my contracted spirit.” Oh man, how can you listen to this broken record and not want to stab your ears out? Claire cries some fucking more, and any normal person would be like, “Fine, suit yourself.” But the harem lead can’t resist a crying girl! Her tears can only make his dick even harder.

– Elsewhere, Oldenfart’s heart aches as she swears to get her revenge on Ren Ashbell. Can you believe this anime series is about to come to an end soon? And yet, this appears to be our final arc. Good stuff.

– Anyway, if you actually stuck with this post and read it all the way to the end, here’s one last tsundere shark just for you. I-it’s not like I wanted to post another one or anything.

I’m starting to see the finish line, you guys. And I’m just so excited to see all those harem shows coming up next season. But we still have unfinished business here, so let’s get back to the matter at hand.

Week 10’s Results

Last week, I asked you guys which shows would likely falter in the final weeks of the season. These polls are flawed, however, because PEOPLE just want to dump on bad shows. In reality, the question is really asking you guys which good show might end up disappointing us at the end of the season. But instead, you guys simply voted for your least favorite shows. Case in point, Aldnoah.Zero got the most votes. But how is it a show that will give us a disappointing finish when it has already been disappointing us all season long? Everyone has been bashing the show non-stop since the third or fourth episode. Yes, a bad show can nevertheless disappoint us, but enough to top last week’s poll?

Akame ga Kill!, Sword Art Online II and Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei also got a lot of votes, but why? They’re all shit shows. How can they falter any harder? Anyway, I feel that last week’s poll was a waste. So much so that the rest of the results aren’t really worth discussing, so let’s just move on from it.

Week 11’s Rankings

16. Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei

The action is boring, the characters are bizarre and unrealistic, the bad guys are faceless nobodies, and the show’s racist. What more can you ask for?

15. Sword Art Online II

Once again, the characters sit around and do nothing but tell us things we already know.

14. Glasslip

– Touko thinks that perhaps Kakeru doesn’t really understand her. Yeah, I’d agree with that. But how did she come to that conclusion? She came to that conclusion because he doesn’t see the snow that is falling down around her. The snow, man, the snow! It’s really what’s important here!

– People keep saying how this show is worth watching just for the animation alone, but I’ve never been impressed with P.A. Works’ technical ability. Sure, the characters look almost flawless, but there’s something very sterile and processed about the way they look. I don’t feel as though P.A. Works has a bunch of great artists under their employ. Rather, they’ve perfected an assembly line that helps them churn out these shows. Not every single P.A. Works anime looks the same, but for the ones that do, they lack heart. They’re pretty in that Thomas Kinkade sort of way.

– People say such hilarious shit about this anime, too.

“Yeah, I’m enjoying it, but it’s true that it doesn’t have a plot.”

“The characters are boring, but that just makes it a realistic slice-of-life anime.”

Basically, I admit the show is shit for X reason, but I like it anyway.

– These two haven’t even started dating, and they’re already worrying whether or not they really understand each other. Yo, some couples can date for months and still not understand each other. What happened to kids just hanging out, having fun, and getting to know each other over a long period of time? Kakeru then suggests that they go and see one of his mother’s performances. Oh, so it’s like a date! It’s that thing Touko and Kakeru should’ve gone on since the start of the series! Fancy that.

– But when Kakeru calls his mom up about it, she suggests that he invite Touko’s parents as well. C’moooooon.

– For some reason, Touko decides to stay overnight at the school. You can get away with anything in Japanese schools, I guess. Sleep in it overnight, hide a nuclear bomb in a locker…

– While following Hiro down the mountain path, Sachi suddenly disappears from sight and says things like, “It feels a bit strange not being able to see someone who’s close, doesn’t it?” When he asks the girl to show herself, she goes, “No, not yet.” What the hell is this shit? This isn’t psychological. This is just eye-rollingly bad.

– All of a sudden, Kakeru reveals that he might take up his mom’s offer to travel the world. Needless to say, Touko’s super bummed out about not being able to spend more quality time with this “boyfriend” of hers.

– This is just a standard love story prettied up with a whole bunch of pretentious characters. Every single character on this show is unsure of how they feel. That’s it. They need to talk to each other, but they can’t, because they’re a bunch of emotional, awkward teenagers. Kakeru then shows up as a catalyst, forcing everyone to say what they need to say. Unfortunately, they all do it at the same time, so shit hits the fan, people are selfish as they prioritize letting themselves be heard over considering other people’s feelings, blah blah blah. And now, Kakeru might run away because he is afraid of relationships, and while I’ve never been in that situation myself, I hear lots of people that age are afraid of the sort of commitment that a relationship entails. Lo and behold, snow returns. The problem isn’t with the actual core of the story itself. The problem is that this is somehow a 13-episode series instead of a 2-hour movie. Fuck this, man. Go watch The Garden of Words instead. It’s even prettier to look at, too.

– I’m going to keep the name Junji Nishimura in my head, and I’m going to remind myself never to watch another one of his fucking shit anime again.

13. Seirei Tsukai no Blade Dance

The harem lead came, he saw, he conquered, he came some more. Our latest victim? Fahrenfart.

12. Ao Haru Ride

Shoujos can be cheap and exploitative too.

11. Akame ga Kill!

An unremarkable, fillerish episode.

10. Captain Earth

We all knew Puck would end up being the true villain of the story, but somehow, the anime still fucked up on the execution.

9. Tokyo Ghoul

Yeah, last week’s episode was that bad.

8. Rail Wars!

Stupid and simple beats stupid and pretentious.

7. M3 – Sono Kuroki Hagane

For what it’s worth, M3’s quality has evened out. It sucks, but it hasn’t been getting any worse, I guess.

6. Shirogane no Ishi: Argevollen

– Samonji is informed that Arandas is slowly losing this war, which I find odd because we only ever see the victories.

– Tokimune said a while back that he would focus his energy on the current situation, but he often finds himself staring at his sister’s picture for extended lengths of time. I can’t imagine that this is very healthy for someone in a combat position.

– Jamie asks our hero a bunch of personal questions, because knowing him means they’ll know “the future of Argevollen.” Uh-huh. Somehow, these questions include asking Tokimune where he washes himself first in a shower. I guess the show is trying to be light-hearted and funny, but… it’s just kind of cringe-inducing.

– Jamie then asks Tokimune what the Argevollen means to him. What is this? A high school writing assignment?

– Half of this show is Samonji looking all stoic as he stares at stuff, and Saori staring at him.

– There’s a long-ass party scene afterwards that’s pretty meaningless. But near the end of the episode, Samonji sees Tokimune in private, and basically takes all the blame for Raika’s death. Of course, I bet you anything Samonji wasn’t really responsible. I bet you anything he just blames himself more than he should. Still, I don’t fault Tokimune for his actions. If someone went up to you and said, “I could have saved your sister, but I watched her die,” you’d be pretty fucking pissed too. But afterwards, we see Saori marching towards Tokimune’s cell with a head full of steam. The episode suddenly comes to an end, but if what we see next week is something along the lines of “Let me set you straight, Private Susumu,” I will be sorely disappointed. Why? Because I think it’s a lame storytelling gimmick. It’s cliche as hell, and doesn’t add anything to the narrative but make things needlessly dramatic.

5. Tokyo ESP

Boring flashbacks.

4. Re:_Hamatora

Art finally betrays Ishigami like we thought he would. He then stabs Nice, and in doing so, he manipulates Hajime into using her powers and wiping out everyone’s powers. And what’s the point of all of this? He’s just fulfilling a promise he had made to his fucking otouto. That is so lame. I wish bad guys would have a stance just from the stance’s pure ideological merits alone, so we wouldn’t need to squeeze in some stupid flashback at the 11th hour about a character that the audience can’t possibly have any connection to. And I also hate how it’s so easy to manipulate Hajime into using her powers. Turn up the tragedy, then bam! Uncontrollable shoujo rage! It makes her feel less like a real character, and more like some plot device. Insert so and so ingredients, and you’ll always get the same finished product on the other hand. Hajime can’t control herself whatsoever, even though it’s plainly obvious what Art is trying to do. The story has potential, but it’s not quite there.

3. Aldnoah.Zero

This doesn’t mean the show is good. This just means I’d watch none of the other shows if I wasn’t blogging.

2. Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun

1. Terror in Resonance

The show hasn’t given it any reason to bump it down.

Week 11’s Poll

Last poll of the season? Second to the last poll of the season? Who knows!

Yeah, I can’t take this seriously if Tsugumi’s just going to stand there and flash the audience like that. As if I haven’t questioned the show’s judgment enough, it feels the need to give us fanservice during what is supposed to be one of the show’s more important scenes. M3 has always been somewhat questionable, especially with its penchant for semi-rapey scenarios. Remember Heito forcing himself upon Emiru? Or Natsuiri ripping Sasame’s shirt off, and everyone just stared? So not only does Tsugumi moon us as she swears she’ll destroy the world, the rapey undertones are back. For Minashi and Tsugumi to become one, it is necessary that he wrestles Tsugumi to the ground. Yeah… yeah… I swear this is the only way to save her! Then when the Lightless Realm expands and makes everyone its victims — the keyword here is ‘everyone’ — the anime focuses primarily on what the Lightless Realm does to the female characters. Oh no, look at all these black arms reaching out for Kasane! Then for some reason, Susan’s cleavage is showing their her mental torture. But this was what she looked like before. And this is what she looked like after. So during the psychic encroachment, we just got to see her cleavage as arms restrained her. Hm. Like I’ve said, the show is semi-rapey, and I wonder whose decision it was.

Anyway, like most generic anime stories, we have three possible solutions to the problem at hand. Minashi represents a route that’s almost lawful. He wants to knock down all the barriers between people, and in doing so, we will become one. By becoming one, there will no longer be any misunderstandings… that’s the theory, anyway. And you can take your privacy and fuck off, because there won’t be any in Minashi’s ideal world. Surely, this extreme position is not an ideal solution except for creepy bastards like Minashi who feels the need to pin a girl down and force his mind upon hers. But speaking of Tsugumi, she seems to represent the other end of the spectrum, a.k.a. the chaos route. If Minashi wants everyone to become one, Tsugumi simply wants to destroy everything. Like a selfish child, she takes no responsibility for her actions. She claims that she was merely following orders, so it’s so unfair that everyone is blaming her for the whole Lightless Realm nonsense. And just to show those fools how wrong they are, she will expand the Lightless Realm! Hey, they asked for it! Last but not least, I guess our heroes represent the neutral route, but in reality, it’s just restoring thing to the status quo. It’s just kind of boring and predictable.

If you hadn’t noticed, Heito came back in last week’s episode, but he really stretches his arms and legs now. With Mahmu on the ropes, trying to survive as she attempts to lure the Corpse away from the center of the Lightless Realm, Akashi and the Argent return just in time to save the girl. And yes, the Argent is now powered by none other than Heito himself. My problem is that it just feels like a dumb asspull. The guy hasn’t had a single line for weeks and weeks on end. All of a sudden, Aoshi conveniently bites the dust, and Heito reaches out to Akashi at just the right time? Why didn’t this happen before? Why was Heito silent until now? In fact, why even bother? Why not just keep Aoshi alive and finish the story out that way? It feels like Okada wanted to shoehorn Heito back into the plot, but she couldn’t figure out how to do it organically. So Heito practically disappears from the story until we simply kill Aoshi out of nowhere. Then bam, it turns out Heito was capable of lucid thoughts all along. He was just in some other realm, waiting for Akashi to need him. Or, if you really wanted to use Heito that badly, then we should’ve just found an excuse to make him a LIM a long time ago. I just really dislike it when characters drop off the face of the planet just to come roaring back when it’s convenient for the writer.

And if you thought that was an asspull, when it looked like everyone was going to go crazy from the expanded Lightless Realm, an Arbornine shows up out of nowhere at the IX headquarters. So the expanded Lightless Realm doesn’t mean anything. Our heroes don’t have to retreat and set up shop elsewhere. Everything’s the same as it has always been. We can still continue to operate directly out of our headquarters like normal. It’s almost like the Lightless Realm expanding doesn’t even matter! It’s all just for show! And of course, the explanation for the Arbornine is that it was just a normal tree that had somehow evolved to protect itself and other creatures from the Lightless Realm. Okay, whatever. It’s anime, so I’m not surprised that nature rules again, and technology drools again. But still, the whole thing with the chirping birds is silly, because what now? Even if the birds are safe around the Arbornine, what are the birds going to do? Just stick by the tree? How will they eat? I mean, I get it, it was supposed to be a scene that shows us how nature will overcome everything in the long-run, but merely pausing to think about the logistics of the anime is enough for the whole sand castle to come crumbling down.

M3 tries and tries to be serious, but it just doesn’t work. It’s full of pretentious Mahmu voiceovers, a vengeful girl who moons the audience, semi-rapey moments for no good reason, and a scenario that just doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. Plus, Mahmu’s role in the story feels a bit “self-inserty.”

Five didn’t win. Last week’s episode was all about forcing Twelve to betray Nine. She wanted Nine to feel isolated and, more importantly, betrayed. She even figured that Twelve might be too ashamed of what he had done to lend Nine a hand. But in the end, she was wrong… sort of. Twelve was too ashamed to help Nine, but once again, Lisa is the wild card. Lisa is the the normal one, so she helps Twelve understand Nine’s feelings. So with some prodding from Lisa, Twelve finally comes around and tries to help Nine. It doesn’t really matter that he kind of failed; Twelve delays Five a bit, but she eventually catches up to Nine anyway. It also doesn’t matter that the girl has her target cornered with nowhere to run. She has a gun, and he is handcuffed, so it looks as though Five has all the advantages in the world. But still, she had already lost. She had lost as soon as Twelve showed up. In the end, Twelve still has Nine’s back, and Five has nobody. Even the US government is getting fed up with her and her antics. More importantly, her own physical health is abandoning her too. But why now? I suspect it’s because she slowly starts to believe she won’t win. Without that, she just doesn’t have the will to continue, and the will to live is very important. Hell, it’s the only reason why she’s survived this long.

Five attributes her life to Nine: “I was able to survive until now because of you. Yes. You are the one who let me live.” She has survived all this time just to get some sense of closure, and this is closure on two levels. Like I’ve said last week, Five is a bit resentful that Nine and Twelve had escaped the Settlement without her, but Five needs one other bit of closure: she just wants to beat Nine at something. This sounds simple on the surface, but bear with me. Nine and Twelve have each other, right? As for Five, she has her obsession with Nine. As unhealthy as it is, it is still something. It is still her one way to relate to Nine. On the other hand, the rest of their peers had nothing. They were told they had no family, they were told they had no name, and they were told that nobody loved them. And just to top it all off, they were all savants of some sort, so they likely had a difficult time just relating to each other. These kids had nothing to live for. Yes, their physical health deteriorated as a result of the medication they had been given, but mentally, they had no reason to fight for their lives. They had no reason to push on. This is the one crucial thing the conspirators behind the Athena Plan had overlooked. Sure, you can try and strip these kids of their humanity. But you won’t get compliant super soldiers. Instead, you just get people with no will to live.

Unlike the other children, however, Five did have something to live for. She had fun playing games with Nine, and you have to imagine that at this Settlement, that tiny bit of fun was the only joy Five ever felt. As you’ll recall, even Twelve admitted that eating meals at the Settlement felt like a chore. Nothing was supposed to be joyful. Nothing was supposed to feel good. Still, I can imagine Five feeling a bit of a thrill every time she got to match wits with Nine when they were kids. As a result, I’m not surprised she became obsessed with Nine. Her feelings for him are not exactly love, because love is too complex of an emotion. We have to remember that these kids suffer from some form of the savant syndrome. As a result, I think it’s highly unlikely that Five has ever really developed her attachment to Nine above anything more than just a mere obsession. Love is thus out of the question. She does give him a brief kiss on the lips right before she commits suicide, but there isn’t any passion in the act. It’s almost like… mimicry, if you will, i.e. I’ve seen others do this, so I’ll do it too. Ultimately, Five had unresolved feelings she couldn’t articulate. She felt betrayed by Nine — since they played games together at the Settlement, why did he escape with Twelve and not her? — but at the same time, she just wanted to beat him in a game at least once.

In another world, they would have likely beeen close friends or perhaps even lovers. But in this world, Five can’t articulate her feelings nor can she even develop them. So instead, they come out as these silly, childish need to play unrealistic games. Hey, we used to play games, and I liked playing those games with you. I bet you liked them too! Since you always beat me, let me invent silly games for you to play. We’ll see if you can beat me on my terms! ‘Cause let’s be honest, if Five really wanted to catch Nine, she probably could have done so easily. At one point, she had the support of two different governments. Take the incident at the airport. If Five had just sent everyone at her disposal to catch the guy instead of playing some ridiculous chess game with him, don’t you think she would’ve succeeded? A lot of us questioned the realism of the scenario, but as it turns out, Five never even really wanted to catch the guy. She just pulled the wool over her keeper’s eyes and pretended as though she was on a mission to fulfill their objectives. Five then took advantage of the situation to play games with Nine. In her own mind, she probably even thought she was doing him a favor. She more than likely saw how easily Nine was stumping the Japanese investigators, so it’s like, “Yo, let me throw my hat in the ring.” In the end, she just ran out of time and decided she didn’t have a good enough reason to keep going. Five accepted that she couldn’t beat Nine, so she lost her will to live.

Stray notes & observations:

– Speaking of the kids having a tough time articulating their feelings and relating to each other, this is why Lisa is so valuable. Twelve was so wrapped in shame, he didn’t even want to save Nine. He even dragged Lisa to an amusement park to distract himself from the current situation. Luckily, Lisa is not a savant nor does she suffer from savant-like syndromes: “Stupid Twelve! When you came… that time… I was really happy! That’s why Nine will… I’m sure Nine will be, too….” To us, it seems plainly obvious that Nine would appreciate Twelve’s help, but we have to remember that the kids involved in the Athena Plan are likely emotionally stunted.

– Nine turned himself in at the start of the episode, and thanks to Twelve’s betrayal I think he lost a bit of will to live too. The press conference was basically Japan’s one last chance: let me take center stage and reveal the crimes of the Japanese government to the entire nation. He even asked for Shibazaki, because he likely thought the detective was the only adult he could trust. Even so, I think Nine knew at the back of his mind that he wouldn’t make it to the press conference for one reason or another, so he armed the atomic bomb ahead of time.

– You might think, “If Nine had simply wanted to reveal the truth — and this is the truth about both the Athena Plan and Japan developing an atomic bomb in secret — to the whole world, why not just make a video and put it online?” Well, a press conference makes everything legitimate. On the other hand, if you see an online video where some kid claims all these things I had just mentioned above, would you believe it? I wouldn’t.

– Furthermore, Nine has nothing to protect himself against Five. He probably felt that Five has both the know-how and the resources to eventually catch him. Her only setback appears to be her worsening health, which Nine knows nothing about. So in Nine’s mind, he likely feels that the safest place for him is to put himself directly in the custody of the Japanese government. It’s a gamble, but there’s a small chance Five and her American keepers might not want to directly and openly challenge the Japanese government. Nine is wrong about that, but then again, he is wrong about a lot of things. Until their brief talk at the end of the episode, I don’t think Nine ever had even the slightest inkling about Five’s true intentions. He probably thought she only wanted to catch him for the American government. There’s this fundamental disconnect between him and Five that alludes to the fact that had the Athena Plan even succeeded, how well would these kids honestly work with each other?

– We finally see Shibazaki’s wife, and they seem to be on friendly enough terms. I’m somewhat glad Lisa didn’t turn out to be his daughter. It would have made things a little too… coincidental, I guess?

– Shibazaki doesn’t want to endanger Hamura’s life any further, so he sends the guy on a wild goose chase for some difficult-to-find pack of cigarettes. The young guy even visits eight different places in search of them and still hasn’t realized what Shibazaki has done. I get the feeling that Hamura isn’t too bright:

Hamura: “Shibazaki! Why did you go off on your own?”
Shibazaki: “Because you were too slow.”

– So Shibazaki goes to meet Mamiya, and this old man also hides himself behind high walls. Souki Aoki lives alone, and Mamiya is decrepit and bedridden. These powerful men in Japanese society are so concerned with protecting themselves, they’ve inadvertently imprisoned themselves. It’s a sad, pathetic existence when you also consider the fact that they’re likely living in fear. After all, should their crimes ever come to light, heads would roll. These men are not only living in fear of retribution from those who are even higher up in the food chain than them, and but they are also living in fear of the public ever finding out about their sins. They have thus gotten their comeuppance in a way. Mamiya’s appearance is not pleasant, and I like to think fear played a part in twisting the old man into the wretched form that he has now.

– Mamiya did what he did in order to help restore Japan’s independence: “However, this country remains a defeated country. Even now the spirit of the country is still that of a loser, without a shred of dignity.” But what is a country’s dignity? Japan’s economy is only third to the US and China. Not only that, Japan is often at the forefront in technological developments. So honestly, what does it even mean to have a spirit of a loser? In the 21st century, does a country still need to be victorious in the battlefield in order to be considered a winner? I suppose those like Mamiya feels shame in the fact that Japan’s foreign policy continues to be dictated by America’s whims, but still, is this shame so bad that you’d go and develop an atomic bomb of your own?

– Regarding Mamiya, Shibazaki said he had initially planned to “settle this even if it meant finishing each other off….” I wonder how his wife and daughter would feel if they heard him say that. This wouldn’t be the first time, however, Shibazaki has jeopardized both his career and his life to defy the conspirators, so perhaps they’ve already come to accept that this is just how he is.

– According to Clarence, the US wants “evidence that at the same time [Japan's] constitutional interpretation changed, they started producing atomic bombs behind closed doors.” Even if the atomic bomb doesn’t go off, it looks like shit is about to go down between the two nations. I just wonder if we’ll get to see any of it in next week’s episode.

– The animation quality took a bit of a hit this week.

– Clarence tells Five that they have not been on good terms with the Japanese government ever since the incident at the airport. Five then suggest that they stage “[a]n attack from an armed group of unknown affiliation.” I’m surprised Clarence went along with it. Come on, people aren’t dumb. Gee, we stonewalled the Americans, then this “armed group of unknown affiliation” just showed up out of nowhere! I wonder who they could be! Plus, who else would want to get their hands on a domestic terrorist this badly?

Well, I wish we had gotten this week’s episode last week. What then would we do with this week’s episode? Who knows. Maybe tie up some loose ends since this episode is all about Ken. Nearly everything you saw in the previous episode does not make a lick of difference here. The finale is all about Ken’s fall from grace, and hell, that’s fine. We’ve reached the thematic highpoint of the story, so I’m okay with the story ending here. I can see how the story might lack closure for others, though. We have no clue whatsoever how Ken’s friends are doing. Still, Tokyo Ghoul is at its best when it focuses on the characters’ psychology; the fight scenes are just one of many ways to help deliver that story. The problem with last week’s episode was that not only was it nonsensical on many levels, it was never really about the characters. In fact, the past three weeks failed to focus much on anything but the bare bones of the plot. Things moved briskly in order for Studio Pierrot to squeeze an entire arc into just four episode. Naturally, Ken’s torture deserves an episode all to itself, so really, they had even less time to work with.

But you know what? I will give credit where credit’s due: I feel that Studio Pierrot did this episode right. Is the episode perfect? No, but it’s a strong one. It reminds me of what the anime does best. Is the series still flawed, especially towards the end? Very much so, but at least we salvaged something out of the disaster that was the past three weeks. Like I’ve said, we finally do see Ken’s mental torture. I initially thought we wouldn’t after how the previous episode had ended, but I see Studio Pierrot pulled the ol’ switcheroo on us. Or, if you’re being charitable, you can call it foreshadowing, but it’s pretty weak foreshadowing if that’s the case. But moving on, we even revisit some very key themes established at the very start of the series. Why do you suppose Ken is in chains even in his own mind? It’s because Rize is his torturer in this world. Yamori is assaulting our hero’s body, and using this to her advantage, Rize attacks Ken’s mind as well as everything he holds dear. After all, she’s been trying to corrupt ever since he became a ghoul. She only now senses that she has the perfect opportunity to get the job done.

Sitting amidst a field of white flowers — white being the color of innocence and purity — a shuddering, sobbing Ken feels a feminine hand reach out and caress him. He instinctively calls out for his mother, but when his blindfold falls off, he realizes that it is none other than Rize standing before him. Wherever Rize stands, the white flowers beneath her feet turn to red — red being the color for anger and hatred, but also love and sex (the sight of flowers blooming is also symbolic of one’s burgeoning sexuality). In other words, she is literally corrupting the flowers as she touches them. What does that tell us when we see her touching Ken? Rize then asks about Ken’s mother, whom our hero remembers fondly. But that’s not what Rize wants, is it? In the very first memory that we see, a white flower that Ken’s mother had cut suddenly turns to red; like with the flowers she had walked on in the previous scene, Rize’s here to corrupt Ken’s memories of his own mother as well. You can even see both Rize and the red flower lurking in the background in this shot. Her goal is to tear Ken’s mother down in his own mind, because Ken bases so much of his personality on what he had learned from his mother.

Ken believes it is better to be hurt than to hurt others thanks to his mother and his mother alone. This is one of the primary reasons why he resistant against accepting his ghoul self. After all, a ghoul derives his or power from consuming flesh. A ghoul’s very existence requires others to get hurt. Throughout the series, Ken drives himself to the brink of death simply because he’s hesitant to eat what he needs to eat. But what if Rize could cause Ken to lose faith in his own mother? Ken’s foundation would no longer lie with his actual mother, but with Rize, who had had a hand in creating his current self. So in order for Ken to accept his ghoul side, he must also accept Rize as a mother figure. He must see that Rize is someone who can protect him, because that’s the role that mothers play in almost every culture. To facilitate this, Rize makes our hero see that his actual mother had worked herself too hard for her sister’s sake. And in doing so, she had neglected Ken, her own son. And for all that she’s taught him, look where it has gotten him. He’s absolutely defenseless against Yamori, because he’s just too soft-hearted. Ken’s mother couldn’t protect him from loneliness back then, and she can’t protect him from Yamori’s torture now.

Rize, on the other hand, can give Ken the power that he needs to stand up and fight for himself. Yamori even taunts Ken along this same line of reasoning: “All of the disadvantage in this world stems from a person’s lack of ability.” Our hero has the ability to overcome his torture; he has the ability to stop all of this, but why isn’t he doing anything? ‘Cause he’s frozen with fear. After all this time, and after all that he’s been through, he’s fearful of hurting people just like his mother was fearful of hurting her sister. She didn’t realize that her fear inadvertently hurt her son, just like how Ken’s inability to fight back prevented him from protecting the people he supposedly cares about. Back in the real world, Yamori puts Ken to the task. He must choose to save one of two people. If Ken refuses to make a decision, Yamori will simply kill them both. Naturally, Ken does nothing; in fact, he is unable to do anything. Inability grips him because he is afraid to make a decision. His kind-hearted nature can’t help him navigate these dilemmas. It’s better to be hurt than to hurt others? What if no matter what you do, someone will get hurt? What then? In the end, his indecision becomes a decision of its own — a decision not to save anyone but himself from the guilt of having to make the decision.

Of course, you could argue that Yamori would’ve killed them both anyway even if Ken had made a decision, but that just brings us back to the fact that he’s weak. This is why Rize goes on to say, “Your mother was the same way. If she had turned aside her intolerable sister’s requests, she wouldn’t have died from overwork.” Ken’s mother thought she was just putting all of the burden onto herself, but without realizing it, she put it on Ken too. So in this moment of despair, our hero finally believes he is weak because he is too much like his mother. Rejecting his human side is thus like rejecting his mother. In doing so, he’s embracing what he and Rize have in common: their ghoul side. Make no mistake about it, Rize then calls Ken a good boy when he abandon his mother’s teachings. She then flat out asks, “Are you saying you accept me?” Ken doesn’t exactly say yes. Instead, he breaks free from his bondage and pins Rize down, claiming that he can always surpass her. You can’t tell me that this moment isn’t supposed to be sexual when our hero adopts a dominant sexual position on top of the woman he had once foolishly tried to date. And gosh, this same woman has been trying all episode long to tear down Ken’s memories of his own mother.

But why? Why are things suddenly sexual between him and Rize? Well, he was in bondage as Rize caressed and teased him, so you could argue that this scene was always sort of sexual. But more to the point, Ken never had his mother to himself. He was a lonely child, remember? During a childhood developmental stage in which children typically have their mother all to themselves, Ken never got to posses his own mother. This is something most of us eventually grow out of; we accept that we can be independent from our mothers. But thanks to what Ken had to suffer through in his youth, he still has this hang-up — this need to possess the mother figure because she was always too busy for him. So in accepting Rize in this twisted way, Ken can have it both ways. He can have the strength he wants from embracing both Rize and his ghoul side, but he can also possess her. And y’know what? The funniest part was people trying to tell me at the start of the season that I was seeing things. Oh no, dude, Rize isn’t trying to be a mother figure! And there’s nothing sexual about any of this! Meanwhile, we only see from a distance that Ken is enjoying Rize’s flesh… in his own mind, of course, which hammers home the fact that his imbibing of her flesh is metaphorical.

Sex, people, it’s all about sex. Our world is inundated with sex. Stop trying to deny it.

Phrasing, Haruka, phrasing! And yeah, I usually start these posts off with the eyecatches at the end of each week’s episode, but it didn’t really make much sense this time around. After all, this is the finale episode! This is the last Rail Wars! episode we’re going to see for a long, long time (unless we are blessed enough to get a sequel). And you can’t tell me that an eyecatch like this one is good enough for a finale episode. But enough about that. Let’s send Rail Wars! off the only way we know how.

– Did we ever find out what happened to Bernina and her family? No? Hm, guess her tragedy wasn’t that important, huh?

– Right off the bat, Nana crawls onto the harem lead’s bed in order to wake him up, ’cause let’s face it: real men can’t wake themselves up. Testosterone allows us to be manly men, but it also knocks us out cold after a long day of harem leading it up, if you know what I mean. Wait a minute, Nana’s the one waking him up? But she’s neither his imouto nor his childhood friend! As such, she’s not allowed to invoke this harem cliche! But there Rail Wars! goes again! It’s always breaking all the rules! Rail Wars! is truly the rogue harem anime, trying to pretend that it’s a show about trains and everything.

– Naturally, Naoto can’t even wake up without faceplanting into Nana’s breasts. But does she get offended? Of course not! She even gives our sleepyhead that boys-will-be-boys smile. Yo, if you don’t sexually assault someone the first thing you wake up, what are you even doing with your life?

– After the OP, Naoto drools over some rare train that, according to our hero, looks like a bulldog: “Its hood is quite rare. Some people call it ‘Dog Face’ or ‘Bulldog.'” Looks more like a gopher to me, but I know nothing about trains so I’ll just defer to our resident train otaku. In any case, what are we even doing talking about trains? C’mon, people, this is the last episode of Rail Wars! As such, where are all the harem antics? I mean, you’re not going to switch gears and suddenly focus on trains at the last minute, are you?

– Of course not! Elsewhere, we see the rest of the girls have come to work early just because they’re excited to see Naoto. I gotta see him, man, I just gotta! Not only that, everyone has gathered in the locker room to talk about — who else? — the harem lead!

Gonou: “Nana called me.”
Haruka: “Did something happen to Takayama-kun?”
Aoi: “Did he get involved in something again?”

Must… protect the harem lead… my very existence depends on it… The girls are also getting very catty about it.

– Speaking of Naoto — and we’re always speaking of Naoto — he did get himself into some more trouble. Y’see, he heard a strange sound coming from the train. Oh no, baby, what’s wrong! Naoto thus immediately leapt to his feet to investigate the problem.

– Our hero basically admits that he sits around all day, listening to sounds of various trains: “I love the KiHa 381. One of my friends records the sounds of the railways, so I had a chance to listen countless times to the sounds she recorded. But I’ve never heard something like this before.” Unfortunately, the train driver is too proud to listen to Naoto. He’ll rue the day he ignored an otaku!

– Naoto proceeds to call Mari and Haruka for help regarding this little train pickle. It’s just a pure coincidence just happen to be wearing nothing but a towel when he called her. It’s funny how every time we cut to one of the girls, they’re always in some form of undressed. They just can’t keep their clothes on in this anime. But as I recall it, Mari was practically naked in front of Aoi in last week’s episode. For some reason, the girl feels the need to cover herself up in a towel even though she’s in the privacy of her own home. C’mon, Rail Wars! At least be consistent with your fanservice.

– And oh yeah, Aoi is jealous that the harem lead didn’t call her. What? You don’t think a trigger-happy battleaxe would know how to diagnose a train?

– So what’s even wrong with the gopher train? It turns out one of the fan belt had worn. It also turns out Naoto had tried to… wait, you’re kidding me. He really tried to replace it while he’s riding the train? Are you fucking serious?

Naoto: “Once Koumi-san investigated it, she said the heat-absorbing fan belt may have been worn out.”
Nana: “But it’s only common sense that you can’t remove the engine of a running train. It’s very dangerous.”
Naoto: “Sorry.”

Holy shiiiiiiit. In the real world, this guy would be the poster child for the Darwin Awards. But in magical anime land, this genius gets to be the harem lead.

– Foiled by, y’know, a hot-as-hell train engine, Naoto decides that the better course of action would be to just look for a replacement for the worn-out fan belt. Lo and behold, Nana even has to pause and consider one of her panties.

– Still, Nana’s pink panties somehow gives Naoto the brilliant idea of using… really? Pantyhose? Who the fuck wrote this shit? You seriously think pantyhose would work in place of an actual heat-absorbing fan belt?

Nana: “Will this really be a suitable replacement?”
Naoto: “Koumi-san did research about it for me. She said it may manage to hold out until we reach Tokyo.”

What are these magical fucking pantyhouse, man? Naturally, Nana doesn’t have any spare on hand. We just gotta use the one she’s wearing right now. Plus, what is this show’s obsession with women taking off their pantyhose? This is probably the fourth or fifth time I’ve seen a female character go through the painstaking process of sliding them off her legs.

– The train proceeds to stop at a station where I assume Naoto handed Nana’s pantyhose to some poor guy and told him to use it to temporarily fix the train: “Even the driver said that the train brightened up.” Goddamn, is the train a fucking pervert too? Plus, the story’s also telling me that this station has nothing suitable to use as a fan belt. Nothing at all that remotely comes close to pantyhose. Fuck me, man. Fuck. Me.

– Uh-huh. I wish you could have a not lop-sided face. Nana proceeds to talk about the history of the train they’re riding on. I suspect Passione ran out of time, and just chose some random side story to adapt. Seriously, we’ve dealt with bombs, assassins trying to target a member of royalty, so on and so forth. But what do you give me in the last goddamn episode? A lecture about how a train used to have a very lively shop. Hoo boy, Passione is pulling out all the stops, huh?

– Oh dear, oh my… I dare say that this train is too hot… getting too hot in here! So take off all your clothes, Nana! Seriously though, what is this? Did Passione suddenly come to the realization that there isn’t enough fanservice for Nana?

Animator A: “You guys, we’ve never had an episode focus on Nana! She’s a haremette too, right?”
Animator B: “Uh, sure, yeah, whatever.”

– The train is too hot, because the air conditioner isn’t running; it turns out the service power is down. Yo, I think I know why this train is so rare: it fucking sucks. It’s literally breaking down as they’re riding it. Yeah, it’s time to take this ol’ bulldog out back.

– Once again, Naoto calls Haruka up, who proceeds to just read the train’s manual. Yeah, that’s all she ever does. She gets naked and she reads train manuals, which, by the way, is enough to to figure out how to fix these damn trains. Who needs trained professionals? Just break out the manual, bro!

– One look at the circuit breaker is enough for Nana to see that the breaker for the air conditioner was tripped. Oh no! What do we do? Obviously, you throw pantyhose at it. Pantyhose is the goddamn duct tape of this universe. It’s what binds us together. pantyhose keeps our nucleus from coming apart!

– Nah, I’m kidding. This is all it takes. THIS IS ALL IT TAKES. WHO NEEDS ELECTRICIANS?

– Nana wonders if Naoto’s loved by the Goddess of Troubles since he’s always, well, getting into trouble. Immediately, the anime cuts to Aoi, who’s having a sneezing fit. Yeah, yeah, we already know she’s in love with him. In return, she blames her sneezing on the harem lead: “I’m sure he’s cursing me.” Yeah, with his dong. You know it’s true, because Haruka is not the least bit amused. It’s too bad the show is about to end, because it really feels as though the competition for the harem lead’s love is about to heat up.

– Oh dear, our heroes hear yet another strange air noise. It turns out they didn’t manage to fix the air conditioner after all. It’s so hot, Nana sweats through her damn shirt. It’s funny how Naoto keeps his jacket on the entire time, though. We wouldn’t want to see through his shirt and potentially spot man nips, after all.

– Yeah, lady, you’re a big help. Big, big help.

– Look at the fucking gopher. Yeah, it’s in a shitty harem anime, but it’s so happy. Ain’t nothing gonna get this gopher down. It’s the best thing about this entire episode.

– So how did Naoto fix the air conditioner? We’ll never know because the story immediately jumps ahead to after the problem has already been resolved. I guess the writer ran out of ridiculous solutions after a big count of, uh, two.

– For some reason, the episode makes a big deal out of the conductor chief bowing to Naoto and thus letting loose her long, golden hair. Okay…? Yo, you already have Aoi, Haruka, Mari, Noa, Bernina, and apparently Nana as well. If the show had continued on any longer, I’m sure Gonou would’ve have joined the list. Hell, Sho would probably get so fed up with never having any lines, he’d get a goddamn sex change and become a haremette just so he can have something to say besides, “OH MAN, I’M SO HUNGRY.” My point is, does Naoto really need yet another haremette? Are you that much of a player, bro? Leave the conductor chief alone! Shit, we don’t even know her actual name!

– I think Nana’s breasts are getting bigger and bigger with each passing second. That sounds dangerous.

– See? Even Naoto has to remind the rest of the cast that Sho exists. But yeah, they return home to an empty office. Naoto feels a bit melancholy, since he won’t be able to see his haremettes until next week. Awww…

– We see the harem lead riding the subway home alone, ordering taiyaki and eating it on a park bench by himself, and calling Mari only to get no answer. Uguu, this is too depressing! Can a girl — preferably a famous and busy one — drop everything in her life and come running after this poor, lonely harem lead?!

– Oh, there we go. How nice of some idol to just stroll by… It’s even her first time shopping, you guys. And she did it all for the harem lead! Then Mari shows up! More girls! More!

– Yeah, the haremettes all decided to gather in Naoto’s room. Why not, right? I mean, it’s not like young, beautiful girls — one of them’s even a famous idol — have anything better to do with a three-day weekend…

– Yo, shut up, Sho! I don’t want to hear from you until you have massive breasts too!

– But that’s it, you guys. There’s no more Rail Wars! from here on out. I hope you all have taken away something valuable from this experience. I know I have!

Your final moment of zen:

I guess believability isn’t one of Tokyo ESP‘s primary concerns. A few weeks ago, the bad guys scored a complete victory over Rinka and her friends. Minami and company stormed the school, beat Rinka up, recorded the beatdown to the whole world, and even stole Kyotaro away to some tropical island. Most importantly,  Rinka lost her powers because she was actually clinically dead at one point. Wow, you guys, this looks bad. I sure am curious how our heroes will navigate themselves out of this mess! I mean, that was what I thought. I thought we’d have one of those situations where things have to turn to shit before they improve, i.e. “The darkest hour is before the dawn.” And even though this minor narrative twist is a bit of cliche, I was fine with it. I was fine with the thought of the story heading in this direction, because let’s face it, Tokyo ESP isn’t exactly a world beater. As long as the execution is solid, the anime will have done its job. What I didn’t expect, however, was the steps the story took for the situation to “improve.”

This week, the narrative comes full circle. The Professor and his cronies take over the Diet, levitate it into the air, announce to Japan that they are now the rulers, blah blah blah. I don’t need to go into too much detail about all of this, since we’ve already seen most of this part of the story in the very first episode. So instead, much of this week’s episode focuses on how the good guys turn things around. Murasaki and others manage to save Peggi, and Rinka regains her resolve to fight back against the bad guys. She even convinces her dad to help her even though the guy is super protective of his daughter. And gosh, it just brings a tear to my eye when humans and espers team up to stop the Professor. On paper, this all sounds like a solid direction for the story to take. Again, it’s not a world-beating direction, but it’s Tokyo ESP, which is already a poor man’s X-Men to begin with. I’m just saying you can’t expect much. In any case, I thought the good guys’ comeback would involve Rinka somehow regaining her powers. I mean, isn’t that just common sense? If she got beaten up at her school even though she had her powers. how the hell is she going to win now without her powers?

Well, as it turns out, Rinka just does. Our heroine runs into those two girls at the Esper Detainment Center. You know those two girls. One of them can mind-control people by looking into their eyes. The other one wears a Chinese-style dress and has no whites to her eyes. Yeah, they were the ones who beat Rinka up. Right off the bat, I have no problems with Rinka defeating the mind-control girl. Sure, just close your eyes and you can avoid her mind-controlling you. Then afterwards, she’s a sitting duck. Okay, I can buy that. On the other hand, I don’t particularly like the way Rinka manages to win her next fight. There was almost nothing to it! She does a flying jump kick, forward flips over the girl, then kicks her in the head. And uh, that’s it. Not only is the fight way too short, it is also way too easy. If Rinka’s going to fight without her ESP abilities, at least throw some ingenuity in there. Since she has a disadvantage without any ESP abilities, let Rinka win with her brains or something. Instead, the girl proceeds to flat-out stomp her next few opponents with her brawn and her brawn alone. This just makes me wonder why she even needed her ESP powers to begin with! Hell, why does anyone need them!

But that’s not even the dumbest part about the episode. Remember Kyotaro? Yeah, Minami stranded him on some island. Somehow, she can teleport him all the way out there, but he can’t teleport himself back to Japan. What’s the deal with that? Is Minami really just that much stronger than him in the teleportation department? But more importantly, we know Kyotaro’s going to escape. He’s one of the heroes, after all. Like Rinka, this episode is also about how Kyotaro can pick up the pieces and make a triumphant comeback. So how does our hero go about this? Oh, it’s easy! He’ll just run into a talking pelican! Yeah, a fucking talking pelican. Uh-huh, the pelican flew through the school of glowing fish, y’see, so now the pelican has the ability to communicate with humans. Sure, Kyotaro is smart enough to make a raft, but still, he has no clue how to get back to Tokyo. Therefore, the pelican will lead Kyotoro back home, because its a migrant bird. See? It’s so easy! It simply wants one thing in return: uguu, won’t Kyotaro help this bird find true love?

What the fuck, man? What the fuck? First, Rinka plays heroine anyway even though she’s lost all her powers. And now, Kyotaro is being saved by a goddamn pelican. Why even bother putting the main characters through the wringer if you can’t gracefully help them back up to their feet? Why resort to these ridiculous asspulls? The Rinka thing is not as egregious, because you can just argue that she’s put in the hard work with her training, and what you see in this week’s episode are the fruits of her labor. Still, I question why she was so weak before if she can suddenly beat everyone up now. Why did she lose so badly at the school if she’s not even taking any damage now? What’s the deal with that? Did she get an invincibility star or what? One minute, I see her naked in the shower, the next minute, she’s beating up the bad guys as if she had never lost her powers. As for the Kyotaro thing, it’s just flat-out dumb. Whereas Rinka at least trained hard to become a strong fighter with or without her ESP powers, Kyotaro’s not even succeeding through his own abilities. He just lucky enough to meet a talking bird. Meh, I’m ready for Tokyo ESP to end. It’s been such a forgettable series.

A-1 Pictures made me watch Kirito and Sinon sit in a cave and talk my ears off for more than an episode, and this is the “payoff?” This is the best you could come up with for the pivotal fight scene of the GGO arc? For fuck’s sakes, guys.

– We see in the cold opening that there are only four people left in the game, and this includes Death Gun. Good lord, you just know our Gary Stu will not only defeat Death Gun, but win the whole tournament as well. And of course, Sinon with have feelings for him that she can’t resolve, because as soon as Kirito logs out of GGO, he’ll see Asuna dutifully waiting by his side. She may be old hat, but you just can’t beat a loyal woman with maxed out cooking skills, huh? Yep, that’s pandering at its finest.

– There should be five people left, but that fifth guy is probably already dead, so who cares? Let’s just get on with it already.

– SAO‘s excuse for no one showing up to look for our heroes? Oh, Death Gun has been busy taking them out! What a nice guy! As a result, Kirito and Sinon have been perfectly safe this entire time. They’re even safe from Death Gun too, who has been trying to look for them! Maybe if he had just followed his victims instead of shooting them the first chance he got, he might have found our heroes, but grr, I’m a grim specter of death! Fear me!

– Sinon: “Run and gun. A style where you run, shoot, and run again.” That’s a style? Really? As opposed to what? Stand, shoot, and stand some more?

– I like how this Dark Wind guy finished second in the last Bullet of Bullets tournament only because he lost to the champion’s “rare gun and armor.” The best part is how most players consider Dark Wind to have been the better of the two, but hey, what can you do when gear matters this much? Yo, this is totally a legitimate esport, you guys. It’s a test of skill where people can hide out in caves until most of the competition are dead, then they emerge to defeat you with their super rare drops. We all know the best CS:GO teams out there are the ones that grind for purps.

– Last thing you want to hear from a sniper: “I’ve always been good at closing my eyes to something scary.”

– Good lord, they’re still talking. Aaaaand they’re still talking about the missing fifth person, which I thought we had already covered at the start of the episode. Most of all, I just don’t know why A-1 Pictures couldn’t have these two do something — anything — as they discuss their plans for defeating Death Gun. Maybe our heroes could double-check the status of their weapons and armor. Maybe our heroes could make minor repairs. Maybe our heroes could make their way to the fight location. Goddamn, do something! But no, they can’t do anything. Kirito and Sinon continue to sit in a cave and talk our ears off.

– Blah blah blah, Death Gun might have two partners in the real world instead of just one. Great, whatever.

– Sinon wonders why there are so many people so hellbent on being player killers. Kirito speculates that it’s the same reason why he tries so hard to be a swordsman. So you’re telling me that all these people want to be serial killers? Not only that, they’re all young MMO gamers, they all play the same game, and they all live in the same approximate place? It’s such a stupid way to be a killer, too. Remember, according to Kirito, they must follow their one rule: a person must die both in-game and outside the game.

– Sinon: “But PKs have their own pride and resolve.” Uh-huh, there sure is a lot of pride and resolve in ganking people you massively out-level and out-gear, but that’s none of my business.

– Kirito says he has to fulfill his duty and stop these murderers from harming anyone else. Alright, that sounds cool to me. Stop murderers from murdering people! Who’s going to disagree with that? Unfortunately, our Gary Stu can’t shut up. He goes on to say he can only atone for his sins if he can stop Death Gun. What sins? Oh, the sin of killing those two Laughing Coffin members and defending yourself against the creepy Kuradeel. Give me a break, SAO. Once again, SAO tries to create drama out of nothing. Kirito basically killed two murderers, thereby preventing them from killing more people. As for Kuradeel, I’m sure he would’ve raped and skinned Asuna eventually if he wasn’t stopped. But oh no, I’m a killer! It’s one of those situations where the writer wants Kirito to have some sort of sin to atone for, but at the same time, he doesn’t really want to give the Gary Stu an actual sin. It’s like going to a job interview and claiming your biggest weakness is that you just work too gosh darn hard. In Kirito’s case, he has to atone for preventing murderers and rapists from doing the bad things that they do. Ugh, what a sinful bastard! How can he even come home to his bed full of haremettes at night? Seriously though, I’d have more respect for the show if it would just stop trying to be so deep and meaningful. By giving our Gary Stu this flaccid non-trauma, SAO is really just embarrassing itself.

– Let’s just casually center the camera on Sinon’s (non-)rack.

– Aaaaand now we have the fist bump of justice.

– As Sinon tracks Dark Wind from a distance, she sees that the guy is smiling. He probably thinks he’s about to win this whole thing. That’s another problem with the story: the rest of the players are apparently idiots. If Kirito can notice that the numbers just don’t add up, i.e. the mysterious whereabouts of the fifth person, then how come no one else has realized it either? Or, y’know, how come the tournament administrators haven’t already stopped the damn contest because something fishy is going on? The likely truth is that no one but our heroes suspect anything. Our heroes are just exceptional snowflakes.

– What’s A-1 Pictures strategy to show us that Kirito is engaging his keen sense and intuition? By putting this ugly filter on everything!

– Yeah, dude, just feel the enemy’s killer instinct. ‘Cause that’s one of the many things that is possible in VRMMOs. Ever since patch 3.49273, killer intent is now recorded and transmitted through the headsets.

– Do you like flashbacks? ‘Cause here’s another one! How many times do we need to see Kirito fighting those Laughing Coffin assholes? Not enough times, I’ll tell you what.

– Oh goodie, bullet time. That’s fresh and original. Not only that, the bullet is strong enough to destroy this structure over here. Yeah, a single bullet.

– Dark Wind is taken out so quickly, it’s not even interesting. If one of Death Gun’s partners is lurking nearby Dark Wind’s home, why wouldn’t he just kill the bastard anyway? I mean, he’s already a cold-blooded murderer. But ah, our one rule, you guys! We’re PKers have our pride and resolve too, y’know.

– Sinon soons spots Death Gun, but when she takes a shot at him, the bad guy takes a shot at her too. You guys already saw the silly bullet thing up above, so there’s no need to cover it again. In any case, Sinon and Death Gun simply manage to take out the other person’s sniper rifle. Sinon is now useless, and she can thus step out of the way and let the Gary Stu do what the Gary Stu does best, i.e. hog all the glory.

– This duel between Kirito and Death Gun will be easy right? After all, our Gary Stu has his badass sword and Death Gun doesn’t! Wrong. Death Gun proceeds to pull out a sword of his own (it looks like a rapier or an estoc). Yes, the final battle of the GGO arc will come down to a fucking sword fight. Who needs guns! Certainly not this gun-based MMO with the word ‘gun’ literally in its name!

– Look at Sinon’s concerned face as she sees Death Gun land a hit on her precious harem lead. It’s fucking anime. You can literally draw her in a way that makes her look worried, but A-1 Pictures can’t even hack that.

– Oh man, there’s just too much action in this week’s episode. Quick, cut to our dutiful waifu rushing to be at the Gary Stu’s side. Gotta have Asuna do something, y’know? How else is she going to prove her worth? But yeah, literally all Asuna’s done in this sequel is watch Kirito on a livestream, then run to his side. This girl started out as a warrior too, but once she took off her clothes in the original series, it’s been downhill ever since.

– This MMO battle is just so intense!

– Death Gun is so deathy, even his name is just German for death. Death death death. Do you see the symbolism? Do you?! DEATH DEATH DEATH!

– We cut back to Kirito and Death Gun, and surely, these two are engaged in a life-or-death battle, right? Right?

Death Gun: “Looks like you should have studied more, black swordsman. You can make it with the gun-blade skill. Though the length and weight can’t be much more than this.”

Are you kidding me? Are you two idiots really talking about crafting right now?

Kirito: “Then I’m afraid you wouldn’t be able to make a blade I’d like.”
Death Gun: “You still like blades with high strength requirements?”

Yo, the blade’s just not long enough for the Gary Stu. It needs to be big and heavy. That’s what MMO chicks dig.

– Death Gun is surprised Kirito even remembers anything about Laughing Coffin. Really? You don’t think the hero of Aincrad would remember the notorious player-killing guild?

– Fuck me, man. There’s no fighting here. Instead, these two are just going to stand there and talk. And fine, dialogue between the protagonist and the antagonist can be compelling. But these two idiots aren’t having a meaningful conversation. They’re just repeating shit we already know! Why the hell is Kirito even bothering to explain Death Gun’s modus operandi to Death Gun himself? Heh, lemme tell you how you really kill people!

– “You can’t remember my real name! ‘Cause I never told you my real name! Bwahahahahahahaha!”

– The bad guy then tells us that his sword is made from the best metal you can find in the game: space battleship’s armor! Wait, what the hell is space battleship’s armor doing in a gun-based MMO that, well, doesn’t have spaceships?

– Anyway, Death Gun lunges for Kirito again, and as you can see, the animation in this anime is just amazing. Unfortunately, the episode finally comes to an end, so you’ll have to tune in next time for the not-so-exciting continuation of this duel between the Gary Stu and some pathetic PKer. Having said that, we still managed to waste over half of this week’s episode on pointless conversations about stuff the audience either already knew or could have surmised for themselves. I thus can’t help but imagine next week’s episode will just be more of the same.

Hint: she did nothing. But that won’t stop the Gary Stu from praising the Mary Sue!

– So the episode opens with the Crimson Prince blowing people up with his magic spells. And by blowing people up, I really mean that their bodies violently contort before turning into a billion, tiny chunks of flesh. What I find odd, however, is that Mahouka has never been this violent before. Even when those Chinese gangsters had endangered Miyuki’s well-being in the previous episode, we simply saw the Gary Stu disintegrate people into, well, static. For whatever reason, however, we’ve kicked things up several notches in just the last two episodes along. In the previous episode, we saw Tatsuya literally chop people in half with his magic. Evil foreigners have always been a prominent threat in the story, but judging by the violence, it seems that the latent anger inherent in the story has finally decided to boil over. Mahouka seemingly relishes the way it’s killing these faceless grunts in the most violent, gruesome way possible.

– By the way, this is not what I meant by action. Action has a certain art to it. This is just a gratuitous smattering of gore.

– I’m sorry, but I can’t ever not laugh when these characters do the Narutard running animation. This is what little kids do when they play at the park, but y’see, they’re kids. They get to be silly and dorky. What’s Mahouka‘s excuse?

– Anyway, we just get to see more high school kids beating up fully-armed adults. Yeah, yeah, these kids truly are stronger than the adults. Bloodline means everything. Yo, I’ve heard it a billion times before from a billion Mahouka apologists before. Just because you say it is so doesn’t mean the anime suddenly stops being any less dumb. “That’s just the way it is!” is not a good enough excuse for this anime and its stupid contrivances to exist.

– An accident nearly prevents Azusa’s group of students from reaching the underground shelter. Look! An adult is being useful!

– The same accident does, however, hinder’s Mayuki’s group, so an inadvertently funny scene unfolds.

Mayumi: “I’m going to call for helicopters from my father’s company.”
Shizuka: “I’ll contact my father, too.”

Sweet, who else wants to call their dads? Yo, don’t get me wrong! The elite upper crust works really hard to get where they are! There’s no privilege here!

– Remember how Miyuki removed Tatsuya’s limiter last week, and he’s supposed to be all SSJ now? Well, this is our Gary Stu in his fancy new bodysuit. He looks more like a gimp than a hero.

– Tatsuya waves one hand across his crotch before shooting down an unmanned drone. Uh-huh, what a badass.

– We return to the Crimson Prince and Curious George. The former confesses that it’s his duty to protect the blah blah blah nobody gives a shit. These two characters have had no development whatsoever, so this scene doesn’t mean anything. This is what happens when you have a cast of billions. None of them gets any significant screentime and they all suffer as a result. Hell, even Miyuki, the Mary Sue at the center of this entire story, has hardly had any development. She’s just there to fawn over her brother’s dick. Nothing more, nothing less. So you’ll excuse me if I can’t help rolling my eyes at a “touching” moment between the Crimson Prince and his prepubescent-looking buddy. If Miyuki doesn’t hold up to scrutiny, then you can just forget about the Crimson Prince. Plus, it’s nothing we haven’t heard before. I’m an Ichijo, so I must do so-and-so. So basically, bloodlines, bloodlines, and more bloodlines. Tell me something I don’t know.

– Plus, the whole bloodlines thing is so lazy. It’s just an arbitrary fact of the matter, y’know? Why is this person strong? Oh, well, he comes from a powerful family! Why does he feel the need to take this action as opposed to that action. Well, y’see, he’s from a powerful family, and that’s all the justification you need! In a story where the character development is already flimsy as shit, the bloodlines thing only serves to weaken the characters even more. They have no compelling motivations. They are not interesting people. They’re just a bunch of “chosen ones,” bound by duty due to the prestige arbitrarily attached to their family names. Well, it sure is easy to come up with a billion characters when this is the case, huh?

– As Curious George watches the Crimson Prince walk away, he says to himself, “You come back safely too, Masaki. Because you’re my one and only commander.” Christ, get a room.

– Mechas show up to give our students a hard time, but it’s okay. Miyuki can just freeze some of them in their tracks. Meanwhile, Leo has been training hard just to pull this sweet technique out. Sweet-looking sword, dude. I’m glad I sat through twenty-four episodes of shit to watch these amazing battle scenes unfold. There’s hardly any choreography here. The mechas simply arrive in convenient packs of two, then one-by-one, our heroes throw themselves at the enemy. Did you just see Leo cut one mecha in half? Now watch Erika cut another mecha in half! Don’t stop now! Here’s Erika’s brother cutting a mecha in half (nice animation, by the way)! Fucking sweet! There are so many people chopping up mechas willy-nilly, I can’t even keep track of who they are anymore! Who’s this guy? Wait, don’t answer that question; I don’t really want to know.

– The characters all pay lip service to the idea that they’re in danger, but it sure as fuck doesn’t look like they are. A battle usually has casualties on both sides. I mean, I’m sure the word ‘attrition’ exists in the Japanese dictionary. I just don’t think it exists in Mahouka, this twisted, soulless version of Japan’s future.

– Those dirty foreigners! I knew it all along!

– Those rescue helicopters finally arrive, but wait, what’s that! Uh… a killer swarm of bugs? But yawn, Tatsuya and gang show up and dispel the swarm. Y’know, I thought some true Gary Stu shit would really go down in this week’s episode. I didn’t know Tatsuya farting at Lu Gonghu would end up being the height of his Almighty Overpoweredness. Uguu, he’s really this Hindu god! Yeah, well, that doesn’t magically make this shit interesting. Who the fuck cares if all he does is kill bugs? I mean, what’s even the point of removing Tatsuya’s limiter last week if all we’ve seen him do is take down an unmanned drone, then play pest control with some fucking bugs? Seriously, what a fucking joke.

– Nothing’s going on. The “bad guy” is just this nebulous Chinese threat that we don’t really get to see. Sure, Chen Xiangshan is out there somewhere, but he looks like a golfer on the course than an actual Chinese operative hoping to bring down the glorious motherland. And even though a war is taking place, there’s no palpable sense of danger whatsoever. It’s like fucking whack-a-mole for Tatsuya’s friends. They literally stood in a square and waited for the mechas to show up. Then they kicked the mechas’ asses. I swear, I could play Asteroids and get a bigger thrill out of it than anything this anime could offer up. I don’t think I’ve even seen a single student get hurt. Just kill me, man. That alone is more dramatic than anything Mahouka could come up with. People think I’m being unfair, but this literally the most boring war I’ve ever witnessed. A child playing with toy dinosaurs and superhero action figures could come up with better action than this. A killer swarm of bugs, man. A killer swarm of bugs.

– Ha. Ha. Ha.

– Oh look, people finally get hurt. Unfortunately, Madhouse doesn’t even bother to animate it, so we just get some still shots with action lines imposed over them. Secondly, none of the students are ever in trouble. Can hurt a single hair on those precious kids’ heads. Fuck the adults, though. Fuck the lot of them. Seriously though, nobody important ever has to break a sweat. The only victims are these faceless idiots we’ll never see again.

– Jumanji then dons this samurai-esque armor, and tells people to defend the motherland against the foreigners. Yeah, you tell them, dude!

– We see the Crimson Prince again, but I’m well over him. Moving on…

– All of a sudden, one of the groups lowers its defenses because they think they’re about to be rescued. As a result, Takeaki and Kei are “fatally wounded” in their attempts to shield their girlfriends from danger. Anyone with common sense would know that the battle isn’t over, so why did the students suddenly become idiots? Oh, I think you know why. We’re near the end of the episode, so it’s finally time for Tatsuya to save the day. Even though his friends have been having no trouble whatsoever with the evil mechas all episode long, they must now act like idiots and thus allow themselves to get shot.

– But what can the Gary Stu even do?! Easy. He’ll just resurrect them. Yes, Tatsuya can literally bring people back to life. This isn’t even a real story anymore. This is just some sad person’s delirious fantasies. Sad thing is, I’m not even shocked or am I even impressed. This show is so bad, even the resurrection of the dead seems boring.

– Oh well, episode’s over! Tune in next week for the exciting conclusion to Mahouka!

See, you’re supposed to save the princess from the castle, not drag her there and get yourselves both killed! But seriously though, one has to wonder if anyone’s truly dead. After all, this is just the end to Aldnoah.Zero‘s first cour. With another one slated for the upcoming winter season, i.e. a mere three months away, can Inaho and Asseylum really be dead? Would the show really have the guts and the savvy to kill off either of its main characters? I doubt it. Sadly, it’s somehow much easier to come up with some stupid reason for why Inaho and the princess are both still alive. And even though Saazbaum had gestured at Slaine to aim at his head, Slaine didn’t actually finish the count off. He might not be dead either! So, again, who really died? That’s what I find kind of frustrating about our “finale” episode. I don’t think anyone’s dead, and I don’t think we’ve really reached any sort of conclusion. Basically, we’re forced to sit here and wait three months before we find out how these characters will magically survive.

Slaine’s pretty useless, huh? He never manages to do or accomplish anything. Doomed to be Inaho’s foil, Slaine is thus more emotion than action. Whereas Inaho bizarrely saves the day all the time, Slaine has mostly been confined to the periphery all series long, crying for his dear Asseylum. To add insult to injury, his robotic counterpart actually gets to spend invaluable one-on-one time with the princess. Even in this very episode, Slaine looked busy, but he did nothing until the very end. He climbs into Cruhteo’s mecha, but doesn’t even do anything cool with it. Then the one chance Slaine got to be useful, he essentially helped Saazbaum “kill” Asseylum. Again, I don’t think the princess is dead, but on the small chance that she is, Slaine can pat himself on the back for a job well done in aiding her demise. It’s hard to be sympathetic for a character who simply exists to pine. Sad thing is, he has strong feelings for Asseylum, but she probably thinks of him as just a friend. Still, I guess it’s not entirely his fault.

I mean, how different would this episode have been if Inaho hadn’t shot the guy down shortly after they defeated Femieanne? Remember that? Slaine couldn’t give Inaho a satisfactory answer, but the latter didn’t really give the former a chance. Both guys were hot-headed, and I’d say they’ve paid for it and more. Just imagine if Slaine could’ve joined the good guys right there and then. Slaine wouldn’t have gotten captured and tortured by Cruhteo. Would Saazbaum have killed Cruhteo anyway? Maybe not, but let’s say Cruhteo would have died anyway just for simplicity’s sake. The good guys reach Russia, Saazbaum lands his castle and attack, blah blah blah. But now with Slaine on their side, maybe the two guys would’ve held Saazbaum off together, and it’s likely that none of them would now be on the ground, bleeding to death from their multiple gun wounds. How much different would things have been if we had just made this one small change to the story?

In the end, I can’t help but think Inaho’s cold, calculating way at looking at the world finally managed to bite his ass. So if you’ve been waiting for our mild Gary Stu’s comeuppance, I guess this would be the episode for you. Personally, Inaho’s always been boring to me, but he never bugged me as much as he bugged others. In any case, at the start of this week’s episode, Inaho argued that wars aren’t really about emotions. The way he sees it, wars are really just about accruing political advantages, and emotions are one way to get the wheels of conflict rolling. Well, Saazbaum’s motives sure seem emotional enough to me, so there’s a lot Inaho doesn’t really understand about the world. But more importantly, Inaho’s spiel is just indicative of the way he operates. And it’s because of the way he operates that everything ends up falling apart. Yeah, his cold, hard logic has helped him save the day countless of times before, but everything would’ve gone swimmingly in this week’s episode had Inaho not been so distrustful of Slaine back in week seven.

It’s hard to say much about Asseylum’s character, because she simply fulfilled her mission in this final episode. Her character hasn’t really grown, and fittingly, I don’t feel as if the story has grown either. Nothing’s resolved nor have we hit any real high point other than the shock that the good guys might have died. Few of the side characters even have much to do or say in this week’s episode. Yuki has more than a couple lines, but they’re all wasted on being whiny with her brother. I think my general dissatisfaction with the finale comes down to this. Although this isn’t the final episode to the entire series, it is nevertheless the final episode to a cour. But despite this, I can’t feel as though that we’ve reached any sort of conclusion, thematic or otherwise. As usual, we got some slick fighting between Inaho and the bad guy of this week. Yeah, it’s Saazbaum, and he’s somewhat of a major character, but his mecha ends up just being some amalgamation of all the previous mechas. I was still entertained by the action, but it could have been better.

The only notable “change” I can think of is possibly Inaho’s feelings for the princess. As our dying hero crawls towards the lifeless girl after she had been (fatally?) shot by Saazbaum, he has visions of their time together. It’s enough to make you think the guy is really in love with her! But maybe Yuki was just right all along. Maybe Inaho was really on cloud nine all those times he spent with the girl. And certainly, this does add another dimension to his character. The problem is, Inaho had been one-dimensional all series long, so what does adding one extra dimension at the last minute really do? I suppose when the second cour rolls around, and our heroes inevitably find that they’re still alive, Inaho can stop being so goddamn robotic and actually push hard for Asseylum’s love. Still, I can’t help but think that Inaho’s been so cold on the surface this entire time just to make his crawl towards Asseylum feel somewhat like a twist — an emotional twist, if you will. Even so, why not just make an interesting, well-developed character from the start?

A short ending monologue tells us that “Asseylum… has not been heard from since” the end of the battle. There’s no way Slaine, as obsessive as he is about the princess, would just leave her lifeless body there on the ground, huh? But where would he drag it to? And what would he do with it? Ah well, I suppose we’ll find out soon enough. In the meantime, we can distract ourselves with Psycho-Pass, Mushishi, and more. In a different universe, Inaho wouldn’t be such a boring character. And maybe in this same universe, I’d be dying to know what happens next. But although I was adequately entertained by Aldnoah.Zero, the story never lived up to the foundation Urobuchi had laid out for it at the very start of the season. Instead of an interesting political thriller that sometimes has mecha fights, we got a series of mildly competent mecha fights and little more. You can just forget about the political thriller part. So while I’ll watch the second cour when it finally airs, I’m not left wanting. I’ll live, y’know? Let’s just hope Inaho doesn’t wake up to find himself in school, and his sister has turned into a brother.

See ya in three months…

Uh-oh, Akame ga Kill! is trying to be funny again.

– We haven’t met the other recruit yet, have we? Well, her name’s Chelsea (what a boring name), and she looks like she just stepped out of a shoujo anime (what a boring look). Yeah, not exactly the best change in career paths.

– So, uh, how will long will it be before we see her without her clothes on? Hey, it’s anime, and not only that, it’s Akame ga Kill! You can’t expect the show to have class.

– Najenda: “Until then, I guess we’ll be leveling up here.” I guess if you repeat the joke enough, it’ll eventually be funny. But yeah, our heroes are looking for a new base of operations. Even though it didn’t look as though Stylish managed to tell anyone about what he had found, I guess Night Raid just wants to play it safe.

– Tatsumi makes a comment on how Chelsea looks even less like an assassin than Mine. Uh, have you taken a look at yourself in the mirror, buddy?

– Susanoo can apparently chop down a ton of trees, construct a large building, cook an entire meal, and do everyone’s laundry all by himself in a few short hours. Get it? The show is funny and light-hearted right now, and moments like these draw a sharp contrast to the rest of the anime’s more brutal, blood-filled nature! But seriously, I’m just terribly, terribly bored right now. I mean, just look at this. This is just lameass shounen humor. Then every once in a while, the anime feels the need to be edgy, so people lose all their limbs and shit. I may as well be watching one of those shitty shounens instead, because at least nobody gets raped over there. With a huge slate of fall shows to watch, I’m not sure if there’s a good reason I should stick with this anime. We’ll see how the upcoming schedule shakes out, I guess.

– Back in the capital, Esdeath and her cronies come to the conclusion that Stylish is dead. Good for them. Seryu suddenly starts crying buckets, because he was the one who gave her new limbs and everything. To comfort the girl, Esdeath embraces Seryu from behind and rubs her head. Man, really? Ughhhh. See, if the anime was really this over-the-top, not-serious schlockfest that we could laugh at, then I wouldn’t see this stupid scene where Esdeath and Seryu are trying to engage my sympathies. The only humor here is the fact that fans will idolize a mass murderer simply because she has large breasts, she’s in love with the boring-as-shit male lead, and she cares about her mass murderer underlings.

– According to Najenda, the day of revolution is near. That’s interesting to hear, ’cause we haven’t really seen anything on that front. Plus, it’s not as if this changes anything for our heroes. They’ll just continue to train, continue to go on missions, so on and so forth. Basically, we’re going to maintain the status quo, but shhh, the day of revolution is near!!!

– And naturally, nothing of consequence happens afterwards anyway. The characters cook, the characters eat, the characters make shitty jokes about how Najenda apparently looks like a man (are they blind?), blah blah blah. And oh yeah, Chelsea disguises herself as a cat to steal Mine’s dessert. Yeah, the girl’s Imperial Arms is a make-up box. Are you not entertained? Are you not entertained? Is this not why you are here?

– Then we see Tatsumi and Leone beat up on some lizards. It’s all part of their training, y’see.  Sadly, this is what the show has come to. Yeah, yeah, you level up by defeating the bad guys. Uh-huh, I’ve played JRPGs before; I totally get the reference. But here’s the thing… I’m sure there’s a never-ending supply of bad guys to fill the ranks. For some reason, however, Akame ga Kill! would rather pick on the wild life this week. It’s not even interesting to watch. The bad guy of the week is a predictable and lame storytelling gimmick, but it is still more interesting to watch than some fucking cat and her bottomless cleavage murder a mother lizard and her babies.

– Chelsea drums up some cheap drama when she feels the need to insult the memory of both Sheele and Bulat. They were bad assassins apparently. I’d defend them, but I just realized I didn’t like those characters either. So yeah, good on you, Chelsea!

– With literally nothing better to do, Mine ropes Tatsumi into a scheme to get back at Chelsea. Great episode, you guys.

– Aaaaaaand she’s naked. Of course. It didn’t even take her an entire episode either. Good thing she disguised her nipples away. We wouldn’t want to corrupt the youth with lascivious nipples.

– Lubbock’s genius plan? It’s simple: “You turn invisible, and go in after her from the back.” Yo, that’s ra–… oh right, I’m watching Akame ga Kill! Carry on, then. And of course, our upstanding hero goes along with the plan. Shounen heroes always stand for justice, but when it comes to peeping on a girl, you can just throw morality out the window. This is an honored anime tradition!

– Ah yes, conflicted. What to do, you guys? What to do? This is so hard!

– When Tatsumi approaches the bath, he is utterly shocked to find Susanoo instead of Chelsea. We’ve already covered how Chelsea can disguise herself with her Imperial Arms, but Christ, this guy is dumber than I thought.

– In the end, Chelsea teaches Tatsumi a lesson on how he should conceal his “presence” even though he’s invisible. Our hero then realizes that she only says mean things because she doesn’t want to see her teammates die. Too bad she’ll be the one dying.

– We cut to Esdeath, and she’s still pining for Tatsumi. She then wonders if the heavy feeling in her chest means she’ll soon have to face off against Night Raid. Even the foreshadowing in this anime is lazy. It’s literally just a monologue from one of the bad guys.

– Right before the credits roll, we see a bunch of monsters tear into and eat a bunch of miners in a mine shaft. A hooded figure then says a bunch of generic shit about how he’s acquired interesting toys. OMOSHIROI! OMOSHIROI! Pfft. I guess our bad guy of the week was just fittingly a week late.

Deep breaths… deeeeeeeeeeeep breaths… alright, I’m finally ready for the Captain Earth finale. Wish me luck!

– So, uh, it’s one of those moments where the bad guy explains everything to the good guys and, as a result, the audience as well. But this is Captain Earth, so there are a still a billion questions left unanswered no matter how much Puck yammers on and on. He’s going to install himself in every sentient living being ’cause that makes him God — even cows, dude?  –, and he’s now an Ego Block, and how the source of his power is proportional to the Kiltgang’s strong desires and libido, and an Ego Block can exist so long as there’s desire, and he can use Planetary Signs ’cause anyone with an Ego Block can use one, and… and… blah…

– According to Puck  — yeah, he just keeps talking — Hana won’t be able to leave the Blume for hundreds of years! Hundred! We’ll see her leave it by the end of this episode, haha. I mean, seriously, who are you trying to fool?

– Puck zaps Ai, so that’s cool. He then warps to the Blume to take control of it. It’s weird watching a cube try to be threatening. Like it’s silly, so you want to laugh, but it’s not that silly. So what’s the word for it…? Oh right, it’s just stupid.

– Congratulations! You’ve taken over the Blume! Here, receive your prize:

– This entire time, Puck is cackling over and over because… I guess it’s super funny or something. Oh wait, he’s Puck from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, so he’s totally being all trickster-y. The allusions are strong with this one!

– Now she’s a troll doll with a dick?

– So Puck enters Hana’s body, gets himself a new mecha (it’s just the Blume transformed) in the process, and a new name as well. Don’t call him Puck! He’s now Robin Goodfellow! Who was, uh, Puck… shit. But now Puck has Hana’s voice, but it’s deeper. And yeah, he looks like Hana too except meaner. So for all of you guys who think Puck was super awesome, it’s hilarious how he is barely in this episode. He stuck around for a few short minutes before morphing into yet another hot anime babe. You’ll see him morph back into an Ego Block, but… well, you’ll see.

– Oh yeah, the Blume mecha is like a hundred times bigger than every other mecha. Why? ‘Cause the Blume is big. That’s it.

– Robin Goodfellow is disappointed, however, when she couldn’t use Hana’s old Livlaster. And because of that and that alone, the bad guy will now destroy everything that has touched a Livlaster. That’s convenient, I guess.

– Then, the moment we’ve all be waiting: the good guys fight with the Kiltgang robots in the hopes of bringing the true baddie down. But they haven’t really formed an alliance. They’re just sort of fighting the same enemy. Moreover, Amara doesn’t like how Setsuna keeps talking about how they should do an Ego Block explosion. Uguu, we’ll no longer be immortal sex-bots if that happens!

– Setsuna explains why she and the rest of her kind can’t use the Livlasters: “…we’re monsters with swollen egos….” Okay then. And yeah, it was obvious that Setsuna would be the first to change sides. Still, I wish this had been better developed. Like maybe she should’ve voiced her concerns with the others more. Like maybe she should’ve engaged some of them in an ideological discussion on why they’re doing what they’re doing. After all, she’s supposed to be their leader right? But instead, Setsuna kept her concerns mostly to herself. Then all of a sudden, she has a change of heart in the last episode. I’m just saying that these seeds of doubt could’ve been better cultivated. Instead, the Kiltgang spent too much time dicking around.

– For instance, Moco suddenly leaps to Daichi’s defense when the hero was about to be destroyed by one of Robin’s powerful attacks. Why? ‘Cause this is thanks… “[t]hanks for teaching [her] that the wind could feel good.” Yeah, I’ve seen Moco stare wistfully off into space as she thought about the wind. But like the other Designer Children, her character was never developed. So for her to suddenly jump to Daichi’s aid like this, it’s jarring. Welp, this is the last episode. Time to flip a switch!

– And it’s not like Captain Earth couldn’t have done this. Captain Earth could’ve really explored the Designer Children’s wavering faith in their mission. But instead, we focused on the goddamn Ark Faction of all things. And for what? Are the Ark Faction going to rear their ugly heads in this episode too? I bet you they won’t. I bet you we wasted weeks after weeks after weeks on those bastards sitting in a dark room, and it won’t amount to shit. Meanwhile, the Designer Children are arriving at epiphanies, and all we’ll have to work on is, “Gosh, wasn’t running a crepe truck fun?”

– Amara naturally sacrifices his Ego Block for Moco’s sake. ‘Cause they used to kiss. And the crepe truck. The motherfucking crepe truck. Afterwards, Setsuna hilariously decides to engage her allies in a discussion on the meaning of life.

– Finally, the Kiltgang perform an Ego Block explosion, which means… it means… nothing, really. Robin is still around. The problem is, Captain Earth has a terrible visual narrative. As a result, Robin has to sit there and explain to us that her strength has greatly diminished as a result of that Ego Block explosion. What’s the point of having action if you still need to spell everything out afterwards?

– So Robin’s going to jump to Earth and restore her energy. Teppei and Akari tell Daichi to go after Robin and get Hana back. After much exciting hyperspace flying, Daichi gets between Earth and Robin. The OP song starts playing, so you know shit’s about to get real. A cannon appears from the Earth Engine’s head, which Daichi uses to blast a hole in the Blume’s arm. He then enters the Blume through the arm. Woo.

– Daichi soon finds himself in… uh, the core of the Blume or something? Apparently, there’s oxygen in there. And gravity too. Yo, Ego Blocks need perfect Earth conditions to survive. I’m surprised you guys didn’t know that!

– There, Daichi confronts Robin, i.e. Evil Hana. Robin tries to bend Daichi to her will, but naturally, all you have to do is smooch the fuck out of any hot anime babe and she’ll turn the corner. I wonder if Puck ever got curious with Kube’s body and got with a man. Probably not. I’m sure some rogue AI totally has a sexuality and is thus hetero to the max, yo. Uguu, this is Puck’s first kiss with a boy. Please be gentle…

– So Daichi kisses the evil out of Hana. I’m surprised he didn’t just fuck the crazy out of her, but right, right… a show about uncontrollable libidos can’t actually have any sex in it. Puck goes back to his Ego Block. More importantly, Hana melts once more in Daichi’s arms. We see a bunch of flashbacks just to remind you how awesome lame their relationship was. Cool.

– Then together, our couple penetrates Puck with their laser beams. They even cross streams, so you know they have good chemistry! Still, it’s really that easy. Apparently, all you have to do is shoot at Puck’s Ego Block with a pair of Livlasters.

– Captain Earth tries to pull one last bullshit on us: Hana’s hand slips from Daichi as they attempt to escape from the exploding Blume. All the side characters start looking concerned and shit. Obviously, we soon see Daichi and Hana…

…but where are they? Are they even still alive? ‘Cause if they are, again, where are they?

– But who really cares, because the show’s over, folks. The show is over, and I can forget Captain Earth ever existed. Maybe I could have tried harder to deconstruct this show’s story, but I doubt that would’ve been a very fruitful endeavor.

Final thoughts?

Well, I don’t even know what to think. Captain Earth simply refused to deliver. So what are the Livlasters really? Shrug. What will the Designer Children do now? Shrug. Where did the Kiltgang even come from? Shrug. Since we spent so much time on the Ark Faction, how do they feel about these events? Shrug. What will Globe do now? Just disband? Shrug. Who the hell was this blue-haired girl we kept seeing? Shrug. Again, are Daichi and Hana still alive? Shrug. Even if they landed back on Earth, how did Pitz join them so quickly? Shrug.

But honestly, none of these questions would really matter if Captain Earth could hit any sort of thematic conclusion. That’s not what we got, though. The show stalled and stalled and stalled, but when it finally came time for the final episode to air, it suddenly felt as though the story ran out of time! In the end, Daichi and Hana protected Earth, they kissed, and that’s it. Way to go, Bones. And what are you guys doing next? Oh right, Chaika again. Blah…

So uh, I guess this show’s over too. For some reason, I thought that this would be a two-cour series. Can you really blame me, though? We haven’t gotten anywhere. There are still so many unresolved plot threads like Shuko’s crush on Yoichi. More importantly, we’ve only just uncovered the true source of Kou’s trauma. I guess Futaba giving Kou a pep talk is enough of a resolution. And really, this just confirms everything I had said last week. Kou’s problem is a serious problem, but all we get is a pep talk. Kou’s father finally rears his ugly face out of nowhere, pats Kou on the head, then all of a sudden, the show is over! Clearly, the story isn’t over. I know that Ao Haru Ride is based on an ongoing manga series. Nevertheless, we’ve apparently hit enough of a breakthrough that Production I.G felt comfortable ending the adaptation here. And that breakthrough came from a goddamn pep talk. Next time someone’s hung up on the death of their mother, I’ll just tell them to ganbatte it up. Anyway, the resolution here reminds me of why I dislike these romance stories, so permit me to rant for a bit.

At one point, Futaba tries to let go and look at Kou’s face, but he holds onto her even tighter. “Don’t let go yet,” he tells her. He needs her. He now desires her. Even though he’s been pushing her way for the majority of the series, he is now pulling her back in. They’re not going to truly connect over a single pep talk, but Futaba got the next best thing: Kou now needs her like a drug. The thing is, they don’t have a relationship. They’re friends who kind of… have feelings for each other. But for all the times he’s helped her out, he’s also been pretty mean to her just as many times. That isn’t really love, though. Love is something you work at for a long, long time. Love takes work. Love is a series of mutual actions between two people (or more if you’re poly, I guess). Love is more than just two people staring at each other from time to time and a running monologue inside the heroine’s head. Love is this special bond between two people that others don’t fully understand. Basically, there was never any love here. At the very least, we don’t have time nor the interest to portray actual love.

So instead, these romances cut to the chase. The key here is that Kou now desires Futaba. That’s what she’s been fighting for this whole time. She desires his desiring. We’re not here to cultivate actual love. We’re here to cultivate desire, because it’s quick and it’s passionate. It engages our emotions right away. The true conceit here is that we’re looking at love at all! The truth we don’t want to admit is that love is fucking boring. When your girlfriend has had a hard day, you make her a cup of coffee without her having to ask you, you instinctively give her a shoulder rub without even thinking about it, you listen to her when she rattles on and on about her day about the people at her work — people you’ve never even met before nor will you ever meet — and you somehow don’t feel bored out of your fucking mind (okay, maybe you’re a little bored but it doesn’t bother you), blah blah blah. Nobody wants to fucking watch that. Real love is awesome in the moment — it’s awesome to experience — but real love isn’t something we want to look at as outsiders. In all honesty, we watch passion and we call it love.

These romances can’t help but cut to the chase, compartmentalize desire from love, then repackage it as love. Love itself is supposed to be this endless feeling of euphoria, but it’s endless euphoria between two people. It’s so fucking hard to translate that experience to other people, especially people who are not or have not been in love themselves. So the ‘fun’ comes from the endless desiring. This is why the illusion is shattered when the couple gets together. The story ends as soon as the chasing stops. The story ends when it’s no longer 99% passion and 1% love. Sure, love still has desire and passion. I’m not denying that. I’m not saying I don’t desire my girlfriend just because I’ve been with her all these years. Love still has those moments where you sweep her off her feet, but c’mon, that shit doesn’t happen every single time two people see each other. The problem with our stories, however, is that it does have to happen every time the two main characters cross paths, or we get bored. It’s all about the build-up to the relationship and nothing else. The actual love itself is vestigial to all this.

These romances know full well that the actual relationship, whenever it occurs, will never live up to the hype. How can it? When you spend 99% of the story building up to the actual relationship, how can it actually be worth the trouble? Still, this has never been a problem for these romance stories because — it bears repeating — both the actual relationship and love itself are totally vestigial. Why? Because we’re satisfied with it. We don’t give a fuck. We’re not here to to see two people connect. We’re here for our short burst of endorphins by imagining ourselves in Futaba’s place. Yeah, give that tearful speech to the hot bishie. Give it so hard, he will hug you and refuse to let go. Bam, done, euphoria achieved. No matter how much an asshole the bishie has been all series long, when the bishie embraces the heroine and the insert song comes to a crescendo, it is like a Pavlovian trick to tell us that, against all evidence, true love has been achieved. We just have to close the book on this story now to maintain that illusion. As long as the story ends now, no one will notice that we have no clue how the actual relationship is supposed to proceed.

Naturally, the manga series is ongoing, so the relationship has merely been deferred. Basically, something has come along and replaced Kou’s trauma. I haven’t read the manga nor do I plan on doing so, but since I likely won’t watch a sequel to this anime anyway, I looked up some spoilers. It turns out Futaba starts dating someone else after Kou rejected her. But even though she’s with this other guy, and even though this other guy sounds like he’s a good person, she still has feelings for Kou. Well, ain’t that some bullshit? But it makes sense, because what incites the flames of passion even more than forbidden desires? In fact, a love triangle is even better than Kou’s mental trauma! The desire becomes stronger than ever, because that desire should not even be! And because the desire is stronger than ever, the illusion of love too becomes even stronger than ever. In some bullshit, counterintuitive way, the fact that Futaba still has feelings for Kou even though she’s with a decent guy only proves that her love for Kou is the realest shit you’ll ever see.

Sometimes, a relationship will be going well, but people nevertheless start to feel antsy. They think the relationship itself is too good to be true. Why aren’t we fighting? Why aren’t we breaking up so you can fight for our relationship? Why isn’t there more passion in this relationship even if that passion is often some combination of anger, sadness, and resentment? Isn’t passion the same thing as love? So even if I hate you now, doesn’t that mean I really love you? So people break up because it doesn’t feel right. It doesn’t align with what they know. It is not the same as the love they’ve seen on TV or read in books. Well, ain’t that a bitch.

I always forget that this anime started late, so as a result, it’s only on its eleventh episode. And you know what that means: after all of the season’s better anime will have come and gone, we will still have Seirei Tsukai no Blade Dance and its bevy of tsunderekkos by our side. The anime places its hands delicately on yours as if to ask if you’re ready for the fall season and its five or six upcoming harem anime. Not only that, we’ll still have Sword Art Online II, which is really just a harem pretending to be an adventure anime series about MMOs. My point is, Blade Dance is here to guide us the rest of the way. Anime fans whined, pissed and moaned about all the supposedly fujoshi-pandering shows of the summer.¹ But across the river, the fall season awaits! It turns out Blade Dance was merely an amuse bouche, i.e. a small little treat at the start of the meal to tickle our appetites. If we can just tough it out for another week or two, the Uguu Revolution will save us all!² But enough talk. Let’s focus our attention on the latest developments in Kamito’s life.

If you’re expecting anything earth-shattering to occur, well, what is wrong with you? Why would anything earth-shattering ever occur in these harem shows? Basically, Kamito continues to spend more time with Fahrenfart as Claire runs off to sulk. The harem lead even holds Fahrenfart’s hand at one point, so naturally, she freaks out and demands that he takes responsibility. Responsibility of what? Hand babies? Needless to say, the girls in this show can only display two types of emotions: unbridled rage and irrational bouts of embarrassment. Oh right, they’re tsunderekkos. Eventually, Fahrenfart reveals why she became a knight, and well, nobody cares. Oh, it has something to do with Velsaria, i.e. her sister. Unfortunately, ever since Velsaria got her ass handed to her by a boy disguised as a girl — proving once again that boys rule — she hasn’t quite been right in the head. So, uh, Fahrenfart wants to show her sister what it means to be a true knight or something.

All of a sudden, the town is under attack. Whoever’s been handing out Cursed Seals got what they wanted: spirits are now on a rampage as Vel’Koz and Malphite lay waste to their surroundings. Kamito and company try to quell the threat, but he is heavily injured when he heroically dives in front of an attack to save a little girl. That’s the first and last time any harem lead will be penetrated by a tentacle for a girl’s sake, I’ll tell you what. Claire eventually comes around to lend a hand, because, well, she’s not that irrational! But before the injured Kamito and his two haremettes could do anything, a powerful attack from the sky takes out all the baddies. Oh good, someone’s saved the day! Well, not exactly. The problem is that this attack also injured a bunch innocent bystanders as well. After the smoke clears, our heroes see that the culprit was none other than Fahrenfart’s sister.

The cold, blonde knight doesn’t see why everyone’s so mad. Hey, look, she took out the baddies. What more do you people want? Oh, not kill the innocent bystanders? Pfft. You guys are sooooo demanding. If they deserved to be saved, they wouldn’t have died. Perfect logic. She then insults Fahrenfart for being a bad knight, which really grinds Kamito’s gears. Nobody insults my haremettes, buddy. Nobody! Except, of course, if you’re one of my haremettes too. After all, Kamito’s girls insult each other all the time and nobody gives a shit. Basically, if you allow yourself to be under the harem lead’s fold, anything goes. In any case, you all know where this is headed. Kamito and the rest of Team Scarlet must stop Fahrenfart’s sister at all costs. There’s just one problem: Team Scarlet only has three members. He still tries to attack her, but in his injured state, she just knocks him out of the way like a rag doll. That’s what you get for taking a tentacle attack in place of a little girl.

When we next see Kamito, he wakes up once again in his bed. The guy has a penchant for being knocked out for extended periods at a time. Still, he and Claire quickly make up. He compliments her chocolate, she blushes, blah blah blah. Why has Claire come around? Has she actually matured over the course of the story? Or is the show just coming to an end, so we don’t have time to dick around with her tantrums? It’s obviously the latter. Could you imagine what a 2-cour version of this show would be like? It’s enough to send shivers down my spine. Anyway, Kamito gives her a shitty pendant, and all is well. Claire even believes he hung out with Fahrenfart just so he could afford to buy her present. Shh, I won’t tell anyone if you won’t. Afterwards, Fianna shows up to inform the gang that Team Scarlet will indeed have to face off against Velsaria. Claire thus swallows her pride and finally recruits both Rinslet and Fahrenfart to the team. There’s this big sobfest between Fahrenfart and her former team members, but we don’t give a shit about that.

After Fahrenfart gives the harem lead yet another box of chocolate — dude’s going to get so fat — that about does it for this week’s episode of Seirei Tsukai no Blade Dance. Next week should be the oh-so-exciting conclusion. I find it somewhat amusing that we don’t even have a real villain to close out this show. Even Seikoku no Dragonar had the harem lead go up against his loli-turned-dragon. Here, we’re just going to battle some dinky knight because the rest of the candidates failed horribly. For instance, Jio looked like he’d be the final boss of the series for a while, but he eventually got owned like a chump. As for Restia, she just hangs out in the background and grins like an idiot. As a result, Velsaria kind of had to show up out of nowhere. Hilarious. These harem shows can’t even cook up a proper finale. Oh well… the disappointment here will only prepare us for the disappoint to come in the fall season. If I bring back Harem Hill, at least it won’t just be a pathetic race between two shows.

¹ Let’s be honest with ourselves. Do fujoshis outnumber otakus? Probably not. So why would you make the financial decision to cater to fujoshis and piss off otakus? But do you know what group does outnumber both fujoshis and otakus altogether? Women in general. If anime’s going to grow, it needs broad appeal. And like it or not, part of achieving broad appeal is, well, catering to the other 51% of the population. Y’know, da “wimmenz.” But the problem is bigger than this. Like every other medium out there, most anime series are shit. Most anime series are snooze-inducing slice-of-life shitfests about a bunch of scantily-clad girls talking like babies. But these shit anime nevertheless get a pass because they’re full of moe and male-oriented fanservice. Sexual urge, like always, trumps all else. The industry stays afloat on the backs of otakus forking over money for ridiculously-priced boxsets and anime-related paraphernalia just so they can own a piece of their favorite waifus.

So what happens when we replace male-oriented fanservice with female-oriented fanservice? Has the quality of the stories magically changed? Has the animation quality suddenly gotten worse? Hell no. If anything, Free! is one of the better animated shows in recent years. And yes, Free! is a fucking snoozefest too, but that’s the thing. It’s not as though anime will magically become shit just because they are increasingly become increasingly gay. Rather, these shows have always been shit. The only difference is in who they appeal to. So the outrage over shows like Free! is really born out of the fear that the hardcore anime fan will lose their basically-sexual urge to purchase anime. Replace the male-oriented fanservice with female-oriented fanservice, and what do you get? The same fucking anime except that it now caters to women. And without the illusion of male-oriented fanservice to cover up all the blemishes, the fan comes to the realization that he never actually liked anime in the first place. He was only in it for the unthreatening tits — the tits that won’t turn him down like they do in real life.

The impotent rage against fujoshis and cute boys in anime is thus a futile need to protect their hobby from themselves: “Please don’t make me realize that anime was always shit. I’ve already spent too much money on pillows, boxsets, and wall scrolls to turn back now.”

² Nah.

The show still isn’t over! Why is it not over? She can’t keep getting away with this!

– The Akashi-Heito duo saves the day for all of about thirty seconds, then the latter goes back to being the same creepy, rapey bastard he’s always been. Sad part is, Okada killed Aoshi off just to squeeze this guy back into the picture. I don’t understand why he continues to be such a necessary component to the story. Like what would have been so bad with just keeping Heito dead and sticking with Aoshi till the end of the story?

– But let’s just pull random shit out of our ass to justify this asshole’s existence! First of all, Heito was born with high resonance. Second, becoming Necrometal has only enhanced the previous fact. Oh boy! It’s not good enough that Akashi was paired up with his brother. Nuh-uh. That’s why we’ve brought back this totally original character.

– Here’s the biggest twist of all: Heito ain’t even a LIM. His spirit is just drawn to Akashi. How does this work? Well, y’see, Akashi is just a really sensitive soul, and… ugh, does anyone even care for the explanation? No? Good. I’m going to move on. This is the 23rd episode. I don’t have the patience for this bullshit, especially when it feels like things are just being made up at the last second to justify a really dumb turn of events.

– So Akashi tries to do battle with the Corpse, which has only grown since we last saw it. Why? Shrug. Does it even matter anymore? The entire time, Heito’s just molesting Akashi’s body. But right, right, Akashi’s the one’s drawing Heito here, so it’s kind of like he’s asking for it.

– The battle is pretty… ugly, because everything’s so dark and monochrome. I’m just watching white and black mechas slam into each other. Seriously, just take a look at this:

What an eyesore.

– The Corpse then picks up and flies away. Just like that.

– Akashi now finds himself face-to-face with Tsugumi. It’s like listening to a bunch of babies talk. Tsugumi tells Akashi that the deity will now punish the sinners. Naturally, Akashi counters that he’s a sinner too. Blah blah blah. There aren’t really competing ideologies here. No one has anything interesting to say. It’s all just super basic, and I’m fittingly bored out of my mind.

– Tsugumi doesn’t understand why everything bad happened to her instead of Sasame. After all, they’re so alike! Well, y’know, except for the batshit crazy part. But really, what’s the goal here? I’m not talking about Tsugumi’s goal. Naw, I’m talking about Okada’s goal. What does she want from the audience anyway? Is it for us to sympathize with Tsugumi? Is that what Okada wants? If it is, she’s failing hardcore. I don’t see how I’m supposed to feel sorry for Tsugumi when she’s 99% responsible for everything that has happened to her. Who told her to follow the elders’ orders so strictly? Who told her to flip her shit when she couldn’t find her friends after a game of hide-and-seek? Who told her to proceed to sit in the Lightless Realm for years upon years, doing nothing but crying and feeling sorry for herself? Seriously, it’s got to be fucking boring in there, isn’t it? I’m just sitting here, watching the anime, and I’m bored out of my mind. I thus can’t even imagine what it’d be like to be Tsugumi. Even if you’re the craziest, yandere-iest bitch in the world, who the fuck sits in one place for years with nothing to do? Why wouldn’t you just go, “Man, fuck this. I’m outta here,” and leave? That’s why Tsugumi’s character sucks. That’s why I can’t feel sorry for her. Any other person, no matter how crazy they were, would’ve just taken some goddamn initiative. When something is painful, we move away. Meanwhile, all Tsugumi did was sit there and fucking cry. This is supposed to be the tragic villain at the center of all this mess? This is what you have to give us, Okada? C’mon, you’re fucking with me, right?

– Akashi tells the girl that she’s trapped in her past. She ain’t trapped in her past. She put herself there.

– It’s not like Akashi is any goddamn better. He closed his heart off as a kid because they couldn’t be there for his birthday? Puh-leeze. You guys are just a bunch of whiny losers.

– But on a more important level, what is your life like that you can even write something like this? Between Akashi, Tsugumi, and Mahmu, it just strikes me that they’re all self-absorbed, self-pitying idiots.

– Then right before Akashi can talk some sense into Tsugumi, the equally crazy Minashi shows up. He reveals that he’s been infected with Necrometal, but it doesn’t really change much. His stance is still the same: “Let’s become one, everyone!” I get it. His sister died along with her dream. Minashi is now hellbent on realizing his sister’s dream, even if it means accomplishing some perverted version of it. And that’s really just it. All the motivations in this fucking show boils down to, “Well, they’re insane now.” Why is Minashi doing all of this? Well, he’s been driven mad by the truth behind his sister’s death! Why is Tsugumi causing all this trouble? Well, she’s been driven insane by staying in the Lightless Realm for so long, thinking that everyone had betrayed her. And she’s a little boy crazy too. Why was Natsuiri such a bastard? Well, people didn’t believe in him, so he went mad off of that. What’s wrong with Heito? You get the picture. You get the goddamn picture. We don’t need compelling motivations that make sense. We just need to make everyone a nutjob, so you can then have them do whatever you want them to do. This is such hack storytelling.

– For a while, Akashi was trapped in his own psyche (I think), but he just screamed super loud that he is willing to resonate with anyone. As a result, he resonated with his own damn mecha and thus escaped back to the Lightless Realm. Yippee, what a prize.

– Akashi and Minashi proceed to fight each other with their mechas, but because they’ve both become one with their respective mechas — Minashi has pretty much ditched Sasame — we need to see them wrestle each other in real life too. So, uh, Minashi stabs Akashi in his inner… thigh?

I guess so.

– Akashi has Minashi on the ropes, but hey, what kind of bad guy would Minashi be if he didn’t have a trump card? The latter thus calls forth the Corpse, which has now turned into this behemoth of a thing. The Corpse then proceeds to suck everything into its giant maw, including our hero. The message is still the same. Everyone will become one and there will be no corruption (magically). And that’s it for the episode. Next week’s episode will likely the last, and we can only be thankful for that. I’m expecting Minashi’s sister to magically appear out of nowhere and talk sense into him.

How can the good guys just accept Art into their group with open arms? Are you kidding me? Sure, he isn’t directly responsible for any of the deaths all series long, but he still aided Freemium in their acts of terrorism. Art’s actions precipitated a chain of events that led to the suffering and deaths of many, so why isn’t he in jail? And if you say he did eventually go to jail as evidenced by his longer hair in the epilogue, then why wasn’t he in jail longer? Everyone looks as though they’re still around the same age. Art thus plunged the entire city into chaos, and a few years (at best) is all he got? Right, right, we’re celebrating his release. The prodigal terrorist has returned home, guys. The last few weeks have been nothing but a bunch of downer episodes, but don’t get me wrong. It’s not like I disliked them! I always felt that the first season wasn’t serious enough, and at times, the second season goofed off too much too. But I thought the story nailed the tone just right in the last few episodes, and I was hoping for an epic conclusion. Instead, the magical otouto reappears to turn everything back to normal, and we’re back to being besties again! Yay!

In fact, I think the show has a penchant for letdowns. I wouldn’t say I expected Momoka, a.k.a. Saikyou, to go out with a bang, but it just feels as though she gave up too easily. Oh, well, I didn’t change along with the world, and now everything’s boring. Best just to end it now! But she’s not the biggest problem. Ultimately, Skill is what makes this episode so disappointing. It looked as though Art had achieved such a complete victory. It took him weeks and weeks to move all the chess pieces in place. Then once he did, he deleted everyone’s Minimums, and it was like the wind had just been knocked out of the good guys. So what do I want in return? I want the good guys to work just as hard to bring things back to normal. I don’t know how they’d do this, but that’s the only way you can do justice to the preceding episodes. Unfortunately, that’s not what we get. Skill shows up — from Nice’s heart, no less — and restores everyone’s Minimums and Egos. Just like that, man. Just like that. And, well, that’s it. C’mon, that’s just lame. The bad guy flips the switch, then the good guys simply flip it back. What’s the point in that? What was all that build-up for if Skill could just undo everything in seconds? I realize we only have twelve episodes to tell the story, but the ending just felt rushed.

Lerche definitely did a better job than NAZ. The animation is much better this time around, and the same can be said about the storytelling as well. Still, Hamatora as a whole is tough to recommend. You can’t really watch the second season without watching the first season, but large swathes of the first season was aimless and boring. There were so many inconsequential side stories (like the one at the bathhouse), but the worst part is, you couldn’t really skip them either. The narrative liked to squeeze in short but important plot-developing bits with Moral in every episode, so even if you wanted to skip stuff that felt like filler, you couldn’t. In the end, the first season became a chore to watch and I stopped blogging it from week to week. But again, if you didn’t watch it, then you were likely lost with the second season. Having said that, the second season wasn’t perfect either. There were still too many goofy moments interspersed with the more serious moments. Like why am I watching silly hijinks at the hospital? Or the good guys staging a play when Art is delivering a powerful speech? I know the goal there was to develop the relationship between Nice and Hajime, but I can’t help wondering, “Don’t we have better things to do?”

In a season with plenty of shows about people with special powers — and thus being ostracized from society for said powers — Tokyo Ghoul did it best by trying to focus on the personal side of the story… for the most part. It still faltered, but it succeeded where it could. Tokyo ESP, on the other hand, is pretty bad. Rinka is not a compelling protagonist, and the bad guys are pretty unconvincing. So where does Hamatora fit in? I feel like it straddles the line between the two aforementioned anime series. Hamatora did a pretty decent job developing Art’s motivations, so it beats Tokyo ESP out on that front. The ending, however, was such a letdown. It will please the people who want a happy ending to everything — minus all the of people who died from Freemium’s actions, of course — but to me, it just felt like a cop-out. We ran out of time, so let’s just trot out the magical otouto. So flashbacks dominated the early part of this episode as the narrative quickly tries to develop Skill’s backstory. But when you thrust a character on me like this, it’s hard to engage my sympathies. And it’s even harder when Skill just undoes everything Art had worked so hard to accomplish. Obviously, I don’t agree with Art, but I just think he deserved a better send off than a half-ass suicide attempt because he failed in a matter of seconds.