Angels and demons locked in an eternal struggle for dominance, huh? That’s an age-old tale for sure. In any case, it’s character development time in this week’s episode because if we’re going to go on a wild journey with these characters, we might as well know what they’re all about. We thus see that although lots of people seem to call her a demon, Amira can’t even hold her own around alcohol. One sip was enough to get her drunk, which Favaro almost used to his advantage. Oh, but don’t worry. He wasn’t going to do anything perverted or lecherous with the cute girl as one might expect from anime. This isn’t really your standard anime. Rather, he just wants to kill her. Of course, she’s insanely powerful; far more power than Favaro, in fact. As a result, he can’t really best her in an actual battle. So instead, he tries to kill her in a variety of ways, directly or indirectly. Unfortunately for our protagonist, it would seem that fate itself is conspiring against him. At one point in the episode, even a horse forces Favaro to save Amira when he had just sold her out to the royal knights a few moments ago. Again, it would appear that these two are destined to stick together at least for now.

Like most kisses, that kiss from last week’s episode was a way to form a contract. As a result, Favaro must tell Amira how to reach Helheim, or he’ll forever carry that silly demon tail on him. He even tries to cut it off with his own dagger to no avail. As such, our rogue has only two options: he can either help the girl or, again, kill her and perhaps the tail will go away. But can he really kill someone who’s only looking for her own mother? It’s not the most compelling backstory, but don’t you feel sorry for a girl who literally gets sad when she sees a young animal run around with its mother? In fact, Amira really is rather innocent, which I’m not particularly keen about. Still, I can’t say she isn’t a sympathetic character. MAPPA has done a great job in animating the girl’s various facial expressions, and this really goes a long way in making the girl come alive. In general, this seems to be one of the show’s primary strengths. The characters are just rather likable. Hell, as selfish as he might seem at times, Favaro is still a rather charismatic fellow, but I’ll get to that in a bit. My point is, the anime has done a great job in getting me interested in these characters, and best of all, they’re not high schoolers.

If there’s anything that standardly anime-ish about this episode, however, it’s the fact that even though our girl is a powerful “mahou shoujo” (if only in the sense that she can transform and kick major ass), at the same time, she’s utterly naive and clueless about the world around her. Once again, we see her destroy one of Favaro’s enemies in one fell swoop. Even though she desperately wants to reach Helhelm, he convinces her that they need some funds for the trip. I can’t help but wonder if he might continue to take advantage of her power in future episodes to make himself rich. In any case, they take a detour to hunt down some giant goat-like creature. Needless to say, our “mahou shoujo” didn’t even break a sweat in the ensuing “battle” (it was too short to be a real battle). So perhaps she is a demon. Then again, perhaps she’s something even greater than just your bog standard hell creature. We learn this week that she’s stolen a God key, and should two God keys come together, “it will awaken.” They must be talking about Bahamut, huh? And Bahamut is still imprisoned up in Helheim, isn’t it?

So you can’t help but wonder if Bahamut is perhaps Amira’s mother. The thing is, Amira doesn’t really belong on either side of this angels vs. demon divide. The angels are after her for the God key, but so are the demons. In fact, the demons outright want to kill her, so it’s hard to think she’s one of their kind. And remember, even though angels and demons are almost always eternal enemies in our stories, we actually saw them work together to subdue Bahamut in last week’s episode. So what is Amira, really? Yes, she has a demon tail, but at the same time, she has no real ally… except for the foolish Kaisar and that kickass horse (it really was a pity that they had to leave that horse behind), I suppose. Even Favaro wants nothing to do with the cute girl, but apparently, Kaisar has fallen in love with Amira at first sight. He might not like it when he finds out who she really is, but then again, we don’t really know who she really is either. All we have are some clues to go on. The head of the royal knights seems to have the same pendant that we see around Amira’s neck. There’s certainly a connection there, but what connection? We can only wait and see.

But speaking of Kaisar, we see a bit more into his character, too. Yeah, he falls in love with Amira, because he fancies himself a (white) knight. But really, it’s just his archetype. He fulfills that role of a duty-bound character since Favaro is the direct opposite. Furthermore, Kaisar’s role in this show is to play the straight man to the trickster in Favaro. The straight man is what makes the humor work. His interactions with Favaro wouldn’t be so effective if he wasn’t so straitlaced. Again, Kaisar was once a noble, but this time, we learn that his family was not only disgraced, but publicly executed. Worst of all, he blames all of this on Favaro. Really? I’m sure Favaro played a part in Kaisar becoming a bounty hunter, which is a career that people don’t seem to look fondly on in this universe, but did Favaro go so far as to get Kaisar’s family killed? That, I’m not so sure about. I just wonder if our protagonist is truly that unscrupulous. Then again, he’s repeatedly tried to kill Amira in this week’s episode, and she’s a rather innocent character. So who knows? I guess the jury’s still out on the guy.

Favaro’s clearly a morally grey character, and while some people seem to find him annoying, I think he’s a refreshing character. I mean, he’s supposed to be annoying. He’s supposed to be selfish. He’s supposed to be full of shit. Essentially, he’s a bit of anti-hero, which is why in last week’s episode, I even compared him to Captain Jack Sparrow. Again, he’s not as flamboyant — well, he’s a little “boyant” — but you can see how they sort of share the same character traits. Favaro doesn’t really buy Amira’s story, but more importantly, he’s a rogue. As a protagonist, he’s a nice change-of-pace from your standard, wholesome anime hero who feels this weird, unnatural compulsion to help everyone in need. Instead, Favaro’s just a scoundrel in this world filled with nobles, angels, and demons. He’s a nobody, so he’s got look out for numero uno. This philosophy is probably the only reason he’s made it this far. Still, whereas we’ve learn a bit about Amira and Kaisar’s past, Favaro is still a bit of a mystery. Hopefully, this will be rectified in future episodes.

Anyway, we got another well-executed episode. So far, this is my favorite anime this far. But of course, it’s early, so like always, take everything I say with a grain of salt.

Boy, I hope you guys are ready for an insanely long post, because two more shows join us this week: Daitoshokan no Hitsujikai and Trinity Seven. Three if you count Madan no Ou to Vanadis. It would’ve even been four, but it turns out Girlfriend (Kari) isn’t a harem. For those who haven’t watched it, it lacks that one crucial thing you kind of need for a harem: the harem lead. Hell, if anything, Girlfriend (Kari) has yuri overtones, but that’s neither here nor there. But hey, I’m not complaining. It’s not like I really wanted to compare and contrast six different shows for one post every week. In fact, this post is so long, I don’t expect anyone to read it from start to finish. Oh well, if all you guys do is read about the one or two shows that interest you this season, that’s fine by me.

Anyway, before we get to our four harem anime (I already wrote about Madan no Ou to Vanadis here so that’s why you won’t see down below), let’s take a look at the standings after just one week:

Grisaia no Kaijitsu: 6 points
Ushinawareta MIrai no Motomete: 5 points
Madan no Ou to Vanadis: 3 points
Daitoshokan no Hitsujikai: 0 points
Trinity Seven: 0 points

Madan no Ou to Vanadis wasn’t in last week’s poll, but I’m going to just assume it would’ve gotten third place behind the other two shows. And between Ushinawareta MIrai no Motomete and Grisaia no Kaijitsu, the former received a whopping 68% of the votes. As a result, you’re probably wondering why the latter has more points. Well, I think my opinion should count for something… so every week, my least favorite harem anime episode will get an extra two points. As such, four plus two gets the six points that you see above! Isn’t math fun!

Alright, now that we got that out of the way, let’s take a look at this week’s episodes…

Daitoshokan no Hitsujikai Ep. 1

– Goddamn… how are we so supposed to tell these stupid shows apart? Well, this harem takes place at a mighty library. Yeah, really, a library.

– Gaze upon the harem lead when he was nothing more than a shota. Just a shota! And by golly did he love to read back then (and he still does now). He read that book with great intent. No, wait, mega intent! ‘Cause I can really tell when people read a book super hard.

– Yo, question number one. Magic books. Magic books with everything in this world written in them. Everything, man. Even how fat your mother is. Where do you suppose you would find such a book? Duh, in a magic library, dummy.

– Sweet fucking animation already. We’ve already seen terrible, terrible animation from Grisaia no Kajitsu and Ushinawareta Mirai wo Motomete. I’m glad to see Daitoshokan no Hitsujikai doesn’t intend to let us down in this department.

– Yo, question number two. How do you get a library card at said magic library, huh? C’mon, genius, everyone knows you gotta be nice to people to get access to a magic library. And to prove my point, we’re going to watch an anime series in which the main character is nice to a whole bunch of girls in order to get into their pants. Wait, wait… this is anime, so they don’t even wear pants. You’ll get into their skirts. Wow, didn’t take you for a pervert, but here we are.

– Even after our harem lead has grown up, Kyotaro continues to wax poetic about books: “Books shed light unto the darkness. Darkness retreats one letter, one line, one page at a time….” Yeah, uh-huh, sure. Books are just a medium. There are good books and there are bad books. There are plenty of books that do nothing but spread ignorance and hatred. You’re not doing anything but being self-important about your hobby.

– We eventually meet Tsugumi, a shaking haremette who needs to steel her nerves in order to pass out some flyers. Too bad no one cares. No, that’s not me being mean. Really, no one around her cares. Well, I wouldn’t care either if the flyer was for nothing but a “Shiomi Happy Project: “Won’t you make school fun with me?”

– Our harem lead gets a text message from… “the Shepherd.” What, has he keeping an eye on this kid this entire time? And how did he get the kid’s number? Talk about a stalker, am I right?

– All of a sudden, Kyotaro gets a vision of Tsugumi getting run over by a train. But how would that even happen unless she’s literally dumb enough to find herself walking on the train tracks? Let’s find out!

– So he hurries back to the haremette, who’s just standing there with her flyers. No, she’s not standing on the train tracks. She seems perfectly fine. Nevertheless, he drags her away from her location, because something terrrrrrible is going to happen:

Yeah, it’s him molesting Tsugumi right off the bat. Ah, you just don’t feel as though a harem anime is a true harem anime until the harem lead sexually assaults one of the many girls after his heart.

– And they always think or say something fucking dumb when they’re groping someone. My, my, my…! What is this soft sensation? What is this lushness that I am feeling!

– Welp, her breasts are huge. We wouldn’t expect anything less, now would we?

– And yeah, the train does eventually derail. But it’s like letting him grope her was the price she has to pay in order to be saved. Did he intentionally want to grope her? Of course not. But at the same time, did the writer need to write in the groping? Again, of course not.

– The OP plays and we see a bunch of these haremettes that Kyotaro will be courting later. We’ve already seen Tsugumi, and she’s probably the boring, nice one. Then lemme guess, lemme guess… there’s going to be a childhood friend who lives next door, a quiet Rei-clone, a tsunderekko with an attitude… I don’t know, I think the blonde one is supposed to be the pettanko.

– Meet Kyotaro’s best friend, who’s destined to not only be a pervert, but strike out with every girl he meets. After all, this is the harem lead’s world.

– And surprise, surprise, it just so happens that Tsugumi is in the same class. She continues to shake and tremble when called upon by the instructor. Kyotaro’s best friend sees this and calls her… sexy? Hurr hurr, you’re scared and nervous. Boy do I want to bang you!

– Another haremette suddenly pops into existence. Unlike Tsugumi, she’s headstrong and confident. Future tsunderekko or future tsunderekko? The correct answer is: future tsunderekko.

– And we meet yet another girl. She just happens to work at the school cafeteria. Ikkei requests that she smiles, so uh… she smiles. Sounds like a winner already: “I, Suzuki, gain satisfaction from the smiles of the customers.” But that’s not even the dumbest part. At this prestigious academy, the cafeteria actually has waitresses. Kana takes their orders then brings them their food and everything. Even the top universities in the world don’t have this. And yet, there are 650 students to one class in this damn place, so something doesn’t quite add up.

– The character introductions just don’t stop. They can’t stop! This girl over here can’t help telling our harem lead to put his book down while he’s eating, because… well, I don’t know why she cares. What’s wrong with reading while you’re eating? In any case, she’s apparently been recruiting him for a while now. Naturally, our harem lead is at the top of his class, and she wants such a Gary Stu to join the Student Council. Like every goddamn anime ever, they act as though the Student Council is super important. As such, someone like Kyotaro would be able to accomplish a lot. Too bad our bookworm is literally just interested in books and groping unsuspecting girls. Essentially, Maho hasn’t paid her “dues,” so don’t expect to win the harem lead over.

– This school is such a great environment for learning, it only has a mere 50,000 students. Again, even the best universities out there don’t have this many students. Our harem lead claims its the best place to get motivated. Well, nothing like getting motivated when you’re one of the 650 students in your fucking class. Oh, I’m sure you’ll develop a great working relationship with your instructors. They surely have the time and energy to devote themselves to each and every single one of their students.

– Apparently, the Shepherd is this mysterious person at this school who appears to you if you work hard. Sheesh, way to demotivate me. I don’t want to meet some strange dude when I’m trying my best to study.

– Oh hey, it’s Tamamo from earlier. Uh-oh, she looks angry! Needless to say, she’s here to punish the harem lead for groping Tsugumi this morning. Of course, Kyotaro tries to defend himself by claiming he was just trying to save the girl. Right, right, and in the process, he proceed to squeeze her breasts quite a few times. Makes perfect sense to me.

– But our harem lead has acquired himself quite an unsavory reputation. It’s a good thing Tsugumi’s not mad at him! In fact, look at how she apologizes to him by pressing her rack firmly against his chest. Predictably enough, Tamamo runs into them like this. Oh ho ho, the misunderstandings. She definitely is our resident tsunderekko.

– Look at this fat cat:

– It appears that the other students at this school aren’t any better. Wait, is this even a student? He looks like a middle-aged dude. The fuck is he doing here? Not only that, he and his ilk love to walk around the campus in their uniforms. How else would you know how to recognize him?

– Ikkei is such a bro, though. He comes dashing out of nowhere to save the harem lead from certain trouble. Naturally, the harem lead is a weak and ineffectual guy by comparison.

– Tsugumi then tries to tell people that she wasn’t being molested (even though she was). She can’t quite get the words out, so Ikkei whispers something in her ear. In the end, the girl ends up saying that the groping wasn’t non-consensual. The perverted best friend strikes again. But don’t you worry about Ikkei, for he will be punished for his transgressions. His punishment? Oh, just the small fact that he’ll always losing out to the harem lead when it comes to girls even though the latter is arguably more perverted.

– Afterwards, Kyotaro takes Tsugumi, Tamamo, and Ikkei to a quiet spot in the library so that they can talk. For some reason, that fat cat is here. It’s just the typical sort of random shit humor that you so often find in visual novels.

– So at this school of 50,000 students, all four of them just happen to be in the same goddamn class. That makes perfect sense. About as much sense as the existence of some academy with 50,000 students.

– Now that Stockholm Syndrome has finally settled in, boring-ass Tsugumi can’t help but ask Kyotaro if he’s willing to make school fun with her. What does that even mean? Make school fun? Basically, she’s decided to do something big to change the fact that’s she’s an introvert. It’s probably just going to be some lame school festival.

– Even so, our harem lead can’t help but bitch about this: “Which means I’d have to hang out with this kind-of strange girl, Tsugumi Shirasaki, until Golden Week, huh?” Man, don’t be like that. Don’t just grope’em and quit’em, dude. That’s not nice.

– For some reason, however, Mona is just around the corner (stalker), so she pops out to tell Tsugumi that she won’t let the harem lead waste his talents on such an ambiguous project! But he already doesn’t want to join the Student Council. At this rate, he’ll just do nothing. But I guess she’d rather have that than lose him to a “Shiomi Fun Project.”

– Meanwhile, the guy just sits there and thinks, “For me, reading is much more beneficial than those things.” If he’s so goddamn learned, he would probably read somewhere that it isn’t healthy to shut yourself off from the world and do nothing but read. But hey, that’s none of my business.

– You mean the part where he groped you repeatedly, right?

– Somehow, Kyotaro reasons that Tsugumi is acting on more than just words or emotions, whatever that means. And since he has little understanding of this, he’ll agree to spend time with her until he… does? Later, he thinks that if he can understand Tsugumi, this will become the light that dispels the darkness for him. Wow, talk about dramatic. Plus, what is there to understand? She’s a shy girl who wants to come out of her shell and make her school a better place. It doesn’t take a genius to understand that. Anyway, killer premise, you guys, killer premise.

– Mona leaves the room unhappy, and right as she does, the four friends get a text message from the Shepherd congratulating them on the establishment of the Library Club. Mona’s the Shepherd! Either that or he’s some creepy stalker hiding behind those aisles of books, and he’s been listening in on their conversation this entire time. Or… or he’s really the NSA, and this is a story about how American surveillance has overstepped its boundaries by wiretapping an entire fucking academy in Japan. Well, anything is better than the real story, which is that some magical dude will grant you wishes if you do nice things in high school. Talk about lame.

– Another haremette briefly barges into the room to tell them all to be quiet, but since it isn’t her time to officially join the party yet, we don’t get to learn her name.

– We later see her conversing with the Shepherd on the rooftop of the library. It turns out the two of them are candidates to become the true Shepherd. And they will take a test to determine this. And… blah, who the fuck cares? Onto the next anime, please.

Grisaia no Kajitsu Ep. 2

– When we last left off, we learned that these girls are all psycho, but that just means they must be great in the sack. I kid, I kid. You don’t want to get in bed with these girls. Yumiko, for instance, will just try to cut your dick off with her box-cutter. What? You don’t believe me? Here she is again with that box-cutter of hers!

Needless to say, our incredibly badass and long-torsoed harem lead easily sidesteps the attack. He sidesteps it so hard, she even went a little cross-eyed.

– I…I don’t think it works like that:

Yuuji: “And you don’t think anything of trying to shed a classmate’s blood?”
Yumiko: “It hasn’t happened yet, so I’m still innocent.”

– Don’t you feel sorry for our harem lead? Shortly after this near death incident, he talks it over with Amane. She’s hardly any help, however, because she constantly tries to play footsie with him. Poor, poor harem lead. This entire time, he’s just impotently slamming a bunch of books down onto his desk.

– You should really play the drinking game for this anime. Every time there’s a panty shot, take a swig.

– After the OP, Yuuji tries to read a book in a well-lit area because that’s one of the many gems of wisdom his master had imparted on him. Instead, he just finds a sleeping, little girl. Yo, don’t do what I think you’re about to do. That’s illegal, buddy.

– Dude honestly checks her pulse. He actually wonders if the girl is actually dead. What a doofus. Knowing harem leads, it’s probably just an excuse touch the girl. He then examines the apple on her chest before putting it back where he found it. I’m sure there are all sorts of symbolism here, but they’re rather obvious so I won’t spell it out.

– He then sits behind a nearby tree until she wakes up and walks away without even noticing him. What a great scene.

– Oh come on. The girl is just walking to another location, and she still flashes her panties at us? Drink it up, boys. We’re getting hammered tonight. And of course, the harem lead is following the little girl every flash of the way.

– Yuuji watches Makina feed some goldfish in the pond and wonders, “Is she fattening them up to eat?” Goldfish, dude, they’re goldfish.

– For some reason, there’s a crawfish in this pond too, which makes the the girl bend over to poke it with a stick… that’s right, take a fucking drink, you bastards.

– The harem lead finally decides to step in. Y’see, he doesn’t want her to fall into the pond, so he warns her not to fall into the pond. In doing so, she ends up falling… but not into the pond, because his super cat reflexes managed to save her just in time. And yes, you’re taking another drink. This really is just The Fruits of Our Panties.

– Afterwards, they team up to catch that crawfish, but that’s the thing… I thought these girls were psycho. I thought we learned at the end of last week that these girls were going to do fucked up things. So where are these fucked up things? Aside from Yumiko’s random box-cutter attack, we’re just back to the same ol’ boring harem anime formula, which involves the harem lead walking from location to location, having dull-as-shit talks with the various girls in his life. Are we really going to follow the same pattern every week? Are we really going to sit through twenty minutes of mundane nonsense until some small nothing happens at the end of the episode?

– Makina doesn’t want to call Yuuji by his first name, ’cause that’s embarrassing. So instead, she opts to call him ‘oniichan.’ That’s worth two drinks just because it’s so fucking dumb. What’s wrong with calling him by his last name plus ‘-kun’ like how everyone else would normally do it?

– Holy shit, he’s now telling her how there’s a lot of food in the pond, so that’s why the crawfish is so red. He’s literally giving her a lecture about crawfish. Who the fuck cares?

– As thanks for playing with her today, she hands him her half-eaten apple. Cool.

– Elsewhere, Yumiko complains to Chizuru about the fact that there’s now a boy at a girls-only school. In fact, she’s afraid that they’ll all get raped by him. Don’t worry, girl. It’s a harem anime, and just like we learned in Daitoshokan no Hitsujikai, you’ll be screaming “It wasn’t non-consensual!” before you know it!

– Our principal does a great job calming the girl down: “Nothing of the sort will happen in his case. I will guarantee that.” Mm, reassuring!

– Yumiko starts trying to dig up some dirt on the guy, but she finds nothing but contradictory information. This just ends up making her even paranoid than ever. As a result, the very next day, she attacks him again. I like how attempted murder is now just a light-hearted joke, so we trot out the super-deformed characters.

– Har har, I see what you did there.

– Eventually, the girl trips and fall and… well, this isn’t just your standard panty flash. Just look at the way you can see every curve of her behind. In fact, her ass sticks out so much, it no longer even looks as though it belongs to her body. That’s three drinks, if you ask me. Everyday, Yuuji goes to school with these insane girls, and as a reward for staying alive, he gets to watch them humiliate themselves before him.

– Uh…

– Let’s have a talk with the principal about our “little problem.” But what does Chizuru have to say? Oh, Yumiko just feels threatened because he’s intruded on her territory. What does Chizuru even do? Hm, let’s put it another way: what is she even doing to help these girls? It doesn’t seem like she does anything but downplay everyone’s legitimate fears and concerns.

– In fact, she adds, “Troubles like this are part of student life, right?” I dunno about you, but I’ve never had to fend for my life before in high school.

– Our harem lead claims he’s having fun. He also claims that he’s been smiling, and this smiling scares him. Ooh, it scares him so! I just don’t believe I’ve actually seen the guy smile yet…

– In fact, like most visual novel protagonists, all Yuuji ever does is stand around placidly, observing the world around him. What a bore.

– But just like that, Makina has started following Yuuji around like a besotted pet. All because he taught her a thing or two about crawfish.

– Amane tells us that a while back, the academy and the locals had a dispute. What dispute? How can you have a dispute with a school of literally five students (this was before Yuuji had come along, of course)?

– JB, a woman with an ostentatiously yellow car, drops by to talk to Yuuji. I’m starting to wonder if there are even any other males in this universe. In any case, she’s apparently responsible for inventing Yuuji a past to use as a cover story. So who is he, really? A hitman? A child soldier? An undercover cop who has decided to infiltrate a boring school of five students for some reason? What does he do that he would need an invented past?

– We also learn other ridiculous facts, like how our harem lead hates trains, so he opted to walk 200 km on foot. Uh-huh.

– When Yuuji returns to class, Amane demands to know who he was talking to. Why is it any of her business, anyway? Hell, why does any of them care? Don’t tell me they’re infatuated with him already.

– Yuuji says that JB is simply his boss, and his part-time work requires him to get rid of “garbage.” So hitman, right? I’m betting hitman.

– Nevertheless, Amane doesn’t quite buy his story. Instead, she wonders if JB’s really the harem lead’s girlfriend. How would a high school student manage to date a grown woman who drives a sports car? Oddly enough, Yuuji doesn’t even ask Amane why she cares. I would.

– Hm, sure.

– Later that day, when he returns to his room, Yumiko tries to attack him once again. Still, what exactly is her endgame here? What happens next if she manages to kill the guy? Does she think the school will just cover up for her? Or is she find with going to jail for committing murder?

– Blah blah blah, he blocks her attack, and tells her that he isn’t her enemy. Yo, shitlord… men are naturally women’s enemy! Haven’t you heard?!

– God, this is boring. How should we refer to each other? It’s too soon for nicknames. Oooh, surnames! Goddamn, there aren’t any psycho girls here. This is just another boring ass visual novel adaptation about a bunch equally boring ass girls who are all inexplicably in love with the harem lead’s dick. Regardless of the life they’ve lived up until now, ever since Yuuji’s arrived, their actions have all begun to revolve around him. If they don’t revolve around him, we don’t even see them.

– Yumiko starts to remember how an old woman had given her a bag of fruits as thanks for picking trash off of the ground. The old lady then referred to Yumko’s female classmates as her friends, which really surprised the girl for some reason. I guess this is one of those shows where troubled kids will learn the true value of friendship when it’s all said and done. So much for a bunch of psycho girls, huh? The best part is when the harem lead’s disembodied voice chimes in. What a goddamn sage!

– As the credits roll, we see one-by-one how each of the girls had arrived at the school. No, we don’t get to see the real reason why these girls are here. Please, we’re not allowed to have anything interesting like that just yet. Instead, have some fanservice as well as another drink for the road.

– After two episodes, there has only been maybe one whole minute where anything remotely interesting happened, and I still contend that this one whole minute wasn’t that great in the first place. Oh man, the girls are doing things that we don’t expect them to do! Stop the presses! I’m so easily entertained!

– Oh wait, one more drink! In any case, the rest of our two episodes have been nothing more than a bunch of bog standard harem anime hijinks. Needless to say, you’ve been fooled if you thought this anime was going to be promising. Seriously, if the source material was any good, do you really think 8-bit would be doing the adaptation?

Trinity Seven Ep. 1

– So what is this show even about? I vaguely remember something about a kid losing his cousin, so he goes to this school that will teach him how to get her back. In the meantime, he’ll be bombarded by a bevy of hot anime babes. Yeah, that sounds about right.

– This here is Arata Kasuga, and I presume he’s having a dream about his cousin. He tells us he has to reach out and grab her hand. He just has to! Aaaaand of course that just means he’ll reach out and grope some poor girl’s breasts in real life:

And just like that, another harem anime has begun!

– Oh, he’s groping his cousin Hijiri. Well, wouldja look at that… she hasn’t quite disappeared just yet! I guess we get to watch how that shit all goes down.

– Normally, you’d take your hands off of the girl, but he leaves it there as he asks her for breakfast. Ah, these harem leads are getting more and more spoiled by the second.

– “Come on… Are you still mad?” Arata wonders. I know, right? It’s just a little sexual assault to start the day. Oh sure, sure, it was an accident. Nevertheless, there’s a distinct lack of an apology.

– Do any of these shows have good animation or am I doomed to look at these ugly harem anime until the day I die?

– The harem lead tells us he doesn’t mind his rather uneventful life, but just as he says that, the sun starts looking all weird and shit. Instead of asking his cousin if she sees anything weird as well, he just brushes it off. Okay then.

– But when he walks past a mysterious shoujo, he hears her tell him to wake up or… she’ll kill him. Man, I hope it doesn’t turn out that he’s some sort of demon king or anything lame like that.

– Later that day, he asks his cousin if the sun was always black. She says yes. Apparently, the sun has always been black. Welp. For whatever reason, she also tells the guy that this is the world he had wished for. Double welp. I guess he’s now something akin to a demon king, and he’s also responsible for the creation of this world. What else can this kid do? Does he also know why kids love Cinnamon Toast Crunch?

– Furthermore, this is a world where he and his cousin get to have fun over and over. I’m guessing the world got fucked up, so he’s created this fake world to live in? But then that mysterious girl tells him to wake up or she’ll kill him… so not everyone’s happy about this current arrangement.

– Even worse, Hijiri seemingly wants Arata to stay asleep forever, and she’ll tempt him with her sweet, sweet cousin body. I’m just joking; it’s not sweet, you sick fucks. Still, the way she talks about herself, Arata starts to wonder if Hijiri is even the real Hijiri. Yeah, the real Hijiri is long gone, and perhaps to cope with it, he’s created this false world around him.

– Arata eventually accuses Hijiri of lying. After all, the childhood drawing she had drawn featured a red sun. C’mon, you really think a childhood drawing is any sort of ironclad proof? Yeah, this Hijiri is obviously deceiving him, but kids draw shit in all sorts of color. I’m pretty sure you’d find stuff like a green horse if you’ve ever visited a kindergarten class. Surely, you’re not going to call the kid a liar if he later says that horses are brown, black, or what have you.

– All of a sudden, the girl from earlier takes a shot at Hijiri, but of course, the latter erects a force field just in time to protect herself.

– Girl: “So you’ve finally revealed your true colors, cracker!” Uh, what? That’s not even a mistranslation. She literally says the word ‘cracker.’

– Arata’s reaction to the new girl’s sudden appearance makes just about as much sense as the cracker comment: “You’re the girl from this morning with the outrageous boobs!” Yeah, the sun is black, my cousin is possibly a fake, and this girl has a fucking gun aimed at us… but man, dem Tittas.

– Oh, okay, her name is Lilith Asami, and naturally, one comment about her breasts is enough to make her blush. You women!

– Arata: “Wh-Why do you look like you’re dressed to kill?!” Actually, I don’t think she is… But she tells us she’s wearing a mage combat uniform. Sure, sure. What combat uniform doesn’t come with thighhighs? I really like how they accentuate my calves. ;3

– When Hijiri snaps her fingers, the illusion is dispelled. Apparently, the world really looks like this.

– Just a mere three days ago, a gravitational phenomenon appeared and wrecked the town. Just three days ago? That’s not much of a illusion. But yeah, his real cousin disappeared around that time. He remembers how she had handed something to help him create this false world. So I guess she was a mage herself.

– If the world is just an illusion, what has he been eating this entire time?

– No! No! Bad cousins!

– So the fake Hijiri is nothing more than a shadow projection of the real Hijiri, who’s floating around in some… other space or something. Whatever, the details aren’t particularly important. Lilith then gives our harem lead an option: dispel this fake world entirely and lose all memories of his cousin, or, well, die. Because Hijiri is still alive somehow, Arata comes up with a third option: he’ll just attend a magical school instead! Uh, what? Why Lilith didn’t just kill him right there and then, I don’t even know… She could’ve spared me the trouble of having to blog this anime.

– Lilith is actually a teacher at this school. But she’s still the same age as the main character, so don’t count her out, boys! She’s still a haremette! Man, even if she was older, they’d still tell us something stupid like how she’s a virgin and has never been kissed. Y’know, like Chizuru from Grisaia no Kajitsu.

– Since he’s now a transfer student — aren’t they all? — Arata has to introduce himself to his new classmates. Right off the bat, some blonde anime babe with twintails immediately asks him what type of girls he’s into. The answer is apparently cousins.

– But instead, he tells us he likes girls with big boobs. Well, Lilith, you heard the harem lead. Now don’t you feel special?

– Oh my fucking god, I knew it: “Is it true that you constructed a new world, something that only someone of the demon lord class could do?” Shit, there’s a demon lord class? As in, multiple people can be demon lords? What is anime’s fucking obsession with demon lords? Is this the only way harem anime fans can imagine themselves being a badass?

– Whoa, I’m surprised that the headmaster isn’t a woman too. Well, close enough, I guess.

– Blah blah blah, the Royal Biblia Academy is a secret school, and it receives funding from governments all around the world. Even so, Arata is only here to find out how he can save his cousin. Yo, this ain’t much of a harem if you’re just going to fixate on one girl. And I know this is a harem because there’s going to be seven of these trinity fuckers showing up soon enough. Hell, Lilith’s probably one of them, huh? Of course she is.

– What are the Trinity Seven, you ask? Let’s hear it from the horse’s mouth: “This school has seven students who are like boss characters in a game.” Triple welp. And of course, they’re all girls of varying hair colors and bust sizes.

– If they’re so damn important and powerful, why aren’t they running this school? Who’s this headmaster and why do they respect him? Nevertheless, the guy straight up advises Arata to get to know the Trinity Seven and make some of them his pawn. Basically, become the harem lead. Live the harem lead. Breath the harem lead.

– So let’s start meeting these girls already. Here’s one. Her name is Levi, and she fancies herself a ninja. Too bad she’s just a ceiling.

– Here are two other Trinity Seven members. I don’t know what their specialties are yet. I don’t think I really care to know either.

– So four down, three to go, right? Have you always wondered why the Trinity Seven are all girls? Well, according to Levi, “[m]agic is the research of the mind and emotions,” and who’s more emotional than women, am I right, fellas?!

– It turns out Lilith is normally an ice queen, but she’s blushing profusely all the time now. You can thank our beastly harem lead for that. How amazing is it that she barely knows the guy, but he’s already turning her world upside-down? These stories don’t even try to make the romance seem plausible. Dude literally shows up and he’s already winning her over.

– But the Trinity Seven aren’t the only girls around. In fact, the grimoire, a.k.a. fake Hijiri, is still dangling from Arata’s neck. Hey, why throw away an almost perfect simulacrum of your cousin? That’s just a terrible waste. After a long day, she thus gives him the bright idea to take a nice, relaxing bath. See? Keeping around a fake cousin that you can grope is already paying off.

– But even though Arata’s entering the men’s bath, this is a harem anime, so he has to run into a naked girl. Not just anime girl, mind you, but a girl who looks exactly like his cousin. So, uh, we have real Hijiri, fake Hijiri, and now Hijiri-lookalike. How many fucking cousins do we need? Do I have to break out the banjo or something?

– This Hijiri-lookalike, however, is a Rei-clone who isn’t at all fazed by the fact that she’s naked around an equally naked Arata. Anyway, it’s Arin, and she’s also a member of the Trinity Seven. And with that revelation, the episode just ends. Okay.

Ushinawareta Mirai wo Motomete Ep. 2

– So as you’ll recall, even though it had seem as though Kaori was run over by a bus, we’ve quickly rewind time back to day one of October. Yeah, just keep in mind that Kaori doesn’t get hit by the bus until day fourteen. This time around, however, Sou finds a mysterious, naked girl in the school. At the same time this happened, that black cube that Nagisa often likes to play with started lighting up. Ooh, how peculiar!

– Well, if there was any doubt, the OP comes right out and tells us that the story is all about changing the past and future. But even though it’s the OP, the animation is still pretty shoddy.

– The better question is what’s up with your face?

– In fact, Yui, the new girl, is just staring at no one in particular in this frame. Actually, the girls are all staring at nothing in particular.

– But I guess I should talk about the plot. Basically, a random, naked girl has shown up out of nowhere, and she won’t say anything. The only clue they have is that she knows Sou’s name. Yep, that’s it. That’s all the plot. Now, back to our wonderful animation…

– Yep, this is what I’m talking about:

– I just love everything in this scene. I just love, love everything in it. The salad tongs, the pitcher of water, the amazing perspective, etc.

– In fact, screw the plot. Let’s just laugh at the shitty animation. Nothing’s going on anyway. The girl’s identity is still a mystery, but ooh, she’s now a mysterious new transfer student! In the meantime, she’ll be staying with Nagisa. Perhaps Nagisa knows more than she lets on, but whatever. Yui will also help out with the planetarium stuff, because hey, we can’t forget about that riveting subplot.

– We proceed to see the kids do just that, i.e. build the planetarium. Yawn.

– It seems that the new girl has quickly gotten attached to Sou and Airi, which makes Kaori sad. Man, are we really going to do this again? Well, yes, we are doing this against because we’ve turned back the clock. Great, I get to watch the girl mope around some more. I just wonder if she’ll die again, this time. Hell, will she even die in the same way? Well, it’s only day two, so hold onto your butts.

– The next day, Yui climbs her way to the school rooftop, so Sou follows her. She tells him that she feels as though there’s something she has to do, but he just dismisses it. Instead, he keeps trying to convince her that stars are cool: “Look, making a sky full of stars sounds like fun, right?” Haha, give it a rest, dude. I do like stars, but c’mon.

– Then as they sit there quietly on the bench, the harem lead can’t help but think back to when he found her naked. The thought alone makes him yelp. What a winner. The scene just comes to an end as he laughs nervously. Seriously, who wrote this shit?

– Afterwards, Yui gets a headache, and suddenly mutters Kaori’s name. Seems like she can tell who’s going to die or something. When she later spends some time with Kaori, it’s Airi’s turn to complain that perhaps the new girl has gotten tired of her and Sou. What is wrong with you people? Thanks to some exciting tea-brewing action, however, our Astronomy Club members come up with the brilliant idea to open a planetarium cafe. Every fucking anime does a cafe. Would it kill you guys to come up with something new? No, don’t do a ramen or yakisoba station. That isn’t any better either. Naturally, Sou whines that this new direction detracts from the overall stargazing experience. Guys, what about the stars?!

– Yes, yes!

– Elsewhere, another student runs into a ghost. Yes, a ghost. I’m not sure if it’s possible for an anime ghost to ever scare me, but predictably enough, the girl screams when she turns around.

– Ooh, it’s now day six. Just eight more days, guys. Just eight more days. But anyway, the kids talk about how strange things keep happening in the old school building. Yeah, strange things alright. All of a sudden, however, everyone hears a strange whirring noise and the entire place starts to shake. Even worse, a box is about to fall on Kaori’s head:

Oh no, not a tiny box! Sou is such a hero. Yeah, this show ain’t too funny.

– Kenny isn’t even recognizable anymore. Hell, has he said anything important all episode long? I don’t know if he has. In any case, the student council drops by once again. Since time is just repeating itself, they’ve once again requested the Astronomy Club’s help in keeping the students in line. But since there is a ghost this time around, they should also look into that as well.

– The next day, everyone pairs up to ask people around the school about the ghost. It’s not too exciting, so I won’t get into it. In the end, even though a ghost had walked past Airi, she doesn’t notice it. The investigation was ultimately fruitless.

– So instead, everyone returns to the classroom to play dress-up in the newly-arrived meido outfits. Y’know, the one for that planetarium cafe. This is the best the anime will ever look, so savor it. Somehow, this leads to Yui groping other girls’ boobs. C’mon, guys, there are only three minutes left in the episode. Is someone going to get Final Destination‘d or what?

– Kenny continues to stare at a picture of his girlfriend overseas, but uh…

– When Yui goes to retrieve her hat, she touches the black cube on Nagisa’s desk, and it somehow awakens her. She finally knows what she’s here to do. But this is where the episode ends so we learn nothing. Absolutely nothing. Worst of all, nobody even dies!

We simply get another glimpse at that mysterious laboratory, and that’s it. All in all, this was an incredibly uneventful episode.

Week 2’s Poll

So what was the worst episode this week? I’ll let you guys know what I think in next week’s post, but you can probably tell from how the weekly rankings shape up in this week’s “Everything Else” entry.

Ooh, would you look at that? It’s Tuesday already, and you know what that means. It’s time to watch our favorite Korean drama disguised as an anime!

– We get a brief recap of last week’s murder, and I can’t help but think how in denial Yona was about the whole thing. Denial in more ways than one, that is. She literally saw Soo-won stab her father, but she still tells him to quickly call a doctor. Why would he do that if he was the one who stabbed her father? And why wouldn’t she call a doctor herself? It’s not like there was anything she can do if she simply stayed by her dying father’s side. Yona is certainly a spoiled princess, and she’s now about to learn what the real world is like in the harshest, cruelest way possible.

– I like how Soo-won gives Yona and thus us a long explanation on why he now hates Yona’s father, and she just sits there and listens. I thought she wanted to call a doctor. Maybe she’s accepted that he’s dead, but it just doesn’t seem consistent.

– But apparently, Yona’s father had killed Soo-won’s father in much the same way Soo-won had killed him. I’m just wondering, however, if Soo-won really saw his father’s murder with his own eyes or if he’s been lied to by people who are conspiring to cause unrest within this kingdom. Hell, even if he saw it with his own eyes, it could be a trick, i.e. someone disguising themselves as Il. I’m not really defending Il or anything; I have no stake in the matter. I’m just wondering if there’s more to the story that we don’t see yet.

– Still, if Yona’s father really was that evil, this would probably explain why he was so against Yona marrying her cousin. I mean, there are other reasons to not want your daughter to marry her cousin, but this is anime, so they probably don’t care about those reasons. And it wouldn’t be a bad thing necessarily if Il was truly evil, either. It would provide Yona with a subplot where she comes to grips with the fact that perhaps she didn’t know her father as well as she thought she did.

– I read somewhere that the mangaka simply wanted everyone to have international sounding names and not specifically Korean ones. I have yet to hear any name that doesn’t sound Korean, though.

– As Yona runs away from danger, she is still in denial. She can’t believe that her precious Soo-won would kill her father and try to kill her as well. Well, she said it herself that she hadn’t seen the guy in a long time. People change, girl. People certainly change all the time. That’s why it’s always silly when most of these romances focus on characters that are so young (Yona had just turned 16). We undergo a lot changes in both our teens and our twenties, and I’m not just referring to puberty. These are the years in which people often discover who they are or want to be. That’s why most high school relationships often fail, because people often outgrow those relationships. I’m going off-topic, but I’m basically saying that these “Discover your true love!” stories should really focus on adults instead. If you tell me they’re young in order to appeal young people, then I don’t buy that excuse. After all, young people have role models too. Young people don’t need every damn story to feature people around their age. Give young people some credit. They can watch and thus be inspired by adults.

– Even Hak is in denial about his friend, but hey, at least he didn’t actually witness the murder with his own eyes.

– The ensuing scene is really inelegant, though. Why would Soo-won risk everything and just engage Hak in a duel? Why is Kye-sook just prattling off Hak’s bio like some kind of Wikipedia entry? On the bright side, the duel itself ain’t bad. Hey Mahouka, even a shoujo can get action right! What’s your excuse?

– But thanks to Min-soo’s actions — and they’re rather courageous actions — Hak and Yona get just enough of a distraction to escape the palace. Well, more like Hak escapes the palace with her. The girl is pretty much catatonic during these scenes. Still, t’s too bad Min-soo had to die to save our heroes.

– Before passing out, Yona tells Hak not to die or she won’t forgive him. Uh, okay. I guess we’re back to being a generic anime again.

– Yona understandably regrets how she had treated her father. And now that he’s dead, she won’t be able to make amends. I don’t mind that part. What I dislike, though, is how the anime predictably uses this moment of weakness and vulnerability to play up the now-growing romance between Hak and the princess. I just feel like the tragedy of her father’s death should be respected, and thus not used as a way to get fuzzy romantic points. ‘Cause what ends up happening is that you can’t help but feel as though all bad things happen just to justify a relationship pairing. The tragedy then feels cheap and exploitative.

– Afterwards, we get a time-lapse for some reason, and it teases how Yona and Hak will reclaim her kingdom. Not only that, she’ll become a warrior princess in her own right, I guess. Okay, you didn’t need to show me this right away, though… I mean, now that I know what’s she’s going to become, is it still as exciting to see how she’ll get to that point? Eh, hard to say…

– Hm, that episode went by quickly. But I guess there’s not much to say when our heroes are just making their getaway.

– Next week’s episode looks to be all about Yona and Hak when they were children. He was a tsundere kid, huh?

It’s only been two weeks, but there are no real surprises or disappointments for me thus far.The shows I expected to suck are predictably sucking. And on the other hand, the shows that I like are not doing too bad.

Week 2’s Rankings

30. Girlfriend (Kari)

It’s not a harem anime! It’s the next best thing! A moe show about girls doing vacuous bullshit! Sweet!

29. Akame ga Kill!

The worst kind of episode: full of exposition and fanservice. And like Mahouka, its fans continue to come pouring out of the woodwork to defend this tripe.

28. Denki-gai no Honya-san

To be honest with you, I’m not sure why I’m still watching this show. It sucks.

27. Ushinawareta Mirai wo Motomete

Like Grisaia no Kajitsu, but somehow worse. Both shows ended their first episodes by hinting at the possibility of something more than just uninteresting conversations between high school students. So what do we get in the follow-up episode? Uninteresting conversations between high school students. We’ve been punk’d, guys. Wrap it up.

26. Gonna be the Twin-Tails!!

Not incisive enough to be campy. So basically, it’s just stupid.

25. Cross Ange

Putting Sword Art Online and Akame ga Kill! to shame in the rape department.

24. World Trigger

For me, a shounen is characterized by two things: a certain level of boyish charm and a lot of exciting, shounen-esque action. World Trigger seems to lack both of these two qualities.

23. Nanatsu no Taizai

Meliodas is too brazenly perverted for me to possibly enjoy this anime. But for what it’s worth, I think it’s better paced than World Trigger. It’s just kind of sad and perhaps a little ironic that the voice of reason is a talking pig. At least Bulma had attitude. Elizabeth seems like a submissive bore.

22. Terra Formars

The only redeeming feature about this show is the hilarious way in which they’ve decided to censor it. The action continues to disappoint. Everything is in ridiculous slow-motion. Otherwise, the characters just stand there and try to look all badass as they stare down the roaches. C’mon, a show like this should’ve put an emphasis on the battle scenes.

21. Inou Battle Within Everyday Life

I think I sat through like ten minutes of wordplay before I turned the episode off.

20. Grisaia no Kajitsu

What a surprise! Last week’s ending was nothing more than a cocktease. Enjoy yet another standard harem anime. I personally found the harem lead’s spiel on crawfish to be absolutely captivating!

19. Shirobako

I think it’s funny how the men in this show look so different from each other. They have varying hairstyles (and hairlines), body shapes, ages, so on and so forth. The women, on the other hand, are all hot, slim babes… who just happen to all work in the anime industry. In fact, these women look just like many of the girls you’d expect to find in your average P.A. Works anime series. If you had told me that this show was really about an animation club in high school, I wouldn’t have doubted you. The only difference is that our heroine owns a car, and even then, we get a ridiculous drag-racing scene for no reason. My point is, for a show about women in such an industry, you’d think their representation would be more inclusive. Blah blah blah, this is what anime is always like. Sure, but again, for a show about women in such an industry, I expect better. Other than this little aside, however, I found the first episode entirely unremarkable.

18. Trinity Seven

Painfully unoriginal, but the cherry on top is the ugly character designs. You’d think a harem anime would at least prioritize looking good. For example, this is probably the only thing that the Monogatari series does right.

17. Ookami Shoujo to Kuro Ouji

Once again, we have a happy-go-lucky atmosphere to go with our fundamentally flawed protagonists. So basically, the average shoujo anime adaptation. Will this end up being worse than the disastrous Ao Haru Ride, though? Well, it’s certainly off to a good start, but we’ll have all season to answer this question.

16. Shirogane no Ishi: Argevollen

Remember, kids… war in this day and age is all about profit. Anyway, Richthofen piloting the new mecha can at least shake things up a bit. And maybe now, the story will collect itself and build towards some sort of endgame. I still can’t see what that endgame is, so unfortunately, I remain uninterested in Argveollen’s story. It just doesn’t really engage my sympathies on any level. I can’t really relate to the characters nor feel for them and their situation.

15. Donten ni Warau

If there’s anything this season that comes close to being a disappointment, I guess it would have to be this anime. I thought we’d get a more realistic period piece and some fascinating characterizations. I mean, the three brothers have to ferry prisoners across a lake. That sounds like an interesting job where you might meet some fascinating characters. Instead, I get some lame shouneny action, but worst of all, the two younger siblings are whiny. I never thought much of Chutaro ever since I first laid eyes on his character design, but I expected more from Sora.

14. Daitoshokan no Hitsujikai

The premise reminds me of that stupid event flag harem anime from earlier this year. The difference here, I guess, is that the haremettes aren’t as ridiculous, and as such, the whole True Shepherd thing probably won’t be as ridiculous either.

13. Gundam Build Fighters Try

The action is decent, but the premise is just too light-hearted at the moment for me to care. Maybe the stakes will be raised in later episodes, but at the end of the day, it’s still just a bunch of kids doing battle with plastic toys — plastic toys that I obviously have no interest in.

12. Madan no Ou to Vanadis

Despite the female characters’ comically large breasts, this is somehow the least offensive harem anime. But I’m sure that’ll change as the other female warriors get introduced to the story. I even expect them to fight for the harem lead’s love too. But for now, I’ll just slot it here ’cause I’ve got no better place to put it. For the umpteenth time, however, stop recommending that I read the light novels for this show or any light novels for that matter. I’m just not going to ever be interested enough to bother.

11. Fate/stay night – Unlimited Blade Works

Can you stomach Shirou’s incredibly boring conversations with his classmates enough to get to the short but honestly good battle scene near the end of the episode? That’s the number one question you have to ask if you’re on the fence regarding this show. Personally, I think the storytelling has been pretty bad. If anything, I’m nicer than I should be in my actual posts on the show. Luckily, people have told me that we’ll get episodes of standard length from here on out, ’cause honestly, I don’t know if I can sit through another 47-minute episode of Shirou’s funtime at school.

10. Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso

I can see Zooey Deschanel playing the heroine in a live-action adaptation. So quirky!

9. Log Horizon 2

The storytelling is just very dry. It lacks any sort of real excitement to drive to drive the narrative forward and thus keep me hooked.

8. Gundam: Reconguista in G

Two potty jokes in one episode. Enough said.

7. Hitsugi no Chaika: Avenging Battle

The second season looks to give us more of the same. This isn’t inherently a bad thing, but the Chaika formula was never all that impressive to begin with. Likewise, the sequel’s first episode doesn’t excite. The only thing going for the show is that it’s not particularly bad.

6. Amagi Brilliant Park

Gonna need Kanye West to be a little more charismatic to carry this show.

5. Akatsuki no Yona

Not great, but not bad. The show has avoided making any egregious mistakes primarily because the pacing has been pretty slow thus far. After two episodes, our heroes have only just managed to escape from the palace.

4. Parasyte

Solid start, but I hate that soundtrack.

3. Psycho-Pass 2

I find it’s often hard to judge the first episode of any sequel, because more often than not, these first episodes are just an assertion from the creators that we’ll be getting more of the same. In this case, more of the same Psycho-Pass feel and formula despite the new writer. To me, that’s a relatively good thing, but other opinions will naturally vary.

2. Garo: The Carved Seal

So far, I think the animation quality is the show’s biggest weakness, but even then, it’s not bad or anything. It just doesn’t impress me.

1. Shingeki no Bahamut: Genesis

The most fun show to watch this season.

Week 2’s Poll

For this week’s poll, I’m going to skip the summer leftovers. I’d just rather talk about something new. Anyway, like before, you can pick up to three answers.

“The question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?” — Bentham

Shinichi doesn’t want to stand idly by and watch people get murdered by these alien parasites, but Migi brings up a good point: why is it okay for humans to eat all sorts of animals, but it’s wrong for his kind to simply eat humans? At the end of the day, we’re all just feeding ourselves, aren’t we? Honestly, I think this is a difficult question to answer. If we simply argue that it’s natural to eat meat, then we can’t help but agree with Migi. It’s only natural that his kind eat humans. They survive on cannibalism. What else can they do? If you really want to justify saving other people from the alien parasites, ethics must get involved somehow. To put it another way, it must somehow be immoral to hunt and kill humans. The only problem is, of course, those same arguments would apply to animals as well, i.e. the same animals that we raise and kill for meat. Simply asserting that animals are animals and humans are humans is circular.

For some people, then, intelligence matters. For instance, we wouldn’t eat a dolphin. Still, that’s a dangerous line of reasoning. Where do we draw the line? And would it be okay to eat a human who has lost his or mental capacities? In saying all of this, I am, of course, a hypocrite. I understand the ethical reasons against eating meat, but I eat meat anyway. Of course, should technology ever advance to a point where we can create artificial meat cheaply — and don’t you worry, this will happen — there will be no good moral reason to go back to eating natural meat. Of course, I’m not saying that some poor farmer in some impoverished country should start giving up meat. Hell, if I’m not doing it, why should he? My point is, as much as I understand Shinichi’s feelings for wanting to save humanity, he won’t win any ethical debate against Migi unless he’s a staunch vegan or something.

In any case, Migi tries to keep it simple. It doesn’t try to worry about the morals or the ethics behind any of his actions. It simply looks out for itself… that’s the theory, anyway. When given the opportunity to join up with another parasite, however, Migi makes the quick decision to defend Shinichi. Migi claims that it just wasn’t sure if switching over to the other body was possible, and to an extent, Migi has been a straightforward character. There isn’t much evidence to suggest that our parasitic friend is a deceiver. At the same time, however, it quickly went to sleep shortly after the fight as if it needed to think things over. This seems to suggest that while Migi does primarily look out for itself, it is very much interested in Shinichi’s point of view. Our parasitic friend basically has an intellectual curiosity. It wants to stick around Shinichi and observe his mindset some more.

And if we’ve already seen signs of Shinichi’s personality undergoing a change, then we’re seeing the same with Migi. This intellectual curiosity doesn’t really help Migi survive. If ensuring its own well-being was the only thing it cared about, Migi would’ve done everything its power to assume as much control of Shinichi as possible. And sure, it has threaten to take Shinichi’s eyes out from time to time, but that’s only because Shinichi suggested that he tell the authorities all about Migi. Otherwise, Migi lets Shinichi does his own thing. Migi even lets Shinichi involve himself in fights that could endanger the both of them. My point is, even if Migi might never  agree with Shinichi’s brand of selflessness and justice, it’s at least curious about it. And that sort of curiosity already sets Migi apart from the other alien parasites. One can argue that the alien parasites are all intelligent, but Migi’s the only one that seems to want to understand.

But at the end of the day, Parasyte‘s story hasn’t changed. It’s still a tale about a kid undergoing puberty and the bizarre out-of-body feelings that comes with this rather turbulent period in any kid’s life. It’s even quite blatant about it. All of a sudden, Shinichi isn’t a pushover anymore. A rival for Satomi’s affections tries to beat our hero up, but he doesn’t hold back, because he’s too scared to fight. He’s only scared that he might kill the guy. But when the guy pushed Shinichi too far, our hero’s anger overwhelms him. Yes, Migi was the one who sent the asshole flying, but was it also Migi and Migi alone who made Shinichi look this mad? Probably not, huh? This aggression is mostly — if not all — Shinichi’s. Not only that, this aggression is what one might find in a typical adolescent suddenly getting a huge influx of hormones into his bloodstream everyday.

It’s not a coincidence either that Shinichi is now good at sports. Yes, yes, it’s Migi, but again, our alien buddy is just a metaphor. From another point of view, our hero’s simply growing into his body. Plus, you can’t tell me that this isn’t a boner joke. Yes, he’s trying to hid Migi, but does he really need to stand like that? Shinichi had just successfully smoothed things over with Satomi, and she’s even indirectly asked him on a date. Who’s to say that alone isn’t enough for a young, excited adolescent to get a hard-on? Then what do we see later? Migi suddenly wants to give Shinichi an erection. And of course, the biggest change comes in his attitude. Would the old Shinichi have saved the cat at the playground from the three bullies? Probably not. Satomi knows him… or at least she thinks she does. And she initially suggested that they just leave the scene. Would she have made the same suggestion if she knew that Shinichi could be this brave?

Still, Satomi can’t help but wonder if Shinichi’s still Shinichi. Simply put, Migi isn’t as good a simulacrum of Shinichi’s hand as it might think. For whatever reason, Satomi can just tell that Shinichi’s right hand doesn’t feel right, so she awkwardly shuffles to his left to hold the other hand. I would’ve liked this scene to be a little more subtle. I find it odd that Shinichi wouldn’t at least ask her why she felt the need to switch hands. But in any case, let’s look at this in another way. Basically, she’s known him all her life as the simpler, more child-like Shinichi. It’s only natural that as he’s going through puberty, his personality also undergoes a few changes. And as such, she finds it hard to recognize the old Shinichi in the new one. The old Shinichi probably wouldn’t have saved that kitten. This new Shinichi is more confident, but also a little scarier. The question is whether or not our hero can find the delicate balance between the two.

This week’s episode of Chaika couldn’t possibly disappoint me any less. I know, I know: “You’re such a hater! You never liked Chaika anyway.” Of course you’re disappointed. You’re disappointed by everything!” But seriously, I was actually getting into the battle between Claudia and our heroes. It’s kind of silly that we rarely saw all three of them attack Claudia at the same time, but for once, it actually felt like we’re getting a tense, close battle. This sort of thing is such a rarity in anime, so you can understand why I’m actually interested in watching a Chaika episode for once. Then how does the battle resolve itself? By having Fredrika distract Claudia in her cat form. Yep, that’s the key turning point that allows our heroes to get the upper hand on the powerful wizard. Fredrika’s character is so bullshit. Ever since she was introduced to the story, she’s been nothing but one walking, talking asspull. Remember when we all thought she died in the previous cour? Whoops, it turned out she didn’t die! She can just shed her body like some kind of anime lizard! Granted, she’s a fucking dragon, but come the fuck on. Does this look like a dragon to you? Plus, this sort of thing happens all the time. They constantly put the heroes in a difficult situation, then proceed to have no clue how to pull our heroes out of said difficult situation. As a result, asspull time.

Psst. Psst. Did you know that Toru is one hot piece of irresistible manmeat? Yeah, me neither. But apparently, all of the girls want him. Well, most of the girls. Even though Fredrika was the one who distracted Claudia in the heat of battle, the latter feels the need to praise Chaika for her wonderful resolve. Y’see, Toru had acted as a decoy, so he got hit by one of Claudia’s spells. As a result, he was in great pain, and this stirred deep, powerful emotions in Chaika. As a result, she was… uh, able to shoot a distracted Claudia. Yeah, not too compelling, but the point is that Chaika is like, oh my god, so in love with Toru! Isn’t that amazing! Fine, the heroine likes the hero. Big deal. I wouldn’t care if the story stopped there. But guess who’s back? Yeah, it’s Red Chaika! Oh, did I say Red Chaika. I really meant to say Fanservice Chaika. Obviously, the Chaikas are different from each other in a lot of ways. Fanservice Chaika wants revenge, she’s angrier than White Chaika, you could say she’s consumed by rage, etc. Too bad I can’t shake the feeling that Fanservice Chaika also exists to show us a sexier side of Chaika. Oh, White Chaika is so pure and innocent! Wouldn’t it be cool though if we had another Chaika who constantly shoved her ass and vulva in our face? And oh yeah, her outfit shows off her side boobs too, and we all know how much we love side boobs!

But worst of all, Fanservice Chaika is also obsessed with Toru. Really now? She spent like what? A couple days with the guy, right? And now she wants him too. So White Chaika wants Toru. Akari always jokes about wanting Toru, but there’s very likely a grain of truth in her jokes. Fredrika constantly tells Toru that he should make a pact with her so he can become her dragoon cavalier or some shit. As a result, I’m just waiting for the other shoe to drop. I’m just waiting for Fredrika to admit that she’s one giant tsundere dragoon who wants Toru to ride her all the way to the skies. I mean, what’s next? Shit, Vivi’s already a half-Chaika. Maybe half of her can want Toru, and the other half can blame our hero for Alveric’s death. This way, we can fantasize all about the wonderful hate sex they might have. Seriously though, why do we need to turn every single story into one giant harem? There’s a reason why I can’t just sit back and enjoy Hitsugi no Chaika’s simpler “Let’s go on an adventure!” narrative, because it’s jam-packed with these jarring animeisms like how 90% of the important female characters are inexplicably obsessed with the male lead. And look, if this sort of thing happens in a show like Shingeki no Bahamut: Genesis, I’ll lose respect for it too. I’ve got nothing personal against this anime or any anime. It’s not my fault it just can’t help having so many of these lame-as-fuck elements.

The rest of the episode basically repeats itself. Vivi and Curren talk about how they never found any documents regarding Gaz’s magical techniques and whatnot shortly following the war. Those same documents might, however, be found on some island where Gaz’s fortune is also hidden. Guess what? Guy also tells Red Chaika all about said fortune, so she’s headed there too. Then surprise, surprise, Claudia has one long talk with White Chaika about the same exact thing. I hope you liked hearing three different conversations on the same topic. Near the end of the episode, White Chaika has a bad dream where she sees herself being beheaded by one of the heroes of the punitive force. She can’t help but wonder how can she have such a memory if she’s currently still alive. I’m hoping Gaz simply split his personality into several different female homunculi, giving rise to the many Chaikas that we see before us. Congrats, Toru. Your diminutive lover is really an ancient ass wizard. But I digress. Point is, White Chaika is now full of existential angst and shit. Is she the real Chaika? And if not, then what is she? Well, let’s go look for the Emperor’s fortune and find out! As a result, the our Chaikas are on a messy collision course for each other.

When this is all said and done, provided that they don’t kill each other, our Chaikas should get together and do a sitcom spinoff. You can even call it Two and A Half Chaikas. I’m sure it’d be a blast. Then White Chaika can get involved in some real life scandals, thereby forcing her off the show. I’d watch it.

According to Kitazawa, his accomplice had come to see him and made his color clear. Risa instantly believes that this is a lie, because the only person to visit Kitazawa recently was a therapist. Considering what we had just learned about holograms, however, I can’t help but think our villain had disguised himself as a therapist, then made his way to Kitazawa to clear the guy’s color. The problem, however, is that the therapist himself claims that he had talked to Kitazawa. But how do we know that the therapist in front of Akane is actually the real therapist? What if the real therapist had been killed a long time ago, and they’re actually talking to the bad guy? In season one, we couldn’t trust the Sybil System because it was flawed. In the second season, it seems that we can’t even trust our own eyes because humans are flawed. As technology continues to advance by leaps and bounds, it may come to a point where anything can be simulated or replicated. Touch, sight, taste, smell, sound — in other words, our very own sense perception can be fooled. As such, how much can we really rely on our five senses in this simulacra-laden future? But our five senses are arguably the only ways we humans can even perceive the world around us. Without them, what have we got left? And if we can’t even trust our own senses, then what right do we have to judge and punish others? All that’s left is human intuition, but boy, human intuition is hardly infallible either, huh?

Akane’s partners are kind of dumb, but hear me out. I’m not saying they’re dumb in a bad way, i.e. they’re poorly written characters. In other words, I think I see what the second season is aiming for. Mika insists that it’s impossible for the entrance to the sewers to be unlocked beforehand, because there’s a scanner by the entrance. The scanner would’ve detected any suspicious activity. So what do we see? The entrance is unlocked for Kitazawa’s convenient. The point is, technology is far from infallible in the Psycho-Pass universe, but the good guys — minus Akane, of course — are not really investigators anymore. Typically, you think of investigators as people who exhaust all possibilities, because that’s their job. The good guys, however, don’t even want to entertain the possibility that someone could have unlocked the sewer entrance, because technology has assured them that they don’t have to. As such, one can’t help but think that these guys are just investigators by name. They’re just people who run around with the equipment that the Sybil System has handed them, then parrot back whatever readings they get from said equipment. This echoes a lot of what Tomomi Masaoka had often ranted about in the first season. The good guys — again, with Akane being the special exception — are so dependent upon technology that they completely ignore their own human intuition.

I mean, let’s take stock. One, someone is capable of projecting super-sophisticated holograms. Two, Kitazawa’s actions had avoided detection until just recently. Three, his Crime Coefficient suddenly lowered dramatically out of nowhere. Four, he managed to escape from custody, and Risa couldn’t do anything about it because his color was clear. At what point do you finally tell yourself, “Yo, I don’t know if I can wholeheartedly trust technology anymore. This seems like a fool’s game.” I’m not saying they should become Luddites overnight, but a healthy dose of skepticism never hurt anyone. Other than Akane and perhaps Sakuya, however, no one else ever seems to have any healthy dose of skepticism anymore. They’ve become fervent devotees of technology, and the Sybil System is their God. Even when it’s clear what they should so, no one takes any action without the Sybil System’s blessing. This is why Shinya had to excommunicate himself from the Church of Psycho-Pass. There was no justice to be had when God was so broken in his own eyes. God saw Makishima as nothing more than a fallen angel that He had to have back within His fold, and Shinya wouldn’t have that. He couldn’t have that, and I can’t say I blame the guy. And now, with the new villain fucking with everyone’s perceptions, the good guys are about to lose their religion.

By the end of the episode, we learn that our villain has a name, and it’s Kamui. As for the cryptic “WC?” that we see everywhere? It apparently stands for “What color?” This question ties everything together. The villain challenges the good guys to make their own judgements. As such, he lowered Kitagawa’s Psycho-Pass readings, daring the investigators to take action (just to clarify, taking action does not mean you have to kill the guy). If they don’t, more harm will just come their way. And as we can clearly see, Kitagawa is able to detonate one of the bombs, resulting in even more casualties. Finally, after this happens, our heroes are able to take action, but it’s only because the Sybil System had allowed it. And because it’s the Sybil System who allowed it, they had no choice but to blow him up with a Dominator. Before then, Kitagawa had asked, “Hey, tell me… what color cam I now?” Risa disdainfully answered, “What color? Yeah, right now you’re the color of raw sewage.” But the truth is, she could only answer his question because the Sybil System finally gave her an answer. She couldn’t answer Kitagawa’s question on her own, and by extension, she couldn’t answer Kamui’s question either. Risa’s actions are thus inauthentic; her judgements are not hers. Thanks to Kamui’s sophisticated holograms, we have good reasons to think that our investigators are utterly blind. They are truly, utterly blind to the world around them because they’ve long given up their precious human intuition to become devotees of technology. They can thus do nothing but wait until their God makes their judgements for them.

But what happens when your God is flawed? What if your God is wrong? We see Kamui again near the end of the episode. He actually cries as he believes that Kitagawa could’ve been saved: “He could’ve been made clear again.” In the first season, we saw how the Sybil System wanted to save Makishima despite his immoral actions. In the second season, we are perhaps seeing how the Sybil System is merciless when certain individuals can still be redeemed. Having said that, I’m not too sympathetic of Kitagawa and his actions. He’s obviously endangered a lot of people even if I agree in general with his endgame, i.e. bring down the Sybil System. At the end of the day, Kamui is still a villain, and as such, he is still misguided in his actions. I’m not surprised, therefore, that he would weep for someone like Kitagawa. He might have a point or two, but so did Makishima, if you’ll recall. No one of the right mind would, however, sensibly side with Makishima and his actions. Likewise, I don’t expect to side with Kamui even if, like Kitagawa, his goals to discredit the Sybil System make sense in the abstract. Still, let’s bring this back to the good guys, ’cause this is really an episode about them and their failures. Even though Risa might have thought she sounded all badass when she fired her Dominator at Kitagawa, she really is just quite sad. Her words are hollow, because they are not hers. She, like so many others, have given up their autonomy a long time ago.

Stray notes & observations:

– Mika is really, really bitchy. To the point that I can’t help but think that the story is laying it on a bit too thick. Also, it’s far too obvious that she likes Yayoi. People don’t instantly blush just because their crush talks to them.

– Risa Aoyanagi, the head of the other division, sure does make a lot of assumptions. The biggest assumption being that the cymatic scans are never wrong. C’mon, is a glitch really that hard to imagine? It’s not like the Sybil System is incapable of making mistakes. For instance, the late Makishima always had low Crime Coefficient levels despite his clearly immoral actions. As I’ve said above, if you’re truly an investigator, why wouldn’t you exhaust all possibilities?

– No, I think I’d would’ve thought “water closet” first, too (I type “brb wc” all the time when I play online games). Plus, Ginoza’s just saying the first thing that comes to his mind, so I don’t see what the problem is. As detectives, we have to consider everything, right? Nevertheless, Mika continues to be a bitch in every single scene that she’s in. Her portrayal is really lacking in nuance, and I really hope they round out her personality soon.

– I love how Sakuya Togane, the Enforcer who had accompanied Akane to the interrogation, leads off with, “The ghost exists!” Then he immediately hedges his own words by saying, “I think so, too.” Way to pique our interest only to have nothing to offer but your own hunch, bro.

– He then says, “…it still doesn’t appear that Kitazawa is delusional.” Really? Really?

– Apparently, Akane’s been smoking. When did she start up? I recall that Shinya was a smoker himself. Still, I hesitate to ask whether or not smoking reminds our heroine of Shinya, ’cause I don’t want to think the girl can’t take up a foolish habit all on her own.

– Someone had scratched “WC?” onto a wall in Akane’s apartment, which just lends credence to the idea that our villain can go where he pleases. Not only that, Akane’s own home ceases to be a safe haven. If God — and the God in this world is the Sybil System — is fallible, one can infer that nothing is safe. Nothing is sacred. Even your own home can be violated.

– When Kitazawa makes his escape, again, I don’t know why Risa is so shocked that he has a low Psycho-Pass reading despite his criminal actions. As an investigator, surely, she’s heard about the Makishima case and how certain individuals cannot be properly assessed by the Sybil System.

– Still no Shinya. Oh well. It’s Akane’s show now (and it was arguably her show before), and I’m fine with that. I just thought the guy would have a bigger role in the sequel. It remains to be seen if he’ll even have any role at this point.

Alright, I think I sort of get what’s going on now. Sort of. As we all know, the end of the Universal Century brought about a near-cataclysmic event. I imagine the conflict over energy led to nations coming dangerously close to wiping humanity out. This is probably also why we haven’t seen any of those iconic Gundam space colonies after four whole episodes. We might still see them later, but for now, the show has remained relatively grounded. In any case, to solve this energy conflict crisis, various countries decided to rely upon an independent third party, and that’s where the Capital comes in. Its job is to regulate the distribution of said energy. In theory, this should work if the distribution was not only fair, but could also meet everyone’s needs. In practice, this is hardly the case. Thus far, however, the Capital had only needed to defend itself against “pirates.” That’s why the Capital Army seems so inept. It’s basically an army that has sprung up overnight. According to Bellri, even his own mother didn’t regard the Capital Army as anything official up until just recently. In any case, we all know that the pirates are really working for the Ameria.

Ameria, for whatever reason, wants to become energy independent. Remember the conversations in the previous two episodes? Remember how in episode two, Aida wanted to cover the surface of the planet with solar panels? This could certainly solve her country’s energy crisis. Nevertheless, Bellri tried to explain why the Capital wouldn’t allow this. We just didn’t quite get to hear what he said; we only saw the aftermath, which was Aida slapping our hero across the face. Now, what could he have possibly said to piss Aida off that much? In last week’s episode, Bellri argued that if the Capital doesn’t monopolize the world’s energy, then people would just misuse it. How so? Well, there’s a lot of talk this week about an Ag-Tech taboo against the advancement of science. The Capital, with the support of His Holiness, is deliberately hindering society’s technological advancement. It might be the case that during the Universal Century technology got so advanced that whenever nations came to blows, they nearly wiped humanity out. As a result, the Capital wants to prevent this from ever happening again by just completely retarding the progress of science altogether.

You kind of run into trouble, however, when nations are in such desperate need of energy that they might cease to function entirely if they don’t get enough. This might explain why Aida blames the war between Ameria and Gondwan on the policies enacted by the Capital. She even argues that “[t]he world has regressed to the time of the A.D calendar.” Perhaps the war between Ameria and Gondwan could have been avoided if Ameria could just rely upon science to fix its problems. Unfortunately, your hands are kind of tied when a third party claims that such a thing would be taboo. But that then leads us to another issue. In response to the recent pirate attacks, Bellri’s mother immediately wanted to cut off Ameria’s energy supply completely. It’s possible that the Capital was already distributing a reduced amount to Ameria in the first place. The ongoing conflict between Ameria and Gondwan might even be the reason why this is so. Ameria’s only option, then, is to either accept their punishment, or retaliate against the Capital with “pirates.” Hell, I seem to remember that a certain nation went aggressive against a major power shortly after its major supply of oil imports got cut off…

But I digress. In any case, the problem is further compounded when the Capital appears — “appears” is the key word here — to be a bunch of hypocrites. The colonel is clearly ignoring the Ag-Tech taboo. A few weeks ago, one commenter complained about the presence of religion in this universe. I don’t think it’s that far-fetched. If humanity really did come that close to extinction, and technology is now viewed as some sort of boogeyman that nearly brought about said extinction, it’s not completely out of the question that society might turn to religion for reassurance that a similar crisis might not occur again. A curse is even mentioned by Bellri in this week’s episode with regards to some blueprints. But like I’ve said, it appears that the Capital is ignoring said taboo, and this is pissing other nations off, especially Ameria. Of course, that doesn’t mean that the Capital isn’t justified in its actions. It’s far too early say either way. After all, it would seem that the Capital Army has come into existence to deal with some sort of threat from outer space. What threat? Well, it looks like we’ll only have to wait a week to find out.

All in all, I think the story is finally starting to come together. There are a few minor things I still dislike about the show. For instance, I still really hate the character dialogue. I know it’s a Tomino thing, but it’s just jarring to go from every other show this season to Reconguista in G. I also still really, really dislike Raraiya’s character. There’s still plenty of time left for that girl to come into her own, but at the moment, she is obnoxiously annoying. And as a final aside, I still think Aida’s suit is ridiculously designed. It looks like her ass has a moustache. But on the plus side, the battle scene in this week’s episode was… okay. I mean, it’s obvious which Gundam show got the bigger budget this season, so Reconguista in G will just have to make do. There’s a lot of other stuff to talk about, too. Like how the G-Self has a fancy beam saber. Or how Dellensen is also coming into his own as a character (so what’s your excuse, Raraiya?). But I think I’ve said enough for this week’s post.

Right off the bat, Moffle comes charging at Kanye and gripes, “In the twenty-nine years since this park was established, we have never taken a day off without advance notice! That’s how we’ve built up the trust of our customers.” Isn’t that hilarious, though? The trust of their customers? Well, where are these fuckers, then? ‘Cause we’ve been following Kanye for a few days now, and I don’t see the fucking return business. In fact, let’s go even further. I bet Moffle and company probably think the park still has a decent reputation. Oh, it hasn’t got a bad reputation! People have simply forgotten about Amagi Brilliant Park! The truth is, the Amagi Development Group only appears evil, because their goals are undesirable. But they’ve been telling these idiots the truth for a long time now, and that is that the theme park is a dump. Lo and behold, Fiddy Cent and Queen Latifah have recruited Kanye just to tell them the exact same advice they’ve been getting all this time! The only difference is that Kanye doesn’t want to repurpose the land that place is sitting on. But as you watch this anime, it becomes quite apparent that you’re witnessing some kind of theme park from hell.

Once Kanye starts having a meeting to discuss the various changes he wants to implement, the whole organization reveals itself to be a complete clown show. The park apparently doesn’t open at night. What kind of amusement park doesn’t open at night?! And the sad thing is, the mascots have nothing but excuses and backtalk in response to Kanye’s advice. Boo hoo, the place isn’t equipped to open past sunset. Then fix it! They’ve had years to fix it, and yet, they’ve sat on their asses and done nothing. But the problems don’t stop there. The park also has weekly holidays. And of all the days to close on, they close on Fridays. I could somewhat understand closing on a Monday, but a Friday? Holy hell, who made this boneheaded decision? No wonder the place is failing. These workers have pride, but no work ethic. How does that even work? In fact, they’ve known for a while now that if they don’t hit a certain visitor count, they’ll all be out of a job. For the less unfortunate, they’ll even cease to exist! And yet, they’ve continued to have weekly holidays and do nothing about the fact that the park can’t open at night. It doesn’t make any goddamn sense.

Worst of all, they charge customers to see the attractions within the park. You already have to pay a fee to access this dump, but once you get inside, they nickel and dime you even harder. The funniest part is how these guys are in the hospitality business, but none of the mascots seem to give one shit about the customers: “If we do it even once, our guests will never want to pay again.” No wonder no one wants to come back. Even if I want to bring my family to the place, I have no idea how much I’ll end up spending by the end of the day. Will I be seeing this attraction or that attraction? Oops, sorry kids! Dad only brought enough money for x amount of attractions! Guess we’ll just have to cut our day short! The thing is, these guys are stuck in a rut. They’ve done the same thing for so long, they’re afraid of change. The park has been opened for twenty-nine years. I certainly don’t need to tell you guys that twenty-nine years is a long time for anything to exist, much less a theme park. As such, you have to learn to move with the times. In fact, it would be incredibly useful if Kanye actually rounded them all up, and took them to another theme park.

Hell, these guys don’t even need to go to another theme park. Visit Nintendo. Or visit Toyota. It doesn’t matter. Go anywhere, and it will soon become clear that 99% of the successful businesses out there never sit still. You have to update. You have to innovate. You have to change with the times. You can’t just sit there and expect your park to be a hit. Customers move on too, so you have to attract new customers. None of this is even complicated business shit. You don’t need an MBA to realize this. It’s all common sense. But with a mere two months away from shutdown, all the workers can do is bitch and moan about Kanye’s suggestions. They’re stuck in a metaphorical time capsule. But you can’t place the blame solely on the workers. Every team needs a leader, and it’s clear that Amagi Brilliant Park hasn’t had one for a long time. Everyone might say that Queen Latifah as their leader, but it’s quite obvious that — like the crown that she wears on her head — she’s nothing more than a figurehead. In reality, the place has been run by committee for a long time. No leader means no clear vision. No clear vision means nothing gets done. Nothing gets done means we’re out of a fucking job.

Things go from bad to worse when an ornery family insults Moffle’s pride, so he beats up the dad. And hell, he was going to turn on the mom too had Kanye not stopped him. In the end, like a Men In Black special agent, Fiddy Cent had to erase the family’s memories. The only difference is that she does it by capping their asses with memory-wiping bullets. Oh, that Fiddy Cent! Sadly, because it’s the Fumoffu bear, Moffle doesn’t get fired. The merciful Kanye decides to give the asshole mascot another chance, but personally, I would’ve sacked him. Instead, Kanye has a more devilish plan. Remember, this is a KyoAni anime. So sure, last week’s episode had to lay the foundation for the story, so it couldn’t really afford to goof off. But now that that’s all said and done, bring on the fanservice. And holy hell, is there a lot of fanservice. There’s no doubt that what we see here is meant to make up for that swimming anime. But let’s just be honest with ourselves: Free! simply flips the gender on us. All of a sudden, it’s now the guys who are parading themselves onscreen like the hunks of beefy meat that they are. Gee, I wonder why some people are so uncomfortable with that.

It’s hilarious how this scene just keeps going and going. Oh, what are they doing, you ask? They’re filming a quick commercial to advertise the fact that the park attractions now cost only 30 yen! And of course, this short promotional video needs a bunch of super sexy moe girls to wear nothing but mega-skimpy bikinis. As an aside, Queen Latifah is a pettanko in this universe. The more you know! Anyway, our girls then proceed to bounce up and down for the camera for a gratuitous length of time. Kanye keeps nitpicking the girls’ performance, because it’s KyoAni’s cheeky way to extend the scene. Wait, I thought this was a family park. Is this really the sort of thing that will bring the desired customers to the park? Or will it attract a different clientele instead? It turns out, however, that it’ll hardly bring in any customers. But that’s apparently the belabored point Kanye is trying to make. He’s willing to do anything even if it means he will only get one extra visitor by the end of the day. Meanwhile, the mascots bitch about staying open at night. The lesson here is pretty obvious. A humbled Moffle thus can’t say anything. He simply goes and does his job.

Still, Moffle is predictably mad that Queen Latifah had participated in the ad in the first place. There are apparently reasons why Latifah shouldn’t leave the safe confines of the hanging garden. Something bad even happens to her at the end of the episode. But seeing as how she is by far the least interesting character on this show to me, I’m not even going to bother doing any speculation. I’ll just add, however, that she is Moffle’s niece. And not only that, she looks like his older sister or something. Shrug. All in all, I still think the drama in this story is a bit too forced, and of course, the fanservice does nothing for me. But shrug, there are worse shows to watch this season, so I guess I didn’t mind this episode too much. Most of all, at least our heroes have an objective from day to day. It’s not just a bunch of people doing random shit for an entire season. It’s just too bad this anime isn’t really a horror story instead. I can just imagine it: Five Nights at Amagi Brilliant Park! Oh, during the day, everything’s all nice and cheerful, and you have hot moe babes to ogle. But at night, the various mascots turn evil and stalk the park grounds for victims. Anyone they catch will be killed and stuffed in an empty mascot suit. C’mon, that sounds like an awesome anime!

Oh, and is anyone else disappointed that Kanye hasn’t had to use his heart-listening powers all that much?

Kousei accuses Tsubaki of misleading him, and she doesn’t deny it. She admits that if he had known that they’d be attending Kaori’s performance beforehand, he wouldn’t have come. Obviously, she doesn’t realize how painful it might be for Kousei to revisit a concert hall (I discussed this in last week’s post, so I won’t rehash it). In fact, she probably thinks she’s just helping him. The idea is that Kaori’s performance will reignite her friend’s passion for the piano. The sad thing is, she ends up being right, and our manic pixie dream girl predictably gets the job done. But I don’t care; in this case, I do not think the ends justify the means. It’s the principle of the matter. Yes, Tsubaki does end up helping Kousei out, but it’s the fucking principle of the matter. I hate the world of good intentions. Readers will think I’m being too harsh on the girl, but people of her sort are the ones who truly offend me the most. After all, they pretend to care. They pretend to respect you. But it soon becomes very clear that they have their own selfish agendas, and you’re ultimately just a stepping stone to their desired goals. A true friend would have respected Kousei’s wishes, but the truth is, Tsubaki cares more about the idea of concert pianist Kousei than she does about the actual Kousei himself.

If Kousei doesn’t want to attend a concert hall, why can’t Tsubaki just respect that and leave it the fuck alone? We’re not talking about someone who’s eating himself to an early grave. We’re not talking about Kousei trying out gateway drugs. We’re talking him wanting to avoid concert halls. To the average person, this probably seems like a peculiar aversion, doesn’t it? But that’s the whole point. You wouldn’t have an aversion to concert halls unless you had a really good reason, huh? “B-but I don’t know what that reason is!” It doesn’t matter, though! You know that the reason exist, and this alone should be enough. She bemoans, “So the piano makes you feel lousy, then?” If she was actually a good friend, she would’ve been able to put two and two together and come to this conclusion a long time ago. In the future, should Kousei ever confide in Tsubaki about his traumatic past, then great! She’ll finally know everything. She’ll finally understand the pain in his heart. But until then, it is extremely disrespectful for her to dismiss his feelings like this by misleading him. It always disgusts me when people can’t respect their friends’ wishes and just leave things well enough the hell alone. Yes, you can argue that Kousei needs to confront his problems eventually, but Tsubaki ain’t his fucking therapist.

As expected, our manic pixie dream girl doesn’t just play the set piece. She gives her oh-so-unique spin on it, and this simply blows everyone away! In truth, it’s nothing that hasn’t been done before, but hey, it’s an amateur competition involving kids (they’re just in junior high), so it’s fine. We can be impressed. I can suspend my disbelief and pretend that she “owns” the Kreutzer Sonata. After all, it’s her job to fix Kousei, and we won’t get there if we don’t believe that the manic pixie dream girl is actually dreamy. In fact, after the whole Tsubaki debacle, I’m almost ready to root for Kaori. I won’t feel the slightest bit sorry for Tsubaki when Kousei inevitably falls in love with Kaori. Still, it’s a competition, so you can’t just improvise unless the rules specifically say you can. Not only that, one of the judges has to be a big stickler for the traditions: “She might as well be picking a fight with the composer!” He’s the same type of people who would claim that a story has only one meaning. But it’s okay; Kaori isn’t playing for the judges. This serves as a sharp contrast to Kousei’s mother, who only ever valued finishing first in these competition. As a result, our sensitive but broken concert pianist simply falls even harder for the free-spirited violinist who has plucked the strings of his heart.

Unfortunately, our manic pixie dream girl is currently interested in Ryota, the not-as-sensitive best friend. But whether or not Kousei even gets the girl by the end of the story is ultimately irrelevant. What matters is that she will now fix him as per her job requirements as the story’s manic pixie dream girl. Kousei even admits that the whole thing feels like a scene straight out of a movie. That’s the problem with the anime. The whole story feels far too crafted and put-together. For me to honestly care about these characters in a show this grounded in reality, I have to see them as real people. I don’t get that with Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso. For me, Kaori’s too unreal. She literally exists to meet Kousei’s exact needs. Even Kousei himself doesn’t fare much better as “the broodingly soulful [boy who needs] to embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures.” These characters do not engage my sympathies, because they are not genuine. For all the talk about how Kaori owns the Kreutzer Sonata, the two main stars of the show are carbon copies of we’ve seen a billion times before. There’s no real improvisation here. Nothing I’ve seen in this episode convinces me that Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso will own its story. And considering the performance we’ve just witnessed, that’s just hilariously ironic.

By the way, Kousei lies to Kaori to cover for Ryota, but don’t you think she deserves to know if the guy she likes is going after another girl? Just more reasons why the world of good intentions is complete bullshit.

Not all Horrors are bad. Zaruba apparently has no enmity for mankind. If anything, it forms a symbiotic relationship with man, albeit only one at a time. For every Garo that has ever walked this Earth, Zaruba has been there. This Horror is destined to form a contract with each and every Golden Knight, and upon doing so, it proceeds to lend said knight with its power and guidance. In fact, you’re not a full-fledged Golden Knight until you put on Zaruba’s ring (for better or for worse — no other knight can form a contract with Zaruba). That’s exactly what we see in this week’s episode as the embattled Leon inches ever so closely towards his manhood, coming-of-age, or what have you. In our young hero’s case, not only will Zaruba accompany him throughout his journeys, the not-so-evil Horror will even quell the raging fire within his heart. That’s pretty fancy for a ring; I hope the anime eventually explores how this exactly works. But for now, I have only one burning question on my mind: why even call Zaruba a horror, then?

After all, I’ve always been under the impression that Horrors are the results of, well, negative human emotions. Perhaps Zaruba nevertheless came into being in much the same way, but as soon as it popped into existence, it just didn’t have the motivation, so to speak, to hunt and consume humans. That’s rather nice of it. Of course, Zaruba won’t just help you for free. Every new moon, the Golden Knight will need to sacrifice a portion of his life force to the Horror. Over time, this must add up, so if Leon makes a long career of this, I can’t imagine him living for too long. I guess this is the price you pay to become humanity’s greatest savior. Point is, Zaruba’s a bro, and that’s more than you can say about Marcelo. Somewhere along the line, Gael’s knight apprentice fell to the dark side and killed him. Still, I can’t help but think that Gael was partly to blame. Sure, Marcelo was never the most competent assistant, and he had been stuck as a knight apprentice for quite some time now. Nevertheless, feelings of inadequacy and resentment don’t often appear out of nowhere.

But in the long run, Marcelo’s story doesn’t really matter, because this episode has a different primary objective. Its entire point is to show us how Leon eventually comes to possess Zaruba, what Zaruba is, and what Zaruba can do for our hero. It would be boring, however, if our protagonist merely stumbled upon the ring in some treasure coffer deep in some underground ruins. Well, maybe not, but my point is, if there’s any annoying formulaic about the show thus far, it’s that it feels the need to throw a monster-of-the-week at us. As such, Gael is quickly killed off even though he’s considered one of the strongest Makai Priests in the region. And as such, we get a glimpse at Marcelo’s personality and troubles, but nothing in-depth. Truly, these two characters are unimportant in the grander scheme of things, but you can’t help but wonder if the anime could’ve nevertheless told us a more interesting story. As it is, Leon gets his ring, flashes his shiny armor for the third time, and beats down the bad guy. For now, the show is entertaining enough, but as the weeks go by, I’m going to want more.

The father-son duo dynamic hasn’t changed much. If anything, I thought Leon sounded a bit whinier than usual in the tavern. Luckily, he settled down as the episode progressed. He’s still hot-headed, especially when he charged after Emma by himself. I’m not sure why he’s so distrustful of the Makai Priest. Sure, she’s disdainful of him and his father, but she hasn’t done anything to suggest that she’s an unsavory sort of character. But speaking of Emma, she remains enigmatic. For a brief moment, it looked as though she was concerned about Leon, but it soon becomes clear she was merely planting a tracker on the kid’s coat. If I have to speculate, I suspect she views Leon as a bit of a ticking time bomb. Emma knows well enough that if a full-fledged Golden Knight ever appears, their odds of success would increase dramatically. Success against Mendoza and his army of Horrors, that is. But if first impressions are anything to go by, there’s no guarantee whatsoever that Leon will come into his own. Of course, we know he will, but that’s the luxury of being in the audience.

In any case, what did Emma mean when she said, “I thought I had some business, but it looks like I was wrong. I’ll have to wait until you’re full-fledged.” I think she’s of two minds here. Again, like I’ve said, she views Leon as a bit of a ticking time bomb. So if something had gone wrong, I think she wanted to be in place to prevent the situation from getting worse. But more importantly, the Makai Priests strike me as jacks-of-all-trades, i.e. they’re not specifically fighters. Sure, Emma can hold her own against the average Horror, but the Makai Knights are the ones who specialize in killing Horrors. Priests, on the other hand, seem to do all the thankless side tasks. In video game parlance, they’d be the support class. In any case, perhaps Emma is looking for a hero to throw her support behind, so to speak, but like she says, Leon is not yet a full-fledged Golden Knight. Until then, she’ll watch and observe — perhaps even help out from time to time — but should things ever go pear-shaped with our troubled, young Garo, she won’t hesitate to kill him either.

All in all, the quality of the anime stayed the same, which is obviously a good thing. I certainly am not complaining about that. But now that we know what Garo can do, I expect steady improvements from week to week as well. Oh, if you’re curious about Alfonso, the episode focused on him for all of about a minute. He was about to die to a bunch of Horrors, but some Makai Knight saved his ass. I wonder who this new guy is. In any case, until next week…

It’s Friday night, which means more roach-killing action.

– The cold opening starts off rather oddly. We see shots of various shots of an alley for no particular reason until the guy at the bar finally steps on a bug and kills it. In fact, he’s been in that bar for three episodes now.

– Anyway, back on Mars, some roaches have attached themselves to Shokichi’s escape vessel, and they’re going for the human’s medicine supply. The thing is, the terraformars have been going for the medicine supply since the end of the second episode, so it’s no longer shocking or surprising. Nevertheless, the various team members continue to act all shocked and surprised that the terraformars are capable of forming a plan and executing it. A…are the roaches really smarter than we think? Yeah, no shit, guys. It was eyebrow-raising two episodes ago.

– One of the terraformars jumps into the vessel, and everyone just stands there, gawking at it. Uh, how ’bout running, you guys? Only Sheila tries to do anything about it. But like I said last week, there’s way too much dead time in this anime. She stares at the terraformar, then we get a flashback to when Shokichi had taught her how to fire a net launcher. The pacing is all fucked up as a result. We’re sitting here, waiting for something to happen, but instead, we get a flashback. In last week’s episode, instead of flashbacks, we got a heavy dose of slow-motion “action” scenes. Seeing as how this is already the fourth episode of the adaptation, I’m afraid this is how the show’s going to be from here on out.

– Finally, she fires the net and while the terraformar is writhing around on the ground, a disembodied narrator explains just exactly what a net does. C’mon, I’m literally watching what a net does! Oh, you say that the net is something that humans invented. No shit? I thought rabbits invented them!

– I love how we even get a brief history on nets. Oh, they’ve been made from cotton, fiber, synthetic fibers.  This is hilarious… not in a good way, but still hilarious.

– But just when you think it’s safe…! Yeah, it’s going to hadoken Sheila’s ass. Like always, there’s a lot of staring from all parties before any attack goes off. I swear, this will be the last time I make any mention of this particular critique. Anyway, I knew someone was going to die. I like how the best laid plans to capture these roaches is to literally shoot a net at them. Seriously, you’re facing an alien species with comparable intelligence, super speed, and super strength, and your primary method of capture is going to be a primitive net? Nope, we’re not going to use some sort of super powerful tranquilizer. Yep, let’s move forward with the plan to launch incredibly porous nets at the terraformars — so porous that a terraformar can easily attack through them.

– More importantly, the terraformar here is using the same power we had seen in the first part of the OVA. I forget the guy’s name, but one of the victims had the same ability, so I guess the terraformars are now copying their human opponents like some sort of cockroachian Mega Man.

– And right before we see Sheila die, the story suddenly cuts back to the bar in Japan. Welp.

– Then in the middle of an episode, we are forcefed exposition about the BUGS 2 team.

– This script, man: “To be equipped with weapons that could not be stolen… *long dramatic pause* But now… They were stolen!”

– We suddenly cut back to the Russian squad where Squad Leader Sylvester Asimov — yeah, that’s his name — is apologizing to a distraught Ivan. If you’ll recall, Ivan’s sister died in last week’s episode. Her head got ripped right off, but of course, we couldn’t see a damn thing thanks to the censors. In any case, I guess we’re supposed to draw parallels between the deaths of these two women.

– Now we cut back to Shokichi’s squad, where one of the guys has smashed in the roach’s head for killing Sheila. Welp, so much for bringing it back to Earth alive.

– Meanwhile, Sheila has a hole in her chest, but we still get a painfully drawn-out scene in which she tries to confess her true feelings to Shokichi before she finally kicks the bucket. The show never really successfully sold me on her character, though. As a result, this scene just does nothing for me. I hardly know anything about her, and hell, I hardly know anything about Shokichi either. The only time we saw them interact with each other was during a handful of short flashbacks. A handful. If you only spend a small amount of time developing this particular subplot, it doesn’t really make sense to me when her death suddenly gets a big, extended send-off. I have no emotional connection to the girl, so it’s just kind of cringeworthy.

– I timed the whole thing. She starts reaching for his face at around 10:20. We don’t go to a commercial break until 12:30. Over two minutes of a dying girl trying to choke out her confession to Shokichi. C’mon.

– After the commercial break, an army of roaches are closing in the various squads. Only now do they think of using their medicine supply and tapping into their animal-inspired powers. Yeah, that’s right. They’re no longer limited to just bugs anymore. But we’ll get to that in a second. Basically, this scene also takes forever as the various characters prattle on and on about the Human Metamorphosis Mosaic Organ Operation. So… HMMOO. Catchy. Kind of like a braindead cow. I approve. In any case, it’s like watching a Dragon Ball Z episode, where you’re constantly waiting for something to happen, but it never does. People take their medicine, then they just stand there… and they stand there… and they stand there… As for the terraformars, they just keep walking… and walking… and walking.. At least no one’s grunting like they need to take a massive dump, I guess.

– Apparently, the terraformars underwent drastic evolution thanks to a single organ and a single organ alone. It is none other than the mosaic organ. And guess what? Humans have reappropriated it for themselves! An organ! Can you believe that? Just an organ.

– But as I’ve said, you can now borrow special powers from any species on earth now. This guy over here has the magical power of a shark. What exactly does a shark do above land? Well, I guess we’ll just have to wait and see. I hope someone picked a sloth. That would be hilarious.

– More narration as the guy tells us that the terraformars “can travel 320 kilometers per hour from their first step.” Great.

– Finally, around 17:30, a battle breaks out. Of course, it’s all in slow motion.

– Behold… the fearsome crying spider-man!

– Then right after he punches a roach’s head cleanly off… WE GET ANOTHER FLASHBACK. This is the worst action anime I have ever watched. This is like a slideshow, man. You’re literally watching one move, one kick, one attack at a time. A few punches, flashback, a few more punches, flashback, repeat ad nauseum.

– Then the episode just kind of ends. We hardly get any character development until after Sheila’s dead, then the ensuing fight scene is repeatedly interrupted with scenes of her, Marcos, and Alex when they were younger. Man, what a silly way to tell this story.

– I honestly can’t see them getting far in the story with just one season. Oh well. We have the sequel to Knights of Sidonia next season, right? Yeah, I’m looking ahead already.

I guess we’re back in fantasy land for now.

– Right off the bat, we’re not in an MMO, but at this point, I’m pretty sure everyone’s expectations have hit rock bottom.

– Apparently, someone has found an incredibly rare sword in ALO. It’s not Kirito, because he was too busy finding hot babes in other games. But the funny thing is that the damn thing has only been found. Nothing else. No one’s actually gotten it. I remember how Absolute Virtue in Final Fantasy XI remained this unbeatable boss for years and years, so it’s kind of the same thing. Absolute Virtue’s loot drops were “found,” but not actually acquired unless you managed to glitch and kill the boss. Too bad that also landed you in GM jail. Long story short, it wasn’t until Square-Enix dropped a ton of hints after a ton of player backlash before people knew how to properly beat the damn mob. Even so, I don’t think I mind this sort of thing in MMOs. I kind of like the idea that there are pieces of equipment so rare, only a few people would ever have access to them. It adds to the mystique of the world. The only problem, of course, is what do you do with the dungeon? Suppose someone eventually clears the dungeon and gets the incredibly rare sword? Now what? Are you really just going to leave an empty dungeon sitting there? It doesn’t make any sense to any MMO developer from a practical standpoint.

– We finally see scenes of an MMO, but… it’s a slideshow. And Kirito’s just narrating. C’mon, A-1 Pictures. Don’t pull a Terra Formars on me. I’ve seen enough slideshows today. No, really, this is an embarrassment. This part can be a montage all you want, but holy shit, at least animate it. You’re a fucking anime.

– So they find a giant humanoid thing attacking a giant jellyfish thing. Leafa, in her infinite wisdom, tells Kirito to save the one that’s being bullied. Sure, these mobs totally have complex AI and can understand what it feels like to be picked on. No, I’m not even being sarcastic. I totally, totally acknowledge that something like this might be possible. Seriously, what if we had the ability to populate our virtual worlds with virtual creatures with intelligence to what you might find in the real world? Wouldn’t that be fucking neat? Wouldn’t that raise moral questions about killing these virtual creatures even if they’re not real and any GM can spawn them? It’s analogous to the Yui being a fake virtual child who nevertheless has real feelings. It’s analogous to Kirito feeling sorry for the NPCs when Asuna wanted to use them as bait in the first season. Remember that? I sure do. But here’s the part that I do quibble with. Again, this part of the anime is a fucking slideshow. Not only that, it’s being narrated in a rather dry, as-a-matter-of-fact fashion. Explore the idea of treating MMO creatures like virtual pets, and whether or not we can feel the same level of attachment to them? Naw dawg, make it a fucking slideshow.

– So they fly up to the sky where they find the golden sword we had just talked about. Just look at Kirito’s face. I wonder if ever looks at Asuna like that.

– Wait, what? He’s been spending all his time in New Aincrad? I don’t know how people have the time to play more than one MMO anyway. By nature, these games are such grindfests, I don’t think I could devote my time to multiple characters across multiple games like that. But hey, this guy is such a poopsocker, they literally had to represent it as him being trapped within a game for years and years. I guess this sort of thing should come easy to Kirito.

– I don’t know why Kirito is so perplexed that other players could find Excalibur, especially when he just sat there and told us how he found it. What? Are other people not special enough to save a jellyfish and ride it to the sky?

– Kirito: “Sugu, there’s more to a VRMMO than looking for rare items.” Yeah, especially when you can build yourself your very own harem — a harem that includes your cousin!

– But then he immediately goes back on what he just said: “But I think Tonkii wanted us to find it, and that’s why he showed it to us.” Yeah! I’m not getting the weapon because I personally desire it. I’m getting it for Tonkii, our flying jellyfish! It wants us to clear the dungeon. So as you can see, going on this quest to get the sword would be a selfless action! Man, I’m such a gracious Gary Stu!

– Seriously though, I like how he has more urgency here to get some fucking sword than he ever had during the entire ALO arc. Remember, kids… a golden sword is far more important than your e-waifu.

– Seven people can ride Tonkii, but they don’t know who to stick in the last remaining spot. Kirito’s rattling off a bunch of names, but it’s fucking obvious who he wants to come with them. He’s just making Leafa bring her up first. Hey, hey, it wasn’t my idea to bring Sinon along! Leafa suggested it! But anyway, it’s to be expected that Sinon would now tag along with the rest of Kirito’s girls like some doll in his collection. This is a harem, after all. And of course, Klein’s there as the best friend who will never get any.

– Yes, let’s talk to Asuna… who just happens to be completely naked. So what does she even do in this sequel? Run to Kirito’s side and get naked, I guess. The duties of an e-waifu are hard. You stay-at-home waifus know nothing!

– The whole scene is dumb, anyway. She bemoans the fact that she wants to see him one more time before she goes back to Kyoto. Obviously, she wants to spend quality time with the guy. She’s then super happy when he tells her about the quest they’re all about to embark on. Can’t she also play VRMMOs with him in Kyoto? So what difference does it make? My point is that this quest isn’t really quality time. The fact that she alludes to her physical location should have been played up more. No matter how real these VRMMOs are, you can’t make up for the intimacy that comes from being together in the real world. She can go on quests with him no matter where she is. That’s the entire point of MMOs. Friends across the world can play together. Sword Art Online should’ve instead explored the idea that she perhaps feels as though their relationship isn’t deepening, because they don’t put enough of an emphasis on what they can do as a couple in the real world.

And it’s okay to include a subplot like this even though I constantly complain about the fact that the Sword Art Online sequel often features its characters outside of an MMO. After all, you’re drawing a sharp contrast between what the virtual world can offer and what the real world can offer. How are relationships impacted by the advent of simulation? Will people start taking certain traditional aspects of relationships for granted when they can rely upon the virtual world for everything? This would be an interesting topic to explore. But as usual, Sword Art Online drops the ball. We simply see the dutiful waifu beam with happiness when she gets a call from the Gary Stu. Besides, even in her private, most vulnerable moment — she’s literally naked and taking a shower — she’s just thinking about the guy. Asuna is a terribly written character.

– New OP time, I guess. This song is less annoying than the previous one, but it’s still not very good.. I don’t care enough to sift through it for clues about the upcoming arc, though. I just think it’s pathetic that we continue to see Kayaba being featured in a less than villainous way. I guess it doesn’t mean dick that he trapped a bunch of children in a video game without any remorse.

– Since Klein’s helping Kirito get the Excalibur, he asks Kirito to help him get another weapon in return. But our Gary Stu just whines, “That dungeon’s so freaking hot, though.” It’s my show! I don’t want to help you get a penis extension!

– In fact, he’s got such a one-track mind. Sinon would also like to receive a legendary weapon, but he complains that she’s only been playing for two weeks. Dude, this is what you do. You help your friends get cool shit, because helping them makes you feel good. But so far, two people have asked for favors, and he’s done nothing but whine.

– Yui finally arrives to tell her “daddy” that no one’s gotten to the mid-air dungeon yet. Don’t worry, Kirito. Your shiny golden dick is still sitting there waiting for you to retrieve it. Please don’t beat your daughter anymore.

– Asuna: “And evidently, it isn’t a very peaceful quest, either.” I wouldn’t expect a golden penis to be easy to get.

– Oh lord, this is incredibly cringeworthy:

Yeah, everyone’s posing with their stupid weapons as a rock song plays in the background. Sinon’s the only one not smiling. Silica’s weapon gets to be on her ass, I guess. Asuna doesn’t even get to pose with her own boyfriend. She’s on the same level as Leafa, the cousin who wants to bang her “onii-chan.” Naturally, the badass Gary Stu stands alone.

– Lisbeth: “In RPGs, the samurai has been a “warrior plus black magic’ class for a long time.” What? That’s not true in any of the games I’ve ever played. What she’s describing sounds like a ninja, not a samurai.

– And now Yui’s explaining sword skills to us. Great. Look what you’ve started, Klein. What does the guy do? Run to Kirito for help. I guess he’s a haremette too. Hey, why do you think Kirito wants to add yet another sword to his collection so badly?

– It’s hilarious how he looks across the room and sees nothing but female faces staring back at him. No, no, no, the hilarious part is how they’re actually females in real life too. Uh huh, sure.

– Kirito thanks everyone for coming. In fact, he’ll find a way to express his gratitude in the future. Oh, like helping your friends get the weapons they want? Just a thought…

– This is what Sinon has been reduced to: a mere catgirl that Kirito can now toy with whenever he pleases. Man, Asuna, you were right! This sure is quality time that the two of you are having!

– Still, I’ll give credit where credit is due. We actually see a potentially captivating MMO locale in this week’s episode. That was one of the big problems with the GGO arc. MMOs are full of interesting locations, but GGO had nothing. And sure, you can call it an MMOFPS all you want, but at least have some nice set pieces for people to look at. Unfortunately, the previous arc was unimaginative from start to finish. It’s not like the frozen landscape you see above is mind-blowing either, but at least it’s a fucking start.

– Leafa simply whistles and this calls Tonkii to her. Hm, she’s lucky no one’s killed it yet.

– Yo, this thing ain’t even cute. But still, even this blatant rip-off of an elephant is something different to look at. I’m not saying GGO should have had flying elephants, but c’mon, at one point, Death Gun rode a fucking horse to chase our heroes down. Where’s the imagination?

– You can totally fit more than seven people on this mount. Of course, we only arrived at the figure seven because that’s all the haremettes Kirito has for now. Yes, I now consider Klein to be a haremette after what we just saw in the previous scene.

– As they fly to the dungeon, they see players taking advantage of a jellyfish-tyrant duo to hit the jellyfish. I would expect this sort of thing to happen all the time in MMOs, though. Of course, the point here is that everyone feels sorry for the jellyfish, but why? This is a question that Sword Art Online should try to answer, but it seemingly can’t. It merely touches on the issue and nothing more.

– Plus, who is Sinon talking to? Leafa’s boobs?

– All of a sudden, this lady appears behind them. She’s Urd, Queen of the Lake, and she has a quest for them. She wants them to save the land from the tyrants that we see everywhere. Yui suddenly interjects to say how this NPC isn’t using a set response. Oh my, this NPC’s request is coming straight from her e-heart!

– Again, if this is something that’s totally possible, i.e. emergent AI within a complex VRMMO, I really wish Sword Art Online would actually delve into it. Can simple NPCs suddenly just “evolve” like this and acquire sentience? I don’t know, but it’s the sort of sci-fi topic that captures the imagination, doesn’t it? In Sword Art Online, however, topics like these are merely touched upon and nothing else. There’s just so much wasted potential in this goddamn universe.

– Case in point, Yui flat out tells Kirito that Urd has acquired artificial intelligence. It’s just something that’s stated. It’s not explored, it’s just a matter of fact.

– Then we get some backstory about the location, how Excalibur came to exist in said location, blah blah blah. Just standard RPG lore, really. The problem is that this lore ends up taking up a significant chunk of the second half of the episode.

– What is happening during this scene, though? Is Tonkii just floating still in midair?

– Oh, but it gets worse! The evil tyrant king wants to eventually cover all of ALO in snow! And other adventurers have been tricked into doing his bidding. He didn’t offer them the chance to win Excalibur at all. He’s just using them to commit mass jellyfish murder. In other words, talk, talk, talk, talk. But hey, I wouldn’t have expected any less from Sword Art Online.

– Of course, I can’t help but think that Miss Urd here needs a better advertising campaign. If you’re in such a dire situation, why are you appearing to just one group of adventurer? Even if you argue that the other players won’t believe her, it doesn’t hurt to try.

– Finally, our heroes reach the floating dungeon, but the episode is practically over. We’ve done a whole lot of talking and touched upon some interesting ideas, but that’s pretty much does it for the new SAO episode. Plus, I’m not sure we saw Asuna and Kirito interact with each other whatsoever. So much for that quality time.

“It really gets better?!”

People claim the story’s going to get better now. Uh-huh…

– Those noses, though…

– The simple-minded Shirou is too much of a straight-forward, wholesome shounen. He’s not giving himself enough credit. Sure, Lancer just kicked his ass, but the guy managed to stay alive. That’s gotta count for something, right? But hey, it’s not like it matters in the long run. Everyone’s going to come to admire the hero anyway.

– Rin’s not clueless, and after watching the long prologue, we’re not clueless either. But sadly, Shirou’s clueless, so we have to sit here and watch Rin explain everything to the hero. The Holy Grail War, Master, Servant, Command Seals, so on and so forth. Meh, it’s all been talked about before, so I don’t see why this conversation isn’t just skipped to save us some valuable time. I say you have to pick one or the other. Either keep this conversation, or keep the majority of the prologue. It’s so unnecessary and boring to have both.

– And it continues. The characters discuss how Shirou is not a full-fledged Master, so he has no mana to help replenish Saber or whatever. I would’ve figured that something like this is self-evident, though. Nobody actually thought Shirou was a mage, did they? Moreover, this entire scene is like listening to someone read the instruction manual to a video game. Riveting. I’m sure there’s a more elegant way to deliver this information, but I suspect this was exactly how the information was delivered in the visual novel. As such, the adaptation has to stay true to its roots or risk fan backlash.

– Rin laments the fact that she couldn’t summon Saber. Hey, what if Archer was listening in, man? That’s not nice. As she does this, she has her butt gyrating in the air. I wonder if that was in the visual novel? Or is this something we can actually add to the adaptation?

– Shirou, however, naively asks, “Hey, are you saying I’m not worthy of her?” I like how he’s already implicitly accepted his situation. Oh, I’ve just been plunged into an all-out war with a bunch of people who can cast spells? WAIT, WHAT ARE YOU SAYING? I’M TOTALLY WORTHY. Seriously though, I think I’d worry more about the fact that I have no fucking clue what I’ve just gotten myself into.

– Best part? Rin wants to take Shirou to go see someone who knows all about the Holy Grail War. Yo, that talk we just had? That was just the introductory course. Get ready for some upper division education, boy!

– Luckily, Shirou realizes that it’s late. Yes, it’s very late! Spare me from having to watch two lectures back-to-back.

– Saber assures Shirou that Servants can magically “adapt to whatever era they find themselves in.” That’s convenient. In other words, she’s going to become a mysterious transfer student at his school, huh? Yo, I’ll let it slide if Archer becomes one too. Fair’s fair. What say you, Fate/stay Night?

– Ah RIP… we’re going to go see that old man anyway.

– So Rin takes Shirou to go see some fake priest in a shady-looking church. Along the way, she explains how this guy became her guardian ever since her father died.

– Character models aside, the animation looks nice. Well, even the characters are well-animated. I just don’t like the character designs.

– So we meet Kirei Kotomine, and uh… I wouldn’t trust him. It’s just the way he looks and the way he sounds. Hell, Saber wouldn’t even come with Shirou because she apparently has bad history with the guy. But nuh-uh, you’re not going to fool me into watching Fate/Zero, anime!

– Rin: “You’ll need to start from square one with him.” Oh lawwwwwd.

– Billions upon billions of people on this planet, and out of all of them, only seven people at a time will get the privilege to fight over an object that can very well decide the fate of the entire world: “A Holy Grail capable of this can surely grant its holder limitless power.” That’s rather peculiar, isn’t it? Not only that, the Grail is located in this very Japanese town.

– Only one person may hold the Grail at the end of all of this. And who decided this? The Grail itself. Okay then.

– Naturally, our wholesome hero wouldn’t hurt a fly, much less kill the other Masters. Luckily for him, Rin gives him a way out: “We don’t have to kill each other, Emiya-kun.” Again, I didn’t watch all of the original adaptation, and even if I did, I doubt I would’ve remembered much. I wonder if he killed anyone then. I wonder if he’ll kill anyone now.

– Kirei insists, however, that the whole thing will be a fight to the death, but Rin angrily disagrees. Like really angrily. I wonder if she maybe wants to preserve his innocence or something. After all, someone went ahead and spoiled it for me that she already likes the guy. Still, her solution is just a half-way compromise. He doesn’t have to kill the other Masters, but he still has to eliminate their respective Servants. Does that mean they die or do they just go back to wherever they came from?

– Kirei reasons, however, that it’s hard enough to defeat a Servant. You may as well just get rid of the Master since this’ll kill two birds with one stone. But never give a wholesome shounen a challenge. He’s almost certain to take the hard way out every single time if it means he can spare a life. I mean, I suppose that’s what makes him a hero, doesn’t it? But it does get tiring watching the same archetype over and over in these stories. But again, this is the second route, so I’ll just have to wait and see what this Shirou does.

– Oh God, Kirei’s started walking. Let’s see if he walks in a circle.

– So a Master would still be a part of the game even if they lost their Servant. All that matters is that the Master still has their Command Seal. Shirou asks what would happen if he just used up his Command Seal right there and then. Kirei doesn’t really give him a good answer. He just says that this would be cowardly. Well, okay, if I don’t want to die, who the hell cares if you think I’m cowardly?

– He’s made a turn!

– Still, if Shirou wants to give up that badly, he can. Kirei will even protect him until the whole ordeal is over.

– He’s made another turn! It’s going to be a circle, folks! All he’s got to do is make one more turn! Turn left, Dale!

– BAM, THE LAST TURN! We’ve come… full circle.

– Kirei: “Driven by their desires, [previous] Masters have engaged in indiscriminate slaughter.” I guess the Grail doesn’t really care who holds it so long as that person is good at killing… It doesn’t seem so damn holy anymore.

– Of course, Shirou’s not going to quit. Why? Because he shouldn’t want an asshole to get their hands on the Grail. I can buy that. It’s just another version of that “With great power comes great responsibility” idea. It is revealed that the disastrous fire from Shirou’s past was the aftermath of the previous Holy Grail War. See, now you’re just playing on the hero’s trauma, so he has to join.

– Oddly enough, even though this is the fifth Holy Grail War, only one guy has ever managed to hold it. I guess the other contests just failed for one reason or another. Even then, he held it only briefly and did nothing with it. According to Kirei and Rin, this was because the other Masters weren’t all dead. Apparently, getting the Grail doesn’t mean anything unless the other Masters are dead. Okay then. So uh, I have to ask… if only one person has ever gotten his hands on the Grail, and even then, he couldn’t do anything with it, how does anyone know for sure that the Grail will grant you limitless power?

– Kirei keeps badmouthing this previous guy as though he’s talking about someone that Shirou should know. I’m guessing this previous guy has to be Shirou’s dad, since the damn war only occurred ten years ago. Still, seeing as how Rin’s a Master too, and this is the route that focuses on her… I don’t know what to really believe. ‘Cause honestly, I don’t believe for a second that Rin’s going to die.

– Shirou finally leaves the church, presumably after confirming his desire to stay in the Holy Grail War. Kirei says something about great evil, blah blah blah. He shakes hands with Saber, and that’s that. Still, I like how the revelations about the fire from ten years ago is what ultimately convinced Shirou to participate. You’d think the idea of an evil person getting his or her hands on the Grail would be enough to sway him. Like what if Hitler was going for the Grail, y’know? But Shirou only really becomes adamant in his resolve, because he doesn’t want athe great fire to occur again. Well, I’m not saying that a fire ain’t a tragedy, but worse things can happen.

– Hell, we don’t even need to consider worse things. Let’s say some asshole’s wish is to simply — oh, I don’t know — destroy a single orphanage. That’s arguably not as bad as a fire that consumes an entire town, but I’d still think that something like this alone should be enough to get Shirou’s participation, no? My point is, why is the fire from the years ago the straw that breaks the camel’s back, and not the very real possibility that any unsavory bastard can get his hands on the Grail? Any hero of justice worth his or her salt would’ve said, “Stop right there. You had me at ‘unsavory bastard.'”

– Needless to say, Rin suggests that they go their separate ways because they are now officially rivals. Oh, it’s just the tsundere act.

– Archer shows up to state the obvious, i.e. yo, let’s just kill this kid right here and right now. But of course, Rin does nothing, so he teases her about her true feelings for Shirou. Aw, it comes complete with her blushing and everything. Good ol’ tsunderekkos.

– Shirou continues to insist that he doesn’t want to fight Rin. After all, he likes people like her. Cue more blushing and stammering. Yep. But all of a sudden, that silver-haired loli from last week’s episode reappears. She even asks if our heroes are done chatting. Girl, c’mon… you already know the answer to that question! We’re never done chatting! But fair’s fair, so I’ll admit that it looks like we might finally get some more action in next week’s episode. Pairing a little girl up with a Berserker-type fighter is so passé, though.

– Anyway, the episode’s finally over, and surprise, surprise… it’s another episode full of uninteresting conversations about the rules of the game. Hell, we got two different conversations in two different rooms, basically. When people said that the story would get better, I guess they didn’t mean that it’d get better right away.

– And of course, some of my favorite books are full of exposition, but this is not an apt comparison. When I’m reading a Dostoyevsky novel, I’m not just reading exposition. I’m reading exposition done his way. He has an undeniably unique way with words that makes his novels interesting no matter what. But at the end of the day, we’re talking about two completely different mediums. Just because you can get away with one thing in one medium doesn’t mean you should be able to get away with the same thing in another medium. There’s a reason why Dostoyevsky novels have rarely been adapted to the silver screen and adapted well. You can’t just lift the words directly from the source material, slap some animation on it, and call it a day.

Welcome back to our favorite trashy anime of the season.

– Here is a reminder of just how trashy this show can be.

– Naturally, Ange still wants to escape, but now they tell her that she only has enough fuel for one battle. Basically, she wouldn’t be able to reach her precious homeland even if she tried.

– Someone of you guys predicted that Miranda, Coco’s best friend, would end up hating Ange. Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, ’cause that won’t be happening. Here she is, getting eaten by three dragons at the same time. Talk about overkill.

– All this dogfighting against the dragons wouldn’t be half bad if not for the anime’s constant need to shove the girls’ crotches in our face. Yo, get your hideous ass out of the way. I can’t see shit!

– But like most shows, the CGI is a trainwreck. It’s this plastic-looking mess that just doesn’t mesh very well with the rest of the show’s aesthetics.

– It’s basically a bullet hell shooter come to life. I can’t help but think I’m watching a Touhou with a lot more sex and a lot less silly hats.

– Oh Ange… she comes running to Zola with a bunch of dragons in tow. Yeah, it’s painfully obvious that the show wants us to hate her, but this is just shameful.

– And thanks to her antics, both she and Zola get smacked down by the big dragon. Yep, Zola the Rapist is dead. I’m not sure how to feel about this development. On the one hand, Ange has now gotten three people killed if you count Miranda. But on the other hand, it’s Zola the Rapist.

– “We’ve failed to retrieve the bodies of the two rookies.” Yeah, uh, one got ripped in half and the other is currently in a bunch of dragons’ stomachs. I don’t think you’re finding those bodies.

– Oh come on, she’s injured! Do we really need hot patient fanservice? Underboob and everything! I love how her boobs are bandaged, but they’re magically not flattened. Our sixteen-year-old princess got a boob job.

– Aaaaand the hate train continues as Ange insists that she did nothing wrong. Well, you can argue that she didn’t get the two rookies killed, but she definitely got Zola killed. Whether or not Zola deserved to die, well… But this doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things. What matters is that Ange continues to be a complete idiot.

– Some of last week’s commenters don’t really get it. I’m not saying she has to change her mind overnight about the Normas. I’m not saying she has to suddenly accept them as people. I’m just saying… is she fucking stupid or what? You don’t go up to a hornet’s nest and hit with a bat. Likewise, when you’re wrapped in bandage, strapped to a hospital bed, and surrounded by Normas… you don’t insist that Normas aren’t human. Needless to say, she gets a swift kick to her shoulder.

– Besides, I’d still feel bad if I got a dog killed, and a dog is certainly no human.

– We see a flashback that “explains” why Ange never realized she was a Norma. Her father had told her that members of royalty did not have to use the Light of Mana, so she just left everything up to her maid. I just don’t really get it, I guess. I mean, it’s fucking magic, man! Even if my father, the king, had expressly forbade me from using magic, why wouldn’t I try anyway when nobody was looking? Again, it’s magic.

– I’m surprised that Jill actually sent Ange’s petition to the various nations. Unfortunately for the princess, they all deny any knowledge of a Princess Angelise. Hell, they even deny knowledge of the Empire of Misurugi. Apparently, the empire has ceased to exist, but I’m not sure I buy the idea that the citizens have revolted. Hell, because of that alone, I’m not sure I buy Jill’s story. Who’s to say she didn’t just stamp those petitions herself…?

– Ange has to pay for the victims’ gravestones. I feel bad for the rookies, but… fuck Zola.

– “Zola. Her impulsiveness was her only fault.” Uh… They go on to name all her positive attributes. C’mon, it’s not like her skinship with the rest of the girls was a well-kept secret or anything. I love how the story does its fucking best to make us hate Ange, but we’re now trying to honor Zola’s memory.

– Again, we see Ange try to exercise her Light of Mana powers to no avail. Ho hum. I thought she already claimed last week that the Light of Mana didn’t extend this far. C’mon, just stick to your story, girl!

– Eh, there’s not much to say about this scene. After all, it’s the umpteenth time we’ve tried to convince the princess that she’s a pathetic Norma. I have a feeling that this will be the last time, though. After all, just how many more times can you rehash the same pathetic argument? You’re a Norma! No, I’m Princess Angelise of the Empire of Misurugi! Rinse and repeat.

– Welp, they’ve found the dragons again, and no, I’m not going to capitalize the word ‘dragon’ every time they show up. Instead of fighting, Ange just wants the rest of the Normas to kill her and thus end her pathetic fate: “Then kill me, please. I can’t take it.” C’mon, can’t you do anything for yourself? You gotta take the first step. Start by killing yourself. In fact, they’ve just found the dragons, right? So here’s your chance to throw yourself right at those dragons.

– Oh lord, they’re going to give Ange the fancy mecha Villkiss. Of course she gets the fancy mecha. Oh, the characters tell us that the Villkiss is all screwed up and everything, but just you wait. In Ange’s hands, it’s going to turn into a dragon-killing, ass-kicking mecha of doom. It’s how these stories always work.

– Yo, look how this anime has two fight scenes in one episode, and it’s not even a good anime. Other shows have no excuse.

– Needless to say, the second battle doesn’t go too well for Salia, the unit’s new captain. So here comes Ange to save the day… even though she wants to die.

– Check that. She wanted to die, but now she doesn’t. Make up your mind already! But even now, we have to see the girl piss her fucking suit. Goddamnit, Cross Ange.

– Ange doesn’t even do anything amazing. Thanks to her pathetic crying, her blood splashes onto her ring, which somehow awakens Villkiss’s true form… or something. I don’t even know.

– Our princess singlehandedly defeats the dragon, and that is that. The action’s honestly not bad. Where was this Sunrise when we were watching Buddy Complex? Still, Sunrise has to feed us all sorts of delicious angles in the aftermath to convey the extent of Ange’s true feelings. Did they really have to make her nipples stand out so much? Was she turned on or what? A cathartic moment for the girl is apparently still a boner opportunity for the audience.

– Finally, she cuts off her hair, so she now looks like how she does in the anime’s OP. She also says her goodbyes to her family and her old life. Still, one must naturally wonder if this means the end of incredibly stupid Ange, or will she continue to look down on her allies?

– As an aside, I bet a lot of girls wish they could cut their hair so perfectly with a single stroke of a knife.

– Oh come on, how long has that pudding been sitting there, unrefrigerated? Yeah, no shit it’s disgusting. What did you think it was going to taste like?

– Hm, still no signs of the male love interest in the previews. I wonder when he’s going to rear his ugly head.

Right off the bat, Tatsumi says, “They don’t seem like an enemy we can easily defeat.” Thanks for the insight, buddy. We finally have Night Raid and the Jaegers clashing for the first time. How many people will die? Hm…

– I’d say one from each side sounds about right, but you never know.

– Kurome can control a giant, undead Danger Beast that can fire a blast strong enough to level a town, and yet, she’s not invincible. Maybe her weakness is that she can’t aim the damn thing, ’cause it’s just firing off into the air. Psst, dino-buddy… they’re on the ground. Kurome even commends them for dodging the attack. Uh…

– Elsewhere, Lubbock thinks to himself, “After this is over, maybe I’ll confess my feelings to [Najenda].” No, don’t say that! Do you want to get a death flag? ‘Cause that’s how you get a death flag. Joking aside… or perhaps not, the guy is afraid that Susanoo will take Najenda away from him. Hm, I don’t think you would want to date an Imperial Arms, would you?

– What’s sort of lame about Kurome’s power, however, is that our heroes just end up fighting random shit instead of the Jaegers themselves. Here, Mine is intercepted by some cowgirl. Who’s the cowgirl? Well, who even cares? She’s just someone in Kurome’s collection. Tatsumi has it even worse, because he starts off by fighting a gorilla.

– Oh, I had no idea fire was dangerous.

– Everyone’s so caught up with Kurome’s puppets that, well, the girl’s just standing there. You think she’d join in too, but nah. She instead gives us a lecture on her various puppets. But they’re puppets, they won’t matter beyond this episode, so I just don’t care. I’d rather just see the girl fight.

– Leone: “I-It’s been a while since I’ve seen the boss fight.” Yeah, why is that? You’d think the head of some secret group of assassins would, well, do more. After fifteen episodes, this is the first time we’ve seen her lift a finger.

– Kurome finally gets off her ass and lops off Leone’s left arm. If Leone was really that defenseless, I really wish she had just gone for the catgirl’s head, but I guess Leone’s too important to kill off for now. Sadly, after this attack, Kurome just returns to her perch to overlook the fight. C’mon.

– Leone’s pain tolerance must be insanely high or something, ’cause she doesn’t pass out from the pain or even scream. She just goes, “You’ve done it now!” Dammit, Bobbeh! You’ve done it now!

– The catgirl even starts grunting as her stump pulsates. I almost thought she’d regrow her arm a la Piccolo, but it turns out she’s just stopping the pain. Okay then.

– Elsewhere, Esdeath runs into a gang of thieves. Yeah, just a gang of thieves. I doubt she’ll even break a sweat.

– I like how Leone finally joins Akame in battle without missing a beat. Lopping her left arm off was nothing more than a minor distraction. Nothing really matters all that much in this story. Losing a limb doesn’t mean dick.

– Najenda kicks her opponent’s head cleanly off, but he keeps coming back for more punishment. Granted, it’s an undead puppet, but you have to wonder where all that power is coming from.

– In fact, even Susanoo loses a limb. Watching the same thing happen over and over kind of loses its impact. Hell, it started losing its impact when Leone doesn’t even seem the least bit fazed. But in any case, Susanoo regenerates his missing arm somehow. I guess it’s because he’s not really a person, so this is possible or something.

– Chelsea finally decides to take action, so she disguises herself as former allies of Kurome’s puppets, and disables them with a needle to the head… I love how she feeds us exposition as she does so. Give it up for anime, you guys. Anime as a medium has mastered the efficient use of spewing bullshit even as they fight.

– Chelsea: “Later, I’ll have the one who made me feel this way take responsibility.” Like I’ve said with Lubbock, this is how you get yourself a death flag.

– More than halfway through the episode, we finally see what happened to Wave. Apparently, Susanoo did quite a number on Tatsumi’s foil. Not too impressive there, buddy. As he gets up, though, his thoughts are consumed with Kurome. Gee, don’t tell me he’s in love with the girl. Welp, you know what to do, Tatsumi. He’s your foil, after all. You gotta match him.

– Take down one puppet and another one simply reappears to take its place. It’s the Kaiser Frog, and it has its tongue all coiled around Mine. Hm.

– The frog straight up swallows Mine. Tatsumi shows up, but he’s just yapping away about God knows what. I won’t go easy on you even if you’re Akame’s sister!!! Yo, your ally is currently being digested. You might want to get a move on.

– Buuuuut we have anime ADD, so we cut once again to another group. This time, we return to Najenda and Susanoo. The latter has tapped into his secret ability, which allows him to turn into a JRPG boss. In reality, he simply sucked the life force out of Najenda to use it as his own. And of course, this entire time, Najenda is standing on the sidelines, giving us a goddamn play-by-play of the action. Sweet. I love how the majority of these shitty shows is just the characters pulling a secret move out of their ass, and someone else explaining to us exactly what’s unfolding in front of us. Terra Formars is the biggest culprit, but Akame ga Kill! isn’t exactly far behind.

– JRPG boss Susanoo then takes out the mega-class Danger Beast in one move. Maybe Najenda should’ve used this secret ability of his a lot sooner.

– Finally, we return to Tatsumi, who can’t seem to get past the corpse of Kurome’s childhood friend. Man, our hero kind of sucks. We never see him get measurably stronger either. He’s had one power spike throughout this series, and that was when he received the Incursio. Other than that, I can’t see what Tatsumi has really taught himself.

– Luckily for the underwhelming Tatsumi, Mine somehow breaks free of the giant frog. So much for all that stomach acid. All it really does is eat away at Mine’s clothes so she can bare more skin. Oh well, I should’ve expected that.

– The episode concludes with the fight between Akame-Leone duo and Bols. Nothing much to talk about there. Bols presses his self-destruct button, but you’ll have to wait till next week to find out what happens.

– All in all, an episode full of fighting was just a cop-out, because other than Akame going against Bols, the rest of the group just fought a bunch of one-off puppets. The big showdown that we’ve been waiting for ends up being a fight against lackeys. Kurome did nothing but chop off Leone’s arm. Meh. Next week, Kurome claims she’ll just kill everyone. But I bet we’ll just get some asspull reason for her to escape. I’m thinking Bols dies, but who knows? At this slow-ass rate, we’ll just lose some limbs and nothing more.

Man, I’m only doing this to meet my shoujo quota for the season. Akatsuki no Yona doesn’t count, ’cause I actually want to watch that show. Anyway…

– Erika complains that her two “friends” went out and did things with their boyfriends over the summer. She, on the other hand, had done nothing but loaf around her house. But again, it’s all about keeping up with the Joneses. In the process, she ends up insulting her best friend — y’know, her true friend — because Ayumi was also hanging out with her. That’s kind of sad. I’m just saying… if she was having such a miserable time, why didn’t she just go out on her own, then? It feels like she’s only complaining because she constantly feels the need to compare her life to other people’s lives. And sure, to a certain extent, we should have a healthy dose of competition with our peers. But not to the point where we inadvertently insult our best friend. But of course, Ayumi has infinite patience with Erika.

– Erika also half-complains that she hasn’t gotten a single email from Kyouya all summer. It’s the 21st century, girl. You can send him an email if you want to talk to him. Now, I don’t know why you would want to do that, but hey, just sayin’. I hate how courtship continues to be so one-sided. Why should the guy always make the move? Besides, she even admits that she was expecting him to boss her around all summer. Well, him not contacting her is no big loss then, right? But I’m sure he’s about to reach out to her any minute now.

– Erika: “I don’t love him in the slightest!” I should hope not. But of course, I really wish they would just translate it as “like” instead of “love.”

– Hm, they don’t even animate the girls talking to each other like normal. Instead, their heads pop up as if I’m playing a visual novel.

– Naturally, Erika makes up a tall lie again and claims that she and Kyouya had gone to the mountains. Is it so bad if they know you didn’t do much this summer? It’s like I’ve been saying this entire time. No friend would ever go, “Wow, you went nowhere? We’re not friends anymore!” You can argue that she’s just ashamed. She’s not really afraid they’ll stop being friends with her. She just feels bad that she has no cool story to share. Okay, but then that’s an even worse reason to lie, because it makes her seem even more shallow. At least the fear of losing your friends is a bit more legitimate.

– It turns out Kyouya’s been dealing with a cold. Erika’s response? “No way. That guy catches colds?”

What is he, a mythical beast? Of course he can catch colds.

– But oh my god, you guys… she gets to go to his house and see his room!

– The animation in this episode is pretty top-notch. And yo, that is a huge bed.

– Kyouya tries to send the girl home after receiving his stuff at the door, but he goes and passes out before he can even get back inside his apartment. Welp, you can’t get out of this obligatory “See your (fake) boyfriend’s room” cliche.

– The girl’s nice enough to try and whip him up a bowl of rice porridge. You mean congee, right? I always had congee when I was sick as a kid. But it’s just not the same without the fried dough. Anyway, the guy’s still a huge jerk, so he tries to throw her phone away to discourage her. Man, how the fuck do you fall in love with someone like that? Hell, I have an easier time understanding why Bella fell in love with Edward.¹

– Like most male love interests nowadays, Kyouya doesn’t have a close relationship with his family. His dad works late, his mom doesn’t live with them, blah blah blah. Basically, he’s emotionally vulnerable because he is literally isolated from his support system. As such, it’s up to the heroine to throw herself at him despite his slings and insults. She will be the one who saves this diamond-in-the-rough, and in doing so, she will receive… ~true ruv~ There’s an easier way to find true love: date someone who isn’t a jackass. The funny thing is, relationships are hard either way. Even if your boyfriend isn’t a jackass, your relationship will still run into trouble from time to time, because two different people are trying to make their lives work together. You’ll still have misunderstandings, petty disagreements from time-to-time, etc. Since relationships are already hard enough, why make it even harder by going for someone so utterly flawed as Kyouya?

The idea, of course, is that once you “fix” a bishie like Kyouya, it’ll be smooth sailing for there on out. The relationship will just be eternal bliss, because you’ve already put in the hard work of fixing him. But I’ve just told you how Kyouya’s mother no longer lives with him and his dad. Obviously, people don’t get married and just live happily ever after. In fact, every time I watch one of these fucking series, the male love interest’s family is often in shambles. Look no further than last season’s shoujo anime! Dude’s mom divorced his dad, then she went and got herself a terminal illness! My point is, even shoujo anime acknowledge that adult relationships are fraught with peril. And yet, the shoujo heroine continues to stack the odds against herself by getting with the guy who treats her like dirt. “B-But deep down, he really likes me!” Uh-huh. Sure he does.

– He continues to insult her even though she wants to help him. But try as she might, she just can’t stop thinking about him. So she returns the next day! With more printouts! And more shoujo good intentions! Erika even says, “Listen to me. When you’re in bad shape, you need to let people dote on you unconditionally.” Meh, she was going to do it anyway. But it gets better: “But you can at least let down your guard for me. I’m your dog.”

I love how the background turns all pink and shit as she says this. This is a romantic moment, folks. This is supposed to be a romantic moment. Don’t you just feel all fuzzy inside when your girlfriend calls herself a dog?

– So he finally lets her dote on him, and the girl’s eyes just widen with anticipation. Yes! I get to fetch him some fruit! And of course, fruit is not all he gets.

– When he wakes up, he demands to know what Erika wants. She can’t believe he would think so poorly of her! After all, she merely lies to people to get them to be her friends! She’s just using him to keep up with the Joneses. So golly, how dare he cast aspersions on her character? She’s such an upstanding shoujo heroine!

– Erika returns for the third day in a row, so our black prince finally chokes out a reluctant “Arigatou.” Neato. I hope it was all worth it. You’re well on your way to marital bliss. Just look at how many facial expressions the anime feeds us, though:

It’s like they couldn’t pick just one, so let’s just do all of them.

– Ah, Kyouya is a charmer through and through: “I hate girls who push kindness on me so much it makes me want to die.” Still, he thanks her because he finally realized that she isn’t doing all these nice things for his love. She just wants to help him. But that’s the funny thing, isn’t it? She might not have ulterior motives, but the story as a whole has ulterior motives. The entire point of this subplot is to get him to fall in love with her. So what difference does it make? It’s like when the shounen hero walks in on a naked girl, and starts apologizing profusely. Yo, he totally didn’t want to see the haremette in the nude… but at the same time, the scene only exists so that he can see her in the nude. Again, what’s the fucking difference?

– Eventually, Erika runs home with her heart racing. The bishie just has this magical effect on her! The very next day, Kyouya adds: “It’s a dog’s job to risk life and limb for its master, right?” Is her heart still racing now?

– Naturally, her best friend can read her like a book. Try as she might, Erika has already fallen in love with Kyouya. It’s only the third episode, too. We’re ahead of schedule, I’d say. What are we going to do for the rest of the season? Watch the “dog” somehow manage to tame the “shrew?”

– As they’re walking home from school, Erika is astonished to see Kyouya treat a dog so nicely. Oh, I can see it now: “Wait, he likes dogs! Ergo, he really likes me!” Go ahead, girl. You just think that.

– She suggests that he just get a dog. You can already see where this is going. He once had a pet, but it died so he doesn’t want to relive that moment. He also adds, “Besides… I’ve got this big dog now.” Ahaha, so funny. But does this anger Erika? Nope. She just blushes like an idiot. Wow, I’m a dog!

– And as the guy walks away, she just insists to herself that she has to confess to him one day: “I don’t want a fake boyfriend. I want to be his real girlfriend.” Nah, didn’t you hear? You’re already his best friend.

– So later, she drops by his place with some apple pears. I’ve always called them Asian pears, but it doesn’t matter.

She sees a woman leave his apartment, but she forces herself to confess anyway. Needless to say, it’s the third episode, so he can’t accept or return her feelings. He doesn’t just reject her, of course. Rather, he accuses her of deluding herself, arguing that she doesn’t really like him. So she runs off crying, and we’ve thus entered the second phase of the story…

¹ The basic appeal of Twilight is that it has a strong female protagonist — I know you’re already scoffing at the idea that Bella is strong, but bear with me for a moment — who is simultaneously physically weak and not terribly rich. That alone upsets some types of feminist. Throw her in a relationship with an older, physically stronger, rich-ass, culturally conservative guy and Tumblr readies its dashboards. But then to top it off, this physically weak girl gets off on lightly-coded BSDM, and that’s when you get all the freaking out about abuse, and Mormon cultism, and “Bella lets herself get raped,” blah blah blah. The liberal outcry is understandable in some respects, since the series is very obviously about this tension between Edward’s ‘dom’ preferences and his privileged social status. It’s a subgenre of vampire horror for a reason. But again, the appeal is that Bella manipulates her way through this situation to get what she wants. The relationship between Erika and Kyouya, on the other hand, lacks this sort of dynamic.

If you look at the kind of male characters who get fanfiction’d by women, you often see terrorist madmen (e.g. Heath Ledger’s Joker), or emotionally damaged rich guys (e.g. Edward Cullen, The ‘Onceler’). The broad appeal is, on the one hand, translating the Joker’s terror — arguably motivated by political love — into love for a particular individual, and, on the other hand, playing a system that is disproportionately against you to your advantage. Of course, you have to go into the nuances to determine whether a specific case is good or not. I mean, this is roughly the same reason women send love letters to serial killers in prison. Years ago, I read a book on psychology and dreaming (can’t recall the name anymore). In one of their examples, a woman relates a dream where she is attacked by a man. The man in the dream pins her down and attempts to rape her, but he turns out to be entirely impotent. Failing completely, he falls off of her and begins to cry to himself. The woman, taking pity on her attacker, kneels down to embrace him… and they end up making love. That’s Twilight in a nutshell.

That’s it? You lost your knight status because of a tribute? Of course, I’m talking about Kaisar. He collapses in the middle of some densely-shrouded forest. A little girl pulls him back to safety, but nothing is what it seems in the foggy town of Nebelville. Nevertheless, Kaisar is the type who hears what he wants to hear, sees what he wants to see, so on and so forth. The little girl plainly tells him that she’s far, far older than he is, but does he care? Nah. The little girl tells him not to eat her parents’ food, but does he even consider her advice for a second? Nah. I don’t expect him not to eat the food, but he hardly took pause at the obviously strange scenario in front of him. Afterwards, he ends up telling the girl all about his troubled past. His father was bringing a tribute to the king, but bandits attacked as they are wont to do. Long story short, his father lost the tribute, so the king hanged him. Over a tribute, yo. A tribute. I’m not saying this doesn’t happen! I’m implying that the king is an unjust asshole! But obviously, what are you going to do against a king? Well, you can try to revolt and overthrow him, but that’s easier said than done. So naturally, Kaisar puts all the blame on Favaro. Is Favaro partly responsible? Probably. I wouldn’t put it past the guy. But the point is, Kaisar is powerless against the people who are truly at fault — namely, the king — so he’s taking his anger out on the one person he can take it out on: Favaro. Still, they’ll probably become buddies by the end of the story or something.

So what is up with the foggy town of Nebelville? Well, the town never really was… for the past two hundred years, anyway. Monsters had attacked and killed most of the towns’ inhabitants. Rita, the sole survivor, found a book full of dark spells, however, and she used said spells to raise the dead. Not back to life, mind you, but as zombies. Since then, she’s played house with those zombies. But how has Rita kept herself alive this entire time? For instance, what is there for her to eat? I suppose she and her horde of zombie villagers must have been preying upon unsuspecting travelers for the past two hundred years. Even if she didn’t partake in this feast — but if she didn’t, then again, what has she been eating? — she would still be indirectly responsible for perhaps hundreds of deaths. Yeah, the girl’s not exactly going to get past the pearly gates, if you know what I mean. This is probably why we see her up and about after the credits. Her zombie parents eventually turned on her for reasons unknown — maybe she lost control of them — and as expected, she turned into a bit of zombie herself. Still, she’s somehow managed to retain her mental faculties, so she’s not your averaged brain-dead undead. As a result, Rita’s now following Kaisar on his adventures. Great, we now have a loli-looking undead girl following our knight around, but she’s really an old soul. Still, what I liked about this episode is how profoundly the ruse had affected Kaisar.

So Kaisar’s been fooled by the fog of Nebelville. Oh well, it couldn’t be helped. He didn’t know what he was stumbling into. Nevertheless, we see the guy in absolute tears near the end of the episode. Is he genuinely that affected by the reality of the situation around him? Yes… yes, he is. I suspect he suddenly understands now how this one moment is actually a microcosm of his troubled past. It strikes me that being a knight in this universe doesn’t automatically mean that you’re anything special. Sure, you get special privileges above that of a commoner, but is that really a good thing? You’re still just a slave to the king, and if he’s an unjust king, he will cruelly and harshly punish you and your family on a whim. Again, Kaisar’s family lost everything over a tribute. A fucking tribute. Like the zombies that we see here, the king is rotten to the core. Nevertheless, like Rita, Kaisar yearns to return to the way things were. He fights for the past even when the past is already long gone (or dead). Perhaps his problem with Favaro, then, is that Favaro had dispelled the illusion — hell, he’s done it twice now — but Kaisar refused to drag himself out of the cave to see the world as it really is. But seeing the temporarily lifeless Rita in front of him, something might have changed inside him. How much longer can he waste his precious life on this revenge-fueled quest against Favaro? Or will our proud former knight finally free himself from the past and thus strike his own path?

Stray notes & observations:

– The angels and the demons continue to sit around and drop hints about the larger story to come. I wonder how long it’ll take either of them to truly enter the fray. And again, we see Jeanne in her location to the far north, but she stabs the ground and watches as the harsh winds whip around her. Nothing else to say about her contribution to the story in this week’s episode.

– For all the people complaining about Amira’s sudden bout of cuteness last week — and I admittedly wasn’t a big fan of it either — you’ll be happy to know that she’s toned it down this week. I think her chasing Hamsa around is the extent of it.

– Favaro seems to have resigned himself to his fate. He doesn’t do anything to try and kill Amira this week. In fact, it even seems like he’ll try and escort her to Helheim… for now. I still expect him to sell her out should the opportunity ever arise. After all, she’s revealed that she’s literally become the God Key after absorbing its soul. As such, she’s got to be worth a pretty penny to the right people. But who knows? Maybe Amira will be lucky, and our not-quite-so-heroic protagonist will eventually change his ways before that ever happens.

– Yeah, Amira tells her traveling companion all about the incident. She lost one of her wings when she stole the God Key. Still, the gods act all surprised that someone like Amira could even step foot onto holy grounds. Psst, maybe she’s not quite the demon that you guys so adamantly believe her to be.

– So why did Rita save Kaisar and tell him not to eat the food? Does our 200-year-old necromancer have a crush on the young man? Good God, don’t be such a cradle robber, lady.

– Hm, I don’t know about that.

The older I get, the less inclined I am to raid. So instead, I’ll watch others raid!

– The raid has no exit restrictions? What would an exit restriction even be? You haven’t wiped at all, so you can’t leave yet!

– Hm, I had hoped for something a little more creative than multi-colored lights as the camera panned across a bunch of uninteresting looking arches and stairs.

– Well, here’s Log Horizon‘s tried-and-tested brand of narration. Even though this is a raid, we hear mostly Shiroe’s voice as the camera now pans across a map of the dungeon they’re in. But here’s the thing… why isn’t it enough for us to hear Shiroe’s narration as we watch the raid group fight the various monsters? Why do we need to see the map as well? You can argue that the ridiculous amount of rules in Fate/stay night is a necessary evil in order for us to enjoy the rest of the story. I’m not convinced, but I can see gist of that argument. On the other hand, I just cannot understand why it is necessary for me to see the exact layout of the dungeon that these characters are in. As a diagram at the back of, say, the light novels, fine. Whatever. As a reader, you have the option to look at the map or not. As a viewer of visual media, however, I feel like this is a waste of time and resources. Anyway, I guess we can’t expect much from Studio Deen. They’re not exactly the richest studio out there. I mean, that pupa adaptation was just a joke.

– I was also hoping for raid monsters a little more interesting than blobs of slime. Yes, blobs of slime are a JRPG convention, but in a starter zone. In a raid zone, though? Eh…

– Ooooooookay, I’m just going to zone out until something interesting happens, i.e. not this.

– They’re just fighting slimes! Nothing but slimes for the entire first section. I wanted action but…

– Nope, still nothing to comment on. They’re still just fighting slimes, and Shiroe’s still narrating. Check back later.

– Finally, we come across something that isn’t a slime. It’s a one-eyed bird… in a cave. Kind of reminds me of a recent raid boss in WoW, actually. The one with all the eggs up top. I’m bad with descriptions. Clearly, I’ll never find a job as a narrator for anime. And yes, even though we’re no longer fighting slimes, Shiroe’s still narrating. Such is the Log Horizon way.

– In the middle of a raid boss’s big attack, Shiroe still has to push his glasses up. Dude’s fucking addicted. We should hold an invention for his nose. It deserves better.

– That big attack instantly killed one person and CC’d nine others. That’s more than a third of the raid group out of commission in some form or fashion. Sounds like a whole bunch of people couldn’t get out of the fire. Even if this wasn’t the first time they’re fighting this boss, I wouldn’t be surprised if they wiped. Most raiders are pants-on-head stupid.

– I don’t get why these raiders aren’t at max level, though. They’re literally a raid guild. You’d think they’d prioritize getting to max level before anything else. I can understand Shiroe not being at max level, because he’s been busy running a city. But what’s the raid guild’s excuse? This is partly why I don’t really buy the idea that everyone has quit because raiding got too tough. Yo, you’re not even max level. Why are you trying to raid when you’re not at the level cap? No wonder you’re getting your asses kicked. Hell, most raids nowadays won’t even let you enter unless you’re at max level.

– Up the DPS! Throw more dots! MORE DOTS!

– Eventually, they get past the stupid bird, and the next boss is some giant octopus lady. Unfortunately, the episode spends less than ten seconds on her before moving on. Are you kidding me? So far, the majority of the episode has been their encounters with the trash mobs. Trash mobs that were nothing but slimes. But when it comes to the big, bad raid bosses, we’re just steamrolling through them.

– After a time skip, we see them battling slimes some more. SLIMES. FUCK. Shiroe tells us they’ve been at this for weeks now. I guess these raids don’t have a weekly reset. I wonder what the reset even is…

– Naturally, Demikas is a hot-head who wants to Leeroy Jenkins everything. Probably shouldn’t have taken him with them. I know they were short one person, but c’mon… were they that desperate that they couldn’t spend a few more days looking for someone who isn’t an asshole?

– Finally, the trash mobs vary it up a bit. It’s still a bit of a silly dungeon, though. They’re literally lost within it. They can’t leave to replenish their supplies or repair their equipment. They literally have to camp out within the dungeon. People would get fed up with this game so quick. Yeah, Log Horizon is trying to be as real as possible, but Elder Tales is still a game that’s being played in the outside world, no? But more importantly, this is all the more reason that the raid group should’ve been at max level. I still can’t fathom a raid guild that doesn’t take itself seriously enough to even hit max level.

– The various members say they can’t just do lower raids for mats, because the guild leader doesn’t do anything half-assed. And yet… you guys are underleveled. Maybe they’d have more success otherwise, and as a result, the other guild members wouldn’t have quit. Just a thought…

– The raid group takes a breather to develop the characters a bit. Like a tiny bit. Demikas is still roid-raging. Meanwhile, Naotsugu is really spending a lot of time with Tetra. Still, they just end up talking about how Shiroe is fighting to protect his home of Akihabara (snicker). Nothing too particularly insightful here.

– Naturally, the anime now cuts to Akihabara where everyone’s getting ready to celebrate Christmas. We all know what that means: Shiroe’s going to die soon. And oh lord, even though Shiroe’s not involved, the characters are still dryly discussing MMORPG mechanics. It’s just not very compelling. To me, MMORPGs are about people from across the world coming together to play a game. So y’know, I expect there to be some interesting interpersonal relationships for the anime to focus on.

But we cut to Shiroe’s guild members just to hear the catman talk about “The Teachings.” One problem with Log Horizon is that it’s just hard to relate to any of the characters on a personal level. The story feels rather clinical. There’s all this stuff about how an MMO works, how to run a city, etc. But the people, the one major component of any MMO, is oddly missing. And the ironic thing is that the cast is full of characters. Way too many characters, even. But we hardly know anything about them, their feelings, their worries, their concerns, their friendships, their romantic relationships, so on and so forth. Again, we literally cut to Shiroe’s guild members just to hear a short explanation on an MMO mechanics.

– The episode ends with this evil-looking dude saying mean things about the adventurers, so I guess he must be one of those People of the Land folks. Needless to say, the second season has been even less enjoyable to watch than the first season. Pretty lame.

I lied. This is a post about harem anime, so there are no highlights. Anyway, time for another ridiculously long post. But as always, a look at the standings before we get started:

Ushinawareta Mirai no Motomete: 11 points
Grisaia no Kajitsu: 10 points
Madan no Ou to Vanadis: 4 points
Trinity Seven: 3 points
Daitoshokan no Hitsujikai: 2 points

As you can see, Ushinawareta Mirai no Motomete (40%) has taken the lead. Not only did it get the most votes from you guys, I also thought it had last week’s worst episode. As such, the show has been awarded six points towards the Crown of Shit Anime. Grisaia no Kajitsu (26%) barely beat out Trinity Seven (23%) for second place. Our library anime (14%) finished a distant fourth, and Madan no Ou to Vanadis could only muster up two whole votes. But it’s only week three of the early fall season, so Tigre and his well-endowed maidens aren’t out of the game just yet. Read on to see how bad things can get…

Daitoshokan no Hitsujikai Ep. 2

– Right out of the gates, a haremette treats us to some terrible singing. Like always, she has a troubled past. Don’t worry, our harem lead will fix you right up…

– …right after he picks up some trash around the school. As expected, Tsugumi’s Shiomi Happy Project is boring as hell. She essentially wants to help her classmates out with their problems. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen this storyline before. But because the group has no reputation, they need to first build it — preferably a good one, I’m sure. Apparently, the first step is to pick up trash. You’d think that a school with 50,000 students would have the staff on hand to take care of this. Sure, sure, we should pick up our own trash. You shouldn’t deliberately litter just because the janitor can pick it up. But at the same time, you also don’t want to drive them out of a job, y’know?

– But I mean, if you really want to solve this problem, you have to nip it in the bud. Picking up trash is just taking care of the immediate issue. Why are the students littering in the first place? But I digress…

– Tsugumi suddenly asks the harem lead if he’s ever picked up girls before. She thinks he would be good at it. Surprisingly, instead of blushing like an idiot, he asks if he’d be able to pick her up. Guess who ends up blushing like an idiot? Well, one of them has to turn beet red. You can’t have two characters perfectly capable of flirting with each other. This is anime, after all!

– Our dynamic duo finds their first victim in the annoyingly bubbly Kana. It’s such a sad state of affairs when a haremette is just plain happy that Kyotaro even remembers who she is. I hope she doesn’t faint if he smiles at her.

– Is that beauty in the form of a plastic bag dancing about in the wind? No, it’s beauty in that the bag leads you to a pantyshot. Surprise!

– The pantyshot belongs to the haremette we had seen at the start of the episode. Take notes, folks. We’re about to see how one goes about unlocking this girl’s h-scene. Of course, we won’t see said h-scene in the anime adaptation, but you can apply this invaluable knowledge to the visual novel itself. See? Who said watching harem anime all night wasn’t useful?

– Short, purple hair? Welp, it’s a Rei-clone. The sad thing is, these Rei-clones can’t just emulate the original Rei in personality. They even have to look like her.

– First things first, you gotta help the girl retrieve a coin from under the vending machine. Congrats! You’re now well on your way to doing Senri from behind!

– But after this fateful encounter, Kyotaro returns to his group of friends to discuss the mysterious Shepherd some more. Everyone’s apparently gotten an email from the mysterious entity. The problem with these scenes, of course, is that there’s an imbalance in our group of friends. Most of the girls are vapid; Tamamo’s the only one who doesn’t seem like an airhead. For a harem anime, I think batting .333 is pretty damn poor. This ain’t baseball.

– As they leave the school grounds, our group of friends comes across a tuning fork — the same tuning fork we had seen in Senri’s possession — and they are thus on their first quest to make this school a happier place. But we all know it’s all for that h-scene. But because the anime adaptation automatically plays itself out without any input from the viewers, we will not be rewarded.

– They try to return the tuning fork to the girl, but they only find Senri’s former childhood friend. It would appear that the two of them have had a falling out of some sort. Welp, time for our harem lead to mend a broken friendship without any ulterior motive.

– Even though they couldn’t locate Senri, our antsy Tsugumi just can’t leave things as they are. She has to return the tuning fork to Senri right now! This would be a more compelling story if, say, the tuning fork had been Senri’s inhaler or something. But a tuning fork? I think her untuned vocal cords can survive without it for a night.

– Once again, this is how we encounter Senri. I like how she’s supposed to be the school’s Song Princess, but her singing is hardly the focus of her portrayal. Instead, it’s all about how awesome her ass looks.

– When Tsugumi refers to Senri as the Song Princess, however, the latter gets oddly offended: “Did you bring it to me because I’m the Song Princess?” What? Does she really think they would’ve otherwise kept the tuning fork if she had been a normal girl? C’mon, who steals a tuning fork?

– So how does our charming harem lead diffuse the tense situation? By implying that he only returned the tuning fork to her because she had flashed her panties at him. Smooth.

– They then take the opportunity to pimp their club out to Senri, telling the Song Princess to contact them if she ever needs help. Yawn.

– Afterwards, Kyotaro comes across Kana on his way home, and helps her find a cellphone to buy. Oh boy, this is just the most exciting anime ever…

– The girl wants to buy the one cellphone you wouldn’t be able to fit in your own pocket. Smart. But that’s it. That’s the entire scene. Yep, that’s some great storytelling.

– The next day, as a symbol of his trust in the Tsugumi, Kyotaro hands her a key to the clubroom — the same clubroom he had wanted to keep to himself at the start of the same episode. Well, that was fast.

– With just two minutes left in the episode, Kana shows off her new cellphone to the rest of the group. On the bright side, at least the episode is almost over, ’cause it’s really starting to put me to sleep. C’mon, a cellphone-buying subplot? Are you serious?

– They even went and ruined the fat cat. It’s not even cute anymore! What does the anime have left if not the fat cat?!

– Our group of friends then get emails from the Shepherd telling them that Senri will teach them all something valuable. Great. So next week’s episode will still be Senri-focused. Ah well… until then.

Grisaia no Kajitsu Ep. 3

– The harem lead returns from a jog to find one of his haremettes breaking into his room. It turns out, however, that Amane merely intends to surprise him in his sleep. Welcome back to the most boring hyped anime of the season.

– Well, we’re off to a great start. She then proceeds to rub herself on his bed. This entire time, Yuuji’s just watching from behind his doorframe. Oh, he can’t interrupt her! Not until she climaxes! Who knows how dangerous she might be? He might lose a finger or two!

– But see, I thought these girls were crazy. After three episodes, all I’ve been shown so far is a murderous girl. Sure, breaking into your room to masturbate on your bed is a bit kooky, I’ll admit, but not enough to make the show interesting. We’re not trying to be a porno here, now are we?

– Afterwards, the harem lead teaches Makina to sing, “Amane Suou is a bitch in heat!” Wow, misogyny!

– Exciting developments follow, like how Sachi is taking her classmates’ drink orders. She then goes all the way out to Hokkaido to fetch the freshest, best milk possible. Sure she did. And in other news, Makina has been imitating the harem lead’s mannerisms. Scintillating.

– According to Yumiko, Amane was never like this, i.e. super flirty. She changed, however, when she got into a traffic accident. Uh-huh, I would certainly leave it up to a bunch of high schoolers to diagnose their classmates.

– Later, the harem lead overhears Michiru playing with a cat, but he thinks the girl is having sex. As a result, he wants to tell her off. Boy, did you see the look on his face when he realized it was just a cat?! Just more wackiness from Grisaia no Kajitsu! You can’t predict what will happen next! Seriously though, when is this shit going to get interesting?

– Now I’m watching Yuuji give the girl tips on how to drive cats away. Come. On.

– Then after that whole cat business is over…

Man, this anime sucks. All it has is a bunch of sexually suggestive moments. All that bullshit about the girls being crazy? Well, that has amounted to no more than one whole minute out of three full episodes. Meanwhile, we’ve been inundated with nothing but boring pantyshots and Yuuji’s sad attempts to look alpha. The male lead is simply a jackass who takes every opportunity to insult the girls around him. I’m therefore not surprised that a lot of people seem to find him amusing. After all, he doesn’t get any goddamn flak for his shitty comments. Just sayin’, it’s really easy to look alpha when the girls are so oblivious that they wouldn’t dare stand up to you.

– Speaking of which, the girls don’t even act like real people with real problems. Even Yumiko is nothing but a boring caricature of a box-cutter-wielding maniac.

– What wacky situation has Yuuji gotten himself into this time? He had mistakenly agreed to have Sachi make him a shark-inspired pouch. Are you kidding me? Five girls and one guy at some shitty school. What do we do, guys? What do we do? I know! Let’s do a subplot where one of the girls makes him a pouch! Can you believe I’ve been getting hate comments for my coverage on this anime? Yo, if this banal shit rocks your world, cool. Whatever floats your boat, man. But don’t bring that nonsense here. It’s bad enough that I have to watch these shows. I don’t need to read hilariously bad comments in favor of the show as well.

– And of course, some people always say they can enjoy this dreck because they don’t take it seriously. I, on the other hand, totally need to chill out!

– But the way I see it, if not taking anything seriously allows me to enjoy something as bad as Grisaia no Kajitsu, then we’ve jumped the fucking shark.

– So to get himself out of this mess, he tells her to make it so that his pouch is shaped like a bush dog. Hilarious! I know it is, because I’m so chilled out! I’m so goddamn chilled out that caring is now creepy!

– In the end, Michiru saves Yuuji from having to wear a rhinestone-covered pouch — oh, the horror! — by pawning it off on Makina. I’ve just wasted precious minutes of my life watching this brain-dead sequence of events.

– And yet, the scene is still going! Wow, the pouch barks, you guys! Let’s keep watching to see what other stupid noise the pouch can emit!

– Finally, we change scenes, but the story has practically no flow to it. Somehow, we go from the previous scene to our characters now playing softball during P.E. Needless to say, one of the girls gets injured so our manly, alpha Yuuji has to carry her to the nurse’s office. I’m surprised this place even has a nurse. I bet it’s just one of the other characters moonlighting as one.

– Oh, even fucking better! The well-stocked nurse’s office is completely empty, so our harem lead attends to Amane’s ankle all by his lonesome.

– She then asks if he wants to be her boyfriend. After being summarily rejected, she settles with being his big sister. This is so dumb and pointless.

– Oh good, the obligatory obento scene. Gee, I was wondering why I hadn’t seen one yet despite the season having five full harem anime series. As the haremette is literally hand-feeding him, Yuuji thinks to himself, “Do I really have the right to accept a little piece of happiness like this?” Gimme a fucking break. But thankfully, the episode is over. Yeah, it literally just comes to an end as Amane is stuffing our harem lead’s face full with food. Uguu, guys, the girls at this school are totally crazy, and this is going to be a wild ride–…

…harem anime never changes.

– By the way, it’s going to be hard to top this episode. Ushinawareta Mirai wo Motomete’s got its work cut out for it if the anime wants to hold onto first place.

Madan no Ou to Vanadis Ep. 3

– If you’ll recall, Tigre saved his Titta from imminent rape. Now, he’s going to strike back at the rapist with Elen in tow. In other words, anime is still obsessed with rape.

– Parts of Zion’s army are in shambles, and now that a Vanadis has joined the fight, it’s unlikely that he’ll win the ensuing battle. It’s thus time to turn tail and run, right? Nah, he just swears revenge against Tigre instead.

– Oh lord, I fucking hate light novel adaptations. Really? Do you really need to show me this? Well, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Satelight did work on the first season of Log Horizon, after all. Still, they can’t even make the CGI look good.

– A battle is about to break out any moment now, but Titta can’t help but ask if Elen and Tigre are a thing. Welp, gotta keep our priorities straight. Is this primarily a harem anime or a war anime? A harem anime, of course! And boy howdy, are we thankful for that! Who needs to see exciting battles and backdoor political machinations? I want to see the maid blush as she chokes out that question to the big-breasted warrior! When Elen reiterates that Tigre belongs to her, the maid then yells, “I-I won’t be outdone.” Sorry, Titta… but for you, it really is just all in the name. You sadly can’t compete.

– Yay, more troop movement bullshit.

– Finally, we see the actual battle unfold, but the anime keeps the camera pinned up close to the characters. To actually pull the camera out and let us see the entire scene would be too taxing on Satelight’s animators, I’m sure. Oh well, I wasn’t expecting to be wowed, anyway. We see two sides of horribly copy-pasted CGI models run at each other once, but we cut away as soon as those two sides are about to clash.

– I really hate how the action is interrupted by yet more unnecessary narration. These light novel adaptations just can’t help themselves, can they? For the people not watching this show but are still reading these posts for whatever reason, Lim’s troops have flanked the bad guys, and this allows Elen to go one-on-one with a dragon.

– By one-on-one, I really meant that she would just summon a tornado that somehow cleaves a giant dragon in half. Done and done. Not even one iota of excitement.

– Elen tells Tigre that this ability uses too much force, so she doesn’t use it on people. But that poor dragon was probably just following its evil masters’ orders. Oh well, dragons have no rights, I guess.

– More narration! Whee!

– The sad thing is, the story feels the need to talk down to its audience. Alright, what happened is this. Zion thought a unit of 2,000 soldiers was about to flank him. He didn’t realize, however, that the vast majority of those soldiers were really just unmanned horses. Fine, just show me that. The anime doesn’t also need to tell me that the horses were unmanned. Just more pointless narration from anime’s school of storytelling, because the people who adapt these stories must honestly think we’re too stupid to believe our own eyes.

– Anyway, with Zion now cornered, his advisers tell him to unleash the flying dragon as well. C’mon, no more innocent animals should have to die for your stupid war games. Just surrender already.

– Naturally, the guy wants to save himself. In doing so, he’d probably prevent more unnecessary deaths for his own soldiers. Unfortunately, this act of surrendering is portrayed by the anime as cowardly. Hm.

– I love how the show cuts away from the boring plastic toys on a map stuff only to show us the running animation of the horses’ feet. That’s right, just the horses’ feet. You can tell Satelight’s operating on a shoestring budget. Maybe they shouldn’t have chosen to adapt an anime that would require them to animate war scenes.

– And of course, Zion is a paper-thin caricature of a villain. Tigre accuses the guy of mistreating his people, so our hero gets this response: “They’re like plant life, which grows back when you cut it down! What do you care about them?”

– In his last ditch attempt for revenge, Zion challenges Tigre to a duel. There’s really no good reason for our hero to accept, but he does so anyway. After all, he’s got plot armor on. And hell, even this foolishness ends up impressing Elen, so from that point of view, it’s just a win-win for Tigre.

– Tigre is so amazing, he can hit the same spot on Zion’s shield over and over until an arrow eventually manages to go right through the armor completely. As a result, the arrow penetrates the bad guy’s arm. Grisly. Is it really that impressive, though? In a world full of powerful maidens — maidens that can literally control the elements — who cares about some guy’s accuracy with a bow? Yo, the heroine just split a dragon in twain, and yet she’s obsessed with a dude who can shoot a bow really well. C’mon. Plus, it seems weird to me that the story would pride itself on its military strategy, but at the same time, have these characters that are practically living gods on earth.

– Zion’s army then runs at Tigre to try and save their lord. In return, Elen’s army runs at them to defend Tigre! In the resulting fracas, Zion tries to escape on his flying dragon. Oh no, we can’t let such a bad guy get away! So the bow — yes, the bow — starts telling Tigre to shoot the dragon. Yo, it’s just following orders. Don’t do it, man.

– It turns out Elen’s sword is lending Tigre its strength. And with one arrow, Tigre kills both Zion and the dragon. Welp. That’s the end of the episode. Sure, it doesn’t have a lot of fanservice like the previous two harem anime, but Madan no Ou to Vanadis is not without its stupid moments.

Trinity Seven Ep. 2

– It doesn’t matter how interesting a premise might be. At the end of the day, most harem anime will return to its natural habitat: the high school classroom. If anything, stories like Madan no Ou to Vanadis are the freaks of the harem anime world.

– Basically, Arin, who looks a lot like Arata’s cousin, has taken a special interest in the harem lead. She now follows him around and stares at him all day.

It sounds boring, but thanks to the show’s shitty animation, it’s really not!

– She even tries to follow him into the boy’s restroom, but even this harem lead has his limits.

– Why is she so obsessed with him? Why, it’s because he’s a candidate to become the demon lord, of course! Ah yes, the demon lord. Where would we be without a demon lord story?

– This season is quite amazing in its comprehensiveness, actually. First, we have a show all about making a school a better place. You always have to have at least one harem anime that is lame as fuck. Then, you have the show that tries to be edgy by teasing us with the possibility of its haremettes going crazy on us. Naturally, we’ve been fooled. Next, you have a show that pretends to be of a different genre altogether! Don’t worry, this is really a story about medieval politics and war! Not. Fourth, we have that show with a pretentious name, and as such, wacky timeline-altering shenanigans are involved. But at the end of the day, the basic core principles are the same: a boring story about a boring harem lead at a boring fucking high school. Last and very least, Trinity Seven stays true to its harem roots. Magical school! Alchemy! Demon Lord! And of course, a heavy dose of sickening family love. Ah… harem anime at its best!

– So she’s keeping an eye on him, right? She won’t let him become a demon lord and endanger everyone, right? Wrong: “…because I’m going to be the demon lord’s spouse, supposedly.” Right, right… as you were, then.

– Arata then returns to his room to find it filled with girls. Ho-hum, another day in a harem lead’s life. Pfft, you’re not even trying, Lilith.

– Our “hero” jokes that he would assault Lilith first if he ever fell under the influence of a love potion. Ha ha, aren’t rape jokes funny? The best part? Lilith looked at him all expectantly until he finally gave his answer. Then it’s like a flip switched inside of her, and she realized she had to blush and act all tsundere. Blah blah blah, virgin-whore dichotomy. She needs the harem lead’s attention, but at the same time, she will abuse him for paying attention to her.

– But that’s enough hijinks for now, because even a harem anime will pretend as though it has a story to tell. We thus move into a harem anime’s next and equally boring phase: the exposition.

– Yadda yadda yadda, the small book in Arata’s possession is really the Astil Codex. Yadda yadda yadda, it houses knowledge of another world. But in its spare time, it moonlights as a haremette who looks a lot like Arata’s cousin. Funny how that works. Then we get some talk about Thema this, Thema that. Magic is truly amazing.

– In the middle of all this fascinating infodumping, the show gets antsy because of the lack of fanservice. As a result, a random blackout occurs. As always, when the lights come back on, the harem lead will have one of his paws on a girl’s breast. But there are three girls! Whose breast will he molest! That’s an easy question to answer. The more likely the girl is to blush and scream, the more likely it is that she’ll be sexually assaulted! Isn’t this fun! Our decision depends wholly upon the girl’s sense of shame!

– But y’see, the above logic only applies to the average, boring ol’ harem lead. Arata’s a demon lord, so obviously, he has to grope Lilith’s big breasts, faceplant himself into Levy’s crotch, and… uh, he’s just going to lie on top of Selina. But still, three birds with one magical rapey stone.

– Somehow, our harem lead and the three girls are trapped in a barrier. The grimoire in Arata’s possession knows how they could escape, but apparently, it’s a game so our demon lord should just try and figure it out. But meh, this is a harem anime, so it’s not like we’ll get a clever riddle or anything.

– Rather, the focus soon turns to the fact that barrier lacks a restroom. Yep, that’s right. One of our haremettes really needs to pee. So step right up, Lilith-sensei! You get the honor of pissing your panties for our enjoyment! I swear, harem anime series act as if urine is this magical, golden fluid that can save lives or some shit. I don’t care if it’s your fetish, but that’s my point. It is a fetish, but somehow, it’s become this universally erotic thing that you get to see in every fucking show and not just the harem ones (see: the most recent Cross Ange episode).

– Sure enough, Levy feels the need to relieve herself as well. Yo, it ain’t puking, guys. Seeing that one person needs to urinate doesn’t suddenly make you all want to go to the restroom. Not wanting Selina to feel left out, Levy hypnotizes the girl until she wants to wet herself as well. Awesome crab mentality, guys. If I have to humiliate myself, you’re all humiliating yourselves too. I just like how the harem lead is immune to this bit of humiliation, though.

– Aaaaaaand they proceed to huddle up and have pee shivers together.

Seriously, who comes up with this shit?

– Luckily for the girls, our harem lead is a bit nicer than, say, the one in Hagure Yuusha no Estetica. As such, he tricks his grimoire into giving him the solution to the puzzle, thus saving his room from smelling like piss for a week straight.

– Arin admits later that she was responsible for the barrier. But is Arata mad? Of course not: “I got to see the bizarrely appealing sight of three hot girls trying their hardest not to pee themselves!” Hm… nope, nope, I don’t believe I’ve ever felt turned on by the idea of a girl pissing herself.

– But, uh, don’t give Arin any weird ideas, because…

…not surprisingly, Arata turns down Arin’s offer. Yo, it’s just not the same if the girl is a willing participant!

– But never mind the water sports. Let’s ask Arin why she trapped the harem lead in a barrier. Her explanation? The headmaster had suggested that a breakdown phenomenon would occur if she did so. Suddenly, Arin tries to induce the harem lead into creating the breakdown phenomenon again by removing the limits that his grimoire had placed on his magical abilities. According to Lilith, everyone around them is slowly breaking down into elementary particles. I like that this just means a hazy black fog covers the room.

– Still, we haven’t gotten to the root of the problem: why is Arin doing this? She thus gives us the dumbest answer possible: her Thema is all about destruction, so it’s her duty to study it. Yep, even if it means destroying the entire school, it’s her duty!

– The headmaster is unfazed, though: “It’d be lots of fun if the school would just collapse on us now….” That’s the mentality I’d love any headmaster to have!

– Arata sprouts dark, emo wings. According to Lilith, the entire planet is in danger. She’s got to take the guy out with her magic now! Arin, however, steps in front of Lilith’s gun as she won’t let the harem lead die: “He’s my husband.”

No point in having a husband if the entire planet is destroyed. Just sayin’.

– But she can’t stop Mira and Akio, who show up to kill Arata. The episode ends just as Akio’s kick was about to connect, but I don’t even know why they bother with these pointless cliffhangers. There ain’t a single soul on this planet who would believe that Arata will die. Oh well. Until next time, pee-lovers.

Ushinawareta Mirai wo Motomete Ep. 3

– So it’s day seven of, uh, let’s just call it the second cycle, and I’m still waiting for another bad end to occur. Unfortunately, all that happened in last week’s episode was Yui recovering her memories. Boring, huh?

– But even though she’s recovered her memories, it’s not like we’ll get any answers to the show’s bigger questions. Nagisa says she won’t press the issue — why the fuck not? — and of course, Yui asks her not to say anything to the other members of the Astronomy Club. Welp. I guess our already dull-as-fuck anime will stay that way for just a little longer (read: a lot longer).

– We start off a new day in terrific form as Airi has a dream about the harem lead. I’m not surprised. After all, he’s such a catch.

– We soon learn that the guy spent all night playing video games. Truly, truly a catch.

– Still, Airi meets up with her friends, and they’re surprised to see her. After all, she’s almost always late to school. It turns out, however, that if she gets another tardy warning, she’ll have to repeat the grade despite her top scores. Hm, there’s a lot of focus on Airi in this week’s episode… might it be her turn to get a bad end? Meh, I should really stop getting my hopes up. The chances of this anime entertaining me might as well be zero.

– We get some flashbacks regarding Airi’s past. Basically, she was good at everything, but she soon became self-conscious of her own accomplishments. As a result, she stopped trying her hardest, and this also prevented her from making friends? Shrug, whatever. Long story short, the super friendly Kaori reached out to her, and because of this, Airi was inspired to do her best again. Now, they’re BFFs… BFFs who are fighting over one guy. Sweet!

– Welp.

– Ho hum, the six friends enjoy lunch on the rooftop. Airi also announces that she wants to investigate the mystery surrounding the ghost later that day. Great.

– Oh, I get it now! It’s the classic “Americans are all fat pigs” joke! And when we saw her in BDSM gear in last week’s episode, it was the classic “American girls are all perverts unlike our virginal Japanese maidens” joke! Hah, you’re so funny, Ushinawareta Mirai wo Motomete!

– Once again, the Judo and Karate Clubs are coming to blows. You should remember this. We saw this same incident in the first episode. Just the thought of watching these same events unfold over and over, however, has me quite exasperated.

– Alright, alright… how will the conflict between those two clubs be different this time?

– Somehow, Yui can see into the future, so she thinks that if she can prevent Kaori from hurting her ankle in the upcoming incident, maybe she won’t get the bad end that we saw in the first week. So she tells her friend that the latter mustn’t follow the rest of the club to settle the dispute. Needless to say, Kaori doesn’t heed Yui’s advice, and as far as she knows, there’s really no reason to. When they get there, however, Yui drags Kaori out of the dojo just as things are about to get ugly. So instead, it’s the harem lead who gets injured! Wait, wait, does this mean he will get run over by a bus? Oh, one can only hope!

– Afterwards, it’s boring ghost investigation time. In the middle of it, Sou collapses from the injuries he had sustained.

Out of all the harem leads this season, this guy has to be the most pathetic. Seriously, think about it. Kyotaro’s a bookworm, but he’s still smart. Yuuji tries too hard to be an alpha male, but he’s probably a hitman or some shit. Tigre is practically Elen’s slave, but he’s a crackshot with his bow. And of course, Arata is a demon lord candidate who can break matter down into its elementary particles. As for Sou, well… he likes stars? Let’s ask his friends what they think of him.

Nagisa: “In spite of everything, I guess Sou-san is still a guy, after all.”

Well, that’s a start. Congrats, Sou! You’re a guy!

– Speaking of Nagisa, she and Kenny go to interview some old man in the library. He tells them that he saw the ghost too! Oh boy! Let’s hear a story! At the same time, Kaori and Yui see a ghost in an adjacent building’s window. Oooh, 3spooky5me!

– Elsewhere, Airi encourages the harem lead to work out so that he can protect Kaori. Hm, seems like counter-intuitive advice to me if she really likes him. Still, this gets them to talk about how they first met. Apparently, she kicked him for complimenting her. What a pleasant girl.

– It turns out that the ghost Kaori had seen wasn’t a ghost at all. Instead, it was the Film Club screwing around, trying to film people’s scared reactions. So Airi beats them up, and these familiar words flash onscreen. How meta of us. Still, what a boring development for this show. Just when you thought something was going to happen, it turns out the ghost Kaori had seen was just a fake. Man…

– Not only that, Airi’s content with this explanation; she thinks that this one incident alone explains all of the other ghost sightings. Little does she know, there really is a ghost. Oooooooh~

– But that’s it. Another week comes and goes, and yet again, nothing happens in Ushinawareta Mirai wo Motomete.

Week 3’s Poll

Once again, I have to say that Grisaia no Kajitsu and Ushinawareta Mirai wo Motomete are the top contenders for the worst harem episode of the week. But might Trinity Seven and its pee fetish win out? Find out in next week’s episode of Dragon Ball Z!