Welp, it’s time to get to know the white dragon. But I’m sure you can already tell how this is going to go. After all, the guy may as well be royalty. Ki-Ja’s been coddled in some village for all his life. He’s heard about the outside world, but he’s never actually been in the outside world. But that’s the thing: how are you supposed to protect someone if you can barely protect yourself? Everyone in his village has told him over and over that he’s destined to protect King Hiryuu, but they never actually gave him the necessary experience for the job. You’ll see what I mean.

– Naturally, whenever two or more bishies gather in one place, they must argue incessantly with each other. For me, however, the show’s tone is too harem-y. The reason why I took an interest in Akatsuki no Yona in the first place was because it had the potential to avoid this sort of nonsense. We’re not in a high school setting. We’re not forming a stupid club to make the school a better place. We’re a bunch of ragtag warriors on a journey to overthrow the unlawful usurper. And y’know, the first two episodes kind of accomplished that. Lately, however, things have gotten a little too inane for my tastes. And you know what? There are still three more dragons to recruit, i.e. three more bishies to add to Yona’s collection. So is it going to get worse from here on out? I wanted a serious story with some light-hearted moments, not a reverse harem with some serious moments.

– C’mon, man…

– Apparently, Ki-Ja is afraid of bugs. It’s like he had to have a flaw of some sort so that Hak could stay on top of the bishie leaderboards.

– Eventually, the group runs into a bunch of bandits, but honestly, this is just a dick-measuring opportunity for the two bishies.

– It turns out Ki-Ja’s right arm is always “boiling hot.” So does he keep it away from the rest of his body at all times or something? Does he have to replace the bandages often? Does… bah, I doubt the anime even cares.

– You can make some joke about his right arm being much larger than his left arm. But can you blame the guy? If you’re confined to some tiny village, there isn’t exactly a whole lot to keep yourself entertained…

– And of course, Hak isn’t going to let some village boy show him up. But we all knew Hak could fight, so this is kind of silly.

– Then here’s the part that really gets my goat:

Are you kidding me, man? What’s the point of recruiting these legendary dragons if Hak is just as strong or possibly even stronger than them? It’s so silly.

“Princess! You must go on this quest to locate the four mystical weapons for they will grant you great power!

…

…oh, you already have the Master Sword with you.”

But Hak doesn’t have to be that strong, because he already has that one thing that the other bishies can’t have: an emotional connection to the princess. He’s been her support from day one. He’s known her since they were children. He’s someone that she can put her trust in. As a result, he doesn’t have to be just as strong. It would’ve been much more meaningful if he wasn’t as strong, but Yona nevertheless needs him simply because of who he is. Unfortunately, he’s the main bishie, so he’s kind of a Gary Stu. Not only does he have all of those intangible qualities that I just mentioned, he’s also a beast with the weapon, yeah! This just ends up cheapening the story, though.

– I get it. It’s because Yun looks like a girl, right? Man, that’s so funny!

– Apparently, Hak is still injured. So the dude pushed himself too far just to impress some bishie. Very smart of a former general.

– Whoa, what happened to the delicious congee from earlier?!

– Yona claims that Hak was a terrible cook, but the last time I saw him make something, it was salted fish being grilled over an open fire. Unless he forgot to scale and gut the fish, I gotta say that sounds like a decent meal to me.

– I guess Ki-Ja’s arm is no longer boiling hot anymore.

– Why is it that when they’re sneaking around, Hak has to put his hand over Yona’s mouth in this creepy fashion, but these two dorks over here get to stand freely? What? He can’t trust the princess to keep her own mouth shut?

– I do feel for Ki-Ja a tiny bit. Just a tiny bit. After all, he’s been forcefed the idea that he can protect the princess, so expectations are now clashing with reality.

He’s not being as useful as he would like in their attempts to locate the next dragon. Nevertheless, it’s not really Ki-Ja’s fault. He was led to believe he would and could do everything for the princess, so what else was he supposed to think? And now, he has to quickly adapt on the fly.

– This sort of stuff just bugs me, though. Again, I wanted a serious tale with some light-hearted moments. Right now, I’m just watching a shoujo comedy, which is just kind of sad.

– Ah well. The team will likely run into the Blue Dragon in next week’s episode. Let’s hope he’s not another hard-headed bishie who gets jealous over nothing.

The responses to last week’s questions were pretty standard, I guess. Lots of you guys wished that Rin would have been the star of Fate/stay night – UBW instead of Shirou. I can’t disagree too much with that. After all, Shirou hasn’t exactly managed to charm me either. Personally, however, I would have liked to have seen Reconguista in G more from Mask’s perspective. I’m not a big fan of the chosen ubermensch who always ends up fighting for love and peace. There still plenty of story left to tell, but up until now, Mask has had a far more interesting life than Bellri. I’d rather see how a soldier from an underprivileged class manages to rise through the ranks to become a flawed and reluctant villain rather than yet another anime shounen who gets everything handed to him on a silver platter. Even the fact that Bellri can pilot the G-Self is unearned. He’s just simply able to do it. Anyway…

Week 10’s Rankings

27. Trinity Seven

75% of every episode is spent in talking in a room.

26. Akame ga Kill!

A final battle that was both anticlimactic and unimaginative, and an epilogue that went on and on forever. Yo, I don’t want to see the characters pay their respects to evil people. They’re evil. Anyway, the only good thing about this adaptation was that you could unironically say, “Well, at least we didn’t see a clown raping any children….”

25. Terra Formars

Yeah, I’m just going to leave this screenshot right here, and move right along with the rest of the post…

24. Grisaia no Kajitsu

If the story had been a boys’ basketball team, I wonder if we would’ve seen one kid lick another kid’s neck. I wonder if we would’ve seen some shota stripped down to his briefs. Probably not, huh?

23. Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso

Last week’s episode epitomizes the laziness plaguing anime adaptations. Studios will simply lift the dialogue straight from the source material and do nothing else with it.

22. Ushinawareta Mirai wo Motomete

Well, kudos for having the harem lead actually pick one of the girls. This isn’t exactly revolutionary, but hey, it’s something, right? Unfortunately, the rest of the story is nothing.

21. Ookami Shoujo to Kuro Ouji

It’s amazing how the characters in this show can overlook shitty behaviors from their family and friends.

20. Inou Battle Within Everyday Life

Welp, it was just a stupid harem anime after all. Tomoyo headbutting Jurai isn’t even romantic. That’s what my cat does when her food bowl is empty. Anyway, I remember people saying how Trigger has to make shows like this one in between their more ambitious efforts in order to make money, but there’s no way something this unremarkable can sell very well, right? This isn’t exactly OreImo or even Haganai.

19. Log Horizon 2

The raid mechanics were too rudimentary to draw me in, but this wasn’t even the episode’s biggest offense. When Shiroe managed to stumble upon the final room of the entire raid with such ease, it just rendered everything we had seen before it completely moot.

18. Hitsugi no Chaika: Avenging Battle

Terribly pointless ending, and the sequel in general was a disaster. When put together, the complete story is completely useless, and has absolutely nothing worthwhile to say about anything, especially not war.

17. Gundam Build Fighters Try

Gundam and fashion, huh? As if the story wasn’t already lame enough… I don’t have anything else to say. I don’t care about Mirai, and the episode felt like filler.

16. Daitoshokan no Hitsujikai

Could’ve been worse, I guess. Could’ve been any of the preceding shows.

15. Sword Art Online II

How to convince your mother not to marry you off to some rich guy:

1. Befriend a girl with AIDS
2. Tell your mom that you want to be a devoted waifu and make people happy
3. ???
4. Profit! That is, Kirito profits. Asuna’s just a haremette, so her happiness only matters within that context.

14. Madan no Ou to Vanadis

The bad animation was kind of funny. Nothing else about last week’s episode was remarkable, though.

13. Shirobako

This scene was kind of funny in a bad way. But like always, there isn’t enough story for me to chew on. I can enjoy slice-of-life. It just needs to have a story. And what I mean by story isn’t just a sequence of plot events. Those same plot events still have to be arranged in a way that tells me something interesting about these characters, their lives, or the world around them. Well, I can’t tease any interesting message out of Shirobako, and try as I might, other people’s blog posts have done little to convince me that this show has anything worthwhile to say. If the draw lies in learning how an anime gets made, I’d rather watch a documentary that gets right to the heart of the matter without all the cute anime babes to make everything more palatable to the anime-viewing audience. And yeah, I haven’t taken a look around the joint…

12. Cross Ange

The latest plot developments are all over the place, which is both a good and a bad thing. I’m not a fan of the story dragging out old subplots, though. Hopefully, Salia will stop whining about the Villkiss for good.

11. Psycho-Pass 2

Last week’s episode was full of exposition to help expedite the storytelling process, which just shows you that even the sequel has had enough of its own bullshit.

10. Donten ni Warau

Oh, you don’t want to say that… Anyway, the episode was pretty predictable. Pretty much everything I expected to happen, well, happened. All that’s left to wonder is who will live and who will die. Will Sora and Nishiki actually be a thing? Honestly, I can’t help but laugh at the way she looks. It’s like she’s a little kid playing with make-up for the first time. Anyway, even if Tenka has now returned to save his brothers once more, he can’t be long for this world, right? Nah, not in that condition. The two younger brothers will eventually have to accept that they must grow up without him. They need to become independent at some point. Thematically, it seems that he’s only returned to properly say goodbye, but we’ll see. Also, what of Botan and Hirari? Hirari’s kind of a minor character in my mind, but they deserve some sort of resolution too, I guess. And how’s everyone going to resolve the whole artificial Orochi business? You can’t exactly leave that “technology” lying around. Oh well, we can only hope that next week’s twenty-ish minutes can deliver a conclusion that can address all of these questions.

9. Amagi Brilliant Park

Well, if you enjoy montages, this was the episode for you.

8. Fate/stay night – Unlimited Blade Works

Unlike some of my readers, I don’t mind the fact that Kuzuki can fight. I just wish there was more fighting in general. The duel between the guy and Saber was way too short. It might have looked cool, but there was barely any of it. It’s like getting a tiny amuse bouche and nothing more. And that’s the primary problem in general. When these characters are not fighting, all they do is drone on and on about the rules of the game or whatever. If your dialogue isn’t going to add thematic significance to the story, then you may as well just fight.

7. Akatsuki no Yona

Light-hearted nonsense might be fun the same way that cotton candy is fun, but at the end of the day, it doesn’t challenge me. It doesn’t engage me. It doesn’t make me think. And a show like that is, well, ultimately forgettable.

6. Shirogane no Ishi: Argevollen

Kind of a slow build-up to the finale, which will hopefully deliver because this episode didn’t. Kind of disappointed by its pacing. The main characters didn’t really get to do anything, but watch from the sidelines. The animation was also kind of consistent at times. Tokimune looks downright bored in this scene.

5. Gundam: Reconguista in G

I don’t really have any other place to put this anime. It’s not great, but it’s not bad either. In any case, our heroes will finally encounter the threat from space in next week’s episode. Let’s hope the story doesn’t screw this up.

4. Shingeki no Bahamut: Genesis

I’ll just repeat (with some minor tweaks) what I had said at the end of my most recent post on the show:

I think the show was a whole lot more compelling before it suddenly had to go on hiatus for a week. It’s still enjoyable at the moment, but it has also devolved into standard fantasy fare. Honestly, I greatly prefer the more episodic nature of the first half of the series. There was a lot more swashbuckling and a lot more subtle character development. More importantly, the first half had more of an adventure feel to the story. I guess that’s what it really comes down to. I was hoping for more adventure and less fantasy. Right now, I’m still interested to see how Amira’s fate will turn out, but the show’s no longer in contention for the best series of the season. Oh well.

3. Mushishi Zoku Shou

2. Parasyte

Shinichi’s character development in the past few weeks have been… alright. Better than what you’d find in the average anime.

1. Garo: The Carved Seal

Like I’ve said before, the show doesn’t short-change its villains, and that’s really mature of the story.

Week 11’s Question

Take a show from the past year and change its genre completely. Which show did you pick, what is its new genre, and how would this sudden change dramatically improve the story?

Alright, alright. Let’s get this finale over with, so when it’s all said and done, we can just pull a Mika and pretend that none of this ever happened.

– Ah, Akane is protecting Kamui. But why would she need to? Doesn’t she trust Kamui to be able to fire a shot and stop Sakuya dead in his tracks? Honestly, I still think she’d rather apprehend the dude with the highest recorded Psycho-Pass reading ever instead of just outright ridding the world of such a monster. We gotta protect the law, remember?

– There we go: “But that doesn’t mean I should give up on protecting the law.” Protect that law, baby! She protects it so hard, she leaves Sakuya handcuffed to the ground but also unattended. Wise? I mean, are we to believe that the guy won’t somehow free himself and cause mayhem? Hmmm.

– Shisui seems to be on her last legs, but to be honest, it doesn’t really matter. Her character quickly ran into a brick wall early on in the season. We knew nothing of her before she became Kamui’s pawn, and we know nothing about her now. So for Ginoza, who’s another poorly utilized character in this sequel, to go, “She’d go that far for Kamui?!” it’s just useless information. We have nothing to compare her current disposition to. If anything, his utterance merely highlights the fact that we don’t know anything about the girl.

– The conversation between Akane and Kamui really just nails down how petty this whole thing feels. The latter bears the grudge of the people against Sibyl. That’s it. A grudge. Meh. Besides, you know what’s going to happen. Sibyl will finally be able to judge both itself and Kamui. As far as Kamui is concerned, he’ll be super guilty! Sibyl, on the other hand, will magically wipe itself clean somehow. I don’t know how, but it will. After all, it still has a role to play in the upcoming movie, and well, Kamui does not.

– Really? Are we getting a flashback from Sakuya at this late stage in the story?

– So he’s sick for his mom. Like really, really sick for her. Well, that’s pretty cliche, but whatever. In any case, we learn that Sakuya corrupts the Inspectors that he works with, because this will allow his mother to stay “bright and shine bright.” What does that even mean? How can pushing other people to commit wrongdoings have anything to do with Kasei?

– Oh look, Sakuya has freed himself. Didn’t see that one coming.

– So Sibyl judges Kasei/Misako and that’s that. She’s dead. Okay, whatever. But wait, why does Akane stand idly by and allow this to happen when she, for all intents and purposes, prevented Kamui from finishing Sakuya off? All Kamui literally had to do was pull the trigger, but she jumped in front of the Dominator and acted like she was protecting Kamui from Sakuya. In both cases, the Sibyl System gave its “blessing.” In both cases, it’d be “lawful.” Likewise, why aren’t we bothering to arrest Misako?

– Of course, let’s just be real. Sakuya’s going to come back and get his revenge on Kamui, then afterwards, they’ll both die. With him, Kamui, and Kasei/Misako down for the count, the slate is wiped clean for the movie, and we can forget this sequel ever existed.

– So Kamui meets the brains behind the Sibyl System, and sees that its crime coefficient is over 300. All of a sudden, the Sibyl System announces that its evolving! As predicted, it’s going to acknowledge Kamui’s existence, it will now judge itself, and last but not least, it will rid itself of all the bad elements! Man, I knew something like this would happen, but not in such a lame way. Literally, Sibyl will just destroy the bad brains in its system and voila! We’re clean, boys! As a result, Sibyl’s crime coefficent is no longer high enough for enforcement action… as determined by Sibyl. That’s like a police department going, “We launched an investigation, and our conclusion is… we didn’t do anything wrong! Yaaaaaaay. By the way, the ‘bad elements’ have been put on paid leave!”

– And Akane is satisfied with that! She buys SIbyl’s bullshit! Yep, yep, Sibyl has evolved! How do I know? Well, it said so! That’s good enough for me! AS FOR YOU, KAMUI-KUN…!!!

– We then see Shisui get taken down, but she’s not dead. This scene is just to wrap up this particular loose end, but again, what ends up happening to the girl makes no difference to me. Her character is threadbare, so I really don’t know why they’re bothering to keep her around.

– Akane: “If only you had chosen a way that didn’t lead to anyone getting hurt…” Can’t you say the same for Sibyl? Look, this is what’s missing from Akane’s philosophy: justice. She wants to protect the law so badly, she’s completely forgotten about justice to begin with. Can a serial killer suddenly have a change-of-heart one day and say that’s he’s no longer going to hurt anyone? Sure, he can say that, but we must still hold him responsible for his previous actions. I don’t see how you can get around that. That’s the only way to achieve justice. Law and order isn’t just about subduing people who have a high propensity for crime. It’s also about respecting people’s actions, and thus administering justice.

If you overlook a person’s previous crimes, you’re not respecting their actions. You’re not respecting the fact that they are autonomous entities, capable of making choices that will incur serious consequences. The same thing applies to Sibyl. So what if Sibyl’s crime coefficient is now low? It’s still true that Sibyl had committed numerous crimes against humanity. Even if we grant that Sibyl can and has successfully rid itself of its “bad eggs,” we still haven’t achieved justice if we just leave Sibyl alone. This isn’t hard to grasp. Justice doesn’t stop when you’ve learned your lesson.

– So Sakuya shows up and tries one last time to corrupt Akane. He does so by confessing to the murder of her grandmother. As his last parting gift, however, Kamui calms her down. What a cool guy!

– As predicted, Kamui and Sakuya shoot each other and… well, that’s that. Slate’s clean, boys! Well, Sakuya is still barely alive, but he can’t do anything anymore in this current state. Mika shows up intending to shoot the guy, but ends up changing her mind in about the most pathetic Mika way possible: she’s going to just forget that she knows anything, including her own involvement. Nice!

– But despite its “evolution,” Sibyl won’t “institute a collective Psycho-Pass for all of society as of yet.” Great.

– Time to wrap up even more loose ends! We don’t need ya anymore, Saiga! Back into your prison, you go! Oh look, Yayoi is now suspicious of Mika! Oh no, I guess no lesbian sex between those two! And Kasei’s back! Yaaaaay.

– I don’t even want to listen to this final conversation on law and society. After what Akane’s done — or is unwilling to do — I don’t want to hear any of it.

– Anyway, we’ve hit the reset button, so the movie’s good to go. Nothing to worry about here! This sequel may as well not exist!

Did we just spend three episodes on three performances? I think we did. In any case, Kousei saw his mom’s ghost smiling at him at the end of last week’s episode, so I expect that subplot to be done and over with, right? Right? Of course, it’s silly for years and years of trauma to be unlocked by a simple, grit-your-teeth performance, but hey, this is anime. And if you’re going to pull that on me, then you may as well shelf the whole trauma completely. But let’s see what this episode has in store for us.

– So Emi is kind of… in love with Kousei? And Takeshi refers to the bespectacled protagonist as his hero? Welp, the story’s as dramatic as always.

– Let’s rank the girls, though. It’s crass, but hey, I think the show is crass. For me right now, it would have be…

1. Any other girl
2. Huge gap
3. Emi
4. Huuuuuuuuge Gap
5. Kousei’s dead mom
6. Kaori
7. Tsubaki

Thoughts?! I know people love to have and ask about thoughts!

– Y’know, I feel sorry for anyone who has to sit directly behind Takeshi. Thankfully, it’s not a packed house.

– That shirt…

– Haha, this judge is such a fucking jackass — the only type of jackass that you’d expect to find in an anime: “A competition is is a sacred garden of music. Under no circumstances is it a place to find yourself.” Lah-di-fucking-dah, dude. Just disqualify him and move on. I love how he’s got an entourage of people behind him, but he’s merely a judge for a competition involving kids in middle school. Every show needs a villain, apparently.

– We run into this lady who used to know Kousei and his mom. Her name is Hiroko, and she says, “Hey, a woman changes her ‘do every time she finds a man.” What an astute observation!

– Anyway, she just happens to be Japan’s leading pianist! And she’s hot! Wow! What else have you got for me? Can she also cha-cha?!

– Oh no, how dare former family friends hug each other in public! Scandalous!

– Apparently, Hiroko had encouraged Kousei’s mother to get him into piano. She probably feels somewhat guilty about that, but hey man, the only person to blame here is the mother and she’s long gone. She smiled, so she better be gone.

– Even Hiroko could tell that his performance was one big love letter. Well, duh. Kousei was practically rubbing his golden balls in our face. If you don’t see love in that, then there’s something wrong with you. Nevertheless, Kousei’s a little too scared to pursue Kaori’s affections: “She’s the girl who likes my best friend. And I’m Friend A, after all.” Big deal. They’re not even dating yet. Get some of those golden balls back from the audience, and just confess to the girl!

– But considering how it took three episodes to get through three performances, however, it’ll probably take the rest of the series for Kousei to reveal the depth of his feelings to Kaori.

– Takeshi is disappointed to see that his hero has been disqualified. But you can look at it another way. The guy doesn’t know why Kousei disappeared for two years, but the fact that the latter managed to return after two years has to be worth something, right? Sure, it took some serious bullying and emotional manipulation from his two closest female friends, but the hero’s back, baby!

– And besides, heroes crumble all the time. It’s like a thing in comic books. Whenever fans start to bored of a hero, they get their backs broken or killed just to perk everyone’s interest again.

– Still, Takeshi demands to know what Kousei has been doing for the past two years. Just tell him. Just tell him that your mother died and as a result, you were too traumatized to play the piano. Seriously, I just want the protagonist to stand up for himself for once. For fucking once, tell these asshole characters off. Get them off your goddamn backs. You don’t owe them a fucking thing. They’re not even your friends.

– But Kousei does the typical anime thing and just goes, “Welp, this is me now! I’m gonna give it all I’ve got!” Then he spouts platitudes like, “We’re still on a journey!” Grooooooan.

– These middle schoolers proceed to stand there and stare at each other until Kousei eventually walks out of the place… without his friends. Then at some point, I expect him to turn around go, “Yo, where is everybody?”

– But that’s the problem with this anime. It will have the main character walk out the door by himself just for dramatic effect… even though we see him later walking home with his friends. C’mon, man. Just keep it real. Stop trying to pump up every dinky little scene. Keep it real.

– Tsubaki: “You go talk to him! You’re a man, right?” Tsubaki didn’t have any trouble forcing Kousei to play the piano again, but when it comes to consoling the guy, it’s apparently up to a man to do it.

– Uh…

– This entire time, Kaori’s beaming with happiness, because this sort of totally unpredictable behavior fits her “manic pixie dream girl who’s about to die” persona to a tee.

– The very next day… does Hiroko wear the same outfit over and over or what?

– Hiroko gets mad at Kousei for making her worry, but she hasn’t really worried about the guy for the past two years so…

– Oh, the irony… Oops, she had a brown belt on yesterday. How silly of me!

– Anyway, Kaori and Kousei have been invited to play at some gala. As always, Kaori makes all the decisions. Kousei has no say on anything, including their song. This is what she picked out, by the way:

It’s a nice song, but kind of simple.

– Kaori hugs her violin and says something about how she had once dropped it. Maybe she was not appreciative of her talents or something before she got diagnosed with whatever it is that she’s currently sick with. In any case, Kousei’s all, “Man, look at that tiny back.” The more vulnerable-looking these girls are, the more they just tug on our heart strings, huh?

– I hate how much recapping there is in this series. Right now, Kousei’s explaining to Hiroko why he got back into music. But we just spent the last ten weeks watching him get back into piano, so I don’t need to hear his explanation to the lady!

– What will forever remain a constant is that women of all ages will never have any trouble walking all over Kousei. So naturally, Hiroko will become Kousei’s tutor.

– Ooh, magical, glowing balls of light again.

– It’s a metaphor, you guys!!! I personally prefer to heed the immortal words of the great Ron Swanson: “I hate metaphors. That’s why my favorite book is Moby Dick. No frou-frou symbolism. Just a good, simple tale about a man who hates an animal.”

– Kaori asks Kousei what he used to lean on for his performance. He says he had her. Not exactly a love confession, but a pretty intimate detail, I guess. As the guy walks off, she thinks ominously to herself that she won’t always be around to help him. Dun dun dun… tearjerky terminal illness subplot… engaged.

The outcome really isn’t as close as it looks.

– Man, that’s a lot of people for an exhibition soccer game. Sure, it’s free, but you’d actually have to pay me to watch a match with no stakes.

– So apparently, the park is short a few hundred visitors thanks to a bunch of no-shows. To be honest, however, our heroes should’ve planned for this very likely scenario. There are always no-shows, especially when that something is free. But of course, this is all just a contrivance. If the customers already have the ticket, then it really shouldn’t matter if they show up or not. For the sake of drama, however, people must literally pass through Amaburi’s gates for it to count.

– The characters then take to the streets to beg for visitors. Honestly, I think free food would do the trick… or maybe give them vouchers for another free trip to the park in the future. At the moment, they’re literally just asking people to take time out of their day to pass through the gates and nothing more. An exhibition soccer game? C’mon. I’d rather do nothing.

– Led by Moffle, everyone starts to call up their families and friends. There are a couple humorous moments here and there:

Unfortunately, our heroes are still three people short. This is why you shouldn’t procrastinate, kids. Just minutes away from the deadline, and I still need three more paragraphs! Argh!

– So who ends up saving the park’s hide? These weirdo kids:

Ugh. Poor Fiddy. This man once took multiple gun wounds to his body. Has he not suffered enough?!

– Obligatory celebratory scene.

– And in the end, all Queen Latifah did was look sick in her bed.

– Am I as elated as the characters onscreen? Well, like I’ve been saying this entire time, things never really kicked into high gear until the last couple of episodes, and even then, because the main plot of the series had been put off for so long, Amagi Brilliant Park had to rely on a bunch of montages to expedite the storytelling process. As a result, I don’t really feel that the happy ending has been earned. When you work hard for something, you naturally start to care how it turns out. You start to feel bad if something goes wrong. But in the twelve episodes that we’ve seen, our heroes probably spent only 30% of it actually working on fixing up the park. So while it’s nice that everything worked out for Kanye and friends, I’m not emotionally invested. I don’t feel as though I or the characters have been put through the wringer.

– Obligatory touching speech scene. I couldn’t have done it without you guys!

– Why does he really have to resign, though? No one wants to see him go, and as much as he won’t want to admit it, he obviously doesn’t want to go. So why not just stay? Actually, I don’t even know why I’m bringing this up, ’cause you just know that the guy will end up staying with the park after it is all said and one. There’s no way a show like this one would ever have a bittersweet ending, and to be honest, a bittersweet ending wouldn’t really fit its tone anyway.

– Apparently, the other half of the park will be sold off to Moll Mart, a company that specializes in developing shopping malls. The hope is that Amaburi and the adjacent commercial center can form a symbiotic relationship. This subplot could’ve been developed a little better, though. Like maybe there were a bunch of competing companies with competing offers, and Kanye had to make a difficult choice. At the moment, the current revelation just feels kind of convenient. Again, it doesn’t feel as though it’s earned. Everything’s just falling neatly into our heroes’ laps one-by-one in the last couple of episodes.

– Then to top things off, Takaya Kurisu isn’t just some businessman hoping to reappropriate Amaburi for his development group. He’s really the evil wizard who had place the curse on poor ol’ Latifah!!! Well, that’s lame. I mean, c’mon, did we really need a comically evil villain like this to show up at the 11th hour?

– Afterwards, the people closest to Latifah huddle around her as they wait for midnight to strike. I can’t help but stare at the featureless grass, though. I dunno, for such a pivotal scene, it’s kind of sticking out like a sore thumb to me.

– As expected, the hero gets to spend the last few seconds alone with the princess. Alone together, she finally confesses that she’s not as strong as she looks on the surface. Unfortunately, all Kanye can do is hold Latifah as she sobs in his arms. That being said, I still don’t feel anything. Her character hasn’t done anything all series long, so even this sadness doesn’t feel earned. You have to build up to a moment like this. You can’t just drop it in my lap and expect me to feel for the characters. In general, Amagi Brilliant Park is a nice, pleasant show, but it hasn’t worked really hard for anything. It’s really just coasting by on KyoAni’s charm and production values.

– Like I’ve said before, the story would’ve been better served combining Latifah and Fiddy into one character. We spent a lot of time with Fiddy for the majority of the season, but she’s pretty much been relegated to the sidelines for the past couple of episodes. I mean, ever since she realized she was in love with Kanye, her character development has come to a complete standstill.

Likewise, Latifah has contributed little to the story… until the last couple of episodes. Wouldn’t it have been nice if they were just one character with lots of character development from start to finish? I’d think so!

– But the tree is blooming more than usual this year! That means… that means…!!!

Yeah, well, Vegas oddmakers had this ending pegged anyway.

– What happened? People had fun, y’all. And fun saved the princess.

– From one underdeveloped hot babe to the next…

Kanye is such a player.

– He wants to say something to Fiddy, but he’s struggling so hard with it. He ends up sounding like he’s constipated. So he just rides off and says nothing. Eat some fiber, son.

– I like how this is one of his fond memories. I bet it is fond for a lot of the show’s viewers, too.

– The soundtrack sounds like something out of Persona 4.

– Apparently, Kanye needs his aunt to tell him the obvious: “Because it looked like you were having fun.”

– Of course…

– Just Kanye being Kanye:

– But somehow, there’s still one episode left… so I wonder what that’s all about.

‘Cause that’s where we’re going next. Anyway, Reconguista in G always seem to do just enough to get you excited for the next episode. But when the actual episode actually rolls around, it never quite delivers. I mean, I thought we’d get an explosive battle this week. With everyone teaming up to face the threat from space, I thought we’d at least see some sort of fighting break out. But alas, it is not to be. Hell, half of the episode is spent on just getting everyone in one place! And then… nothing really happens.Well, that’s not quite fair. Klim cooks up this harebrained scheme where a bunch of mobile suits — led by him, of course — will pretend to fly up to the moon fleet with a white flag. This way, when the opportunity presents itself, the hastily cobbled together alliance of Earthnoids — yeah, that’s what they’re calling themselves — can quickly attack and destroy “the big guy in the middle of the fleet.” Klim honestly thinks that the people on the moon are “unaccustomed to war,” so this will cause the moon fleet to completely scatter. Well, the moon people are smarter than he thinks. Or maybe Klim is just dumber than he thinks. After all, Mask pretty much calls our genius an idiot right off the bat. But you know how it goes. Everyone’s in danger, so Bellri ends up being the savior again. Though to be fair, even the moon people are incompetent in their own ways.

I was also hoping for the moon people to have more of a commanding presence, but the subsequent discussion between them and the Earthnoids turns out to be rather… petty. The moon people are accusing Earth of using Universal Century technology recklessly. Ameria representatives turn around and accuse the moon people of wanting to invade Earth. The moon people clearly look down on the Earthnoids. The bigwigs may try to act all diplomatic and everything, but the hot-headed soldier, i.e. the one who tries to attack Klim, is clearly the most honest moon person in the room. So when he says that Earthnoids have only left behind a history of weakness, then it’s obvious that our lunar friends see their terrestrial cousins as a bunch of pitiful charity cases. The danger here is that if you treat another class of people poorly, i.e. the Kuntalas, don’t be surprised to see if someone else treats you the same way. Bigotry begets bigotry. To be honest, even General Dorette is more honest with his feelings than he would like to let on. At one point, he scratches his nose in a way that makes it look like he’s picking it. I doubt he’d do that in the presence of anyone he actually respects. Eventually, the moon people namedrops the Rayhunton family, which causes Aida to storm out of the meeting. Just hearing the name seems to have been the impetus for her sudden desire to head to the moon.

Anyway, like usual, Reconguista in G’s strength lies in the small things. Like how Aida reaches out and grabs Bellri’s shoulder when she heard the name Rayhunton. But of course, if they really are family as many have long suspected, I must wonder why they don’t look anything like each other. You also have Aida literally twiddling her thumbs because she once again has to sit back and do nothing. Or Barara casually bumping Bellri out of the picture at one point, then sarcastically expressing what a pleasure it is to meet him. More importantly, you have Cumpa’s eyes darting back and forth near the start of the episode. He then conveniently disappears from sight right before the moon people arrive. Gosh, someone’s acting shady. Likewise, Raraiya kind of pulls something similar on her friends, and this is enough to make you wonder if she’s perhaps recovered her senses quite some time ago. All series long, she’s had a penchant for sticking her nose where it didn’t belong. All of a sudden, however, when everyone’s about to meet this Noutu Dorette guy, and she falls ill. Like Cumpa’s disappearance, it’s very convenient. Oh, a room full of people who might recognize me? I was just seen freaking out about Dorette? Let me just run over here and stare at this house… Moving on, the interactions between Mask and Klim aren’t quite as plot important as the previous details, but they are still as amusing as I thought they would be.

Still, I’m disappointed that nothing really happened in this week’s episode. The characters spend a lot of time running around only to wave a white flag and run away from battle. Then, y’know, we have that obligatory discussion scene in which nothing is really discussed in great detail. Instead, the characters mention a few cryptic details and nothing more. Yes, we’ll be going to the moon. Yes, I can say, “Hopefully, the trip to Towasanga will finally get the story moving,” but I’ve been saying “Hopefully…” all season. At the end of the day, the series is half over and the main conflict still hasn’t really emerged. I mean, we’ve sort of met the bad guys… maybe… but what’s even the central conflict of the show? I still don’t know what it is. Some slight jockeying for power from various factions? After thirteen episodes, it’s kind of silly that this is all we get.

In the end, Leon ends up doing more damage to Santa Bard than Mendoza or his newly summoned Horror ever could. Our troubled protagonist also suffers a dramatic defeat at Alfonso’s hands. On the other hand, Mendoza gets unceremoniously eaten by his own creation. It’s a silly and comic demise… even the Horror itself looks rather silly, doesn’t it? It looks like a joke, and likewise, Mendoza’s death is a joke. The contrast between Leon and Mendoza’s fate thus suggests that Leon is actually the villain in our finale of sorts. No, this episode isn’t the end of the series, but it does feel like the end of some significant chapter in the story. The difficult truth for our hero is that he’s the really the one standing in his own way. Perhaps that is why Mendoza has never looked too threatening over the past three months. Perhaps that is also why every single Horror we’ve encountered has always been corny. It’s because at the end of the day — as cliche as it might sound — humanity is its own greatest enemy.

Early in the episode, Alfonso tries to keep his cousin on task. The prince’s goals have always been clear from the get-go, and that is to protect the people. He is the prototypical Makai Knight from start to finish, so it’s not surprising that Garo eventually accepts him. After all, the guy was willing to set aside his own mother to fulfill his greater duties. When our heroes first infiltrated the castle, Leon suggested that they could rescue Esmeralda first. His cousin, however, quickly shot down that idea. Alfonso’s not heartless; there’s no doubt that he loves his mother. But as both the prince and a Makai Knight, he knows that he has a greater duty to protect the people. Leon and Alfonso are foils, and there is thus no greater distinction between them than this one. Alfonso can let go of his mother long enough to fulfill his mission. Leon never could. In fact, he literally carries his mother’s legacy with him through those markings that threaten to consume him. As a result, his mind is dead set on revenge.

There’s another thing from two episodes ago that continues to linger in my mind. Shortly before they parted company, German and Ema talked about the markings on Leon’s body. They both acknowledged that those markings protected Leon, but at the same time, they could consume him. More importantly, however, Anna left those markings for her son. When Leon loses control of himself in this week’s episode, his mind is obvious some place else. In fact, we see him wandering through the flames, looking and searching desperately for his mother. When he finally comes upon her, he finds nothing but a charred husk that instantly disintegrates in his arms. While this is all happening in Leon’s mind, Garo continues to wreak havoc on Santa Bard in the real world. For me, it would seem as though Anna’s rage has taken over. The two heroes at the center of this story are representative of their mother’s feelings, so it is hardly surprising that Anna lashes out at the very people who have betrayed her.

Anna was unlucky in a lot of ways. If you’ll recall, only one of the sisters had “the duty to fight as a Makai Priest, and pass down the golden armor through her bloodline.” Anna had to make that sacrifice. Meanwhile, Esmeralda was taken in by an aristocratic family and eventually married the king. For the majority of her life, Esmeralda got to live in the lap of luxury. And at the start, this was okay. Someone had to take on the family burden and protect the people, but Anna was probably initially happy to take on this duty. But look where it eventually got her. Not only did she get hunted down by Mendoza’s men like dogs, the easily-frightened people jeered and insulted her at her own execution. The very people she tried to protect ended up turning on her. Yeah, Leon isn’t strong enough. In the end, he couldn’t steel his resolve against Mendoza’s dirty tricks and manipulations. But how much can we blame him? He ends up seeing and perhaps even feeling the injustices committed against his own mother.

There’s really no one to ultimately blame in this story. Well, if Mendoza hadn’t gone nuts, none of these tragedies would’ve ever happened. But my point is, it’s hard to really blame Leon for his failings. Alfonso certainly tries his best to berate the now former Makai Knight: “You don’t even have the courage to [take Garo from me by force]? You’ve let me down, Leon!” But at the end of the whole ordeal, he must admit he’s not sure what he would’ve done differently if he had been in Leon’s shoes: “If Mendoza had used you as a hostage… I wonder if I would have still been able to chastise Leon.” That’s what it really comes down to. Leon and his mother were dealt a bad hand. Alfonso and Esmeralda got a good hand. Given enough time, Leon might have been able to overcome his handicaps in life. Given enough time, German could’ve helped his son get over Anna: “I wasn’t able to put out the flames burning within you these 17 years.” But there wasn’t enough time.

Mendoza threatened to plunge the entire world in darkness, so German had to do what he had to do. He trained his son to become Garo, because he didn’t have any other option. To be more accurate, there were no other options at the time. He didn’t know that Alfonso also had the right to wear Garo’s armor, and even if he did, it was unlikely that he could train the prince to become the Golden Knight. As a result, German did what he thought he had to do, and that was to put the burden of becoming the people’s savior on Leon. The old man had hoped that he could keep Leon on the right path, but there just wasn’t enough time. That’s the funny thing about traumas. Despite what other anime series might want to suggest, it takes time to heal from these great mental and emotional wounds. Throughout his journeys, Leon encountered a lot of life lessons, but to a 17-year-old boy, they just weren’t enough. The kid was dealt a bad hand and he couldn’t recover in time.

Leon’s fate is a stark reminder that we don’t all start out in the same place in life. It’s easy to sit here and champion Alfonso as the true champion of the people, but everything did kind of fall neatly into his lap. Of course, we should give him credit for making the most of his opportunities. There’s certainly no doubt about that. Alfonso’s a hero through and through. But at the same time, we have to be empathic towards those like Leon. He’s never really had a place to call home. He’s never had a normal upbringing. Since he was young, he was groomed to be the selfless defender of the people, but these are the same people who had a hand in killing his mom. Most of all, Leon never had any say in the matter. When you start out at the bottom of the ladder, it isn’t always easy to overcome your resentment at the snap of the fingers and just climb your way to the top. This doesn’t mean that we have to excuse Leon’s actions, but it’s important to understand where those actions stem from. This applies to all walks in life.

When an underprivileged person starts lashing back against society, it’s easy to just sit back and tut at the transgressor with self-righteous disapproval. “Gosh, I know you have it bad, but this is no way to solve the problem!” Sure. Of course it’s not. But have you really sat down and considered the injustice that they’ve been dealt? And what have you done to help them? Lately, this sort of inaction has been happening all too often in the real world. Too many comfortable people are content to sit back in their chairs and smugly condemn those who are already suffering. It’s also easy to walk away from the situation and say, “If I help them, they’ll never learn.” So naturally, I must wonder if it is really the right thing for German to leave Leon to his own devices. We can’t always be there to catch people when they fall, but isn’t that what a parent is for? He acknowledges that he failed to quell the rage in Leon’s heart, but with Mendoza (supposedly) dead, doesn’t he now have all the time in the world to help his son?

Whatever’s the case, Leon’s journey is only half over…

Stray notes & observations:

– I’ve written enough above, so I’ll just mention a few quick things.

– Leon’s journey is only half over unless he actually dies. Then boy, would the egg be on my face! But honestly, it would be a waste to kill off his character. People have complained in the past about Leon being the main character of the story, but I actually like it. He’s full of imperfections, which is a great breath of fresh air from all the Gary Stus we’ve been seeing lately.

– Oh man, the animation is so good for 90% of the episode. Everything is sharper and cleaner than it has ever been. Sure, the duel between Leon and Alfonso in the torrential flames isn’t perfect, but I’m sure the idea sounded awesome on paper. Unfortunately, we hit the last couple of minutes of the episode, and all of a sudden, the animation quality drops like a rock. Welp… Just imagine this show with a good budget.

– Oh, it seems that this girl will play a bigger role in the second half of the story.

– Two weeks ago, I had this to say about Esmeralda:

“The noblest sacrifice Esmeralda can make is to give up her own life. She knows that Mendoza intends to use her as a trump card against her own son, so why not deny the evil man this pleasure?”

Alfonso draws inspiration from her selflessness, and her death only makes perfect sense.

– Last but not least, this is quite the episode preview…

Ughhhh, do I have to? Do I really, really have to? You know what? After two full seasons of Sword Art Online, I think I deserve to pull it back a bit. I think I have written enough words on this accursed series. Hell, I think I’ve written enough to fill a small book! Thank god I have no interest in cover the light novels too! And if you ask my detractors, these posts have apparently gotten generic. Ah well, you can’t win them all. But I need a break. I need to just sit back… and uh… not enjoy the show? Anyway…

Obligatory party scene, people! Anime loves parties!

I-Is that Recon? He’s still around? The answer is apparently yes. And all he’s good for is stalking Leafa. Y’know, just in case you guys need some ideas for your doujins. I sure am glad they dragged out this worthless character just for that!

Oh look, a raid boss! Hey, remember how this is an anime about MMOs? Yeah, me neither.

‘Cause we all know it’s really a harem. Here’s the one thing Leafa is good for.

Sinon’s still alive too? After the past few weeks, who would’ve guessed!

We then see Yuuki kick the Gary Stu’s ass one last time. But c’mon, what is he supposed to do? Lose to a little girl with AIDS? He’s just being nice!

Speaking of wrapping things up, Asuna’s mom shows up one last time, and it’s just to look disappointed. Does she now regret capitulating to Asuna’s childish demands? I sure would!

Nevertheless, the girl gets to go on a vacation with her friends–… Whoa whoa whoa! A vacation in… the real world? You mean there are things in the real world that are worth seeing? You mean a dying patient should probably want to experience other things besides a shining high school life? Word?

But don’t get your hopes up, boys! Here comes the tragedy!

Run, girl, run! Run to that hospital with all your might! Wait, where have I seen this before?

It rhymes. Like poetry.

Uguu, she’s so moe~ The best part is when Asuna’s like, “Yuuki won’t lose, right? Because you’re Zekken! The strongest swordsman!” No, Asuna, no. This is the real world. In other words, she’s gon’die.

Thanks, doc. I wasn’t quite sure what I should do.

Asuna suddenly realizes that they should meet each other in ALO once more. Once more… with feeling! But why? What’s so important?!

Of course! The sword skill! What better way to remember a close friend but by inheriting her sword skill! No, Yuuki doesn’t have anything touching to leave behind like maybe a book that she’s written, a painting that she’s drawn, or whatever. Nah, a sword skill is way more personal than those pieces of junk! And guess what the sword skill is called. That’s right. “Mother’s Rosario.” HEY DATS DA TITLE!!!

And one by one, people who barely even knew Yuuki stops by to pay their respects. Even the Gary Stu to bless her journey across the River Styx.

And by people, I really mean everyone.

But wait, there’s more!

I’m sorry, but they look like fucking gnats in the sky.

Look how solemn everyone is, though. C’mon, this is the internet we’re talking about here. Assholes would troll the fuck out of something this pretentious.

Yuuki and Asuna proceed to share some touching words, but I’m not really paying attention. I’m too busy staring at Asuna’s fucked up head.

Uh, we’ll throw Yuuki a bone, I guess. She sees her dead sister when she gazes at Asuna. How poignant.

A funeral online and a funeral offline. We can’t stop! We won’t stop!

Uh, we end up learning a bit about Miune’s character. Who’s Miune, you wonder? I know, right? Let’s just fast forward a bit…

…until we hit this major revelation…

Fuuuuuuuucking hilarious. Let’s never stop sucking Kayaba’s dick. Even in a story about Asuna’s empowerment or Yuuki’s AIDS-ridden body, it nevertheless comes full circle back to that creepy fucker who decided to trap 10,000 poor souls in a video game, including little children. ‘Cause you see, he and Kirito are really just two halves of the same person. Kirito is who a certain someone wants to be. On the other hand, Kayaba is, well, literally who that certain someone really is. Kayaba created Aincrad and trapped 10,000 people in it, right? Isn’t that kind of like a certain someone creating this story, and “trapping” his characters in these hilariously overwrought scenarios? That’s why we can’t condemn Kayaba’s actions. In fact, we’re supposed to, like, respect the guy! He’s a revolutionary! He’s a genius! He created SAO, people!!!!

Wow, rude! Anyway… I’m officially done with Sword Art Online II. That’s all, folks. Go home. It’s over.

Alright, alright, let’s get this over with.

– Not much to say about the start of the episode. Shirou’s suffering more than he lets on, but he tries to soldier on anyway without confiding in his allies. He even avoids meeting up with Rin because of it. Oh, those wholesome shounens! Meanwhile, Kuzuki has called in sick to work…

– Since Shirou won’t come to her, Rin will come to him instead.

– Cool. Our heroes are now sitting around in a room and talking about their plans to stop the bad guys. Best anime of the year, boys!

– Hey, I’m not really complaining. Anymore, that is. It just means less work for me. I mean, there’s nothing really to analyze here. Oh, Caster will blow herself up if they corner her? Hm, hm, very interesting, yes… Excellent strategizing session.

– Uguu, you’re a girl, so could you please just go home already?

– Not really, no…

– The delicious food shots and Rin’s silly faces are really all that I have to look forward to in this adaptation. Of course, I was hoping to see some amazing action, but it looks like we’re not going to get any of that in this week’s episode.

– Rin and Fujimura-sensei are now bickering with each other. Best. Anime. Of. The. Year.

– Shirou would rather break a bunch of dishes then just admit that he’s feeling a bit weak in one of his arms. I mean, with magic flying around in this universe, what if he’s not just fatigued? What if his strength is actually being sapped by a terrrrrrrrible curse?! So honestly, dude’s just being stubbornly irresponsible.

– You don’t care if Rin hates you? What kind of thing is that to say?

– Episode’s half over. Time for some action, right?

Of course not.

– On the bright side, this scene at least develops Rin’s character a bit. A teensy, tiny bit, which is more than I can say for the previous five or so minutes.

– Rin studies magic for fun. On the other hand, Shirou studies magic to make other people happy. Just different strokes for different folks, right? WRONG:

Rin then storms off… only to then stay the night. She may as well just stay here permanently. Gotta keep an eye on that wholesome shounen of hers. Plus, she’s gotta be lonely in that giant house.

– But during her outburst, she says something about how Shirou really resembles someone that she knows. Oh, I wonder who she’s referring to. This is where Fate fans will claim that I should already know this information, huh?

– I like how Shirou expresses shock at Tohsaka wearing a skirt. Oh man, a skirt and thighhighs? Be still, my heart!

– Later that night, Saber goes to see Shirou, because she’s noticed that there’s something wrong with his left arm. This would be a good time for the guy to open up and allow himself to rely on others, but… wholesome shounens just gotta wholesome it up. Yo, if you want to make the people around you happy, I bet hiding your pain won’t make them happy.

– Archer then shows up. With just a few minutes left in the episode, we may as well just talk it out:

Yep, an entire episode full of nothing but conversations. B-B-B-BEST ANIME OF THE YEEEEEEEAAAAARRRRRRRR!

– Welp, there’s no curse. Dude’s just not used to using so much magic, I guess. Something something about dormant circuits being flooded with mana. Whatevs.

– Psst, Archer went through the same arm numbness thing. Y’know, just in case it wasn’t already obvious enough that he and Shirou are one and the same.

– Rin wants Shirou to think more for himself. Likewise, Archer is only fighting for himself and no one else, blah blah blah. Just deep characterization things…

– TL;DR: Archer is a cynical dude. Aaaand… the episode’s over. Nice.

– Yeah, this is a short post, but for an episode full of conversations, it ironically didn’t give me anything to talk about.

There were some scant character development, but nothing particularly profound or meaningful. Everything here was just a repeat of what we’ve already seen before.

Gasp! But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Let’s start from the beginning…

– Oh hey, very important people have gathered in one place to talk about the story! This is pretty much an anime staple, y’know. But let’s give credit where credit’s due: at least they’re not in some dimly-lit room. We later find out they’re really not in some pristine-looking garden. It’s all a simulation. Hell, maybe this universe itself is just a simulation…

– Yo, this dude’s name is Embryo. Yeah, that’s right… Embryo. You’ll also be pleased to know that he’s supposedly the creator of this world.

– Personally, I’m not going to try too hard to piece together the story from what these characters are saying, because I’m just not worried about it. I’m here to see the crazy nonsense that Cross Ange will throw at us. Nothing more. If you guys want to speculate, then whatever floats your boat. I’m just not going to bother.

– Embryo rattles off a bunch of options for humanity to take. They all sound pretty farfetched, especially the last one: “Destroy [the world], and reset it.” But hey, after last week, anything’s possible. I mean, this would explain why we saw this in the previous episode.

– “Are you saying we should abandon all the world’s development?” Hmm.

– We see that Tusk has somehow planted a bug in Julio’s office. Our hero seems pretty capable… so it’s hard to believe he’s always clumsily tripping into Ange’s crotch.

– Back on Arzenal, the survivors are trying to pick up the pieces. Thanks to Salia’s insubordination, Hilda is now the interim captain of the squad. Naturally, the rest of the girls are not pleased with this, but at least Jill seems to have a short memory.

– And now that Ange is no longer in detention, it’s storytelling time!

…and for some reason, we have to get naked. Yeah, I’m with Ange on this one. Still, that’s not the biggest problem on our hands. Y’see, if Jill’s going to explain everything to Ange, that means I’ll have to brace myself for the impending infodump. And an impending infodump implies that a lot of exposition is headed my way. Sure, I’d love to know what Cross Ange is all about. I’m just dying to hear Jill’s explanation. But exposition is boring, man. And this is probably why these two characters are even naked in the first place. Because exposition is so boring, we may as well have them be naked.

– Tired of war, some guy — Jill calls him God — created Mana… and this somehow led to, uh, widespread peace? How does Mana accomplish this? Did the advent of Mana usage also lead to a post-scarcity world?

– Then of course, the Normas came along. They had a mutation that prevented them from utilizing Mana, which, as we all know, “led to fear among the people.” But why? What is remotely worth fearing about such a seemingly benign mutation? Here’s how I would react in that situation: “You can’t use Mana? Oh well. Must suck to have to do everything by hand…” On the other hand, this is apparently how the people in the Cross Ange universe reacts to a Norma: “OH MY FUCKING GOD SHE’S A MONSTETTERRERERRRR!”

– Our so-called God then spread the absurd belief that the Normas “had rejected the world” and “were antisocial monsters.” From what we’ve seen, however, most Normas are taken away from their parents when they are just children. So if you think that children can reject the world, you have to be as dumb as a brick. Plus, this God sounds like a major dickwad.

– I mean, if you want to say that people want and need to unite against a common enemy, sure. This happens all the time. Politicians have always played on our fears to get us on their side. We may not agree with all of his or her opinions, but bahgawd, we’re tired of those people takin’ our jobs!

– The problem here, however, isn’t Cross Ange‘s message itself. Rather, the problem lies in the way it plays out. It’s just… stupid. Dude tells everyone that a bunch of young girls have rejected the world, and… everyone just believes him.

– Yeah, I’m still with you, Ange:

– Oh man, this infodumping. Ancient People, Ragna-mails, Jill is really Alektra, which we already knew, and she’s really a member of a royal family… which we already knew as well. Yawn. Trust me, there are better ways they could’ve used to convey this information. Like, y’know, an actual flashback episode and not just Jill sitting in a hot tub, droning on and on about these topics in such a passionless way.

– So the Normas and the Ancient People tried to band together in order to revolt against God and his chosen people, but again, we all know how that turned out. None of this is particularly new information, though. I don’t mind information being withheld until a later date. I just don’t like hearing about stuff that I already know.

– So how ’bout it? Will Ange pick up where Alektra had left off? Well, no. Long story short, Ange will decide her own fate. Yeah, you go, anime protagonist! It’s just too bad she’s been following people’s orders since the first episode, so it’s kind of weird to hear her suddenly act as though she’ll decide her fate.

– Elsewhere… uh, I guess Vivi has taken on the form of a dragon. I guess this is the explosive revelation of the week: Soylent Green is dragons are people, y’all.

– Naturally, everyone’s trying to hunt Dragon Vivi down, so she takes to the air and starts singing. Somehow, Ange can make some sense of Vivi’s shrill crooning and starts to sing along as well. Aw man, more singing.

– El-oh-el…

– And just like that, Vivi turns back into a human girl! Maggy walks up to the girl and injects with I assume to be that Inhibitor that Jill had mentioned earlier.

– Ange, finally realizing what she’s been fighting this entire time, runs towards the mass grave of dragons being set on fire by Jasmine. Of course, it’s too late for the heroine to do anything about it now.

– All of a sudden, the burning dragon corpses quickly turn into…

…human corpses! DUN DUN DUN!

– Ange thinks back to the dragon that she ruthlessly murdered in a previous episode, and she starts to feel bad. The hamfisted message here is that we only care if we’re killing people. Ange had no qualms about killing dragons before, but now that they’ve taken on a human form, it’s suddenly traumatizing. Otherwise, it’s okay to kill whales dragons if they’re just simply whales dragons.

– After laughing in Ange’s face, Jill walks off and suddenly runs into Embryo… I guess when you’re “God,” you can go wherever you please.

– An announcement then plays, and it claims that the Normas will finally be rescued by a fleet of carriers! But of course, on his way to Arzenal is Julio himself, so expect nothing but more Cross Ange-branded treachery!

– Yeesh, this story…

I sat here for quite some time, trying to find the right words for this post. To be honest, I don’t have much to say about the story that you see on the surface. After all, it is a very familiar tale. Basically, nature works in mysterious ways. People used to fear and worship the giant cedar tree. Then after they chopped it down to save the village, they began to wonder if they had angered a god. But as predicted, nature doesn’t work like that in Mushishi. Nature isn’t malevolent. Nature doesn’t bear grudges. Instead, we see the giant cedar tree sacrifice itself in order to help save both the village and the mountain after a great forest fire had struck. Then long after it had been chopped down and sold off to some merchant, the memories of the giant cedar tree somehow resurfaces in Kenta, a simple laborer. Using him as a conduit of sorts, the tree manages to save the village once more from disaster. This time, it is a massive earthquake that threatens to end many lives. But thanks to Kenta’s insistence, the villagers left their homes and fled to safety. But like I’ve said, this is a familiar tale.

There’s not much to say here… except the other story — the story beneath the surface — that almost slips by unnoticed. At the start of the episode, we see that Kenta has just finally returned home after spending quite some time away from his family. When he sees his daughter, he remarks, “You’ve grown so much.” That’s what you would say to someone you haven’t seen in a long time. On that train of thought, that’s not usually what you should say to your own daughter. The thing is, Kenta likes to travel far and wide to find work. Unfortunately, he has a family, and his absence is clearly taking a toll on his daughter Futaba. Nevertheless, Kenta remains stubborn. He tells his wife that he isn’t ready to settle down. “It’s a big world out there,” he says, so it almost seems like a waste for him to not see any of it. But of course, what about his daughter? Does she not deserve to have both her parents in her life? Why start a family if you’re not ready to settle down? Perhaps that is why the giant cedar tree chose Kenta of all people. Perhaps that is why Kenta’s feet has turned to wood. The giving tree continues to give, and this time, it’s giving young Futaba a father that she so desperately needs.

Often times, Mushishi‘s stories are seemingly plagued with misguided and irresponsible adults. And often times, these irresponsible adults are also parents, so their failures unfortunately impact the lives of their children in harmful ways. There’s no need to look too far back, however, for some examples of what I’m talking about. We need only look at some recent episodes. In one of them, we see a boy lashes out against his peers because his father has been keeping him away from his own mother. In another episode, a mother literally doesn’t know how to love her own son, so she thinks he’s punishing her by calling the lightning down to himself. She doesn’t realize, however, that her son has actually been protecting her the entire time. Then just last week, we see an uncle attempt to murder his own nephew. He’s not the kid’s father, but he’s a guardian nevertheless. Over and over again, we see adults screw up, and as a result, it is the children who must suffer. Luckily, it would appear that Mushishi Zoku Shou would like to end on an uplifting note.

Likewise, Kenta has been neglecting his daughter. He says he’ll settle down when he’s older, but who knows when that day will ever come. And until then, Futaba would have suffered silently like most of the children in the previous episodes. As luck would have it, however, Kenta is now afflicted with wooden feet. And as a result, he can no longer travel like he used to. At first, this seems like bad news, because that means Kenta can no longer be the breadwinner as laborer that he used to be. Still, there’s a silver lining to almost every situation, and in this case, it means that Kenta can become more of a father figure in Futaba’s life. Of course, he doesn’t quite realize this from the get-go. At one point in the episode, the poor girl asks her father to tell her a story, but since he is down in the dumps, he tells her that he no longer has any story to tell. Realizing later, however, that the giant cedar tree had saved his village once more, Kenta seemingly acquires an epiphany. It is no accident that the last thing we see in the episode is Kenta calling out to his daughter…

…because he finally has a story to tell her. Nature works in mysterious ways. And with that, Mushishi Zoku Shou resolves one of its overarching themes.

That was, uh… anticlimactic. Look, it’s not like I was expecting Shiroe to fight both Kinjou and Uru all by his lonesome. After all, he’s just an enchanter, and he’s not exactly the hero of the story because he’s a great warrior. But if we weren’t going to have a test of strength, then at least give me a test of wits or something. Give me some sort of conflict, y’know? But other than Kinjou looking somewhat frightened to see Shiroe, the two men basically just stood there and talked to each other. For such a pivotal moment in the arc, there was no tension here whatsoever. Naturally, my reaction as a viewer is like, “Oh, that’s neat, I guess…” I suppose there’s nothing particularly egregious about what we have here, but are we seriously content with that? Is “neat” honestly enough to placate us? It sure as hell doesn’t placate me.

Long story short, Elder Tale continues to feel less like a game and more like the real thing. Shiroe uses the gold in the room to buy up all of the purchasable land. He then relinquishes those property rights back to the server. This way, he levels the playing field. Since the People of the Land can’t actually own any land, his little trick gets around this rather blatant inequality. Basically, contracts between people will more than suffice. As for the minor details, I don’t want to get too bogged down by them, Honestly, they’re just not terribly important. I’ll admit that I am somewhat impressed to see that Shiroe had considered the People of the Land in coming up with his plan. Nevertheless, this arc feels a little incomplete. I kept waiting for some big moment to rear its head, but the arc suddenly came to and end. It was like, “Uh, okay…”

It’s the same with the rest of the raid group. They just kind of win. They have one boss left, then the next time you see them, they’ve already won. Again, my reaction is only, “Uh, okay…” Then bam, the latter half of the episode is devoted to the denouement. The remaining plot threads are neatly resolved. Silver Spoon will stay in Susukino to protect the city and prepare themselves for future raids. Demikas is no longer angry as he happily tells his wife all about his exploits with the raid. Shiroe even sits on a griffon and reflects on his relationship with the big oaf. Last but not least, Tetra officially joins Log Horizon. Oh by the way, Tetra is really a he, which is something we had expected for quite some time anyway. Anyway, having a denouement is great. Every story needs a denouement! But where was the climax?

Anyway, Plant Hwyaden people sit in a dimly-lit room and speak ominously about Shiroe and stuff. As cliche as that sounds, this scene was sadly the most intriguing thing to come out of this episode. Immediately afterwards, Shiroe has his big reunion with his guild, but like I was saying with Amagi Brilliant Park, when there isn’t any tension or struggle, you won’t get any payoff either. The highs aren’t high when the lows aren’t very low. Oh well… Log Horizon‘s just gotta Log Horizon. Maybe now that we’ve gotten this out of the way, we can find out what happened to Krusty. Or maybe Plant Hwyaden will finally decide to stop sitting around in a room and look menacing. In any case, just anything but more of this. Ugh. And yeah, this is one of the shortest posts I’ve written all year, but man, the anime just isn’t doing much to help on that front.

That’s right. It’s the last episode. It’s also the episode where you get to learn about the bishie’s painful childhood. What a coincidence, huh? As you might have expected, Kyouya’s relationship with his mom is strained at best. His parents divorced when he was young, and this affected him badly. But gosh, a lot of bishies out there seem to come from broken families, don’t they? It’s like these shoujo stories suddenly feel the need to justify the love interest’s poor behavior or something. Guys, guys, I know he’s an asshole, but have some heart! He lost his mother when he was young! Sadly, I’m not even exaggerating. In Ao Haru Ride, Kou literally lost his mother to a terminal disease, and naturally, this broke the guy pretty badly until the heroine came along and kissed his emotional boo-boos away. Luckily for Kyouya, he’s a little better off; his mother is still alive. Still, I don’t know… I just think there’s something a little… sick about this. It’s like reverse moe, y’know?

One of the reasons why I started having a disdain for moe anime was because of the way it characterized its female characters. For instance, Mio of K-On!‘s fame is deathly afraid of barnacles. And here’s the kicker: it’s all for our amusement. Because she’s shaking with complete and utter fear, the target audience can’t help but look at her and coo, “Aw, Mio is so adorable!” But I think that’s disgusting. I think it’s fucked up to give a character a crippling fear just because it’s cute to you. Now, you’re probably thinking, “Mio isn’t a real person though, so what’s the big deal?” This sort of mentality seeps out in our daily lives, y’know. It just exhibits itself in less blatant ways. Like how a guy encourages his girlfriend to talk like a baby. Or how girls think they should act dumb to get attention. Or when girls shriek at the top of their lungs at the mere sight of a spider. These behaviors are encouraged because it makes their boyfriends feel manly by comparison. So you can’t always fall back on the excuse that anime is not real, and thus, anything goes.

Creepy.

So what do I mean when I say that bishies exhibit reverse moe characteristics? Well, it seems to me that our good ol’ shoujo can’t just fall in love with a normal person, can she? She has to find that broken soul to nurture. She has to find that boy with the shattered family, so that she may step in and pick up the pieces. She needs that restoration project to fix up, because it’ll make her feel good about herself. Yeah, what an awesome girlfriend you are! And sure, we all have problems. And if both people in a relationship are perfect, little angels, that would make for a very boring story. But that’s the thing: only one person is ever broken in these cheap romances, and it’s always the bishie. It starts to feel disingenuous. Over and over again, we get to watch the Mary Sue swoop into these poor bishies’ lives and magically fix them up like some anime Mary Poppins. You don’t ever learn a goddamn thing about the heroines themselves, though. We know next to nothing about Erika’s parents or her life at home.

Technically, Erika isn’t perfect. Technically, she a huge fucking liar. Not only that, she is terribly insecure, and she feels that she has to show off to her friends in order to feel fulfilled. But that’s the oppositional reading. That’s not what the story wants you think whatsoever. After all, Erika continues to be friends with those shallow classmates of hers. After all, she continues to be the Wolf Girl from start to finish. We got all these episodes about Kyouya and Kyouya’s bad behavior, but did we get a single episode to address Erika’s need to tell lies all the time? Nope, never. In fact, she even uses her Wolf Girl powers for “good” in this last episode. She lies to Kyouya’s mother to convince the woman to come see the fireworks with them. So in the end, lying can be a good thing! Our heroine is perfect after all! Yaaaaay! The fact of the matter is, Erika’s character hasn’t developed whatsoever. These shoujo heroines are either complete or utter Mary Sues from the start, or you’re just going to have to accept the whole package, flaws and all. On the other hand, the bishie becomes a reclamation project.

Worship the Mary Sue for her love and compassion!

It’s just disingenuous, that’s all. A romance should be a story between two people. Instead, I feel like I’m watching a charity case. A very self-serving charity case, mind you. We’re not looking at these bishies as fully realized characters. They’re just a concept. They’re a concept to fill a gap in the Mary Sue’s life, because society tells her that her life is empty without a boyfriend. So we watch as the heroine initially suffers. Oh, how selflessly she suffers! But it’s okay! It’ll all be worth it in the end when she mends the bishie’s tortured soul, and they proceed to have their storybook romance afterwards… which occurs offscreen, of course. ‘Cause hey, nobody needs to see that. Nobody needs to see two loving individuals care about each other. I’d much rather watch the Mary Sues of the world pump themselves up because they’re willing to brave treacherous waters in order to save our troubled pretty boys. Naturally, if you nevertheless come from broken family, but you do not have supermodel good looks, you need not apply.

Well, this is a pretty action-packed episode. There isn’t much to chew on. though. As such, I’ll just make this quick.

No silly outfit for Demon Favaro, I see. The double standards!

I never realized how big Beelzebub really was until now. Well, good for him.

Jeanne shows up to stab a few angels. I guess angels can die. Michael says later that his physical form may disappear, but that his spirit will always be with Jeanne. Even so, a death is a death. If someone like Michael can bite the dust, however, I wonder why Azazel is so goddamn resilient.

These poor fools appear in the story just to get blown up. No clue who or what they are.

That’s an insanely strong rope. A knight in shining armor has to weigh over 200 pounds, right?

That’s an insanely strong everything.

I’m still not quite clear what Beelzebub intends to do. How is he going to rule the world with Bahamut? Isn’t Bahamut just going to wreck his ass along with the rest of the world?

Luckily for Kaisar, he runs into some allies. Unfortunately, his salvation is short-lived as the carriage gets jostled, and he finds himself falling once again. The dude is constantly falling in this episode. He does manage to get an all-important item from the zombie girl before he departed her company, though. Rita has concocted two antidotes for Martinet’s victims. She hands one to Kaisar, then intends to use the remaining one on Jeanne.

These scenes are pretty fun, though. I mean, just look at that screenshot. Bacchus is riding Hamsa like a skateboard!

I don’t know why Michael felt the need to put the antidote in his own mouth, then kiss Jeanne in order to administer the medicine. Couldn’t he have just put the pill directly into her mouth to begin with? Oh well, how else would we get one hot anime babe to kiss an androgynous looking angel onscreen, eh? So does that mean Kaisar’s going to give Favaro the medicine in the same way? I mean, it’s only fair.

So after saving Kaisar, Azazel faces off against Beelzebub. Y’know, I can’t help but wonder what Lucifer is up to. Hell, throw in Gabriel, too. These are the respective leaders on both sides, right? And yet, they’re nowhere to be found at such a pivotal moment in the story. Oh well, there’s still one episode left, but you’d figure that these leaders would’ve at least made their move by now…

Favaro and Kaisar find themselves facing off yet again…

…but Kaisar just shoots his childhood friend in the chest. Yo, what happened to the antidote?! And Amira finally shows up, but she doesn’t have much to contribute in this week’s episode. I guess she’s saving everything for the last episode.

Golden tendrils reach out from Bahamut to absorb Amira and thus the Transcendent Key…

…but this part looks pretty bad, though. Amira’s cel is literally just dragged off frame.

Lavalley then shows up out of nowhere, but just as we expected, he’s a traitor.

So poor Kaisar finds himself falling for the billionth time. If he was scared of heights before this episode, today’s exposure therapy should hopefully have that cured.

Cerberus has been relegated to the background… just in case you’re wondering what’s she’s been up to.

Just as Amira disappears into Bahamut, she utters Favaro’s name one last time. Welp, we’ve seen our heroes get kicked around long enough. Time for Favaro to somehow save the day in next week’s finale.

All in all, this was a pretty enjoyable episode to watch, but it had nothing memorable to it either. I’m pretty sure I had fun with this series, but  I’m also ready to close the book on it for good. The story’s pretty much run its course, and it’s better that I don’t get tired with these characters. As for the animation, it wasn’t stellar, but it wasn’t laughably bad either. There was just that one moment with Amira that made me laugh out loud.

What’s that? The year’s almost over? Well, you’ve chosen the best possible way to celebrate the occasion: reading the second to last Harem Hill post to ever be written!

Current Standings

Grisaia no Kajitsu: 48+4 = 52 points
Trinity Seven: 41+5+1 = 47 points
Ushinawareta Mirai no Motomete: 37+3 = 40 points
Madan no Ou to Vanadis: 19+1 = 20 points
Daitoshokan no Hitsujikai: 13+1+1 = 15 points

Daitoshokan no Hitsujikai Ep. 11

Quick Thoughts:

– The harem lead and his girls got kicked out of their room, but it’s just a room so who cares, right? They can hold their club meetings anywhere.

– The Minafest is still on, but all of a sudden, Kyotaro sees a vision in which one of the lights falls and kills Tsugumi. Aw man, that’s too bad. But as a result of this, the harem lead finally decides to become a Shepherd. After all, he wouldn’t want such a precious friend of his to die. But, uh, if you know how she’s going to die, can’t you just tell her to avoid the stage? Can’t you just ask someone to secure the lights? Can’t you just take any of the myriad ways to avoid this disaster without throwing your entire life away to become some mystical bookworm?

– Nagi tells Kyotaro that only one of them can become a Shepherd, and this is why she has been giving him so much trouble. I don’t really understand why they can’t both become Shepherds, though.

– So Kyotaro finally informs that creepy guy of his decision, so his book gets burnt. Elsewhere, Tsugumi starts to lose some of her of Kyotaro, but not all of them just yet. I guess this is a gradual process just in case our harem lead wants to back out.

– Tsugumi thus rushes to Kyotaro’s apartment to see if he’s disappeared. He’s still there, but he confirms her worst nightmares. Still, they share a kiss for whatever reason. When he tells her, however, that he intends to become a Shepherd to see if he can find the key to happiness or whatever, she takes this as an insult to her silly club. As a result, she says she hates Shepherds. Man, that’s too bad.

– Things go from bad to worse for our group of friends when the Student Council arranges for some big town hall style meeting on the same day as Minafest. There’s going to be alums and everything! Oh boy! But if you ask me, I’d rather go to something like Minafest over talking to the school’s former alums. C’mon, it’s a high school. Who cares about this sort of nonsense at that age? Unfortunately for Minafest, however, a lot of students suddenly want refunds for their tickets.

– Kana and Senri somehow hears that the harem lead’s going to disappear from their lives. They don’t know anything about him becoming a Shepherd. Still, that doesn’t stop them from trying to seduce him. Naturally, our wholesome anime protagonist tells them to cut it out. But honestly, what if our hero had been, y’know, a normal teenage boy. How far would Kana and Senri would’ve gone? Well, play the eroge to find out, I guess…

– Senri finally decides that she’ll sing at Minafest. Somehow, this is just the boost in publicity that the event needed. This gets people excited in Minafest again. “Oh wow, one of our students are going to sing! I can’t wait!” = Literally something you’ll hear in an anime.

– That doesn’t mean that the evil vice student council president’s going to give up, though! Wait, why is she so hellbent on stopping them again?

– Later that night, frustrated by everything, Tsugumi screams out that Kyotaro is an idiot. Yeah, that’s true, but this is also like the pot calling the kettle black.

– As for the harem lead, he’s reading and reading and reading… but he can’t seem to find a way to save Tsugumi without potentially canceling Minafest!!!

– Or, y’know, just do all of the things I suggested earlier?

– Anyway, another boring episode from a boring harem that we are destined to forget.

The Hareming:

Grisaia no Kajitsu Ep. 12

– “Kaneda-senpai ate the maggots from her wounds.” If there are maggots, that means there are flies and likely other insects. Insects are generally high in protein. Hey, just sayin’…

– Somehow, their sensei managed to walk in a circle and stumble back to the camp. What a useful guy. I mean, even if the compass won’t work, you should still be able to walk in a straight line by taking a few clues from your surroundings. Basic survival skills aren’t exactly complicated.

– All of a sudden, their useless teacher manages to catch a deer. As a result, everyone has some food to eat. Right. A “deer.” Just look at that suspicious glint in his glasses. After all, this is anime, so everything has to be spelt out to the audience.

– Amane chooses not to eat the “deer” just because her friend won’t eat it. Smart.

– Later that night, Kazuki takes Amane to see that the rest of the girls have actually been eating… human flesh!!!!

And oh yeah, the sensei is a pedophile:

I like how the story just throws that in there. It’s like, “Oh shit, this is an eroge… uh, here, have some underage sex!” I guess it wasn’t shocking enough that these girls had to eat a pet dog. It wasn’t bad enough that an injured girl pissed herself. It wasn’t depraved enough that they’re resorting to cannibalism to survive. Nah, y’see, you really want to throw in that pedophilia in there, because… uh, because…

– And the best part is how Amane notices the sex first, but Kazuki’s like, “Uh, look closer, dumbass. The real offense is over there!!!” I don’t know, man, I think the pedophilia’s worse than desperate people resorting to cannibalism to survive…

– In before “She’s 16 so hurr hurr ephebophilia and the age of consent is lower in Japan.” Hey, whatever gets you to sleep at night.

– Haha, what?

– Why’s Kazuki so insistent that everyone has become demonic? How does she know that the rest of them are in on it? What if the other girls have just been duped?

– Nice:

Keep up the good work, boys. It’s never too dangerous for a panty shot.

– It looks like Kazuki’s face is trying to escape from her head.

– Amane then does this stupid thing where she’s like, “I’m too scared to move.” Too bad fear actually gives you adrenaline…

– Haha, what? Kazuki has been hiding food on her, but that’s not all! She also has a map that will help Amane escape! So, uh, why has she been keeping this to herself? Why didn’t she bother to save the rest of the girls before they had to resort to cannibalism? Why didn’t she at least give the teacher the map before he went crazy (assuming he wasn’t always crazy)? This is the dumbest thing ever.

– Yep, this is the dumbest fucking harem anime ever:

The funniest thing is that we haven’t actually had a lot of panty shots lately. It’s like the panty shots come and go. Or they have different directors, and this one guy just can’t help it.

“Panty shots from everyone! I don’t care who they are, they’re flashing their pantsu in our faces and they’ll like it!”

“But sir, this is a serious, tension-filled moment!”

“I said..”

– This was apparently the last time Amane ever saw Kazuki. How much do you want to bet that the girl is alive, though? I mean, c’mon, it’s anime. Unless you see a dead body, you can never be too sure that someone is actually dead.

– Ah yes, the ghost of my loli friend will lead me out of this forest.

– But alas, Amane has somehow reached a highway. In other words, they weren’t even that far away form civilization! But instead of doing anything to escape their fate, they decided instead that it would be a smart idea to just sit on their asses until they all went insane!

“B-b-but E Minor, in most situations, don’t you want to stay by the crash site and wait for your rescuers?”

Yo, it’s not like they had nothing on them. They had a ton of personal effects. Like… a ton. We’re not talking about Michael Rockefeller disappearing off the coast of New Guinea. We’re talking about Japan, here. They could have just left a trail of useless junk behind them. Y’know, stuff that they wouldn’t really need. You just leave behind a few brave souls to tend to the sick, i.e. the girl with broken limbs. The rest of them can go and find help. With the trail of items, even if they got lost, if rescuers do find an crash site, they could still follow the “breadcrumbs” into the woods and find the rest of the survivors. Kazuki’s such a genius, I’m surprised she didn’t come up with any solution other than, “Hurr, I’m just going to sit tight until things get out of control, then my girlfriend and I can just make our escape!”

– Amane stumbles upon a field of cabbages, then hungrily bites into one. Haha, why cabbage?

– Then afterwards, Amane tries to return to normal life, but people started bullying her for… surviving! Ahhhhhh, only in anime, man. Only in fucking anime.

– Having a nightmare? Be sure to pull on the collar of your top so we can see some of that juicy, juicy cleavage!

– Anyway, the girl has survivor’s guilt, and when she met Yuuji, he gave her a reason to live. Yep. Just yep.

– She claims that she wants to make up for sacrificing Kazuki in order to save herself. I guess that means relentlessly flirting with the harem lead. I’m sure that’s what Kazuki would’ve done if she were here.

– Amane: “…but I wasn’t so into you that I’d call it love, either. … I doubt you’ll believe me, but I really have fallen in love with you.” Okay.

– Yeah, yeah, squeeze your boobs together as you talk about how you must be punished. Best eroge ever, boys.

– She then asks the harem lead to kill her. Haha… hey, according to the French, the orgasm is also known as “la petite mort.” So just fuck her and get it over with. It’ll be like fucking your missing sister.

– Obviously, dude’s not going to kill her. Just like he didn’t bury Michiru alive. Instead, he tells her to live out the rest of her life… for his sake. Welp, she may as well be dead.

– And if she dares to disappear, he will kick her butt. Yeah, those are his words, not mine.

– What a charmer.

– Yuuji later speculates that his sister might still be alive. Why? Well, it’s like the carrot thing from a previous episode, man! So if you chop up the bodies just right, you can make it appear like there’s an extra body! Wow! I didn’t know you could do that with actual human body parts! Here are 10 human torsos… and now there are 11 of them! Wow!

– On the map that Kazuki had drawn for Amane, it even leads to some emergency rations that the former had hidden. So why as she holding out on the other girls again? Because she knew they would go crazy or something? So naturally, it makes much more sense to keep food from everyone and hasten their insanity, right?

– The two of them intend to return to the crash site, because Amane, uh, wants to overcome her past or something. Sure. But on the way there, they run into this creepy fan of Amane’s… ooooooh. Whatever. End episode. The finale is sure to be just as stupid, huh?

Madan no Ou to Vanadis Ep. 12

Quick Thoughts:

– There are some harem hijinks at the start of the episode, but other than that, there’s not much else to really talk about.

– Normally, anime is good at making food look good, but not this show!

– Our heroes are still on their mission to prove Princess Regina’s birthright, which involves traversing some underground tunnel in order to reach the Holy Grotto.

– For some reason, Bertrand insists on coming along. Yep, those are some famous last words.

– Unfortunately, the good guys run into Thenardier, and a battle breaks out.

– It’s just so boring, though. Nothing about the ensuing fight is worth describing!

– Luckily, a landslide cuts everything short, but not before Bertrand heroically jumps in front of an enemy’s attack in order to save Tigre’s life. It’s just too bad that Bertrand has been kind of invisible up until now, so who even cares whether or not he dies? Certainly not me.

– Nevertheless, our harem lead is now all depressed and everything… and that about does it for this week’s episode. Maybe you shouldn’t fight with a bow in a dark cavern against a heavily-armored knight.

The Hareming:

Trinity Seven Ep. 11

– The school is under attack! I repeat, the school is under attack! Aaaaaand… the bad guys can’t seem to land a direct shot. How does the saying go? “You’re so bad you can’t even hit the broad side of a barn?” Well, I guess a giant school is even harder to hit.

– This is our villain of the week. Just thought you should meet her at least once.

– Since Arata and his harem hasn’t returned yet, it’s up to Levi to hold off the bad guys all by her lonesome. Are you guys sure you want to fight out here in the open, though? Wouldn’t you guys have more fun fighting in, say, a room?

– If you’re wondering about the headmaster, here he is:

Yeah, he’s pretty useful. He claims he has a date with one of the other bad guys, but you never see him fight once in the entire episode.

– There. Is. So. Much. Talking. Even when they fight, they talk. Even when they bleed, they talk.

– Lugh: “It appears a ninja technique won’t work against my two sparks, which travel at the speed of light.” Uh, if you could actually swing your swords that fast, their inertial mass would increase infinitely. In which case, you wouldn’t be able to swing them. Maybe she means she’s swinging them at speeds close to the speed of light, but even then, it wouldn’t make much sense. She’d be swinging her swords so fast, the atoms in the air wouldn’t be able to get out of the swords’ way. As a result, they’d just plain fuse with the swords themselves, and we all know what happens when fusion occurs…

…furthermore–…

Sigh, why do I even bother?

Well, thank god she knows that.

– Anyway, Levi finds that she’s no match for this Lugh person. After all, Lugh is also a demon lord candidate:

Man, they might as well all be demon lord candidates. My cat is a demon lord candidate. Trust me, when she does her business, you’ll understand what I mean when I say that only a demon is capable of such vile sorcery.

– But it’s okay! ‘Cause here’s Liese to the rescue! Wait, isn’t she trapped for eternity in some, uh, other space or dimension? Well, it turns out she can swap places with her sister or something. But don’t ask me for the details, because honestly, there’s just too much talking here for me not to drone it all out.

– And yes, our combatants have managed to fight their way into a room. This anime fucking love rooms.

– Liese and Levi battle Lugh some more. Eventually, however, Hijiri reveals herself, and as a result, Arata finally makes his entrance…

…and naturally, it involves groping a girl against her wishes, because being a demon lord and violating people sexually just seems to go hand-in-hand.

– Anyway, it’s now Arata and a bunch of girls in a room:

Yep, that sounds like the average Trinity Seven episode to me.

Ushinawareta Mirai wo Motomete Ep. 12 (Finale)

– This show drops the ball pretty bad on the food thing, too.

– As a result of Yui’s disappearance, the contradictions are resolving themselves. In other words, her victims are waking up from their comas. Yay! So hey, it’s a good thing our robot disappeared!

– Even though the girl has disappeared from existence, however, her friends keep feeling as though they’re missing someone. That’s just silly, though. What would be the reason for those feelings? Lingering memories that are refusing to disappear despite the fact that the timeline has been altered?

– Afterwards, Kaori talks about how the harem lead’s rejection is finally allowing her to move on with life. Well, that’s nice, I guess. Could you share that same life lesson with, oh, every other haremette out there?

– But even though she says she’s moved on, she still suggests that they end up together if he hasn’t found a lover in ten or twenty years. That doesn’t seem healthy.

– That’s definitely not healthy.

– We skip to a timeline in which an older Sou is still waiting for Kaori to wake up. Yui succeeded, though, so unless we have multiple timelines, Kaori will eventually wake up. They just have to be patient.

– Sou suggests that the timelines may never merge back with one another. Nah, that wouldn’t make sense. After all, Yui disappeared. I mean, if her actions make it so that she wouldn’t exist, then Kaori should wake up. But if the worlds don’t merge, then there’s no reason for Yui to disappear. She would’ve kept existing in that timeline.

– In any case, Airi is mad at Sou for creating Yui when he knew fully well that the robot girl would disappear if she succeeded.

– Back in the past, the cultural festival has finally rolled around. And that means boring montage time! We get to see all these secondary characters as if we actually cared about them and how they turned out.

– As for the harem lead, he can’t help but shed a tear as he gazes at a simulation of the night sky:

Uguu, my robot daughter is missing from my life.

– Somehow, Kaori wins some beauty contest. Well, she got rejected by the love of her life, but at least everyone thinks she’s beautiful?

– Yui’s singer friend, however, drops by the Astronomy Club to discuss the missing robot. For some reason, she hasn’t forgotten a thing! Yeah, don’t expect the show to give you a satisfying explanation for why this is.

– We cut back to the future, where Sou tells Airi that even if Yui had succeeded, Yui would return. It would just take longer for the new him to construct a new Yui. Ugh.

– Then bam…

…Kaori’s back. I like how she looks like how she did as a young teenager. I guess that’s why she won that beauty pageant.

– And just like that, the story is over. I… I’m not sure what to say.

– Alright, how about this? Like a lot of anime, this story would be a hell of a lot better as a movie. This way, we wouldn’t need to pad its length with pointless moments. Like how we learned all about Nagisa’s rich girl problems. Or the time when everyone played hooky. Then again, there’s the fact that the harem lead falls in love with his own robot daughter, and the story seems to act like this is perfectly okay. So even if you had judiciously edit the plot down enough to fit a standard movie length, there’s still that unsavory hurdle to overcome.

Week 12’s Poll

After what we saw in last week’s episode, I guess the big questions will be 1) why does this episode exist, and 2) why does it exist here?

– “Not bad, but not great. The problem is that none of it leaves an impression. How should I put this? … Stuff like this isn’t exactly rare. The fundamentals are all there, but the only response it elicits is a yawn.”

Oh, I see Kanye has seen Amagi Brilliant Park, too! But seriously, his words describe this show to a tee. It’s not bad, but it’s not great. And nothing that we’ve seen over the past three months will leave much of an impression. Will you remember this show in a year? Two years? Hell, I probably won’t even remember it in a month. It’s only claim to fame is making fans think that KyoAni has return to their “roots,” a.k.a. giving us shiny boobs over shiny abs.

– But hey, KyoAni shouldn’t feel too bad. We’ve all phoned it in from time to time. I have as well. But a spade is a spade, and this show is just… it’s nothing, man. It treads that dreaded middle ground between exalted greatness and memorable trainwreck.

– So the goal is to make a promotional video for the park, but Tricen’s first attempt is about as fun as watching the average Fate/stay night episode. As a result, Kanye has our little triceratops friend go around and ask the rest of the staff members for ideas. First things first, Moffle echoes Kanye’s sentiments. I guess they’re more alike than they think, and this is probably why they butt heads with each other. And they both have that strange affection for the show’s most boring character.

– Moffle’s solution? Have everything explode. Calm down there, Michael Bay. This is a cheesy amusement park for kids.

– Macaron wants the visuals and the music to be more “aggressive.”

– Meanwhile, Tiramie is… pretty damn creepy. Another way to describe this episode: “Too many cooks will spoil the broth.” Oh, the wacky hijinks that come from having the eccentric staff members pitch in their ideas!

– C’mon, Fiddy… how can you not recognize your own thighs?

– When it comes time to asks the Elementario, Kobori channels Gou. Unfortunately, Tricen’s execution of her ideas are, well, a touch misguided.

– Muse, on the other hand, suggests that the PV includes shots of… just water. Literally just various bodies of water. Holy shit, I know you’re the faerie of water, but that is the lamest idea out of all the suggestions that we’ve heard so far.

– Meanwhile, Salama somehow has videos of Muse sleeping in bed. I’m sure shippers out there are tickled pink by this, but this is just as messed up as Tiramie’s “lewd” pictures.

– Sylphie is just boring.

– It’s finally time to ask the most important person for ideas. Y’know who that is. The park’s most important person is the same person who keeps herself cooped up in one area and does absolutely nothing to help the park. Yeah, that’s the one!

– At this point, I’d just tell Kanye to make a video, because he seems to think he knows what he wants to see. So why don’t our boy genius just have a crack at it?

– I’ve always wondered why the accountants got to look relatively normal compared to everyone else…

– Wut.

– But yeah, Tricen is now asking the lesser characters for their contributions. Other than one or two amusing looks into these characters’ personalities, however, most of them are pretty bog standard.

– It’s just the age-old problem of trying to do everything at once. If you do so, you’ll end up succeeding at nothing. Maybe this is the show’s veiled critique at itself. Who knows? Maybe. ‘Cause I mean, just look at this very episode. It’s one way to give us a glimpse into these characters’ personalities, but it’s done in a very lazy way. And other than a few exceptions, it doesn’t tell us anything new either. We already know that Moffle wants to be an action hero. We already know that Tiramie’s a pervert. And on that note, this episode seems better suited as an episode that introduces us to the rest of the cast rather than something to cap off the entire series. This should’ve been the third or fourth episode, maybe. It certainly shouldn’t have been the last episode.

– In the end, we see the final draft that includes everyone’s contributions, and I guess the humor here is supposed to lie in the absurdity of it all. We see action, we see creepshots, we see mundane footage of the Diggeries doing construction work… But the truth is that none of this is really all that absurd or silly. Tricen ends up making something that, to me, is just as boring as his first PV.

– The best part is how we’ve seen all of these clips already, but we now get to see them again stitched together! C’mon, man, it’s the last episode. Are you really going to be this lazy?

– Kanye reluctantly goes with the original PV, but Tricen says he leaked the twisted one online anyway. Okay then.

– And that’s it. That’s the last episode. Well, that was definitely one way to send this series of…

– Final word on Amagi Brilliant Park? Well, the show has some charm, but you can tell that KyoAni was phoning it in the entire time. Not once did the show make me roar with laughter. When it did try to inject some drama into the story, it was too little, too late. I hardly know anything about these characters, so obviously, I’m not going to cry for them. I don’t suppose the light novels are much better, but even so, the studio should’ve had the vision to pull it together. But maybe they’re just too busy working on other things¹, and they just needed Amagi Brilliant Park to fill up a time slot. I wouldn’t know. I just know I won’t miss it.

– Honestly, I kept waiting for this episode to turn into a PV for a future sequel to the show or something. That would’ve been slightly clever, at least.

¹ I hear Tamako Market has a good love story, but then again, my Twitter feed says a lot of things that I don’t necessarily agree with. Plus, I don’t particularly like going back to watch older series unless they’re said to be exceptional. Oh well. So what’s next for a KyoAni, anyway? A Beyond the Boundary movie? Wow, really? Did people even like Beyond the Boundary?

Oh man, are you guys ready for some delicious steak? I know I am. Sure, last week’s steak was cold in the middle, full of gristle, and tough as an old boot, but c’mon… steak! Steak!!!

– And since we’re hopeless peasants, we can’t complain about the quality of the steak whatsoever.

– Uguu, this steak is over forty-seven minutes long. I hope that means its a porterhouse for two and not a big bowl of tripe.

– Gasp, to see the fair maiden in such a state… I must flee! The people’s hero cannot afford to taint his soul with lustful desires. As such, Shirou blushes before hastily leaving the room.

– Shirou blushes again when he later sees Rin all dressed up. Man, this guy is way too innocent for this shit. Not surprisingly, dude proceeds to freak out because he learns that he has a date with Rin in a neighboring city. Who identifies with someone like this? Even if you do identify with him, doesn’t it get tiring watching the same archetype over and over and over? We always bounce between the two extremes, too. The hero is either pathetically pure-minded like Shirou, or he’s a major asshole like Grisaia no Kajitsu‘s Yuuji. Why… why can’t we just have some variety?

– Plus, what’s there to be uncomfortable about when Saber is tagging along?

– Shirou: “Anyway, I said I’d tag along with you, not go out on a date with you.” Yeah, wouldn’t want anyone to get the wrong ideas. Then he’d be ruined for marriage and shit. No dowry in the world’s going to make up for the fact that… the protagonist has been on a date!!!

– Anime and caeki… it’s like they’re on an eternal date with each other. That caeki looks pretty shoddily drawn, though.

– Oh man, we’re literally watching these kids hang out downtown. Hoo boy, I sure am glad they doubled the length of this episode. I wouldn’t have wanted to miss out on these crucial scenes.

– Aw yeah, just look at that steak. Delicious, juicy steak everywhere.

– For one tiny second, the show gave me hope and made me that I’d be watching Persona 4 instead.

– It’s always awkward when one of the characters starts busting a gut, ’cause as a member of the audience, I’m just like, “Should I be laughing, too? Is it actually funny to see Shirou in some dorky pair of glasses?” Nah… nah, it’s not.

– Riveting conversation right about now… riveting conversation about Shirou’s height. This is kind of like… the delicious pepper sauce that goes on top of the steak, right? Yeah, I think it is. Nothing adds spice and richness to a good steak like a conversation about the protagonist’s height and his potential to grow even taller.

– Eight minutes into the porterhouse steak for two, I’m now watching Rin hit a few balls in the batting cage. This must be the baked potato on the side with all the fixings.

– Haha, look at Saber bat the balls away as if she’s fighting someone! This is the bacon bits in the baked potato.

– Nine minutes into the episode, we’re now discussing Rin’s prowess in the batting cage. She must have done a lot of push ups, according to Shirou. Mm-hmm. Mmm-hmm. Tell me more.

– Picnic time! This must be like… uh, the picnic basket that comes with the steak:

Hey there, Boo-boo! I didn’t think you’d go to so much trouble for this day-to~!

– Oh my god, Saber took a sandwich from the middle! This totally triggers my OCD!!!

– And the verdict is… the steak sandwiches are good, boys! I repeat, the streak sandwiches are good! Marry the girl! Her sandwich-making skills are higher than Asuna’s! And the latter only makes virtual sandwiches!

– Ten and a half minutes into the episode, Rin wants to wipe the corner of Shirou’s mouth with a napkin. I-I-I thought we’d only be eating sandwiches! No one told me about wiping each other’s mouths!! I’m not ready for this!

– I remember reading something like, “Hell yeah, only Ufotable would have the guts to make the episode twice as long in order to include everything!” I couldn’t agree more. Everything I’ve seen thus far has been absolutely indispensable! Indispensable!

– Shirou: “Are you sure that you aren’t Satan? I mean, you’re always wearing red.”

– Rin: “D-Don’t get the wrong idea! I wasn’t concerned about you!”

– Elsewhere, Fujimura goes to see Kiritsugu’s grave, but it looks like Caster’s about to abduct the poor lady. I guess the fun and games are over, boys. No more steak. Time for some vegetables.

– Our heroes seem to have climbed onto a bus with no driver in it. Whoopsie!

– It’s nice when the story decides to show and not tell. The water here looks weird not because the 3-D animation is bad, but because the water is literally unnatural. It’s not the water that we know — the water that heals and nourishes the soul. Rather, it is water that has been tainted with evil, and this is represented in the real world as plastic-looking CGI water. CGI itself is unnatural and a corruption of the medium. But sometimes, it is a necessary evil. How else would you get cool-looking action scenes without the aid of CGI? Anyway, we later see these things rise out of the water to attack our heroes. But in general, more visual storytelling would be nice. This is an anime series, after all.

– Long story short, Caster wants Shirou and his unique Magic Circuits to work for her, and she’s taken Fujimura hostage as a bargaining chip. But of course, our pure-minded protagonist isn’t about to agree to her terms. What’s interesting here is the change in the sound of Shirou’s voice.

– Aaaaand then Caster floats there and feeds us exposition. Back to that delicious steak.

– Sure, I want to know that Shirou potentially hates the Holy Grail. This is a crucial bit of character development. But I also want to learn this in an interesting way, and not from some floating lady just yapping away in the sky. I mean, c’mon, what a strong, pivotal revelation! He potentially despises the Holy Grail! If what Caster says is true, such strong emotions shouldn’t be something that we merely hear about. It should be something that we see and discern for ourselves through the character’s actions.

– Shirou’s willing to sacrifice his Command Seals in order to save Fujimura. But just imagine how many lives he could save with those Command Seals? How many lives could we save if he did get his hands on the Holy Grail? But the problem here isn’t really with Shirou. The problem here is with the story. What does Fujimura really mean to Shirou? She’s been his guardian, right? So she’s like a big sister or perhaps even a mother in the boy’s life. But we don’t really see that. When we do see Fujimura, it’s only for some shitty joke. She contributes almost nothing but comic relief to the story. Now, I can understand a guy throwing everything away to save someone so important to him. This is the sort of tragic flaw that has doomed plenty of heroes in the past, so it’d be nothing new here. Nevertheless, Fate/stay night hasn’t actually achieved this. It hasn’t gotten me to understand just how important Fujimura really is to the guy. We’ve wasted so many episodes on explaining the rules of the game or even a shitty date in the cities, but we’ve forgotten to develop Fujimura’s importance.

– So Saber saves his life, and he still uses a Command Seal to stop his Servant in her tracks. This leaves her open to Caster’s attack. Welp. So much for your ideals, son.

– Somehow, Caster has taken control of Saber through her Noble Phantasm. I don’t really care about these details, though. I just want to see how the larger story plays out, not mire myself in the various rules and exceptions of the game.

– Caster commands Saber to attack Rin, but Shirou takes the hit instead. Saber then uses every ounce of her strength to tell our heroes to run. Rin eagerly obliges takes up. Finally, Archer decides to show up. It’s always peculiar how he always waits until the very last minute. A guy like him is way too prepared to allow his Master to be attacked like this. I thus wonder if he could’ve shown up earlier, but he wants Shirou to taste bitter defeat. In other words, he’s always close enough that Rin’s life is never really threatened, but he’s teaching Shirou a valuable lesson about the latter’s idealistic nature.

– Aaaaaand Shirou’s injured and bandaged up again.

– The shape of Rin’s head is pretty funny-looking.

– And now, Rin and Archer is discussing how he’s been rooting for Saber this entire time. Meh. I’d discuss the clues from this scene that Shirou and Archer are one and the same (how he knows Saber and why he’s actually concerned about Fujimura), but is there really a point to that anymore? We already know that they are.

– Then a conversation between Caster and Assassin. Fun. He pisses her off good. As it has already been implied before, Caster is acting largely without her Master’s knowledge. As always, crucial details about a character and their motivations are revealed through a one-on-one conversation.

– Caster shows up to the church to claim her prize. But wait, the Holy Grail won’t appear until only a single Servant remains standing! Ah, but this is Fate/stay night, so there are always rules and exceptions. Caster can’t get the Greater Grail, but she can get the Lesser Grail becaus–… y’know what? I don’t care.

– Kotomine then turns into an action hero and escapes from Caster’s minions. Okay. Lancer is lurking nearby. I guess he’s ready to make a return to the story.

– Elsewhere, an injured Shirou wants to fight with Rin, but she rejects him. But what a way to end the first cour of this split-cour series. They have a conversation about his uselessness, then she and Archer fly away. We are then treated to a montage of the story’s various characters before the credits roll. Whee.

– C’mon, that was not a porterhouse for two. We got honeydicked into watching a bunch of conversations again. As always, the anime dangles the possibility of well-animated action scenes before us. There was some action… but just some. But instead, it’s just one long sequence of boring conversations.

– But will I watch the second cour? Of course! I love steak!

Oh good, Elder Tale also celebrates Valentine’s Day. Knowing what I know about this show and its potential pairings, I’m already dreading this episode.

– Apparently, there’s a heart-shaped fruit that also acts as an aphrodisiac. Hoo boy, I sure do enjoy love triangles in my anime series.

– It’s also that lull between arcs, so at best, we’re just setting things up for the next big revelation. In the meantime, the characters can afford to sit around and reminisce about the good ol’ days. Speaking of which, Tetra brings up Kanami from Shiroe’s old Debauchery Tea Party…

– It seems that everyone but Naotsugu has realized by now that Tetra is really a guy. Rudy and Tohya thus debate how to address Tetra. Riveting, huh? Sadly, I’d still rather see this sort of nonsense over that of Akatsuki and Minori fighting over the villain. But yeah, this is the sort of mundane nonsense that we’ll get shortly after the conclusion of an arc. Problem is, the last arc didn’t even have a satisfying conclusion.

– Yep.

– You even lose a few levels (temporarily) in order to gain the ability to cook. Ahhhhh.

– Cat dude is now teaching the girl how to cook with step-by-step instructions. I’m taking notes, too.

– Oh my god, you guys, Minori would like to give Shiroe a present, but it would be so embarrassing if he took her Valentine gift the wrong way.

– Tetra then tells Akatsuki all about the coconia fruit, which Minori overhears. Elsewhere, Marie also has an apron on and cooking up a storm in the kitchen. Immediately after this scene, we see Shiroe and Isaac discuss very important business with regards to Akihabara’s safety. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

– I mean, the contrast is very interesting, don’t you think?

– A bunch of girls have lined up just to give Soujirou presents. Hoo boy. Meanwhile, Lenessia is unhappy because she hasn’t heard from or seen Crusty in a while… but caeki fixed her mood right up!!! Ugh…

– Speaking of Crusty, we learn that Misa has been given a prosthetic arm. Apparently, healing magic won’t bring her “real” arm back because it has likely disappeared to wherever Crusty also disappeared to. Sadly, these tiny bits of plot development are all we get. I’m not sure if they even add up to five whole minutes out of the entire episode.

– And we’re back to Minori… she’s now asking Cat Dude to teach her how to bake. All of a sudden, Akatsuki also shows up with a bag of coconia fruits that she just happened to gather! Whoooooa! I’m going to need to take my heart medicine in case this episode gets any more action-packed.

– It’s this stupid bullshit where the girl is like, “Uguu, I want to make something nice for him, BUT NOT LIKE THAT OKAY, GAWSH GEEZ!” This lameass characterization is cliche, boring, overdone, cringeworthy, so on and so forth. If you want to do a love story, at least step your game up. Shiroe buying up all of the public land then leasing them right back to the server was sort of clever. Sort of. And the author came up with that all by himself! Yay! So what’s with this trite love triangle? If you can’t write a compelling romance, then don’t do it. Don’t shoehorn in romance if you don’t have the fucking chops for it. If your strength lies elsewhere, guess what? It’s okay! Nobody is ever say, “Man, this story about how to rule and govern an MMO world turned real is just missing that one crucial element… a shitty love triangle between three people who act like grade schoolers when it comes to the matters of the heart!”

– And that’s the other thing. It’s not like this is a torrid affair between three people. All of them are so fucking innocent about this, my five year old nephew’s got more game.

– Some wacky hijinks involving Marie, Naotsugu and Shoryou. Don’t really care, though.

– Shiroe is then presented with a very special cake. But like I’ve said, the girls are too innocent to get through with this nonsense, so neither of them has the guts to ask Shiroe anything. Welp. This has been another fruitful day in the lives of these Log Horizon characters.

– The episode ends with Intix berating Nureha, and revealing that she is the real leader behind the scenes. Alrighty then.

– Like I’ve said, the episode probably had less than five minutes of anything actually interesting. The rest of the episode was completely and utterly vapid. Oh well. Onto the new year. Maybe.

It’s the end of the road, folks.

– Hell seems to be the way to go. Look at the guy with the instrument. As for the angels, they’re just a bunch of generic dudes clad in white.

– I guess Beelzebub really did not expect Bahamut to turn on him. So this entire time, I was giving him the benefit of the doubt. Oh, surely he has a plan! You wouldn’t awaken a world-destroying dragon without a plan! Nope. And as he’s floating away with just half of his body intact, the dude has the gall to go, “Why…?” Yeah, why do you have to be so stupid?

– Then of course, Bahamut proceeds to lay waste to everything around it. Fuck you. Fuck you, too. Fuck you over there especially. But I mean, if the green forest dragon that we had seen a couple episodes ago is any indication, then an ancient dragon probably has some smarts, right? So what is Bahamut after? Why does Bahamut want to destroy everything? Or should I just believe that it’s a force of nature?

– Somehow, Lavalley has turned into this pale-looking freak show. Well, the thing is, he’s really Martinet… or is he…?! It’s like the story ran out of time, so Rita continues to get us up to speed. Martinet/Lavalley is really… Gilles de Rais! Wait, who? I mean, I know who he was in the real world. He was a knight accused of murdering children. But who is he in this story? Apparently, just a bounty who wants the world to end, so he tricked both the gods and the demons in order to further this nihilistic goal. But there’s nothing more behind this goal. He just wants to see everything destroyed. Okay…?

– Oh, I guess she does have a speaking role before it all comes to an end.

– Kaisar looks quite different with his hair down. Anyway, Favaro revives in order to keep the hammerhead busy, but the truth is that our afro’d hero has actually regained his senses. I guess Kaisar put the antidote into one of the crossbow bolts. Okay.

– It’s always a bit jarring whenever it starts to rain, but none of the rain ever falls on the characters.

– Aw, the good king is done for. Couldn’t have happened to a better guy.

– Damn, this is quite the sacrifice from Kaisar. Yeah, he allows Favaro to take his arm. You can see where this is going. The latter then uses the armband to turn Martinet/Lavalley into one of those stone cards. Well… that was easy? As for Kaisar, he just has a strange-looking stump that needs to be bandaged up.

– This entire time, Bahamut has just been floating there, shooting energy beams randomly at stuff. Two possibilities. One, the world has already been leveled. But our heroes wouldn’t have such an obviously bad ending, would they? So then two, Bahamut is just really dumb and inefficient with his destruction. Sure, he’s killed a lot of people, buuuuuut… he’s just shooting the same places over and over, so our heroes still have a chance to save the world. More importantly, if you save the world now, we can forget that thousands or perhaps hundreds of thousands of people have already died!

– Favaro has made his decision to kill Amira, which pisses Kaisar off. Maybe it’s been ingrained in us that the heroes will always succeed no matter the stakes, but I’m disappointed with this. I’m disappointed that Favaro gave Amira this whole spiel about them being able to change their fate, but in the end, he readily admits that the old, green dragon was right. Well shit, you should’ve just left her in that pocket dimension for eternity, then.

– Poor Hamsa is then tasked with carrying our heroes to Bahamut. I like its facial expression.

– Both angels and demons proceed to work together to keep Bahamut under control. I’m still wondering where Lucifer and Gabriel are.

– Kaisar falls, which is something he has a lot of experience in. Then Favaro slips and falls, and has to be saved by his childhood friend. Man, everyone’s just falling in these past two episodes!

– Favaro stabs the key and stands there awash with golden light. In the distance, Jeanne observes this, and comes to the conclusion that Favaro is the holy knight? Well… I don’t know, that just feels really lame if it’s true.

– The guy then falls off the side so that he’s now in front of one of Bahamut’s eyes. A naked, shiny Amira then appears from it, and the two of them share some final words with each other. Then because we need some sort of storybook finish to their relationship — I wasn’t aware they had a romantic one — Amira kisses Favaro. If she’s mentally a child, however, which is what we’ve been led to believe… blech. Anyway, Bahamut blows up, Favaro was still stuck on the dragon as it did so, blah blah blah. Is this the last we’ve seen of Favaro?!

– C’mon. No one here honestly believes that, right? Of course, Favaro survives that giant explosion somehow. Just somehow. And I guess he’s back to being a bounty hunter. As for Kaisar, he doesn’t get a rocket fist like Rita, but he’s still the knight that he’s always wanted to be.

– Then the credits roll. Afterwards, we see Kaisar and Favaro horsing around like the good, old days. But of course, Kaisar no longer has a serious vendetta against his childhood friend, and all this cost was a hand and a forearm.

–The final eyecatch implies that Bahamut (and perhaps Amira) will be back. But that wasn’t much of a conclusion at all. I didn’t expect Amira to be back safely in Favaro’s arms or anything. But fuck, man. What’s the state of the kingdom? Who’s the new king that’s being coronated? What’s Rita’s going to do now since she’s still presumably immortal? What are the angels and demons going to do now? They kept Azazel alive, he just disappears shortly after finishing Beelzebub off? C’mon. C’mooooooooooooooooon. Give me something! All that world-building, and it led to nothing satisfying!

– Well, Shingeki no Bahamut: Genesis was a mostly fun show to watch, but the first half was way, waaaaaaaay better than the generic fantasy tale that we got for the second half of the series. I think MAPPA just ran out of time and money, so they hastily cobbled together a half-hearted conclusion. It’s especially half-hearted because Amira, one of the show’s main characters, had like what…? Only a few lines of dialogue over the past two episodes? That’s ridiculous. She just became a supporting character out of nowhere. Anyway, I wouldn’t reject a potential sequel, but I wouldn’t be too torn up either if one never shows up.

Watch as four different anime series simultaneously fail at the same task!

Current Standings

Grisaia no Kajitsu: 52+5 = 57 points
Trinity Seven: 47+4+1 = 52 points
Ushinawareta Mirai no Motomete: 40+2 = 42 points
Madan no Ou to Vanadis: 20+3 = 23 points
Daitoshokan no Hitsujikai: 15+1 = 16 points

Daitoshokan no Hitsujikai Ep. 12

Quick Thoughts:

– Can you say cop-out? ‘Cause this episode is a major cop-out.

– Minafes kicks off without a hitch, and everyone’s having a ton of fun! Awesome!

– But of course, Kyotaro has more important things on his mind, i.e. saving Tsugumi’s life. It turns out Aoi is behind it all. Uh, I think we’re flirting with attempted murder here…

– Thankfully, our Shepherds are here for the rescue. Kyotaro initially scares the girl off, then Nagi chokes Aoi out with her giant boobs. See? Who says lumps of fats aren’t useful?

– Unfortunately, Tsugumi happens to walk by anyway, and this forces Kyotaro’s hand. He magically transports himself, Nagi, Aoi, and the falling metal beam to the symposium.

– Aoi starts going off about how she just wanted to create a special school, and in order to do so, she needed to eliminate all the students with no talent. So it’s kind of like eugenics-lite or something. What she doesn’t realize, however, is that she’s now spilling her guts to Maho and the rest of the symposium. Whoops. But hey, I bet you she’ll get nothing more than a slap on the wrist. Attempted murder? An attitude ill-befitting of such a fine institution? Well, I hope you’ll sit in your corner and reflect, Missy!

– Unfortunately for Kyotaro, he isn’t supposed to reveal to the entire world that he’s a Shepherd. As a result, Nanai informs our harem lead that he’s no longer qualified to be a Shepherd. Oh, Nagi can become one now… but not Kyotaro. Not only that, because Kyotaro’s book has already been burnt, he’ll just, uh, fade out from existence or something.

– Cue long, boring speech from Tsugumi, who is now sorry that she doubted the harem lead’s intentions.

– See? Just a slap on the wrist!

– Cue long, boring singing performance from Senri.

– Backstage, Tsugumi embraces Kyotaro and promises that she’ll never forget him no matter what. Elsewhere, Nanai suddenly conjures up Kyotaro’s book. No consequences! Nothing has any goddamn consequences in this world!

– The story ends with Aoi apologizing to everybody. Yep, attempting to drive the less-talented students away — as well as outright trying to kill one of them — is no big deal! Just say you’re sorry and we’re good!

– Kyotaro makes his way back to the apartment to find that…

…gasp! Nagi is here! Yeah, she’s still a Shepherd, but she’s a Shepherd for the school? And this means she can interact with everyone, and they won’t forget her? Man, what was even the point of the whole “Everyone will forget you!” nonsense if we’re just going to wuss out and go with such a lame, “Everything is A-OK!” ending?

– Oh well. No one will remember this show in a month anyway.

The Hareming:

Not much fanservice again. Not much fanservice for this show in general. It’s not even good at that. Anyways, here’s some supplementary material from the OVA:

I wouldn’t bother downloading it if you’re curious. It’s barely even animated.

Grisaia no Kajitsu Ep. 13

– First things first, Amane tearfully reads a letter from Kazuki. It was just a disease, folks. A disease made everyone go mad.

– The letter also asks Amane to look after Yuuji. Yep, Yuuji definitely needs looking after, and if anyone’s going to do it, it’s definitely Amane. After all, she’s good at

– The letter, however, doesn’t give them any indication as to whether or not Kazuki survived the ordeal. But I bet she did.

– That’s when the bad guy strikes! The shady guy from last week is really one of the dead girls’ fathers, and he’s decided to take the rest of Mihama Academy hostage. ‘Cause this is… uh, payback? ‘Cause he honestly thinks Amane is at fault somehow? I mean, sure, it’s possible that he could blame a little girl for everything, but it just feels so contrived. Couldn’t they come up with a better way to wrap up this story other than the same, trite “Everyone unfairly blames the haremette!” narrative? Not only that, there’s nothing to really discuss here. He’s just all, “Can’t you understand how I feel?!” Great complexity, buddy.

– This also doesn’t really thematically add much to Amane’s story. Her friends try to stand up for her, so I guess she should just get over the past and stop blaming herself or something. Whoopee.

– But hey, this hostage situation does give us a great excuse to make one of the haremettes piss themselves! Can’t forget that! After all, this is the same show where a little girl had flashed her panties at the audience just as a bunch of cannibals were about to attack her. Piss is nothing.

– Blah blah blah, he buys into the narrative that Amane had sacrificed the other girls in order to survive. Sorry, but I don’t buy it. That’s just weak.

– So they send Amane in, hoping to get the creepy guy to drink water and thus use the bathroom. When he does so, the harem lead will snipe the guy from 900 meters away or something. I guess that’s supposed to be an impressive number, but I really don’t care.

– Oh good, why don’t we just make him a sexual molester while we’re at it. He then drags Amane away, intending to rape her. That’s right. A bereaved father turns into a rapist at a drop of the hat.

– But it’s okay. Yuuji gets the job done, and he manages to save everyone.

– Elsewhere, a guy aims a rocket launcher at the Japanese Coast Guard while his accomplice chews tobacco.

Oh boy. I guess we’re going to have a sequel on our hands.

T-two sequels? Ah, whatever. This was such a lazy ending. But then again, the previous arcs have all been lazy in execution. What gets me is how Sakashita’s involvement just feels so tacked on. It doesn’t develop anything. It just gives Yuuji an opportunity to save his girls again, and nothing more.

Like with Daitoshokan no Hitsujikai, here’s some supplementary material from the OVA included on the first blu-ray or whatever:

No, this are not okay.

Madan no Ou to Vanadis Ep. 13

– Tigre’s still sad about Bertrand’s death, so it’s up to the main haremette to give him a pep talk.

– The pep talk somehow involves telling Tigre and thus us all about Elen’s past as a mercenary. She and Limlisha had great mercenary outfits, too. Very protective.

– Thanks to Elen’s words, Tigre remembers that he has mettle. Y…yay?

– Elen also reveals that she wants to maintain a trade route with Alsace. We suddenly get this dramatic moment with arrows swooping every which way. Trade routes are serious business, boys.

– The next day, Pierre Badouin drops by and asks Tigre what he’s really after. He’s after nothing, man. He just wants Alsace’s safety. Yawn…

– The prime minister then tells Regina that she should hurry back to see her father, ’cause the king ain’t long for this world. I guess this means the final boss fight is coming up.

– Look at dem CGI horses.

– Even Regina finds it necessary to put on some ridiculous, cleavage-bearing breastplate. I guess she just wants to inspire the troops.

– It turns out Thenardier isn’t even trying. He should be commanding his troops, but he isn’t. He instead opts to cut Tigre off in order for them to settle their differences mano y mano. After three months, the conflict boils down to a simple grudge match.

– Before the duel can begin, however, Elen prevents Tigre from giving in to his hatred or something. Blah blah blah, hate is bad. Therefore, if you’re going to spill a man’s blood, you should do it from the goodness of your own heart! With that, Tigre can face Thenardier the “right” way.

– Naturally, Thenardier is decked from head to toe in armor. He’s just missing protection in that crucial area called, y’know, the head. Can you guess how Tigre defeats Thenardier, then? Yep, he does so with an arrow right to the bad guy’s head. The story wants to make us think that Tigre’s exceptional skill allowed him to shoot an arrow past the villain’s defenses, but meh.

– And just like that, the civil war is over:

I’m sorry, but what is up with these stories? That was supposed to be the climax of the entire series? You just ride your horse up to the guy and shoot him in the head? Tigre didn’t even break a sweat. Hell, he took more punishment from his own ally (i.e. Elen’s punch). It’s like these writers just gave up near the end. Oh man, I’m tired of writing! Let’s just shoot the fool in the head and call it a day!

– What thus follows is just a bunch of boring talk. Mm, yay, provisions. Let’s hammer it out, boys…

– And before he dies, the king bestows upon Tigre a very prestigious title: Knight of the Moonlight. This means he’s destined to become Brune’s next king or something. Uh-huh. But the story’s over, so we can stop caring. Yay!

– Closure next? Not really. Our heroes merely go back to Zhcted since Alsace is now under Elen’s control. There’s obviously more story to tell, but whether or not Madan no Ou to Vanadis gets another anime adaptation is a whole ‘nother issue. I don’t see it being popular enough to warrant another series, so until I hear a surprising announcement in the near future, I’m just going to assume that the book on Tigrevurmud Vorn has been closed for good.

Trinity Seven Ep. 12

– Is everyone in the room? Yes? Oh good, we can finally get started.

– The episode wastes probably two whole minutes alone on just the characters executing their themas.

– What are the adults doing? Just watching.

– There’s what? Ten people in one room? And they all decide to fight there and then?

– Of course, when I say “fight,” I really mean “talk it out even though this is the very last second.”

– Good lord, the talking just…

…won’t…

…stop.

– Most bad guys scream with despair when they’re about to be defeated. Hijiri just stands there and, well, talks:

– And since Hijiri’s now been defeated, that just gives her even more reasons to talk!

Fuck it. No, seriously, fuck it. Four finale episodes, four cop-out episodes. I’m done, man. There’s nothing to even mock here. These stupid characters are just going to sit there and talk. So why bother? I don’t even care what Hijiri is up to. I don’t care what Arata intends to do with the rest of his life.

In fact, I scanned through the rest of the episode real quick, and it’s just one huge denouement. So I’m going to cop-out, too! Again, I’m done!

Anyway, it wouldn’t really make sense to do another poll… after all, what am I going to do? Make another post in a week just to reveal the results? Nah. I’ll just rank the final episodes by myself. So after three months and 62 excruciating episodes, we can finally put this contest to rest…

Final Standings

Grisaia no Kajitsu: 57+3 = 60 points
Trinity Seven: 52+5 = 57 points
Ushinawareta Mirai no Motomete: 42 points
Madan no Ou to Vanadis: 23+2 = 25 points
Daitoshokan no Hitsujikai: 16+3 = 19 points

For me, Trinity Seven is easily the worst harem of the season. Alas, it could never catch up to Grisaia no Kajitsu. How could it? The latter had one extra episode to be shitty. Trinity Seven might have averaged a higher level of badness per week, but there’s something to be said about lasting an extra week longer. Grisaia no Kajitsu managed that, and as a result, it is our winner. Congrats, Yuuji! You have triumphed over a demon lord, a commander, and a Commander Shepherd.

You truly are the King of Shit Harem.