Is this Bungou Stray Dogs’ best episode yet? I am inclined to say yes, because it’s not as if the bar has been set very high. All I’m saying is that I guess I kinda enjoyed this week’s episode. First and foremost, Dazai exits the stage within the very first minute. Kyouka, the not-so-new girl, walks up to Dazai and… well, we don’t get to see what happens next, but we learn shortly after the OP that our suicidal hero has gone missing. No one at the Agency seems to have a clue regarding his whereabouts. At the same time, however, they’re not exactly concerned about his disappearance yet. Dazai temporarily going off the grid seems to be a regular occurrence. At the moment, he’s actually imprisoned by Akutagawa. What the story’s final boss wants with Dazai, I don’t know yet, but all I can say is thank god. Due to this rather timely subtraction, the episode is able to keep the silliness to a minimum. I don’t have to look at one of Dazai’s wacky faces for at least a week, nor do I have to hear some dumb joke about suicide. Atsushi even actually gets to do something for once. More importantly, the episode can now focus on not only Yosano and how her Gift works, but also introduce the audience to Kyouka.

Unfortunately for the former, I can’t help but think she got short-changed a bit. Thanks to Kyouka’s presence, Yosano doesn’t get as much screentime as, say, Kunikida or even Rampo. As such, we don’t really learn a whole lot about the doctor’s personality, where she comes from, and why she’s with the Agency. We do see that she’s rather curious about Atsushi’s regenerative powers. Additionally, she greatly values life (as all doctors should), but this is a pretty generic quality for a heroine to have. As for Yosano’s Gift, she can heal any lethal wound, an ability that proves very useful against our villain-of-the-week, some death-obsessed, bomb-toting terrorist. In other words, if you want this doctor to treat you, you’ll have to first let her nearly kill you. Sure… but why did she have to take off her shirt in order to treat Tanizaki? Ah well, it doesn’t matter. Anyways, Yosano gets her time in the spotlight to look cool, but not much more. I would’ve liked to have seen how her bomb-induced wounds healed up so quickly, but maybe that’s a more grisly sight than Bones would like to animate. If there were a gun to my head, I guess I prefer tougher female characters like Yosano, so it’s a shame we don’t get to know her all that well.

As for Kyoukai, what can I say? She likes bunnies and tofu. She hates dogs and lightning. And she’s killed 35 people, a fact that she very much wants to convey to the audience. She has no control over her Gift, and personality-wise, she seems to be one of those shy and quiet female assassins. Y’know, she only kills because she has to! In reality, she’s sick of it! She’s too cute to be bloodthirsty! Won’t someone show Kyouka that there’s more to life than being someone’s tool? Oh right, that’s Atsushi’s job. It’s a rather familiar tale. Atsushi has heard over and over that he’s a burden, others will suffer just because he’s around, so on and so on. But hey, if he can help Kyouka appreciate life, then he’ll help himself in the process as well. Unsurprisingly, previews for next week’s episode suggest that the two will attempt to have some fun at an amusement park before things inevitably go wrong. Nevertheless, this sort of story is cute the first time around, and perhaps somewhat charming the second time, but now, I can only shrug. Maybe Bungou Stray Dogs has a trick or two up its sleeve to spice this oh-so-familiar romance up, but I’ll believe it when I see it. Until then, I’m not terribly excited to see the gormless Atsushi interact with the fragile Kyouka.

But for what it’s worth, the action starts at minute seven, and it doesn’t let up until the credits roll. You’re never under the impression that either Yosano or Atsushi are in any real danger, but at least no one’s talking my ears off. The animation is slick as always, and the Gifts aren’t terribly gimmicky like last week’s power-by-numbers guy. So yeah, best Bungou Stray Dogs episode yet… I think. Also, I was going to do my usual “Everything Else” section for this post, but looking through both the screen captures and the notes I took, I realized I don’t really have much else to add. Other than that, y’know, that terrorist is one dirty, lemon-stealing asshole. Alright, until next week…

Mumei’s brother sure has a lot of names: onii-sama, Young Master, the Liberator, the Shogun’s son, and last but not least, Biba-sama. But regardless of what you call him, he’s got what Ikoma wants, and that’s Mumei’s heart. It’s not that he has romantic feelings for her or anything. Not yet, anyway. Oh, I’m afraid it’s much worse than that: it seems our hero wants to steal someone else’s imouto. I say that half-jokingly, of course, but there’s more to this idea than you think. This week, the anime slows down in order to catch its breath, i.e. develop some characters, do a bit of world-building, and most of all, set the stage for series’ major conflict. We’ll get to everything in due time. At the moment, I want to consider Ikoma’s mindset. What’s motivating him? It seems he’s taken Mumei’s words from last week’s episode to heart. He doesn’t ever want the girl to think that she’s weak again. For the first time, Mumei opens up to Ikoma. First, he learns her true name: Hodsumi. According to the guy, it apparently means to fill a belly full with rice. I don’t know anything about Japanese names, so I’ll just assume Ikoma isn’t talking out of his ass. Moving along, Mumei also tells him about her fears. She’s a Kabaneri, but only for now. As it has been alluded to in previous episodes, there’s a nonzero chance she’ll wake up one day and go full Kabane. It’s one of the classic existential problems: “Will I still be me?”

As it turns out, you can’t grow rice anymore in the world of Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress. It’s not literally impossible, but pretty damn unfeasible. Hey, try tending to a rice paddy while fending off zombies at the same time. But that’s what Ikoma is trying to suggest. Mumei’s simply opening up to him, allowing our hero a short glimpse of her vulnerable side. In return, Ikoma promises the world. What is he thinking? Is he nuts? Well, a small part of it is that Ikoma’s an inventor; he’s a problem solver at heart. If you give him a list of the things that are wrong, he’s going to come right back with an equally long list of solutions. Mumei’s afraid of turning into a Kabane one day? Fine, let’s make her human again! Mumei’s true name doesn’t make sense, because you can’t even eat rice anymore? We’ll grow rice! Then we’ll eat it! But how? Won’t the Kabane attack? And if Mumei’s human, she won’t have the strength to fight back. No problem! We’ll just get rid of the Kabane entirely! The problem, of course, is that none of these things sound very realistic, so it makes you question Ikoma’s judgment. Isn’t he just setting Mumei up for disappointment? After all, she’s so child-like in many ways. It is at this moment, however, that she smiles at him, and that smile reminds Ikoma of his younger sister. Ah, damn. So that’s what this is about.

Ikoma’s sister turned into a Kabane, so I’m sure he wishes he could’ve done something about that. His sister definitely won’t be eating rice any time soon, but hey, this is still a possibility for Mumei! Most of all, Mumei’s afraid of being weak, because the weak are the first to die in this cruel world. The weak like, say, Ikoma’s sister. Needless to say, Ikoma wants a world in which it’s okay to be weak. The guy doesn’t have to say it, but at the end of the day, he’s the same as any other male anime protagonist: he wants to create an ideal world for his sister. It’s a world where even if you’re weak, you can lead a happy life. So he gets all gung-ho about it. He gets all badass about it. Ikoma even stands before everyone, and declares his wish. Y’see, it’s Tanabata, and on this day, it’s customary to write a wish onto a strip of paper, and hang it from a bamboo leaf, branch or something. Again, like with Japanese names, I’m no expert, but this seems to be the general gist behind the holiday. Emboldened by his promise to Mumei earlier that day, Ikoma encourages everyone to not only dream big, but to not let their dreams be dreams. That all sounds very heroic, but is he actually heroic?

Whether Ikoma realizes it or not — and he probably doesn’t — he’s trying to get Mumei to fill the void created by his sister’s death. I wonder if this is fair to Mumei. Maybe the ends justify the means. Maybe they’ll both be happier if she can stand in for his dead sister, but ah, there’s still one problem, one little inconvenient fact: Mumei’s already got a brother. This Biba-sama isn’t her real brother, but neither is Ikoma. It’s clear, however, that there’s only enough room in any anime for one onii-chan (or onii-sama); one of them has to go. Near the end of the episode, Ikoma hears a sleeping Mumei murmur to herself, and he can’t help but think, “Your brother was the one who made you abandon your name Hodsumi, and taught you the weak were only here to die?” But he’s jumping to conclusions, isn’t he? Mumei only said that her name changed after she met her onii-sama. She never said anyone made her abandon her name. She never said her onii-sama was the one who taught her that the weak exist only to die. Then at the very end of the episode, Ikoma watches from afar as a gleeful Mumei runs up to her oniisama. The entire crowd is elated to see the Liberator. Our hero, however, views the tall, gallant warrior with distrust: “There is something I have to find out. Whether he is a true hero or something else…”

Some anime show us that the world isn’t black and white. Rather, we live in a world full of greys. But is this the case with Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress? I’m not sure yet, but in all likelihood, Ikoma’s gut instincts are probably right. This Biba-sama guy is probably not on the up and up. Nevertheless, I question his motives. Again, he sure seemed really heroic and inspiring when he was standing in front of everyone, promising to deliver a world without Kabane, a world where even the weak can thrive. But watching him stare at both Mumei and her onii-sama from afar, I can’t help but feel as though Ikoma’s taking this a little personally. Perhaps he’s got a bit of a complex. No, I’m not suggesting that he’s not in love with his sister or anything, but I wonder if a part of his distrust for Biba-sama is actually born from guilt. He couldn’t save his sister. Actually, he had to kill her. On the other hand, Biba-sama did save Mumei from certain death. He also has the girl’s admiration and love. Perhaps it’s a platonic love, but it’s love nonetheless. And although Mumei probably does care whether Ikoma lives or dies, at the moment, her feelings for him doesn’t come close to what she feels for Ikoma. In other words, this guy’s got everything that Ikoma doesn’t! So again, while it’s likely that our hero’s gut instincts are correct, I dare say we’ve got a spot of jealousy to go along with it.

Everything Else

— I like what we see at the start of the episode: unused farming plots overtaken by nature. The scenery actually reinforces the idea that people are trapped. They can’t leave their iron fortresses in order to tend to the land. And while it may suck for them, maybe it’s for the better. I mean, look how lush and green the outside world seems to be.

— Apparently, Kabaneri are good copycats, and Ikoma has already stolen one of Kurusu’s moves. That’s interesting, I suppose, but I hope the series doesn’t end with an uninspired sword fight between him and some opponent. I rather like the fact that he has to rely on his inventions and thus his ingenuity to fight.

— On a related note, Kurusu is not impressed: “Do not flatter yourself for copying one move.” That’s true, but at the same time, he’s feeling a bit insecure. Thanks to being a Kabaneri, Ikoma has superhuman traits. But not only that, he’s got a sharp mind. If he’s going to go and copy Kurusu’s moves as well, then what will the latter have going for him?

— Uh, the last time we counted on these knuckleheads, they endangered the entire train.

— It’s odd to see such a green-looking dude put on some pink clothes.

— Again, Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress relies heavily on static shots, but this time, it’s even less excusable, because there’s no action this week! C’mon, you can’t animate a few people walking slowly through a street?

— We don’t really get to learn much about any particular character, but at least we now know that Kajika is good at haggling. Also, I finally learned that her name is Kajika. Shrug, don’t blame me. She hasn’t exactly been very essential to the story.

— Ikoma and Takumi get into a bit of a tussle with a bushi. Not much here to talk about. Just another example of this universe’s social stratification. We saw a bit of it in the first episode, but with everyone running for their lives in past few weeks, we haven’t really gotten the chance to explore the theme again till now.

— Elsewhere, Yukina meets a boy whose father had ridden on the Husoujyo, i.e. the train that crashed into Aragane Station. We see the stark difference between Yukina and Sukari. She wants to protect the kid from the painful truth. Sukari thinks it would hurt more for the kid to pin his hopes on a lie. I can’t honestly say who’s right, so I like this scene. It also subverts my expectations of the guy a bit. I thought he was just being a dick for the sake of it, but I’m wrong. He’s got a softer side. He even says to kid, “…the real fight begins when the tears dry up.”

— Next up, Kurusu gets to see his perfect Ayame in a not-so-perfect moment. But shortly afterwards, we see a little quid pro quo between her and Shitori’s minister. Even if her stomach betrays her once in a while, at least Ayame’s coming into her own as a leader.

— Anyway, Enoku’s back, but he hasn’t got much to say. Rather, there seems to be a power struggle between the shogunate and our Liberator. The old men here allude ominously to some event from ten years ago, so this scene serves as a contrast. The kids are all busy being happy, and meanwhile, the adults are up to no good.

— Mumei has celebrated Tanabata before, but she simply forgot. I wonder if Mumei repressed memories of her mother due to how traumatic her death was. More importantly, the girl never had a normal childhood. We’ll eventually find out what happened to her, but she was likely experimented on. Then afterwards, she was likely thrust into combat. As a result, you could argue that Mumei’s got a case of arrested development. This would explain why she’s so childlike in many ways as well as her ability to get along with children. So y’know, when people wonder why she would make such dumb decisions, don’t forget that you’re talking about a child. Children are bound to make mistakes.

— She’s referring to the brooch, you dingus.

— Mumei’s trying to be all silly, but Ikoma’s having none of it. He’s busy doing the calculations to see how he can turn her into an imouto. Just kidding. I’m being facetious… maybe. It’s just a funny contrast between the two.

— Chill out a bit, Kurusu. It’s a holiday.

— Ayame’s wish is so boring even if it fits her character; she simply wants to reopen Aragane Station. As for Takumi, I didn’t realize he was such a dirty polygamist. Again, I’m being facetious before anyone jumps down my throat to remind me that polygamy was normal back then.

— Yukina wants her own train, and Sukari wants to ride it. Hm. But after what we saw last week, I doubt Sukari would survive the encounter anyway.

— Back to Kurusu for a bit, our warrior’s got a bit of a childish crush going on. We’ve seen learn so little about him, however, that I can’t root for the guy. I barely know him.

— Ikoma wants to rid the world of Kabane? Well, Mr. Liberator over here is actually doing it. Just another example of how our hero falls short of this dude who just waltz in like some sort of Greek God.

Final Word

All in all, this is one of those slower episodes that people tend to simple-mindedly complain about if they fancy themselves a robust anime reviewer. Certain folks seem to think anything that doesn’t literally move the plot along is inherently a bad thing, that the story is padding its length to chew up the clock. But character development is a crucial element to the plot as well, and there’s plenty of character development to be had in this week’s episode. I’m not just talking about the light-hearted character vignettes either. Last week, I pointed out how boring Ikoma had been as a hero. Until now, he was being such a generic do-gooder. It’s likely that we haven’t changed much in this week’s episode, but at the very least, he now has a purpose for the rest of the series: save Mumei from her not-so-perfect Biba-sama. But I nevertheless can’t shake the feeling that our hero’s flawed in desire to protect Mumei, that his heart isn’t entirely in the right place. Ikoma is thus a whole lot more interesting now.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Some Notes (I guess…)

— Valkana tackles Hyotetsu, and the latter spews a bunch of cryptic nonsense for the sake of being cryptic I was rescued by that person. I did what they told me to do. His lines are practically begging the audience to ask, “Who? Who on earth are you talking about?!” Then of course, Hyotetsu is killed by a mysterious assassin before he can answer. Whoops, I’m sorry. Nobody gets killed. ‘Cause that’s expected. And Mayoiga is totally about subverting tropes and whatnot, so instead, Hyotetsu knocked unconscious by a blunt arrow. Brilliant. Masterful.

— Valkana decides to give chase, leaving Koharun behind with the unconscious Hyotetsu in the middle of a night, in the middle of a forest where crazy shit seems to happen. That seems wise. But hey, Valkana wouldn’t be here if he was known for making wise decisions.

— In any case, say goodbye to these two, because this is the last time we see either of them in this week’s episode. It’s unlikely she can move the guy anywhere by her lonesome, but then again, I thought the same thing about that bus…

— Elsewhere, Mitsumune, Speedstar, and Masaki have a little conversation. This anime is just full of conversations that don’t actually go anywhere. Speedstar asks what you guys have been asking: “You came to look for this Reiji guy, was it? Why would you keep that a secret?” Hey, look, she didn’t want to trouble everyone, alright? Case closed.

— She tried to look for Reiji by herself. That’s why she explored the far end of the tunnel. But it’s really, really dangerous, alright? You guys shouldn’t go there! Why? Well, uh… shit, I don’t want to reveal the answer yet. We still have a few more weeks to go, so, um… quick, bus driver! Come up with a distraction!

VROOM VROOM!! She doesn’t actually want him to stop. If he did, she’d have to answer some questions.

— Sweet tunneling action.

— Again, Mitsumune sees Tokimune. As for Speedstar…

…I’m guessing he left a lover behind on the Titanic.

— The tunnel is like what? A metaphor for something, probably. There’s gotta be a reason why you see your deepest, darkest fears in the tunnel. The “monsters” are a deterrence. But at the same time, Masaki claims it’s even more dangerous to reach the other side. W…what if the monsters are actually trying to protect us this entire time?!!@!!

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

— Eventually, the bus driver sees his daughter in the rear view mirror. Why? Who knows? But more importantly, it gives him a convenient excuse to stop the bus at the right spot: the other end of the tunnel.

— So uh… where are we? What are those mounds? Oh, I know… they’re the mounds of salt I have for this anime.

— When the kids check back on the bus driver, he’s gone. He probably got whisked away by the same magical forces that brought him to the bus in the first place. Speaking of which, last week, people — myself included — wondered how the driver got the bus back to the village in the first place. Well, don’t think about it too hard. This isn’t a show where everything is supposed to make logical sense. I mean, that’s pretty obvious from just the dumb characters alone. Don’t get me wrong, though. I’m not defending Mayoiga because I suddenly like it or anything. But let’s be fair; how the bus magically got back up a cliff is the least of our concerns.

— Speedstar is like, “Fuck it. Let’s explore the place.” I agree. What have we got to lose? I lose nothing. I’m just an anime-blogging dork. Go. Risk your lives for my entertainment.

— Masaki comes back again with the whole, “You mustn’t!” Okay, why not? Well, um… about that…

Immediately after he says this, the anime cuts to a bunch of losers back at the village. If you’re still expecting an answer to sensible questions, then you’re watching the wrong anime. This is Mayoiga, which probably means blue balls in Japanese. I’m certain of it. I’m an expert on nee-hawn-gou.

— The guys back at the village grab some sharpened bamboo sticks, because Mikage intends to look for Masaki, I think. But like one of them says, “Man, who cares at this point?”

— After that short intermission with Mikage and a bunch of fuckers I don’t know the names of, we come right back to Masaki and company. Notice how we’ve conveniently bypassed the whole “What is so dangerous about this foggy place?!” line of questioning. Nice.

— Instead, we’re examining a rock:

What does it mean? Well, uh…

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Maybe we have to accept Red XIII, our lord and savior, into our hearts.

— Another village, huh? Is this Nightmare Nanaki Village? Or is it some sort of recursive dream space?

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

— Isn’t this what a lot of girls hear everyday already? But what if Masaki just has resting-glum-face syndrome?

— At one point, Masaki excuses herself to use the restroom. Uh-huh. Nevertheless, Mitsumune volunteers to go with her. And they say chivalry is dead. Yeah, Masaki goes off alone, and that’s the last you see of her in this week’s episode. What is she so worried about? Where is she going? I know she probably doesn’t care too much about Speedstar, but is she just gonna leave Mitsumune here?

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

— Well, I guess it’s time we learn a thing or two about Speedstar. Something something abuse, something something scary grandma in an attic. TL;DR: his parents used him like a puppet, so he wants Mitsumune to be his puppet. Wait, ew, Rose is his grandma? Sick, dude.

— It’s most likely a typo, but I’m sticking with it: TURDONERD.

— Mitsumune runs away from Puppetmaster Speedstar, and along the way, he finds Masaki’s ribbon. Excellent. Now he’s immune to all status effects.

— He also bumps into Valkana, who, if you’ll recall, had gone off on his own to chase after the mysterious assailant. Somehow, that took him through the tunnel… did he notice the bus on the way here, or did the bus already disappear by this point?

— Both Valkana and Mitsumune start to see their respective monsters. For Valkana, it’s some tentacle monster. Nah, it’s apparently the wood pattern he was staring at when he got fired. These monsters are getting lamer and lamer by the week, but again, if you ask Mayoiga’s most ardent defenders, this is purposeful. Masterful. Nothing more amusing than a lame-ass, wood-patterned Vel’koz.

— Meanwhile, Mitsumune’s penguin dives off a cliff, and our hero follows suit. Is he no longer scared? Of course not. He got the ribbon, remember?

— He hears his mother’s voice calling for Tokimune across a shallow body of water, so he walks slowly towards it. Why?

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

— Back to Valkana for a bit, he resolves to stay in Nanaki Village despite everything. Sounds like he already accepts Nanaki, our lord and savior.

— Finally, we pay Lion, Maimai and Nanko a visit. No, I didn’t actually remember their names. I looked it up. Thank god for Wikipedia.

— Nanko has a new hypothesis to test: maybe the monsters will disappear if you can just gat over your deepest, darkest fears. She says this as she pinches one of her love handles. I wonder what her monster looks like. Maybe some kobe beef. In any case, it seems to her that Maimai isn’t so hung up on her past anymore, so why don’t we visit the tunnel again? Let’s see if the giant Mitsumune returns! Maimai’s not too thrilled at the prospect of being a guinea pig, but hey, we’re all consenting adults. What’s the harm in us girls experimenting a bit?

— But before the trio can do anything, arrows come flying out of the woods again.

Oh hey, it’s Jack. How ya been, buddy? Saw you in the woods a few weeks ago. What were you doing out there? Y’know, I’m expecting to see Yottsun at any moment now.

Hey, you’re not Yottsun. In fact, who are you?

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

— As for Mitsumune, he wakes up to find himself in a bed… within some well-lit room… maybe a hospital room. Is he gonna see himself as Tokimune again?

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Final Word

Shrug. Anyway, tune in next week for none of the answers that you’re looking for, and even more questions. After all, it won’t be the finale, so we can’t go spoiling the story just yet! Woo! And no Lovepon this week! Double woo!

What an odd assertion from Jiro. Didn’t he help Grosse Augen escape from the Bureau? Was that not a crime? Didn’t he aid and abet Aki, who was and still is wanted for murder? Was that not a crime? Wasn’t he trying to smuggle Jonathan back into America, thereby pitting himself against both the Bureau and the US Army? Look, buddy, you’re already breaking the law. You’re already a criminal. And furthermore, what has this struggle been all about? What is the endgame? We can’t just fight forever. This conflict eventually has to end. After all, doesn’t Jiro want a world in which superhumans can freely coexist with humanity? Doesn’t he want a world in which superhumans are treated justly? So if you want freedom, if you want justice, how can you allow a petty thing like the destruction of government property stand in your way? If the system is corrupt, why hesitate to destroy it? But therein lies the problem. Jiro wants to be a hero, but he isn’t brave enough to be a true revolutionary.

During the Occupy Wall Street movement, a protester once said, “They are asking us what is our program. We have no program. We are here to have a good time.” Unsurprisingly, the movement led to nothing. The authentic rage everyone felt ultimately amounted to no actual, effective change. It was a revolt without revolution. People came for the cheap carnival. They were attracted to the ideas of a revolution, but not the revolution itself. We’ll come together in the name of solidarity, we’ll sing, we’ll cheer, we’ll yell, we’ll demand to be heard. But then what? What happens tomorrow? Nobody knew, because nobody actually sat down to actually think about the future. The protesters were too busy falling in love with themselves, falling in love with the narcissistic belief that, unlike the rest of masses, they were standing for something greater. But revolutions are not easy. They are often bloody and violent. Revolutions are a struggle. Revolutions require hard work. This is the problem that Jiro is currently facing.

Jiro’s going around Japan, and he’s protecting superhumans left and right. That’s great. With the government cracking down on superhumans, and with public perception at an all time low, these individuals could definitely use his help. But then what? What happens when there’s no one to protect? What happens when these superhumans, tired of being treated so poorly, decide to fight back? Jiro has no answers. Similar to the OWS protesters, he’s in love with the idea of being a hero, but he isn’t prepared to truly get his hands dirty. He waffles on the sidelines, he tells Aki there’s no justice in fighting the government. That’s hilarious. The government oppresses superhumans, but apparently, there’s no justice in it. But Jiro knows this. Kaoru is right: in his heart, Jiro wanted to join in the NUTS attack. But like Hyouma suggests, our boy is still too scared, still too cowardly to truly pick a side. He’s still that idealistic boy that was saved by Rainbow Knight.

We’ve come a long way from the start of the series, so I don’t want to pretend as though Jiro hasn’t truly changed. The fight against Claude at the end of the first season wasn’t all for naught. Through it, Jiro was able to free himself from the Bureau, and thus free himself from his father’s lies. From that day on, he was able to go out on his own and protect superhumans like he wanted to. But as I’ve suggested at the start of this post, we can’t keep fighting forever. Superhumans are persecuted, so Jiro shows up and tries to help. Rinse and repeat. But what happens when he gets too old to fight? Or even worse, what happens if his spirit fails him? Last week’s episode should serve as a stark reminder that our demons will eventually catch up to us, so Jiro can’t afford to just resist. Rather, he needs to effect radical change. It’s even got to the point where Hyouma just wants the kid to do something. Destroy Teito’s machine or stop Raito, it doesn’t matter. Just do something! Stand for something! Then bear the responsibilities that result from it! Stop being afraid!

Fittingly enough, this is where Claude comes in. Or rather, the spectre of Claude. After all, Jin is dead. Unable to control his own powers, he turned himself into iron. Nevertheless, Claude continues to persist not only as a disembodied voice that everyone hears when they don the superhuman ability enhancer. Hearing this, one naturally assumes that the helmet literally enhances your abilities. But don’t forget that Rainbow Knight was never actually a superhuman. He was just a regular human who wanted to be a hero, so he put on a costume, and fought for what he believed was right. At the time, Jiro couldn’t help but ask, “Then how are humans and superhumans different?” So again, superhuman ability enhancer probably does augment your superhuman abilities, but it does more than that. It gives you clarity. After all, who or what did Claude represent? He was supposed to be the ideal Jiro, the Jiro that was willing to fight for justice, freedom, and peace. So when people put this helmet on, they gain a sort of inner clarity: “Come, let’s resume the fight.”

Lost and confused, unsure of what he should do, Jiro seeks out Michiko with Fuurouta’s assistance. Our hero organized this clandestine meeting in order to try the helmet out for himself. But what will he even see with it on, especially when Claude is supposed to be the ideal version of himself? Not surprisingly, he neither hears Claude’s voice nor does he see a ghost of Claude before him. Instead, Jiro goes back in time. He sees himself as a young boy. He sees the power in his own blood. He also sees a conversation between his father and Satomi, one that reveals Jiro’s true nature. He was the bomb that the US had dropped on Hiroshima. But this bomb failed, resulting in what looks like a human baby. But as we all know, just because a bomb hasn’t gone off doesn’t mean it is now safe. There’s a great, destructive power hidden in Jiro that he can barely articulate into words. He simply accepts that there is a beast within him. But more importantly, why does he see these scenes? What purpose do they serve beyond, of course, moving the plot along?

Like others, Jiro does gain clarity when he dons the helmet, but he gains a sort of inner clarity. It’s as if Jiro always knew the truth, but he was unwilling to confront it. He is, after all, shocked and shaken to hear what his blood is capable of. Apparently, it not only heals superhumans at an incredible rate, but it gives you gigantism as well. But what if Jiro’s blood does more than that? What if, as Mieko suggests, it is the reason Aki became violent (I don’t actually believe this yet)? What if it was also the reason Giganto Gon went mad? It would appear that this blood can help breed powerful soldiers, and considering the recent oil crisis, this might explain why Master Ultima sees our hero as the solution to the world’s energy problems. In any case, these are truths that Jiro needs to know. Jiro needs to know that he is originally a weapon created by America. He needs to know what his blood is capable of. Only with this knowledge can Jiro decide what he needs to do next if he truly wants to be superhuman. This is the sort of clarity that he gets from the helmet. It enhances your ability to be superhuman in more ways than one.

Everything Else

— Satomi wanting to rid the world of superhumans actually makes some sense when you think about it from his perspective. From our vantage point — and the vantage point of Jiro — this is a story about superhuman oppression. At the same time, the people in charge are actually superhumans themselves. The prime minister’s powers aren’t flashy, but very effective and powerful nonetheless. And of course, we already know what Master Ultima is capable of. We already know that this America, like our America, likes to throw its weight around and meddle in numerous international affairs. In last week’s episode, we even saw how the US Army wants to force the entire world to accept its vision of transhumanism. So taking all of these things into consideration, it doesn’t surprise me at all that Satomi is sick of superhumans and how they appear to adverse affect the world. We talk about superhuman rights and freedom for all, but in his mind, certain superhumans are already free, and look what they’re doing with their freedom. It’s even more concerning because superhumans have so much power at their fingertips. After all, he was the one who warned Magotake about Jiro and the potential threat that the kid represents. In the end, everyone wants to protect themselves. Satomi just goes about it in a very conservative way.

— Yeah, destroying government property would be a crime, but I’m pretty sure revolutions are also technically illegal.

— Seeing the brief glimpse of the Middle Eastern conflict in this week’s episode, I really wish we could see more of the superhuman conflicts in other areas of the world. Maybe there could be a Concrete Revolutio spinoff. Well, not likely, but one can dream.

— I rather like Hyouma’s character. Like Emi, you get the sense that he still supports Jiro even if they disagree. Even now, he’s still trying to get Jiro to grow up, to take a real stand, so on and so forth. Though between Emi and Kikko, I guess I’d have to lean towards the latter.

— According to Kaoru, “[n]either violent demolition nor anarchism will change anything.” Raito isn’t the bad guy here. Everyone acts horrified, but what did he do that is actually so wrong? He destroyed a goddamn bridge. Boo-hoo. Across the entire series, Concrete Revolutio is very careful in its portrayal of violence. Superhumans are killed and tortured, but you rarely ever see the loss of regular human lives. You thus can’t help but wonder, “What are they getting so worked up about?” But that’s the point, isn’t it? The point is to get the audience outraged: “Yo, we haven’t actually done anything wrong, and you guys are mad at us. That’s ridiculous!” Why is this response important? Because we have to be mindful of Japan’s history.

Like in Concrete Revolutio, public perception turned against student activism and the youth when violence broke out in the protests of the 50s and 60s. Since then, any sort of anti-government spirit has been muted to the point that protesters have to be always be mindful of their behavior despite the righteousness of their cause. The result is that, like with Occupy Wall Street, nobody can effect any meaningful change. And ultimately, this is what the established powers want. Fine, get mad and vent. Whatever. We can even milk your rage for views and thus money. We might even throw you an incremental change or two. But at the end of the day, things are just going to back to normal because protesters are willing to behave. And if they’re not, the rest of society will pressure them to behave. We’re going to have a revolution! But, y’know, don’t disrupt the social order or anything. We don’t want to be criminals. Don’t forget that it’s not justice to go against the government!

— Mieko contends that Raito’s actions “just stir up hate for superhumans.” But people already fear and hate superhumans. That’s why superhumans are being oppressed in the first place. If you behave, it’s not like people are just gonna wake up one day and say, “Oh hey, they’ve been good boys and girls. Let’s give them some rights back.” When has that ever happened?

— The purple wound patterns on Aki’s legs look kinda pretty. Too bad they’re corrosive and she’s in pain.

— Say what?

— I feel for Yumihiko. All this talk about the world not being black and white, that it’s okay to be grey, so on and so on. It’s just a way to desensitize us. Like he says, it’s just a way for us to overlook our leaders’ unethical behavior. It’s not unique to Japan by any means. US politicians are bought and sold to the highest bidder, and if we complain about it, we are told to grow up. This is how the world works. What a joke.

Final Word

I’ve been waiting for this moment. This is the sort of tension and energy that I had wanted the second season to carry over from the first. Understandably, it would’ve been difficult to maintain this level of urgency over the course of an entire season. This likely explains why we got some of the slower, more episodic episodes. And again, it’s not that I didn’t enjoy those stories. But what we’re seeing here is what got me hooked in the first place. Show me the revolution. After all, the word is in the series’ own name. Let me see what Jiro and company are truly capable of precisely because this is fantasy. Here, we are able to confront certain dimensions that we are not ready to approach in the real world. Don’t be afraid to burn a few bridges. Don’t freak out if you break a law or two. Is Japan ready for an actual revolution? Nobody is. So more than ever, we need fiction.

Leave it to Mari Okada to have shipping built into the story.

— Woo, nothing like the demystification of our emotions. Nothing like turning our feelings into a set of numbers and a handful of graphs. Still, these aren’t the good guys, right? These weirdo researchers can’t ultimately be proven right in the end, right? Hopefully, by the end of the series, the Kizna system will fail, and true human connection comes from a genuine bond between people, and not some series of contrived team-bonding missions. At least, that’s where I think the story is headed, but at the same time, does that make it too predictable?

— This is probably one of the many shots that anime fans gush about. I gotta admit Kiznaiver is one of the nicer looking shows this season, but I’m neither emotionally moved nor intellectually stimulated by its art direction. There’s more to aesthetics than just looking pretty.

— So which coupling do you guys prefer? Generic Emotionless Guy with Childhood Friend A or Wide-eyed Shounen with Childhood Friend B? Gosh, I just can’t decide.

— First, physical pain was shared. Everyone seems to be equal participants in this stage of the experiment. Then, we moved to emotional pain. Tut-tut-tut… take a step back, fellas. Emotional pain is only for girls. As a result, we focused first on Chidori, then Honoka. Neither Tenga nor Yuta have had an episode dedicated to them, and it doesn’t look like they’ll ever get one. But time is short, so we must continue moving the plot along. Now, it’s time to see if we can share positive emotions.

— According to Yamada, this is where the original Kizna experiment failed. For some reason, these researchers just couldn’t connect their subjects through positive emotions. Hm, I wonder why. I mean, if you think about it, happiness doesn’t need to be shared if everyone’s already happy. But if you do share it, it merely serves to amplify the currently positive emotional states. On the other hand, if five people are happy, and one person is unhappy, the unhappy person isn’t going to suddenly become happy if the others share their happiness equally. Great, you won the lottery. Great, your kid got valedictorian. Unfortunately, my life still sucks, and I’m still sad. So you might argue that negative emotions tend to override happy emotions. Moreover, if two people — one happy and one unhappy — share their emotions, I’m willing to bet the negative emotions are much more easily shared. But that’s because we’re empathetic creatures. You don’t say, “I have empathy for you because of your positive circumstances.” What would that even mean?

But don’t some people say, “I’m happy for you!”

Hm, yeah, they do… I mean, there is such a thing as uplifting news. You might read a happy story just to feel better about your day. But predominantly, we seem to be drawn to negative emotions like bugs to a light. Our media is littered with fear mongering stories, tragedies, injustices, so on and so forth. So what am I getting at? Well, it’s not that you can’t share positive emotions. You can. If I’m having a bad day — or even just a neutral one — and my friend tells me something great that happened to her, then sure, my day just improved a little bit. I can’t quantify it, but I can imagine a net positive gain in my mood. But if I tell her why I’m having a bad day, it’s likely I’ll ruin her mood a whole lot more than she can improve mine, all things being equal. So when we go and connect people’s feelings willy nilly, it’s dangerous for this very reason. It’s so hard to control our emotions, and the negative ones always seem to muck everything up. All the happy feelings in, say, Japan aren’t going to help sick, starving kids in some bombed out hellhole feel any better about their lives. So much for world peace.

— Yamada claims they didn’t forcefully kidnap the kids that they experimented on. Those kids just happen to be children of the original researchers. Oh, that makes it so much better!

— And of course, Yamada argues that the Kizna system is a noble experiment, because it’s aiming for a peaceful future. They have good intentions! Suddenly, I’m reminded of Terror in Resonance. Man, that was a good anime. Kiznaiver, on the other hand, not so much. It’s far too melodramatic and unsubtle.

— Tenga says he hates people who pick on pigeons and children. Why pigeons? Was he abused as a kid or something?

— Uh, phrasing…

— Anyway, the kids are now trapped at school, because a typhoon has hit Japan. At the same time, they are attacked by Gomorins. The purpose here is to split our group up into pairings. Hey, it’s a dark and scary night, and attractive kids are paired up… so y’know, things are bound to happen, right? Can I get a dokidoki?

— So what are the pairings? First, we have Yuta and Maki. It’s mostly just Yuta liking her, and I’m not sure why he does. She, however, still has feelings for her dead friends. Then it turns out Nico likes Tenga, and again, I’m not sure why. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen those two alone together. But unfortunately for Nico, Tenga might have feelings for Chidori, because… what? She made him a bento box once when she made lunch for Katsuhira? And of course, we all know Chidori likes Katsuhira, because she knew him when he used to have emotions and whatnot. Somehow, that means she still likes him now even though he’s become a completely new person. And therein lies the problem with these relationship pairs: why?

I haven’t seen any compelling reason why anyone apparently likes anyone else. I might like a girl because we have similar interests, we get along well, we seem to have good conversations whenever we see each other, we have similar goals in life, we have a similar sense of humor, etc. I might even like a girl, ’cause she’s different from me in some very specific ways, and these differences intrigue me. You don’t see any of that here, though. You rarely even see these characters interact on the sort of deep, emotional level that might foster feelings of romance. Again, why on earth does Nico like Tenga? No, him calling her cute in that outfit doesn’t suffice. Again, they’ve barely ever interacted on a one-on-one level. At least, I’ve never seen it.

Okay, you could maybe argue that this sort of thing happens in-between the episodes. We don’t see it, but maybe Nico and Tenga had a tender, private moment off camera. But again, why? Why would you relegate such meaningful character interactions to the background? Wait, no, this is not even the background, because we can at least see the background. On the other hand, I don’t see anything that makes me think, “Oh yeah, Nico liking Tenga makes total sense…”

At best, you can argue that love isn’t always so straightforward. Sometimes, we just develop feelings for certain people, and you can’t always explain it! Sure… at first. But you better find the explanation, because a relationship isn’t going to last very long if you can’t actually articulate what you like about the other person.

— Anyways, you know where this is going. Love polygons are inherently unstable, and Noriko is that unstable factor. She’s going to crash this party.

— So yeah, Tenga says Nico looks cute, so she starts having feelings of love. The entire group feels it, which must be embarrassing for any normal person, but I wonder about Nico. In any case, love is a rather positive feeling, so Hisomu doesn’t like it. As a result, his selfish ass decides to tweak Honoka in order to make her feel pain. Even though Hisomu once claimed in a previous episode that he only likes physical pain, he says this week, “I think I might’ve actually enjoyed that pain.” Hm. Bad friend, bad person.

— Yuta tries to cheer the girl up, but I’m not sure what he’s trying to do here. Slide into her DMs? Joking aside, he wanted the two of them to have one of those corny soap opera moments where he embraces her from behind and everything is better. But she stops him before anything could happen. But hey, on the bright side, she at least understands him a bit. A hunch, she calls it. Who needs the Kizna system? We can just connect the old fashioned way! But wear protection, kids. Be safe.

— Last and very least, we have Chidori and Katsuhira. I don’t know why Chidori even tries. She starts confessing, but all of a sudden, Katsuhira gets a flashback. Or a PTSD episode. Or whatever… point is, he’s not even listening to her. Hell, we’re not even listening to her. This thrilling track starts playing, and he starts recalling memories of him and Noriko, so he throws open the front doors to the school. He sprints out into the midst of the raging storm, and at the same time, Noriko is emerging from a series of convoluted underground tunnels that seem to run throughout Sugumori City. At the exact moment that she emerges, a statue threatens to fall on her. And at the exact moment that it would have fallen on her, Katsuhira flies in out of nowhere and saves her. All I can say is… poor Chidori.

— I mean, we didn’t even get to hear her confession. The voice is such a powerful thing, and in the middle of a raging storm as well as an emotional one, she is silenced. I’m sure this will turn into some serious emotional pain in next week’s episode, and the resulting mess will call the validity of the Kizna system into question… assuming it had any in the first place.

— The last thing we see is Noriko ripping off her choker and revealing that familiar Kizna mark on her neck. Then something about him existing in her, and vice versa. I mean, I don’t know. Maybe if I have a deeper emotional connection with Kiznaiver, this would all make sense. I would then understand these kids’ feelings somehow. But that’s not the case, so like with Mari Okada’s other anime airing this season, I’m just left thinking, “What?”

— I can only guess that the original experiment fucked these kids up something good, so these kids engaged in all sorts of risky behavior just to feel something as basic and raw as physical pain. But maybe Noriko went too far one day, and Katsuhira… uh, maybe he saved her? Maybe he didn’t. Whatever happened, it broke him even further, and this is where we’re at. But I’m just speculating as someone who doesn’t really care all that much about Kiznaiver, so I’m probably wrong.

— In any case, that’s the end of the episode, and there’s no “Final Word” because I need to hurry to the store to pick up some new shoes. I’m not even joking. Uh, it was an okay episode for Kiznaiver’s standards. Still not a show that I like very much, though.

Alright, alright… who just gave me herpes?

Was it you, young man? Been plunging that longsword of yours in places it doesn’t belong, huh?

Or maybe it’s this old man…

…or this old woman. Both of them have probably seen their fair share… I’m also curious what this cue ball is so smug about.

Oh no! Don’t tell me it’s the little girl! Where are your morals, Lugunica!

— Say what?

— But seriously, it’s the dog. Yeah, the bad guy is the freaking dog. You’ll see.

— When Subaru and the two maids return to the mansion, Roswaal is on his way out. What timing. Still, he’s never left before, so what would’ve triggered this? This isn’t the first time Subaru’s been cursed, and he didn’t exactly do anything special in the village this time around. On the other hand, this will be the first time he removes the curse, so it would seem as though Roswaal is aware of this new development, but–… ah, the more pertinent question is why do I care what he knows? I don’t.

— No, that black smear is not a bug splat on your screen. That’s Roswaal using magic to fly at supersonic speeds.

— So first things first, we gotta remove this curse. That means a visit to Beatrice. For what it’s worth, she’s probably the person I dislike the least out of all the inhabitants in this mansion. Emilia is just too lame in her generic nice girl demeanor. The maids… well, enough said about the maids.

— Still, everything requires a long, protracted discussion in this anime, including the removal of said killer curse. Dammit Beatrice, just do your job.

— Removing the curse also shows you where Subaru got cursed. See? It’s the dog. Ahem, I think this proves that cats are undeniably superior to dogs. I don’t count Puck, though.

— Well, assuming the kids aren’t in cahoots with the evil dog, it’s time for Subaru to return to the village and save those snot-nosed urchins. And y’know, I’m not gonna be snarky about this. At least our hero’s doing something heroic for once and not tending to some garden or peeling potatoes. Nevertheless, he has to convince the maids to let him leave. Again, everything requires a discussion. I don’t mind this discussion so much, but then Emilia shows up just to look cute.

— In before “IF YOU WERE REALLY PAYING ATTENTION YOU’D KNOW HOW IMPORTANT IT IS FOR HER TO WISH HIM WELL.” Haha, I don’t give a fuck. You’re reading the wrong blog if you expect me to take this show seriously. There are a few shows I examine with earnest — namely, Kabaneri and Concrete Revolutio — and for the rest, I just take the piss out of them. Guess which category Re:Zero falls into. If Re:Zero ever decides to give me something meaty to chew on, then I’ll give it the attention it requires. But not when 80% of the episodes feature bullshit slice-of-life scenes masquerading as character development.

— It’s late at night. Do you know where your children are?

— Near the forest, Rem notes that the barrier protecting the village is broken, so “mabeasts” can cross over. What are mabeasts? Something the witch created. I’m more amused at the fact that they live “gregariously” in the forest.

— Alright, time to save some children! Apparently, even this requires a discussion. I guess Rem, being a demon loyal to Roswaal, is more concerned about fulfilling her duty than saving a bunch of village kids. And hey, if Subaru really is a spy, this is exactly what he wants.

Whatever. Subaru rattles off a bunch of reasons why he wants to protect each of the kids. Maybe we should’ve seen him interacting with the kids more to drive home how important they are to him instead of all those scenes of him doing chores.

— Convinced by Subaru, Rem whips out her spikey ball of death. I wonder where she normally keeps that thing (yes, I know we have magic in this universe).

— The two of them reach a clearing where they find a bunch of kids unconscious on the ground. Rem said earlier that mabeasts are the enemies of humanity, but what purpose does this even serve? What’s the point of killing these kids? Meh, I guess we’ll find out later.

— The timid, blue-haired girl from earlier is missing, so Subaru is going to go further into the forest in order to save her. But wait, wait, let’s have a discussion about it first. ‘Cause y’know, we merely agreed earlier to save the kids, not all of them. But when in doubt, do a pinky promise with a girl to soften her heart up. Sigh. At this point, there’s only seven minutes left in the episode.

— Subaru finally finds the last girl, and he does so rather easily too. Normally, people get lost in forests, but our hero literally sniffs his way there.

— Oh hi doggo…

…oh bye doggo.

— Yep, cats are definitely superior to doggos.

— But don’t worry, Rem is here to… pop these dogs like balloons?

— Man, I still can’t believe that the bad guy of the arc is some fucking evil pupper.

— At one point, the evil pupper summons a landslide that threatens to crush Subaru and the little girl in his arms, so Rem pushes them out of the way.

Somehow, this makes her horn appear — I assume she had just been concealing it rather than it growing back — and she goes mad… because, uh, demons are known to be mad or something. I’m not sure.

— She pops some more balloon doggos in the process, and this time, blood gushes out of them like fountains of jelly. White Fox is really doin’ work this week…

— But now it’s her turn to not mind her surroundings, so it’s Subaru’s turn to shove her to safety.

— Good thing the doggos only attack one person at a time. I’m sure he’ll be fine, though. I mean, this is the end of the arc–…

— Welp, the episode is over. Yep, this arc still isn’t done yet. Well, tune in next week for more evil pupper action. Maybe we’ll learn why the damn thing wants to kill people so badly.

But I’m not actually blue this week. After all, who can be sad after a nice, relaxing three-day weekend? Even though I have work tomorrow, it’s a shortened week, too. It’s the little things in life. And it looks like July 4th will be another three-day weekend. Hopefully, we’ll have some interesting summer shows to watch by then. But if not, that’s fine too. I’ll just work on my other project…

Big Order Ep. 7

Uh, so who is actually responsible for the Great Destruction? We were initially led to believe that Eiji was responsible, but now everyone’s saying his father is the true culprit. Or rather, his father created the system, i.e. Daisy, that allowed Eiji to cause the Great Destruction, because… because what? Why would you want to destroy the world? What’s the point? I’m asking because apparently Eiji’s father wants to create a second one. A better one. One that will finish the job. As a result, he kidnaps Sena, his own stepdaughter, to lure Eiji out. According to Hiiragi, the only reason they want to dominate the world is to prevent this from happening again. Hoo boy.

This week, we learn a thing or two about Hiiragi, but it’s nothing special. He and Eiji’s father used to work at a lab where they tried to turn people’s thoughts into energy. As you can probably tell, this technology is the precursor to Daisy. Oh yeah, Daisy is actually an acronym… if you cared. Anyway, it turns out Eiji’s memories have been tampered with, so he doesn’t even remember anything about his old man. It wouldn’t even surprise me if his memories of causing the Great Destruction are false as well. Hell, wouldn’t it be hilarious if she’s the one who fucked everything up instead? Actually, no, that would just be stupid.

Endride Ep. 9

A problem with these two-cour series is that we often have to find ways in order to kill time. Few shows are actually capable of drafting 24 to 26 episodes without resorting to pointless side stories and/or filler episodes. For a forgettable anime like Endride, this means flashbacks, flashbacks, and more flashbacks. Who are we learning about this week! Oh, it’s Alicia. She seems nice enough and everything, but at the same time, isn’t the girl rather superfluous? Why is she even traveling with these guys? She doesn’t seem like a revolutionary, nor does she approve of Emilio’s quest for revenge. It just seems like Alicia’s sticking around because we need to fill some sort of female quotient. I mean, she’s not even a love interest. We all know Shun and Emilio are gonna bang, so… yeah.

Anyway, boo hoo, she has no family. Super sad. During a trek through some snowy mountains, Eljuia falls into a crevice and into some icy cavern. When the rest of the group tries to rescue him. they run into a bunch of scary ice dragons! Oh no, what do we do! All of a sudden, Falarion, Alicia’s cute mini-dragon pet, turns into a fire dragon and protects Alicia. Wait, it gets better! It turns around and starts talking to its owner. Falarion is actually a living Warp Drive! Wait, no, Falarion is actually… DING DING DING, her long lost father! One day, her mother was killed by bandits, so her father ditched her to go on his own sad, pathetic revenge quest. After killing said bandits, he got sucked into his own Warp Drive, which is now some cute dragon thingie. Yeah.

So this entire time, whenever Alicia was petting or playing with Falarion, she was really playing with her dad. But it’s okay! His consciousness only emerges when she’s in actual danger! Totally not awkward at all. And how did he even find his way back to the girl? Maybe this was shown in a previous episode, and I just wasn’t paying attention. Ah well. And I’m amazed how the girl feels no anger or resentment whatsoever. She was left to fend for herself, but it’s cool. All’s well that ends well.

Gakusen Toshi Asterisk Ep. 9

Y’know, I don’t… I don’t even know what to talk about when it comes to this anime anymore. Julis helps Ayato evolve his Ser-veresta, and with it, he defeats the big, giant robot. The end. Wait, no, we still have half an episode left to go. Wait, half? Yep, the second half of this week’s episode is just one boring denouement where nothing really happens. The characters just go around patting cute girls on the head. Shit, I’ve been on this planet for quite some time now, and I’ve never patted a girl on a head. Just my cat’s head. Am I missing out? Is this some sort of transcendent experience? Anyway, the hero’s dumb sister is naked and imprisoned in some creepy dude’s basement… or not a basement. I don’t care. This is the worst show of the bunch. The true nadir of the season (only because I’m not watching the rest of the rejects).

Hundred Ep. 9

First, we battle the Hunters, but it’s okay. These bad guys aren’t really all that bad. After all, they have a tragic past, so we can go easy on them. Something about being child slaves… y’know, adult slaves are far more productive. Just a tip. Anyway, Hayato goes on a rant about how he wants to create a world where people can smile. Brave. Truly courageous. I’ve never heard an anime hero utter such an audacious wish before.

Out of nowhere, a new type of Savage shows up, and it threatens to kill everyone with its super powerful laser. Man, it’s a good thing anime lasers always take a long time to power up! Otherwise, we’d really be screwed! Unfortunately for our heroes, there’s a convenient barrier protecting the Savage from their attacks. If only there was a way for someone — someone like Claire — power up as well… oh that’s right, you just have to infect people with a virus that is transmitted through bodily fluids! Wait a minute…

So Hayato and Claire make out much to Emilia’s chagrin, and this somehow allows the rest of the group to overcome the Savage’s barrier. I guess you really only need Claire to be powerful. The rest of them can go fuck themselves. With the barrier down, the harem lead then flies in for the finishing blow, but the resulting explosion sends him into the briny deep. Emilia dives in immediately to rescue her boy toy, and hey, fair’s fair. She, too, gets to kiss the bastard if Claire is allowed to. Personally, I’m not one for sloppy seconds, but haremettes kinda have to get used to this sort of thing. And with that, the episode is over. These shows are so exciting, aren’t they? Yep, that’s it. That’s why I’m left speechless after every episode. Still, Hayato gets more action in a single episode than Ayato ever would in two whole seasons. Maybe that’s why he gets an extra letter to his name.

Netoge no Yome wa Onnanoko ja Nai to Omotta. Ep. 8

So Nishimura gets his account phished at the worst possible time, and as result, his online waifu ends up having cybersex with some random dude. Nah, the anime would never go there. Instead, the bad guy is too dumb to even fake it. He just outright asks the girl for nudes, so she realizes right away that she isn’t talking to Rusian. Actually, the whole set-up makes no sense. It’s 2016. Why are you guys still typing shit to each other through the in-game chat? What happened to VOIP? Even better, our dorky hero apparently has no other way to message the girl. He has to quickly run to her room, pound on her door, and literally tell her in person that the online Rusian is an imposter. Right.

Anyway, the bad guy deletes all of Nishimura’s characters, and sells his items for good measure. The rest of the episode involves our group of MMO friends working day and night to help the guy get his stuff back. Eventually, the game’s admins will restore Rusian, but apparently, they can’t do the same for his items? Whatever. Nishimura and friends also hatch this incredibly convoluted plan to entrap the bad guy. This involves, again, working day and night in order to create a blog with three years worth of fake posts in order to trick the perpetrator. All just for some shitty online items.

Yeah, yeah, I get it. You have to grind for stuff in an MMO, so you develop a personal attachment. Hey, I’ve been a hardcore MMO gamer before. I can’t say, however, that I would’ve gone this far just to get some digital items back. After all, MMOs come and go. A family heirloom that’s been passed down through multiple generations is one thing. A digital item in a game that might not even be around in a year or two is not worth fighting for. But hey, that’s just me. For Nishimura and his girls, maybe they’ll never stop playing Legendary Age.

In the end, since he lost the ring, Nishimura’s in-game marriage to Ako was also annulled. But that’s okay, because they can just remarry. Woo.

Sakamoto desu ga. Ep. 7

I’ve got nothing to say. I just wanted to post some silly screenshots. Despite its repetitiveness, I sorta enjoy this comedy. I just think it’s incredibly dumb that a bunch of teenagers would rely on renting porn in order to see some naked ladies. Then better yet, they return the DVDs without even watching them. C’mon Sakamoto, don’t pretend your kids are innocent, virginal angels.

Seisen Cerberus Ep. 9

Unfortunately, Giruu isn’t dead. He just needs some really rare and expensive herb in order to heal in his injuries, so it’s time for another generic RPG-ish quest. Hiiro and Soraato go off on their own to fetch this plant. They end up in some strange area where everything, from the grass to the animals, are 100 times bigger than them. In the end, our hero manages to summon his inner Super Mario Bros. 2 and pull the lodged plant out of some giant tortoise’s back. This makes Soraato laugh, which is apparently as equally rare as the plant they’re after. Meanwhile, Erin, Palpa and Tomitte discuss the the looming threat of a continent-wide war thanks to Nambuuko’s arms-dealing shenanigans. In the end, Giruu is all healed up, and the group pay Master Theo a visit. This weird-looking old man not only knows Soraato, but he will supposedly teach Hiiro to be useful. But considering his weak pull-out game, I’m not expecting the kid to learn much.

All in all, it’s an unremarkable episode. I’m starting to wonder how this is all going to wrap itself up. It’s already the ninth episode, and we don’t seem to be anywhere near the finish line. At the same time, however, I don’t recall hearing that this show would carry over to the fall. I mean, who on earth would be dumb enough to greenlight that? It’s a miracle Seisen Cerberus got adapted in the first place.

Final Word

By the way, Boku no Hero Academia won last week’s poll, so that’s the show I’m gonna cover. You’ll notice, however, its conspicuous absence from this week’s Monday Blues. That’s because I have nine episodes to watch, and I haven’t finished them yet. But don’t worry, I’ll be caught up by next week’s post. Anyway, the summer season is coming up. What are you guys looking forward to? Personally, I haven’t seen anything that I absolutely want to write about.

I apologize ahead of time if this post isn’t up to par. I haven’t exactly had the best day thus far, and I honestly don’t feel like doing anything. But I’ll update anyways, because duty calls.

— Oh look, Yosano has a lab coat of sorts after all. There goes the theory that she needs to strip just to avoid blood splatters.

— Anyway, you know how it goes. The “tough cop” (Kunikida) doesn’t approve of Kyouka, but the “nice cop” (Atsushi) doesn’t want to send the girl to her death. But first things first, they need her to answer some questions. She won’t talk, however, unless she gets fed. She even has a fancy-looking place picked out.

— Poor Atsushi ends up paying for everything. But I mean, look on the bright side: tofu isn’t that expensive. Imagine if the girl had wanted some expensive sushi or Kobe beef instead. Then he’d really be screwed.

— Over and over again, you see Atsushi freaking out, because he’s quickly running out of money. I don’t actually know how much he gets paid, though. He’s a rookie, so I imagine it can’t be all that much. Still, this is one of the anime’s world-building oversights. You don’t really get a good sense of the work they do at the Agency, and how much they get compensated for it. So when a scene like this rolls around, it’s not as impactful as it should be. And at first glance, you might think, “Is it all that really important to establish how much money Atsushi earns from his job?” Considering that he started out as a starving orphan, yeah, I think this little fact does matter. He’s going out on a limb here for some girl. We should have a good sense of how much this is costing him, materially and emotionally.

— Kyouka has the typical cute assassin story: emotionless, no family, follows orders because she has nowhere else to go, blah blah blah. I don’t really need to get into it, do I? She’s just not very engaging unless you have a thing for cute assassins.

— Typical Kunikida plays the realist, and advises Atsushi to take the girl to the police. Typical Atsushi won’t. I mean, we already kinda know what the kid’s gonna do. He’s not going to turn her in. Nevertheless, we still have to go through the motions…

— Elsewhere, Akutagawa and Dazai share some words. We learn that the latter had trained and mentored the former. For whatever reason, Dazai left for a mission, then simply never came back to the Port Mafia. Why? Shrug, your guess is as good as mine. We just don’t know yet. I guess it isn’t Dazai’s turn to reveal his backstory just yet. At the same time, Bungou Stray Dogs isn’t particularly suspenseful or anything. Furthermore, Dazai isn’t like Atsushi. Atsushi at least has a character arc. You can see how he’s supposed to start out as this weak, pathetic character who slowly learns to value himself, find his place in the world, so on and so on. Dazai, on the other hand, has oscillated between mentor and comic relief, but he doesn’t have a character arc. He’s the exact same character as when we first met him in the very first episode. He’s got all the answers, he’s cocksure, so on and so on. So naturally, I’m not invested in the guy. I don’t care that he’s chained up. I don’t care why Akutagawa hates his guts. It’s just meaningless without a character arc.

— Anyway, Dazai talks shit, so the Dracula wannabe gives him a mean right hook. Fun.

— Back to our two lovebirds, Atsushi doesn’t have the heart to send the girl to her death. Big surprise there.

— So instead, he inadvertently suggests that they go on a date. Cue the silly faces… I wouldn’t mind this fucker so much if he could at least play it cool. But no, silly faces are what people want, so silly faces are what we’re gonna get.

— Aw, Kyouka is blushing. Doesn’t that just melt your heart? That means you’re emotionally invested in her paper-thin character now, right? I mean, look how cute she is!

— So the two of them hit up various locales… then eat some crepes, because what anime date is complete without a giant crepe?

— And of course, you gotta play the crane game! I mean, I haven’t played one since I was five, but that’s because I come from America, the land of no crane games. Anime has taught me that there’s a crane game on every street corner in Japan.

— Last but not least, we gotta take a ride on a Ferris wheel. This is apex romance, people. You haven’t experienced youthful love if you’ve never taken a date onto a Ferris wheel.

— The only thing we’re missing is that trip to the aquarium. Maybe in another episode.

— Eventually, Kyouka declares that she’s had enough fun, so she tells Atsushi that she wants to turn herself in. After all, she’s killed… gosh, I can’t seem to remember how many people she’s killed… if only the anime would remind me one more time… In any case, this is the one aspect of their date that I do like. We have to remember that Kyouka still doesn’t have a very high opinion of herself. One adorable date with a guy you barely know isn’t going to change your outlook on life. She ate all that tofu because it was her last meal. And now, she’s ready to die.

— Unfortunately, Dracula wannabe has other plans.

— Ooh, a malicious head pat in my anime?

— Remember this character we haven’t heard from in weeks? See, that’s the thing. Why even devote an episode to her and her brother if they’re mostly going to fall off the face of the planet?

— Neither Kunikida nor Rampo are eager to rescue Atsushi as soon as they can. Well, that’s not very heroic.

— As such, the President actually has to step in and do something for once. So, uh, he shows up just to tell them to rescue the main character. It’s so damn bizarre. This guy has probably had less than five minutes of total screentime. I’m sure he makes very important decisions offscreen, but hey, we don’t get to see any of it. All of a sudden, he just rears his ugly head, and tells people to drop everything for Atsushi. Oh okay.

— Back to Dazai again, his former partner now pays him a visit. As if we needed more characters we’ll just inevitably forget about. Chuuya ends up cutting Dazai’s chains, but it turns out the latter didn’t even need to be helped anyway! He had a bobby pin concealed! Furthermore, he allowed himself to get captured. And he already knows ahead of time what the Agency is gonna do. See? Dazai always has all the answers. What an interesting, dynamic character.

— He and Chuuya then start fighting, because, again, Dazai has bad blood with so many people, but we don’t know what this bad blood is. Plus, hate fucking would be a lot faster and a lot less painful (most of the time).

— Elsewhere, the Agency is doing fancy detective work to track Atsushi down, but they just lost their one lead. Whoops. So it’s Rampo’s turn. At first, the master detective balks, but the President promises to praise him. Somehow, this convinces Rampo. Oh okay. Again, maybe we should’ve gotten to know the President a bit more…

— Our master detective then points to some random location on a map, and that’s apparently where Atsushi is currently located. Like yeah, I get that he’s super smart, and he used his super deductive skills to pinpoint Atsushi’s whereabouts — and he was probably crunching all of the information in his head before the President even asked for his help — but still, the show doesn’t even bother to tell us how Rampo arrived at this conclusion. At least Kunikida and company were actually trying to look like they were doing an investigation. Ah whatever.

— Well, that’s that. Kunikida’s going to chase Atsushi down with the Agency’s very own boat.

— Man, the previews for next week’s episode aren’t holding back. Apparently, Atsushi’s going to kick Akutagawa’s ass.

— I also think it’s strange that we still haven’t found out why the Port Mafia wants Atsushi so badly. It’s the ninth freaking episode, man. I can understand withholding key plot information at the start of the series, but what are we still waiting for?

Alright, back to paying the bills. Being an adult sure is fun. Hopefully, I’ll be back to my regular self in time for the next Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress episode.

In the midst of a massive Kabane attack, Enoku attempts to assassinate Biba. In theory, the ensuing chaos would force the latter to lower his guard, thereby allowing the former to strike. To nobody’s surprise, however, Biba easily repels the attack, then quickly puts Enoku out of his misery. Our Liberator didn’t even have to break a sweat or anything, though. I mean, surely, someone who has been in this assassin business this long could’ve and should’ve come up with a better plan than this. Enoku basically walks up to Biba, brandishes his sword ahead of time to give his target ample warning, then straightforwardly announces his intent: “I am to kill you at the first opportunity.” Is Enoku pretty much the worst assassin ever? Or does the old man simply have a death wish? I dare say it’s neither. I know it’s tempting for a lot of you guys to just shake your head at Enoku and call him stupid, because you’ve already written the show off. Well, you’re entitled to that opinion. The way I see it, however, is that our assassin already knows his life is forfeit.

Enoku had already warned Mumei of this in a previous episode: both the LIberator and his father will cast you aside once you’re no longer useful to them. And where do you think a broken-down assassin like him can turn in a time like this? I don’t think they have very good pension plans in this universe. You have to join a community, and that means getting caught up in this power struggle between Biba and his father. You can’t just go off on your own and become a hermit. Not with the Kabane around. So Enoku really only has two choices before him: either he works for Biba or the Shogunate. Check that: Biba had long rejected him in the past, so he really only has one choice remaining, and that is to die. After all, he knows he can’t kill his former master. The guy isn’t worshiped by the masses for no reason. At the same time, however, Enoku also knows he won’t make it very far if he doesn’t work with the conspirators. So by boldly walking up to Biba, the assassin is actually attempting a last-ditch gambit to curry the Liberator’s favor. Unfortunately for him, it failed.

You can see the fear of death in his eyes. This is before he even attempts to strike at Biba, because he knows exactly what’s coming next. Once Biba has Enoku on the ground, the latter cries out for help, but that’s just any person’s natural reaction to impending death.

In previous weeks, lots of viewers got on Mumei’s case for endangering everyone’s lives. In their minds, they felt that the girl was acting exceedingly out of character in order to create unnecessary conflict. I defended Mumei then, and after this week’s episode, I stand by this position more than ever. There’s a very crucial scene that illustrates the power dynamic between Mumei and her onii-sama. Biba commands her to retrieve the Kotetsujyo’s Master Key. Why? Well, we don’t know yet, and that’s precisely the point. Why does he need the key? I will suggest that this question isn’t even as important as the next one: why doesn’t Mumei even ask why? You can easily imagine a child asking why? It’s the simplest question they know, and they ask it all the time. Why, why, why? Kids are very curious creatures, and they question their parents all the time. Not Mumei, though. You can see it on her face that she’s conflicted. She doesn’t want to hurt her friends, but she’s too scared to even utter the question. It’s as if the question can’t have an answer. Hell, it’s as if there’s no going back once the seed of doubt has been planted. Not only would her perception of Biba be shattered — he’ll no longer be perfect in her eyes — but she knows firsthand what happens to those who defy him.

And like before, it’s easy for us to sit here and judge Mumei. “How can she do this? How can she be ready and willing to kill Ayame if the princess hadn’t handed the key over?” But again, Mumei isn’t an ordinary child. And again, an ordinary child would at least ask why! Why? Because they don’t fear their parents’ retribution. They know their parents will or at least try to answer their questions. Mumei does not have that same luxury. We might question why the girl would so easily side against Ikoma and Ayame. After all, aren’t they friends? She has also befriended the rest of the train. Not only that, they’ve turned around and rescued her when she was trapped under a pile of rubble during the Black Cloud incident. But even when you take all of these things into account, I argue that it nevertheless makes perfect sense for Mumei to side with her onii-sama. Biba is the savior. He gave the girl strength and in more ways than one. His creed where only the strong will survive gave Mumei the strength to fight back against her mother’s killer. Then that Kabaneri operation literally made the girl into a superhuman. They’re not good ways by any means, but she gains strength nonetheless. Mumei’s been groomed since she was a vulnerable, little kid to become this obedient soldier in Biba’s army. A couple weeks with Ikoma isn’t going to undo all of that.

And even then, it’s not as if Mumei isn’t conflicted. You can see her fingers tremble as she demands the Master Key from Ayame. Again, we can see it in her face. In fact, we see her worried countenance once more when Biba threatens to kill Ikoma. He knows the girl doesn’t want Ikoma to die, so he has her take care of that little inconvenience at the end of the episode. Y’know, when Ikoma tries to get inside the cabin of the Kokujyo. Sure, he could have had his other soldiers turn our hero away instead. He could’ve just had Ikoma killed outright, but that wouldn’t make much sense, does it? Aside from Ikoma, everyone still thinks of Biba as this righteous hero who can do no wrong, so why would he do anything to counteract that perception? As a result, he lets Mumei handle the sordid business instead. He believes the girl can buy him enough time. In fact, I’m sure Biba greatly underestimates Ikoma. He likely also underestimates how much Mumei has profoundly changed over the past few weeks. So yes, while the girl remains obedient for now, we know how these stories play out. We know where she’ll stand once the chips are down. We just haven’t gotten to that point yet.

Everything Else

— Ayame is surprised to learn that Biba is not actually Mumei’s brother. She must also find it strange that this guy — as great as he is — is allowing people to just refer to him as their big brother. It’s kinda cultish, don’t you think? If Ayame is as bright as she should be, she should catch onto that rather quick.

— Meanwhile, if you pay close attention to Kurusu’s face, his expression doesn’t change one goddamn bit. He looks like he doesn’t care. To his credit, he does blink twice… so he’s not a complete statue.

— Ikoma just walks up to Biba and says, “You are the one who taught Mumei that the weak are expected to die.” Hm, our hero’s not exactly subtle, is he?

—  I wonder why our Liberator was disowned. Of course, we’ll find out soon enough, but the question itself is important. Why would anyone ever disown the people’s hero? This fact alone should give people pause, I would imagine…

— Biba even gets his hands dirty, and starts working on the train. Man, he’s just a better version of Ikoma in every way, isn’t he? Taller, well-respected by the masses, loved by Mumei, fuller head of hair, isn’t a ghastly shade of green… don’t tell me he’s a better mechanic as well! It even looks like he wields a sword made out of Kabane steel.

— I thought the spider-stabbing scene was kinda dumb. I guess it’s supposed to convey the underlying threat of these so-called Hunters. They’re not the saviors people view them to be… but still, I can’t help but find this moment rather silly.

— Well, you can’t have a bunch of Hunters show up, then not show the audience what these guys are capable of. So right on cue, the Kabane attack.

— Is it just me or is the horse here really big compared to those three dead bodies?

— The steampunk motorcycles are a little silly, too. I don’t know, I guess I just don’t feel as though they fit setting. Made me think of Mad Max or something.

— This week, we’re introduced to this Kabane amalgamation, but it must not be very powerful since it doesn’t even get a name. Mumei and Horobi quickly dispose of the triple zombie threat. Speaking of Horobi, she’s apparently a Kabaneri as well. We also saw another female Kabaneri in one of Mumei’s flashbacks. So what’s the deal here? Is Biba only interested in raising an army of attractive female superhumans to do this bidding? That’s probably why he has them call him onii-sama as well, huh? This guy is getting skeevier and skeevier by the minute.

— We also learn how well disciplined the Hunters are. Everyone eventually commits suicide when they’ve been bitten, but there’s no hesitation with Biba’s army. No fear in their voice, no trembling in their limbs. Again, it’s kinda cultish.

— It’s interesting that the writers chose Enoku of all people for this pivotal scene. After all, we’re sort of inclined to agree with Biba, aren’t we? Why is Ikoma so upset over a man he barely knows? Better yet, why be upset over Enoku of all people? Usually, a show would tug at our heartstrings by taking the life of some poor kid or some cute girl. But here, we have washed up Enoku, an assassin who has done his fair share of misdeeds. Who cares if Enoku dies? Ikoma does, and that’s why he’s the hero. Our morals don’t stop short just because someone isn’t cute or adorable. Ikoma feels for the lowliest creature, and that’s what makes him truly heroic. Well, actually, I wonder if he would spare a Kabane if one of them could actually beg for mercy…

— Yep, totally skeevy.

— People may accuse Takumi of being the featureless sidekick, but he actually serves as the audience stand-in. He’s the one that most reflects us and our values. That’s why when Ikoma tells Takumi all about Biba’s survival of the fittest creed, the latter goes, “He’s not exactly wrong.” That’s exactly what most of us would say. We can’t deny it.

— SYMBOLISM.

— I thought her wound was a little higher… oh well, it doesn’t matter. Neat-looking scene here.

— So Biba has a giant, glowing Kabane heart aboard his train. That’s perfectly normal for any hero!

— Not only that, Biba’s transporting a ton of wailing Kabane to Kongokaku, where scientists will no doubt perform a bunch of ghastly experiments upon the Kabane’s arrival. Fun. We must not forget the looming threat of the Shogunate as well. I wonder if the anime can resolve these plot threads in the final third of the story. I’m always wary of shows biting off more than they can chew (no pun intended for the zombies out there).

— Not a bit fan of how Ayame looks here. Her face comes off too flat-looking.

— Mumei says we won’t have reasons to be sad if we are all strong. We know she’s wrong, so that’s not the important part. Rather, it’s the fact that you have to be incredibly traumatized to believe something like that. So I don’t get why people are so hard on the girl. I’m not exactly the best at reading characters and their feelings, and yet, it seems plainly obvious to me that this young girl, who has been through more shit than any of us will ever have to deal with in our lifetimes, isn’t equipped to make the smartest decisions.

Final Word

I thought this was overall a solid episode, but that’s not a glowing endorsement by any means. I have plenty of qualms as well. Again, the animation quality is pretty shoddy, and I won’t deny that. Also, Biba’s evilness came on a little too quickly for my liking, but I recognize the time constraints that the show is working with. If Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress had more time, I’m sure Biba’s development would’ve been a lot smoother. Unfortunately, he pretty much has to go from hero to evil in a single episode, and one can’t help but find this a little unsatisfying.

Alright, let’s do this.

— Mitsumune wakes up to find himself embraced by his dad. That’s his real dad, by the way. No, this is not a drill. This is real life. His dad then starts filling him in on the details. Obviously, the media is running away with the story and sensationalizing it. Mass suicide? C’mon. Rejection of society is not akin to mass suicide. But it’s easier this way. It’s easier to pin the blame on these kids. This way, these TV commentators won’t have to look inward and imagine how society has failed the runaways.

— More importantly for Mitsumune, however, it seems as though his mother never really lost her marbles. She knew deep down who Mitsumune really was. Well, we could’ve told him that. This is how these stories always play out. Deep down, she knew what she was doing, and she, like a lot of the adults in this show, was just being selfish.

— Mitsumune’s dad tries to be selfish once more by asking the kid to come home and pretend to be his dead brother again. C’mon, man… do you want him to run away again? The old man then admits he had placed all of the burden on his remaining son, so I don’t even know why he bothered to ask in the first place.

— In any case, our boy hero intends to return to the village, because he’s a goody two-shoes. He doesn’t want everyone to go nuts. Plus, if they go nuts, they’ll hurt his precious Masaki!

I think everyone in the audience knew Mitsumune would eventually redeem the tour group. Still, I find him a difficult protagonist to root for, especially when he never really had any good reasons to defend Masaki as much as he did. I wouldn’t have tied the girl up to a pole as though she’s a witch from Salem, but at the same time, I would’ve been a little suspicious of the girl. That’s why I can’t relate to our boy hero at all. How can you not be a little suspicious? Not even a teeny, tiny bit?

— So some man saved Mitsumune, and the kid gasps when he looks at… uh, presumably a picture of said man. Okay then.

— Back to the idiots at the village, people are starting to feel tired. And when they feel tired, they also start to lose their oh-so-quirky personality. For example, Pii-tan is no longer lovey-dovey anymore. In fact, she seems to find her lover quite repugnant now. As for the tour guide, he’s done giving a fuck. In fact, a lot of them have stopped giving a fuck. Psst, me too. Unfortunately, the lack of fucks being given pisses Hiragi off. Oh no.

— Uh, that’s a bit crass. Watch your mouth, young lady.

— Dammit, she’s back… aaaand she’s gone. Good. Better yet, she doesn’t have any actual lines in this week’s episode. I know it won’t stay this way for long, but one can dream.

— Now, we turn our attention to the three amigas, and the Reiji-kun that could. Yes, it’s Reiji-kun. And he hasn’t got much to say. In fact, he seems emotionless and defeated. Hm.

— He mentions how everyone he knows has gradually disappeared, but it’s not as though they were his friends or anything. He only really talked to Masaki, but even then, he calls it a one-way love. He doesn’t care for her as much as she seems to care for him. This enrages Maimai for obvious reasons, and she calls him the worst kind of man. I dunno, I think there are worse… like sex traffickers, pimps, abusers, so on and so forth.

— We return to Mitsumune, who soon bumps into Yottsun. See? Told you guys nobody’s dead.

— We get a brief glimpse of Yottsun’s monster, but nothing more. According to him, he was saved by God himself.

— But lulz, it’s not really God. It’s just some old-ass researcher by the name of Kamiyama, but Yottsun is dumb, so he calls the guy God.

— Alright, strap yourself in because it’s about to get dumb as hell.

— But before we get to Kamiyama’s laborious exposition, I guess I should briefly mention Lion’s pas–… actually, no, I don’t actually care about the girl. The only thing I want to bring up is that she finds something odd about Reiji. Then again, she said the same thing about Mitsumune.

— Reiji explains that Nanaki is a complicated past that somehow takes material form and haunts you. Okay, we already know that. What else can you tell me?

— He adds that Nanaki causes great pain when it attacks someone. Well yeah, it’s literally your trauma materialized. Of course it would cause great pain. Please, tell me something I don’t know.

— We cut back to God, and he… uh, he tells us the exact same thing: “Nanaki Village is a place where your psychological scars materialize as Nanaki.” I don’t understand why the show feels the need to repeat this fact twice. Not only that, it’s a fact that most of the audience — and even some of the characters themselves — have long deduced.

— God details how he had come to find the village, and how he eventually lost it. Apparently, if you lose your Nanaki, you’ll find yourself back in reality in an instant.

Finally, something new to chew on. So this is how you escape… but ah, there’s a catch! If you lose your Nanaki, for some bizarre reason, your body will age decades! God is supposed to be a young scientist in his prime, but now he looks the way he does all because he lost his Nanaki! Wait, what?

— According to Reiji, your Nanaki contains critical elements of who you are, so losing it is bad… I can see the logic in that, but I don’t see why it would make you physically age. But whatever. This is fantasy anyway. More importantly, though, it’s hard for me to grasp why God had to be punished. So his trauma was his research that his peers mocked, and by proving his research correct, his Nanaki disappeared. So? Why is that a bad thing again?

— Ah, you have to embrace your Nanaki like that carving in the rock suggests. But why can’t God both vindicate his research and embrace his psychological scars at the same time? I mean, I don’t really see why he had to end up this way. And what’s with Mitsumune? Has he embraced his Nanaki already? Somehow, God stares into one of Mitsumune’s eyeballs, and can determine that the kid’s psychological scars are still there, but just barely. From his eyeball. Yep.

— God has one further thing to add: if you try to cut off your trauma, you’ll cease to be human or something. The anime immediately cuts back to the idiots at the village, so I guess this is what’s afflicting them. They’re not confronting their Nanaki, and as a result, they’re all becoming increasingly lethargic. Oh no. Please. Someone. Help these fools. I can’t bear to see these poor souls die.

— Anyway, Reiji is still stuck in this place, so it would seem to me that he hasn’t embraced his Nanaki. He tells people to leave as soon as they can, but he can’t seem to take his own advice. Meanwhile, you can’t really say that Masaki was stuck in the village, can you? I mean, she showed up on the bus before they ever got to the village. At the same time, she doesn’t see a monster, so she doesn’t even have a Nanaki to embrace. I briefly considered the possibility that she’s a Nanaki herself — someone’s Nanaki, in fact — but it didn’t make much sense in the end. After all, this whole Nanaki business seems rather tied to this supernatural, Silent Hill-ish location, and again, we saw Masaki on the bus well before they got to the village…

–…unless the entire trip to Nanaki Village is part of the whole package. If I recall correctly, I found it odd how their trip at the start of the anime seemed rather devoid of, well, anything. There weren’t any other cars on the highway, they never ran into any other people… maybe by climbing onto the bus in the first place, you’ve entered this weirdo dimension where your past haunts you… meeeeeeeh.

— Meh, whatever. The anime will painfully explain everything soon enough. After all, we’ve almost reached the end of the story.

— Elsewhere, the two Jacks are hitting on each other for losing sight of… “him.” I assume they’re referring to Mitsumune. Hyouketsu starts begging the “Boss” for mercy, and the “Boss” is revealed to be none other than…

…Koharun! Dun dun dun!

— We still have plenty of unanswered questions. What’s with the foggy place? What’s with the recursive Nanaki Village that we saw? Why was Masaki so afraid of it? Speaking of which, where did she disappear off to? How did that dumb bus get unstuck? Does Koharun have a Nanaki? Again, I’ve got is meh. The show will explain everything eventually. It’s just too bad how lazy everything is. This week’s episode is just a bunch of exposition.

— This anime still sucks.

There seems to be this commonly held belief that we simply need to remove our masks in order to emancipate our true selves. I am not what you see on the surface. Rather, there’s an inner me beneath this mask that I wear — an inner story that you have not yet heard. What I show the world is merely a facade. And this belief is a comforting one, because we often use it to rationalize our actions, i.e. I wasn’t really being me, this is just the mask I wear, so on and so forth. What if, however, there is actually more truth to the fictional mask? What if we’ve simply conned ourselves into believing a beautiful lie? This is what Zizek would suggest. Let’s say I’m a horrible troll on the internet. I say racist and sexist remarks through social media, and I pride myself on making others feel bad about themselves. “Oh, but that’s just my internet persona,” I tell myself, “The real me is actually a shy and timid person who would never hurt a fly.” What if, however, it is the other way around? What if my “mask” is actually the shy and timid persona that I adopt in the real world? And online, unfettered by anonymity, I show the world who I really am. After all, there are consequences to being a real life troll. I can’t say racist and sexist remarks at work without losing my job. I can’t make people around me feel horrible without losing all my family and friends. Unable to show my true self to the world, I thus a adopt a shy and timid person.

Essentially, there’s more truth to the fictional mask than we realize, and Concrete Revolutio toys with this idea over and over. At first, Rainbow Knight was seen as the ideality of superhumans, but as it turned out, neither his suit nor Rainbow Knight himself had any actual powers. So he wasn’t a superhuman after all, right? His “true self” was just a regular human, right? Both Zizek and Concrete Revolutio would disagree. Rainbow Knight’s true identity was in the mask itself! It allowed him to be who he really wanted to be, which was an agent of justice. That’s why Jiro insisted at the end of the fifteenth episode that Rainbow Knight, despite his all-too-human physical status, was nevertheless a superhuman. So what are we to make of Claude and those helmets? Is Claude’s persona, as the characters suggest, really controlling these characters, and making them do things they don’t want to do? No, absolutely not. Again, there is more truth to the fictional mask than we are comfortable with. Over and over again, Claude has only shown people the truth. His truth may lead to violence, but Claude has never truly misled anyone. Even when Jin-as-Claude convinced Kikko that he was really Jiro, he wasn’t technically lying to her. In this week’s episode, Jiro learns from the helmet that Claude is a manifestation of his childish rage, a dissatisfaction stemming from his inability to protect superhumans and change the world for the better. So from a certain point of view, when Kikko allied herself with Jin-as-Claude, she was really helping Jiro. It just happened to be the a certain type of Jiro; it was the Jiro she had always wanted, the Jiro who would fight for his ideals no matter what.

But even if Claude is really just Jiro’s “childish” grudge, you can’t say that others — namely Daitetsu, Michiko, and company — are being controlled by our hero’s rage. Rather, they all have the same frustrations as Jiro. Michiko said it herself. She thought that superhumans would be greater than they actually are. She wanted superhumans to show her what true justice is, not this moral relativism nonsense that’s been shoved down everyone’s throats. Over and over again, however, superhumans have failed her. Claude merely taps into this rage and frustration that has been building up inside of Michiko. In fact, you could argue that Claude simply enhances it, and as such, the helmet doesn’t just enhance superhuman abilities. Rather, it seems to sweep away our inhibitions, thereby unshackling our childish innocence or, in other words, our id. Yes, the helmet “makes” individuals like Michiko do things that they wouldn’t normally do, but is that not because we are bound by society’s rules and expectations? Is that not because we are prevented from fighting for our absolute justice? “You’ll hurt people,” they’ll protest, which is fair point, but others are not always harmed in the way that you’d expect. I still remember when Raito hilariously asserted that the Shinjuku riot was being a nuisance to commuters. Society is a facet of our superego, and our superego always makes these ridiculous, impossible demands of us. Demands such as, “Hey, look, don’t let your pursuit of happiness get in the way of commuters.”

Of course, I’m not arguing that it is better to don the helmet and listen to our “inner Claude:”

“The id in all its radical ambiguity… namely, what is so weird about [the id] is that [it is] childishly innocent, just striving for pleasure… But, at the same time, [it is] possessed by some kind of primordial evil, aggressive all the time. And this unique combination of utter corruption and innocence is what the id is all about.”

Doesn’t Claude personify this sort of radical ambiguity? He rants about justice in a very black-and-white manner, and this is only fitting. After all, he represents Jiro’s ideals, the very same ideals that the adults of the world have constantly derided as childish, naive, and foolish. On a similar vein, it makes sense that the younger, more immature Kikko was enamored by this side of Jiro, and thus allowed herself to be seduced by Claude. In this sense, there’s a certain immutable innocence to Claude that rarely exists in most adults. Cynicism has long eroded most of our idealism. At the same time, however, Claude will stop at nothing to pursue his vision of justice. He murdered those scientists who had performed inhuman experiments on superhumans. Were the scientists guilty of their crimes? Perhaps. But even if they were truly guilty, didn’t they nevertheless deserve a fair trial? Of course. We can’t just go around executing people for their alleged crimes, no matter how heinous these crimes may seem. Yes, there are exceptions to this rule. Nobody will blame you for killing someone in self-defense before they can kill you, but we can’t say the same about those scientists, can we? But this is what Claude is all about. It’s about achieving a revolution at all costs. It’s also what the id is all about. Michiko, who has mostly schemed from the shadows, suddenly becomes violent when she wears the helmet, and takes actions into her own hands. This is not her typical modus operandi, but the helmet allows her to tap into that same rage that Jiro feels.

Jiro’s hesitation in this week’s episode comes down to a problem of identity. In his dreams, Claude removed the helmet to reveal Jiro’s own face. So who is Jiro really? Is he the Jiro from the first season, i.e. the boy who claimed he was protecting superhumans, but in reality, he was just another extension of state power? Or does Claude, in all his childish rage for justice, truly represent Jiro? This is the conflict that our hero finds himself unable to resolve by himself, and as a result, he finds himself again unable to act decisively without Fuurouta’s words of encouragement. This is also the same inner conflict that we saw last week. If he had stopped Raito, he would’ve found himself back at square one, i.e. turning back into the Jiro from the first season. If he had instead joined Raito in destroying the NUTS robots, however, then he would’ve given in to his inner Claude — the inner desire for mayhem that Megasshin accused Jiro of secretly harboring. But don’t get me wrong. I’m not trying to draw a false equivalency between these two opposing sides. I’m not the sort to say that there are many conceptions of justice, and that the truth lies somewhere in the murky middle. Rather, I truly believe — as most of us all believe — that the Japanese government in Concrete Revolutio is beyond corrupt, and furthermore, Jiro needs to do more to fix this problem. Nevertheless, what’s problematic about Claude isn’t his pursuit of justice, but rather, why he pursues it. You can’t pursue justice simply because it gives you pleasure. Otherwise, it becomes fetishistic. What’s ultimately childish about Claude is that it isn’t about making people’s lives better. And I know people will argue that justice is for justice’s sake, but I disagree. What is the point of justice if everyone ends up being worse off?

Again, the government is corrupt, Teito is evil, and something has to be done. No, I don’t agree with the Bureau, because I don’t agree with the idea that slow, incremental change by subverting the government from the inside is effective. But there has got to be a better way to effect change. There has got to be a better plan than destroying things and inciting a riot. Riots aren’t bad in themselves, but if the Occupy Wall Street movement has shown us anything, it’s that we need more than just a loud and attention-grabbing show. We need concrete plans for tomorrow, then the day after that, so on and so forth. This is something that Michiko hints at in this week’s episode: “If [superhumans] got together, they could get rid of wars, and save starving kids. Don’t you think?” Fuurouta thinks she’s being absurd, and in one sense, he’s right: you probably won’t end world hunger just because you have superpowers, unless, of course, you’re Jesus and can create an infinite amount of food out of nowhere. But what’s not absurd is the idea that the superhumans can and should be working together. They really haven’t. The Bureau registers superhumans, but only to keep track of them. And for the most part, superhumans appear to work alone, and this merely reflects the common superhero mythos. Yes, there are organizations such as the Justice League and whatnot, but the majority of superhero stories start off on rather lonely, don’t they? Through some sort of personal tragedy, you end up fighting crime by yourself in your own little corner of the world. But if superhumans are so great, imagine what they could do if they were united? Of course, this is not an original idea by any means, but it’s one that hasn’t really been explored in the Concrete Revolutio universe.

And maybe that’s the revolution that Jiro desperately needs. More than ever, he needs to unite a broken nation of both superhumans and humans. Certainly, Jiro’s recruited allies to his cause, but for the most part, superhumans remain this fragmented group. They’re being persecuted as if they’re one and the same, but they’re not fighting back as if they’re one and the same. How can superhumans convince humans to understand them if they can’t even come to a mutual understanding among themselves? Someone has to change that. But for now, Jiro can do what he can: he stops Michiko’s rampaging id to prevent a larger disaster, but not before eight lives have already been lost. Blood is always going to be spilled in a true revolution, but there was no revolution here. Michiko wasn’t going to accomplish anything meaningful. That’s why I view it much more harshly than Raito’s actions in last week’s episode. If destroying a bridge had actually cost any lives, the anime wouldn’t have been coy about it. The story would’ve spoonfed the death count to us, so I think it’s reasonable to assume no lives were lost that night. As such, I don’t see anything wrong with him undermining the transportation of the NUTS robots, especially since we know how much damage those weapons can cause. On the other hand, Michiko is just going nuts (no pun intended) without any concrete plan in mind, so Jiro is completely in the right to stop her. The only question is if he’s found a clear path forward yet. With just two episodes left to go, he better think of something soon.

Everything Else

— I love the fictional counterparts in Teito’s movie. More specifically, why on earth does fictional Hyouma have a ‘fro?

— I also like the way the anime demonstrates the insidious power of propaganda. While watching the movie, a mother tells her kid that this is exactly what she saw when she was a child, but her son contends, “You said you couldn’t see anything.” This is how powerful narratives can shape our perceptions and make us believe truths we never really had.

— At first, Satomi tells Magotake that they can use Jiro’s power to create an advanced civilization. I imagine that this is accomplished through Jiro’s blood. Fast forward to the present day, and Satomi wants to get rid of superhumans completely. I wonder what’s changed.

— The animation this week was really, really disappointing. I’m not just talking about the ugly characters during the propaganda movie scenes. Just look at the way Earth-chan destroys the this helmet. C’mon, Bones, I know you guys can do better than this. Hell, you are doing better than this right now with two other shows!

— The transformed Equus is pretty underwhelming, but then again, I’m not expecting any sexy mecha action from Concrete Revolutio anyway, so nothing is lost.

— During the fight against the NUTS robots, Emi briefly considers restoring Kikko’s powers. I’m surprised she hasn’t destroyed that side of Kikko outright. I guess there’s always a possibility that you might need it, but still, crazy demon Kikko seems rather uncontrollable. Maybe Emi thinks she can just kill the girl if it ever comes to it. That’s what she wanted to do initially anyway.

— I wonder what Satomi was deliberating when he raised his cane up to Michiko’s forehead. Would he have really killed her in public like that? Besides, her actions ended up accomplishing his initial goal anyway, and that was to stage Japan’s “biggest terrorist attack ever.” So she’s still useful for now.

— I hoped they emptied those fuel tanks before dumping the NUTS robots into the ocean… probably not.

— I like how the film portrays it as though Jiro had turned into a beast and eaten Rainbow Knight. But that’s not too far off, is it? He’s certainly incorporated Rainbow Knight’s ideals and heroism into his own character, so in a way, he did consume his childhood idol.

Chidori sees Katsuhira embrace Noriko, and she is heartbroken. Eventually, her emotions get the better of her and she runs away from her friends. An angered Tenga commands Katsuhira to chase after her. The latter doesn’t understand the need for him to perform such a grand gesture, but other than a meek utterance of ‘why,’ he doesn’t really question it. I doubt the audience questions it either. It’s sort of expected for guys to run after crying girls, isn’t it? You never see it the other way around. Anyway, Tenga continues to throw his anger around. He’s frustrated, too; after all, he’s in love with Chidori, but the girl’s too hung up on Katsuhira to notice Tenga’s feelings for her. More importantly, he doesn’t really understand why she prefers Katsuhira over him. Unable to resolve his frustrations, he tries to take them out on Noriko, It’s interesting, isn’t it? Tenga, too, has an unrequited love, but for him, it leads to anger, not heartbreak. No tears. No sorrows. Even when he’s beating the hell out of Katsuhira later in the episode, I see no tears. That sadness has completely manifested as rage and only rage. Why?

While this is all happening, Nico is also hurt. She’s in love with Tenga, but not surprisingly, Tenga is too hung up on Chidori to notice her feelings. But what does she do? Much like Chidori, a painful realization sets in when she realizes that she can’t compete with her rival. And much like Chidori, she runs away in tears. Now it is Yuta’s turn to command Tenga to chase after Nico, ’cause, y’know, guys are supposed to chase after girls. Girls are supposed to run away and cry. And like Katsuhira, Tenga doesn’t understand why he should chase after Nico, or what he’s even supposed to do once he catches up to her. Hm. Hmmmm. Earlier in the series, I couldn’t help but notice how the girls seemed to have more profoundly emotional stories. To briefly recap what I mean by this, take a look at how the story develops or hasn’t developed these characters. Chidori gets to tell the world not once but twice how much it hurts to be in love with Katsuhira. Maki’s tragic backstory tugs at the heartstring, especially since it deals with unrequited queer love. Nothing wrong with that.

But there is something wrong with how Tenga and Yuta have been left out of the mix. All we know about Tenga’s past is that he’s scared of dogs. Maybe he’s come from an abusive family. Maybe. But he doesn’t get an episode devoted to him and his feelings. At best, he’s allowed to be angry. Sometimes, he’s a braggadocio, but that’s the extent of Tenga’s emotional spectrum. If he’s sad, it’s a byproduct of other people’s sadness. He’s not sad for his own sake. Likewise, what do we know about Yuta’s past other than that he used to be fat, and he’s deeply ashamed of this? In fact, he’s shown even less extreme emotions than Tenga. Neither profoundly sad nor angry, Yuta has only served one purpose: from a certain point of view, he too has chased after a sad girl. Despite her protestations, Yuta impinged himself on the self-pitying Maki during her mini-arc, and helped the girl resolve her issues. In that sense, Maki is not so different from the other girls either. Hell, one of the past episodes featured the girl running dramatically away from the group while they stood there and told us how sad she must feel. Good god.

What does this all mean? I think I’ve said more than enough. You guys can draw your own conclusions, and I’ve certainly drawn mine.

Hm.

Hmmmm.

Everything Else

— That is not how it works, budd–… well, actually, it’s 2016, so y’know what? You kids do whatever makes you happy!

— Instead of using the Gomorins to scare everyone into the same room, why doesn’t Yamada just, I dunno, tell them to go to the same room. Why wouldn’t they listen? They’re trapped in the school, so they may as well listen to what he has to say.

— I’m so distracted by the stuff I wrote above that I can barely discuss the rest of the episode. Um, like before, I’m guessing that Noriko did something (probably tried to commit suicide) in order to give everyone pain, but the pain was so great, it nearly broke those kids. Meanwhile, the incident traumatized Katsuhira so much that he’s repressed his memories. Only by holding her is he able to slowly remember those early days and those kids. Or something like that. If I’ve got something wrong, the Internet never hesitates to correct me anyway.

— This moment is like something outta 2001: A Space Oydssey… except, y’know, without all the kids writhing in pain.

— Noriko must be Katsuhira’s Nanaki. But on a more serious note, is Okada obsessed with painful pasts or what?

— Is that a candy bar in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?

— “Watch this, Lise. You can actually pinpoint the second that her heart rips in half. Aaaaaaand… now!”

— Again, Chidori is heartbroken, but Katsuhira never even said that he likes Noriko. Thinking about someone is not the same thing as liking them. Hell, I’m not sure if he’s even able to like anyone in a romantic way. But she’s a kid, so she probably doesn’t understand this nuance.

— And like before, it’s hard to relate to this ridiculous love polygon, because I don’t know why anyone likes anyone. An unexplainable crush is one thing. And if I saw my crush doting on someone else, well, that kinda sucks, but life goes on. I’m not gonna cry over a goddamn crush. As such, a love so deep that it makes you run away in tears is another thing entirely. I’m not saying that love has to be perfectly logical as if we’re from the Planet Vulcan, but it has to make a little sense. But we’ve been so caught up in this gimmick of mi dolor es su dolor (I just used Google Translate, so don’t shoot me if I used the wrong Spanish word for pain), that we never even bothered to develop these relationships and why X might love Y, and why Z might love X. These guys aren’t even close friends yet, and you want me to believe that they are in genuine love with each other? Enough for Tenga to commit battery? Enough for these girls to stereotypically run away from the group one by one as generic anime maidens are wont to do? Eh…

— “Watch this, Lise. You–…” Oh, I can’t do the same Simpsons reference twice? Fine, just take this screenshot of a sad Nico and get outta here.

— Y’know, if Tenga can’t understand why Nico would like him, he should probably ask himself why Chidori should like him over Katsuhira.

— The kids are now broadcasting their desires, and it starts with Chidori’s heart begging for Katsuhira to embrace her the same way he had embraced Noriko. But no one likes being second place. Likewise, no one likes being comforted simply because the other person is obligated to do so. So as soon as Katsuhira pulls Chidori into his arms, she calls him cruel. Haha, oh man…

— It turns out Urushi has a conscience, so she wants to stop Yamada’s shenanigans before the kids really hurt themselves. Naturally, the guy tries to stop her, but he can’t just grab her arm or anything. Oh no, you gotta full-on pin a woman to the wall with her hands at each side of her head. Pardon me while I roll my eyes for the billionth time at this anime.

— I like how Tenga is beating the tar out of Katsuhira, and Chidori just stands there and screams. Once again, Yuta has to intervene and try to hold Tenga back.

— Nico starts broadcasting her inner desires, then Maki gets all defeatist and gives up on their friendship. The resulting emotional pain is so heavy that everyone falls to the ground and writes around in the mud (much like those kids in Katsuhira’s past). Meanwhile, our emotionless hero doesn’t feel any of it, but he should probably go and get some medical attention.

— Have you heard that it hurts? I hear that it hurts. Man, does it hurt, or what?

— Eventually, the storm breaks, and Urushi finds the kids still lying there on the football field. What’s worse? Overwrought emotional drama or a typhoon-induced hypothermia?

Here are some notes and observations of the two most recent episodes. We’re cutting right to the chase, so I can fit in some jogging before I gotta subject myself to Re:Zero. Sorry if anyone was expecting a composed essay or something.

— The Black Relic repairing its own damage by absorbing nearby metals would be a neat idea for some horror-themed anime, I think. Imagine a mecha slowly consuming its rider over the course of a series. Maybe there’s already a show like this out there, and I just haven’t seen it.

— The UN higher-ups agree that they shouldn’t return their one ace-in-the-hole, and I wouldn’t object to that either. Still, a comment from previous weeks is right: our alien “invaders” haven’t really attacked anyone yet.

— Yukina didn’t really run away from home nor did she ever really intend to, I guess. She’s just hiding out at her best friend’s house. Going to school would’ve been uncomfortable. I’m sure her classmates are already whispering behind her back. Staying at home wouldn’t have helped much. She’s afraid both Ken and her mother would pressure her to pilot the Black Relic, and I’m sure her uncle would try to convince her to at least go to school.

— It turns out Akagi and Kaya are just fine. It’s just taking them over a day to return home, because their bike stopped working. Sure, I can buy that, and I can even imagine that their phones malfunctioned as well, but why did neither of them even think to call home from a payphone to tell their families that they’re okay? They don’t even go home first or anything. Akagi decides that the two of them should go to their school first. Huh. Troubles at home, then? Horrible parents perhaps?

— I like the scene where Ken reads the answers to a question he had posted on the internet. To distinguish ourselves from the past, you can certainly point to so many modern inventions, but few are more amazing than just the mere idea of the internet itself. I mean, think about it. Millions of people from around the world are able to communicate with each other instantaneously. That must be mind-boggling to someone from the past. I’m amazed Ken hasn’t freaked out at the concept alone. Or maybe the story just hasn’t even considered this. If Kuromukuro has dropped the ball anywhere, it’s that the story hasn’t really taken full advantage of the fact that Ken is a visitor from centuries ago.

— I thought they had gyozas the previous night. Why is Ken only now marveling at what he’s eating?

— Akagi and Kaya are now being interrogated by both their homeroom teacher and (I think) Akagi’s father. The old man vents his frustrations by socking his own son in the face. Um… I guess that must be why he didn’t want to go home first. I also can’t help but notice that Kaya’s family isn’t here.

— For some reason, Akagi seems to think Yukina’s disappearance is partly due to him. What a silly guy. Plus, this isn’t really turning out to be much of a love triangle. We’ve barely seen Akagi and Yukina interact all that much, and the guy hasn’t shown us any reason why we should root for him over Ken. His presence currently amounts to a distraction. To be fair, he’s got plenty of time to come into his own, I guess. After all, this series will continue long into the summer. It’s just at the moment, I have no reason to care one way or the other about Akagi.

— Then Miss Frigid chimes in and suggests that they can just force Yukina to pilot the Black Relic against her will. Hm, two months in, and Sophie’s still a jerk.

— I’m bothered by this guy’s tie. It is way, way too short, so he looks ridiculous. And oh yeah, Hiromi is desperate to find her missing daughter. Ho-hum.

— We see Yukina return home, tidy up Ken’s room, then notice something in one of her father’s old notebook. She then apparently misleads her uncle before disappearing off on an adventure of her own. I’m just wondering why her uncle didn’t immediately phone his sister to tell her that Yukina is no longer missing.

— This seems to be one of the few times the animation has slipped up.

— Man, Yukina looks like a five-year-old in that outfit. Anyways, she’s attempting to retrace her father’s footsteps. This takes her, Ken and even the Akagi-Kayo duo into the nearby forested area. There, Ken sees the remains of the Washiba Clan, and succumbs to survivor’s guilt. Just nearby, one of those unmanned robots threatens to attack Yukina. Well, again, the villains — if they can even be called villains — have yet to attack anyone. Most likely, the Cactus would’ve just tried to kidnap her the same way her younger sister was almost abducted.

— Luckily for the girl, she is saved by… someone. Looks like that shadowy figure in that old photograph. This individual appears to have her father’s watch? And he’s accompanied by some arm-less robot.

— In any case, our friends in space are tired of waiting, so they send another party down to Japan in order to personally retrieve the Black Relic. Again, no direct attacks. Someone’s going to have to step up and be a villain at some point.

— Yukina wakes up to find herself in a cavern filled with old electronics. The small area is bathed in purple light, and apparently protected by a barrier of some sort. She then notices a bloodied notebook to the side with her father’s name on it. She turns to a random page, and of course, she finds just the right passage: “Maybe people will stop calling Yukina a liar after this.” Ain’t that grand? The girl naturally starts to tear up, but still… this guy’s logic, though. Personally, I’d rather stay in my daughter’s life than disappear for some undetermined length of time just to prove to her classmates that she isn’t a liar. Priorities, dude, priorities.

— Anyways, her mysterious benefactor reappears, and tells the girl to forget everything she learned just now. This is all we see of the guy.

— Eventually, Ken spots the shadowy figure in the forest as well, but predictably enough, the latter quickly disappears from sight.

— I still can’t believe that the defending forces would still try and take down the invaders with traditional weaponry. It was worth a shot at the start of the series, but shouldn’t they have learned by now that this is neither an effective nor an efficient use of their time?

— Akagi and Kaya discover the unconscious Yukina first. She eventually wakes up, so Akagi gets all cringeworthy on us. Yeesh. The best part? Kaya’s streaming this whole incident to the entire world. Lover boy then suggests to the girl that they run off together… how romantic.

— Eventually, Ken crashes the party, as well as the rest of the UN. Ken tells Yukina she doesn’t have to pilot the Black Relic if she doesn’t want to, but let’s be honest: without the girl, Ken’s useless too. The Black Relic won’t operate without both of them, and at best, Ken would have to pilot one of those weaker UN mechas.

— Not surprisingly, Yukina offers to accompany him in battle. After all, she’s not a fool. She’s got a strong sense of duty. She knows that she has to do the right thing. At the same time, Yukina’s still a high school student, so the pressure got to her. Nothing wrong with that.

— People who are complaining that Yukina’s weak or whiny are just being silly. Those same people wouldn’t last very long in a war, and to be fair, neither would I. But I’m also not mocking Yukina for her lack of gung-ho shounen pluck.

— Ugh.

— Anyways, Yukina just wants someone to ask her nicely to fight. Better swallow your pride, samurai boy.

— Pfft, she’s starting to sound like my exes now. In any case, Ken and Yukina bicker a little, but it’s one of those moments that show us how much more chemistry she has with samurai boy than biker boy. Despite witnessing this, however, Akagi still aims to win Yukina’s heart, but like I’ve said before, he’s gonna have to show more than just determination. Nothing lamer than determination. You don’t even know the girl all that well.

— So someone’s gonna free the poor horse and return it home, right?

— Oh good, now they have generic mecha pilot outfits.

— I typically hate launch sequences, but I’ll give this one a slight pass just because it has a little banter. But please, no more launch sequences.

— The system conveniently breaks down after sending Ken and Yukina into battle. This is just a contrived way to force our heroes to fight by themselves for the time being. Meh.

— What’s Longarm’s gimmick? It’s a tri-wielding cheeser. Not only that, the baddies surround the Black Relic for a group hug. Aw, they just miss the big fella! And again, our heroes engage the enemy in combat, but they didn’t even try to communicate with the other side or anything.

— In reality, this is just to keep our heroes in one place in order for the mothership to tractor beam them up into space. But thankfully, Hiromi quickly theorizes that regular weapons should now work.

— Somehow, Akagi and Kaya weren’t detained by those UN forces we had seen earlier, so the latter gets to continue streaming these battles.

— Amazingly enough, other people haven’t caught on and tried to do the same. Even if major media outlets have been officially warned not to cover these battles directly, you’d think the attractive lure of instant notoriety would have spawn a bunch of amateur copycats by now.

— This kid is an idiot.

— Thanks to the missiles, Ken and Yukina are freed from the tractor beam, and finally, their allies make it to the fight. It proceeds to play out much like the previous conflict. The others distract the smaller robots, leaving Ken and Yukina to battle the big boss.

— Yukina is starting to feel what the Black Relic is feeling, especially when the latter is damaged in battle. Well, mechas displaying sentience is nothing new…

— Using her knowledge, however, she gives them an advantage by having Ken lure the Longarm towards a weakened rock wall. The large enemy mecha loses its footing, allowing Ken to land the decisive blow.

Yeah, geology rules!

— The episode ends with the enemy pilot surrendering. This time, there’s no fancy explosion. This guy’s forehead, though…

Final Word

I still enjoy Kuromukuro, especially for its relative simplicity. I’m sure those conspirators in space will eventually reveal some grand, complex scheme that our heroes have to stop at all costs, but for now, the story isn’t overburdened with stupid nonsense like designer children.

Raise your hand if you thought this arc would be over by now? C’mon, tell the truth…

— Well, look who’s still alive. Wait, how did he and Rem get back to safety? Well, about that…

— Subaru looks to the side and spots a sleeping Emilia. Puck immediately pops out and starts feeding us exposition. Namely, he’s telling us what happened between last week’s episode and this week’s. Isn’t that just grand? It’s not that I’m dying to watch Rem carry both Subaru and the blue-haired girl back to the village while simultaneously fending off evil doggos. Rather, it’s about balance. The show has consistently forced me to watch people sit — or in this case, lie around — in a room and have such witty, little conversations with each other, so the least the anime could do is give me a proper action sequence without abridging anything. But no, we’re right back to pointless banter. And if I know Re:Zero, which I think I should after 10 goddamn weeks, then this week’s episode will be no different, i.e. 80% chatter, 20% action. Action isn’t inherently a good thing, especially if it’s mindless, but Re:Zero is so heavily skewed in the other direction that I’m being bored to death.

— Subaru exits his room to find a rather cheerful Ram. Meh. She thanks him for his insistence on saving those kids, because Roswaal would’ve looked super bad if his subjects died. Okay, sure. But he’s also got such a fancy-ass mansion. Can’t he afford to feed these poor villagers something better than steamed yams?

— Beatrice is the next in line to talk to Subaru. I just love how they line up to talk to him one-by-one like some sort of simplistic visual novel. Anyway, she’s got some bad news. By biting him over and over, those doggos stacked curses upon curses onto Subaru. Beatrice can undo one curse, but c’mon, she’s no Young Black Jack!

— So what are we to do?! I can’t possibly stand watching this stupid loop reset itself again! Well, you can just kill the curse-giver to undo the curse. Unfortunately, Subaru’s been bitten by so much, he’ll have to commit some sort of doggo genocide to fix this problem. Thankfully, that’s why we have a crazy, demonic Rem on our side. She’ll do the dirty work instead!

— Ram also overhears this conversation, and she’s determined to bring her sister back. Subaru isn’t going to stop her, but he’s definitely not going to let her go into the forest alone. From one twin to the next, huh? Ram doesn’t have a horn, however, so she can’t really fight all that well. All she has is some wind magic. No fart jokes, guys. C’mon, grow up.

— By the way, we’re already halfway through the episode, and all we’ve done is talk. Talking isn’t inherently bad. Action isn’t inherently good. But again, it’s about balance… plus, you can have a show that is comprised of nothing but dialogue, but it has to be good dialogue. Re:Zero is just full of meta jokes and generic fantasy exposition, so why is anyone surprised that I’m not impressed?

— Get ready for some more talk, because Subaru and Ram are now going to discuss how much the villagers adore them. Subaru gets some dinky sword, a girl likes Ram, blah blah blah. Great character development. Hey, where’s the blue-haired girl? Did she even get saved?

— I swear, the people who love this show must think these jokes are a riot. But where’s the sense of urgency? I thought they were on a mission to retrieve Rem, but this looks like some sort of joy walk through a pleasant forest.

— Fourteen minutes into the episode, and Ram finally uses her clairvoyance ability. Some doggos attack, and… we’re right back to talking. It’s some vague backstory about how she lost her horn. Vague because we don’t really know why she lost it. She merely mentions that she had acted foolishly or something.

— Yo, where’s the evil pupper at?

— Then we get more exposition about the physiology of demons, how they’re supposed to have two horns, how twins are born with one each so people don’t like to have twins–… fuck, man, this is boring.

— What kind of fucking question is this?

— Seventeen minutes into the episode, Subaru finally attempts an interesting gambit. Having learned in a previous episode that mabeasts are drawn to the witch’s scent, and that the scent gets stronger if he tries to tell anyone about his Return ability, Subaru cleverly tries to Ram about it. By drawing the mabeasts to them, they’ll also attract the rampaging Rem as well. Hey, I’ll give credit where credit’s due. Smart move by our hero. Too bad we don’t see this side of him all that often.

— Doggos start attacking Subaru and Ram again, and they are unable to fight back too effectively. Our hero ends up having to carry Ram in one arm while running away from the pack of mabeasts. Just how little does this girl weigh? Oh well.

— Unable to realistically outrun magic-enhanced animals, Subaru throws himself off a cliff, and Ram uses her wind magic at the last second to cushion the impact of the fall. Rem also finally shows, but of course, Ram decides to conveniently lose consciousness.

— Oh, there’s the evil pupper! Why does it look so different from the other mabeasts? Is it a special one? Does it human intelligence or something?

— The demonic Rem has lost control of her senses, so she lashes out at Subaru and her sister. Welp. To top things off, the evil pupper is up to no good as well. Naturally, this is where Subaru spews some chauvinistic bullshit to give him the proper nipponjin motivation to act.

— Ram then calmly wakes up and informs Subaru that he needs to land a solid hit on Rem’s horn in order to bring the girl back to sanity. I don’t know… I think we should keep her like this. She seems more fun in her current state.

— But again, the mission is to have our cute maid smile again or some dumb anime bullshit, so Subaru chucks Ram right at her sister.

Rem catches her prize, and during this momentary lapse, Subaru launches forward with his now broken sword. Time to be a hero and save the day, right?

Oh, for fuck’s sake. Yep, episode’s over, folks. Come back next week for yet another episode full of delicious conversations between Subaru and his cute girls. Clearly, this epic struggle against dogs requires months and months of episodes. Anyway, I’m expecting our hero to use the blinding magic Puck had taught him in order to prevail next week. At the same time, I wouldn’t be surprised if this arc still isn’t finished by then.

Sorry, still no Boku no Hero Academia coverage for now. It’s taking longer to watch those episodes than I thought. Alright, onto the rest of the rejects. 

Big Order Ep. 8

Did anything interesting happen in this week’s episode? Um… Gennai looks nothing like the father in Sena’s memories, so something’s off there. I wonder if she has false memories. The girl also tries to clear Eiji’s name to the rest of the world, but Gennai is one step ahead of her. And for a supposed father figure, he acts pretty inappropriately around his so-called daughter. But this is Big Order, so I’m not sure what I expected. Eiji tries to save his sister, but gets his limbs lopped off. Nevertheless, he uses his Order to, uh, force his severed limbs to act as normal anyways. But y’know, that’s why you have Hiiragi on your side. Since he can hit CTRL-Z most of the time, our hero is all healed up by the end of the episode. Unfortunately, he finds himself handcuffed to a hospital bed, and not only that, Iyo wants to make babies. Welp. Just two more painful episodes to go.

Endride Ep. 10

The big takeaway from this week’s episode is that warp particles are disappearing or declining. If this keeps up, something very, very bad will happen to Endora. Meanwhile, Delzaine desperately wants to reach the surface, but he won’t tell anyone why. I dunno, maybe it has something to do with the disappearing warp particles. Tensions remain high between humans and the Zoozians, and it appears that Louise is a good-for-nothing traitor. I knew we couldn’t trust those Zoozians. Other than that, it was a pretty unremarkable episode. Character-wise, nobody really took any significant step forward in their development. Shun doesn’t think Emilio should commit murder just to avenge his father, but all Emilio ever says is, “You don’t understand!” Emilio doesn’t think Shun would care one way or another about Endora, and this offends the latter enough to throw a punch. Meh.

Gakusen Toshi Asterisk 2nd Season Ep. 10

Every single time a haremette is a princess of some made-up European country, the cast must inevitably pay said country a visit. There’s some political drama about Liseeltania being a puppet state, and how Julis’s apolitical brother serves as the puppet ruler. She wants to do something about it, but I’ve already lost interest. What else happened? Oh yeah, Saya apologizes for abandoning Ayato. Apparently, when she moved abroad, it became too painful to keep up their friendship, which she now deeply regrets. After all, when he lost his sister, she wasn’t there to comfort him. Boo hoo. Say, doesn’t she look way too young to be a haremette? Isn’t Kirin also just 13? Y’know what? Don’t answer that. I don’t really want to know. Finally, Claudia wants everyone to team up with her in some new, shitty tournament, and some old dude sics a chimera on our hero to prevent this from happening. But of course, a chimera is no big deal for our hero. I’m just curious how long this series is going to be. I thought the second season was coming to an end soon, but it doesn’t look like we’re anywhere close to a finale.

Hundred Ep. 10

Not much here to talk about either. Hm, this seems to be a recurring theme this week. But yeah, Little Garden is having a little celebratory shindig, which means harem hijinks at a maid cafe and some terrible attempts at JPOP. Oh, who am I kidding? All JPOP is horrible. But yeah, the maid cafe chews up way too much clock, leaving very little room for any possible plot development. And all you get from it is some tame boob-squeezing action. Elsewhere, Vitaly has somehow mind-controlled Wendy, and with the latter’s help, she manages to bypass Little Garden’s lax defenses. On a separate note, I always thought Vitaly was a guy’s name, but I guess it’s unisex like Leslie or Francis. But that’s not really all that important. In fact, nothing this week is all that important. Um, Karen has a Hundred now, and this allows her to float in one place and sing. Just don’t ask me to describe the singing.

Netoge no Yome wa Onnanoko ja Nai to Omotta. Ep. 9

In a Rusian-less episode, the girls have a sleepover in order to finish up their summer homework. It’s a pretty unremarkable episode. I mean, what are the story’s main attractions? One, the MMO gimmick, and two, Rusian and Ako’s slightly quirky relationship. This week’s episode features very little of either. The other girls come to a better understanding of Ako’s logic, and uh… I want to say Ako and Akiyama are friends now, but I’m not sure if that’s really the case. Eh, I’m just going to move onto the next show.

Seisen Cerberus Ep. 10

And what a show it is. It turns out the anime pulled a bait and switch on us. Remember how we’ve been harping on Hiiro’s uselessness for the past nine weeks? Well, that’s because Giruu has been purposely training him wrong! Just kidding, Giruu’s too much of a bro for that. But like father, like son: Hiiro can’t do jack with a sword, because he’s not supposed to. Instead, he has the potential to become an all-powerful mage much like Bairo. Master Theo has the boy hero doing all sorts of dumb exercises like crumbling and uncrumbling a piece of paper with Soraato’s face on it. Hiiro’s patience wears thin, because nobody will tell the poor kid the truth. And why not? Supposedly, he’s got so much magic potential that it could spell disaster. So in the end, he walks away from Master Theo completely clueless of the magical abilities at his fingertips. He still thinks he’s going to save the day with that crappy sword of his. Anyways, the episode ends with Erin’s cover being blown. I doubt anyone’s going to hurt a big-boobed catgirl, though.

If I had to pick a show, I guess Seisen Cerberus was the most enjoyable to watch out of these six shows. My mind, however, is already looking forward to what I’m going to watch next season. So far, these are the shows I’ll definitely cover in one form or another:

• 91Days
• Battery
• Berserk
• DAYS
• Mob Psycho 100
• orange
• ReLIFE
• Shokugeki no Soma: Ni no Sara

I’ll do a summer preview post when we get a little closer to Q3, but yeah, this is what I’ve got for now. And on top of this list, I’ll still be covering Endride, Kuromukuro, and Re:Zero. Last week, I asked what you guys were looking forward to. Well, are there any shows missing from the list above that you guys think I should consider writing about?

We start off with the duel between Dazai and Chuuya, his former Port Mafia partner. Atsushi and Akutagawa are the main attractions, the pièce de résistance, the big ticket, yadda yadda yadda. In other words, these guys will kickstart your appetite for what’s to come. The idea isn’t without merit. On paper, these two conflicts are a contrast in style. Whereas Atsushi and Akutagawa will be locked in a kinetic, explosive fight to the death, Dazai’s all about mind games. Supposedly, he’s no slouch himself when it comes to physical combat. After all, he did personally train Akutagawa. Chuuya is supposed to be one of Port Mafia’s top martial artists, though. Or something like that. It’s hard to really sweat the finer details about a guy who just came out of nowhere and started throwing punches. Point is, in a fair fight, Dazai doesn’t stand a chance. Ah, therein lies the rub: Dazai won before the game even started.

Apparently, our suicidal maniac has super predictive powers. Like, it’s not even due to a Gift or anything. If you’ll recall, his Gift is the ability to cancel out other Gifts. As such, this amazing predictive ability is his and his alone. Dazai allowed himself to get captured. He knew Akutagawa would leave him unattended to go after Atsushi. He knew the Agency would do everything they can to rescue the kid. It’s not specifically stated, but he probably knows Atsushi will save Kyouka instead of abandoning her, but we’ll get to that later. Continuing on with Dazai, he knew Chuuya would come by and free him. He knew his former partner would threaten him. So what did Dazai do? He sent a letter to some Port Mafia executives threatening to reveal their secrets to the rest of the world, which is really bad because…? I mean, everyone knows they’re the biggest, baddest crime organization in town, right? So why do we need these top-level secrets in the first place? Whatever…

Essentially, Chuuya can’t do anything to Dazai without pissing off those high and mighty executives. Our hero is like this amazing chess player, and he’s planned all of his moves out ahead of time. Wowie wow wow wow. Not only that, since the former did technically free the latter from imprisonment, he has to assist the Dazai in making it look as though someone else is responsible. In the process, Dazai gets some crucial information that he’s been looking for. After all,  he wants to know why there’s such a huge bounty on Atsushi’s head. Chuuya states rather plainly that the information can probably be found somewhere on the second floor in Akutagawa’s records. Dazai then says, “Well, I had my guesses about that.” With his amazing predictive abilities, I can’t imagine he didn’t already know this. Then what was all of this for? Apparently, it was just to tease his former partner. Jesus Christ, why don’t you two just get a room then?

So yeah, the real life Dazai eventually committed suicide, so y’see, the anime Dazai is similar in that fashion! Woo! Great! We established this after the first week’s episode. I said it then, so I’ll say it again: I don’t see how this knowledge improves my viewing experience of the show whatsoever. But who knows? Maybe someone out there is just tickled pink that there’s an anime Dazai that likes suicide. More importantly, however, I don’t see where the predictive part fits in, though. Anime Dazai is just randomly overpowered for no reason. He’s like this mastermind that’s always a billion steps ahead of everyone, and it comes across as a complete asspull. Then again, a lot about this series seems to be one asspull after another. Take Atsushi’s fight with Akutagawa, for instance. I don’t actually mind the setup too much. Kyouka tries to save Atsushi by rigging the boat with explosives. The chaos is supposed to allow the latter to escape.

Meanwhile, Akutagawa will be so pissed off, he’ll kill Kyouka, which is what she wants anyways. So win-win for everyone, right? Not so fast, lassie. Atsushi didn’t buy you delicious crepes for nothing. Seriously, that’s the big trigger. Crepes represent the key that unlocks the beast within Atsushi. The dialogue is so cheesy, too. Akutagawa will be like, “Worthless human beings don’t have the right to breathe.” Wow, menacing. Very villain-like. Then Kyouka responds with, “You may be right… but the crepes were delicious.” Uh… But the best part is that her words resonate with Atsushi. At first, he was all, “Boohoo, I’m weak, little shitling,” but hearing the girl talk about crepes stirs something up in him. So instead of making his escape, he comes back to save Kyouka. He picks up her unconscious body and puts it aside. This way, he and Akutagawa can have their one-on-one showdown on a sinking ship. Check that: no sinking.

Yep, no sinking while Atsushi and Akutagawa are fighting. That’s just hilarious to me. I can see why they did this. You’d have to animate the boat capsizing, those shipping containers sliding possibly sliding loose, etc. At times, the anime will give us a dutch angle to make it seem as though the ship is going down, but then the animators will follow up with a shot like this one. Yeah. As for the fight itself, it’s uh… well, it must be frustrating for Akutagawa, isn’t it? No matter how much damage he deals to Atsushi, the latter simply relies on his super quick regenerative powers to heal back up. If you’ve ever had to play against Soraka, then you’d know how this feels. This isn’t really the part that bothers me, though. We’ve always known about Atsushi’s fast healing. My question is how and why is he able to do everything else. We’ve never seen him do any training. We’ve never seen him in a proper fight before. So what gives?

Maybe it’s all instinctual. Since Atsushi’s a weretiger, he just knows how to fight. It’s in his tiger DNA or whatever. I guess that’s possible. But that’s so lame. It’s such a cop-out. All the kid’s done is follow people around and make dumb faces, and all of a sudden, he’s not only capable of going toe-to-toe with one of Port Mafia’s baddest mofos, but he even beats Akutagawa in the end. In fact, in the midst of their fight, we actually see a flashback of Dazai training a younger Akutagawa. We see that, but we don’t get to see a single second of Atsushi receiving any actual training. So y’know, maybe Akutagawa does have a good reason to hate our hero. He really, really hates Atsushi, because Dazai taunted him in last week’s episode. Dazai claimed that Atsushi is already superior to our Dracula-dressalike, and I gotta say Akutagawa’s got a point. It’s pretty lame that Atsushi is this powerful after being a sniveling kid for nine previous weeks. It’s an asspull.

The characters do that anime thing where they constantly have to narrate what we should be seeing with our own eyes anyway. Case in point, Akutagawa puts himself high in the air, which poses a serious problem for Atsushi. Our weretiger has no ranged attacks, a fact that we can plainly see for ourselves. Nevertheless, the anime has to do a close-up of our hero, and we hear him think, “Having this distance between us works to his advantage.” No shit. At another point in the fight, Akutagawa thinks an explosion has defeated Atsushi. The latter suddenly appears behind the former while perched atop a piece of debris. Again, we can see this for ourselves. But nevertheless, the action pauses so that Akutagawa can narrate to us, “He leapt using a fragment blown from the explosion?” Why, man? Why? Why go to all the work of animating the action just to turn around and tell us what happens anyway? Are you doing this for the visually impaired? If so, how nice of you!

This inner voice makes sense in a manga or a novel, but we’re in a whole different medium, aren’t we?

Then we have the corny ass dialogue. Maybe it’s supposed to be funny. I don’t know. You be the judge:

Atsushi: “You’re quite the talker today.”
Akutagawa: “I don’t recall ever identifying myself as a mute.”

Um…

Kunikida: “We’re not heroes. I’ve wished so many times that we were. But we’re not! Brat!”
Atsushi: “She… She said the crepe she had with me tasted great.”

Oy vey.

Atsushi: “It’s like as you say… I am weak. But I do have one advantage.”
Akutagawa: “And what’s that?”
Atsushi: “I can defeat you!”

Wuh?

Anyways, Atsushi wins thanks to his tiger tail. I don’t want to describe it. Just look at this screenshot for yourself. Maybe he keeps losing because he always has to look cool and keep his hands in his pockets. I dunno. Just a thought. After punching Akutagawa into the ocean, Atsushi falls back down to the smuggling ship like a ragdoll, and is now unconscious. Magically, Kyouka is no longer unconscious. I guess she just woke up in the middle of the fight. She then picks the guy up, then they both fall onto Kunikida’s boat. After doing so, she, too, falls unconscious. Aaaaaaaah. Elsewhere, Dazai stumbles upon some amazing secret, but the anime won’t tell us what it is! No! Don’t you dare Mayoiga me! One Mayoiga is bad enough. Then right before the credits, we meet yet another famous literary figure, but this time, he’s from the West!

They couldn’t even use F. Scott Fitzgerald. Seriously, who the hell refers to him as Francis F.?

What happened to Biba? What made him this way? The shogunate’s betrayal? Their cowardice? It’s one thing to seek revenge. It’s another thing to allow thousands of people to die at the hands of the Kabane. But that’s exactly what Biba does in this week’s episode. Under his orders, a misguided Mumei lowers the bridge to Iwato station, which allows Biba’s men to do the rest of the dirty work. Spraying blood from their steampowered motorcycles, Biba’s men lure a horde of Kabane through Iwato station’s gates. The zombies then proceed to murder every human being in sight. No one is spared, including defenseless children. How can the people’s hero stomach this? How can he just watch innocent people die without feeling the slightest pang of remorse? What’s even scarier is that he thinks he’s living up to his title as the Great Liberator: “I will liberate everything. The land, the people… Their fears as well.” This guy must be pathologically insane, right? Yes, but what’s more interesting, however, is the similarities that he shares with Ikoma. Like Ikoma, it appears that Biba knows his way around machines. In an indirect way, they’re both competing for Mumei. They even have the same lofty goals in regards to shaping the future. Essentially, Biba and Ikoma are character foils.

Let’s revisit Ikoma’s monologue at the very start of the story:

“What you need to survive… It’s not some tool that will keep you hidden and safe. It’s power to fight the Kabane without fear. Twenty years ago, fear of the Kabane drove the people of Hinomoto to take shelter in stations. They abandoned their pride and fellow man and fled. Can we really be proud of our survival that’s predicated on sacrificing our own? Their lives aren’t all we lose.”

Biba shares our hero’s sentiments. They both feel that people are trapped by fear. In this week’s episode, Biba speaks out against the walled cities: “Behold. This is the world that has been liberated from its cage. I speak to all of you. Abandon the stations and join the fight.” Both characters feel that humanity needs to stop hiding. Humanity needs to stand their ground and fight. We already know why Ikoma wants this. After all, fear allowed his sister to die. When the Kabane attacked Ikoma’s station, the adults fled and left the children to fend for themselves. Unable to protect his own sister, Ikoma had to put the girl out of her misery. As for Biba, we can only imagine what he’s been through. He probably started out with very noble goals, but like Ikoma, the adults in his world let him down. How many fights has he been in? How many devoted soldiers has he had to watch die at the hands of the Kabane? And for what? For these people to continue hiding behind their iron walls? Not only that, it seems as though Biba’s own father had betrayed him. So like Ikoma again, Biba has been profoundly changed by betrayal. It must have turned him into the monster that he is today.

Ikoma wants people to have the power to fight, and similarly, Biba wants people to join the fight. The two of them simply go about achieving their goals in different ways. Ikoma wants to work from the bottom up. He wants to empower the weak. That is why he created his piercing gun. With it, everyone has the power to fight back against the Kabane and not just the Bushi. After all, he is inspired by the death of his sister. You can’t expect children to defend themselves against the Kabane, but if the adults had piercing guns to fight back, they wouldn’t have run away. They would’ve stood their ground and protected the children. On the other hand, Biba approaches the problem from the top down. By allowing the Kabane to breach Iwato station, he isn’t actually sacrificing his own in order to protect himself. Rather, he’s weeding out the weak: “It is here where the cowards will die, and only the strong will be able to survive.” Then maybe, if you’re an easily-influenced young girl, Biba will turn you into a superhuman soldier to do his bidding. In any case, because people are too scared to fight, he’ll bring the fight to them. So in the end, both Ikoma and Biba achieve equality. You can either lift the weak up, or just get rid of them entirely.

More importantly, they both appear to desire equality. Remember when Ikoma got into a small scuffle with a Bushi just a few weeks ago? In an episode full of character vignettes that many viewers derided as pointless or filler, it turns out Ikoma’s little moment in a shop wasn’t a throwaway scene whatsoever. Instead, it served to reinforce the level of social stratification within the anime’s universe, and how much how hero is unwilling to tolerate it. The Bushi saw himself as above “a lowly steam smith,” and demanded that the shopkeeper fix his gun before attending to our hero. After some heated words, Ikoma ended up throwing the guy out on his butt, thereby making him wait his turn like everyone else. As for Biba, he’s trying to achieve the same results, but since he’s the villain of the story, his results are twisted. In this week’s episode, our pink-haired bishounen looks down upon the screaming bloody chaos and says, “This is the world of fairness and equality that we’ve been striving for.” Then at the very end of the episode, he gives a speech that clarifies his intent:

“Therefore, we will destroy the very symbol of mankind’s cowardice: the shogun’s castle, Kongokaku, and liberate us all!”

Again, this speech echoes Ikoma’s monologue at the start of the series. People sacrifice their own in order to protect themselves. Whatever the shogunate did, they must have tried to sacrifice Biba and his men in order to protect themselves. Whether or not the so-called Great Liberator succeeds in teaching them a very costly lesson, it’s apparent that the shogunate cannot continue to exist.

We just have to see who will eventually win out between Ikoma and Biba.

Everything Else

— Everyone assumes that women and children are weak, and Biba uses this assumption against his enemies. Pretty clever, especially if he had this planned out from the very start. What better way to protect yourself?

— Horobi says, “You decided to use me first, because Mumei has returned, didn’t you?” If she hadn’t gone first, then who would Biba had used instead? This kid? I’m not even sure if he’s a Kabaneri or not, though.

— What other ways are Ikoma and Biba foils? Well, Ikoma’s not short, but he’s much shorter than Biba, isn’t he? The latter is tall and dashing. He’s got everyone’s respect. Meanwhile, Ikoma has no charisma. He’s this bespectacled, puke-green dude with no grace or tact whatsoever. Remember when he just walked up to Biba and outright said, “So you’re the asshole who made Mumei think that she’s weak.”

— You’d think the controls to the bridge, i.e. the one thing that separates us from bloodthirsty zombies, would be better guarded than… well, this. On the other hand, it’s nice to see Mumei’s continued development. I also think she’s just trying to convince herself that she’s doing it for Ikoma. After all the time she’s spent with the people on the Koutetsujyo, the girl must know by now that killing innocent people is wrong.

— But again, Mumei’s still just a child, and as such, she has a very childish mentality. She lowers the bridge because, in her own words, “[i]t’s not fair that they’re only keeping us out.” That’s how a kid would reason. When we’re young, we’re very fixated on our black-and-white perceptions of fairness. She hasn’t stopped to consider why people might be afraid of her onii-sama and his troupe.

— I gotta give Ayame credit for having the conviction to try and fight back against Biba even though she likely knows she’d easily lose in any sort of physical combat. She’s really come a long way since the start of the series, especially when you remember how easily she handed over the Master Key to those elders. It’s just too bad she can’t actually fight back. I don’t think she could’ve done anything with that naginata if it had really come down to it.

— If anything serious happens to Yukina, my coworker would be very unhappy. In any case, she seems to be a fan favorite.

— Biba injects a blue liquid into Horobi’s chest, thereby turning her into a Black Cloud’s heart. That makes me wonder how the previous Black Cloud was created. I initially thought that Biba and the Hunters might have had a hand in it, but we see from this week’s episode that they haven’t quite perfected the transformation process. Horobi eventually loses control of the rest of the Black Cloud, and moreover, she almost attacks Biba himself.

— I also can’t help but wonder who else is gonna be turned into a Black Cloud’s heart before the series comes to an end? Was it foreshadowing when Mumei came face-to-face with the other Black Cloud’s heart? Remember, she had a double take when she saw it with her own eyes. At the time, we debated whether or not she had actually recognized the girl at the center of the Black Cloud, but I’m thinking now that she was simply surprised to see the heart for what it was, i.e. a young girl much like herself. She probably expected something more twisted, but instead, she got a reminder that someone like her could one day become a Kabane monstrosity.

— Kurusu tries to rescue Ayame, but ends up going over the edge instead. By the end of the episode, his status remains unaccounted for. This sets him up to be a hero in next week’s episode, then. I mean, someone has to free everyone from Biba and his soldiers. It may as well be our underdeveloped samurai. He hasn’t really gotten much of the spotlight, and there aren’t very many episodes left.

— I like the sweatdrop on Biba’s cheek when Horobi stopped short of killing him. It reminds us of his last conversation with the girl, and how she could sense his fear. In her own words, he’s always afraid. Perhaps this revenge quest is a way to compensate for that great character flaw that he senses in himself. Nevertheless, I almost thought at first that he had shed a tear for the dehumanized Horobi, but instead, we see that he has no heart. This is how you can achieve characterization without having the characters spell it out with pointless dialogue. This wordless moment tells you everything you need to know about Biba’s personality.

Another Friday night, another Mayoiga post. Life is great. 

— Oh hey, it’s the bus driver and his dead daughter! I sure am not tired to see this over and over.

— The characters are even getting butthurt now. Man, you really don’t want to stay in this village!

— People are sleepy and tired. They’re clearly not themselves. Whatever flimsy personalities they used to have are slowly fading away. Nevertheless, Maimai comes back to tell Valkana (and the audience) that everyone has to leave the village or risk losing their “sense of self.” Great.

— Is it just me or characters just randomly become misogynistic for no reason? It was Jigoku early on, and now, we have Valkana spewing toxic shit randomly.

— Fire arrows rain from the sky, but… they don’t seem to do anything. Nothing’s catching on fire. The arrows oddly leave no marks no matter what they hit. The arrows are useless. Nevertheless, Jigoku no Gouka has to explain to everyone (and the audience) that the fire arrows won’t do any damage to anyone or anything. Greeeeeat.

— Eventually, the girls and Valkana confront the two Jackasses firing those arrows, For the next long, painful minutes, they simply tell everyone what Koharun is trying to accomplish. She’s looking to create a big Nanaki. A really big one. A really big Nanaki, and these people are gonna pay for it! Why? We’re not sure yet. For now, the only clue is that she wants to do “something” for “that person.” Great writing. Besides, I’m sure later episodes will talk about it plenty.  If Mayoiga’s good at anything, it’s talking its plot to death. It’s beating the dead horse over and over until the audience has to come up with stupid theories to convince themselves that Mari Okada has written a story worth telling: “No, y’see, this is a hilarious, tongue-in-cheek, ‘purposely bad’ thrill ride!” Uh-huh. Whatever you say, man.

— Elsewhere, Koharun somehow locates Speedstar, and “deepens” his psychological scars. Again, we get another scene full of dry, boring dialogue. And don’t get me wrong. Dialogue is fine. Some of the most gripping scenes are just conversations between two people. Conversations can be a verbal duel, a jousting of words, a linguistic tussle. Take Hannibal, for instance. and the many conversations between the show’s eponymous serial killer and Will Graham. The dialogue between these two characters can feature double-meanings, implicit threats of violence, theological implications, callbacks, metaphors, etc. Here’s one example.

As for Mayoiga, it’s just like, “Aw man, Mitsumune betrayed you for some girl he just met. Ugh, what a jerk! You must feel real bad, huh?” “No, stop! Don’t say her name! Ahhhhh!” Jesus Christ. So yeah, of course I’m fucking bored when I have to endure these scenes. And no, I’m not arguing at all that Mayoiga should try and hold itself up to a show like Hannibal. Obviously, the latter has a much higher budget, a much larger writing team, so on and so forth. I just don’t want people to get the wrong idea when I rant about the overabundance of talking in these episodes or any anime for that matter. I know conversations between two people aren’t inherently boring. Some of my favorite movies don’t have any action in them. Mayoiga’s main problem isn’t that it lacks action or that the characters talk too much. The show’s biggest problem is simply that the writing sucks, so the dialogue sucks.

— We cut to Mitsumune, Kamiyama and Yottsun. “God” is trying to help our boy hero return to the village. In the meantime, let’s talk some more!

— Apparently, there are exact conditions which must be fulfilled before you can enter the village. Oh boy.

— Also, Yottsun is the first out of our gang of idiots to accept his Nanaki. Is there anything profound to his story? Nope, not really. You just have to accept pain into your life or something. That being alive isn’t just about having only positive emotions. We have to embrace our negative emotions as well, and often times, the best things in life are bittersweet, yadda yadda yadda. Great. Thumbs up. You’ve totally solved all of life’s problems.

— On the other hand, Kamiyama never accepted his Nanaki. He simply left it behind… but how did he really leave it behind? It didn’t even seem like he had a chance to “accept” it. Argh, whatever.

— Unfortunately, the path to the village doesn’t open up for Mitsumune… not yet, anyways. His stupid dad just had to go and tell him that his mother isn’t entirely crazy. As a result, the kid’s psychological scars have been minimized. They’re not large enough for him to go back to the village. Argh, way to go, Dad! You totally made me feel better! What the fuck!

— Wait, did Yottsun’s experiences not clarify things enough? Are you still not sure what it takes to embrace your trauma? Alright, here’s a long, drawn out scene with the bus driver and his dead daughter!

— Blah blah blah, accept your pain. Got it.

— Reiji then shows up out of nowhere to ask the bus driver for help. He wants the latter to help Mitsumune return to the village. So we return to Mitsumune, and out of nowhere again, the bus comes crashing through the fog.

Ayyyy, it’s me, the bus driver! And I’ve brought my Nanaki with me!

— The bus driver’s Nanaki reveals that Reiji is actually a Nanaki as well. In fact, he’s Masaki’s Nanaki. Great. These Nanakis just wanna talk and shit. I bet the other Nanakis are the same. That giant silicone boob just wanted to have a heart-to-heart with Jigoku.

— Mitsumune starts feeling really, really bad for Masaki and her plight. It’s so sad!!! So the bus driver starts driving, because the hero’s gonna go back to the village, dammit! As they get closer to the village, however, both the bus driver and Yottsun disappear. After all, they’ve accepted their Nanaki. It’s up to Mitsumune alone to drive himself back. So uh… what made the path to the village open back up? Was it the crying? Did crying about Masaki somehow do it for the kid?

— Finally, we return to Masaki. She’s just wandering the woods, crying for Reiji. Hm. Okay. I still got questions about that foggy, abandoned village, but I’m sure we’ll talk it out later. Suddenly, Mikage and Lovepon attack the girl, because they’re still convinced she’s a witch. Oh, I’m just thrilled to hear Lovepon speak again.

— At first, Masaki begs for Reiji’s help, but due to the strong impression that Mitsumune has left on her over the past few days, she eventually relents and begs for him. There you go, boys! That’s how you win a girl’s heart!

— Here comes Mitsumune to save the day!

Whoops, almost ran my love interest over.

— But before he can explain anything to anyone, Speedstar’s Nanaki is…

…uh, bigger. Just bigger. In better stories, if your psychological scars worsen, then things would usually get more fucked up to fit the protagonist’s precarious mental state. Take Silent Hill, for instance. As James Sunderland slowly lost his grip on reality, the world around him fell apart. At one point, he jumped through a series of holes in the ground to symbolize his descent into the abyss. He fights weirder and stranger monsters. The physical arrangements of the levels no longer made sense. You get my point. In Mayoiga, um, the monster just gets bigger. The best part is that it is far less creepier now than when we first saw it a few episodes ago. Now it just looks… well, if I say goofy, then the diehard Mayoiga apologists would just go, “See?! See?! The anime is funny!”

— Episode’s over. I was pretty bored throughout most of it. The show has no suspense, and the mystery has been solved for the most part. There’s really nothing compelling left about the story. I’m just here due to the sunk cost fallacy. I’ve wasted so much time on the show, I may as well finish it. Blah.

Alright, here’s the only post of the day. Get out your tissue boxes, people. It’s Kiznaiver time. 

— It’s the end of the summer, and Katsuhira’s face is healing up rather nicely. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the rest of the group. Only Hisomu has come to visit our emotionless hero, which means Chidori has stopped being the dutiful waifu. Essentially, to avoid their thoughts and feelings ever being shared again, the group has decided to cut contact with each other completely. Well, that’s one way to achieve world peace. If we just keep to ourselves, then there will be no conflicts.

— Class eventually resumes, and Yamada cruelly trips Tenga to show the rest of the Kiznaivers that their pain and feelings are no longer linked. Nevertheless, Maki insists on maintaining her distance from Yuta. Chidori alternates between being pissed off and sad. Man. Man oh man… Personally, I like closure, so I could never tolerate what these kids are doing. If I were in, say, Chidori’s shoes, I would’ve tried to tell Katsuhira how I felt a second time, then let the chips fall where they may. If he accepts my feelings, great! If not, move on. After all, she still hasn’t really told him how she feels. Yeah, everyone knows she likes him, but that’s not enough. She needs to tell him what she wants, and what he can do about it. As you’ll recall, this conversation was cut short during that stormy night, and it doesn’t appear as though they’ve talked about it since then. So she’s just been stewing in her shitty, negative feelings for the rest of the summer. How can anyone live with that? How can anyone choose to mire themselves in such uncertainty? I’d rather rip the bandaid off immediately than go through nights with that sinking feeling in my stomach over and over. Hey, I know what unrequited love is like. It’s not fun.

— Fittingly enough, the three oddest members of the group are the quickest to, well, get over themselves. Nico confesses to Katsuhira and Hisomu that despite everything, she still had a ton of fun over the summer. As a result, she wants them to remain friends. She’s right, of course. Without each other, they’re just a collection of isolated individuals. Yuta’s the only one who can claim to have had friends, but those were just sycophantic girls. For the most part, they all appear to be loners. And the way I see it, they really need to suck it up and stop pitying themselves. I’m sorry, but nothing these kids have gone through is, in my mind, particularly traumatic.

There were some slightly painful moments, and things got a little awkward, but nothing major enough to act the way they’ve been acting. Really, they’re acting like a bunch of spoiled, entitled kids. After ten weeks, the only incident that has made me think, “Well, that really sucks,” was sorta/kinda/maybe Maki’s story with her terminal friend. That’s the only one that should leave major psychological scars on a person’s heart. So what are these kids getting so worked up about? You’re not gonna talk to your friends, ’cause you’re afraid to feel pain? How selfish is that? They’re not being abused. They’re not being exploited. These is just anime friendships gone wrong. Boo fucking hoo.

— I’m guessing Nico went to these two first, because she knew they’d be receptive. The other three may seem to be the most normal on the surface, but maybe that’s the problem.

— It’s funny how Hisomu was first introduced to the story as a hot guy, but he looks particularly ghoulish nowadays.

— Elsewhere, Noriko meets with the mayor, and the latter tells her that they have to shut down the lab in order to avoid arousing suspicion from the government. We’ll find out later in this episode why this scene is particularly problematic for Noriko. In any case, she goes to the roof and acts as though she’s going to jump from a ledge. All of a sudden, Katsuhira collapses to the ground, because he and Noriko are still connected. He quickly rushes to the secret underground tunnel to see if the girl is okay.

— Hisomu and Nico are along for the ride, ’cause why not? What else are they gonna do? Katsuhira bumps into Urushi, and she assures our hero that Noriko’s fine. She merely fell unconscious on that ledge, and she’s currently sleeping somewhere within the lab. More importantly, it’s now exposition time. Time for the story to spill the beans.

— Okay, okay, we already know the basics. A bunch of young kids were gathered for the Kizna experiment. The original idea was to split sensations equally between nineteen children, so no one would be overwhelmed if something particularly traumatic happened to them. Naturally, the experiment went wrong. In two ways, even! First, instead of feelings and sensations being divided up equally among the nineteen children, they all went to Noriko. Whoops! She regularly takes shots in order to, I imagine, deaden her senses, ’cause even to this day, she’s still feeling the other kids’ sensations. Eh, I guess that’s one way to explain the Rei-type characters. Secondly, the other kids’ feelings and sensations weren’t just being lessened. Some of them lost their sensations completely! Double whoops! Some kids still managed to retain some human characteristics, so they were released back to the wild. Like Katsuhira. But what about the kids who lost their feelings and sensations completely? Well…

— In the middle of all of this, there’s a short interlude involving Chidori and Tenga. The latter wants the former to reject him officially. Kinda echoing what I suggested above. In response, Chidori ups the drama even more, and uggggggh… just get me back to the Kizna experiment. Forget these two. I don’t care about them.

— Katsuhira rushes out to the old playground that the nineteen kids used to share. There, he finds five former friends. They appear on the surface to be humans with human flesh, human hair, so on and so forth. But they have no thoughts, no expressions, no emotions. no anything. They’re like human-looking machines. It’s really the first surreal moment of the entire anime since the very first episode when Katsuhira was being rolled through a hospital on a gurney by the Gomorins. Seeing the tragedy of the Kizna experiment right before him, Katsuhira breaks out in tears. I rather like this scene. And with that, the episode comes to an end.

— But man, is this a companion piece to Mayoiga or what? What is with Mari Okada this season? She seems rather fixated on this idea of people losing their feelings and thus losing, in Mayoiga’s words, “their sense of self.” In fact, do you guys remember that M3 the Dark Metal anime? I’ve forgotten much about the story, but the final conflict in the anime revolved around whether or not humanity should be united as one in order for people to understand each other. Okada is double-dipping on us.

— So what is the Kizna experiment really up to nowadays? I’m guessing (or hoping) that Noriko is still trying to save these five broken kids. That if our seven friends can share their feelings and sensations with each other, then maybe Noriko can give her five former friends (and Katsuhira as well) their humanity back. But of course, the mayor and his city is still trying to protect itself. After all, imagine the outcry if this ever got leaked to the rest of the world. Not only that, weren’t there talks of investors? So there are still people out there interested in the results of this irresponsible, immoral research.

— Not everything can be done in the name of science. Even in our own mundane, non-anime world, there are a slew of untouched experiments that would yield a bounty of useful data. They remain untouched, because you can’t just do whatever you want just for the sake of science. I remember reading about World War II POWs. The Japanese army committed atrocious war crimes in the name of science. Rather than have me butcher the information, you can read all about it here. So yeah, before anyone suggests that the Kizna experiment was worth trying despite what happened, I’m just gonna have to shut that idea down.

— At the same time, what they’re doing with our seven Kiznaivers is also unethical. Even if the results of these experiments can save those five kids, is it the right thing to do?

— So in the end, it was kinda slimy for the mayor to claim that they all think of Noriko as their daughter, wasn’t it? Oh, he won’t ever abandon Noriko, won’t he? Isn’t that a nice sentiment after you’ve practically killed five kids, and mentally tortured one for the majority of her waking life?

— So was this a good episode? Eh. I don’t like the storytelling structure. I don’t like episodes where we just sit down and learn “the truth of it all” in one big chunk. I think there are better, more organic ways Okada could’ve approached this. She did the same thing in Mayoiga, too.

Praise the sun, it is finally over! Okay, okay, time to temper my happiness. According to some poor, informed souls (why do you guys know so much about this terrible story?), the next arc is going to be even longer than this one. So yes, the end of our dog-killing, maid-loving arc is nothing more than a sweet yet brief respite. The future looks more uncertain than ever! But on the bright side, at least there is a future. As Subaru would say, at least we can finally think of tomorrow. The show may not have much of a plot, but at least it’s finally moving along. Praise the sun!

Alright, let’s get to the episode itself.

— What is the answer to a question that nobody asked? Why, it’s a flashback regarding the twins and their childhood!

— I love how these villagers are demons only in name. Yes, they have horns… comically-looking horns, but meh. Other than that, they don’t seem all that different from us regular folks. Their affinity for magic is nothing special since, well, this is a fantasy universe and even Subaru can use magic. So what makes these people particularly “demonic?” Why not just give this race some generic fantasy name instead? The word “demon” lends itself to certain expectations, which have not been fulfilled whatsoever.

— Anyways, the girls’ origin story is nothing special. Ram was the prodigy, Rem wasn’t. The latter struggled with her inferiority (and her ugly face), but eventually grows to accept it, because her sister always supports her. How sweet. It seemed rather patronizing to me, though. “Mom, Dad, don’t you think these steamed potato taste really great? The salt is really, really on point!!” Way to go, Rem.  You really know how to salt and steam a fucking potato.

— One day, the Ku Klux Klan some unknown group came and slaughtered the entire village. Ram tried to defend her sister, but she lost her horn when she let her guard down. Somehow, nobody bothered to check for Rem’s horn. Not only that, these assailants then decided to take both girls back to, uh, I guess Roswaal’s place. Why did they not kill the twins? like they did with the others. Of all the things for this flashback to cover, why does it not address this? The village must have had other children. Either those children were killed as well, or they were taken away much like Ram and Rem. How charitable do you want to be to Re:Zero’s story?

— For a brief moment, Rem was happy that her sister lost her horn. Since then, she’s always worked extra, extra hard to atone for her sins. Well, this is the typical sort of character development that you often see in anime, so whatever. Hey, who’s this?

— Finally, after nine long minutes about a set of twins I don’t give a shit about, we return to the present to see what is going on with… those same set of twins, but this time, we have Subaru!

— Rem reveals that she went out on her own, because she had hesitated in trying to save Subaru from those doggos. So like with her sister, she’s trying to atone.

— How does Subaru cheer her up? By saying cheesy shit in the midst of a life-threatening situation. This is why it’s so hard to give a shit about this guy. He’s an idiot. He rarely ever seems to have a single intelligent thought in his head. Everything that comes out of his mouth is what some pathetic anime nerd would like to say if they ever found themselves stuck in some shitty, generic fantasy anime. But of course, that’s the point, isn’t it? He is a self-proclaimed hikikomori. So the show’s entire premise is “what if our hero is, well, me?” And that “me” is the problem. That “me” is a very certain person that the viewer can only understand or relate to if they’re an anime nerd themselves. Meanwhile, the rest of us are just rolling our eyes at this nonsense.

The biggest tragedy, of course, is the death of the other half of the premise. If Re:Zero was only some wish fulfillment slice-of-life fantasy anime, then whatever. I wouldn’t have started watching in the first place. But it also has that time-resetting mechanic that held so much promise at the start of the story. Unfortunately, it has only been used to maximize the amount of times how hero can say stupid anime nerd shit to generic anime girls and their generic anime girl personalities. I love coming across recommendations for this show, by the way. People never mention the boring anime nerd parts. They always go, “Yeah, uh, it’s a time-resetting show, but man, it gets super dark, because the main character dies over and over!” Hilarious.

— Anyways, we’re right back to square one… Subaru uses himself as a decoy to allow the twins to get away. I save you, you save me, we all take turns saving each other.

— The formerly cute pupper is no longer cute. This arc has lost the one good thing about it. I like to think the mabeasts held an election to see which of them would get the privilege of looking cute. “Put your faith in me! I’ll lure those stupid children into the forest!”

— Subaru uses his blinding magic in order to stab the ugly pupper in the neck. Well, that was predictable. Still, some crappy sword isn’t going to take down a giant mabeast, so our hero’s about to become dog food…

— …when Roswaal finally decides to show up and save the day. First things, first, we’ve having BBQ. The key to Re:Zero is surviving long enough for some stronger male to save your ass. In the first arc, it was some generic fantasy knight. In this arc, it is a Kefka-wannabe mage. I wonder who’s gonna save his ass in the next arc? We’ll find out in the last episode, I’m sure.

— Subaru wakes up the next day (or has he been asleep longer?) to find Rem holding his right hand. Uguu, did I grab your hand? No, I grabbed your hand. How embarrassing!

— The rest of the talk is just a boring peptalk sprinkled liberally with more of the same stupid anime nerd shit that I mentioned above. Think of tomorrow and smile!!!!

— And he’s proud of it.

— In a foreboding scene with Roswaal and Ram, we learn that the mabeasts were being controlled by someone else. Not only that, the blue-haired girl who was conspicuously missing from last week’s episode has officially disappeared completely, so she was either the mastermind or an accomplice. I love that, by the way. I love how a little girl can just show up to a village, and arouse nobody’s suspicions. A question nobody asked: “Hey, where are your parent?” Then when she was missing in last week’s episode, nobody — including our hero — questioned it either.

— Roswaal begins to finger Ram’s slit to the girl’s delight. Ew.

— And he’s gonna slay some dragon. Good luck with that.

— Last but not least, Subaru has to have his daily anime nerd shit conversations with Emilia. She is grateful for all that he has done, so she’ll do him a favor! Our hero naturally requests to go on a date with the girl, but he describes it in the most pathetically platonic way possible. Oh, I’m just gonna show you around and shit! Dude, just come out and say it: “I want to spend time with you.” I know it’s implied in the whole “let’s go on a date” part, but then again, it really isn’t. If you’re crushing on a girl, there’s a big difference between, “Hey, I have some cool things I want to show you,” and, “I want to spend time with you.” There is. Go ahead. Test it yourself. Don’t blame me if anything goes wrong.

— And with that, the arc comes to a close. Praise the sun!