Girls like Naho drive me crazy, and not in the good way. She’s so meek and timid that if she were your friend, you’d find yourself acting in an exaggerated manner just to compensate for her inaction. But then you feel bad for hating on the girl, because she’s just a kid. And I don’t honestly hate on her. She seems like a very nice and pleasant person. Not only that, I doubt most of us were very brave at her age, especially around people we liked. Still, it doesn’t make Naho any less frustrating to watch. In this week’s episode, Naho embarks on an arduous quest to put together and deliver Kakeru a bento box. According to the letter, she forgets to do it in the initial timeline, and this supposedly becomes one of her many life regrets. At first, the girl can’t decide if she wants to make him a lunch. What if he really was joking? What if he finds it strange and peculiar that she went out of her way to make him a lunch? Gosh, wouldn’t that be awkward? This is probably the conclusion Naho settled on in the original timeline, but thanks to that letter from the future, the girl goes down the road less traveled.

Tomorrow comes, and Naho finds herself short on courage. Lunchtime rolls around, but she closes her eyes in fear, and her lips tremble at the thought of giving Kakeru the bento box. By the time she steels her nerves, the guy had already left the room. Once lunch is over, the girl feels as though she’s just missed her moment. It’s too late to give him the bento box now, she probably thinks. It just drives me mad seeing someone so shy and passive. I can relate, and at the same time, I can’t relate. I mean, it’s been so long since I was a teenager. It’s been so long since I’ve actually had such an innocent crush on anyone. Although I’ve been in Naho position before, memories of those anxious feelings have long since faded. My heart wants me to empathize with the girl, and truly, if she were just shy, I probably would feel that way. But there’s a moment later in the episode that really epitomizes why girls like Naho drive me crazy. When Kakeru notices that her bag is larger than usual, he offers to carry it for her. Afraid that he might discover the bento box, she jerks away from him in a fashion that makes it seem as though he’s offended her somehow. Oh my god, it is just a bento box!

Eventually, Naho apologizes for her behavior, so Kakeru offers to walk home with her. Suwa is even nice enough to step aside, which only makes me wonder what the future Suwa had written in his letter. But we’ll worry about that later. On our couple’s idyllic walk, Kakeru even declares that he is hungry. Obviously, the young man needs a proper bento, wink wink. Still, the girl says nothing. It’s not that she doesn’t care. Obviously, she cares. Her cheeks are flushed. Her eyes are glued to the ground. Her posture is defensive and closed up, suggesting that she’s still bewildered and anxious by the moment. After all, she’s alone with the boy she likes. She’s unable to say anything. Kakeru is nevertheless undaunted. He wants to get to know her, so he asks about her likes and interests. What are her hobbies? What does she do when she’s not at school? The girl replies that she helps her mother make dinner. That’s not good enough for Kakeru, but honestly, it wouldn’t be good enough for most of us. So naturally, he presses on. He asks if she has any hobbies. Naho answers that she likes housework. Maybe Naho really does like housework, but she can’t only like housework, right?

Girls like Naho just haven’t found themselves, and more importantly, they haven’t found their voice. But it’s okay, because she’s got her whole life to figure that stuff out. There’s a lot ahead of her. College. Finding a job. Becoming an adult. So yeah, on an intellectual level, I understand where the girl is coming from. By the way, the girl also happens to carry a sewing kit on her at all times. When Suwa loses a button, she eagerly sews it back on for him. Kakeru can’t help but comment that Naho is very motherly. I just wonder what this alternate future holds for the girl. Suppose she manages to save Kakeru’s soul. Then what? Does she marry him instead? Does she have a kid with him instead? Well, we’ll see, won’t we? Anyway, Kakeru eventually confesses that his mother had died. In fact, she died on his first day of school, which is what the letter had tried to warn Naho about. He didn’t miss two weeks of school because he wanted to play hooky. Naho suddenly gains a sense of urgency, so she finally pipes up about the bento box. She also regrets inviting him out that day, but the girl can’t be faulted. How was she supposed to know? As I previously mentioned in last week’s post. the letter itself wasn’t very convincing.

If anything, I just find the whole scenario really peculiar. The letter provides much more details about all of the other regrets in Naho’s life. Why did it skimp out on the most important one? A woman’s life was at stake. When future Naho sent the letter, did she think it would work? Let’s assume she did. I would never write a letter to my past self, because I know it’s fruitless. I know I can’t actually send a letter back in time. But if Naho knew that the letter would somehow reach her teenage self, then why didn’t she try harder to save Kakeru’s mother? Well, let look at the majority of the shoujos that get adapted. What do you often see? The object of the heroine’s affections is almost always someone that she needs to fix. The guy almost always needs her in his life, The guy almost always comes from a broken family, and he needs the heroine’s understanding and sympathy to break through his rough exterior. He only has a rough exterior as a defense mechanism, and only the shoujo truly understands him! In a way, these pretty boys can’t live without the shoujo heroine. Orange simply makes this realization come true. By the end of this week’s episode, Naho will have convinced herself that she needs to save Kakeru’s life. His fate rests solely in her hands.

So I can’t help but imagine that Kakeru’s mother wasn’t saved, because it’s much more important for him to be in pain. There’s a certain way that these shoujo series operate. The goal is to save Kakeru’s life, and that can only happen if he is happy. But he can’t be happy too soon. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have much of a series. The story wouldn’t be as dramatic as it needs to be. I mean, just imagine the guilt on Kakeru’s shoulders. He wasn’t there for his mother’s final moments. He should’ve gone straight home like she wanted, but he didn’t. He probably thinks it’s his fault that she died. He’s going to need a lot of time to get over this trauma. It’s weird, though, because despite everything, ‘m still enjoying Orange. I just can’t help but feel that the troubled pretty boy trope is the shoujo’s counterpart to the women in refrigerators trope. On the surface, it certainly doesn’t appear to be as egregious by comparison. After all, no one’s cruelly mutilated in a ritualistic fashion in shoujo series. But I don’t know, something makes me uneasy about the way we inflict such a heavy amount of emotional pain on these pretty boys just to give these heroines a raison d’etre.

I was gonna start playing through the Kingdom Hearts games, because I’ve honestly never touched any of them before. Why has it taken me so long to touch the series? Well, c’mon. We’re talking about the unholy combination of Disney and Nomura. That sounds terrible on paper. Disgusting. But I’m a stupid dummy who will probably buy Kingdom Hearts 3 when it comes out in fifty bajillion years, so I thought I may as well try to force myself through the first two games. That was the idea, anyway. But now I’m procrastinating. I’m trying to put off playing those games as long as I can. So much so that I’m literally writing this post as a way to procrastinate. It turns out my revulsion to the idea of Kingdom Hearts is so strong, it’s driven me back to blogging. Amazing! 

Unfortunately, it’s been so long since I’ve written a single thing for the blog. So, so long. Seriously, what the fuck did WordPress do to this site. I hate it. But whatever. I’ll write something. Something terrible. But it’s a start. This is like getting back into jogging for the first time in a long time, and as a result, I will be projectile vomiting everywhere. I haven’t even taken a single step, and I’m dry-heaving. And once it starts, it will get everywhere. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. A lot of the words that follow are going to be extremely disorganized. I’m just gonna write whatever comes to my brain. I don’t want to call it stream-of-conscious writing, because that would be an insult to stream-of-conscious writing. I’m just vomiting, dude. Hold my hair and let me throw up. And it’s going to be pretty self-indulgent. The blog itself is self-indulgent. Why the fuck does anyone care what I think about anime? You can quote me on that.

So there are a lot of shows airing in the fall. Way too many to write about. Honestly, I’m too old for this shit. Way too old. When did I start this blog? Back in 2009? Seriously, I’m too old for this shit. It doesn’t even make sense for me to do this anymore. But we can look at this as a new era. A new age for Moe Sucks. These words represent the death throes of the blog. Old and broken man tries to get back into the game, but some Bane analogue will just come by and break me in half. Okay, enough masturbatory nonsense for now. There’s plenty of time for that later. My point is, before I went off on some stupid meta faff, I’m just gonna write about stuff that caught my interest. If anyone is offended that I skipped over generic weeb shit about cute girls doing the latest popular gimmick, then just skip to the bottom and flame me in the comments. Get it over with, y’know? You won’t be the first to insinuate that I’m a homosexual (in not so kind words) because I don’t like your Japanese cartoons, and you won’t be the last.

Okay, so what’s up first?

Garo: Vanishing Line

Honestly, the trailer looks pretty dope. I’m ready to see Garo in a contemporary setting. Let’s fucking go.

But here’s the thing with MAPPA. They first got on my radar with Kids on the Slope. They didn’t produce it by themselves, but hey, credit where credit’s due. I think I wrote a post extolling the series somewhere. After Kids on the Slope, there were some works that I didn’t care about, but Terror in Resonance exploded onto the scene. I loved it. I loved the tone. I loved the story. I loved the characters. I know a lot of people hated the ending. Whatever. I won’t revisit that. I won’t overanalyze why certain things tend to be turn offs for the general public. If I keep blogging long enough, we’ll get to that topic eventually. It’s the fucking elephant in the room, after all. But for now, let’s look on the bright side, which is that, if you’re reading this blog, you’ve likely seen Terror in Resonance. High fucking five, man. You know I sit next to someone who actually helps out with the organization of Fanime every year, and she’s never heard of this show? But that’s a whole ‘nother topic altogether. Point is, Terror in Resonance made me keep an eye on MAPPA.

Then they followed it up with Rage of Bahamut and Garo, two excellent shows in their own right. Well, Rage of Bahamut wasn’t that good, but it was entertaining enough. It’s a single, and MAPPA is still batting pretty well. Unsustainably well. So like all things in this universe, the studio regressed towards the mean. MAPPA is like that guy who used to be a child with brimming potential, but is now stuck in some soul-sucking corporate job> I know, I know. You’re gonna say Yuri on Ice was great, and I’m a philistine for having missed it. But remember, I’m too old for this shit. Three or four years ago, I might have watched everything and anything just to throw some words at the board and call it a new post. Look! Analysis! E Minor with yet another fresh take (read: rote and banal). Honestly, I got to a point where I was really only excited for one or two shows a season, and the rest was just bullshit to fill out the week. Nowadays? I wouldn’t watch that shit. Not in a million years. Not because it’s bad, but because I just don’t give a shit about figure skating and I’m not going to pretend to for 300 odd views. More like ten nowadays since the blog has been dead for so long.

So this is like seeing that kid you’re so disappointed in, but well, at least he isn’t doing heroin. He’s safe. Safe, bland, and totally unambitious, but in a pinch, I guess you can lean on him. Good for you, MAPPA. You could’ve done a lot worse for yourself. I guess. Garo’s a safe bet.

Blend S

The show’s synopsis says that the heroine needs to become an extreme sadist, but the PV is bland as fuck, so I’m mad that I got tricked into watching 51 seconds of some poor voice actress straining her vocal cords to mimic what idiots believe the ideal teenager is supposed to sound like.

Net-juu no Susume

I snorted with derision when the PV abruptly cuts to the love interests, and the super generic jpop blasted in unison. I have the awful feeling that the moral of the story here is to bend this overexpired Christmas cake back into normalcy, which is why her love interest is a tall, handsome, gainfully-employed blond boy. Maybe he plays a female avatar in the game. Oof. You rebel you. But hey, conformity is the name of the game.

I’m rather much more interested in how she can become a NEET and, well, afford everything else. In reality, most NEETs are supported by their families, but I must’ve missed it if there are any parents in that PV. The romance will be played up. The “second life” in that unimaginative net game will dominate a lot of the narrative. What I don’t expect to see is the economic and mental burden of becoming a NEET. I’ll check out a couple episodes to see if the anime even has the balls to address any of that or if it’ll just hand-wave it off somehow.

Houseki no Kuni

The PV doesn’t make the show look all that bad. It actually looks kind of interesting. But this synopsis does the show a disservice:

In the distant future, a new life form called Houseki (gems) are born. The 28 Houseki must fight against the moon dwellers who want to attack them and turn them into decorations, thus each gem is assigned a role such as a fighter or a medic

That is such a terrible synopsis. It’s actually absurdly funny how incredibly literal it is. Words have been used to murder this anime. I have no idea if it’s any good. Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. But the PV at least hints at something that is potentially visually interesting. And yet, we’ve plumb the depths of language to draw out the bluntest cudgel of words possible to absolutely pummel this anime.

Imouto sae Ireba Ii

I don’t want to link the PV. The synopsis says it all, anyway:

The story follows the everyday life of Itsuki, a novelist and “modern day Pygmalion” who works day in and day out to create the ultimate younger sister.

What does it say when a 20 year old adult is still fixated on creating the perfect imouto.

He even looks like an insufferable asshole.

Ousama Game

Kids fucking dying. That’s all I’m here for.

Time for an intermission, because you can feel my regret settling in. You can feel my words running out of energy already. I blew my load on the Garo paragraphs, and now I barely have anything left for these shows. Why did I even start this post? I’m bored and tired now, but I still got a handful of PVs to wade through despite knowing at the back of my mind that most of this schlock will not merit a response. This post even kinda mirrors the blog. I always start out with a lot of drive, but inevitably, that will peter out. Ultimately, I need inspiration from the shows, and they just don’t do it for me. And the rest of the post becomes this painful lurch to the finish line. Hell, if I could just stop writing right now, and pat myself on the back by saying how the sudden end of the post is, like, such a clever imitation of real life. But that’d be stupid. Nevertheless…

Shoujo Shuumatsu Ryokou

It looks and sounds like it won’t have any tension. That’s gonna be a no for me.

Kekkai Sensen & Beyond

I like the show’s music, but honestly, the story is quite unremarkable.

As a quick aside, there’s apparently going to be another season of that cooking shounen. Yep. That’s about all I’ve got to say about that.

That Kino show

There isn’t much I can say from this trailer other than that I’m not terribly impressed by the art direction. It’s been 14 years since the first series aired. Yes, I have little to go on besides a short promotional video. And visuals aren’t everything. But nevertheless, this is a visual medium. People are going to say that the story is what truly matters, but I disagree. Read a book if the story is the only thing that matters. In a visual medium, the visuals become a part of the narrative. It’s not about the show not looking technically impressive. No, it’s not that. It just looks… uninspiring.

Inuyashiki

Here’s MAPPA less safe bet. Due to my biases, I’m a bit apprehensive to watch this show, actually. Where are they going with this? I mean, is it just me or is there a very thin line for MAPPA to tread here? After all, the synopsis spells it out quite clearly that this dude starts off “pathetic” and “disrespected” by his own family. Evidently, something happens to him, and he becomes a robot and you’re not going to disrespect a robot, are you? But let’s get right down to it. The truth is that it’s hard to actually be genuinely apolitical. You can choose to not participate, I suppose. You can choose to stick your fingers in your ears and try as you might to drown out the noise, but even that act alone is a statement. So you’d be hard-pressed to convince me that some old man turning into a hero is not political in its own way, especially within the context of the culture surrounding this anime. And that’s the source of my apprehension. Of all the shows on that will air next season, this show has the greatest potential to disgust me if the moral of the story goes in a certain direction. I realize I’m being a bit coy about what I’m trying to get at. I’m pussyfooting around a bit. Call me gutless if you want. But continuing on, who cares about loli antics anymore? Who cares about some dumb loser in search of yet another imouto-fueled high? Those are all just fetishes. Barely fulfilled fetishes at that. They live in the dark and they’ll die quietly in the dark. The world is not impacted whatsoever by that sort of nonsense. But here, you have the potential for an actual statement, and I’m curious and somewhat reluctant to learn what it might be.

Okay, we’re over 2000 words, and it’s actually so terrible, I don’t wanna go back and proofread any of it. I told you this was going to be a low effort post. What you see is what you get. Ugh. If I didn’t mention a show, it’s because neither its synopsis nor the PV elicited a reaction that I could possibly spin into a horrible mess of words. Don’t do what I just did, kids. Language serves a function. Language is a powerful tool to help us understand the world around us. And I’ve just abused it terribly.

Oh no, the fall season is finally here. That means I have to actually start updating this blog in earnest. After all, I keep saying that I’ll write again. At some point, I actually have do it. Even if it means writing about nonsense like… Shokugeki no Soma. If you wanna be snarky, here, lemme give you ammunition right off the bat: I never finished the first season. In fact, I watched one whole episode from the second season! Yep, I haven’t got the slightest clue what has happened to Yukihira, and honestly, I don’t really care. I’m still going to blog the third season anyway. It’s fine, it’s fiiiiine. It’s gonna be alright. I’ll just write a few words for a few weeks, then stop updating again like I always do. You guys already know the drill. Plus, it’s not as if this show is anything more than softcore foodporn.

Anyways, here’s the obligatory episode summary: Yukihira wants to challenge the Elite 10. What’s the Elite 10? Eh, they’re just shounen fodder. The hero always needs some a challenge to conquer, and the Elite 10 is the latest obstacle to stand in his way. We’ll probably get more background info on each of them as the season progresses, but who cares? Again, I’m just here for the foodporn. Staring at all the delicious foodporn just gets me so fired up that I gotta go take care of it later. Yep. Anyways, in order to even challenge the Elite 10, our boy wonder has to prove himself. I assume his exploits in the first two seasons aren’t enough somehow. Tsk tsk. But our dude is resourceful. He’s clever! He’s ingenious! He thus hatches a plan: if his booth can outsell one of the Elite 10’s booth at the moon festival, they will have to accept his challenge! So it’s like a food challenge anyway. But different. But… same. But… different.

Unfortunately, there’s a dearth of juicy, blood-pumping cooking in this week’s episode. And no juicy cooking means no anime babes inexplicably losing their clothes during a taste test. Alright, time to pack it up, boys… nothing to see here. Oh, I should pretend that I’m here for the articles? Okay, okay. Well, the rest of the episode consists mostly of boring logistical talk. Gosh, where should I set up my booth? What am I gonna cook? What is he gonna cook? Well, y’see, booths set up on main street are blah blah blah, just get back to the food. The opponent is making mapo tofu. Did you know that mapo tofu translates to pockmarked grandma’s beancurd? Mmm, appetizing. I love all things tofu, though. As a result, I love mapo tofu. And damn, I definitely got hungry looking at all the anime mapo tofu in this episode, ’cause all I’ve had today are some frozen meatballs.

The only other thing of note from this week’s episode was this Chinese cuisine research society… The place apparently features only dudes. Bald dudes at that. Bald dudes tossing dry rice in a wok in unison. But their boss has stereotypical spiky hair with blond highlights. It’s… a bit bizarre, but whatever, we all got our kinks. And as an aside, I like Sichuan food. But like I’ve said, other than some mapo tofu, this episode has a dearth of actual cooking. There’s big talk about how spicy the mapo tofu is, but actual cooking details are at an all time low. I imagine they’re saving it for later. Instead, the big orgasmic payoff of the episode is apparently Yukihira’s booth request. It’s gonna be next to his competitor! SHOCK. He’s also going to be cooking Chinese food. DOUBLE SHOCK. I don’t get why everyone’s so surprised. Let’s dispel this fiction once and for all that the Gary Stu protagonist doesn’t know what he’s doing. He knows exactly what he’s doing.

The second show I watched tonight was Black Clover, which is yet another shounen. Sadly, it doesn’t have the thin veneer of cooking to keep my interest. It doesn’t even pretend to have hot animu babes. Hell, the first few minutes of the episode has the protagonist proposing to a nun of all people. A woman of the cloth. Needless to say, he’s a special, precious boy. But this was not a special, precious anime. Asta’s voice is super annoying. Will Ferrell did a character on SNL who couldn’t modulate the volume of his voice. That’s Asta in a nutshell. Not only is he yelling for 90% of the episode, his voice is just plain annoying. Then the bad guy shows up in the stereotypical animu psychotic guy voice, and it’s like having both of my ears fucked by sharp prongs. Near the end of the episode, during Asta’s attempt at heroism, I actually found myself looking up the boxscore for the Nets-Knicks game. A preseason game is more interesting than this generic magic shit. I turned back to the the show just in time to catch some disembodied narrator educating the viewer on how the three-leaf clover represents faith, hope, and love. Uh huh. How the four-leaf clover represents good luck. Oh yeah. That makes sense. And how the five-leaf clover houses… A DEMON.

Welp, I sure am glad I wasted 25 minutes on that bullshit. Onto the next show…

Christ, how much longer is anime gonna keep jerking itself to the warring states period? As long as America keeps pumping out WW2 movies, I guess. This time, however, we don’t even bother setting up the plot. A girl in the present-day tries to walk across the street when the world suddenly freezes around her. Next thing she knows, she’s whisked away to the land of pretty boy warlords. But wait! This ain’t your ordinary Toyotomi Hideyoshi!

Get outta here, crusty old man! I can’t ship you in a my yaoi fanfic! Make room for the new sexy hotness!

VAMPIRES?! Fuck it. I’m done. I almost wrote a thousand works. That’s all you’re gonna get tonight. Bye.

I gotta keep blogging, don’t I? The problem is that I need to write regularly to make it a habit. Otherwise, I’ll just become lazy and drop off the face of the planet again. And for some strange reason, I really wanna keep Moe Sucks going. I’ve no clue why either! Well, that’s not true. I kinda do. The blog reminds me of better days. I sometimes wish I could turn back the clock four or five years and do certain things over. It’s too late for that, but I can always cling to Moe Sucks. Well, that got a bit… personal. Whatever. So here’s a quick roundup of today’s shows. This is cutting into my precious Tactics Ogre time, so I won’t be too long-winded (relatively speaking).

Tsukipro the Animation – Lasted 2:46

Normally, I automatically refuse to watch anything that involves idols. It doesn’t matter if they’re male or female idols. I just don’t care about idols. Well, I wanted to see how long I’d last here, but as you can see, I didn’t get very far.

Having said that, I’m now going to digress a bit and offer a bit of shallow analysis. Nothing that follows should be misconstrued as expert knowledge. I don’t know shit about idols or Asian pop music. With that little disclaimer out of the way, have you ever heard of the concept “premium mediocre?” This excellent blog goes quite in-depth on the idea and what it entails. The reason I’m bringing this up is because the author posits that K-pop is one of the many examples of a “premium mediocre” commodity. I agree. I can admit that certain K-pop music videos are thoroughly entertaining (the first time I see them, anyway), but at the end of the day, I’m still listening to something incredibly mediocre in both spirit and ambition.

Now onto J-pop. Doesn’t it just feel neutered by comparison? If it can’t even be “premium mediocre,” then what is it? Alright, if there are any J-pop defenders out there, tell me how wrong I am and give me examples of entertaining J-pop. It doesn’t matter if it’s good or not. It’s also okay if it’s “premium mediocre.” Just give me something that isn’t as generic sounding as Tsukipro’s shitastic OP. Because that’s one of my primary problems with idol shows. They’re boring, and I don’t give a shit about their cookie-cutter personal dramas, but most of all, the music is just ass, my dudes. Straight-up ass. But maybe there are actual gems out there that just doesn’t make its way into anime. So if they exist, what are they?

Konohana Kitan – Lasted 2:31

Slice of life shit. Hard swerve. Usually, an OP will do a good job at setting the tone. I saw nothing but cute, smiling girls doing boring nonsense. Yes, I’m being dismissive. Being dismissive lets me save a lot of time and get back to playing video games.

URAHARA – Lasted 3:15

The animation’s ass, my dudes. Also, more cute girl trash. Sigh.

Juuni Taisen – I finally watched the entire episode

But it was pretty boring. I paused at one point to check ESPN.com. More preseason NBA games to scope out! I paused again to check my bank account. Shrug, gotta budget for the weekend. I paused a third and final time to pet my cat. Sometimes baby girl just needs some attention. I eventually pressed myself to finish the episode, but I got nothing out of it. The basic gist is that twelve warriors — based on the Chinese zodiac — have twelve hours to compete in a winner-takes-all battle royale. The winner “will be granted any one wish of their choosing.” Any? But for real though, any wish? Don’t think too hard about it. There’s no point. The show seems pretty dumb right from the get-go. If it has some deeper meaning to convey, it certainly didn’t have the foresight to hint at it in the first episode.

Instead, we get an uninspired vignette about how Boar came to participate in the tournament. Typical psycho girl is psycho. I’m not even going to bother deconstructing her motivations, ’cause it’s threadbare. Plus, I’m supposed to believe that she’s spent her whole life training to kill, but she couldn’t even detect a reanimated corpse sneaking up on her? Blame it on hubris, if you want. But everything about the anime strikes me as cheap and trashy. The character designs, the setup, the violence, the action, so on and so forth. Boar is a nasty, brutish character, and she died a nasty, brutish death. And now we have 10 more people to kill. I might check out a couple more episodes just to see if the characters are at least interesting now that I don’t have to listen to Boar anymore (fingers crossed), but I’m not going to get my hopes up.

Alright, guys, I do think that about does it. I’ve checked out seven shows thus far, and it’s looking pretty damn bleak. But then again, I guess we saw that coming, didn’t we.

Our Tokyo public schools have become a dumping ground for everybody else’s problems. It’s true, it’s true. When the boonies send their people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems to us. They’re bringing sick, nasty games. They’re serial killers. They’re going to NTR you. And some, I assume, are good people.

Just Because!

Here’s another show that looks like ass. In fact, Just Because!’s production values are barely scraping the bottom of the barrel. Just look at this screenshot. I didn’t even cherry-pick this frame from an action sequence. He’s just standing there, waiting for a pitch, and the perspective, proportions — everything — it’s just all wrong. Luckily, the anime doesn’t have the type of story that really demands any sort of visual fidelity. One of the main characters bumps into the transfer student, and describes the latter as a sleepy-looking student. That’s also an apt description for the anime. These kids are about to make the biggest transition in their lives. They’re literally on the cusp of childhood, and yet, everyone’s just going through the motions. Maybe that’s the point. Maybe something about their lives has lost its youthful exuberance, and the Eita’s sudden interjection is the catalyst that all five kids — Eita included — sorely needs. But that’s not exactly a killer premise, is it?

Well… the show didn’t really hook me, but I could still kinda relate to it. I can kinda empathize with Eita a bit as he reminisces. It’s funny how easily bonds break as soon as people stop bumping into each other regularly. It’s almost as if proximity was the only reason why the friendship existed in the first place. I experienced this after graduating from high school. I haven’t spoken to my high school best friend since… well, high school. And hell, I’m experiencing this now. I spent two years in one department, then switched to another one just recently. Mind you, I’m still in the same company. Nevertheless, I quickly lost half of the friends I had made in the previous department. In a way, I suppose those people were never really my friends to begin with. So you can look at this week’s episode in two ways. On the one hand, it’s remarkable how old buddies can just seamlessly transition back to the way things were. You wouldn’t hug and dance with a stranger, would you? But on the other hand, where was Haruto the last few years? Doesn’t it seem that — once again — proximity is the only reason why they’re even friends again?

Ousama Game

Oh boy… shows like Ousama Game are like junk food. They seem so damn tantalizing at the start, don’t they? Who’s the King? And how is he killing all of these people? Why is he killing all of these people? Who’s going to survive? Oh man, did you see that kid just explode in a fountain of blood? I can’t wait to see the next person die! The animation here is pretty bad, but hey, BLOOD! Annoying kids getting their comeuppance! It’s all fun and games for now. You’ve got some tension, some mystery, and some cheaply animated deaths. And the King seems like a pervert, so sex might even be on the table!

Basically, to extend the junk food comparison even further, the show is like a chicken nugget. It ain’t 3-Michelin star food, but it’s still tasty. I’d never order chicken nuggets anymore, but meh, if you gave me some free tendies, I’d eat them. Shouldn’t waste food, my dudes. But of course, I know junk food is bad for me. Not only that, junk food often becomes disgusting when you learn how it’s made or what goes into it. Like, y’know, chicken nuggets. And before you say tendies are not so bad, look up chicken farms and their conditions. Mm-mmm, doesn’t it just get the appetite going?

But moving along, shows like Ousama Game are the same way. The truth is that you never really wanna know how a chicken nugget is made. And likewise, you don’t really want to know how the universe of Ousama Game truly works. You’re deathly curious, of course! I am too! I’ll admit it! But if experience has taught us anything, it’s that the reveal is never ever worth it. And maybe Ousama Game never has the big, momentous reveal. Who knows? I mean, I’ve never read the original cell novel that this is apparently based on. But if the reveal never comes — or even small, tiny revelations along the way — then the audience will eventually lose interest.

After all, you can’t eat chicken nuggets everyday — some fucker out there is like “Just watch me!” — because the body eventually cries out for actual substance. It’s the same way here. If Ousama Game is nothing but cheap deaths and tawdry attempts to make oh-so-pure high school kids do lewd stuff, then your brain will eventually cry out for mental substance. I suspect the show is between a rock and a hard place. Show its hand and lose the magic? Or milk as much money as it can before fans move onto the next silly gimmick. Does anyone still remember BTOOOM? Anyone remember all the flood of “OH NO WE’RE TRAPPED IN A GAME, BUT YOU CAN ACTUALLY DIE” anime series?

Ah well. I do like that the class called our hero out for being a piece of shit. I hope later episodes don’t try to justify his actions, i.e. “I didn’t want to kiss her, because it would officially start the game!” Then again, it does seem as though that’s exactly what happened. But we’ll see.

I guess I’ll blog this weekly. I was looking forward to Garo, but I guess there aren’t English subs for it yet? No matter. It’ll happen eventually. And I know some readers wanted me to write about Kino’s Journey, but all in due time. It’s a Friday night, so gimme a break. I also got Blade Runner 2049 to watch, so I don’t have all night to watch anime. As a result, I choose this romantic comedy about a 30-year-old corporate drop-out, who — in her own words — chose the NEET life. Why am I blogging this show? I’ve spent too much of my formerly young life in the world of MMOs. Way, way too much. So when I see a show about MMOs, I just can’t help myself. Plus, there’s romance in it. Plus, the woman is about my age! Yes, I’m old now, but enough about that! Loose thoughts and impressions ahead.

— Okay, okay, she chose this NEET life, but did she really have to call the rest of them schmucks? They have it bad enough as it is.

— Moriko jumps right into the MMO poopsocking life. Why did she quit? How is she going to support herself? What will her family and friends (if she has any) think of her decision? I assume all of those questions will be answered in due time. I’m not criticizing the anime for withholding these crucial bits of information now, but it’s important to keep them in mind. The story should eventually answer these questions. I especially want to know how she intends to keep her apartment without a job. Why? Well, most NEETs are supported their parents. Most NEETs are young people. She’s not exactly old at 30, but I assume her parents didn’t exactly expect to have to suddenly support someone who — up until now — was a gainfully employed adult. But it’s not enough to just answer the question. It better answer the question well. I don’t want it swept under the rug, i.e. “Oh, she has some savings.” I feel as though the story won’t have any legitimacy if it brushes the question aside.

— When I see Fruits de Mer, I think of a plateau of fruits de mer. Y’know, seafood. Not an MMO where you fight cute hamsters in dark dungeons.

— Moriko’s playing as a man… but she’s… but he… oh!

— My suspension of disbelief took a hit when Moriko meets the cute in-game avatar, and they both decide to go on a stroll. I’ve never gone on a stroll in an MMO. Maybe times have changed. After all, I haven’t played an MMO in over two years. But from what I can remember, these were the two things anyone would ever do: 1) idle in a safe place, 2) run and/or jump around in a safe place, or 3) only ever move in order to accomplish something. I have literally never strolled. Yes, I’ve explored MMO worlds, but again, that’s still different from strolling. It may seem like I’m nitpicking, but if you’re going for authenticity, the show made this former avid MMO gamer raise an eyebrow or two.

— And they have conversations like “This MMO is so beautiful, and it lets us meet new people, even a chance meeting is due to fate, and and and…” C’mon, this sounds more like an essay in defense of MMO games, not an actual conversation between two internet strangers.

— Like most stories centered around MMOs, the anime is definitely romanticizing the hell out of the idea of online interpersonal relationships. And don’t get me wrong, I’m not a disbeliever. I even met a girl in an MMO, and we had a great relationship. But even then, I wouldn’t blow this much smoke up someone’s ass about online love.

— It’s not so much unrealistic as it is… inauthentic, if that makes any sense. I don’t care if the scenario seems unlikely. The part that bothers me is that it’s exaggerated and it’s exaggerated in that bad anime sort of way. It’s the way anime puts a saccharine sheen on everything it touches. It’s the way anime romanticize Paris as this perfect Western city full of romance and sophistication and croissants.

— That is one buff-ass ratman. Goddamn.

— The level-up animation in this game is a golden fart cloud. Okay.

— Apparently, Moriko is not a very experienced gamer. Once she hits level 8, her newfound MMO buddy suggests that she’s finally ready to face the boss. The boss is apparently the same golden rat that had been kicking Moriko’s ass earlier on. I thought it was just some random mob, but nope, it was a boss. Why any MMO gamer would tackle a boss without grinding, I’ll never know.

— Another MMO suspension of disbelief thing: even after hitting level 8, Moriko’s avatar is still wearing the same armor that it started out with. She now has a short sword and round shield, but c’mon, son.

— “Leave the healing to me,” said the character who looks like a healer. I mean, I thought I could heal up by poking myself with a sword, but I guess that works too.

— “My wounds are healing right before my eyes…” No MMO player would say that.

— No MMO player would promise to wear shit gear forever, but I guess it’s okay if you can transmogrify.

— A corny scene follows in which Lily — I finally learned “her” name — finds herself in Moriko’s avatar’s arms. I mean, if you wanna do this sorta shit, why not make it a VR MMO. I can at least buy it in that case. But in a regular MMO, this is the sort of inauthentic sheen that anime vomits on everything.

— We also get these scenes because they’re the sort of generic nonsense you come to expect of half-assed romances. It’s not actually MMO-specific, which is a problem. A romance in the MMO world is probably just two people sitting in town privately chatting each other. There’s a lot of talking — some flirting, maybe — but a lot of talking. It’s almost nice to have a conversation without the awkwardness the oftentimes goes hand-in-hand with physical presence of the other person. Two minds can just bond. Physical intimacy is not erased but merely deferred. You’ll eventually have to cross that threshold some day if you ever decide to meet your online lover in real life. My point is… an online romance has to be portrayed differently. It shouldn’t be the same as regular romances. It shouldn’t be full of typical — dare I say — normie moments like when the characters find themselves silent in each other’s arms, eyes locked, cheeks blushing, hearts thumping. No, no, no. You have to talk. You have to win each other with just talk. You have to capture what it’s like for two minds to fall in love by merely talking to one another. If you want an example of what I’m talking about, look up the movie Her.

— Moriko is Hayashi. Some dude is Lily. It’s gonna be a pain in the ass to keep referring to them with two sets of names.

— How did she afford such a nice rig? At least she’s saving money by keeping the lights off. A-plus on the unnecessary frills on her keyboard. I bet it’s even a mechanical keyboard. Y’know, even if I can afford one, I just can’t stand the idea of paying that much for a keyboard.

— Oh hey, more online friends. And you can make a fat avatar. How quaint.

— These guys seem nice. Lily is down because Hayashi’s been avoiding her. So their guildmates are getting to the bottom of it. It’s been so long since I’ve been in a guild, I can’t remember at all if they can be this… proactive about tackling such a non-gaming problem. If everyone had become close friends, then sure… after all, Hayashi is now level 80, so perhaps quite a bit of time has passed. It’s hard to get a sense of the level of intimacy from the little we’ve seen, though. Sitting and drinking MMO alcohol makes it all the more difficult to gauge. Like what is that? Hey, we go to taverns to RP dirty shit, okay? No one drinks!

— Hayashi’s only been avoiding her, because he’s trying to get a rare drop to give to Lily as a Christmas present. Moriko’s a dork.

— MMO nitpick: if a drop can’t be bought, it’s usually bind to the person who receives it. If you can get the drop, then trade it to someone as a gift… then it can be bought. Hell, you can technically buy items that bind to you as well. Just hire mercenaries to help with the quest.

— “I asked Kanbe-san where you might be.” I guess this MMO’s friend list doesn’t actually tell you where your friends are… like every other MMO ever. Inauthenticity…

— Lily does that generic romance shit where Hayashi is about to tell her why he’s been MIA recently, but she just can’t help herself by asking, “Am I getting in your way…?” Oh, love and its myriad misunderstandings! Lame.

— Back in the real world, Moriko opens her fridge to find it empty. So she drags herself to the nearest combini and gripes at all the couples she sees there. Gosh. You’d think a burgeoning online romance would soften her heart.

— In an attempt to buy the last depressing piece of fried chicken, Moriko locks eyes with a cute, bespectacled guy. Oh, is that our Lily?! Of course it is. I don’t know why the show is so transparent about it. Why not make it a big plot twist? But even without reading the source material, which I haven’t touched whatsoever, you just know who Lily really is.

— Yooooo, that looks nothing like the crystal rose I thought you were gonna get. Did you wuss out on the quest?! But Lily likes it, so I guess that’s all that matters.

Well, that’s the end of the episode. It’s not shaping up to be a great anime, but I still drew some fun from watching it by comparing it to my own experiences with the genre.

Nevertheless, first episode leaves me wanting. Moriko seems to jump wholeheartedly into this relationship with Lily, but she’s a grown woman. I have to assume she’s not dumb. I have to assume she’s not naive. So how does she really feel about this relationship? Does it fill a gap in her heart? Is it just a casual, no-strings-attached online fling? Or does she really want something more? Why go to such great efforts for a fling? Why go to such efforts when it seems like neither of them have even discussed anything about their actual lives? The anime would rather go for laughs instead of introspection, but you can do both. Simply put, the first episode lacks that extra something that would make this more than just another dumb romantic comedy.

“There’s never an end to Horrors here,” Sword says shortly after taking one out in the middle of a bustling metropolis. He had to transform in order to defeat the latest threat, leaving behind a smouldering bridge in his wake. In the early morning, the city has finally responded. After all, someone had to put out the fire. Someone will have to rebuild that bridge. But this isn’t the first Horror to attack the city, is it? Not only that, we saw this huge monster tearing through the streets, eating at least one victim in plain sight. In this day and age, that shit would be all over the news. No, not just the news. It would be all over social media. Youtube. Twitter. Instagram. I hope that’s what we see in next week’s episode. I hope society at large — using whatever platform possible — is going, “What the fuck was that?” Otherwise, this setting just won’t make sense to me.

I can give the first episode a pass, because it is the establishing episode. You establish the main characters, and you establish the premise. Sword is the badass, boobs-ogling, bike-riding Makai Knight of the 21st century. Sophie is, at this point in time, the innocent maiden, but I hope she can kick some ass later. And we’ve got monsters to kill. Horrors haven’t fundamentally changed much. They’re still the manifestation of humanity’s sins. But I wish the writers had done a better job establishing the setting. Utilizing a contemporary is more than merely changing the battlefield location. It’s more than just replacing our hero’s trusty steed with gnarly bike. You have to capture the essence of what it means to be in the 21st century. I just can’t get my mind around the idea that there isn’t any sort of public freakout.

In the first Garo anime, the world was pretty destitute. Outside of the major cities, people lived miserable, wretched lives. They were also isolated from each other. So a few peasants go missing… is the regional lord really going to raise an army over that? On the other hand, if the city doesn’t mount any sort of credible police or military force against rampaging, man-eating monsters of the night in Vanishing Line, I’m going to be sorely disappointed. Don’t just give me a list of missing girls. Again, we’ll see what happens. Time will tell how the rest of the series handles the contemporary setting. Maybe Sword will find himself in the classic modern-day hero dilemma where he is stuck between two sides: the nightmarish Horrors and a faceless police force that doesn’t trust a vigilante hero who comes and goes as he pleases. Don’t let me down, MAPPA.

Some other loose thoughts and observations:

— The action is very herky-jerky thus far. We’ve come a long way since the first Garo series, but I would still like to get a better look at all the combat.

— We’re obsessed with boobs, aren’t we? The nameless victim at the start of the episode (did she ever get saved?) has her breasts prominently featured. Even the monster has boobs? Sword ogles the girl he picks up later. He ogles the waitress at the diner. God, don’t tell me this will be a thing for the rest of the series.

— Where is this city, anyway? Is it somewhere in America?

— When Sophie goes into the online world, I got vaporwave vibes. I wonder if this choice actually means anything.

— Then when she goes to see the Moon Wizard, the cityscape changes again. Where is she now? Is this some Disney-ish replica of a European side street in the middle of a modern metropolis?

— The Moon Wizard’s dwelling is also anachronistic. I feel like the candle wax would just drip from the ceiling and make a terrible mess.

— Funny thing… El Dorado used to refer to just a man. Then it become a mythical city of riches. I wonder what it’s going to be in this series.

— Goofy.

— I guess this is supposed to be a creepy moment, but dolls don’t really do it for me. Does the Horror turn his victims into dolls or what? There’s very little storytelling in this first episode. I’m actually reminded of the scene in It when one of the kids stumble into a room filled with clown dolls.

— Goofy again.

— A E S T H E T I C S

— Such a badass.

— What is that? Fries with… mashed potatoes?

— Meanwhile, Sword is feasting on a hunk of meat that couldn’t have come from any cow. Along with that mountain of french fries and tomato-flavored sugar sauce, I’m sure he’ll have a find time shitting it all out later.

— I think Sword does manage to keep his promise. Too bad some innocent dude still ended up being eaten. I couldn’t help but think of the Joker’s first conversation with Batman in The Dark Knight: “I wanted to see what you’d do… and you didn’t disappoint. You let 5 people die.”

— The climax was a bit perfunctory, and not really that interesting to me. I’m just eager for the rest of the story to get started.

I’m still trying to feel things out, gauging whether or not any of these shows could keep my interest for the next three months. I have a handful of shows that I’ll definitely follow all the way to the end of the season, but I’ll keep doing these multi-anime posts until I’m all caught up.

Mahoutsukai no Yome Ep. 1

I’m pretty sketched out, dudes. Once again, we have a tiny, waifish girl paired with a ginormous man who sounds like he’s well into this 40s. He’s also very… “assertive.” That’s putting it nicely. Elias tells Chise to stand tall, but one of the first things he does is tug her by her chain-link leash. Right off the bat, I’m cringing. He then refers to her as a puppy, which is just a fitting pet name, don’t you think? It even comes with a torrent of patronizing head pats. I would do a shot of whiskey every time she gets a head pat until the end of the series, but I fear for my liver. After buying another human being, Elias whisks his purchase away to an idyllic and rustic home on the outskirts of London, where he forcefully bathes her against her wishes. Isn’t that what we do with dogs, though? Sure. At the same time, however, I also wouldn’t marry my puppy. Yes, by the end of the episode, the mage reveals to the former slave girl that she is to become his bride. Yeah…

So what’s going on here? Why would anyone in Chise’s position accept this treatment? Well, the line of consent is super murky here. Chise is technically okay with all of this, but that’s a bit misleading. It’s like having to choose between being shot in the leg or being shot in the head. Yes, I’d much rather like to live, thank you very much. But could you please not shoot me at all? But that’s the predicament that Chise finds herself in. After all, the poor girl willingly sold herself to slavery. Her previous life sucked so much, everything else must necessarily be roses by comparison. So the girl doesn’t mind the fact that she may very well be nothing more than a toy to her newfound benefactor. And even though being stripped naked might be traumatizing to any other person — male or female — Chise suffers nothing more than a bratty whimper of defeat here. She’s loyal to Elias simply because he calls her family and gives her a home. The sense of belonging is what makes the line of consent so murky.

Let me go on a bit of a tangent. Third world countries are suddenly facing accelerating obesity rates thanks to the proliferation of both fast food and junk food. In Brazil, Nestle seems to have dug its claws into the community. Likewise, lots of Ghanaians find themselves eating at KFC more than three times a week. Some of them even go every single day. When an older lady died due to health issues related to her high blood pressure, what did they serve at her funeral? Fried chicken. Now, fried chicken’s not fucking good for you. You know it. I know it. Deep down, these people know it too. But you know what’s worse than fried chicken everyday? Not having food. So I get it. Again, when faced with being shot in the leg or in the head, nobody would opt for the latter. But there’s a problem when Yum! Brands, KFC’s parent company, shamelessly claim that fried chicken can be part of a healthy diet:

When asked if it is unhealthy for people to eat fried chicken often, Kimberly Morgan, a KFC spokeswoman in Plano, Texas, said, “At KFC, we’re proud of our world famous, freshly in-store prepared fried chicken and believe it can be enjoyed as a part of a balanced diet and healthy lifestyle.”

I don’t know much about Chise’s backstory yet. I just get the sense that it sucks. So to be clear, the poor girl clinging to any sort of happiness that she can find isn’t what’s sketching me out. Rather, I find it off-putting that anyone can frame Elias’s behavior in a positive light. It certainly feels as though that’s the direction that we’re headed, though. Chise’s new situation is not good. It’s unequivocally not. It’s comparatively better than what she had previously, but again, I’d rather not get shot in the head, y’know. Don’t get it twisted.

As a quick aside, I think the OP and ED are decent.

Code Realize – Sousei no Himegimi Ep. 1

Oh look, another show set in and around London. It’s also yet another show about a girl with little to no self-esteem. On the one hand, Cardia’s early relationship with Arsene Lupin (he’s also here to steal hearts) doesn’t bug me as much as the one between Chise and Elias. On the other hand, Cardia seems kinda dumb, and that’s putting it lightly. She has two gimmicks. First, her touch can cause almost anything to rot or dissolve. Luckily, her clothes is made out of Special Stuff™, so the poor girl never has to walk around naked. Likewise, her hair is impervious to her matter-destroying inclinations. We wouldn’t her to be bald, would we? I mean, low self-esteem is A-OK, but bald? Um hello, we have beauty standards to conform to! Last but not least, the stuff that’s floating around in the air doesn’t react with her skin whatsoever… I guess that’s stuff is fine, too. After all, it’s anime. If you don’t see it, clearly it doesn’t exist! Cardia also assures us that she can safely sleep in any regular bed as long as she lies on her back. What if she tosses and turns in her bed? Never. She sleeps like a log.

Why am I going on and on about Cardia’s melty powers? ‘Cause it’s really the only thing worth talking about. Her second gimmick are the family jewels on her breasts. Literally on her breasts. They’re also known as the Holo-whatsit… I can’t be assed to learn its proper name, because I don’t care, and you don’t either. All we need to know is that baddies are after them. This is why Arsene Lupin and his crew of equally hot boys have gone to such lengths in order to wrest Cardia away from the shadowy powers lurking behind the British government. But nothing here remotely interests me nor do I really care all that much about Cardia herself. Again, beyond her gimmick, she has little to offer, and the rest of the anime seems to follow suit. As much as it might sketch me out, I’ll likely blog Mahoutsukai no Yome all the way to the end of the season, because at least it seems interesting. Nothing is worse than being completely dull and unremarkable.

Dies Irae Ep. 0

Yeah, uh, I kinda drifted off halfway through. The cold opening kinda caught my attention with the over-the-top floating palace-thingy made out of skeletons. But it was all downhill from there. Too many faces talking about God knows what. Some individuals started fighting midway through the episode, but by then, I had already given up on the idea of pretending I gave a shit. Yeah, I’m not going to follow this week in and week out. Other industrious bloggers can take up this responsibility instead. More importantly, I need to stop taking anime recommendations from Twitter.

Kekkai Sensen & Beyond Ep. 1

Like the first season, the second run of Kekkai Sensen appears to have a great soundtrack. I usually just tune out the background music in other shows. Well, most of it anyway. The little that I do hear is quickly forgotten as soon as the episode is over. It may as well not be there… which is completely not true at all. If a show literally lacks background music, the absence would be all too conspicuous. The viewing experience feels empty even if the missing music would’ve just been forgotten anyway. Oh well. Enough about that. My point is that Kekkai Sensen has music I actually don’t mind listening to. It actually has music that I can kinda recall even after I’ve stopped bothering with anime for the rest of the day.

I just wish I could say the same about the story. Kekkai Sensen is not a bad anime. It’s a fun treat. The show’s full of energy, and I’m never bored. None of the characters are really obnoxious, and visually, it’s a huge step up from the average series. Nothing mind-blowing, but Bones has actually put effort into the framing and composition of every single scene. But despite all of that, nothing plotwise ever lingers when a Kekkai Sensen episode is all said and done. It’s not an anime that makes you look back and ruminate, which is a shame. I’ll enjoy watching the second season as much as the first one, but I doubt I’ll have much to say about it.

Kino’s Journey (2017) Ep. 1

Yeah, I wasn’t excited about this series going into the fall season, and the first episode doesn’t change my mind. First, the animation is competent, but uninspiring. There’s not much to look at. Scenes are composed rather straightforwardly, and I found the whole thing visually dull. With that out of the way, I bet I’ll catch some flak for my next point of criticism.

The story is arguing semantics. Kino visits a country where killing is not prohibited, but as we come to find out, it’s also not permitted. Um, okay. So instead of The Law stopping bad guys in their tracks, the people will take matters into their own hands and fulfill this civic need. But the problem is that I don’t trust the general public to mete out punishment, especially when death is a probable outcome. Oh, we’re not just talking about any plain ol’ death, mind you. We’re talking about an old man publicly executing a man in broad daylight. Even putting aside the fact that this is heinously barbaric — I mean, what do the parents tell the kids? “Hey guys, we’re gonna gut a motherfucker, so keep yourselves indoor until we’re done” — why should I trust this society not to collapse under the weight of its own mob mentality?

The fact is, murder is not strictly prohibited in any country. We just don’t trust any Joe Schmoe to carry it out (this may or may not be the case depending on where you’re from). But don’t kid yourself. If someone poses a serious enough threat, certain individuals are more than permitted to take a life. This is the truth in practically every sovereign nation on this planet. The problem, however, is that we can’t even trust our law enforcement officials to perform these duties correctly. So I’m supposed to turn around and believe that the general public — our very own friends and neighbors — can do the same job but better? C’mon, would you trust me with a man’s life? Nevertheless, Kino rides off after his brief 3-day stay. He bumps into a man who wishes to settle down somewhere safe to which our hero cheerfully remarks that he knows just the place. I guess they do assemble a mean stack of crepes.

Alright, that’s enough for tonight. More impressions tomorrow until I’ve seen anything worth watching at least once. Let me know what I’ve missed that you really, really think I should really cover. Note: I will not watch anything with idols.

Sorry for the mediocre post today. I got distracted by work-related stuff. Plus, I’m really craving black pepper pork buns now…

Evil or Live Ep. 1

Subtlety is overrated. I don’t mind at all that the anime is incredibly blunt and one-sided in its portrayal of youth “re-education” facilities. Hell, in our day and age, if a rehab program requires you to go live on some campus in the middle of nowhere, you should regard it with a heavy dose of skepticism. Nah, I’m being too nice. You should basically run as far away as you can. There’s a recent story in the US about men being sentenced to what is essentially slave labor at chicken plants. Ah, but y’see, it’s all part of an effort to rehabilitate these druggies (assuming they weren’t erroneously convicted)! So it’s totally okay if we force them to work without pay, then steal their worker’s comp when they inevitably injure themselves in horrible conditions. I don’t even wanna get into the camps that think they can “pray the gay away.” Anyways, I’m getting off-topic. The point is, I’ve heard enough horror stories about these places.

So again, the lack of subtlety doesn’t bother me. Internet addiction is a real thing, and I know it’s bad. The anime exaggerates it a bit, but anime exaggerates everything. I also know these youth programs are not always on the up and up. Nevertheless, lacking subtlety doesn’t necessarily mean you also have to lack complexity. It doesn’t mean an unsubtle story can’t also by intricately crafted. This is my biggest issue with Evil or Live thus far. It just seems very simple and straightforward in its execution from the plot all the way down to the individual characters. Look, there are these kids who have internet addictions. We’re going to throw them into an evil corrections facility, and beat the shit out of them. Okay… is there a bigger point to this or what? Well so far, I haven’t met a single character that makes me go, “Hm, what’s up with them?” Not even Shin even though he’s obviously up to something. Their personalities are just so generic and cookie-cutter.

It also bugs me every time these shows try to portray the parents in a sympathetic light. Aw, poor Hibiki’s mother. All he did was yell at her when she was trying to parent. No wonder she turned to a re-education program to try and save him from his internet addiction! Puh-leeze. She had 17 years to be a proper parent, and now that she’s failed, I guess it’s just time to throw your hands up in the air and give up your parental duties to someone else! The blame is not all on her, of course. But kids don’t just go rotten in a couple of days. The warning signs were probably there, and it’s likely she didn’t notice them or chose to do nothing. Sending your kid away is nothing short of monstrous. These kids obviously have issues. The people running these camps also have a sick lust for authoritarianism. But what about these shit parents? Sadly, this is an angle that often gets brushed aside in these stories.

Shokugeki no Soma S3 Ep. 2

Boring episode, so I don’t really have too much to say. We get to see Soma go through the motions of setting up his booth, figuring out what he’s going to make, so on and so forth. Some B-tier characters also do their own thing, and by the end of the episode, they all converge on the Moon Festival. The outrageously extravagant Moon Festival, mind you. Hopefully, they can wrap this part of the story up by next week’s episode. I’m already eager to move on. But remember, if Soma’s booth fails to make a profit, he’ll be expelled!

This is sadly such an empty threat, because why would Soma ever fail? As a cooking show, the anime can sometimes be amusing. But as a shounen, it has little to no tension, and thus none of the hype. How can I get excited for any of the showdowns? The stakes are technically high. These characters can technically get expelled. But has there ever been a moment in which I was actually scared for the characters? Or even nervous for them? No.

Also, I gotta say something about the “foodporn” in this anime. At this point, the over-the-top orgasmic reactions are whatever. Now that we’re onto the third season, I’m pretty desensitized by it. On the other hand, I’m still kinda grossed out every time I see buckets of meat juices fly out every time someone takes a bite. Soma cooks up a bunch of black pepper buns for his booth, and I love black pepper buns. But even then, I’d cringe at the idea of splattering my face in pork gravy. Ah well. I need to go find some black pepper buns in San Francisco.

Juuni Taisen Ep. 2

Way too much exposition, my man. Way, way too much. The previous episode was dominated by voiceovers, but I said to myself, “Okay, fine, it’s the first episode. They’re setting up the story. I hate it, but I’ll ignore it for now.” This week, we’re still inundated by voiceovers. Maybe even more. At one point, we get to hear Dog’s thoughts as Chicken is talking at him. How sweet is that?

I essentially sat through a 24 min episode about a battle royale in which — get this — there was no actual combat. Instead, I got one exposition dump one after the other. Backstories for terrible, unlikeable characters, and scouting reports detailing fighting abilities that I could’ve seen with my own two eyes. Seriously. I don’t wanna level the “show, not tell” criticism anymore. It’s so elementary at this point. A professional studio should know this very simple cardinal rule. Yes, some rules can be broken, but only if you already know how to craft a competent story in the first place. Sigh, what a failure of imagination.

Also, another chump dies in an all-too-chump way. That’s twice in a row now. Is anyone actually going to go down in a blaze of glory? Is anyone actually going to be defeated after a long and impressive duel? Probably. But I’ll also probably have run out of patience with the anime by then. Yeah, I think I’m gonna throw the towel in on this anime. I never expected it to be good, but I also expected action. If I’m going to get an exposition dump every episode, then I’ll have to pass.

Hmm. Hmmmm. Sorry, I’m just at a loss for words. Well, not really. Here comes a bunch of words about the episode. Upon first impression, however, I have to admit the anime left me in an odd place. Inuyashiki is certainly different. It’s not often that an anime protagonist is a 58-year-old man with the charisma of a tin can. Shortly after being diagnosed with terminal stomach cancer, Ichiro tries to deliver the bad news to his family. He’s a very meek man, though. He’s incredibly soft-spoken and passive. He might look like he’s pushing 80, but when I first heard him speak, I thought I was listening to a kid. And for a variety of reasons — some his fault, some not — Ichiro’s a huge disappointment to his children. Hell, he can’t even tell his own wife that he has skin cancer. But I can’t blame her. She asks him point blank, “What? Is there something you want to say?” And if you think her words seem harsh, watch the episode. She doesn’t sound uncaring. She simply sounds like a mildly annoyed wife, and who wouldn’t be in her position? She just had to clean up dog shit. On the other hand, he needs to speak up, but he just runs away. I suspect this is not new behavior. I suspect Ichiro has often run or shy away from difficult situations.

I guess what I’m saying is I don’t pity Ichiro that much. After failing to talk to his own wife about a very serious and necessary subject — for Christ’s sakes, man, you are going to die in three months! — he runs off into the night, sobbing to his dog because he doesn’t believe his family would even cry for him. He might be right… but still… Look, terminal cancer sucks. Your children not respecting you sucks. But people can’t read minds. And if you’re this passive, then what do you expect? No one deserves respect simply because they’re old. Therein lies the issue. I don’t automatically venerate the elderly. Blasphemy, I know, but in my eyes, respect has to be earned. That doesn’t mean I think we should disrespect people until they prove themselves, but hey, if you people treat you as though you don’t matter, maybe it’s because you act like you don’t matter. Don’t like that? Then do something about it. And the truth is, by being meek and passive — by running away from his problems — Ichiro is the one who dehumanizes himself. By not being assertive, by not asking for what he wants, by not having self-respect, he dehumanizes himself long before the aliens ever could.

Oh yeah, the aliens. So uh, it’s not clear what the aliens are doing on and around Earth, but they accidentally kill Ichiro and some kid. Well, let’s unfuck the situation and just restore those two back to life. Unfortunately, they don’t have organic matter on hand. They simply have weapon parts. As a result, our protagonist comes back to life as a robot. A very dangerous robot. So we get the usual “What am I? I’m a monsteeeeeeeerrrrrrr!” schtick. Ichiro no longer has to worry about stomach cancer nor does it appear he ever has to eat organic food again (maybe he’ll still need to “refuel” in some other capacity). On the other hand, he laments the fact that he’s unable to cry even though he’s sad, and he blames it on the fact that he’s no longer strictly human. But when he runs into a bunch of punk kids picking on some former vagrant — the man’s apparently not homeless anymore because he’s managed to rent an apartment — Ichiro springs into action. Very specific action. After driving them away with a pretty laser show, he somehow uploads a video of these kids being sociopaths, and IDs them to the rest of the country. That’s some superpower, alright. It’s not entirely clear who’s in control. I don’t think Ichiro’s the one who did all of that, but yeah… More importantly, the good deed of merely stepping in allows the old man to suddenly be able to cry as if he’s still human.

But that’s curious, isn’t it? Why would a robot need to cry? And why couldn’t he cry before? Well, the first question is unnecessary if you really think about it. Why would a robot need to human skin? In order to look human, duh. So why would a robot need to cry? In order to feel human. So like a lot of stories involving human-like robots, androids, replicants, and what have you, it’s as if Inuyashiki is trying to say that it doesn’t really matter what you’re made of on the inside. You can still have personhood. Conversely, those kids might be made of fleshy matter, but they’re clearly monsters. They have no regard for another living being, so who’s to say they’re human at all? And the reason Ichiro can cry at the end is because he’s finally earning it. He didn’t just walk away. He’s actually doing something. And when you perform a good deed, you earn respect even if it’s only self-respect. It doesn’t just fall in your lap. Again, I would argue that even before the alien encounter Ichiro had dehumanized himself. I don’t blame it all on him. I’m not saying he deserved to be disrespected by his kids. Nevertheless, we are ultimately responsible for our lot in life. As the old adage goes, be the change that you want to see. If people don’t care about you, do something about it. So I don’t think the lesson is, “Hey, let’s just respect old people more.” You gotta earn it, man.

King’s Game Ep. 2

Boy, that OP sure was something, huh?

King’s Game walked up to the edge, then immediately backed out. It looked as though Natsuko would be raped, but it turned out she was just putting on an act. The show didn’t even have the balls to end the episode on a cliffhanger, thereby making us wonder if the guy was going to go through with it or not. Maybe that’s for the best. I don’t know if I’ve ever found much substance in shock value. Plus, the whole “Is rape justified if it would save both parties” is not exactly a thought experiment I particularly want to explore. At the very least, I wouldn’t expect King’s Game to answer the question in any meaningful way. So instead, Natsuko goes completely 180. Any sudden change in personality is jarring, but somehow, it feels a cheap here. But at least it was unexpected?

That’s more than I can say about Nobuaki’s flashback. Have you heard the tragedy of Daisuke the wannabe rockstar? Well, don’t bother. It’s so predictable and bland that I was just dying for the episode to end. Kids receive the King’s orders, kids think it’s a joke, it’s not a joke, someone die, kids get scared, more people die. We got this same basic plot structure last week, so seeing it again was redundant. The show tries to get you emotionally invested in Daisuke by going on and on about his dreams to be a musician. I can’t speak for everyone, but it didn’t work for me. He dies pathetically, and I’m just waiting for something juicy — anything — to happen.

But what is juicy? Do I want to see these kids get tortured or sexually assaulted? That’s really hard to say. The cop-out answer is to simply say that I’m bored. That nothing I see here is remotely original. It’s easy to say, “Just tell a better story.” And I guess that’s true. For something that should feel like a page-turner, King’s Game is rather bland. I’m not dying to see what happens next. But what would make it a page-turner without making the show too trashy?

Black Clover Ep. 2

I shut the episode off at the 10:45 mark. Instead of grown-ass Asta screaming every line at me, I got chibi Asta screaming every line at me in a flashback. Also, Black Clover has one joke at the moment, and it’s content to ride that joke into the ground: “Hey Sister, will you marry me? No? WELL, I WON’T GIVE UP.” So I’ll do it. I’ll give up. I give up on you, Black Clover.

For some reason, I find it cute and amusing. It isn’t high art nor does it really make one think, but honestly, this week’s episode made me smile. Yeah, I’ll admit it. I actually found Moriko’s guildmates endearing, especially when they attempted to give her dating tips. Most of all, I really appreciate the fact that the show kept the MMO adventuring shenanigans to an absolute minimum. Not every MMO anime has to be the same. Not every MMO anime has to involve people going on epic adventures or conducting some sort of grand social experiment. Lots of us log onto MMOs simply to socialize, and this is what we get. Recovery of an MMO Junkie isn’t trying to be a jack of all trades, and I like that. I didn’t have to deal with copious amounts of exposition or world-building. I can probably rest assured that Moriko’s Hayashi won’t suddenly become a badass, dual-wielding sex god either. Instead, I got to see people build online relationships, and while the anime isn’t attempting anything particularly ambitious on this front, it’s refreshing nonetheless.

It’s also refreshing to see that these characters are not kids. Moriko is not just an adult, she’s 30. She’s had a job before (it appears as though she burned herself out from working too hard, which is a bit topical considering the recent news about the reporter who died from too much overtime). Her guildmates are adults, too. One of them might be a university student, but hell, I’ll take it. I still don’t know how Moriko is sustaining this lifestyle — maybe she has a lot of savings — but as I said last week, hopefully that will be addressed at some point. I’m not saying it’s a good anime simply because the protagonist is an adult. I just appreciate that there’s actually a show I can somewhat relate to. Yeah, I used to play MMOs a lot. Every now and then, I still get the itch to dive back into Final Fantasy XIV, and I’m also around Moriko’s age. Unfortunately, I can’t just quit my job and become an elite NEET, but I can’t say it doesn’t sound alluring…

From our heroine’s perspective, it appears as though she has to juggle two budding relationships at the same time. She has the pretty blond boy in the real world, and Lily in MMO land. A layperson might ask why anyone would choose the MMO relationship over something real and tangible, but to someone who spends hours online — Moriko even freaks out at one point when she realizes it’s 5 am and she’s still playing — the e-relationship is just as real. Perhaps even realer. She barely knows a thing about Yuta. He seems like a nice guy, but they’ve had one conversation thus far. As the series progresses, this relationship will catch up to the one she has with Lily, but for now, Moriko has an actual bond with her MMO companion. So even though she might know anything about Lily’s actual age, gender, name, so on and so forth, these are not soulful details. They’re important details, don’t get me wrong. But Moriko still knows Lily intimately.

It’s almost a shame that Lily and Yuta are the same person. I almost want to see how she would pick between the two individuals. Even though I have advocated for the online relationship, it’s not that simple. They might be compatible emotionally — they might be on the same wavelength mentally — but you still need physical compatibility. Plus, there’s always that fear that the person on the other side is catfishing you. Then what? How would Moriko react to that? People can lie to you in real life too, but it’s harder. But alas, this is a light-hearted show. Again, Recovery of an MMO Junkie is not an ambitious show. As a result, I don’t expect Moriko to have to struggle with her feelings in a very heavy way. Eventually, she’ll come to see that Lily is actually her blond prince, but if the show can remain as charming as this week’s episode, I guess I won’t mind it too much.

Other loose thoughts and impressions:

— It isn’t a good thing for a university student to be online all the time either, but then again, I’d be lying if I said I never skipped classes back in my early twenties to play games.

— A million gold just to guess someone’s age? Either the game has rampant inflation or these guys are high-rollers.

— Is it really bad manners to ask a fellow guildmate how old they are? Maybe in Japan. I wouldn’t really know. I just know it isn’t a big deal in the West. I just find it odd that you can spend weeks and months talking to someone, but it’d be rude to ask them how old they are in real life.

— Back in my MMO junkie days — yeah, I went through the same phase — it was pretty normal to stay up till 7 or 8 am, sleep for a couple hours, then drag myself to my afternoon lectures. Or y’know, just don’t go so I can spend more time gaming.

— Moriko might have an addictive personality. She spent too much time working, and now, she’s arguably spending too much time on the MMO. Work-life balance, girl. C’mon.

— She seems impressed that Yuta has a solid Japanese name. As a non-Japanese person, I have no idea what that means. I don’t even know what a solid American name is. Ron Swanson?

We get to know Luke in the follow-up episode. Luke has a special power; through what appears to be a magic spell, he can summon a rain that erases people’s memories. This allows the Makai Knights to carry out their Horror-eliminating operations without arousing the public’s attention. That is… that is very lame. First, the rain is only effective if nobody bothered to take any pictures or record a video of the rampaging Horror. I guess no one did. They don’t do that sort of thing in this universe, apparently. Second, what if you saw the Horror, went home, then stayed indoors until the rain passed?

The biggest issue, however, is the fact that this contemporary setting is completely underutilized. I know I made this point last week, but I just can’t let it go. Instead of reconceptualizing what it means to be a Makai Knight in a big city like NYC or Chicago, we’re just hand-waving it all away. The only real change is the battlefield. Instead of fighting Horrors in the wild, we now fight Horrors in around skyscrapers and apartment buildings. What a waste. I’m still holding out hope that MAPPA will actually take advantage of the world they’ve constructed — y’know, not just use it as an excuse to have sickass 420 headshot action — but it’s not looking too rosy at the moment.

Speaking of sickass 420 headshot action, Luke is almost the opposite of Sword in every way. He’s relatively thin compared to Sword’s bulky frame. He’s cold and uncaring whereas Sword is warm and gregarious (and a bit too lecherous). And yes, he appears to eschew the badass sword and badass bike for an equally badass set of rifle, bullets and gadgets. None of these qualities are a problem except for the cold and uncaring part. Luke seems to show no regard for the people around him even if a lot of them are scammers. So why is he a Makai Knight? What is his purpose for hunting Horrors?

Sword also argues that you can’t save people if you can’t understand them. The big oaf seems to have been correct. If Sword hadn’t forced Luke to listen to Enith’s story, the former might have not been able to save the woman’s life. They had no real lead on Hardy at that point. It was only through Enith’s story that they had any reason to suspect Hardy and thus tail the woman back to her home. When it is all said and done, however, Luke didn’t really acknowledge that Sword had “cracked the case,” so to speak. This is his one big character flaw, so I hope the series will follow up on whether or not he can overcome such a glaring blind spot.

Other loose thoughts and impressions:

— Sophie was barely in this week’s episode. All we know is that she appears to be an orphan, and she’s looking for her… brother, I believe? Her memories didn’t get erased. Maybe she wasn’t hit by the rain. Nevertheless, she didn’t want to spout crazy talk to the kind policewoman, which is probably the correct thing to do. You wouldn’t wanna wind up in a mental asylum when you’re trying to look for your brother.

— So metaphorically, does the rain wash away their sins? Or perhaps it keeps the masses ignorant of forbidden knowledge?

— A woman gets beaten in the streets, and nobody bothers to help her. It doesn’t even have to be a woman. If you saw a guy get physically assaulted, wouldn’t you try to do something? You don’t have to personally intervene, but you could at least call for help. Is this how the show’s creators see American cities?

— Hardy’s transformation looked cool to me:

Well… it looks better in motion.

— So the diner is officially affiliated with the Makai Knights. Well, every hero needs a base of operations.

I’m not sure why I’m interested in these kids’ lives, which just means I’m going to spend the next few paragraphs defining exactly why I’m most likely going to blog this show till the end of the season. But for sure, the anime has plenty of drawbacks. The animation is terrible, and the pacing is so, oh so slow. A snail could do laps around Just Because! Nevertheless, I want to see if Eita can do it. Do what? He likes Mio. Mio likes Haruto. Haruto likes Hazuki. Who does Hazuki like? Probably nobody. But nevertheless, can Eita do it? Can he convince Mio to forget her former crush? Yes, it’s that type of high school personal drama. It’s always that type of high school personal drama. But I dunno, I guess I just find something charming about Just Because! low-key presence. So much so that I don’t mind the garbage-tier production values.

People are going to think this is a crazy comparison, but remember Kiznaiver? It had gorgeous animation, and decent character designs. I don’t recall whether or not it had a good soundtrack, but whatever it had is still probably better than what Just Because! is offering. And most of all, Kiznaiver wasn’t just a story about high school romances. In addition to that, you had mystery elements! Some sci-fi! Even some slapstick with the weird sadist character! The synopsis was something about kids being experimented on, people sharing their pain, blah blah blah. And of course, the kids formed one long chain of attraction. The anime impressed a lot of people when it aired, I think. And. I. Hated. It. I couldn’t stand Kiznaiver. I found it so horrendously forced and full of itself. The main character was annoying. The rest of the cast was hardly any better.

So I guess I prefer Just Because! because it’s not bogged down by gimmicks. These kids don’t have super powers that only serve to hammer home some incredibly blunt point that an author is trying to make. We’re not wrapped up in some conspiracy that inevitably fails to conclude in a satisfying way. Instead, we just have kids hanging out, awkwardly navigating their immature feelings about love and romance. The characters don’t have loud, tropey, in-your-face personalities. Most important of all, Eita is not a gimmick, so he’s not a protagonist that annoys me too much to root for. He’s quiet, soft-spoken, and a bit unemotional like Kiznaiver’s Katsuhira, but these traits are done in such an overblown way that you end up thinking you’re interacting with an autistic zombie. I suppose I just appreciate Just Because!’s sharper focus. It’s far less ambitious, and far less grand in scope, but you gotta make sure you get at least one thing right… right?

Of course, I have my reservations. I don’t know how they’re going to stretch the already thin plot to fit an entire season’s worth of episodes. If you’re really not interested in high school romances — I’ll admit I’m a bit of a sap, so I am interested — there’s not much else going for Just Because! There’s no bigger, overarching mystery to draw the viewers in. It’s very much about these five kids, and how their lives will play out over the next few months. If that doesn’t interest you, hey, it’s fair to just ignore this show. And again, high school romances are very immature. It’s much ado about nothing. If Mio truly wants to forget her feelings, she should’ve never accepted the invitation to the aquarium with the rest of the gang. She even has a built-in excuse, i.e. her entrance exams. But she went anyways, because she’s never really gotten closure. The heart is definitely a silly thing.

So it’s all Eita’s fault. Everyone was content to head in their separate directions until he showed up. Without Eita, Haruto probably wouldn’t have worked up the courage to approach Hazuki. Without Eita, Mio would’ve just focused on her entrance exams as she had planned. Without Eita, Ena would’ve even have gotten involved. She’s not even part of the group. But somehow, she’ll be drawn to them thanks to a really bad photograph (maybe she’ll end up liking Eita to complete our stupid love chain). Somehow, Eita is the great attractor, dragging the other four kids into his orbit. It’s even his fault that I’m watching this show. I dunno, I guess I’m somewhat rooting for him even if I don’t know why he likes Mio. Does he like her just… because…? Ah, that’s horrible. But I mean, at least Haruto knows why he likes Hazuki. His reasons sound rather arbitrary, but at least he has them. I don’t know what Mio sees in him. I don’t know what Eita sees in Mio either other than the fact that she’s the de facto main heroine, so she probably gets the least offensive character design.

Okay, okay, I’m starting to lose the plot. This is what happens when you try to write about a show that doesn’t have much of one. And yet, I’ll stubbornly follow this show to the end, because again, I’m a sap and I like to see winners when it comes to romance. I want to see if Eita can do it. I’ve generally been disdainful of anime romances, however, because the characters are either annoying (like in Kiznaiver) or the dynamics are disgusting (every shoujo where the guy is an asshole and the girl just accepts it). Or sometimes, you get the obvious power imbalance that sketches you out like The Ancient Magus’ Bride. Well, Just Because! barely has anything, because it looks like it can barely afford anything. It can’t afford decent animation. It can’t afford great voice acting. It also can’t afford any fantastical gimmicks to spice up its basic plot structure. It’s essentially just five kids, and their high school lives. I’ll take it.

Other loose thoughts and impressions:

— This guy fucks:

— That really, really is a terrible photograph. I don’t know anything about photography, and I still know this photo sucks.

— Oh look, Eita has living parents! Amazing!

— Is Hazuki putting on an act? I don’t know. Maybe she’s in denial. I just find it hard to believe she’s that naive. The guy runs up to you, stammers, and asks if you’re free. Uh, gee, there’s no way he’s asking me out on a date!

— Haruto shouldn’t be too bummed out to see Hazuki’s little brothers. If you get the kids to like you, it’s one sure way to impress the girl. C’mon man, step your game up. Why do you think guys bring dogs to the park?

— I’ve literally never taken a date to an aquarium. Maybe I should.

— This episode reminds me why I never want kids.

— What does it mean for Eita to already have a recommendation? I’m not familiar with how the Japanese school system works. I just assume it means he’s pretty smart? I just know I kinda needed both recommendations and exam scores to apply to the private universities in the US.

— Yo, phrasing.

I’ve come to prefer simpler romances, i.e. the ones grounded in reality. In other words, the ones that don’t require so much world-building. World-building is usually a nuisance if it fails in execution, and I can’t say that I find Mahoutsukai no Yome’s universe to be all that exciting. Whenever I get bored, I start multi-tasking, and boy, did I multi-task through this week’s episode. I guess part of the blame lies with me. If I’m to be honest with myself, I’m only watching this show to see how the relationship between Chise and Elias will play out. I don’t care about the girl’s magic potential or what Elias intends to teach her. Furthermore, I’ve never really liked any take on magic and sorcery, anime or otherwise. Sadly, the whole mage thing makes up half of this show’s premise, so we must necessarily sit through the obligatory info-dumping. Magic can do this, magic can do that, yadda yadda yadda. It all looks pretty, but at the same time, it fails to be mentally stimulating. Nothing here makes you take pause and wonder.

I like science fiction, because it often takes a look at all the problems that humanity faces in the present day, and tries to imagine how those problems might be addressed in the future. Or instead, it’ll just imagine what bigger problems we’ll face as a result of technology. Stories involving magic often don’t engage me in the same way. They almost always feel as though they should only be taken at face-value. Almost always are the operative words here. They’re not all boring to me; there are some interesting stories that involve magic. And to be fair — and I will give credit where credit’s due — magic has the potential here to unlock Chise’s memories. In this week’s episode, we get a glimpse of her mother through magic. This is, sadly, the only interesting moment of the entire episode, but nevertheless, it hints at something greater to the power of magic than just, well, silly magical shenanigans. For Chise, anyway, magic has the potential to be therapeutic, and this would be a fascinating angle for the story to explore to the fullest.

(Look, all those people defending last week’s episode because Chise technically consented to being sold into slavery are nuts. I can technically consent to euthanasia as well, but that doesn’t mean I have a sound mind. The girl doesn’t need a husband. She needs a therapist. Unfortunately, we don’t have mental healthcare in either anime or the real world, so magic will just have to do.)

My biggest concern, therefore, is that we’ll only get a drip-feed of Chise’s mental landscape being treated magic. In the meantime, we’ll have more dull world-building about fairies, familiars, priests who heal through magic, blah blah blah. We’ll introduce obligatory threats like a silver-haired pretty boy who — with the help of a dragon — absconds with our heroine. For the love of god, don’t introduce a rival. Don’t also introduce an exigent threat to the world at large. There are two things I really want from this show: 1) focus on the weird relationship between Chise and Elias and 2) help the poor girl out with her issues. So far, I’ve gotten very little of both. This is why gimmicks like magic only serve to bog these shows down. The previews for the third episode seems to suggest that we’ll see more of her past, but we’ll see. This week’s episode had way too much world-building that I simply did not care for, so previews aren’t really good indicators of what we’ll really get. Still, at least we’ve identified some promise in the anime.

Other loose thoughts and impressions:

– My other problem with magic is that Elias doesn’t even use it in a way that makes me think, “Oh yeah, I definitely wish I was a mage.” For instance, for all his magical abilities, he still has someone to cook and clean for him. It’d be so much more awesome to me if he could just fulfill the same tasks with magic. Anyway, I’ve never heard of a landlady who cooks and cleans, but this might be another case of the word being used differently by another culture.

— Ah, the classic English breakfast. It looks incredibly unhealthy, but also delicious. Now I’m starving.

— This is terribly naive.

— Elias suggests that he and Chise go on a honeymoon. Obviously, he doesn’t understand what a honeymoon is. But that’s not the interesting part. Rather, why does he not know? And it’s not very convincing to merely say he’s child-like. He’s obviously a well-read man. He’s obviously learned. Am I supposed to honestly believe that he purchased a bride — an Asian bride, no less — and never even bothered to read up on marriages, honeymoons, etc? That’s a bit hard to swallow.

— Our magus puts on a human facade when he goes into public. Ah, the ol’ Batman conundrum: is Bruce Wayne the real person or the mask?

— Yep, Elias went all the way to Japan to purchase a bride. Sure, sure, he did it because she’s a sleigh something. But I can’t help but be reminded of those middle-aged dudes who take annual trips to Thailand. Y’know, for “sightseeing.”

— Too late for that.

— Plus, I dislike the way the story just sweeps his actions under the rug. Angelica socks him in the stomach, and that’s it. Good ol’ anime violence. If a guy trips and falls on your breasts, just hit him! If the guy sees your panties, just screech and hit him! If he forces you to get naked, just hit him.

— The show has these sudden tonal shifts to comedy that don’t really work for me.

— By the time we’re introduced to Simon, my mind started to wander.

— The anime is well-produced by Production I.G, but it’s not terribly imaginative. All I get to see are the same verdant fields of grass over and over. The previews for next week’s episode hold some promise, but for now, there’s really not much to look at unless you just like grass that much.

Well, this is an intriguing show. So much about the story is still shrouded in mystery, so I’ll just jot down some loose thoughts instead: 

— So the previous world (Earth?) was ravaged by six meteors, and life retreated to the sea. Even then, the origin story resembles an egg being fertilized. You even have life emerging from the water.

— It barely looks as though there’s much land left. All we get to see is this tiny island surrounded by an infinite expanse of ocean. There must have been humans at some point, though. More on that in a bit.

— At some point, gemstones appeared, and not only that, they have sapience. By the way, sapience is the word you actually want to use. Lots of living things have sentience, since it only denotes the ability to feel. Therefore, my damn cat has sentience.

— Since the gemstones appear to be sexless, androgynous lifeforms, I’m going to refer to them with the gender-unspecific pronouns. Sorry for the confusion.

— These sapient gemstones seem to spend the majority of their lives fending off the Lunarians, bad guys who appear to just want the gemstones for nothing more than decoration. Is that really true? It’s too early to tell. I guess we’ll just have to take Master Kongo word for it.

— Speaking of Master Kongo, he appears to be the leader of the gemstones. Yeah, he. Kongo is the only character who isn’t androgynous. Is he a gemstone himself? He lacks their beautiful gem-like hair, but his face might be powdered like everyone else’s. In any case, Kongo spends most of his time meditating. I’m inclined not to trust a bald guy in stories, since they tend to be evil. But who knows? This show borrows a lot from Buddhist imagery, so his baldness probably doesn’t speak to his moral character.

— The Lunarians are all white in appearance. They descend from the sky through “sunspots,” but those just look like Rorschach tests to me. They announce their arrival with flutes and drums before raining arrows down on the gemstones.

— Do they speak? Don’t know yet. Are they composed of individuals or do they have one collective consciousness? Don’t know yet, but probably the former. Do they feel pain? Don’t know yet. What else do they do besides hunting for gemstones? Don’t know yet. But when you cut their heads off, their insides look like waxy lotus fruits. Freaky.

— So when the gemstones aren’t on the lookout for the Lunarians, what do they do in their spare time? Learn about the world around them? On the surface, there doesn’t seem to be much to learn. I’m also curious about their culture. They must’ve borrowed it from somewhere. Humans have must have existed at some point. It’s also possible that the 28 gemstones came up with everything — their clothes, their school, etc — all by themselves, but that seems unlikely.

— The gemstones are concerned for their lives, I suppose, but not as concern as you or I would be. If we were constantly besieged by weird moon people who want to harvest our bodies for decoration, we’d be scared shitless. But some of the gemstones almost treat it like a chore. Diamond puts herself and Phos in danger just to test out a new fighting ability. Life and death doesn’t mean much to the gemstones. Actually, it doesn’t seem like the gemstones can die. If you break them, they can just put themselves back together. They speak of Heliodor, a gemstone they had lost to the Lunarians. They don’t seem too bummed out about them, however, because if they recover all of Heliodor’s parts, they can put them back together. The gemstones are essentially immortal then, right?

— Chipping off a part of their body will diminish their memories, which does sound like a scary prospect. Even if our bodies can exist forever, our memories seem innately tied to our personal identity. Wouldn’t that be scary? If you bump into a sharp corner, and lose a small piece of yourself, that could be a small precious memory that is gone forever. That sucks, man.

— There are moments that would be considered body horror if the gemstones were made out of flesh. Moments like the good doctor waving dead limbs around, or shattered gemstones in body bags. Or, again, their bodies being broken apart and used as decoration. Or seeing former allies’ bodies used as weapons. Or when Phos is swallowed by a giant snail and finds themself slowly digested. This would be incredibly disturbing to see if not for the fact that these characters are gemstones. Maybe body horror is only horror if we are mortal, because the gemstones seem hardly bothered.

— Oh yeah, let’s not forget the pulsating insides of the snail. It’s worth noting because this is the only instance of any sort of fleshy matter that we’ve seen so far. Again, this would be body horror in any other story…

— The Lunarians don’t appear to want Kongo at all. Well, he’s not very pretty, so he’d make for shitty decoration. But again, it makes me wonder if he’s trustworthy. The gemstones trust him, but they’re all childlike. He is the only adult character I’ve seen so far. The doctor appears adult-like, but they look like the rest. One can be a child and simply put on an act of maturity. The way the doctor toyed with Jade didn’t seem very mature to me anyway.

— There’s interpersonal drama between the gemstones. For instance, Cinnabar is isolated from the rest, because of their poison (read: mercury). As a result, they want to be taken away by the Lunarians, because they feel useless on the surface. In the second episode, we learn that despite Diamond’s radiance and beauty, they feel useless next to Bort (which is apparently a type of imperfect diamond that can’t be used as a gem). But honestly, the character relationships are by far the least interesting thing about this show, which is a bit sad because the drama is the thing that gives these gemstones any sort of humanity. Nevertheless, their issues are unoriginal and trite. Maybe we humans are just walking cliches.

Anyways, that’s all the notes I have on this show. It’s probably the most interesting fall series that I’ve seen thus far? Keep in mind, however, that I still haven’t gotten around to Children of the Whales yet. I’m going to cover that on Tuesday. But back to Houseki no Kuni, I don’t know how a story like this can resolve itself in a satisfying way. Anything can be intriguing at the start when you withhold crucial information from the audience, and force them to speculate. Once they start filling in the holes, however, I find that what we were enamored by was never anything of substance, but just the mystique itself.

Boy, did that not escalate quickly. I was waiting for something to happen, and it finally did. Just at the very end of the second episode. Okay, now I want to see more. It’s not that Children of the Whales is bad. It’s actually pretty decent. And if we can only compare it to other fall offerings, you might even say Children of the Whales is downright excellent. It’s just… well, every season, there’s a show that people want to love, and I can’t help but think that this is a perfect example of that very idea. If we had an Oscars for anime, Children of the Whales would be Oscar bait. It has that kind of feel, y’know? In truth, I want to love it, but I don’t. But don’t get me wrong, the show is not without merit. Right off the bat, it has two qualities that are genuinely praiseworthy.

First, the anime definitely has a distinct visual style. The show is not mind-blowingly gorgeous or anything, but even an 8 will look like a 10 when surrounded by rejects. And let’s face it, most anime series are fugly. Of course, looks aren’t everything, but you need to have a style. You need to wear your look with pride. Most shows, however, don’t even want to look different. There’s a certain generic anime aesthetic that, although it slowly changes over time, most studios are content to ape without shame. Even if you don’t have the budget for great technical animation, style doesn’t exactly require it. That’s not to say Children of the Whales is wholly original. The characters definitely aren’t. But the world around them is at least novel. Novel enough for an anime series anyway. The show hasn’t hit a home run with its visuals, but it’s at least trying.

Secondly — and speaking of being cast adrift — what an interesting setting! Chakuro and friends live on a giant castle-boat made out of mud. In fact, they refer to their home-slash-vessel as a Mud Whale, and surrounding them is an endless sea of sand (which must be coarse, rough and irritating — it probably gets everywhere). Every so often, their castle-boat bumps into a driftland, an island from which people can go on expeditions to scavenge for supplies. But this time, Chakuro stumbles upon a mysterious girl, yadda yadda yadda, their lives will never be the same again. You thus can’t help but wonder why the world is like this. What happened to the rest of humanity? What do you mean the people of Falaina are sinners? Why is it necessary to pursue and kill what appears to be peaceful nomadic community? Naturally, it’s too early for the show to divulge its secrets.

There are a few tantalizing clues scattered across the first two episodes. Chakuro refers to the mysterious girl as Lykos, but it is not her actual name. Rather, Lykos refers to some pulsating, organic mass that devours emotions. That sounds almost Lovecraftian, doesn’t it? Even more monstrous, a countless number of people have voluntarily rendered their hearts hollow by coming into contact with Lykos. “Emotions ruin the world,” says the mysterious girl, “They are unnecessary.” Which is ironic considering how the lack of emotions is seemingly what allows her people to wage endless wars. Still, I don’t know enough about this universe and how it came to be, so I’ll withhold much of my judgment for now. Unsurprisingly, the Council of Elders no longer want their people to go anywhere near the girl’s driftland, but it’s too late. Even more mysterious strangers suddenly appear from the sand seas, and they do not look friendly.

My dissatisfaction with the show stems from two issues. First, the characterization is woefully unimaginative in its execution. The world is fun and fascinating in its construction, and yet, we’ve gone and filled it with such basic anime archetypes. Here’s the wide-eyed boy who’s not so talented, but he’s full of heart and spunk. He’s going to internal monologue your ears off, but it’s okay! He’s an archivist, so it’s his job to spell everything out to the audience. They say rain is a sign of good omen. Thus, I turn to my friend and tell her that good luck is on the horizon. Christ, how redundant. When he accidentally touches Lykos and a flood of memories pours into his mind, the scene would’ve been far more effective without his internal monologue. Oh yeah, these kids have magical powers too. You can also be an adult and have powers, but barely. At best, you’ll live till your early 30s, but all thymia users die young. Well, I guess that explains that.

But the cliches don’t end there! Chakuro’s foil is the angry, brooding Ouni. Unlike our boy hero, he’s tall, cool, rebellious at heart, and incredibly gifted when it comes to manipulating his thymia. But he yearns for freedom whereas Chakuro is a bit of a scaredy-cat. Ho-hum. Oh yeah, did I say mysterious girl? Why, we have a mysterious girl who’s totally a Rei-type, i.e. completely cold and emotionless. Chakuro will eventually, I predict, convince her that feelings are A-OK! She also has blue hair, but she’s slightly different because she has dark skin. I mean, we gotta change things up a little bit. There’s also Sami, the childhood best friend who’s totally in love with the main character. And of course, what isolated society is complete without a Council of Elders who know more than they’re letting on?

Despite it all, I could still forgive the show employing such generic characters. But Children of the Whales almost did me in with its early light-hearted atmosphere. Outside of a handful of scenes — like the ominous graveyard of fallen swords or the alien Lykos — the majority of the first two episodes are a bit too slice-of-lifeish for my taste. At the same time, I’m not crying for grimdark, edgelord bullshit, but right off the bat, I’m buried under a mountain of romantic subplots. Alright, I’m exaggerating and it’s more like three subplots, but that’s still three too many. I already mentioned Chakuro x Sami, but there’s also Lady Taisha (she doesn’t look remotely 42) and her admirer as well as Suou and… probably every girl on the island aside from his sister. It’s just too early for me to care about their love lives! Hopefully, the sudden twist of violence at the end of the second episode means we won’t have to deal with Chakuro x Sami any longer.

But let’s pull it back. Children of the Whales does have some promise, especially regarding its subtext. There’s a term for people who can’t express their emotions: reduced affect display. It has several causes, but the one that jumps out immediately is PTSD. In other words, war and violence often render survivors emotionally numb. Meanwhile, Lykos devours our emotions, because painful ones are too much to bear. Food for thought. But even on the Mud Whale, people are discouraged from crying. The kids tease Chakuro, because he couldn’t fight back his tears at Behini’s funeral. Customs be damned, aren’t funerals the perfect time for mourning? Aren’t negative emotions — as long as they aren’t debilitatingly overwhelming — actually healthy for us? Crying is like a reset button for our mental state. It allows us to express ourselves and release our pent-up emotions in a (usually) controlled and safe environment. Why would you want to deny that?

So yeah, the anime has a lot of potential beyond the second episode’s cliffhanger. Of course, I want to know what happens next. I want to know who lives and who dies. I want to know if this is truly the end of Sami (probably not). But the show also has the opportunity to explore some rather delicate topics through its fantastical setting, which is the primary reason I watch anything. I just hope that we’ve truly turned a corner, and are ready to leave the carefree atmosphere and generic anime archetypes behind.

So… is this a comedy or what? We have serious stuff like a bully threatening to sexually assault a girl in front of everyone — and I mean, everyone. Practically no one lifts a finger to help her, by the way. What’s up with that? I thought these were just internet addicts, not scum of the earth. Why are these kids characterized as if they’re morally corrupt or apathetic at best? Even Hibiki does nothing until his crush finds herself in danger. You then see one of the least impressive attempts to dive in front of a rock that you’ll ever see. Shiori is the only one who does anything to help the poor victim, and naturally, she’s armed with a trusty box cutter. In the aftermath, she attempts to treat the Hibiki’s wounds, but he ends up popping a boner.

Yeeeep. But before you go and crown the girl as the show’s only beacon of goodness, you should know that she only helped the victim in exchange for the girl’s phone. Shin, however, gets his hands on the device, and says he’ll give it to anyone who can turn Hibiki into a man. As he turns to leave, he tosses a condom in Hibiki’s direction. Shiori will do anything for the phone, so she tries to put on a brave face. Just one grasp of her breast is apparently enough to send Hibiki to a higher plane of existence. It’s almost funny, but not quite. Meanwhile, the girl is not exactly enjoying the experience. This, I can buy. Internet addicts like Hibiki probably won’t fool anyone into thinking they’re Ryan Goslings of the world. As a result, Shiori ends up puking on him, which in turn makes him puke, then they both puke. Talk about a boner killer.

Yeeeeeeeeeeeeep. But it doesn’t really matter if the show is actually “in-the know.” It doesn’t matter if the show is actually has its tongue firmly planted in its cheek. All that matters is whether or not the show is entertaining and it’s currently not. It’s just kinda trashy in a half-assed sort of way. The characters are unlikeable, but not so much so that I’m actively rooting for their demise. And the humor so far is tepid unless boner jokes really get you going. Why is Tencent doing this anyway? Aren’t they sitting on the League of Legends cash cow? Wouldn’t a LoL anime rake in money by the bucketful? And if you want T&A, LoL has plenty of that too. Hell, just do a spinoff series about Evelynn.

Kekkai Sensen & Beyond Ep. 2

Don’t these stories feel just a bit rushed? Due to the anime’s episodic nature, the ultimately inconsequential side stories are forced to wrap themselves up in an incredibly short amount of time. Kekkai Sensen thus maintains its brisk, frenetic pacing, but none of the conclusions ever feel all that satisfying. Our bad guy of the week barely has time to establish himself as a threat before going down. Likewise, is there a missed connection between Klaus and the doctor that I am supposed to lament? Well, the story’s over and we’ll probably never see her face again.

“That’s neat, I guess,” is the most glowing praise I can ever offer to any given Kekkai Sensen episode. The city’s nightmarish transformation during the Great Collapse looks… neat, I guess. The doctor’s resolve over the years sounds… neat, I guess. Hell, the action is sometimes very neat. But we never get to dwell on anything for very long. Now, now, let’s hurry along. After all, the episode is about to come to an end. We should begin preparing ourselves for next week’s entirely new set of characters and problems.

Shokugeki no Soma S3 Ep. 3

I was kinda hoping Soma could win by simply sticking to his black pepper buns. His booth struggled mightily, however, so he tried to branch out to handmade noodles topped with the same meat filling that is used in the buns. Hey, that sounded good too, but even then, his booth failed to crack the top 30. As a result, he’s going back to the mapo tofu drawing board. Can he put together a less spicy variant of the dish that will still blow people away? If I had to guess, I would add some texture to mapo tofu. I love it, but it’s a very soft and mushy dish.

Cooking aside, I actually wished the episode had focused more on the business side of things. It’s obvious that Soma’s limitations aren’t just due to his food offerings alone. I wouldn’t go so far as to say “Customers will only favor the strong,” but restaurants need to market themselves somehow. Giving out free food at night is a start, but why wait till then? Why not give out free samples to the masses of people waiting in line to get a taste of his rival’s food? Ah well.

But anyway, the basic plot structure is the same as it has always been. Soma runs into an opponent with infinite resources and clout. Our plucky hero thus finds himself in a huge hole right from the outset. But through ingenuity and spunk — and homey diner charms — he’s about to stage his epic comeback. Rinse and repeat. Kuga is just the latest victim-to-be. At worst, they’ll tie or something.

I actually do enjoy one thing about the latest episode, though. I kinda like the Sadako-ripoff. Everyone else is just so tropey, but she’s so ridiculously silly that I find her interactions with Soma amusing. She actually enjoys the same weird concoctions that he whips up. They might be kindred spirits! Forget Soma x Megumi or Soma x Erina. The former is too boring, and the latter is just another basic tsunderekko. I know the show doesn’t really have love interests, but screw it, let’s go all in on weirdo girl.

Juuni Taisen Ep. 3

I said I would stop last week, and I really should’ve followed through. The third episode is just more of the same basic formula that we have seen previously. This week’s episode dives deep into Chicken’s past — full of voiceovers and even more voiceovers — then after she’s told us everything we could possibly want to know about her, she dies just as pathetically as Boar and Dog. I guess if I absolutely have to say something positive about the girl, who knew chickens could be so sneaky and conniving? We briefly get to see Ox and Horse face off, but not too much. Not enough to be satisfying. If we’re not going to see cool fight scenes, then at least give me a mental battle of wits. We don’t get that either. There’s also the problem where we learn about X, so it means X has to literally die by the end of the episode. The only cool moment in the entire episode is when Chicken accepts her death and allows the birds to feed off her flesh.

Kino’s Journey (2017) Ep. 2

What an odd episode. There’s no doubt that the king is rotten to the core, but sadly, the people — as they gleefully chant for murder — are bloodthirsty maniacs, too. So this might explain why Kino commanded them to slaughter each other in cold blood. But why would the country just go along with it? The same reason why they hardly questioned the former king, I suppose. They don’t even seem like people at this point. Just weird flesh automatons that do whatever they’re told to do. So I have to ask… is this an extended critique from last week’s episode? See, laws are bad, my dudes! Leaders can enact terrible laws, and people will just follow them like sheep! May as well not have laws at all! Well… this season of Kino’s Journey is painting a very strange world. While I enjoyed this week’s episode a bit more than last week’s offering, I still can’t say I really like this anime at all.

In yet another flashback, the mysterious King orders Naoya to have sex before the day’s over. But oh no, there’s only ten minutes left! What are we to do? Nobuaki springs into action; he shoves both Naoya and his girlfriend into a dark room and begs them to do the deed. Naoya doesn’t want to go through with it, though. He already indirectly played a part in another girl’s death (plot twist: not every punishment results in death, but you’re free to kill yourself thinking that you’re going to die anyway). Even though Chiemi is technically willing to have sex with him to save his life, he doesn’t want yet another stain on his conscience. That seems reasonable. I get how he feels. I wouldn’t go through with it either. But what does our righteous hero do? He enters the room and punches his best friend out. He then begs Chiemi to take care of the problem. Okay, okay, hold up. Technically, Naoya just has to have sex. He doesn’t have to have sex with a girl. If Nobuaki is such a bro, why not take one for the team?

In any case, Ousama Game is a depressingly cynical anime. The moral question at the heart of the story is not exactly a new one either: what lengths will people go to when they think they’re doing the right thing? And we learn over and over that Nobuaki will do anything to save his best friend. He’ll even doom another classmate if he has to. Worst of all, he’ll force Naoya to have sex, and I doubt Chiemi is all that willing either. Consent becomes murky under duress, that’s a whole ‘nother topic. To put it simply, Naoya was raped. Sure, it will “save” his life, but is this the only thing that matters? Even if Naoya survives the game, he’ll always have to live with guilt. Shouldn’t he have been allowed to choose? Rape is egregious for a multitude of reasons, but most relevant here is the fact that Naoya has been robbed of his agency. And sadly, this happens over and over. Naoya repeatedly tells Nobuaki that he’d rather die than go through with any of these cruel games, but the latter won’t listen.

But honestly, what’s even the point? Even if you save manage to save your best friend today, the King can just as easily tell you to kill him tomorrow. I know the kids are in a ridiculous situation, and it’s easy to be calm and collected from my vantage point. But even if I was desperate to save my friend’s life, I would never ask my girlfriend to rape him. Ultimately, the only winning move is to not play. The only winning move is to love your fellow man and be selfless. But over and over again, Nobuaki doesn’t allow Naoya to make this sacrifice. No one is allowed to make that sacrifice, and this is precisely why the show is hopelessly cynical. Kana, for instance, quickly employs her sexuality in order to bargain for her life. She’s thus no different from Natsuko in the present day. If you try to be selfless, you are either ridiculed or strong-armed into playing (like Naoya). Nevertheless — and this is perhaps the biggest joke of all — people keep trying to convince Nobuaki that he’s neither a coward nor a monster.

From the moment Hiro picked his victim to the drowning kid’s final death throes, there is no background music. One less illusion, I suppose. One less obstacle to distract the audience from the unflinching monstrosity unfolding before us. Luckily, there’s no escaping the fact that this is an animated work. Could you imagine watching a live action version of Hiro’s murders? Christ, I can still remember the father’s anguished, guttural cry when Hiro tells him as-matter-of-factly that he is killing the kid as well. I can still remember the tears and snot streaming down the man’s face after learning that his wife is dead. Hiro quickly disposes of the man. We are then trapped in the room, forced to watch helplessly as the man’s body pushes the kid down into the bloody bath water. The kid’s arms flail futilely. Fuck, man. This is the sort of unforgiving realism that I expect from Portrait of a Serial Killer, not an anime that — in last week’s episode — had previously seemed so dopey. In fact, as I witness Hiro’s crimes, I couldn’t help but think, “Did the anime really need to go this far? Was it really necessary to watch a kid die like that?” Therein lies the true efficacy of the episode’s horror.

Too many shows trivialize, glamorize and thus cheapen death. Too many shows want to revel in the idea of merciless murder, but they don’t actually understand what makes the deed so truly monstrous. It’s all just a circus to them. Gallons of blood spraying fifty feet into the sky. Some goofy big, bad baddie posing and preening for the camera, laughing idiotically like a jester. Dying characters poetically uttering their last words as the hero grimaces and swears vengeance. This is why anime series like Akame ga Kill are so ineffectual in their attempts to shock us with their cartoonish violence. These shows don’t understand the cold suddenness of murder. Bang. The mother is dead. They don’t understand the powerlessness of the victim. Sorry, pops, but your son will die too and there’s nothing you can do about it. They don’t understand the ugliness of murder. The kid’s death was disgusting. Absolutely horrifying. There is nothing poetic about it. No one is left to pick up the pieces. He finally toys with the daughter the same way a predator plays a cat-and-mouse game with a prey. You’re nothing to me. You’re just an ant beneath my heel. When the portrayal of murder is so uncompromising that you wonder whether or not it should’ve been done at all, then you’ve done it justice.

Murder should not be entertaining, and as a result, I have to commend MAPPA. I really have to hand it to them for at least the second half of this episode. Even Ichiro’s attempt to save the the daughter is harrowing in its execution. We can do nothing but shake our heads as the old man traps himself in traffic. We want to yell, “You have super powers! Use your legs and run!” But we can’t blame him; he doesn’t really know what’s going on. He doesn’t yet know what he’s up against. Hiro is not some charismatic anti-hero that invites the audience to come along for a blood-soaked joy ride. Instead, this is an illuminating glimpse at sociopathy. Whereas Ichiro can now only feel his tenuous connection to humanity by performing good deeds, it’s safe to say that it had always been tenuous for Hiro. He could cry for manga characters and his dead puppy, but he always had issues empathizing with those who weren’t his friends or family. Whatever happened that night when the aliens destroyed their mortal bodies, the aliens also severed Hiro’s connection to humanity as well.

After all, he says feels alive after killing the family, not that he feels human. The distinction is important and necessary. Speaking of which, if I had to nitpick anything, I wouldn’t have had Hiro said those words: “I’m alive. I feel alive.” I would’ve just had him shudder, allowing the scene to settle disquietly into abject silence. We would’ve gotten the same message, but in a much more effective way. But you know me. I always think less is more. Likewise, the first half of the episode isn’t bad, but it isn’t remarkable either. Hiro’s escapades with Ando — and his myriad “parlor tricks” — provides necessary characterization. He’s a character full of contradictions. He cares about Ando, urging the latter to start attending school again. He even implies that his friend that doesn’t “have it very bad at all,” especially when compared to him. So like Ichiro, Hiro does feel though he’s lost something important. But perhaps due to his fractured development, he’s misidentified it. He doesn’t realize what’s important. He clearly mistakes the orgasmic high that follows the act of murder to be an affirmation of life. But hey, any animal can get an adrenaline rush.

I can’t wait to see how the story will build on this episode.

I always try to leave the office as soon as I hit the 8-hour mark. Since I’m salaried, it’s not like I’ll even get extra money for sticking around. Sometimes, I cheat and leave a little earlier. Shhh. I thus can’t even begin to fathom the idea of being in the office till midnight. That’s insane. I know some jobs are just that cutthroat. I know Japan has a professional culture where the work-life balance for most corporate employees are extremely lopsided. Still, you gotta draw the line somewhere. I know doctors have to carry pagers, but that’s different. They have lives to save. For the rest of us, our job are never worth such ridiculous hours. As a result, Morioka had a good reason to quit; it’s just that her alternative isn’t much better.

The show still hasn’t really bothered to address how our heroine intends to support herself long-term. I’ve harped on it since the first episode, and well, can you blame me? Every adult has bills to pay. Plus, the show’s called recovery of an MMO Addict. The story absolutely knows poopsocking all day isn’t a good thing. Otherwise, what are we even bothering to recover from? Even if she’s more relaxed now — even if she’s finally forming fulfilling interpersonal relationships — Morioka’s current lifestyle isn’t sustainable. Still, it’s important to see that not all NEETs or hikikomoris are immature rejects who can’t do anything. Morioka was damn good at her job. She just didn’t want to keep living that soul-draining routine.

Still, we’re slowly entering dangerous waters. What’s the solution to Morioka’s problems? Win the lottery and keep living the NEET life? I’d love to be able to do that too, but that’s not going to happen. Meet Prince Charming, who will then patiently support her through thick and thin? That’s… probably where we’re headed, but then where does that leave the rest of us? How many of us will be so lucky? I’m not saying it’s impossible to find true love, but to bump into them the moment you log into an MMO is nothing more than a pipe dream. Even if you find someone, they won’t stick around if you have serious issues to work through. For the vast majority of us, the dutiful support remains ever elusive. It’s not a coincidence that healers are so difficult to find in MMOs.

I’ve said it before but Recovery of an MMO Addict is fun for me simply because I can relate to it. It’s a bit nostalgic. But at the moment, the show’s just fluff. It’s a relaxing, feelgood show, but there’s very little meat to dig into. The most glaring issue is that there are no serious negatives to Morioka’s life. There’s no real struggle to any of it. She wakes up and gets to play a game full of friendly, loving guildmates. When she’s hungry, there’s a nearby combini where she can spend her seemingly bottomless source of cash. She even has an admirer in Yuta. I didn’t expect him to have fallen for her so quickly, but the guy is tripping over himself blushing every time he thinks about her. Even better, the clerk at the combii looks like he has a crush on Morioka too! This is not the typical MMO player’s life!

You get up in afternoon and stare at yourself in the mirror. Yeesh, you’re not in great shape. Your hair is getting a bit too long and messy. You check your phone. No messages. You wonder how much longer you can put off doing the laundry. What are you eating tonight? Something easy that won’t take too long to prepare. It’s not healthy, but eh. You put on a TV show you’ve seen a thousand times before, but the noise and banter will fill the dead and empty apartment. You think about filling out another round of applications, but none of the jobs appeal to you. Too many customer support positions. You don’t want to talk to those people. Too many cover letters to bullshit through. You log into the game, but don’t do anything. You’ve done all the quests you care about. The rest is just pointless grinding for cosmetic items. You wonder when your best online friend will log on.

Yeah, Morioka’s life is pretty ideal by comparison. If she has the same issues, we don’t get to see them. Instead, it would appear as though she rolled the NEET dice and somehow landed on a 20. It almost makes you wanna go back and try your luck at being a deadbeat too! Maybe I’ll find my own Lily! But we all know better (I hope). I still honestly hope she gets her Prince Charming. I hope things work out for her and Yuta/Lily. The anime reminds me of better times, after all. But I can’t lie to myself and say that it’s a great show. It’s just a bit too one-dimensional right now. It’s not the end of the world if you become a NEET. That’s important to keep in mind. But it’s also not sunshine and rainbows either.

Stray notes and observations:

— It’s true. Blood type doesn’t mean shit. Preach on, show.

— Seeing Yuta and his friend eat, I really want to get KBBQ, but that costs an arm and a leg around here.

— I didn’t really see a point to the chopsticks scene. I kept thinking it was going to build to some salient point or epiphany about Yuta’s love life, but nope.

— Morioka ends up rejecting Yuta’s offer of dinner, and I’m not surprised. I think it’s a bit too sudden to just invite someone out just because you accidentally knocked them over. Still, it wouldn’t hurt him to keep the channels of communication open. Why not just start off by being a friend?

— Well, at least the girl can down a can of beer.

— We’ve touched on how Morioka is comfortable getting close to a female avatar, but hey, Yuta is really pushing hard to make things official with a male avatar. From a gamer’s perspective, there’s a pretty decent chance that a female avatar is controlled by a guy.

What about a girl controlling a male avatar, though? I bet it’s not quite as high. Yuta either doesn’t really mind because this is all fantasy, or the online relationship is not really as serious to him as it might seem. But this is such a light-hearted anime, so I have a hard time imagining the latter.

— Hayashi balks at Lily’s gift, because he can’t afford to get her something equally expensive in return. That’s why you make something from the heart to win her over. If she’s materialistic and rejects your gift, then you’ll at least know her true colors. Think, man, think!

— It’s interesting to see how Yuta’s coping with his rejection. He put himself out on a limb and offered his company to Morioka only to be shot down. So he now turns to the fantasy world where all your dreams come true. In order to feel fulfilled — to not have his company rejected — he has Lily propose to Hayashi so that they can become MMO official. Would he have done this if Morioka hadn’t rejected him in real life? I think that’s the big question. We’ve all done the same thing. We’ve all given gifts partly because we want to be loved. We want to be praised for the act of giving, which honestly spoils the selflessness of the act.

— I still love Morioka’s idiosyncrasies. Every time she needs to de-stress, she turns to her trusty lint roller. She doesn’t even have a cat.

— People accusing female players of getting too close to the guildmaster sadly happens all too often in MMOs. Guild drama is pretty pathetic, especially when people start being passive aggressive, forming their own cliques, then ultimately disbanding the guild and running off with all the money.

— I don’t know what Morioka is talking about. You can still have crushes at 30.

— I like how they capped off the romantic moment in-game by cutting to Morioka chugging a beer. That’s pretty much how the MMO poopsocking life. No matter how cool you think you look in-game, you’re dressed like a slob and surrounded by junk food.