Hm, we just talked about how much all the girls like Ryuichi, but with this love letter in his shoe locker, I guess we’ll just have to do that again. 

— When one of Yuki’s friends asked if she had done it, she desperately denies it. But even if it had been her, would she have admitted it? Doubt it.

— Ryuichi: “Girls don’t especially like me.” Why does anime love the dense protagonist so much? I don’t really get it. In any case, his beet-red reaction to the letter is a sign that girls need to be direct if they want to get anything done with this guy. He might not respond favorably to the girl — after all, his boring ass will probably say something like, “My brother comes first,” — but at least you’ll get closure. And that’s fine, right? It’s 2018, girls. It’s okay for you to ask the guy out. Then again, some people (girls and guys) still prefer traditional gender roles when it comes to the world of dating and courtship.

— Ryuichi continues blushing just because of the letter. Is it even physiologically possible to perpetually blush? Seems tiring.

— I like sekihan, which is the red rice boiled with beans.

— Kotaro initially wanted his brother to read him a story, but seeing Ryuichi so lost in thought, the kid decides against it. How is that kid so emotionally intelligent for his age? How is his older brother so dumb? C’mon, the book he picked is right there.

— Ryuichi: “Okay… I think I need to turn her down.” Of course you do. He says he doesn’t have the ability to date and take care of Kotaro at the same time. I guess parents who work and care for their kids just give up on romance altogether. Dating can be as involved or casual as you want it to be. You can see each other everyday, or you can just see each other once a week. You’ll never know until you talk it out with the person you’re interested in and coming to a compromise that will make both parties happy. Making your brother the first priority doesn’t mean you can’t have second, third, and fourth priorities. But these shows never approach dating from an interesting, measured approach. It’s all or nothing for Ryuichi.

— Then to make matters worse, he loses his little brother. Because these stories only take up half an episode, Kotaro isn’t missing for long. It turns out he went into someone’s yard just to grab a lemon. He thinks his brother is sick, so lemon tea would do the trick.

— Anyways, I feel bad for the girl. Not only does she get shot down without much fanfare, we don’t even get to see her face. If Ryuichi ever does decide that there’s more to life than just caring for his brother, he wouldn’t pick her anyways. For once, Hayato is right: this doesn’t seem healthy.

— I guess Yuki and Maria can bond over their silly crush on a boy who doesn’t have a single romantic bone in his body.

— Sanrio? There’s some crappy show also airing this season that you guys might be interested in.

— Kotaro and Taka are best buds just like their older brothers, so the latter invites the former to a festival. How quaint. I’ve noticed in recent weeks that the second story tends to be less interesting than the first. This is already shaping up to be the case.

— The older brothers are old enough to know that the festival games are scams, but Taka doesn’t. He predictably throws a tantrum. Kotaro probably doesn’t either, but he also wouldn’t care. The kid is so well-behaved, Ryuichi’s job isn’t really all that hard.

— Eventually, Taka loses his toy sword, so I guess that’s the conflict of this short story. The kid just ends up screaming and crying even more, which makes his brother hits him in public. Great.

— In the end, Taka can’t find his sword, so his brother compromises with him: if the kid gives up on the sword, Hayato will take him to play one of those silly scam games. Apparently, you yank on a string and hope that it’s actually attached to a prize. That sounds like a boring game, but what do I know? I don’t go to festivals.

— And of course, Kotaro somehow saves the day. That’s… that’s suspicious. But that’s it for us. Thank God.

Hey, we gotta get our Dragon Ball Super fix somehow. 

— I thought Sagawa was going to turn into something new and interesting, but at the end of his mini-speech, he simply says he’s going to become a Herald. He’s just a special one — one that still has the free will of a human. He then proceeds to kill two of his lackeys. Sagawa treats this like nothing more than an experiment. He crushes a man’s throat then asks Shiomi to confirm that he had killed someone of his own volition. He then tells another man to try and run just so he can test his speed and accuracy. This is pretty much the banality of evil in action. Human lives mean nothing to him compared to his silly experimental data.

— His next experiment is to see if there are any other Heralds left and whether or not he can react in time. As a result, he instructs one of his remaining lackeys to kill Tsubasa. Oh dear. Juri better hurry.

— And of course, she manages to appear at the last second to dispel the lackey’s Specter. We won’t know whether or not there are still any Heralds left, because she can’t risk it. But thanks to Sagawa’s super speed, she also can’t stick around. As a result, Grandpa has to save her by teleporting them both away from the bad guys. Unfortunately, his lack of accuracy quickly dispels any hint of tension from this scene. It’s hard to get into the drama when the old man keeps teleporting his granddaughter to random ass places. It feels more like slapstick than anything else.

— Eventually, Grandpa and Juri call it a day, since the former is confident that Tsubasa isn’t in any immediate danger. But I mean… Shiomi’s still there. Sagawa could always make Shiomi attack Tsubasa. Grandpa doesn’t know that.

— We briefly cut to Takafumi deliberating over how he can convince his family to teach him how to use the Master Stone. Meanwhile, Makoto starts screaming to go home. God, kids in anime are annoying as fuck. Thankfully, this scene doesn’t last very long. Even though I know I won’t get my wish, I really hope Takafumi doesn’t actually get to do anything. I’m pretty much done with his character.

— Majima thinks she can convince Shiomi to come over to their side. We hardly know the guy, so I can’t really comment on whether or not her reasoning is sound.

— Meanwhile, Sagawa is consuming food like an animal, and his body is instantly metabolizing it. His skin even begins to crack and chip off. Eventually, he simply shed a grey, bulbous mass and emerges as this slightly green fellow. This should be more interesting than it actually is, but I’m vaguely bored by everything. Even Shiomi doesn’t look and sound all that impressed or concerned. Meanwhile, Sagawa offers a dry explanation for everything, so it feels like listening to a lecture rather than watching someone undergo a grotesque, fearsome transformation.

— Majima eventually shows up to the supermarket alone, but Shiomi quickly rebuffs her. Well, that’s that. To be fair, the good guys are just a ragtag group. On the other hand, the guy has seen what Sagawa is capable of. He just doesn’t have any good reasons to defect.

— We cut back to Takafumi and Makoto. Sadly, the kid has more morals than a grown-ass man. He believes he needs influence, which he won’t have if he sticks around here while Juri and Grandpa do all the dirty work. Oh boy, he’s going to drag the kid into danger, isn’t he?

— When we return to our heroes, Sagawa goes Hulk-mad on Majima. The time-stop gimmick makes the environment around them look cool. It’s just too bad Sagawa himself is so lame, and I can’t say much about our heroes either.

— Huh… wouldn’t her weight cause the debris to fall? Clearly, Majima has powers of her own as well. According to Sagawa, their Specters are suppressing physical phenomena… so she is falling, but it’s not perceptible to us lowly humans. Okay…

— Before Grandpa could teleport Juri into position to attack Sagawa, Shiomi comes out of hiding with a knife and slashes at the old man. This creates an opening, which allows Sagawa to attack. As predicted, Grandpa has to use his teleportation powers defensively. Apparently, Sagawa and Shiomi just need Grandpa’s blood for some special reason, and now that they have it, they proceed to leave. Well, that was anticlimactic. Our heroes later try to brainstorm why Sagawa would need the blood, but no one has a clue.

— Elsewhere, Shiomi eventually adds drops of Grandpa’s blood to the master stone, so this… happens. Grandpa then collapses to the ground in excruciating pain, and since every week must end on a cliffhanger, our episode is over.

— Well, Kokkoku is the same as it has always been: stuff happens, but there’s no palpable sense of excitement anywhere in the story. Everything goes according to plan for Sagawa, and yet, I’m not exactly fearful for the lives of our heroes. On the other hand, I have no rooting interest Juri and pals either. Juri is the only character who is remotely likable, but I still don’t care about her all that much. And since the story seems to lack any sort of deeper subtext, I can’t even enjoy it on an intellectual level. It’s a shame…

There’s no Dragon Ball Super this week, but that’s okay. After all, Overlord II has finally joined the party.

Dagashi Kashi S2 Ep. 7

This looks painful for both Coconuts and the new character — physically painful for him and mentally painful for her. Anyways, Hajime is a 20-year-old university dropout. She supposedly went to a prestigious school, so she’s not a complete idiot, but uh… she can’t even get to work on time. On the one hand, I totally understand her inability to fit in. Frankly, workplace cultures are stupid. On the other hand, showing up on time is like the most basic of the basic. Whatever. Hajime is not only looking for a minimum wage job, she wants to give Coconuts to offer her a place to stay. All that just to run a dagashi shop? Are you kidding me? But this is anime land, so the girl gets what she wants.

And yes, Hotaru continues to be MIA. The next episode preview doesn’t even hint at her existence either. Lame.

Hakata Tonkotsu Ramens Ep. 7

Yep, even the butler is a hitman. Anyways, another arc, another convoluted setup. Oh, the story is perfectly understandable if you watch the episode. It’s just a hassle to summarize without using too many words. Basically, an anti-hacker group is after Enokida, who happens to be the son of an influential politician. He was a bit of a problem child, however, so his own father ordered a hit on him. Nice. As a result, Enokida is technically dead… in the system, anyways. Also, Saito is one unlucky dude. Another hacker used his computer to send out all sorts of death threats. They even planted child porn on the guy’s computer. He’s not the main focus here, though. Finally, the bad guys have some sort of underground fight club where they go after homeless people and vagrants, so that’s another fun thing for Banba and crew to take down. The preview for next week’s episode shows what looks like Enokida taking heavy punishment from one of the bad guys, but knowing this anime, there’s probably a twist to the scene.

Ito Junji Collection Ep. 8

Don’t you think it’s silly how much emphasis people put on continuing the family bloodline? Well, I think it’s silly, but I’m biased; I don’t plan to have any kids despite being an only child. Sayonara, family bloodline. I hardly knew ye. Anyways, the first short story is pretty much taking that anxiety and amplifying it beyond comprehension. Shuuichi’s ancestors want him to rape a girl just to continue their family tradition of… whatever you see in that screenshot above. Basically, his ancestors can continue existing by stacking their skulls, but this puts a strain on the actual living person at the very end of it. Shuuichi will do whatever it takes to continue this twisted tradition, however, because he thinks his ancestors’ memories are invaluable. The girl tries to escape, but she eventually succumbs to shock. Sadly, the story ends with her falling to the ground. We don’t need to know what happens next.

As for the second short story, it’s a silly tale about a twisted circus that lures dumb men to their deaths. The evil ringmaster offers Lelia’s hand in marriage to any man can successfully perform one of the circus acts. Naturally, these acts are magically rigged to… dun dun dun, kill you! As a result, dumbasses die left and right, but it’s okay! The audience is full of eligible bachelors just chomping at the bit to take their chance. Why? I guess Lelia is just that beautiful. Or magic. Probably magic. The answer is always magic. Anyway, the adaptation is missing one small scene where the main character’s sister runs home to tell their mom that her brother has gone missing, but this doesn’t really affect the story all that much.

Karakai Jouzu no Takagi-san Ep. 7

Ah, this show would be so much better if every other male protagonist in animedom wasn’t also incredibly dense. But since this is an all-too-common trope, Nishikata sadly becomes another dime a dozen character. His obliviousness is therefore no longer cute; it’s just tired and overdone. Week after week, he continues to miss all the signs coming his way. Takagi isn’t even throwing him breaking balls. She’s grooving every pitch right down the middle, and he’s whiffing on every single one. The show’s Wikipedia entry says, “Nishikata, in some ways, loves Takagi but is oblivious to that fact,” but I don’t even know how that’s possible. How can you love someone and not realize it?

Overlord II Ep. 7

Some obviously evil assholes show up looking for Tuare, but Sebas insists on protecting the girl. This ticks Solution off, so she finally rings Ainz up on his cellphone (not really) and claims that the head butler has gone rogue. But he hasn’t. So next week, Ainz is just going to show up, test Sebas’s loyalty a little bit, then eventually decide to take Tuare in. After all, Ainz is a softie. This is assuming nothing bad happens to Tuare, that is.

In any case, I decided to relegate Overlord II to the weekly “Everything Else” posts, because as I was watching the episode, I found that I couldn’t even muster up at least 500 words about this week’s events. I just don’t care about any of the human characters.

Ramen Daisuki Koizumi-san Ep. 8

Are we eating ramen on the beach? I hope not.

First, we get some tips on how to make instant ramen. I didn’t know this was necessary. Aren’t those things designed to be idiot-proof?

Beauty Women’s Ramen? Is that supposed to be better for my skin or something? Anyways, enough with the infodumping. Let’s eat some ramen.

That’s a lot of egg for one bowl. I’m not huge on the kelp flavor, either.

I’m not fond of seafood ramen, but who doesn’t like tuna? I think I’d order this if it was ever available here.

That’s a lot of nori for one bowl. I think I mentioned before that I don’t particularly like nori.

Later, we follow four guys as they enjoy “Iekei” style ramen. The show kinda does a poor job of explaining what that is. The best I can tell is that the broth is a mix of tonkotsu and chicken.

I will admit that this bowl of rice does look good (minus the nori). On the other hand, if anyone thinks adding rice to the leftover broth will make it taste like Italian risotto… sorry, but you haven’t had good risotto. I don’t think I could ever get rice with my ramen in San Francisco, though. The ramen bars never have rice on the menu, because they pride themselves on serving strictly ramen. As a result, I’d have to go to a restaurant that serves Japanese food in general, but the problem is that those places never make good ramen. Ah well.

As for me, I finally got around to visiting Nojo Ramen. Like Mensho Tokyo, these guys also specialize in tori paitan, which is a creamy, chicken-based broth. Basically, I wanted to compare the two places, so I got Nojo’s standard chicken paitan bowl:

There’s an option that comes with shoyu and an entire chicken leg, but I felt that was a little too busy for the comparison I wanted to do. Anyways, whereas Mensho Tokyo’s tori paitan was thick, frothy, and full of umami flavor — I likened it to cream of mushroom soup — Nojo’s take is considerably lighter. Right from the very sip of the broth, I got a heavy dose of ginger and yuzu. Once I dug into the rest of the bowl, I was inundated with an herbaceous earthiness that married well with the creaminess. You can always win me over with green onions (or anything from the allium family). I still think Mensho Tokyo’s heavy broth was the best thing I’ve ever tasted ramen-wise, but Nojo didn’t disappointed.

Here’s a closer shot of the noodles, which were thicker than average. The tsukune meatballs were advertised as the fluffiest meatballs you’ll ever find in San Francisco, and they weren’t lying. Those things were like clouds of ground chicken meat. Sounds weird, but they were pretty remarkable. Sadly, you only get three with every bowl. The bowl is missing the soft-boiled egg, but I don’t think it would’ve made sense flavor-wise. In the end, I think Nojo is now my second favorite ramen bar in the city. Oh yeah, I also had chicken gyoza and a tall glass of iced green tea to cut through the fattiness of everything I ate that night.

Next week, I’ll just talk about my visit to the Hawaiian fusion restaurant, since I’m feeling too lazy to find yet another decent ramen bar in SF.

Takunomi Ep. 7

Michiru finds out that Makoto works part-time as a barista. The latter ends up having a bad day, so our heroine tries to cheer her up by fixing some coffee-themed cocktails. You got coffee rum iced tea, coffee rum coke, coffee rum everything. I can’t say I’ve ever had coffee rum. I tried Baileys once and didn’t enjoy it all that much. Personally, the idea of a drinkable dessert doesn’t sound palatable. I do have a sweet tooth (more like an eat everything tooth), but not in liquid form. I tend to find them cloying.

Toji no Miko Ep. 8

So Hiyori’s mom had some ridiculous ability where she can approach the speed of light. Of course, we’re all physics experts, so we know that as you get closer to the speed of light, time slows down. The anime goes in further to suggest that when you hit the speed of light, you will be eternally stuck forever… something like that. That doesn’t sound very useful, but if you’re ever stuck fighting a hopelessly powerful foe, you can trap them with you! Basically, you’re sacrificing yourself for the greater good, but wait… what does this have to do with the netherworld? Oh well. Obviously, this plan didn’t work, so the evil aradama ended up possessing Yukari.

Even back then, however, the team referred to her as Yukari-sama, so I still don’t understand why she’s so revered. They respected her so much, nobody protested the fact that Hiyori and Kanami’s moms had been written out of history. I guess nakama is just a hollow term nowadays. Also, the girl that Kanami has been speaking to in her dreams is actually her mother… but a younger version of her. Odd, but whatever. Finally, that vial that Erin stole is probably going to lead the villainous straight to her sister. Whoopsie. In any case, at least we got some meaningful plot developments this week even if it was clumsily told.

Kanae is right: Shirase has often mentioned that her mother is waiting for her, and no matter what she means by that — whether she’s being figurative or not — she needs someone to talk to. Her own friends don’t really know the extent of Shirase’s pain, and even if they did, they aren’t equipped to deal with it. On the other hand, we naturally assume that Gin can help the girl. Not only has she lost a close friend, she’s also come to terms with it… presumably. If we make that reasonable assumption, then who better to talk to Shirase than Gin, right? But again, that’s assuming that Gin has gotten over Takako’s death. And even if she has, it’s still going to be a tough conversation with her best friend’s daughter. If she’s the selfish sort, she might even think that it isn’t her responsibility. Gin doesn’t seem like the self-centered type, though. It’s just complicated. It doesn’t help that Gin had to call off the search for Takako, which she must feel guilty about. As a result, she must naturally wonder if Shirase resents her for it. A search party in Antarctica is more than likely prohibitively expensive, so you can’t reasonably spend much time looking for a lost person, but a grieving child might not understand that.

Eventually, Gin sucks it up and meets the girl for a heart-to-heart talk. As you might expect, everyone else is listening in on the conversation. Shirase claims she doesn’t hate Gin, which is probably true. Hate is a strong word, and few of us actually hate anyone. That doesn’t mean she doesn’t resent Gin, though. That also doesn’t mean she doesn’t blame Gin for what happened to her mother. Shirase has many justifications for why she doesn’t blame Gin, but our feelings are not always logical, especially concerning a tragedy. Plus, there’s also the uncomfortable truth that no one wants to bring up: Gin probably stopped dropping by after she called off the search party. Sure, Shirase isn’t her daughter. Sure, seeing Shirase would likely remind her of Takako and therefore dredge up all those painful memories of the tragedy. On the other hand, we’re talking about a young girl who had just lost her only parent (I have yet to see her father anywhere in the picture).

More than anything, Shirase needed someone to lean on, and I can’t help but imagine Gin just avoiding her altogether if she could help it. Even worse, the latter used to try her best to dissuade the former from going to Antarctica. Gin used to be one of those doubters. And this is why we see all those scenes of Takako leaving her daughter to her best friend. The show adeptly builds up to Gin’s ultimate betrayal without being overly overt or dramatic about it. Her biggest mistake wasn’t what happened on the first expedition. Her biggest mistake wasn’t calling off the search party. No, her biggest mistake was abandoning her best friend’s daughter. Nevertheless, Shirase’s trying to do her best. She has never really allowed her personal feelings to get in the way. She’s determined to fulfill her mission, and that’s quite remarkable. She’s a teenager in high school, and she’ll become an adult in a couple years. She probably tells herself that she has to be mature. She can’t be childish and still hold onto resentment even if her true feelings might say otherwise:

Gin: “You really feel that way?”

Shirase: “I don’t know. That’s why I didn’t want to talk about it. I have no idea how I feel.”

Like we’ve discussed since the start of the series, since no one can help Shirase get closure, she’ll have to go out and look for it herself. This whole trip is all about Shirase taking things into her own hands simply because the adults wouldn’t and likely couldn’t help her. She has to be the adult herself. Getting a job just to fund this trip by herself. Coming up with an extensive plan just to get to Antarctica herself (luckily, she met some friends to help expedite the process). Then finally, going to Antarctica and finishing what her mother started… if she can’t find her mother at a place further than the universe, she will at least become her mother in a figurative sense. She will fulfill her coming-of-age journey. Of course, no child should have to go through a tragedy in order to reach adulthood, but what else is can she do? Give up? That’s not going to happen with someone like Shirase.

Unfortunately, the heart-to-heart gets interrupted when the ship slams into some ice. No matter what obstacles they encounter, the team will forge on ahead. Again and again and again, they will never give up… because they did give up once, huh? In a triumphant moment for the team, Gin is suddenly reminded of that tragic night. Apparently, she had to hear Takako’s last words. That’s kinda messed up. We realize, however, that despite their age difference, Gin and Shirase are more alike than we think. She, too, hasn’t come to terms with Takako’s death. She, too, is on this expedition to get closure. She, too, is in the midst of grieving a loss. Being an adult hasn’t helped her deal with Takako’s loss any better than Shirase. She’s just more adept at hiding it and putting on a brave face for the public. More importantly, it’s the same way Shirase tries to be mature and grown up about her feelings towards Gin. Both characters want to be tough; after all, they serve as leaders for their respective groups. Ironically, however, this strong desire of theirs is born from a tragedy. If anything, Shirase and Gin are actually the most vulnerable people on this boat.

Misc. notes & observations:

— I love the show’s penchant for just pausing on the characters’ faces. There’s also this moment in which Yuzuki looks like she’s just done (not really) with her new friends. These characters are great because they’re so expressive without always having to rely on dialogue.

— Apparently, Shirase is great at jump-roping, which surprises the other girls. “Defying expectations is kind of Shirase-chan’s thing. Like, she’s clumsier than she looks.” Ah, friends throwing casual shade.

— Gin’s still toting those flowers around, and they make Hinata wonder if it’s someone’s birthday. Probably not.

— Gross. People who fall in love when they barely know someone are gross. Also, how old is this guy?

— Oh thank God… after the OP, it turns out he actually just in love with Gin instead. I thought he was confessing to Shirase. I still stand by my statement that falling in love with someone you hardly know is gross. I’m sure he means he has a crush on her, and that he doesn’t actually love her… but still.

— I dunno why he would go to Shirase for help. His reasoning is that Shirase is an old friend of Gin, but umm, what about Kanae? What about the other members of the first expedition who must have spent way more time with Gin than Shirase?

— We could just leave this guy — Zaizen Toshio — to his own devices, but then Hinata suggests that they could report about the crew members’ romantic exploits to draw the public’s interest. That’s true, and apparently, their views have been “in the pits” lately. But I feel like since it’s her idea, she should also step in front of the camera instead of making the incredibly camera-shy Shirase pair up with Yuzuki. In fact, why aren’t all four girls just rotating as frontwomen?

— This is what Shirase looked like ten years ago. But yeah, instead of the braver girls doing it themselves, they put all the responsibilities onto Shirase’s plate instead. Yuzuki is just going through the motions.

— I like how Gin’s conversation with Kanae mirrors the main characters. It’s a nice touch. The stern, all-business team captain also has a weakness for penguins. I understand her point about not having children herself so she doesn’t know how to relate to Shirase, but there’s a huge difference between talking to a 6-year-old kid and a teenager.

— And in the end, only three of the four girls come to interview Gin. The team captain will probably have to reach out to Shirase if she wants to bridge the gap between them.

— Aw man, don’t do that.

— Gin’s type is someone like a cloud. Someone she can’t grasp but is always there. The girls all get it, but Toshio doesn’t. As a result, the girls all wistfully stare off into the horizon, and the guy just has a wide-eyed look on his face. Despite the plaintive BGM, this moment is low-key hilarious. A little later in the episode, even this guy gets it, but of course, he doesn’t have a way with words.

— Those are some derpy penguins.

— This looks cool, I guess.

— Afterward, we get a bit of history about Antarctica as it relates to Japan as well as some tidbits about the first expedition. One of the show’s main themes is defying expectations, so that’s pretty much what’s going on here.

— Oh hey, the good insert song is back. It’s a damn good thing Toshio didn’t interrupt her. Stay in your lane, buddy.

— Yumiko’s famous last words. She’s cuter than Gin, but I can’t respect a guy who swaps out his crushes like outfits, though.

— They haven’t reached their final destination yet, but this is still Antarctica in a sense. That calls for a celebration. I like that Hinata stays on target.

— Plus, Shirase’s got a killer hat.

— Another reason why these characters are so likable versus all those other happy-go-lucky, slice-of-life shows: Shirase’s got an edge to her. She doesn’t say some flowery nonsense the moment she steps foot on Antarctica. Nah, she’s telling all her enemies and doubters to suck it. I wonder who she thinks betrayed her.

— Sorry, but I don’t remember who this is.

This week, we take a trip back to the past as Violet goes on her own private trip to confirm or deny the death of her beloved Gilbert. 

— The first time Gilbert met Violet, he instinctively pulled her into his embrace and away from his brother’s abuse. How is it that two brothers can be so different in temperament? I know this is not uncommon. I also know Dietfried had to watch Violet kill his men in cold blood. But at the end of the day, she was and still is just a child, right? Then again, children didn’t exactly have rights back then. Dietfried also didn’t (and still doesn’t) see her as a person; he called her nothing but a tool of war. If she was actually an android, I could see his point. But he broke eye contact with his brother as he dehumanized her. This suggests to me that he didn’t even wholeheartedly believed what he was saying.

— I dunno, though… Is Violet really human? She’s certainly stronger than any normal 14-year-old girl I’ve ever seen. I don’t care how much training you’ve had in the army, because there’s no way any normal human teenager can just flip a grown man on his backside with just one hand.

— I’m still puzzled as to why Gilbert kept Violet with him on the frontlines. Hopefully, this episode will explain everything.

— I also hope that Gilbert loved Violet as a younger sister or perhaps even a daughter and not… y’know, a lover. On the other hand, we did just watch an episode in which a 14-year-old princess exchanged love letters with a man ten years her senior. Gross.

— Dietfried still sees Violet as a threat. We don’t know enough about him at the moment, however, to understand his hatred of Violet. Yes, she killed his men, but it was wartime. Lots of his men have died to more than just Violet, I’m sure. Unless she killed a close friend — or perhaps even a lover — his reaction here seems a bit hyperbolic.

— Apparently, Cattleya doesn’t agree with telling Violet the truth. I think she’s just letting her emotions get the better of her. There is no point in which Violet could learn about Gilbert’s death and not be devastated. You can wait and wait and wait as long as you want. She was going to be crushed either way. If anything, the longer she remains clueless, the longer she stays imprisoned by the past. She will never move on with her life if she’s always sitting around waiting for Gilbert to return.

— Why did Violet bite the kind, old servant lady? Why didn’t she bite Gilbert the first time he reached out and embraced her?

— So he had to take her with him to the frontlines, because the army said so. I was hoping for a better reason than that, but whatever. The story continues to skirt around Violet’s true nature. No one is at all surprised or confused by the fact that a young child is so frighteningly proficient at fighting. Child soldiers are not rare, but they’re not exactly superhuman like Violet either.

— We proceed to see Violet perform superhuman feats despite Gilbert telling her to stay put at base.

— In the present day, Violet travels all the way back to Gilbert’s home just to look for him, but she is confronted by his gravestone. According to Claudia, however, they never found his body. I wonder if she’ll still cling onto some minuscule shred of hope that he’s still alive out there somewhere. In any case, another flashback seems to imply that the first time she ever spoke to him was when he named her after those flowers. This only raises more questions. Was this the first time she actually learned to speak, read, and write? Aren’t there issues with learning these things if they’ve been delayed too long? I don’t know, actually. I’m not an expert on childhood development.

— She’s such a great fighter, she even helped free a city from enemy occupation. And so we finally see the scene where she first got her brooch. Its color reminded her of Gilbert’s eyes, and as such, the jewelry stirred up an incomprehensible feeling within her (most likely love). Violet even confessed that she always thought her eyes were beautiful. Maybe that was why she didn’t bite him when they first met.

— We also get to see what Claudia was like in the past, but not much has changed between then and now. This is also when they first discussed the possibility of finding Violet a job after the war. The girl seemed to sense that something was amiss, but she of course didn’t realize that Gilbert merely wanted to secure a safe future for her. All she ever knew at the time was fighting and following military orders.

— Claudia also seemed to imply that Gilbert could’ve had the girl removed from the frontlines by now: “Aren’t there other things you could have her do?” Maybe he was mistaken. Then again, maybe he wasn’t. Maybe Gilbert wanted to end the war so badly, he kept her with him for the pivotal battle ahead. It’s hard to blame him. If you knew you could end a war that has taken (I’m guessing) hundreds of thousands of lives, and all you had to do is make a child soldier fight one more battle, wouldn’t you do it?

— I don’t have much to say about the wartime scenes. They’re well-animated, but they don’t elicit any emotions from me. Gilbert got shot in the eye right after he signaled to his allies that the enemy HQ had been secured. Unfortunately, I can’t say I feel too bad about Gilbert, because I still don’t think I know him that well as a character. He was kind to Violet when everyone else treated her like an object, but beyond that, his character remains a blank slate.

Oh, not the power of color inversion! Will Bargain Bin Kirito be able to restore his loli’s color fidelity? Let’s find out! 

— Despite BBK’s “overpoweredness” (that probably isn’t a word), he claims that the opponent’s psychic powers are overwhelming. Luckily for him, one of his slaves is a psychic-type loli. She’s practically a Mewtwo! Just less cute. And less cool. Less everything good in every way. And while she’s pushing back against the baddie, all he has to do is go into his menu and level up his psychic resistance! But that brings up another issue: eight weeks into the season, is it still fresh and original to watch the guy go through menus?

— The baddie’s name is Zen, which is also the name of the hero in that terribad play they had the pleasure of watching two episodes ago (I believe). What exactly does he want with the elf loli? He also refers to BBK as the descendant of some hero. They keep reusing the same word, which doesn’t help the story achieve clarity.

— Heh, consent.

— Oh no, Zen just pulled a Jedi mind trick on BBK. Humiliated like Ben Swolo, our hero then gets attacked by… tentacles? Shadow tentacles, apparently. But thanks to his new elf friend providing a distraction, BBK is able to wrest himself free, which elicits the classic “BAKANA!” reaction from the enemy. Good ol’ cliches.

— BBK: “Well, I never met a sorcerer who could control shadows before…” Dude, you’ve never even met a sorcerer before.

— Arisa thinks that the level difference between them and Zen is too high, so she clearly doesn’t realize how powerful BBK is. Plus, isn’t Zen just level 41? You’d think the Undead King would have a higher level than that. He’s supposedly “transcended,” so that makes him stronger than normal. Arisa uses a “unique” skill to no avail. Even BBK’s guns do nothing, so the baddie proceeds to abscond with the elf loli. I wish this didn’t have to look so… tentacle-y, but there we have it.

— It’s not like I feel any tension in this scene, though. You just know nothing bad will happen to the elf loli. You also know she’ll be rescued eventually. This isn’t a show that breaks genre conventions. There are no serious consequences for our loli collector to ever deal with. Losing Mia is nothing but a temporary setback. It’s this sort of stale writing that plagues every medium in general. I know shows like Death March aren’t exactly allotted a large budget, but you don’t need one in order to tell a decent story. Just Because! looked like absolute trash, but it’s direction and storytelling were still top-notch.

— So BBK dives after Mia and finds himself floating in… an endless expanse of water? After discovering that the area has no map, the guy closes his eyes and starts grunting. Matrix-esque lines of code start appearing all over his body. When he finally yells out, reality “shatters” around him and he finds himself in some ornate castle-like location. O…kay… we’re just straight up cheating now, huh?

— BAKANA! He broke through the shadow prison!

— Even the baddie is like, “Hey, yo, that’s not fair. You didn’t beat the Cradle level properly!”

— He calls himself the Undead King, but he also says he bears God’s blessing. Okay. I mean, it’s possible that the God of this game is a jerkass and would thus bless an evil bastard, but I wish the show would just do some proper world-building.

— In any case, BBK just gets kicked out of the zone. He’ll have to rob the Cradle if he wants his elf loli back.

— Oh man, BBK is up against the Undead King, though! Who knows what nasty minions he’ll run into! Like… BEES! Wait, what?

— Oh c’mon, a weed goblin?

— In any case, BBK proceeds to climb all 200 floors of the Cradle. In any other anime, this would be an arc that spans several episodes. In Death March, however, you can be sure that he’ll reach the top floor by the end of the episode.

— In the meantime, we run into a grass-type loli! Strong against water, ground, and rock-type lolis!

— He’s supposed to defeat the loli in order to continuing climbing the dungeon, but of course, she takes one look at him and has other designs.

— She can’t eat human food. Instead, she requires MP… oh no… MP is just another term for mana. And in order to transfer mana… oh no…

— Bargain Bin “I am not a lolicon” Kirito in a nutshell. Look, they just throw themselves at him, okay?!

— We get some backstory about the Cradle and its creator, but I don’t care.

— After that brief distraction is over and done with, BBK continues up the dungeon and encounters three beautiful ladies. They’re a little too old for him, though. They also happen to be homunculi made in the elf loli’s image.

— And there’s this hunk of junk! But BBK beats it by shooting a letter on its head. I’m not even going to bother explaining the gimmick here. It’s not worth it. It’s obvious that the story is rushing itself terribly. He then punches out one of the homunculi, but since he’s such a nice BBK, he takes her to a safe spot. Always the consummate gentleman… except for the whole owning slaves part. In her sleep, she calls out to her master, which reminds BBK of his own loli slaves. Isn’t that sweet?

— BBK climbs the dungeon some more and eventually comes across yet another room plant-filled room. Even this game is full of lazy copy-pasted dungeons.

— And hey, there’s also another grass-type loli here, but this one is in desperate need of BBK’s precious fluids. Once again, he has to make out with a loli, but I’m sure he’s not a lolicon. He just has to do it if he wants to proceed… and rescue his other loli.

— Our grass-type loli then sends BBK up right up to floor 180. Well, this has been a rather quick and painless dungeon raid.

— Ah yes, more bugs! Nothing like challenging the Undead King with a can of Raid.

— And just like that, we’re here. All that’s left is to rescue the elf loli. The Undead King doesn’t seem very evil, though. He just seems like some annoying NPC that is desperate to test the player. As a result, Death March continues to be this weird mix of meta-gaming and an isekai story. I’m not supposed to take any of the gameplay stuff seriously, but the show is not subversive or humorous enough on its own to be a parody of bad RPGs.

— Wait, what? Gjallarhorn is a sword and not… y’know, a horn? This game is so stupid.

— The Undead King then summons forth the trash mobs that BBK must clear before he can finally tackle the raid boss himself. Unfortunately, we’re out of time, so you’ll have to come back next week to see if our hero can finally get his hands on that epic loli.

Ah, where does the time go? Unfortunately, it’s still winter here, and it’s been cold as f–… 

— The happy-go-lucky narration in the cold opening almost makes it feel like we’re watching a sitcom, and it’s evident why: Kondo definitely wants to lay the friendship thing on thick. Maybe he shouldn’t have hugged her in last week’s episode, then. Maybe the 45-year-old man should know better and stop sending the poor girl mixed messages.

— Some readers have argued that this show is innocent, because Kondo can maintain his boundaries (sure he can) and ultimately become the girl’s good friend — a confidante, even. Personally, if I were in his shoes, I wouldn’t even be friends with her. Not right now, anyways. Not anytime soon. Why? Because her feelings for him are still raw. If I were him, I’d snuff them out completely by distancing myself from the girl. Yes, this is cold, but that’s the point. You don’t kill a plant by providing warmth. Then maybe in a few years, once I’m confident that she’s moved on, then sure… we can be friends. Some people will likely think that this is terribly mean of me, but in my opinion, they’re not being pragmatic about the situation.

— There’s also this. I’ve never been friends with any of my managers. True friends, anyway.

— The same sandwich everyday. The same drink everyday. Why not try the pasta dish that Yui is eating? It looks decent.

— And as we can easily see, Kondo can insist all he wants that he and Akira are just friends, but the girl will never forget his embrace unless he takes more drastic actions to redefine their relationship. Actions speak louder than words anyway. She can rationalize the whole friendship thing as Kondo just being hesitant and anxious about his feelings in public. Deep down inside, however, he truly, truly cares about her. Why else would he hug her? Yeah, yeah, you can point to his monologue from last week’s episode for the man’s justifications, but she didn’t hear those words, did she? All she knew was that he suddenly held her tenderly out of nowhere.

— Honestly, it doesn’t even take an embrace. Someone could just compliment you and you’d be living on that high for the rest of the day. We’ve all been there before.

— Akira has a pimple? But I thought anime characters were perfect.

— I dunno, I can’t picture Kondo firing anyone unless they really screw up. He’s obviously just teasing his employee. Besides, Yoshizawa’s bangs aren’t that long.

— Why is he so excited to have Yui trim his bangs? He can’t afford to pay for his own haircut? Plus, I’d never let some aspiring hairdresser with no professional experience touch my head.

— But hey, I’m not complaining about this subplot if it means we’ll have to see less of AkiraxKondo. I really enjoyed the episode about Akira’s old childhood friend. It’s one of the show’s best episodes yet. If the other side characters could get the same treatment as Haruka, it’d be great.

— Yui likes Yoshizawa, but of course, he has a hopeless crush on Akira. She likes Kondo, though; in fact, she doesn’t see the guy as anything more than an acquaintance. As for Kondo…? Who knows? I feel like this sort of nonsense only ever happens in fiction, though. Okay, maybe it does happen in real life, but it has to be exceedingly rare. Never in all my life have I ever encountered such a tangled mess of one-sided love.

— It would suck if Akira tries to help Yui get with Yoshizawa, but she just inadvertently makes him like her even more.

— And because Akira won’t give up with Kondo, she projects her optimism onto Yui. I suppose it can’t hurt… until Yoshizawa rejects the poor girl because he’s also optimistic about his chances with Akira.

— Akira: “I think that friendship can turn into a romantic relationship.” She’s not wrong; all of my relationships have come from close friendships. But this is what I’m talking about when I say that Kondo is giving her false hope.

— Kondo is putting up flyers for the summer festival, and he even suggests to Akira that she should check it out. Sounds like a potential date night.

— See? This is what I’m talking about. You can almost never be friends with someone who likes you. I’m not saying it’s impossible, but both parties would have to be mature about it. Exceedingly mature. And that’s not the case with Akira (or even Kondo). In most cases, you’ll just end up stringing them along. They won’t give up so long as there’s a glimmer of hope.

— Well, this is adorable. Still, Yoshizawa’s kinda dense, so unless Yui confesses her feelings, I don’t think the guy will understand her feelings. And even then…

— Wait a minute, tangerines aren’t yellow.

— There’s a sereneness to this week’s episode. It almost feels like the calm before the storm.

— 9:30 pm is not particularly late, but it’s so interesting to see how people can wander around at night in Japan and not have to worry about their safety. I can’t say the same about San Francisco. Obviously, I’m not going to die as soon as the sun goes down, but I can’t be careless either.

— Ah, he gave her his contact info. Of course he did.

— Akira: “Even if we’re only friends right now, I’m sure one day…” Yeeeeep.

— Speaking of Akira’s childhood friend, we see a former soccer player with a knee brace ask Haruka about Akira. The girl mentions how he recently just retired from the team, and it’s obviously due to his injury. Maybe he’s trying to reach out to Akira, because he’s gone through the same sort of personal loss.

— Haruka: “I wonder if she doesn’t want to run anymore.” It’s complicated. It’s also the sort of thing where you just won’t understand unless you hear it straight from their lips. I still don’t understand why Haruka can’t find the courage to reach out to Akira and have a heart-to-heart talk. They’re childhood friends, aren’t they? Or is it just a cultural thing? Are we not allowed to openly ask our friends what’s bothering them?

— So instead, this random guy — a completely new character — has to come out of nowhere and help Haruka understand what her friend must be going through. Plus, it’s nothing we haven’t already speculated.

— Yamamoto: “I think having someone like you who cares about her helps Tachibana feel better.” But does Akira actually know that? Does she know that Haruka is worried about her? Doesn’t stop Haruka from getting those giant, doe-like eyes, though.

— I’ve never seen anyone have such a hearty chuckle over a remedial class. His curiosity is then piqued when she mentions the short story “Rashomon.” What a coincidence: the servant in the story also had a pimple on one of his cheeks. But of course, that pimple had symbolism! The servant wanted to live a righteous life, but the pimple festered and festered until he too became a parasite. What symbolism does Akira’s pimple have (if any)? Well, I’d say Kondo has a festering problem he can’t keep brushing off, but I don’t know if I can say the same about the girl. Maybe there are looming troubles ahead. We haven’t exactly wrapped up Kase’s subplot. Plus, what would people say if her secret crush ever got out?

— I don’t agree with Kondo; I don’t think the question is that bad. It’s certainly open-ended, but isn’t that the point? Isn’t it asking the student to come up with an argument and reasonably justify their answer?

— Kondo also doesn’t give Akira a very good answer. At the very least, I wouldn’t grade it very well if I were the teacher.

— Akira then asks Kondo what he would’ve done if he had been the servant in the story. It’s interesting to note his chosen words: “Well, I don’t think I can be [a thief]. When you get to this age, you get into a habit of living timidly.” Was the thief courageous? From a certain point of view, I suppose you could argue that he was. He found the courage to cast off morality in order to survive. He rationalized taking advantage of another living being.

That takes a certain bit of courage, which Kondo does not share. But the implication here is that Kondo isn’t necessarily righteous himself. He wouldn’t avoid becoming a thief simply because it is wrong. Rather, he avoids becoming a thief because he’s scared. He lacks the courage to be unrighteous. So what does that say about him and his little dilemma with Akira? Does this imply that he sees nothing wrong with dating her? That he’s only reluctant because he’s used to “living timidly?” He goes on to say, “If I were the servant, I think I’d be under the tower until it stopped raining. I might not be able to move from there even after it stopped raining.” In other words, he won’t go to her, but that doesn’t prevent Akira from coming to him. And she’s been happy to do just that all series long.

— Kondo then turns the pages and stumbles onto Akira’s lovesick doodles… welp.

— He then offers a twist on the symbolism of the festering pimple: it’s a sign of youth, which allows the servant to be courageous. Since Kondo’s too old to get pimples, he can’t flout society’s morality. Akira’s still young, so she can bravely reach out for what she wants; no wonder she still gets pimples. It’s interesting how he thinks this shortly after seeing Akira’s doodles. And while I can commend him for his honest self-reflection, my opinion of the man can’t help but go down. He’s basically saying that society and his lack of courage is the only thing keeping him away from Akira.

— Plus, I can’t get behind his interpretation wholeheartedly. It seems to remove any sort of agency from old people. I understand he’s merely speaking from the heart; I understand he feels trapped by the banality of his middle-aged lifestyle and the decades of obligations that piled onto his back. But c’mon, to say that an old man can no longer have courage is a cop-out. Don’t mistake something being harder with it being completely impossible. To make him look even more foolish, he ends getting a pimple himself.

— I realize, of course, I’m not exactly charitable to Kondo, so my interpretation of his character is tainted by that. I take nothing back, though. I think these sort of analyses are inherently subjective.

— Inspired by her manager, Akira’s answer ends up making her Modern Japanese teacher chuckle. She wrote, “I hope this courage will positively influence the servant’s life in the future. I would like to read a sequel to this story.” Uh, did we even read the same short story? The servant robbed the old woman and kicked her onto a pile of corpses. Well, gosh, I hope he turned a new leaf with his newfound courage!

— Looks like Yoshizawa went to the Tamaki Mari’s School of Butchered Bangs.

— I’m pleasantly surprised to see Akira invite Haruka out to the summer festival.

Oh my God… Killing Bites is what? It’s what?! The suspense is killing me! 

— To briefly set the stage, Honey Badger and Taiga Aisaka are about to throw down. But sadly, we have to first listen to a bunch of boring old men have a little conference…

— Well, that’s a nice episode title.

— So the baddies want to legalize turning everyone into furries. That’s real bad.

— And of course, the zaibatsu who wins this Destroyal will get to reap all of the profits. Why? I mean, why not? I, too, make all my business decisions based on some stupid deathmatch.

— This Orrin Hatch-looking loser obviously wouldn’t object, since Orrin Hatch himself is a massive bootlicker.

— But of course, the person who stands to benefit the most is Shidoh! Dun dun d–…

— Man, I don’t care. I really, really don’t care about these crusty old men. Bring it back to Hitomi, our honey badger. I need to know: do you need the sharpest fangs or not?!

— Just a reminder that this guy technically still exists even though he’s completely useless.

— It’s kinda funny how Taiga Aisaka can’t prance around in his own skin and fur. No, he has to wear a tiger-patterned pair of pants instead. And when I say funny, I really mean stupid.

— Meanwhile, our lusty civet can’t understand why neither Honey Badger nor Taiga Aisaka are horny. I mean, can’t they smell alluring perfume? It’s all over the place! Shrug, maybe those two are just asexual. What else could it be? It can’t be due to their sharp fangs.

— The smart thing to do is to have three people crush Honey Badger. But of course, this is anime, so Taiga Aisaka will not allow anyone to interfere with his hunt! He would hurt his own sister if she tried to help!

— We briefly interrupt the main attraction just to inform you that, yes, Bunny Girl is still an idiot, but Gorilla Boy looks so dumb, he gives her a run for her money.

— Running is itself a strength. You can easily tire your predator out. It’s totally valid for Bunny Girl to lead Gorilla Boy on a wild goose chase. Her problem is that she has no clue what she’s doing.

— Gorilla Boy: “When it comes to brute force, gorillas are the strongest in the natural world.” Riiiiiight…

— If you care, his backstory is that he used to get bullied a lot in school. It’s so perfunctory, it’s literally like a two-second throwaway scene.

— Unfortunately, Gorilla Boy tossed some tree parts at Bunny Girl in order to trap her. If you remember anything from last week’s episode — and I don’t blame you if you don’t — Tree Hugger Kido hates that. He totally hates it! So does Gorilla Boy apologize? Does he promise to plant a thousand trees to make up for his crimes? Nah, he doubles down. He then triples down for good measure. Then he dies. I thought gorillas were smart. Oh Poor Man’s Donkey Kong… we hardly knew ye. And yes, Kido killed his own teammate.

— I still don’t know what animal Kido is supposed to be..

— No, this is not her shadow. Jesus Christ, anime… Luckily for her, Kido is ordered to move elsewhere. Plus, you know the anime wouldn’t hurt any of the main female characters.

— Oh my God, Solid Snake is still alive. He launches one last attack at Taiga just to die. Honey Badger stupidly tells the camera crew to rescue Solid Snake and take the rapist to a hospital. Why?

— And now, Taiga tells us all about his BFF Leo like we give a damn. I get it — he wants to jump Leo’s bones. What does that have to do with this Destroyal, though? Just fight. You’re here to fight, not tell stories.

— Leo: “Lions don’t bother fighting the weak.” Hmmm…

— Sadly, this episode has been so full of pointless backstories and distractions that it’s already almost over. We only have a couple minutes of actual runtime left by the time Taiga finishes telling us all about how Leo took it easy on Honey Badger.

— The episode is almost over, and these two are still just glaring at each other.

— Finally, something happens: Taiga strikes Honey Badger so quickly, we can’t even see it without instant replay. ‘Cause, y’know, tigers are known for their frightening speed and agility.

— Chesty Cheetah claims the fight is over, but of course, Honey Badger somehow “dodged” the attack even though she went flying. I guess it’s one of those stupid anime things were she dodged just enough to avoid being knocked out.

— Then to set the stage for next week’s episode…

Yuuuuuup.

— The guys behind this show’s soundtrack must be having a blast. They probably don’t even know what the anime is even about. They’re just rocking out. I can respect that. I wish I could say the same about the show, but right now, it’s just a Friday night filler. I blog it precisely because it’s Friday night, and I don’t want to think.

I oddly enjoyed this episode. It’s at least somewhat thought-provoking… even if it continues to feel a little vapid at times. I blame characters like Yuka… and the show’s continued obsession with modeling. In any case, here are my notes and observations:

— The shrouded, hooded girl is none other than Saturnus, and like her sisters, she is of course looking for an owner. I don’t know what that has to do with breaking into a one-percenter’s home and killing their maid hIEs, but the rich girl isn’t too nonplussed: “Oh, a violent intruder? Sure, I’ll be your owner… if you’re cute.” No, seriously, that’s the human girl’s reaction. It feels stupid, but of course, I don’t really know what rich people are like in this alternate universe. Maybe they really are this blase and carefree.

— I don’t remember this back in 2009… On a serious note, however, we get a quick history lesson on hIEs and their integration into society.

— For some reason, there’s a three-decade gap between the first and second model. The latter also doesn’t look as though it is leaps and bounds ahead of the former.

— Notice how these hIEs are all feminine. Every single one of them are cute, slender and servile. We eventually arrive at Lacia. They don’t show off a single male-looking model. We can only assume that one exists because why not, right? Emotional labor is always seen as feminine. If natural women won’t be submissive, we’ll create submissive ones.

— Of course, the media campaign is titled “Boy Meets Girl,” but that comes afterwards. They create the robots before marketing ever gets involved. This is all part of the presentation put forth by Lacia’s modeling agency. The agency even says, “…the concept is to look back at hIE’s history and look forward to the future yet to come.” That future looks so limited, does it not? When I think androids, I think of more than just hot, sexy maids who will greet me with open arms when I come home from a long day. Technically, we do that with our loved ones and vice versa. I mean, who wouldn’t greet their loved ones with open arms? So why would it be necessary for an hIE to fulfill this role instead? Is the future really that dystopian? Is it so bad that we have to go out and buy an hIE to hug us at night?

— It’s a very targeted campaign. You’d think hIEs would be for everyone: men, women, straight, gay, so on and so forth. But no, this is purely about a boy meeting a girl. More importantly, the girl is always the hIE who is happy to see you. I’m not calling the anime sexist. That’s too simple. In order to read this story, we have to look beyond our kneejerk reactions. People currently treat hIEs like objects. The woman points at Lacia and refers to her as something akin to a luxury car that every man dreams of owning. In order to break society’s reluctance towards embracing hIEs, the media agency is specifically targeting individuals who have certain needs. What does that say about the rest of the society at large? Remember, Kengo is frustrated that people are allowing artificial intelligence to assume more and more of their daily responsibilities. But who are these “people?” This targeted campaign seems to imply that they are men. This distant, glossy-looking future is not so swell when you peek under the surface. For whatever reason, men do not feel as though their emotional needs are being met, so they’ve gone and created artificial life to alleviate that problem. The agency is just going along with what they’ve been given: “…to sell Lacia-style products with the concept of a partner you go through life with.” Lacia even adds, “The strategy targets hIE owners who live by themselves…” In our day and age, it’s weird if you’re a loner who has no family or friends. You’re supposed to just man up and go find someone to be with. In the future, you can just buy an artificial life to fill that gap in your life! Along the way, we’ve run into some unintended side effects… like hIEs encroaching upon our politics. But hey, at least our emotional needs are finally being met, right?

— I mean, just look at Arato and Lacia. What value has she supposedly provided to his home? All she does is act like a domestic housewife. I don’t remember where his mother is, but I do know that his father is busy with important hIE-related research. Furthermore, he has a needy, demanding imouto that he has to spoil. So who spoils him? Who attends to his emotional needs? This appears to be Lacia’s day-to-day function. Sure, when his friends are in trouble, she assists him in all these cool, hi-tech ways like cloaking them both with invisibility so they can infiltrate a well-defended building. But that’s just gravy for the viewers. What happens everyday is that Lacia spoils Arato, because there’s no one else to do it.

— Of course, there’s this throwaway line: “…isn’t limited to female hIEs and male customers, but the opposite as well!” Sure. That’s not what they’re pushing, though. If Lacia’s modeling agency truly believed this, they’d create dueling campaigns. But they didn’t. They created “Boy Meets Girl,” and highlighted nothing but female hIEs. Plus, we rarely see male hIEs; in fact, I can’t even remember seeing one. As a result, I can’t help but feel that the modeling agency is just saying whatever she can now in order to convince Arato to get on-board. She’s pitching this as more than just a marketing campaign. Instead, Arato and Lacia are supposedly going to shake up the world and introduce a whole new paradigm to the human-hIE relationship. He can totally be a revolutionary who shows everyone it’s okay to have a robot waifu!

— Oh lord…

— The best thing about robot waifus is that you don’t have to concern yourself with their emotional needs… or do you? That’s the inescapable truth, isn’t it? In order for artificial life to understand us and perform emotional labor for our sake, wouldn’t they have to be human enough where they would also have emotional needs of their own? Clearly, Arato feels differently than the rest of society. Otherwise, what would even be the point of this anime? Just because Lacia says she doesn’t have feelings doesn’t make it true.

— This girl — the same girl we met at the start of the episode — is supposedly the owner of Fabion MG. What a coincidence.

— Afterwards, we get more spiel from Lacia about how she’s just an object, so she can’t accept responsibility for anything. Also, she’s perfectly happy to live in domestic bliss with a high school boy, so start up your lewd engines. Just don’t go too far, because she goes on to say, “I cannot approve someone under 18 to utilize myself in that manner.” Pfft, I’m sure you could jailbreak her and override that age limit.

— The whole “relationship with objects” thing is kinda silly anyway. Olga suggests that her father has a close relationship with his knife, but Shiori writes it off since the knife is nothing more than a tool that is useful in its purpose. But this is completely ignoring the all-important difference about hIEs: they can interact with you like any other person. A knife can’t. A useful tool can’t. Clearly, hIEs are more than just tools. Ergo, they’re more than just objects, so it’s weird that even someone like Lacia will keep on insisting that she’s just an object.

— Yuka continues to be the worst character on the show.

— Elsewhere, Ryo sure seems to be paying a lot of attention to Lacia. But to be more accurate, he sees Arato like a puppy dog that he has to protect. As a result, he’s deeply suspicious of the luxury hIE. Over and over again, Lacia coyly teases Arato about falling under the influence of her analog hacking. Of course, if this is really the case, it goes against the idea of him accepting responsibility for her sake. How can he assert his own will if he’s really just being manipulated by her? So I can’t help but wonder if this is what Ryo actually fears most. Since Arato is a helpless puppy dog in Ryo’s eyes, does the latter think that the former is being led astray by his hIE master? At least Lacia seems to believe in Arato… if we assume she’s not actually analog hacking him.

— I don’t know if it’s related or not, but unlike his two buddies, Ryo seems to pay less attention to his own imouto even though she clearly has a thing for him. Again, anime has this weird obsession with sibling love. The point is, Shiori feels powerless; she feels as though she’s just an object to be used by her company. Where’s Ryo in all of this? Why is Ryo so much more concerned about Arato and Lacia than his own flesh and blood? With no one to help her, Shiori is tempted to use Methode as a tool in order to give herself any semblance of personal agency.

— Assuming ownership of an hIE is oddly intimate. Surely, there’s a more elegant way to do this from a UI perspective, but it wouldn’t be as symbolic.

— “SHITTER 1/200?” That can’t be right.

— Lacia is in the middle of her new modeling gig, but Methode crashes the party. I like how she manages to get onto the set without anyone noticing. I’m hoping we get some action, because although this episode has actually provided some interesting food for thought, we’re sorely due for some fighting to inject a little adrenaline into the story.

— There’s also an actual human model here, and she gripes at the fact that anyone would dress hIEs up in pretty clothes, but uh… I’d dress my own cat in snazzy clothes if I could.

— Methode proceeds to destroy the set as well as other hIEs. It’s quite sad, really. The hIEs’ first instinct (programming?) is to help the humans evacuate safely and alert the authorities. And yet, episode after episode, we just see them being treated like junk. We can only hope that these hIEs aren’t programmed to feel pain, but they sure do react as if they do. The lady from the modeling agency tells Arato to escape, but of course, he won’t leave without Lacia. What about these poor hIEs, though? We saw Arato despair over their poor treatment in the first episode, but since then, no one has really cried for them. They’re not as advanced as Lacia, sure, but these are still pretty damn lifelike. It’s the same thing with the politician hIE. They keep dying and nobody cares. Where’s the hero who is supposed to stand up and protect them? I thought it’d be Arato, but he clearly has done much for anyone besides Lacia and his friends.

— Ryo also crashes the party to save a pair of human girls. How did he know where to be and at what time?

— Ah, I want action, but I forget… Diomedea doesn’t have the chops to pull these fighting scenes off.

— There’s a lull in the fighting, which gives Methode the opportunity to claim that she’s the only “finished” Lacia-type hIE.

— Oh, did I mean lull? I really meant the end of the fight. Methode literally showed up, killed some poor hIEs, tussled with Lacia a bit then left. Uh, okay…? What was the point of that? To intimidate Arato and Lacia?

— This anime loves its post-credit scenes.

— Methode explains she had to leave because Ryo showed up. Okay. She and the mad scientist proceed to talk about vague but foreboding stuff like the end of humanity. Apparently, AI has already surpassed human intelligence, which… isn’t surprising. What that means for humanity, however, is anybody’s guess. I suppose Beatless will eventually tell us what it thinks.

— On a related note, the light novel illustration for Arato almost makes him look a bit cool. His light novel self certainly doesn’t look like his gormless anime counterpart.

Let’s open with a happy image, ’cause we know this episode won’t end well. 

— Well, as a bit of a refresher, Marrine will attack Starck, and I guess Villar just happens to be in the way. Siluca advises him to fight back or else Altirk will be in deep trouble, but Villar just can’t bring himself to break away from Union. Why would he have to break away from Union? Cause they currently want to engage Alliance in peace talks. Do you care? You probably shouldn’t. After all, I definitely don’t. Like I said last week, all this fighting means nothing to me without the human element. I don’t care about lords, counts, and whatnot. They’re not the ones who truly suffer.

— Oh hey, we finally get another look at the people, and they don’t seem very trusting. Gee, I wonder why? Of course, the official explanation here is that there’s still plenty of Dimitrie’s kin here, but I mean, it’s not as if our heroes appear to do much for the people they rule over.

— So… since Villar dismissed Siluca, we now get to watch her and Theo tour the latter’s domain and battle giant wasps. That’s cool, I guess. Gotta protect them purple children. I know the story wants to set Theo and Siluca up as a couple, but are you feeling the romance between them? I’m not. A montage of scenes in a forest doesn’t convince me that they’re a great couple.

— Oh, here comes the cliche where it’s suddenly raining cats and dogs, so our couple has to huddle up in close proximity. Ahhhh, can’t stay in these wet clothes. Might catch pneumonia! Their twin ahoge makes them look kinda silly.

— Interesting, he outright said he was worried she might become Villar’s vassal since she was visiting the castle so often. Siluca quickly responds that she’d never leave his side. But why? Theo, however, wants to make it clear that he doesn’t just want her as a mage. He wants her because she’s important to him. He wants her by his side because he pretty much loves her. She confesses to him, he confesses back, and then they kiss. They do more than that, but hey, these are the good guys, so we can’t see them be that lewd. In any case, sure, this scene is adorable. I like romances in my stories. I like it when the hero gets the girl. The only problem is that nine episodes of scant romantic hints aren’t enough to convince me that they have an undying devotion to each other. On the one hand, I’m pleased to see a romantic pairing being established so early on in the story, but on the other hand, therein lies the problem: their relationship just doesn’t seem all that convincing.

— That poor horse.

— Aaaaand back to reality… which is this jumbled mess of warring soldiers.

— We also see Milza butcher people in cold blood, and this catches Marrine’s eye. Oh dear, is she going to make a deal with the devil?

— Basically, Marrine’s going to have a hard time winning this battle. The Starck Fortress has some nice natural advantages, and she doesn’t exactly have elephants to help her cross mountains.

— Her sleepy-looking mage then suggests that they use chemical warfare. Even in this universe, chemical warfare is prohibited. Unfortunately, Marrine’s too far gone now. She wants victory at all costs: “I have no intention of becoming a virtuous but inept leader.” But… a leader who nobody likes is pretty inept. A leader who ends up being overthrown by the people because she broke international laws is pretty inept. I mean, I could continue but you get the point. She thinks she can just hand-wave away her infamy by ruling with an iron fist, but surely, it’s a little more complicated than that. Of course, I get what she’s doing. Alexis is a saint, but he’s pretty goddamn inept. That doesn’t mean, however, that the opposite end of the spectrum is any better.

— These soldiers are no better. They barely put up a resistance: “If you’re prepared, then we will obey your command and fight.” Oh, you don’t need to tell me that this happens all the time in real life. I know it does. I’m just saying that these guys suck too.

— Marrine then tells her ladies-in-waiting to contact Milza. Oh boy…

— You’d think these awesome mages would whip up some sort of magical gas mask to help them with this nasty job.

— Aren’t war crimes just neato?

— You can tell that science (or arguably common sense) isn’t really a thing here, because uh… if I see poisonous gas approaching me, the last thing I would do is hide in an enclosed space and cover myself with a blanket.

— Later that night, the fortress falls with ease, and Marrine personally murders one of the lords. This is still a pyrrhic victory, since every single participant has lost their soul. Milza is pleased, though. He’s soured on Villar thanks to last week’s episode, but he must be impressed by Marrine’s unhinged nature.

— Alone in her camp, Marrine wonders how Alexis will react to the news of this battle… well, I wonder… any rational person would no longer be in love with such a heinous person, but I don’t know about Alexis.

— Marrine goes to meet Milza alone at his request. That sounds like a bad idea, but she’s desperate for his alliance. And shortly after they meet for the first time, Milza wants to fuck Marrine right here and right now. Why? Oh, for various reasons. First, he’s testing her love for Alexis, and second, sex is one (gross) way to bind their contract. Naturally, she has to inform him and the audience that she’s a virgin. And with that, we can’t help but feel bad about Alexis, because even though he’s rather childish, he’s not a bad person. He doesn’t deserve this. In any case, I kinda stopped watching the episode at this point, because I’m not particularly comfortable watching someone have unwilling sex.

— While I dislike Marrine as a person (she’s pretty fucking horrible), this isn’t necessarily a bad turn for her character. She’s represents the fallen individual who is willing to do anything for power, and in a better story, she would perfectly juxtapose Theo’s goody-two-shoes principles. She rejected love for power; on the other hand, he gave up almost all his power for Siluca. The rough, love-less sex here also heavily contrasts the sweet and innocent confessions between Theo and Siluca in the first half of the episode. It’s only implied that our heroes had sex. On the other hand, there’s no denying the fact that Milza and Marrine do the deed. Unfortunately, Marrine is plagued by two serious issues.

First, her thought process isn’t very compelling. It’s one thing to be evil; it’s another thing to make one bad decision after the other. Now, you can hand-wave this away by arguing that Marrine has never been completely mentally stable since her tragic wedding day. Nevertheless, she’s not a villain that draws you in.

Second — and this is arguably the bigger issue — this anime wants to be Game of Thrones but with only a tenth (and that might be generous) of the same run-length. As a result, nothing is fully fleshed out, nothing has a chance to breathe and develop naturally, and most of all, major plot points and character developments feel sloppily rushed. Marrine’s fall from grace doesn’t hit me as hard as it should, because I don’t know her at all. I also don’t know Alexis at all. I definitely don’t know Milza at all other than that I’m obviously supposed to root against him. Hell, I barely understand the conflict between between Union and Alliance. You can’t weave a politically-charged tale full of deception and intrigue with just nine 24-min episodes.

— The same thing applies to Theo and Siluca, and the sad part is that those two have had all season to establish their romance. Nevertheless, I can’t help but feel as though the show dropped the ball pretty hard there. I just don’t feel their chemistry at all.

— Having said all that, as long as nothing egregiously bad happens to these two, I’m good. I don’t really care for them as a couple, but eh… we need some light to balance out the dark.

— Next week’s episode is titled “Blade of Betrayal.” Hm. I’m kinda hoping Villar bites the dust. I wasn’t really a fan of his shenanigans in last week’s episode either. The whole nonsense about not wanting to go to war against his own kin is ridiculous considering what’s at stake. But whatever, we’ll see what happens.

Well, this is a sticky situation. But before we get into why Hiro’s practically cross-dressing, let’s start from the beginning. 

— The kids are in the middle of another battle as soon as the episode starts. We don’t really know what’s going on, but it’s okay. This foe isn’t really all that important, and neither is all the action. This is why I don’t really see this as a mecha anime. It’s more about a group of friends coping in a dystopian world than it is a mecha anime. Sure, they climb into giant robots every once in a while, but the action is not the feature attraction. In fact, the action is kinda mediocre. Nah, we’re here for the children and the children alone. We’re here to understand what it must feel like to be pushed towards sex even though these kids have never been taught what sex is. So if you started watching Darling in the FranXX in the first place because you were looking for a fresh and interesting mecha anime, I’m not surprised that you would come away dissatisfied and unimpressed. It’s really a different type of show.

— On that note, these mechas aren’t very well sealed. Not only that, the blue liquid proceeds to eat away at the pistils’ bodysuits. Oh dear. Just their bodysuits, though. We wouldn’t actually want to hurt the girls; we just want to ogle them. It’s also interesting to note that the girls have no clue what’s going on right now within the cockpit. When they are piloting these mechas, they become the mechas. They have to put a lot of trust in the boys and vice versa.

— Mitsuru barely has a reaction to Ikuno’s body. At least he’s well composed.

— As soon as we’re ready to wrap this scene up, Strelizia goes and finishes the job out of nowhere. It makes you wonder why she didn’t do this in the first place. Again, mecha action is not the focus here. It’s just a vehicle to help drive the main story forward.

— Nevertheless, I wonder when we’ll finally get to see the other FranXXs have their moments in the spotlight. Strelizia always gets to deal the final blow, and we’re already eight weeks into the story.

— The basic girls are mad that the boys got to see them in a partial state of undress, but Zero-Two doesn’t really care. After all, she thinks parasites should actually be a little pervy. Unfortunately, Hiro thinks this explanation would help calm the girls down. He really is an idiot. Oh well, at least he can take solace in the fact that the best girl approves. Nevertheless, Goro’s right. If the girls are too embarrassed to fight, they could actually endanger the missions and themselves. It’s totally understandable why the boys didn’t say anything during battle. At the same time, however, the girls are allowed to be mad. They are allowed to vent. It’s just an unlucky situation.

— As a result of all this nonsense, Miku no longer wants to be around the boys. She goes to the extreme and draws a line right down their living quarters with tape. The three other basic girls seem to go along with it. Again, the show is just building upon a previously established theme. These kids are told to link up and have their souls deeply intertwined with each other. After all, you can’t have good combat efficacy if you’re not compatible like lovers. Yes, lovers. Just being close friends isn’t enough (see: Hiro and Ichigo). At the same time, however, they’re told to eat at separate tables, live in separate dorms, and are never taught anything that resembles sex education. This contradiction confounds not just the Darling in the FranXX universe, but a lot of our own societies as well. There are some cultures where nudity isn’t a big deal, but this is not one of them.

Here’s the thing, though: most children don’t grow up naturally feeling embarrassed or ashamed about sex. That fear has to be instilled in us. We have to be told that it’s wrong for boys to see girls naked and vice versa. You can’t shame sex and at the same time tell these kids that they must do it for the good of the nation. That makes no sense. It’s one or the other. I’m not saying that the girls don’t have a right to feel as though their personal space has been violated. That’s totally valid. At the same time, however, they shouldn’t act as though the boys had done anything malicious to them. Their knee-jerk reaction is due to growing up in a culture that shames sex. This same culture fills our minds with nonsense like how a girl’s purity must be preserved at all costs. As such, she is tainted if anyone sees her in the nude. That’s frankly ridiculous.

— Zero-Two doesn’t care, though. She’s going to be with her darling no matter what, which gets on Ichigo’s nerves. That’s why she’s the best girl. This shit is juvenile, and she knows it. It’s amusing, but childish nonetheless. Of course, that’s the point.

— Hachi: “It’s unprecedented for so many members of a squad to hit puberty at once.” Oh really? Too bad we have no point of comparison. Plus, Dr. Franxx tells Nana not to interfere because this is a test team. He doesn’t even want the Papa freaks to know about this situation. What are they testing? Why these kids and not any of the other squads? Something must currently be unsustainable about the current model if they feel the need to experiment, but I’m just speculating.

— Zorome’s not wrong. And apparently, it’s goody-two-shoes Goro’s idea. Ichigo notes that neither Futoshi nor Zorome would be clever enough to troll the girls. Harsh. Probably true but still harsh.

— Miku: “I wish the invisible caretakers would handle [cleaning the bath], like they do with our food and laundry.” Huh? I knew someone had to prepare their food for them, but I didn’t realize that the kids have literally met said person[s].

— Goro still has his heart in the right place. Too bad emotions are still running high, and as such, some girls are too stubborn to let bygones be bygones. Why do people even like Ichigo? She kinda sucks as both a leader and a friend. She’s maintaining this pointless feud for no reason.

— Although she refuses to pick a side, Zero-Two is in no rush to get everyone on the same page. She thrives on conflict, so this is all just an amusing diversion until the next klaxosaur strikes. Life is short, so she may as well have as much fun as she can. For someone like Zero-Two, it must feel as though death is always around the corner. Plus, this isn’t really her home. She may even feel as though she’s never had one. Maybe she’ll eventually grow close to the rest of her team as the story progresses — in fact, that is more than likely the case — but for now, she’s just here because her darling is here. And if Hiro could ever take a hint and run away with her, Zero-Two would probably be over the moon.

— Kokoro bumps into Mitsuru at the greenhouse, and she goes, “Hey, do you really not mind chatting with me like this?” He’s not chatting, though.

— Of course, everything is beneath Mitsuru. He’s the typical arrogant prick that every team needs (not really). Still, Kokoro finds his non-conformist nature courageous. How come she doesn’t say the same about Zero-Two? Plus, what is there to be scared of? What would the other girls do to her if she didn’t play along? I guess peer pressure’s a thing, but it’s not as if anyone’s a bully here. She fears retribution that doesn’t really exist.

— Kokoro still has that book about childbirth with her. Is it really something to hide and conceal? Is it considered forbidden by Papa and his goons? Or is she just embarrassed to take an interest in something can only result from sex?

— Ichigo wonders how long this fight will last, but she’s the one who held Miku back from joining the boys in the dining room. What does she even want from this? Does she want the boys to get on their knees and grovel? On the other hand, seeing as how Ikuno probably has a crush on Ichigo, she doesn’t mind maintaining this separation from the boys at all.

— This is getting stagnant fast, so Zero-Two decides to play both sides like the chumps that they are. She wants to shake things up, so this leads to an age-old anime trope. Y’know, the devil is also considered a trickster.

— Zero-Two would later explain her motives: “If you keep half-assing things like that, you’ll even up like the adults one day.” Her words can only fall on deaf ears, though. After all, these kids are raised to worship the adults. She’s the only one who doesn’t respect them, so they can’t possibly understand where she’s coming from. It’d be like me walking into a church and badmouthing Jesus. In any case, she then goes and throw in something ominous: “Because you’re all going to die sooner or later.” Welp.

— That girl is too dexterous with her feet. Hm, would you even call it dexterous at that point? In the end, however, even Hiro goes along with his partner and finds the whole thing amusing. At least there’s that, I suppose. In the end, Hiro always steps up for his girl. He just needs a lot of encouragement from her, which she seems to have an endless supply of.

— The girls wanted Zero-Two to join their side, and this is the latter’s way of feeling included. After all, they still treat her like an outsider if last week’s episode is anything to go by. Remember how Ichigo officially welcomed both Hiro and Zero-Two to the squad, but she conveniently did so while pink-haired girl was busy swimming in the ocean? That was no innocent mistake on Ichigo’s part. The childhood friend is hella passive-aggressive. And now, she and her posse only want Zero-Two’s help when it’s convenient to them. As a result, Zero-Two has no particular loyalty to anyone but Hiro. The resulting confession from our heroine is both amusing and sad; the girl is both independent and vulnerable. She belongs to a team, but at the same time, she kinda doesn’t. She tries to seem human, but can only do so at the expense of both groups.

— Nana has finally had enough, so she intervenes and scolds everyone. I guess even Dr. Franxx couldn’t hold her back forever. Of course, she’s not wrong. What would happen if klaxosaurs had attacked? But maybe this is a missed opportunity. Maybe the story should’ve done just that: pit these embattled kids into a sudden life-or-death fight to teach them a lesson about how petty their squabble really is.

— These kids aren’t even taught basic teamwork:

Hiro: “I’ve never spared much thought for how girls felt before now…”

Zorome: “Why bother? They’re weirdo whack jobs.”

How are you supposed to be a close-knit squad when there’s such a dividing line right down the middle of the group? Boys, girls, what does it really matter?

— Mitsuru: [Zero-Two’s] the ultimate pistil. She doesn’t need your support.” Nobody really needs anybody. We can all live on our own. It’s fucking hard as shit, though. We are all better with other people’s support. This isn’t rocket science. Mitsuru should be smart enough to know that.

— But of course, the running theme here is that a “monster” like Zero-Two is really just as human as you or me. As such, Hiro argues that she’s just “a normal girl.” Blah blah blah, the girls bear the brunt of the punishment in the FranXXs, and they entrust the boys with the piloting. The girls are always giving it their all. As a result, most of the boys agree with Hiro: they should do their best to protect their respective partners. Only Mitsuru stays silent, because there’s no love lost between him and Ikuno.

— Meanwhile, inspired by the book on childbirth, Kokoro plays peacekeeper on the girls’ side. Unfortunately, Miku is back to being stubborn. This is really quite silly of her, but someone has to cause a scene. Someone has to go run and hide, and as a result, stumble upon a photo of the previous Squad 13, kids who have all been wiped out. This cements the idea in the current team’s minds that their lives are precarious. Kids are supposed to live carefree. Kids are supposed to shoot for the stars and achieve their dreams. Not our kids, though. Squad 13, like every squad before them, are born and raised to die for the sake of the adults. They’re sacrificial lambs. Blind followers like Zorome can only hope to one day grow up to be an adult. How silly does that sound? But that’s their reality. They are children with no future.

— Everyone eventually agrees to make up because they don’t want to die. They have to suck it up and become better teammates so that they can’t let each other down in battle. Sure, the feud is finally resolve, but this is not exactly the most ideal outcome, is it?

— Things remain frigid between Mitsuru and Ikuno, but at the same time, he was a non-participant anyway. They just go back to square one.

— Hiro and Zero-Two never feuded in the first place, but they end up growing closer to each other anyway. Good ol’ teamwork. Take notes, Ichigo. Hiro should also be commended for taking active steps towards becoming a better, more supportive partner. He’s not being told what to do; he’s doing this himself.

— Damn, are we getting a new ED every week now? I still prefer the original one best.

Sophie’s brother goes to embrace her, and we can see that evil ring on his finger. Oh no, say it isn’t so! Don’t tell me King is actually Sophie’s brother! Well… kinda… 

— We cut to Sword, and we quickly discover that his dear sister Lizzy isn’t an illusion either. Apparently, her soul has been trapped inside the true El Dorado ever since she died in the real world. She proceeds to tell the hero everything about the Horrors’ dastardly plan.

— Basically, a company was working on a prototype that would link everyone’s brains directly to the internet. Like what you see now, people would be able to somehow leave their physical bodies behind and place their souls inside this virtual network. Naturally, this caught the attention of an ancient Horror. We can assume that this is the real king. The Makai Knights at the time sniffed out his evil plot, so they tried to put a stop to it for good. Unfortunately, even though King self-destructed, he actually survived somehow… maybe through the ring or something. The ring was then given to Martin, and ever since then, Martin has been carrying out King’s mission without realizing it. The kid literally just thinks he’s creating a sweet-ass paradise.

— At the end of the day, however, the Horrors’ motivations are simple: convince people to give up their souls to the true El Dorado, and they’ll be sitting ducks. The Horrors will have all the souls they could possibly ever wish for. It’s like a giant Costco for Horrors, except the food is all free.

— I’m still kinda disappointed by these revelations. I dunno, I guess I was hoping for a grander vision or something. At the end of the day, however, it’s just all about food. Horrors gotta eat, and this is an easy way to lure your prey into a trap. It takes too long to convince people to travel all the way out to some physical location, but a world wide network will have idiots throwing their souls away like nothing. Hell, internet addicts are doing that right now. But like I said, I was still hoping for King to have a more interesting goal in mind. If not that, at least give him him a powerful, gripping motive or even a lofty, philosophical viewpoint to espouse. Corralling souls in one place like cattle just doesn’t feel very grandiose.

— I also half-expected all this backstory to be animated. Unfortunately, it’s just exposition straight from Lizzy’s mouth. Kinda weak storytelling if you ask me. Sure, we see brief glimpses of the past, but what happened to Lizzy that day should’ve gotten its own episode. We should’ve been able to see the ancient Horror do battle with the Makai Knights at the time. It’s also rather unexplained how Lizzy’s soul just ends up being trapped in El Dorado since the beginning. Plus, does King and his dorks know that she’s here? If they do, why hasn’t she been devoured yet? She claims that she’s survived this long thanks to sharing the Golden Knight’s bloodline, but that doesn’t really explain anything. How has she survived? Magic?

— Also, you know someone’s evil if they grin like this when nobody’s watching. Don’t do that. Only villains do that.

— Anyways, back in the real world, Luke tries his best to carry Sword’s body to safety. Even though Sword and Sophie fell into the same pool, her body is nowhere to be found. Despite all of Luke’s training, he’s having a hard time lugging Sword around. Well, our hero’s pretty beefy. Luckily, a familiar face finally shows up to lend a hand.

— Aw, look at these cute Horrors cosplaying as humans!

— Even Queen looks somewhat normal in this world… for now, anyways. She’s obviously subservient to the true King. She’s not here for Martin at all. The question, however, is whether or not she can actually even communicate with the true King while the ancient Horror continues to lurk within Martin’s shadow.

— These weird floating balls in the sky are apparently other cityscapes? It’s not entirely clear what they are or why they have to look like pollen.

— Martin claims that in this world, everyone can find meaningful work. But why would you escape to this place just to work? Why wouldn’t you be able to do said job in the real world? Maybe these are just lies and propaganda that Martin have been tricked into believing.

— In true El Dorado, you can get the best crepes!

— Oh hey, new eyecatch.

— Eventually, the “system” notices Sword, so all these souls suddenly turn into defense mechanisms. They just look like Horrors, though. They quickly pursue Sword, who still retains his physical prowess in this virtual network. I guess his soul is strong or something? Plus, Lizzy can do stuff in this world and create barriers of her own. There’s no real explanation for it. We can only speculate that she’s picked up a trick or two after being in here for so long.

— Let’s say these Horrors were successful, though… do they just turn back into looking like normal humans afterwards? Guess we’ll never know.

— Martin continues to try and sweet-talk Sophie, but she’s been on a long and painful journey. She’s not only lost someone who was like a mother to her, she’s seen true human suffering. As a result, some false paradise isn’t going to be enough to placate the poor girl. Plus, that damn ring is pretty ugly. Even if it isn’t the source of all the evil in this world, anyone with taste would tell you to take it off.

— And yes, King is literally lurking in Martin’s shadow.

— Somehow, Lizzy locates Sophie using her powers. Sword also tries to crash the party from above, but he’s rudely interrupted by Queen.

— Sophie also takes things into her own hands. Unwilling to see her brother corrupted by evil, she tries and kill her brother even if it means she’ll die too. But what happens if you die in this world?

— Well, you apparently wake up back in the real world. Sword quickly gets on his feet, because he’s gotta save Sophie.

— Meanwhile, Sword is having a lot of trouble with Queen. This is probably because he can’t turn into a Golden Knight here. Luckily, Lizzy shows up and does something to him. He, too, wakes up back in the real world. I wonder if Lizzy “killed” him in true El Dorado. In any case, her soul is still trapped in the network, and Queen probably isn’t pleased with her.

— As for Sophie, she finds her brother’s real body. She starts choking him out because, well, her brother’s actions have led ten thousand deaths. Look at all those bodies both above and below them. Somehow, I don’t think Sophie will be able to kill her brother, though. Still, the episode ends there, so we’ll have to wait till next week to find out what happens next. Technically, we still haven’t seen what King truly looks like.

— Good episode? Eh, I’m not underwhelmed by it, but I’m not overwhelmed either. I’m just whelmed.

Brothers are great, right? Well… 

— Even a show about babysitting kids needs a beach episode. Just anime things, I suppose. I just hope Maria or Yuki don’t show up in bathing suits for no apparent reason.

— The kids’ mothers are also here. Cool, ’cause I was about to say how I’d never let my daycare take a toddler-aged kid to the beach.

— Unfortunately, I spoke too soon, because Maria is here. And of course, there always has to be a character who wears her school’s swimsuit to the beach.

— One of the parents, and also a teacher, goes, “Girls need to try to look pretty at all times!” The mothers were supposed to spend quality time with their children, but they’ve suddenly decided that they need to buy Maria a “proper” swimsuit right here, right now! Somehow, a school swimsuit is too ugly and yet simultaneously perverted (according to Usaida), so Maria’s probably going to wear some two-piece swimsuit that bares too much skin instead. What a joke.

— Ryuichi can’t go and have fun on his own, because Kotaro is scared of the ocean. Again, our hero’s just a saint who never complains about anything. Too bad he also lacks awareness of his surroundings.

— Hayato goes and scares Kotaro by wearing seaweed as a wig. The poor kid ends up dropping his juice on the ground, so Hayato’s mom displays her awesome parenting skills. In the end, Ryuichi gives up his juice to his brother, because who else can be so saintly?

— Then we are all invited by the mothers to ogle Maria in her new bathing suit. Hayato has no reaction, and for some reason, his mother is disappointed. Ryuichi calls it cute because the pattern matches Kirin’s floating tube, but that’s also not good enough for the mothers. This is so mind-numbingly stupid. What? Did they want these two boys to call Maria sexy or some shit? Maria doesn’t even care.

— Eventually, all the kids tire themselves out and nap under the shade. Everyone keeps having to remind Ryuichi that it’s okay for him to enjoy himself. I can’t help but wonder if he will ever let Kotaro become independent. I feel like Ryuichi’s way too protective of his brother.

— Then even when Ryuichi gets to go off on his own with Hayato, the conversation boomerangs right back to Kotaro. Ryuichi can’t help but worry that maybe he’s not good enough at reassuring his brother that the beach is not all that scary. Jesus Christ, this kid needs to get a life. Even parents aren’t this hung up about their own children.

— Hayato solves all his problems with violence.

— Kotaro proceeds to wake up and cry for his brother. This is what happens when you’re so damn attached to your kid brother. He ends up not being able to cope without you. It’s not healthy, man. I don’t care if the kids lost their parents and all they have is each other. Even parents don’t hover around their kids this much. This brotherly love is too suffocating.

— In the second half of the episode, the kids are back at the daycare even though it’s summer vacation. There’s no escaping it.

— Taka also drew on Hayato’s precious autographed baseball, so the former is now in tears probably because the latter hates him (even more). Well, something that valuable should never be in a kid’s reach anyway.

— Ryuichi asks if Hayato hit Taka too hard this time, but the mother just goes, “That would be business as usual.” The kid even braces himself for the hit because he’s expecting it. That’s messed up enough, but oh no, the anime doesn’t stop there. Apparently, the real problem is that this time Hayato didn’t do anything. Yes, you realize what the show’s doing, right? He’s so mad now that he just outright ignores his brother’s existence. That means he no longer cares about his brother. On the flip side, Hayato would hit Taka in the past because he cared. Man, do you think I’m going to buy that? Fuck that noise.

— And somehow, Ryuichi has to go and play peacekeeper between the two brothers, because their mother can’t do it. After all, her idea of parenting is hitting her children.

— To free Ryuichi from watching the children, the chairwoman conveniently decides to show up.

— Ryuichi tries to empathize because Kotaro has apparently destroyed a bunch of his stuff too. The kid even destroyed a cellphone full of emails from their parents. See? Kotaro’s just trying to help his brother move on from the past. Those emails won’t do them any good. On a more serious note, I’m sure the cellphone company would still have those emails on their servers…

— Ryuichi reasons that since Kotaro didn’t mean any harm in what he did, he would always forgive his kid brother. Ah, but Taka did mean harm. He’s a bit rotten, and it can’t be helped; his family is kinda rotten too.

— Back in the daycare room, the chairwoman teaches Taka a lesson by pretending to smash the kid’s precious toy sword. This is apparently what the kid’s own mother can’t do.

— So at the end of the day, the kid goes and apologizes to his big brother. Hayato responds by smacking the kid because he cares. This brotherly love is too abusive, but as always, Gakuen Babysitters wants to pretend that all is well.

My last show of the week. Let’s… do it… ugh. Technically, I still have the “Everything Else” post to finish up, but that’s relatively painless. Anyways…

— For some reason, this guy is still barely alive. I guess it’s perfectly possible to succumb to your despair before you die. I mean, if you’re going to die anyway, you might as well become a Herald.

— I thought that by stealing Grandpa’s blood Sagawa had some grand designs in mind, but he’s merely expelling the old man from Stasis. Everyone is convinced that they’re useless without his teleportation ability. I guess I don’t feel as though I agree. Certainly, it has been immensely useful, but it is also completely unpredictable as well.

— They also keep talking about how they need to get the Stone back in a hurry, but they’re all just walking at a leisurely pace. Grandpa’s heart is behaving oddly, but he also displays very little urgency. Even the show doesn’t find itself very compelling. It’s just odd to see. This show has featured a lot of slow walking.

— Grandpa says that if something happens to the Stone, then they’re all stuck in Stasis forever. Majima eyes Juri, but I don’t agree with her. Even if Juri expels everyone from Stasis, if she’s still stuck in it, then time never continues. I mean, I thought that’s how it works. Can she expel her own jellyfish?

— Grandpa then falls to his knees as his jellyfish threatens to abandon his body. Luckily, the jellyfish points everyone in the right direction. That’s convenient. It’s also remarkable how close by everything is.

— Majima says it’s too late to help the old man, but as if Juri would ever give up. She ends up convincing him to use whatever energy he has left to teleport them both to the Stone. But then what? Does she even know how to stop this process? I bet she’s going to break it. That previous conversation about them being trapped in Stasis was too convenient in its timing.

— Yep.

— Something falls out, and it is apparently the critical piece of the Stone. It’s… it’s soft and mushy. What was it?

— Sagawa and Shiomi show up, but all of a sudden, the former attacks the latter. Uh… what? Shiomi then wants to switch sides. Again, what? I guess Sagawa knew that his right-hand man would only be loyal so long as the possibility of leaving Stasis existed. The whole scene still feels a bit jarring, though.

— Grandpa’s real torn up about the Stone, and Sako freaks out about them being trapped in Stasis. Majima assures him that the rest of them can escape, but Juri couldn’t. Our heroine then goes and tries to use her own abilities on herself, but it doesn’t work. But I’m just like holy shit… what if it had worked? What if she just accidentally expelled herself and everyone else was stuck in Stasis? Doesn’t it seem like she made a potentially foolish gamble? Even Sako agrees with me.

— Elsewhere, that guy at the start of the anime is still in the process of changing into a Herald. It happened pretty quickly for Majima’s family. I wonder why it’s taking so long for him.

— Sagawa’s weakness is that his Specter might consume his body. That’s about it, I guess. Shiomi reiterates that Sagawa wants to become practically immortal. He wants the ability become one of The Stalled in the normal world. He would then just release himself at any point in time, and it would feel as though he had jumped forward in time. The sad part is that this feels like an innocent enough desire. Juri can’t help but ask if that’s truly all that Sagawa is after. Like, doesn’t he want to conquer the world or something? After all, I, too, wouldn’t mind being able to live forever and observe the vast history of mankind. It doesn’t feel like I would need to harm anyone to do so. Likewise, I don’t understand why Sagawa instantly turned to evil. Surely, he could’ve tried a less antagonistic approach before resorting to murder.

— I don’t know why Shiomi has to go on a spiel about the appeal of immortality. Look, most of us are curious to know how things will unfold for mankind. We just don’t bother talking about it because it isn’t remotely possible. Man, how awesome would it be to live forever? Sure, there are some logistical problems to resolve… In any case, this scene is unnecessary.

— Juri’s just as confused as I am. What is the point of this conflict? If Sagawa just wants to fuck off to the future, then go fuck off to the future. Why are we even fighting?

— Sadly, Shiomi explains that Sagawa wants to fight, because it’s all just one big experiment for him. Dumb. He’s such an uncompelling villain. The banality of his evil doesn’t make him frightening like say the bad guy from The Vanishing (and I’m referring to the superior Dutch-French version). He’s just lame and boring.

— We briefly swap to Takafumi and Makoto for… comic relief, I guess. Oh yeah, they also get to bump into the newly-born Herald. This one seems a bit evil, though. I mean, why is it chasing Takafumi right from the outset? I guess he’s kind of messed up but still… Oh well, at least the shamed patriarch is brave enough to at least try and protect Makoto.

— And then we find out that Makoto has special powers too…  in fact, he can control the Heralds. Good lord. Takafumi takes credit for the kid’s newfound ability, and Makoto is too naive so he goes along with it. Great, now everyone thinks Takafumi’s useful.

— I honestly think this is my least favorite show out of everything that I’m blogging this season. Yes, I’d rather watch Killing Bites over this. Takunomi is boring, but at least it’s short. Even Toji no Miko edges it out in my mind. Yep, no doubt about it.

Just do it. 

Dagashi Kashi S2 Ep. 8

Hajime’s a giant, idiotic goofball who misunderstands everything, so I actually enjoyed this episode. Still no Hotaru, but at least Hajime is superior to Saya in every way. Is she really going to run a dagashi shop in that businesswoman suit, though? She seems a bit overdressed for a part-time, minimum wage job.

Dragon Ball Super Ep. 129

Even though all the promo stuff already showed us what mastered Ultra Instinct Goku would look like, it still took all episode for him to reach that form. Yep, that’s Dragon Ball for you. For a casual fan like myself, the old adage still holds true: just watch the last five minutes of every episode. Everything before those five minutes are wholly unnecessary. Plus, I just find the whole a bit lacking in drama. It just feels like Goku  stumbles onto this form out of nowhere. Nobody had to die like Krillin or Android 16. The bad guy isn’t even really a bad guy. Goku just gets pushed to the limit then blammo, Ultra Instinct. Eh. There’s no juicy drama here. And thanks to Dragon Ball‘s penchant for dragging things out, you’re lucky if you get one hype moment per episode. Last but not least, Goku’s incomplete Ultra Instinct form looks way cooler than his mastered form.

Hakata Tonkotsu Ramens Ep. 8

Like I said last week, there’s always a twist. Enokida looked like he had gotten captured and tortured by the bad guys in the next episode preview, but it turned out be Lin in a bowl-cut wig. Yep, our resident hacker cooks up a master plan to turn the tables on his enemies, and a part of his schemes requires Lin to take a beating for him. Christ, such dedication to the job. In the end, everything works out for our heroes, and not only that, it turns out Enokida’s father never actually ordered a hit on him after all. So the two kinda make up, and all’s well that ends well. Aw, isn’t that sweet? Sadly, it looks like Hakata Tonkotsu Ramens‘ best arc was the very first one, and the rest of the show can only go downhill from there. This anime series is not objectively terrible, but the recent stories lack any sort of emotional weight.

Ito Junji Collection Ep. 9

You know the first story is pure fantasy right from the get-go, because nobody actually cares this much about art in this day and age. I kid, I kid… sorta. On a more serious note, “Painter” certainly takes an odd swerve at the very end. The vast majority of the short story is almost too typical to even bother recapping: artists find themselves so captivated by Tomie, a beautiful model, that they slowly lose their sanity. They stop eating and sleeping altogether; all they can think about is capturing her beauty through their chosen artform. Of course, there’s always a twist, and the girl is not what she seems:

Is this what Tomie really looks like? How come we can only see this through the lens of a camera? In the end, Mori paints another portrait of her that actually resembles the photograph above. She of course hates it and insults him. As a result, he kills the girl and chops her into tiny pieces. After a few days, however, those body parts suddenly start to grow into separate Tomies:

Yeah… I don’t get it.

As for the second story, it’s horribly rushed. The adaptation leaves out two major scenes with the vampire kids. First, when the kids attacked Kana and sucked her blood, Anzai had to fight them off. We don’t get to see any of that here. The anime just awkwardly cuts to the couple walking by themselves afterwards. Second, the kids eventually break into the evil guy’s home in order to feast on all his precious blood bubbles. This moment of chaos is what allows Anzai to escape with Kana. Again, this gets left out completely from the adaptation. Why? Your guess is as good as mine. The husk that speaks to Anzai? He’s actually one of the kids’ father. It’s such a pity that this adaptation ends up being such a hack job.

Karakai Jouzu no Takagi-san Ep. 8

These two are still in middle school, so I guess it’s not too surprising that they have a little chuuni in them. In one of the stories, Nishikata tries to compete against Takagi in a marathon, but she seems to have him easily beat. The girl mercifully gives him a way out, though: if he can just touch her, he’ll automatically win. Unfortunately, he gets too easily embarrassed to take the easy win. She knows it, too. But that reminds me: I need to sign up for a 5K run this summer.

Overlord II Ep. 8

Climb bumps into Sebas and learns how to overcome his fear of death by thinking of Princess Renner. Afterwards, Brain joins the party, but they are rudely interrupted by assassins. Naturally, Sebas doesn’t even have to break a sweat to take down these interlopers. As for Climb, the kid launches a pathetic-looking attack, but it still manages to take out one of the assassins. Well done, I guess. It’s still hardly enough to protect his princess from all the evils of the world, but you gotta start somewhere. In the end, Sebas decides to take it to the bad guys, and the two humans decide to join him. Yawn. I feel like nothing important happened. Yep, that was an entire episode of nothing. I can’t believe this is such a popular anime series.

Ramen Daisuki Koizumi-san Ep. 9

Koizumi climbs a mountain just to try some ramen. She’s crazy enough to do that sort of thing. Even so, I initially thought she was going to go camping. After all, camping is just so hot nowadays. You’d never find me sleeping in some woods or atop a mountain, though. I don’t hate the wilderness, but I very much appreciate my safe and comfy bed. No serial killers or bears to worry about… okay, okay, fewer serial killers and bears to worry about. Most importantly, I’d have a private toilet to use at my discretion. I love civilization, alright? I even own all the games!

Those are giant slices of chashu. I’ve never see chashu that big.

Koizumi ends up getting an even taller bowl, because like most anime characters, her stomach is truly bottomless.

Afterwards, the fallen leafs of autumn reminds her of back fat, so she goes and gets a bowl of ramen full of it. I know, it’s weird, but this is Koizumi-san we’re talking about. Misa gets roped into eating a bowl as well, but who really cares about the side characters? Back fat ramen sounds good, though. I love rich, heavy foods. I’m sure a single bowl probably contains like 3,000 calories, but it doesn’t hurt to try something once.

I certainly would not go and have it seven days in a row.

Yeah… but on the bright side, this episode has a distinct lack of Yuu, so I approve!

As for me, Iza Ramen opened up a second location just 15 minutes away from my office, so I decided to drop by on a rainy day. I really wanted to try their tsukemen, but they only serve that at dinner. So instead, I got their lunch combo, which included a bowl of ramen, three pieces of gyoza, two pieces of chicken karaage, and your choice of soft drink.

The chicken karaage is pretty good. Nice and crispy on the outside, tender and juicy on the outside. On the other hand, the gyozas were well-fried but sadly underseasoned. The ones I had at Nojo came with a light dusting of seasoning on the outside. These ones came plain, and there just wasn’t any flavor to them. The appetizers came with a vinegar-y dipping sauce, but that too was pretty light in flavor.

The tonkotsu ramen was pretty good. The broth was an interesting mix of pork, chicken, vegetable, and bonito tuna. The bonito tuna definitely lent an interesting character that I haven’t tasted anywhere else in the city. I liked it. The toppings were nothing special, unfortunately. Also, the restaurant only really offers two types of ramen. You can either have the tonkotsu bowl with chashu pork, or you can get the vegetarian miso bowl.

So would I ever come back? Nope. I know the place just recently opened, so they have some kinks to iron out, but good lord, the service was terrible. My combo came with a beverage, right? I never got it. I could have said something, but I really wanted to see if anyone would notice. They didn’t. It was just a Diet Coke, so luckily, I didn’t feel terribly ripped off or anything. Still, that wasn’t the worst part.

Eventually, I saw my bowl of ramen come to the pass. I knew it was my ramen bowl because I had ordered fresh spinach on the side to go with it. It’s hard to miss a giant bowl of spinach. So I waited… and waited… and waited… servers would come up to the pass and stare at the bowl, grab something else, and serve another table instead. I have no clue why anyone would leave any dish sitting at the pass for more than a minute. Hot food should never sit that long. Plus, this is ramen we’re talking about. You don’t want the noodles to get soggy. Plus, you can tell from the photo above that the toppings looked kinda wilted by the time I got around to snapping a picture. That’s just sad.

Finally, the head waiter came by and served me the bowl. The whole thing was a farce. Even after I had finished my food, nobody brought me the check. At this point, the restaurant was already closed. I sat down at 1:30 pm, and lunch service ends at 2 pm. I didn’t get to finish my bowl of ramen until 2:05pm. There restaurant was mostly empty by this point, so I don’t understand how three servers failed to notice that I was waiting to pay and leave. I ended having to ask for the check. Otherwise, I’d never make it back to work.

To sum it all up, the food’s not bad at Iza Ramen (SOMA location), but the front of house definitely needs an overhaul.

Takunomi Ep. 8

Michiru lands a big contract after a successful presentation, so Nao treats her to a whiskey cocktail that’s mostly soda. She calls it a kaku-highball. My friends enjoy a nasty ginger ale and Jameson combo (a whiskey ginger?), so this is pretty similar. Apparently, this cocktail goes well with chicken karaage. I’m not a whisky drinker, but sadly, all my friends love it. I have one friend who likes taste-testing Japanese whiskey. Luckily for her, San Francisco has plenty of whiskey lounges. Another friend got aged whiskey from her boyfriend as a birthday present. Personally, I don’t get it, but whatever floats their boats.

Toji no Miko Ep. 9

Terrible storytelling. First, we have irrelevant scenes at a festival for no particular reason. Light-hearted fun isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but Toji no Miko doesn’t do anything amusing with the festival. You just see a montage of the girls doing stuff. Then afterwards, everyone stands around and listens to Friedman drone on and on about noro, aradama, and how mankind is truly to blame for everything. More importantly, the US is complicit. Of course they are. They always are. Again, it’s not that exposition is necessarily bad, but just having the characters stand completely still and yap for ten straight minutes is really lazy storytelling.

Eventually, Yukari’s goons show up looking for trouble, i.e. arrest anyone associated with Mokusa. Yukari herself would never do any of the dirty work, so Yume gets to go on a one-woman wrecking crew. Unfortunately, she sounds like a whiny, petulant teenager, so it’s hard to take her seriously.

Yuzuki finally gets around to reading her mother’s email while the other girls are distracted by penguins. Thankfully, it’s not bad news at all. Sorta. I mean, at least they’re not getting blasted for pulling in low view counts. Instead, it turns out Yuzuki has landed a major part in a j-drama. I would think she’s a bit young for the part, since they generally cast people in their mid-20s to play high schoolers, but I digress. Rather, the real issue is that an actress generally doesn’t get to have a lot of free time, especially if she has to play the protagonist’s best friend. So that’s the bad news. What will happen to her friendship with the other three girls once this trip is over? In the past, Yuzuki’s peers tried to hang out with her, but she would either have to cancel on them or reject their invites completely. Naturally, they became distant and cold to her over time. I can’t really blame them too much, though. It’s hard to maintain a friendship with that much distance. Nevertheless, we want to believe that Mari, Shirase, and Hinata are special. We want to believe that this trip has forged an unbreakable bond between these four girls.

Still, it’s totally understandable that Yuzuki feels insecure. It’s totally understandable for her to think that her burgeoning career might come at too high of a cost. After all, before she was convinced to leave for Antarctica, she had wanted to quit modeling altogether. She even starts to worry that the other three girls have become best friends without her. Of course, just asking if they’re really best friends is enough to make Mari cry, but we’ll get to that in a bit. We have to remember that Yuzuki was the last person to join the group, and from her point of view, nobody had made any official declaration of friendship. She’s not confident enough to just assume out of nowhere that they had already been best friends for a while now. Also, Mari shouldn’t have mentioned this one thing that Yuzuki doesn’t know about. Last but not least, it doesn’t help when Hinata points out that they’d be going back to living separately after this trip anyway. She’s not wrong, but considering the current situation, it probably didn’t need to be said. In any case, the girls can promise to remain friends forever, but it would behoove them to make the best of what they have now.

Plus, a question like “When did we become friends” is a kind of difficult to answer. At best, you can point to a certain period, but you can’t be too specific about it. Friendships usually just kind of happen. But again, someone who is insecure about this sort of thing is likely to fret over the details. Shirase suggests that they could just come out and say that they’re all best friends, but Hinata warns (through an amusing impersonation) that it won’t alleviate Yuzuki’s insecurities. She might not think that they’re being genuine if all they have to offer her are words. Therein lies the irony: Yuzuki wants to use words to define their friendship, but words are also easily brushed aside. You can only affirm a friendship through action. So I imagine it’s up to Mari to do most of the heavy lifting this time around. She’s not as smart and sensible as Hinata, nor is she as determined as Shirase, but as we’ve seen in the past, she’s easily the most empathetic member of the group. She provides the emotional support that no one else can.

In the second half of the episode, Yuzuki ends up drafting a friendship contract for her friends. Out of context, this is definitely a tacky move. But we know Yuzuki is feeling particularly anxious right now, so she hopes that the contract would give her some peace of mind. Shirase and Hinata don’t go with it, because they know it won’t. Not for long, anyway. If anything, the contract would just heighten her insecurities. Imagine Yuzuki having a long, arduous day on-set, and she would just love to hear from her friends. But due to circumstances out of everyone’s control, they can’t respond to her right away. She might look at these (non-binding) contracts and feel as though she has been betrayed. Even though Shirase and Hinata could be nicer about it, they’re right: these contracts won’t help at all.

Plus, if you can’t trust your friends to be your friends without a contract, you have bigger issues to tackle. As a result, Mari starts crying again. Unfortunately, dinner calls, so the girls can’t immediately resolve the matter. Still, Shirase and Hinata try to explain their feelings to Shirase. Why did Mari cry in the hallway? Did she feel as though Yuzuki couldn’t trust her? I mean, that might be a small part of it, but I really don’t think it is. If you try to look at it logically, i.e. from Hinata’s point of view, you might see it that way. And Shirase’s not wrong, either: friendships are not exactly tangible things, but that’s what makes them special. Friendship is just a feeling you have to experience to truly understand it. Yuzuki hasn’t experienced it, so she tries to grasp it through details and specifics, but that won’t help. Still, I feel for the girl and how confused she must feel. But more importantly, Mari simply cried mainly because she empathized with Yuzuki. She knows what her friend is going through, but due to a super secret agreement between her, Shirase, and Hinata, they can’t spill the beans just yet.

After dinner, Mari opens up to Yuzuki about her delicate relationship with Megumi, and this private moment simply reiterates what we already know about friendship: it’s a feeling you just know you have once you experience it for yourself. The girls surprise Yuzuki with not just a Christmas celebration, but a birthday one as well. Apparently, her birthday came and went during that tumultuous period on the boat when all four girls were seasick. As a result, Mari, Shirase and Hinata all agreed to throw a surprise party for Yuzuki afterwards. After all, a birthday wouldn’t feel very special if you and your friends are too busy puking your guts out. This was the super secret agreement. This is what Yuzuki wasn’t privy to and for good reason, too. Mari also did most of the planning, so she saves the day again. Still, what the other three have been trying to tell her all along is that they’re already best friends. They just needed a grand gesture to convince girl who — quite frankly — has had a tough childhood as well. Friendship is understanding each other without being overburdened with words. Right? Right.

Anyways, you can tell Madhouse had a ton of fun making this show. Every scene just oozes with genuine warmth and heart. Even difficult conversations end up having tons of charm. For instance, Shirase keeps stuffing her face at dinner to avoid having an awkward talk about feelings. This, of course, came at Hinata’s expense. Basically, there isn’t a single cynical bone in this entire anime. If this episode didn’t thaw your heart, I really don’t know what could. It’s not the most challenging show out there, but that’s fine. Even I’m enjoying the hell out of this anime, and I really came into the season quite skeptical about it. “Four high school girls are headed for Antarctica? For real?” After ten weeks, however, the saddest realization is that we only have three episodes left.

Misc. notes & observations:

— Our girls get the first crack at their new temporary home, so this means climbing onto a helicopter and taking a short flight over to Syowa Station. Even the other characters are now noticing Yuzuki’s love for dying. The girl’s scared of heights, but I’m surprised she’s also scared of this relatively enclosed space. I dunno, it doesn’t seem consistent, because she wasn’t scared at all when she flew on the planes to get to Singapore and Australia.

— Damn, they packed all those costumes?

— Madhouse is showing off their fancy 3-D chops, and I gotta admit that this CGI actually looks good. Usually, 3-D anything tends to stick out like a sore thumb in anime.

— After telling all the haters in her life to suck it at the end of last week’s episode, Shirase’s mood is… subdued. She is definitely not as gleeful as either Mari or Hinata (Yuzuki is still too scared to be excited). But that’s understandable; this isn’t just an adventure for her. I can’t wait to see how the show handles the upcoming melodrama regarding her and her mother.

— Kanae is giving the girls (and the audience) a quick tour of Syowa Station, and for some reason, I’m reminded of The Thing. Man, how awesome would it be if the show suddenly become horror for the final few episodes? Okay, maybe not awesome, but I’d be so amused. Something that looks like Takako is killing people one-by-one… can Shirase do what needs to be done?!

— The girls each get their own rooms, which is a boon to Yuzuki. According to her, Mari likes to talk in her sleep. Not only that, she even opens her eyes as she sleep-talks. I imagine that must have been startling for the others to see the first time she did it around them. Still, these accommodations are much nicer than what I had expected. Yo, I wanna go to Antarctica too.

— I don’t think you should get close to wild animals.

— Mari should heed the advice about being sunburnt seeing as how the ozone layer is thinner there and all.

— Whoa, nice-looking bar.

— It’s been nothing but non-stop work for the girls. Their latest mission: defrosting a chicken. Exciting.

— The concerned look Mari gives Hinata when she suggests that birds wouldn’t eat each other cracks me up. Nevertheless, there’s always a danger of making Mari too dumb even if it’s for the sake of comedy. In the end, the two girls decide to leave the chicken out in a hallway.

— Meanwhile, Shirase and Yuzuki have to serve up some Christmas cakes to the rest of the team as a pick-me-up. The girls are dressed for the part. I like Shirase’s hat. I imagine the burst of sugar is nice. Hell, I could use one right now… For these guys, those calories will quickly be burnt by all their hard labor. Sadly, I don’t have the same luxury. I do wonder how well cake frosting would hold up under these cold temperatures, but I’m no pastry chef.

— Everything is making Yuzuki insecure. Since Christmas is supposed to be a celebration, the girl is reminded that she has apparently never celebrated her birthday with friends. Aw, don’t let that get you down. I mean, me neither!

— Is… is there fruit in that cake? Ew.

— Frozen rice may as well be inedible, so at least it’s just the tuna that’s a little crunchy.

— Elsewhere, Gin and Kanae are sharing a mostly silent moment as they toast their return to Antarctica. I’m sure there are complicated feelings involved, but I like the show’s restraint. We don’t need another melodramatic subplot on top of what we’re already dealing with this week. There are still three weeks left to address everything.

— Oddly enough, part of the festivities involve Shirase and Hinata dressing up and telling Christmas stories. From a distance, you might think of Shirase as a tall and composed beauty, but in reality, she’s such an awkward goof. I figure Shirase would find something like this deathly embarrassing, but luckily for her, the adults have all passed out from drinking.

— What was Mari trying to do? Pretend to be Santa coming down the chimney? What a dork.

— Oh hey, another good insert song during Yuzuki’s birthday celebration.

— Look at that busy schedule.

Secrets therapists don’t want you to know! 

— More flashbacks? More flashbacks. Here’s a super angry Violet. This is because some soldiers had dared to shoot at her dear Gilbert.

— So we finally learn how Violet came to lose her arms. Her right arm literally got shot off, and yet, she struggled on. She refused to leave Gilbert behind, which is understandable. After all, they were comrade-in-arms. Anyways, an enemy soldier eventually lobbed a grenade at the couple, and that was how Violet lost her other arm. For the vast majority of us, this sort of injury would have sent us into shock if not outright kill us from the blood loss. But for a child like Violet? Eh, no big deal. Seriously though, if she’s human, how is she so tough? Will we ever find out the source of her strength?

— On the plus side, I like the BGM here.

— But frankly, thanks to the show plateauing weeks ago, Violet’s final moment with Gilbert doesn’t hit me as hard as it should. Plus, we’ve already seen it. We’ve already heard Gilbert’s last words. Hell, his confession is the sole reason why Violet decided to become an Auto Memoir Doll in the first place. As a result, again, the scene doesn’t hit me as hard as it should. Finally, we know how young Violet was back then, and how young she still is now. So yeah, I’m not exactly enamored by this love story no matter how tragic it is.

— Back in the present, Violet goes all the way to that same fortress and starts digging through the rubble. She has to know he’s long dead by this point, but I suppose finding his body could provide some comfort. She could get closure and also give him a proper burial.

— All of a sudden, Claudia casually walks up to her. He said he knew she’d be here. We later see a car waiting for him, so he only just arrived. I feel as though it would’ve made more sense if he had actually come early and waited for Violet to show up. Otherwise, it’s just too coincidental that they both happened to arrive at the same time.

— According to Claudia, she was found at the base of some stairs. So with Gilbert’s last breath, he saved Violet by pushing her out of the way of the falling rubble. Man, I wish I was emotionally engaged right now. I really, really do. I just don’t feel anything for all of the reasons I listed above.

— Violet wants to know why Claudia lied to her back at the hospital. They all lied to her. They lied to a child. I know they had good intentions, but still… what was he hoping to happen? What was the best case scenario? Was Claudia hoping to tell her in a few more years, and she’d just shrug it off? The truth was going to wreck her sooner or later. Wouldn’t you rather deal with it right away? I would. I wouldn’t also want to compound matters by lying.

— At first, Violet refuses to come back home with him, so Claudia says he will stay here as well. I sure hope he remains a mentor to the girl and nothing more. I sure do hope that.

— Claudia: “He definitely didn’t see you as a tool of warfare.” But near the end of last week’s episode, Claudia himself questioned why Violet was still on the front lines. I like to think Gilbert could’ve gotten her out of there if he really wanted to. At the very least, he could’ve spared her from the last battle. I feel as though he wanted her there to ensure victory, and isn’t that using her as a tool of warfare? Could any of us send a young child into war just to guarantee victory? Note, also, that the last battle — or any of them! — wouldn’t have necessarily been lost without her. Gilbert may have only thought that he needed her. Violet was a great fighter, sure, but it’s not like a single combatant can change the entire course of a battle by herself. This isn’t a video game.

— Eventually, Violet relents and goes home with Claudia. After all, what choice does she have? She can either die or live on, and Gilbert wanted her to live on. Dying would not only disrespect his final wishes, she’d also be throwing away his last sacrifice.

— Claudia should give it a rest, though. He finally convinced her to come home. Great. On the other hand, he doesn’t have to keep asking her over and over if she’s okay while they’re trapped in a car together. Give the grieving girl some damn space.

— But nope, the guy keeps talking.

— Eventually, our party runs into a blockade. Why? Because the town ahead has been attacked by an anti-peace faction… oh boy. This has been a looming threat in the series for quite some time now. Unfortunately, the hard-fought peace that they have earned is rather fragile. I wonder how this subplot is going to play out in the final few episodes. I hope it isn’t something that can be resolved by writing a goddamn letter. Man, I’d be so disappointed if that happens.

— For some reason, Violet sees her younger self saluting her outside the car. Okay…

— Violet has returned home, but she hasn’t returned to work. Cattleya thinks Benedict would be the best person to see her, but we haven’t spent any time with him all season. As such, we have no idea why she would think this.

— Our heroine is huddled up in her room. Cattleya finally decides to drop by with some food, but the despondent girl is even less talkative than ever. We really don’t know how long Violet’s been like this. Has it been one week? One month? Two months? The time span is important, because if our heroine’s only been out for a week, then I’d say give her more time to grieve. On the other hand, more than a month is worrisome.

— So of course, Violet blames herself. She thinks that this is her punishment for all the bad things she’s done. Claudia’s words from the very first episode continue to haunt her, and as a result, the girl bears the guilt of losing Gilbert. That’s kinda messed up. She needs help, man. This is the sort of thing that can take people months or perhaps even years to get over. And what’s even worse is how Claudia truly believes Violet has to decide on her own what she should do next. She’s a child! If this was the real world, Violet’s best bet would be therapy. But since this is anime fantasy land, all bets are off.

— It would also be a bigger slap in the face if Violet recovers too quickly. Imagine if her friends simply writes her a letter, and it does the trick. If our heroine is A-OK again by the end of the episode, I’m going to be so disappointed.

— Oh hey, this guy just showed up. He’s, uh… that girl’s older brother. I think her name is Luculia. I don’t remember his name, unfortunately.

— Violet later has a nightmare where she gets to see Gilbert again, but he sure does sound more like Dietfried than himself. Again, her guilt is weighing on her.

— Funnily enough, writing a letter might help the girl. They say if you want closure, you should write a letter to the person in question. You don’t have to send it. You don’t have to do anything with the letter. Just writing the letter itself is therapeutic. This will allow you to work through your unresolved feelings and emotions. Violet could imagine what she would say to Gilbert if he was alive. Confess her feelings to him. Get everything off her chest so that she can move forward in life.

— Or scream out a window then punish this poor stuffed animal. Either or…

— Violet also tries choking herself, but she eventually gives up as tears stream down her face. This time, I don’t love the BGM.

— All of a sudden, someone knocks on her door. A letter has come for her. Oh no, don’t tell me that’s where this is going.

— Do these two have a thing? I’m just sayin’… they sure do hang out a lot.

— But before Violet can read the letter that she’s received, she will apparently help the friendly old man with the rest of his deliveries. Okay then.

— I get what the friendly old man is trying to say, but oh man, I do not agree with him: “No letter deserves to go undelivered.” Yeah, uh, no. Some letters are meant just for the writer.

— Finally, after getting the job done, Violet opens her letter to find that it had come from Erica and Iris. Yes, they’re worried about her. Yes, they’re waiting for her. Yes, they’ll help her with anything if she just asks. Oh yeah, Luculia’s brother — Spencer, apparently — wants to enlist her services as well. Naturally, the very next scene has Violet typing out a letter for Spencer.

— Violet confesses that Erica and Iris’s letter had made her very happy. Then on her walk back, she sees that Charlotte is doing well. All thanks to our heroine! That author who had lost his child? Also doing well! Again, all thanks to Violet, our blonde anime Jesus! Gosh, look at all these people that Violet has positively impacted! Last but not least, she sees a bunch of violets, and they remind her that Gilbert never would’ve blamed her for his death. Gilbert loved her, after all. And just like that, Violet seems to have fully recovered. Ugh.

She then barges into Claudia’s office and asks if it’s okay for her to continue living this life despite everything, but her heart already knows the right answer to that question. And that’s precisely the problem with this anime. I don’t have issues with Violet’s recovery, and I’m sure Erica and Iris’s letter was very, very touching. But the show wraps every single problem it comes across in a neat, little package. It wants to be taken seriously, but it never takes any of these problems very seriously. Violet falls into despair and even considers suicide at one point, but then her recovery occurs within a snap of the fingers. It’s ridiculous. It feels cheap and unearned.

Time for a road trip! But before we get to that, let me tell you how Bargain Bin Kirito saved his elf-type loli from the evil Undead King! 

— For some reason, the enemies’ hands and feet are glowing purple. Why? There’s probably a good reason, but do we even care anymore?

— BBK jumps through the air, and apparently this means he now has “Spatial Movement” as a skill. Seriously? Seriously?? Yes, this is an MMO, but why is “Spatial Movement” a skill? Don’t you think they’re taking this MMO gimmick a little too far? Oooh, you literally moved through open space! That’s a skill! You breathed! That’s a skill! You happen to be corporeal! Guess what? That’s right — that’s a skill too!

— BBK asks the homunculi why they would fight so hard for a master who treats them like pawns. ‘Cause that’s how she’s programmed? Dude, your company made this game.

— In truth, BBK only feels bad because these homunculi are cute anime babes. If they were weed goblins, do you think we’d be having this discussion?

— Oh my God, we’re getting the Undead King’s backstory. Who gives a shit? To make a long story short, he just wants to die.

— Naturally, a quick way to die in this anime is to piss off the lolicon. You can accomplish that by stealing one of the lolicon’s loli slaves. The official story is that BBK pities the Undead King, so he wants to put the guy out of his misery. But I know the truth. You can’t fool me.

— Anyway, BBK kills the Undead King, and that’s that. The big bad boss didn’t even put up a fight.

— All of a sudden, fart gases emerge from the Undead King’s body. The fart gases also sound a whole lot like lolis. They taunt BBK before floating away. We gotta catch them all, but we’ll deal with them later. We can take a crash course in PV = nRT and all that jazz. For now, we have more pressing matters. For example, our elf-type loli…

— You can’t have a video game castle without also making it come crashing down after the big bad boss is defeated. Ocarina of Time did it, so Death March can too. But what about grass-type loli! And the hot homunculi! BBK wouldn’t want them to die! Can our newly-acquired elf-type loli assist in any way? Maybe she can stop this self-destruct sequence!

— Apparently not.

— So instead, BBK painstakingly gathers everyone to teleport them out of the dungeon. What a heroic lolicon. Naturally, he deserves a kiss from his lolis.

— But… but what about the weed goblins?! Won’t anyone think of the weed goblins?!

— For some reason, the entire Cradle is turning to salt. In fact, a tidal wave of salt is now chasing BBK. I think the show is channeling my hate for it. Unfortunately, even I cannot win against BBK, the lolicon master.

— BBK does some thing with fire and the water to protect himself from all the salt. I’m not gonna bother breaking it down. That would be giving this show too much of my energy. In any case, look at this guy putting forth so much effort just to expand his harem. Man, you gotta respect the man’s dedication to his loli slaves.

— Yep, the loli slaves are tearfully happy to see their master. Yep.

— Apparently, as the Undead King died, he used his last words to tell BBK to protect one of his loli slaves real good. If she uses too much forbidden magic, she’ll turn into an undead-type loli! Who am I talking about? Y’know, the one that wants to jump BBK’s bones. What do you mean that’s all of them? Fine. She’s also known as psychic-type loli. Better?

— Elf-type loli expresses her gratitude, which is of course a kiss. A lolicon wouldn’t have it any other way.

— Then it’s the homunculi’s turn to express their gratitude. Much to psychic-type loli’s chagrin, they quickly pledge their undying loyalty to their lolicon master. Naturally.

— One of the homunculi will stay behind, because we don’t need this many lookalikes. The rest will deliver the Undead King’s ring to his wife’s grave. So how will they decide who stays behind with BBK? With a mass rock-paper-scissors match, of course.

— To nobody’s surprise, No.7 wins. She gets a name, but I won’t remember it. She can be, uh… doll-type loli. Homunculi are kinda like dolls.

— Elf-type loli wants to go back to her home, and she wants BBK to escort her. I mean, who else is going to do it? A loli must be accompanied by her lolicon.

— Oh hey, it’s Zena. She starts crying because she’s not a loli. And as a result, she doesn’t get to have any fun with BBK. All they ever get to do is go shopping and watch boring-ass plays.

— Sorry, Zena, but acting like a loli won’t actually make you one.

— Even so, BBK has a gift for her: those tacky heart-shaped earrings from a couple episodes ago.

— He then gives her the bad news: he has to depart Seiryuu City in order to deliver elf-type loli back to her home. Oh, how sad! If only Zena was a loli, then she’d be able to go too!

— We cap the episode off with everyone seeing BBK and his lolis off. How heart-warming.

— Wait… what’s that? It’s Zena again! Damn, I already told you that you can’t come! You’re too old for this road trip!

— And as a result, we leave her behind once more. Sorry girl, but you must be this short to ride this BBK. And now that she’s out of the picture, BBK can snuggle up against his lolis! We make an exception for doll-type loli as well as lizard-type loli because they’re not human. And in doll and lizard years, they’re technically lolis. Or whatever. I’m just making shit up. Why are you still reading this? The episode is over.

Man, anime summer festivals look and sound so nice. There are festivals here, but they’re usually overcrowded, expensive, and dirty. Nevertheless, this week’s episode is titled “Rain of Sorrow,” so things are about to turn south. I can’t imagine Akira getting into a fight with her dear manager, though. Plus, she’s here with Haruka, so… well, let’s just get on with the rest of the post already.

— The normally tomboyish Haruka apologizes for being late, because getting ready took longer than expected. Are girls required to be in a yukata in order to attend one of these festivals or is that just an anime thing?

— Ooh, what’s that? Fruits suspended in syrup?

— I’d go to one of these festivals just for the vibes. I don’t think I’d touch any of these games. They don’t look as though they’d be much fun.

— Haruka is reminded of how she and our heroine used to eat shaved ice side-by-side in previous summers. Sadly, Akira’s friendship with Haruka remains trapped in the past. They’re hanging out with each other now, but when was the last time they actually spent any quality time together? It’s a friendship worth fighting for, but neither character has put forth much effort until now. Akira figuratively runs away to the diner every chance she gets, and Haruka finds it too embarrassing to reach out to her former best friend and express her true feelings.

— Speaking of which, Akira reveals that this is the first time that they have hung out since she quit the team. I feel a depressive mood coming on. I mean, I just find that terribly sad. Don’t you? They were best friends!Yes, Akira got injured and quit the team, but c’mon… why did nobody try to save the friendship until now? Why have these two been so passive about it?

— To be fair, Akira has a strong reason. The story doesn’t come out and say it directly, but she was definitely depressed about her injury and possibly still is. I have even argued in previous posts that her crush on Kondo is a coping mechanism.

— Most friendships drift apart inch by inch, moment by moment. On the other hand, Akira immediately walled herself up after her injury, and Haruka can only stand from afar and look sad.

— Apparently, the team hasn’t been doing so hot since Akira’s departure. Nevertheless, Haruka wants her former best friend to drop by once in a while. But true to anime form, our heroine is too distracted to hear what Haruka has to say. Is it a shooting star? No, silly, that’s the wrong series! Then again, Haruka is a childhood friend…

— Akira ditches Haruka for a moment, because she sees Kondo and his son in the distance. No big deal, right? But Haruka notices a different look on her former best friend’s face; she can immediately tell that Akira likes Kondo. Sadly, she does not react to this revelation with much sensitivity. I mean, I understand how Haruka feels. I, too, find the idea of Akira and her manager getting together to be gross. But you’ll only drive Akira away by being so mockingly incredulous.

— Haruka then accuses Akira of never telling her anything anymore. Both sides could’ve tried harder, but we often judge ourselves by our intentions and others by their actions. As a result, the girl won’t accept that she plays a big part in their friendship falling apart. She feels that she had good reasons for being passive towards Akira. On the other hand, she’s not considering why her former best friend is struggling so much with the past. Instead, she just blames Akira for making things difficult. Akira says that things can no longer go back to the way they were, which makes the former run away in tears.

Honestly, Haruka is overreacting. If Akira can’t be on the team anymore, then yes, the dynamic between them has irrevocably changed. As harsh as that sounds, it’s also the truth. But this doesn’t mean that what their friendship has changed to necessarily has to be a bad thing. But oftentimes, relationships do fall apart this way. One side grows and/or changes, and the other side can’t accept it. By extending an invitation tonight, Akira is at least making an earnest attempt to reconnect with Haruka. She should be commended for that. She wants to reestablish their friendship even if it has to move in a different direction. Why can’t they just hang out at the summer festival and see where things go from there? Unfortunately, Haruka couldn’t help dredging up the past — and ergo, the team — and as a result, she creates unnecessary drama.

— Elsewhere, Kondo also reconnects with an old friend. He drops by a boisterous restaurant to see Chihiro, the author of the book that had Kondo in a tizzy at the library. I half-expected Chihiro to be a woman.

— Why are these two meeting up here? Well, it used to be their favorite hang-out spot. It would appear for now that this is another friendship that hasn’t moved on from the past.

— I don’t know what this is either. Miso dengaku? Man, there are so many foods I haven’t tried. In any case, this is apparently what these two buddies’ favorite dish used to snack on in their college days. Does the past taste as good as our memories would have us think? Kondo seems to think so.

— It has been ten years since Kondo and Chihiro last hung out together. We drift even further apart in our adulthood. This reminds me that I haven’t talked to my high school best friend in over a decade as well…

— Chihiro has young fans due to his book… but hey, Kondo has a young fan too!

— Kondo simply says that Chihiro’s book is not bad. I wonder what Kondo’s honest opinion truly is, though. He’s being rather guarded, so  he probably isn’t being entirely truthful.

— More relics from the past are unearthed; Chihiro digs up an issue from a magazine that these two used to publish together. Naturally, it’s a magazine about literature.

— Apparently, Kondo settled down to have a family whereas Chihiro continued his bachelor ways. This eventually led to the latter successfully getting a book published, but correlation is not causation. A married, working man can certainly write a book worthy of publication. It might be a little harder — he would certainly have far less free time at his disposal — but he could still do it. We even know that Kondo’s been writing; we’ve seen those discarded pages at his apartment. If Kondo regrets giving up on his dreams, he only has himself to blame. Of course, I’m sure he’s well aware of that. Kondo is far from a perfect man — and I’ll even argue that he has been inappropriate that one time with Akira — but he at least acknowledges his shortcomings.

— Kondo opens up to his former best friend, but like Haruka, Chihiro doesn’t seem to be the most sensitive sort. He doesn’t flip out like Haruka, but his response just comes across as a bit… hollow, I guess? He tells Kondo that he’ll always lend an ear, but it feels forced. Drink up, drink up! Drown your feelings in alcohol!

— Then afterwards, in the middle of heading home, the drunk author falls to the ground and whines like a child. He drank so much that he can’t even walk on his own two feet. As Chihiro eventually departs in a cab, Kondo levels some honest criticism about his former best friend’s writing. Chihiro responds by asking Kondo what he even knows about high school girls. Hoo boy, where do we start?

— Chihiro tells Kondo that they’re not adults. Rather, they’re still classmates. And this is exactly why they haven’t seen each other in ten years. Kondo has no business pretending to be a college-aged student. If their relationship would actually change and evolve to fit adulthood, then they’d still be in each other’s lives. But because one side insists on keeping things the same as how they used to be, the best that these two can do is meet up once in a blue moon and reminisce over fossils like their self-published magazine. I’m sure Kondo had a great time tonight. I’m sure he had fun seeing Chihiro again. Nevertheless, it’s not as though they’re going to hang out regularly again. They have both become men, but their friendship hasn’t grown at all.

— Sitting like that is not good for your back, kids. Sit up straight.

— School starts up again, but Haruka insists on being dramatic. Instead of just calmly walking past Akira, she has to run by with her eyes down. This is silly. Sadly, Akira can’t help but feel guilty about everything. She feels so bad about Haruka that she’s barely obsessed over Kondo.

— Later that night, Kondo can’t help but reach out to the girl. After hearing her story, he tells her to catch a glimpse of an incredibly large moon. Like holy shit, that is huge. It’s the supermoon phenomena. It’s not actually that big in person, but it’s still impressive-looking to say the least. And for some reason, it also can grant wishes. Man, everything in the damn sky can apparently grant wishes.

— Kondo points the supermoon out to Akira, because he doesn’t want her to think that her friendship with Haruka is a lost cause. If she truly wants to save it, then she can. He gives her some words of encouragement, and as she clasps her hands together, she hopes that she and Haruka can become closer again. For once, their relationship resembles that of a mentor and his mentee. Hopefully, this will last till the end of the series.

These characters’ attitudes towards hIEs like Lacia are so bizarre. They don’t have a heart? Can Arato even define what it means to have a heart? Plus, instead of wondering whether or not Lacia has a heart, she should be asking her why she even wants to be with someone like him. Anyways…

— The episode opens with a scene between Methode and Shiori, but it feels like nothing we don’t already know about. The girl takes ownership of the hIE, but is shocked to find out that Methode is a Lacia-class android. Hm, okay…? The significance of this revelation is that Shiori has been left out of the loop, but she’s being a touch naive if she thinks anyone would tell a high schooler anything.

— Moreover, Shiori gripes at the idea of Methode forcing her to issue an order, but I’m not seeing it. How is she being forced?

— Elsewhere, investigators wonder whether or not the incident at the research center had been an inside job. Once again, info we already know.

— Finally, we see something new, but it’s just the Erika transferring into Arato’s class. Yes, the owner of the modeling agency is also a high schooler, and lest we forget, she also formed a contract with Saturnus recently. This is one of the “animeisms” that I really dislike about Beatless. The anime has so much promise, but here we are again with yet another high school transfer student.

— The whole Arato-Lacia relationship is also very limited because he’s a pure-hearted high school boy. In Blade Runner 2049, an intimate relationship with a domesticated AI did not just start and end in the kitchen. We got to see one of the strangest sex scenes ever seen in a sci-fi movie. Beatless wants to push the whole boy-meets-girl angle, but our boy can’t even lay his head on her lap without blushing like a virginal bride. And honestly, let’s be real: why would you create sexy robots and not try to fuck them? All these hIEs resemble slender, nubile girls, but gosh, we wouldn’t dare do anything inappropriate with them. Again, Beatless is full of promise, but its also gutless.

— Apparently, Erika is a time-traveler. To be more accurate, her family was rich enough to place her in cryogenic sleep back in the 20th century. Obviously, she’s since been reawakened. So she didn’t just transfer schools; she transferred from another time period. Like most anime characters, however, her family is completely out of the picture. They supposedly perished in the “Hazard,” an event that we know nothing about. Great. So a young girl has acquired a tremendous fortune, and she has no real authority figures in her life. That sounds like a recipe for success.

— Erika joins Arato for lunch, then proceeds to wax poetic about how she never got to experience school life back in the 20th century. Uh, what about your dead parents? Ryo storms off for whatever reason…

— The girl then fawns over Arato’s bento. She obviously knows it was put together by Lacia. For some reason, however, Arato is trying to conceal this fact from the public. In last week’s episode, he was reluctant to go forward with the boy-meets-girl marketing campaign, because he was afraid people would find it odd. Maybe this is the source of the main character’s anxiety. On the other hand, is it really shocking to hear that an hIE is making lunches for their owner? Wouldn’t this sort of thing be commonplace by now.

— The kids talk about some hIE gaining popularity after being destroyed. It sounds like someone is milking the tragedy for profit. Maybe they even wanted the hIE to die for this expressed purpose. Since these are hIEs, though, don’t they have their personalities and memories backed up somewhere? Can’t you just revive any of these hIEs?

— Erika then starts talking about how objects can gain a personality through branding. You can use a narrative to influence people’s feelings (obviously). Like how Erika’s story isn’t a tragedy. Rather, it’s a fairy tale and the girl resembles the eponymous Sleeping Beauty. Nothing all that ground-breaking is being discussed here. Actually, this conversation reminds me of the time I wrote about cuteness can be exploited by capitalism. Man, that was a long time ago. In any case, my issue with this scene is that it doesn’t feel authentic. It doesn’t feel like a group of high schoolers getting together at lunch and having an organic conversation. Instead, it feels like the author lecturing directly at me about concepts that he may have picked up in college.

— So Shiori’s organization knows that Arato has Lacia… and they’re just biding their time, but for what? The guy will let Shiori in on his plans, but unfortunately, we don’t get to hear what said plans are. I have to imagine they want to retrieve Lacia at some point, but all I can do is speculate. Methode assures Shiori that the girl is now no longer a pawn in this convoluted game, but it seems obvious to me that the hIE is pulling the strings on her owner. Shiori is emotionally vulnerable right now, and this is clearly affecting her decisions. She resents being a pawn, she is angry over her powerlessness, and she’s sad about her brother. Ironically, this makes her the perfect pawn.

— Back at school, Ryo confronts Arato over the latter’s fondness for Lacia. Again, we get into the stupid debate about hIEs being objects. Are these guys blind? Lacia can think for herself and express her emotions. What makes her functionally different from humans? A soul? Don’t tell me people still believe in souls in such a distant future. My point is that the conflict just feels contrived. We’ve created these incredibly life-like androids, but the entire world is content on treating them like inhuman objects. Only one simple boy will stand against the tide! Doesn’t this premise seem ridiculous to anyone else? If we can die for our pets, then why are people like Ryo so incredulous that someone might form an attachment to their hIEs? What is this bizarro alternate universe?

— Ryo accuses Arato of being analogue hacked. More importantly, he accuses Arato of selling humanity out! Whoa! Seriously? All because Arato wants to treat a thinking, feeling being with the respect they deserve? Sure, the show insists that common hIEs do not have the capability to feel, but it’s obvious that Lacia does. Plus, I’m not so sure that these ordinary, day-to-day hIEs truly lack feelings. Considering how much people like Ryo wants to believe that hIEs are nothing but mere objects, don’t you think it’s possible that they’re deluding themselves in order to continue discriminating against hIEs?

— Anyways, the show is trying to convey the existential threat of androids. If androids are superior to us in every other way — strength, speed, intelligence, etc. — then aren’t humans obsolete? Ah, but humans aren’t obsolete if we continue treating the androids like objects! Good ol’ discrimination will do the trick! In any case, I get it. Regular humans don’t have a place if these hIEs can simply replace them. The problem is that this debate is being carried out between two clueless high school students. They don’t exactly have the most interesting takes. Case in point, Ryo is going about it the wrong way, though: “You shouldn’t care about Lacia at all!” Dude, that’s never gonna work. In fact, he’s too late. Pandora’s box has already been opened. The only way to hold back this tide is to never create advanced AI in the first place. Getting mad at Arato isn’t going to solve anything. The capability to create Lacia is out there. Even if the one we know and love gets destroyed, another one can be made in her image. Ryo eventually asks Arato who the latter will choose: humans or objects? False dichotomy, my brother! That’s a false dichotomy if I’ve ever seen one!

— We continue this senseless debate with Erika and Saturnus. The former tells the latter that an object’s shape is what gives it meaning. But hIEs aren’t objects. They can think for themselves and perform actions as a result of those thoughts. Their actions determine their meaning! Ah, whatever.

— Erika wants Saturnus to be cute, so the hIE initially tries to use her tool to create a new outfit. I guess that’s her gimmick; she can create anything from apparently nothing. It’s probably not nothing, of course. We just don’t know exactly how her tool works. This might be an anime, but conservation of matter probably still holds true. But yeah, this is why Saturnus is dressed like a typical anime maid. More stupid “animeisms.”

— So Shiori goes to Arato directly and asks him to return Lacia to Memeframe. Obviously, he does not want to do so. They then go on and on about registration numbers and whatnot. It’s like the lamest possible way to contest ownership of Lacia, but we’re just biding our time until the episode ends. We all know that they’ll eventually fight over this. We all know that they’ll have to resort to force. The show just wants to hold off on this until at least next week’s episode. As a result, Shiori tries to reason with Arato even though she knows it won’t work.

— In the end, Arato asks Lacia why she concealed her origins from him. She expresses her desire to be by his side. She wants an owner who can trust her, i.e. more or less treat her like an equal. He asks her if he’s being analogue hacked, but she of course tells him that only he can decide if he still has free will. I guess I just don’t see what the big deal is. Even if we acknowledge that free will isn’t an illusion, it’s rarely ever the case that we are free from external influences. Every single decision we make is affected by outside forces. Is analogue hacking any different from a good marketing campaign? Is it any different from an enchanting beauty asking us for favors? At the end of the day, the theme of the anime holds true: you gotta take responsibilities for your actions. Arato needs to stop being such a helpless boy and just take matters into his own hands.

— He won’t have much of a choice anyway. Shiori is prepared to take Lacia back by any means necessary.