In this week’s episode, our favorite Black Prince stumbles into one bad situation after the other. I gotta say it couldn’t have happened to a better person. 

— From a show with one good boi to another show with multiple good bois, this week’s episode starts with Milza’s men being taken down by a bunch of werewolves. But seriously, did Milza even consider what he was walking into? Did he even stop to consider that he’d be up against werewolves? Probably not. He’s clearly a great warrior, but not much of a tactician. This becomes a recurring theme in this week’s episode, as advantages after advantages continue to pile up in Theo’s favor. Maybe Villar should’ve leaned a little more on his newest lord.

— To make matters even worse, witches (the good kind, supposedly) show up to the battlefield. Up until now, most of the clashes have been soldier-on-soldier. This is a whole new ballgame. Still, I thought chemical warfare was forbidden. Is there some loophole that I’m not aware of? If not, then this isn’t a good look for Theo.

— Milza gets to slay a random nobody, so I’m sure he’s still in good spirits.

— The Black Prince eventually reaches Theo’s castle, so he demands to have a duel. Luckily, this ain’t Dorei-ku so our hero isn’t going to stupidly accept the challenge. He probably can’t win in a straight up 1 versus 1 against Milza anyways. And just like that, the Black Prince withdraws his troops… after all, the forest becomes super dangerous at night or something. So uh, that was kinda anticlimactic. I was expecting at least a small skirmish, and I got nothing. Still, Theo’s troops rejoice because they’re all about good morale.

— This is all about moves and countermoves. Milza knows he has the clear advantage of Theo tries to leave the forest and attack Castle Unicorn. He also knows that Theo wouldn’t do so unless he has a good reason to. As a result, Telius, Milza’s assigned mage, suggests that they send their troops down south to take out Regalia. In doing so, Theo might think that Castle Unicorn is a sitting duck. Nevertheless, Siluca is not that dumb. She will make a countermove, then her rival will try to counter that countermove, so on and so forth. Seeing as how we’re already up to episode 16, I think the odds are in the good guys’ favor.

— Siluca believes that they should strike anyways, and if they do so with the people’s support, they’ll manage to overwhelm Milza. Theo is hesitant to call for yet another volunteer army. He feels guilty about all the people who had to die in order to help him liberate Sistina. But this is what the people want, is it not? Siluca reminds Theo that people naturally want to fight for their homeland. Their morale will remain high precisely because of this. Besides, what other option does he have?

— Now kiss! Give the people what they want!

— I love how the mages just chat on their wands like it’s a cellphone.

— Selge, Villar’s brother, helps Theo out a ton by taking advantage of his bad reputation. To be accurate, it’s really his mage’s plan. Either way, however, Selge plays a big role. Apparently, he’s known for fleeing at the first available opportunity, so Milza doesn’t bat an eye when the earl does it once more. This lures the Black Prince into overcommitting his troops to Regalia when this whole ploy was initially meant to draw Theo out in the first place. Milza reasons that Selge would only bail if he truly had no confidence in Theo. Clearly, that’s not the case. In simpler terms, Milza played himself.

— When Milza returns home, he predictably discovers that Theo has managed to raise a large volunteer army. I mean… it’s kinda his shtick now. To rub salt into the wound even further, Milza left 5000 of his own men behind in Regalia. Nevertheless, he remains overconfident in his own abilities. Telius advises him to call for reinforcements, which is also what Marrine had told him when they last spoke. Nevertheless, Milza is too prideful.

— Honestly, how much longer can Telius endure this nonsense? Milza keeps sticking a blade to his mage’s throat every time he’s pissed off. I would’ve quit this shitty job a long time ago. C’mon, bro. I would love it if this guy just quit and joined Theo’s side. It’d be a such a huge middle finger to Milza. But instead, he calms Milza down enough to convince the Black Prince that reinforcements would be prudent.

— Marrine hears about Milza’s predicament anyways, so she’s willing to lend a hand. Unfortunately, 3000 of her own knights are all that she can spare. Apparently, Theo’s army numbers 50000 strong. Volunteer army or not, that’s a big, fat number.

— Ah, so the girl’s name is Ulrica. I’m sure it’s been said before, but it’s hard for me to remember the name of every single character in such an abridged adaptation. Anyways, Marrine wants the redhead to help Milza out, but if you’ll recall, Ulrica and the Black Prince had a bit of a spat in last week’s episode. As a result, she will continue to prioritize Haman over everything else. After all, she intends to install her own father as emperor. Marrine doesn’t have very many allies to begin with, and they’re not exactly reliable. Milza is filled to the brim with hubris, and Ulrica never really believed in her to begin with.

— The major problem with this week’s episode, however, is that it features a lot of exposition… a whole lot of exposition. And you usually just have people talking in pairs. Milza and his mage. Marrine and her mage. Ulrica and her mage. And now? Eudokia and her mage. It just continues ad nauseum. It’s not the most engaging episode, and that’s putting it lightly. Basically, Eudokia feels as though Haman will soon fall to the Nords, but a potential slave revolt — led by none other than Juzel Rossini — might flip the war completely on its head. At the very least, it’ll keep Ulrica tied up long enough for Theo to take care of business with Milza.

— Wait, what? In order to drum up support and improve morale, Eudokia has to get buck naked in front of her own people? This wouldn’t even be a thing with a male ruler.

— Gee, that’ll makes it all better!

— Jesus Christ. No, seriously, baby Jesus must be crying somewhere.

— So then the entire army decides to strip too! We’re all in this together!

— Hey, wait a minute, y’all still got pants on!

— Guys, the speech is over. You can put your clothes back on now.

— Oh c’mon, it’s one thing to drum up morale… you can’t possibly fight naked.

— Oh look, it’s Juzel being useful.

— And just like that, the slaves all turn on the Nords. The situation becomes too dangerous for Ulrica, and her men have to force her to withdraw. There wasn’t even a battle. This is so ridiculous.

— Milza starts to realize that he’s in dire straits. Not only can’t they get in contact with either Dartania or Ulrica, Theo has managed to setup a stronghold. Even if Marrine’s knights can get here in time, they can’t exactly group up with Milza. As the cherry on top, Lassic has also arrived. Things are moving real fast. Our hero might flip Castle Unicorn in just an episode or two. If that’s the case, then what? He’ll have to go after Marrine, but I can’t imagine her holding out very long without Milza.

I had no clue torturing magical school girls could be so boring. The only time the episode ever managed to piqued my interest was when Aya stumbled into Tsuyuno’s apartment and found some ugly bastard being slowly tortured to death. Yes, the ugly bastard is naturally her parents’ killer. Not only that, he threatened to come back one day and rape the girl, so she lived in fear until she was finally bestowed with a magical stick. She’s kept the ugly bastard in her apartment ever since, and that’s kinda fucked up. Kinda. Still, how is she paying for this apartment? Does nobody ever bother to check up on this girl? Does she literally have no legal guardian in her life? So even though this part of the episode isn’t that dull, it still stretches credulity. Unfortunately, we now have to address all the boring stuff.

First off, is there really only about 539k seconds until the big, bad Tempest arrives? Because that’s only about six days. Don’t tell me that our girls only have six days to resolve whatever issue that they need to resolve. Second, why does Nana give out magical sticks in the first place if she’s just going to have her Magical Hunter take them all back? What’s the point? Since Rina is currently out for the count, Nana hopes that Sarina can become the next Magical Hunter (the girl is armed with a killer yoyo that she laughably tests on some poor crow). And sadly, Nana has to explain the whole rigmarole to Sarina, so we’re forced to sit through a bunch of repeated exposition. But like I said, what’s the point? Sure, sure, the story wants to play things close to the chest, but if you’re going to do that, you should at least give us some compelling character drama. Mahou Shoujo Site fails hard on that front.

Tsuyuno wants to know why those girls started bullying Aya in the first place, and hoo boy, the backstory is lame and boring. When Aya first arrived, she failed to acknowledge Sarina… ’cause, y’know, the girl’s shy. She’s also a terrible runner, so she held up her class during PE. That doesn’t sound like much of an offense, but these kids are some of the most overdramatic bunches to ever live. Last but not least, Sarina tried to help Aya out one time, but our girl was too shy and socially awkward to even say thanks. And the rest is, as they say, history. Yep. That’s it. Let’s relentlessly bully a girl because she didn’t say thanks. Let’s kill a cat because she didn’t say thanks. Let’s have an upperclassman rape her because she didn’t say thanks. This isn’t even horrifying because it’s just so… stupid. There’s no bloody way in hell I can give a fuck about any of these characters when their motivations are that dumb. Aya’s brother is the same way. He’s abused by his father, because the old man expects perfection. As a result, he hates humanity. Um, okay then.

The show is also incredibly boring, because its plot developments are so goddamn trite. As if Sarina becoming a mahou shoujo wasn’t bad enough, guess who just transferred into Aya’s class! That’s right, it’s our lovable dog idol Nijimi! Y’see, she just can’t help obsessing over her dead best friend, so she needs to get her revenge at all cost. As an idol, she has no free time! So y’know, she may as well quit her job! And… enroll in school? Wait, hold up. If you want more free time, why did you decide to go to fucking school? Ah, whatever. Anyways, Sarina finds out all about Nijimi’s revenge quest, so she goes and spills the beans about Rina. Basically, Aya and Tsuyuno can expect the dog idol’s wrath in next week’s episode. Personally, I could barely keep myself awake this week.

The bad news is that there won’t be a new Darling in the FranXX episode this week. But the good news is that Beatless is back! Hey, where are you guys going? 

— Wait, we’re here? What happened at that party? How did that party end? Why did Erica call them all there just to give one tiny speech?

— After the OP, we see Kouka negotiating to be owned by the antibody network, a.k.a. the hIE-haters. She feels as though they’re the only ones who would her the long leash that she desires. Still, the idea is just plain paradoxical in the first place. Without an owner, these hIEs are unable to do anything. As a result, they need an owner just to be free at all. Sure, they were designed to be this way, but that doesn’t make it sound any less stupid.

— Plus, if she helps them succeed, they will establish a world without hIEs, i.e. a world without her. How does this benefit Kouka at all? She’s a tool to help humanity beat out the competition, and in this case, the competition is AI. In other words, she has to beat herself. Great.

— Apparently, Memeframe has framed Kouka (no pun intended) for the airport attack from a few weeks back.

— A long, dry conversation between Erica and Saturnus (I know her new name is Marriage, but screw that) follows, but we do learn an interesting thing about Kouka: she’s designed to fight, but she can’t beat society by herself. Erica argues that the hIE had chosen the wrong owner, but I mean, there’s really no one out there who can help her fight an entire army. She’s essentially born to die… again, this is assuming that the hIE can’t resist her urge to battle. But I mean… if these hIEs are so smart, can’t they conceivably “fix” their own programming? Or is that not remotely possible? Again, it’s one of those paradoxical ideas in this story: AI has supposedly surpassed human intelligence, but they can’t even alter the course of their own actions. What is intelligence without freedom?

— What’s with all the “Hello Kitty” image placement?

— Nevertheless, Erica reasons that a successful alliance with Lacia’s owner would ensure Kouka’s survival. Really? Why do so many people think so highly of Arato? The idea here is that Arato desires a fair and equal society between humans and hIEs. In his future, you wouldn’t treat Lacia any differently than any human. Still, that’s just his desire. Simply desiring something doesn’t make it so. Why does everyone think that he even has the capability to pull off this grand dream of his? What makes this kid so special? He’s not a genius. He’s not superstrong. All he has going for him is his compassion for hIEs, but he’s not the only one. His own damn father is trying to build a society in which hIEs can coexist with humans.

— Oh lord, here comes the PMCs.

— The perspective here is pretty bad.

— By the way, there’s gonna be yet another recap episode after this one. First, that’s nuts. Have you ever seen three goddamn recap episodes for just thirteen actual episodes? Second, a recap episode implies that this one will wrap up a major arc. Considering how Memeframe now wants Kouka destroyed at all costs, well… let’s just hope nothing happens to our redheaded hIE. I mean, I don’t particularly care for her, but I like her a whole lot more than Snowdrop, Saturnus, and Methode.

— Elsewhere, Lacia is continuing her modeling career. Yep. You’ll notice that the fellow in front of her is not Arato. Luckily for Lacia, her owner is not the jealous type. In fact, he’s quite self-assured.

— The human model is jealous of all the attention that Lacia is getting. Meanwhile, Arato doesn’t like the fact that Lacia has been reduced down to nothing more than an image. But uh, that’s kinda what advertising is.

— The following day, Arato finally gets to go back to school. If you’ve forgotten, he was suspended for that airport incident. Anyways, he can barely even get settled in before Erica suddenly wishes to talk to him privately.

— Basically, Erica wants Arato to come forward and make his fight for the future public. What fight, you ask? Well, what do you think Lacia is modeling for? This whole “Boy Meets Girl” modeling campaign is designed so that humans will look favorably upon a coexistence with hIEs. Erica even suggests that this was Lacia’s plan all along. Yes, Yuka signed her up for this gig, but Lacia could’ve stopped this at any point in time.

— Arato starts to worry about his love for Lacia. After all, she never told him that she loved him back. Could he just be a tool in her grandiose plan to ensure the survival of all hIEs? After all, “Boy Meets Girl” would never work if Arato doesn’t genuinely love Lacia. You need that authenticity. Otherwise, it’s just another soulless marketing campaign. Having said that, he has to keep in mind that he barely knows Erica. He has no reason to trust the girl over Lacia. Sure, he can’t be completely sure that Lacia cares for him, but he’s gotta be way more confident in her than he is about anyone else! Nevertheless, the kid is clearly rattled.

— Elsewhere, we see Kengo get all pissy with a poor hIE. He argues that there’s no need to smile back at them, since they’re just soulless automatons. Sure, you could argue that. But if you argue that, you must also believe that there’s no reason to get mad at an object.

— He thinks back to when he and Arato used to be small kids. Let’s just say that our protagonist has always been a little screwy in the head.

— Everyone else argues that hIEs don’t have feelings. Instead, they’re just imitating us… huh. You know how when a kid hurts themselves, people will tell parents not to freak out? ‘Cause if you freak out, then the kid will freak out as well. But if you stay calm, the kid will also stay calm. Kids tend to imitate their parents. In fact, that’s how they learn to conduct themselves. Later in life, they start imitating other sources like their teachers, their friends, so on and so forth. At some point, however, the imitation stops being an imitation. At some point, we point to a person’s emotion and say that it is a genuine emotion of theirs. But when does that distinction occur? Can we ever really know such a thing? Let’s say an hIE drops its ice cream cone, so it cries. In Beatless’s universe, they would call this act of crying, a emotional display of sadness, is nothing more than an imitation. But is the hIE imitating human behavior every single time it cries? Or does it only have to imitate a human once, then afterwards, it simply knows what to do? Would that make a difference? Is causality to blame? What I mean is that you can presumably trace all hIE “emotions” back to some original act of imitation, but the same can’t be done with humans. There’s no such record, and furthermore, our memories aren’t that good. But just because the chain of causality doesn’t exist for us doesn’t mean that we’re any less of an imitation of the world around us. We are imitators too. At some point, however, everything gets fuzzy and we start claiming ownership of our emotions. Why can’t hIEs do the same?

— The teacher then asks, “You wouldn’t ever think about marrying a car, would you, Mr. Endo?” Well, about that…

— Arato responds, “But the hIE I saw at my dad’s company was super pretty.” Good lord, don’t tell me that he and Lacia are “childhood friends.”

— Back in the present, Kengo maintains that his friend Arato is an idiot: “How can you marry something that can’t have feelings?” Yo, lots of people marry people without feelings.

— Anyways, we return to Arato, and he openly talks to Lacia about his encounter with Erica. At least these two have good communication.

— He clearly thinks that they can trust Erica, but luckily, Lacia is not so gullible. She warns him that Erica is incredibly deceptive and shouldn’t be trusted. The guy can’t help but admit that his hIE is right. But if Arato is this easy to manipulate, then he must naturally wonder if Lacia has been controlling from the very start. Of course, this has been Ryo’s argument all along. Still, it’s not as if Lacia’s goal is a bad one. What’s so bad about an equal coexistence with hIEs?

— Lacia finally turns to him and says, “Please design a future where we can be together.” And yet, she doesn’t say that she loves him. She merely trusts him. On the one hand, if she merely wants to manipulate him, then it should be no problem for her to lie and say that she loves him. In fact, she’d be foolish not to. Then again, trusting someone is so vague… she can simply trust him to do what she needs him to do.

— I still think, of course, that Lacia genuinely cares about Arato. It would be super cool if it turns out she’s just been manipulating him all along, but I can’t see an anime being this cynical. It’s rarely the case that a show would ever piss off its viewers, so I doubt Lacia would ever shit on Arato’s feelings.

— Just to wrap up some loose ends, Shiori learns that she’s no longer allowed to have anything to do with Memeframe or the Lacia-class hIEs. Welp.

— Meanwhile, Kengo continues to rage out some more in his home: “Suddenly, there are these things everywhere that are indistinguishable from humans.” I mean, if you can’t tell them apart from humans, why not just call them humans?

— He then adds, “And because of [hIEs], people are treated like objects.” Uh… when? You mean when the fancy ones like Mikoto collect data from humans in order to govern them? I don’t think that counts…

— Eventually, the truth comes out: “I’m just left behind on the second floor of this failing restaurant. Endo and Kaidai just keep going on ahead without me!” To put it bluntly, Kengo is an impotent child, so he’s throwing a tantrum. He’s not as special as his friends, so he’d rather just take the ball and go home, i.e. “screw the future.” No wonder he joined the antibody network. They’re just a bunch of whiny babies resistant to change. That’s pathetic, isn’t it? Unfortunately, this also appeals to Kouka, the least special of the Lacia-class hIEs. Compared to Lacia and Methode, she’s a meathead. As a result, she identifies with Kengo: “I’ll stop the world from changing…” ‘Cause that’s mature. Ah, you lovable scamps. Anyways, see you guys in two weeks for more Beatless fun!

I initially wanted to write a post about the game itself, but it always felt like such a daunting task. There’s just so much to say and cover. Luckily, I have this adaptation. It really allows me to not just talk about the anime itself, but also break the game down into bite-size moments from week to week. Basically, my coverage on Persona 5 The Animation also serves as a write-up for the game. Even though the adaptation has been a bit of a letdown, I’m glad it exists.

— Jesus, could you keep it down, Ryuji?

— Kamoshida never grabbed anyone in the game. Again, it’s one of those small changes that takes the adaptation a bit too far.

— Interestingly enough, he addresses Ann when he walks forward to accuse Ren and Ryuji. I don’t believe he did that in the game. I don’t mind this small addition.

— This is rather retro.

— Oh, are we gonna get a different OP for every palace-clearing episode? It has some fun moments like the two wardens coming together to become one, portraying Ren and Goro as foils, and also hinting at the latter’s duality. Also, this song is kinda growing on me. It doesn’t get me hyped up for a heist, but I dunno… I guess I just dig anything by Lyn Inaizumi.

— More exposition follows after the OP. The game itself had a ton of exposition, especially at the start. Still, the pacing there was a little better, because you had gameplay sequences to break up Morgana’s infodumping. Because the adaptation has to wrap this story up in just 24 or whatever episodes (I think it’s 24), the time crunch makes it feel like we’re just being fed back-to-back-to-back exposition. It’s an unfortunate side effect of adapting any Persona game, so I wouldn’t actually hold this against the studio (are they still A-1 Pictures or is it CloverWorks now?).

— The animation almost looks good again during these conversations.

— I was disappointed that I could revisit old palaces in Persona 5. The game has several improvements over Persona 4, but it would also go backwards in many areas. I know there’s a story reason for this, but they could always conjure up some bullshit like, “Oh, lemme reconstruct Kamoshida’s Palace from your memories!” Most people don’t have fun backtracking, but I dunno, I always like finding secrets in areas I’ve already visited. That sort of thing has always appealed to me.

— Finally… also, I’ve mentioned this before, but I love the track during this scene.

— Wait, Ryuji is asking what they’re doing here? Wasn’t it his idea to come here in the game?!

— Oh, I get it. Morgana never explained how toy guns would work in the Metaverse, so Ryuji doesn’t understand why they’re here. It’s a little confusing if you’ve played the game, though.

— Despite loving “Layer Cake,” I never cared much for Iwai. I didn’t finish his social link in my first playthrough, but even after going through it in the second, it just never really clicked with me. It felt like an afterthought. He seems kinda boring compared to previous representatives of the Hanged Man arcana.

— Yeah, I don’t think band-aids are gonna cut it.

— Man, if only Ren was in college or something, then I wouldn’t feel any qualms about hooking up with Tae. Who doesn’t like a playful, smart doctor for a girlfriend? And of all the confidantes that you can date, I believe she’s the only one who isn’t shy or pretends to be shy about her sexuality. I love bob cuts on girls, so combined with her oversized lab coat… well, enough about that. Unfortunately, it’s just ridiculous to me that a doctor — even a disgraced one — would go for a fucking high school kid. Not only that, she already has plenty of baggage to deal with (we might find out about it later in the adaptation). The idea that she would risk her reputation even further is nuts. Still, she has one of the best social links purely from a gameplay standpoint. That SP-recovering accessory pretty much wrecks the game’s challenge.

— I also prefer Tae’s English voice-acting over the Japanese one. Deep, sultry voices all the way.

— Oh come on, she wouldn’t make this comment in front of his legal guardian. Granted, Sojiro seems like he barely gives a shit about Ren in this adaptation, but still…

— Wh-what? She just gives him medicine out of nowhere?! In the game, you have to go to her clinic and ask about her experimental meds. She then starts getting suspicious of you, and it’s a great scene. This, on the other hand… this is just nuts. Here, have some random ass meds, kid I’ve never met before! Let me know how they work.

— Honestly, I barely bothered with Morgana’s infiltration tools. Sure, I made some lockpicks, but that was about it. The game’s easy enough as it is even on Hard. I haven’t touched Extreme, though.

— I’m still hoping that Sojiro confronts Ren about Morgana. Again, it is one of the best scenes in the game, and it shows us an early glimpse of the old man’s soft side.

— Ooh, this is new. We get to see Shiho with her hair down.

— “Life Will Change” is the only reason why I would always take my time running to the boss. One thing, though: in the game, you only got the instrumental version for the first few palaces. Then when you finally got the vocal track, it was dope because you felt as though you had finally reached a pivotal moment in the story. The adaptation probably never really understood this aspect of the game.

— I was hoping that Ren’s personality would shine through more in this adaptation, but lately, he’s been kind of a blank slate. I’m glad they had him say “Sexy Cat,” but we need more.

— Interesting angle. Some areas of the adaptation are obviously more polished than the others. At least Ann’s got more to work with here than her 3-D model… whenever the animation decides to hold up.

— How meta…

— It’s kinda weird that they suddenly have to go and disable traps after they’ve already found the treasure. They’re supposed to have already secured a route, but I guess this makes sense in a different way. After all, if Kamoshida is on high alert, wouldn’t he install a more robust security system? Plus, fast travel wouldn’t make sense in an anime. Normally, you’d just warp to the last and final safe room, but yeah…

— You might wonder why Ann’s seduction might work on Shadows, but they’re really just manifestations of negative human emotions. This adaptation never gets into it, but you can hear all about that nonsense in the Persona 3 movies and probably the Persona 4 adaptation as well (I can’t be sure).

— We finally see Ren recruit Pixie to his team. This is pretty much a Shin Megami Tensei staple. Unfortunately, we don’t get to see him answer any of the zany questions that the game would throw at you. He simply thanks her, so she decides to join his team. Um, okay. I’m still amazed that it took this long for this scene to occur. C’mon, this is one of the primary reasons to play the Persona series. You’re basically playing Pokemon but with demons and dieties instead of cute, furry animals and a lot more waifus.

— Why would you play the social link up music during this recruitment scene?

— At least Pixie’s mask crashing into Ren’s face is kinda cool.

— Ah, the big boss battle is here. In the game, his name is Asmodeus, which makes him a demon of lust. Makes sense. Not sure how I feel about the 3-D, though. It doesn’t look as bad as other attempts at CGI in other shows, but eh…

— As I’ve said before, I love the boss battle music. In fact, I love this one the most out of the Hashino trilogy.

— I don’t think you can use a Vanish Ball in a boss fight.

— I always sent Ryuji to get Kamoshida’s treasure as well. It made sense since I needed Morgana to heal. Even so, I wish they had developed this mechanic further. Imagine if you could beat every boss without actually killing them. You simply had to steal their treasure, but the trick gets harder and harder further into the game. Maybe you need to fulfill certain requirements within the palace or something. For instance, if you mess with the wiring, you can briefly turn out the lights, and this will allow your infiltrator to get closer to the treasure or something. I dunno, I’m just throwing a random idea out there. Nevertheless, you can make this a viable alternative by making the bosses extra hard. My point is that I was pleasantly surprised to see that I could beat Kamoshida without killing him, and I was subsequently disappointed that this wasn’t a thing with the rest of the palace bosses.

— Where are his slaves that he would sic on you?

— Interesting. Ren ends up passing out mid-fight and showing up in the Velvet Room. I believe that’s a game over. But instead, the adaptation uses this moment to teach us all about fusing Personas. That’s… an interesting way to do it. I kinda like it. Welp, see ya later, Arsene.

— That reminds me… I watched this streamer go through the entire game with Arsene. She simply refused to fuse him. She’d just sacrifice all her other Personas over and over to level him up. That was some real dedication.

— The adaptation doesn’t really give us a good look at the wholesome guillotine action.

— I’m amused to see Agathion, a level 3 Persona, turn this battle around. In the game, I was probably rocking Jack Frost or something in the early teens.

— In the game, the boys were afraid that Ann would murder Kamoshida right then and there. She, of course, holds herself back like what you see now in the adaptation. It’s kinda unfortunate that they left this moment out.

— Also, when the palace collapses, we should’ve seen Morgana revert back to his cat form. In the adaptation, we don’t even see the escape sequence at all. Yet another unfortunate change. Maybe CloverWorks didn’t want to copy what Production I.G had already done, but I don’t see how it could’ve hurt.

— So Kamoshida did sexually abuse his female students in the adaptation as well… they just cut out all the lewd parts from the palace.

— When Kamoshida threatens to kill himself as a way to pay for his crimes, Ann goes on her mini-tirade, and it’s such a cathartic moment. After all, the player should also hate Kamoshida by this point. Not only that, the player should also feel frustration over the fact that the society around these kids have failed them. I think a large part why I like Persona 5 so much is the anger that the kids feel. Not only are they frustrated with their situation, they get to do something about it. They get to take it to the adults and, y’know, rebel. After all, it’s one of the major themes of the story. You felt like these kids were actually effecting change in the world rather than just playing after school detectives. Persona 4 felt too happy-go-lucky, and Persona 3 was… well… if you go back and replay it, the storytelling certainly doesn’t feel as narratively cohesive. Persona 3 certainly had its share of social commentary, but it wasn’t as adeptly woven into the main storyline until much later. You could argue that Persona 5 lacks subtlety with its in-your-face moralizing, but I don’t mind that sort of thing at all. I like making a statement.

— Fucking Ryuji…

— I’m not sure why they replaced the characters’ faces with generic icons…

— Oh man, Ren finally gets his code name.

— Oh hey, the Sojiro scene with Morgana…

— Wait, what? What is this? More accurately, what is this doing here? Man, this adaptation is pushing Goro Akechi hard.

Boy, I do love spending half the episode learning how to play a made-up video game. 

— So the opening is a throwaway. We just get to see Karen take out that professional team once more with her sick dodging skills (read: unfair hitbox). The only cool new addition is a shot of Karen in a suitcase.

— M tells us that he has good spatial awareness. Okay. As a result, Karen thinks that M must stand for “Mapper,” but the guy just looks off to the side. If Pito is really that bloody idol, then M probably stands for “Manager.” I dunno, it seems kinda obvious at this point. At least he isn’t “P.”

— Including our heroes, there are only three teams left in this… this… uh, shit, I’ve already forgotten what this tournament is called. That’s how memorable this show is.

— Oh right, right… Squad Jam. Anyways, Karen is pleased as a plum that they’re at least guaranteed third place, but M insists that Pito will only accept first place. Well, she ain’t even here, and she’s depending on a rookie.

— M keeps mentioning something about an hour from the start. He also tends to pull out a letter that he’s about to read, but something always comes up. Odd.

— As they’re running across a wide open field, Karen and M suddenly fall under attack. Try rolling! That’s a good trick!

— Their attackers have congregated in a nearby lake, which is kinda foolish. Wouldn’t you want some of your people to flank from the side? Because they’re all in one place, M is able to put down some heavy duty cover. It’s apparently strong enough to repel a lot of bullets. Still, a simple grenade would flush him out. Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear as though the opposing team carries any. How conveniently beneficial for our heroes.

— Once again, Karen uses her speed and unfair hitbox to her advantage. As she draws enemy fire, M is able take out members of the opposing team one-by-one.

— Oh hey, someone actually has a grenade.

— Karen has the honor of taking the last guy out. For some reason, she fired her P-Chan for ten continuous seconds just to kill the guy. Geez, shouldn’t you carry a handgun on you for this? Just take it out and put one bullet through his skull.

— The girl is amazed that M took out most of the opposing team, because he didn’t depend on the game’s built-in aim assist. For a shooter, GGO is surprisingly very newbie friendly. Normally, when you use aim assist, a bullet line would appear. This allows gun noobs to successfully hit a target from far away, but at the same time, it lets the enemy know when to dodge. M bypasses this completely by using his pure sniping skills. He must be some sort of gun nut in real life.

— I still think GGO is weird, though. Plenty of shooters rely heavily on the gamer’s actual aiming skills. Sure, most weapons are still hitscan, so you don’t have to learn how a bullet travels through the air. Nevertheless, no robust FPS would ever have something like GGO’s Bullet Circle. This would defeat the purpose of even playing a shooter in the first place. I agree that the game doesn’t have to be completely realistic, but a shooter should at least require actual aiming skills.

— We soon get a really long tutorial scene where Pito explains how aiming work. Talk about shutting down the show’s momentum right in its tracks. The show has terrible pacing, because it constantly needs to interrupt the action. But why do we even need to include the Bullet Circle thing at all? Even without it, M’s ability to snipe the enemy would’ve already been impressive.

— Back to the actual game, our heroes check the latest scan and realize too late that the final team is right on their ass. Karen suddenly takes a shot to the torso. Luckily, it didn’t hit any of her vitals.

— M immediately grabs his diminutive partner and books it. He also takes a hit, but only to his thighs. Karen is wincing and everything as if she’s in actual pain, but I can’t imagine that she is. After all, these VRMMOs are designed to automatically boot you from the game if your heart rate climbs too high. As a result, pain sounds like a bad idea. So why does Karen look and sound like she’s hurt? After all, when I have low health in the middle of a gaming session, I don’t actually start talking on Skype or Discord as if I’m out of breath. I guess this must be some sort of gameplay feature applied to a player’s behavior to simulate taking damage or whatever. Or maybe the anime just doesn’t really give a shit about remaining consistent. It’s probably that.

— Hey look, the final enemy team is composed of all female avatars. Isn’t that funny? You’d think that the distribution of the sexes would be a little more spread out, but so far, it’s been mostly teams of all men and one team of all women. Karen’s team is the only one that appears to have both sexes.

— Thanks to M, he and Karem are able to away and heal up on a hovercraft. They decide to camp out on a plateau, because this would give M the high ground. Unfortunately, when the guy reads that letter he’s been carrying around all this time, he suddenly takes out a gun and aims it right at Karen.

— But our Pink Devil is unnaturally fast, so she immediately dodges his shots and toggles the safety on his handgun. With her P-chan aimed right at his neck, she now demands to know why he had turned on her. Unfortunately, the show wants to end on a cliffhanger, so all we get to see is M blubbering with snot coming out of his nose. They really included that into the game. Yeesh… this guy is kinda pathetic.

— All in all, this episode is a step up from last week’s offering, but it’s still a mixed bag. The game itself doesn’t seem very fun, and neither Karen nor M have any sort of character development. The two of them remain uncompelling as protagonists; Karen has nothing going for her other than that she’s a cute loli (in game). Basically, I have no real reason to root for her at all.

— Worst of all, the show wastes so much time on simply teaching how to play the game. That scene with Pito ate up over three minutes of runtime. Three minutes completely gone.

Damn, that was pretty hype. I don’t know what Delaware has to do with Detroit, but I like the 1,000,000% punch. Big numbers and shounen, man… name a more iconic duo. Plus, it’s not like the kid is thinking clearly, and I actually like that juxtaposition. Deku is all about thinking through his fights, but sometimes, you don’t have time to think. You can’t afford to think. You just have to act. He drilled down through his options until it became perfectly clear that he really just had one option: stand and fight. And when he tried to hold his ground against a whirling mass of muscles, even he started to lose faith. When he apologized to his mom, that honestly hit me hard. After all, that’s how you know Deku really thought he was gonna die. Everyone’s thoughts always turn to their parents (especially their moms) in those final moments. That’s just how it works, and Deku felt it. He felt this was it for him. He confronted his mortality and seemingly accepted his imminent demise. Then outta nowhere, Kota activated his Quirk and distracted the meathead villain just long enough to our hero to collect himself and he just barely managed to. Rather than utter anything logical, Deku simply channeled his emotions into words: 1,000,000% Delaware Detroit Smash. There you go.

On the other hand, I still don’t really care for Kota and what he adds to the story. The kid finally understands Deku’s selflessness and what it means to be a hero, which is fine. But I thought the execution was way too sappy and cloying. It’s the epitome of shounen melodrama, and for me, it ended up interfering with the energy of the main fight itself. Moreover, I still don’t agree that his parents died honorably. As I’ve said in the past, they foolishly left their kid behind. If you know that your day job is that dangerous, don’t have kids. Don’t ever let a kid grow up without a parent. I’m sure I’m probably in the minority here, though. Anyways, the meathead villain is also uninspiring. He doesn’t really care what his comrades are up to; he even admits that he’s just here to fight. He whines about heroes going on and on about justice, but then he’s just an idiot with a one-track mind. Most of all, his Quirk is so boring. He taunts Deku, but he’s just a freak on steroids. Yawn. And honestly, his comrades aren’t much better. Stain’s ideology isn’t even that well thought out, so it’s even worse that a lot of these guys are just mindless followers. The rest are just one-dimensional assholes. In this day and age, we have a plethora of compelling villains wreaking havoc in their respective universes. Unfortunately, My Hero Academia is full of clowns (like this BDSM freak). The vast majority of them are nothing more than gimmicks. There’s no one here that I can respect.

Misc. notes and thoughts:

— Apparently, Aizawa has bad taste. I’m also amazed how careless he is. Or maybe Dabi is just that sneaky when he engulfed the instructor in a mass of blue flames. Actually, I should probably just wait and see what happens. I wouldn’t be surprised if Aizawa had somehow avoided the brunt of the attack, and we just don’t get to see this until next week’s episode.

— Yeah, don’t do this:

Tora: “The woman lying there, Pixie-Bob, has started worrying about getting married recently. She was doing her best to find happiness as a woman, despite her age. You can’t damage that face…”

Maybe the writer sees this as something heroic to say, but it’s not. It’s just stupid. There are a lot of reasons to save someone. Protecting their hotness so that they can get married shouldn’t be the first thing that comes out of your goddamn mouth.

— I don’t understand why the instructors don’t want the students to help. Wouldn’t their combined powers make this easier? Even if you argue that these kids are too green to fight, so they’ll just endanger themselves, isn’t it more dangerous for the students to run into the woods with their current lack of information? Mandalay even said that they don’t know how many villains are out there. How do you know more of them aren’t lurking in the shadows just waiting for everyone to separate themselves from the pack?

— That’s one way to get around the dangerous gas.

— But look, Momo can create gas masks for everyone. She’s so overpowered on paper; she just needs a chance to shine. I’ve no idea why the story insists on keeping her on the periphery.

— Tetsutetsu, some kid in Class 1-B, decides to stop running away. Instead, he’ll fight. After all, they’re training to become heroes, aren’t they? And heroes are needed right now. I can’t disagree with that. Again, I don’t agree with Mandalay at all. If you can help, then help.

— This bad guy looks like he has a groin protector for a mask.

— Oh, he is also the same villain responsible for the death of Kota’s parents. What a coincidence.

— I’m kinda surprised that Deku didn’t text anyone about his whereabouts before he came to Kota’s rescue… I mean, didn’t he do exactly this when he went to save Iida?

— It’s hard for me to believe that Ragdoll is a hero, because she always looks tweaked out.

— Apparently, Mandalay can fuck with her opponents by flirting with them telepathically. Still, that makes these villains look even worse. Like c’mon, are you really that mentally weak?

— The bad guys just want to flat out kill Deku instead of capturing him. I think the kid would be a lot more useful to them as a hostage, but then again, what do I know? I’m not a dastardly villain.

— Instead, their mission is to capture Bakugo. Huh. They’re not going to turn Bakugo into this show’s version of Sasuke, are they? Maybe this really is Green Naruto after all.

— Y’know what? I bet they do successfully kidnap Bakugo. Whether or not the kid goes evil, I don’t know, but at this point, it seems like a sure thing that Bakugo will get captured. The major win here is that Deku will overcome his opponent and successfully protect Kota. The major loss is that he won’t be able to protect his precious Kacchan. Again, this seems all but certain.

— Deku tries to slow his opponent down by getting his left arm stuck in the guy’s muscle fibers. It seems like a neat idea, but not much comes from it. Deku lands an attack and that’s about it.

— Being a hero is definitely not a pretty job. Boy, he looks so uncool.

— This would look cool with a higher resolution.

The biggest revelation in this week’s episode? It’s that the status quo is deeply flawed. I’m still not sure what to think of Hans Lee, our silver-haired individual, but he can supposedly control his bloodlust. Yes, he’s obviously a devil, but also a halfie like Yuki. Hans doesn’t avoid human blood completely. Instead, he drinks a little of it at a time so that he can build up a healthy tolerance. Tolerance? Yep, like poison. The sniper from last week’s episode manages to hit Yuki right in the chest. In order to save him, Hans pours a bunch of blood into the guy’s mouth. Even though it manages to heal Yuki, it also gives him some sort of weird blood fever. His body temperature starts to rise dramatically, and his colleagues are afraid that his brain might become irrecoverably damaged as a result. We spend two-thirds of the episode just trying to subdue an out-of-control Yuki. But the point is clear: making these vampires avoid blood completely is just forcing them to walk a razor’s edge. As soon as temptation hits them, they’ll lose all control because they’ve never had the opportunity to control their inhibitions. It’s like that age-old debate about porn: does it lead to more or less incidents of sexual assault? Studies seem to suggest one conclusion, but that’s a deep rabbit hole that I don’t want to get into here.

There’s apparently an anti-Devils faction out there, and they’ve progressed to Plan B. What’s Plan B? Brutally murdering humans in public just to trigger Devils. Up until now, the government has managed to keep the existence of vampires under wraps. Imagine the widespread panic that will ensue, however, if people suddenly see a Devil consuming blood in the middle of a public square. To make matters worse, the victim is a woman. This is clearly an attempt to drive the public into a frenzy. I imagine the next move is to disseminate information that recent rapes and murders have been committed by Devils. Without any understanding of vampires and how they work, they will call for a widespread elimination of all Devils. More importantly, we’re right back to square one. The ensuing panic is due to the authorities’ attempt to completely suppress public knowledge of Devils. As a result, society can’t build up a “tolerance” to their blood-drinking brothers and sisters. Society will instead go into a “fever” and cry for blood… Devils’ blood, that is. So yeah, I don’t know if I can really trust Hans Lee, but he’s obviously onto something. But don’t you think the imagery is a little heavy-handed? He’s got the silver-white hair, and he even bears a cross. Don’t tell me he’s the lord and savior for all Devils out there.

But if you’re only here for Yuki and Tsukasa, well… don’t expect much. After all, this is just the fourth episode in a long and emotionally straining relationship. I almost want to say that it’s abusive, but maybe that’s too harsh. But y’know what I mean. Those two will look like they’ve made progress, but then a setback will drive Yuki away — a setback that often involves him nearly hurting Tsukasa. Deeply ashamed of himself, the half-vampire will go into hiding and brood for weeks and weeks on end. The girl, on the other hand, will also fall into a depressive state since she can do nothing but wait for his return. And he will. He definitely will. Once they are united once more, they will feel that orgasmic rush of emotions again, and everything will feel perfect… until another incident triggers Yuki’s deep-rooted shame. This hot-and-cold emotional roller coaster is too often idealized in these romances targeted at young individuals, i.e. girls like Tsukasa. Individuals who are too boring on their own, so they crave danger. As a result, they spurn normal, healthy relationships, which are too “boring” by comparison. Love must always be so passionate that it hurts. At the very least, it must leave you exhausted. Your lover has to tread the fine line between worshiping you and abusing you. Tsukasa drives Yuki so crazy that he wants to beat her, but every time he looks deep into her eyes, he barely manages to control himself. Then he disappears and returns, rinse and repeat. Just replace domestic violence with the current hot fetish of the moment, i.e. vampires.

Misc. notes & thoughts:

— How has the sniper been tracking vampires? Pretty easily, actually.

— Her backstory is that her mother was raped and killed by a Devil. As a result, she thinks all Devils are bad. Of course, this is fallacious, but I doubt she’s in the right state of mind to care about sound and valid arguments. Still, I’m amused by Hans’ attempt to lecture the girl on the nature of criminals. Let’s just drop everything we’re doing to talk about the psychology of deviants.

— Meanwhile, Yuki seems some weird dream after consuming so much blood. I guess he was stuck in an asylum as a kid, and… uh… I’m not sure what happened next. Why is there a half-naked Tsukasa in his memories? Or was there a girl in his past who just happened to look a whole lot like Tsukasa?

— Speaking of Tsukasa, she tells Yuki’s colleagues that she wants to join them, so they just let her? Hm.

— Did you guys really bring a rocket launcher to a fight against Devils? Talk about overkill.

— Jill cares enough about Yuki to show up and try and save the guy from certain death. Maybe we’ll get a love triangle involving her later.

— Even though Hans is a halfie like Yuki, only one of his eyes will turn red. We won’t find out why this is for now, though.

— Tsukasa sees that the sniper is about to take Yuki out, so she rushes headfirst into danger. Of course, the sniper still should’ve been able to take Yuki out before Tsukasa could get to him, but shhh… let’s just pretend otherwise.

— The girl probably thought that she could calm his bloodlust — hell, probably that, too — but yeah, she couldn’t. Hans ends up having to step in and preventing Yuki from likely killing the girl he likes. This is why Yuki ends up hating himself once more.

— It’s ridiculous that she still doesn’t think that she and Yuki are in a relationship. Well, not anymore, I guess. After all, he hasn’t visited her in a while.

— Oh no, don’t tell me Hans is gonna fall in love with Tsukasa as well. As if the potentially abusive relationship between Yuki and the girl wasn’t bad enough, we might have a love polygon on our hands.

Boy, is this episode nowhere near as good as last week’s episode. The sad part is that last week’s episode wasn’t even honestly good by itself. It was simply the first intriguing offering from Caligula since the show started. Unfortunately, this week’s episode shows that we got last week is likely an outlier. Now, I’ll admit that I don’t know much about Smeagol. Sorry, but I never cared for The Lord of the Rings. I read the first book and didn’t bother with the rest. I know, I know, you can burn me at the stake after the post. My point is that since I don’t know much about Smeagol, I might not enjoy this episode as much as I could have. But I doubt it. I think this was a bad episode either way. I’ll just let my notes do the talking.

— Right off the bat, Suzuna finds herself talking to a hooded individual about Smeagol. Kotaro is trying to reach her, but she’s not answering her phone. She’s lost in her own world. We’ll learn later that there are rumors about people being spirited away.

— The problem is that this Suzuna-focused episode doesn’t get as much love and care as the Mifue-focused episode. As a result, we shift our attention to Ritsu, who has met up with Aria and Shogo. You know what that mean: clumsily executed exposition!

— Whatever Mu and Aria are, they first found themselves on the Internet, and they were shocked to see that it was filled with negative emotions and hatred. They also should’ve seen the mountains of porn, but shh… we’ll just pretend that sexual desires don’t exist.

— Mobius is supposed to be an ideal world that people could escape to. And as we already know, Mu’s conception of the ideal is high school. But like I said, if Mu had seen all that porn on the Internet, then Mobius would be a whole lot different (and possibly more interesting).

— You listen to Mu’s music and end up having your mind sealed away. Gosh, I knew J-pop was cancer.

— Digiheads are pent-up negative emotions bursting out from within. On the other hand, Shogo has some dumb-looking revolver attached to his right hand, because he’s undergone “Catharsis.” Like Persona 4, if you confront your negative emotions, you can channel them into something useful… I guess. I dunno, none of this is particularly interesting to me, but I’ll explain myself at the end of the post.

— Plus, Mu is immediately portrayed as a well-intentioned but misguided antagonist. That takes a lot of the wind out of her sails, because she’s no longer intriguing (she probably never was). She’s just a princess trapped in a castle that Ritsu will eventually have to rescue.

— Nevertheless, Mu’s power is inversely proportional to Aria’s power. It’d be a nice heel turn if it turns out Aria’s just manipulating these kids so that she can be the ruler of Mobius. But I wouldn’t bet any money on this.

— Eventually, Mifue and Naruko joins the rest of the group, so our team is growing real fast. We also get lame bullshit like this. Even Kotaro ends up begging for help, because he can’t get to Suzuna. I don’t understand why he didn’t just go into the library and retrieve her by himself. Why did he know that he needed Ritsu and Shogo’s help? Up until this point, he had never talked to either of these guys. Ah, whatever.

— So uh, my takeaway from Suzuna’s backstory is that she’s horribly lonely, but she doesn’t have the courage to do anything about it. Instead, she retreats into her own world (of fiction and fantasy, most likely). That’s why she was drawn to the library in last week’s episode. Overwhelmed by everything that she’s seen, her first instinct was to head to her hideout.

— As a result, Suzuna bumps into Kotono, and they proceed to have a literary discussion about Smeagol. Suzuna doesn’t think that the malformed hobbit is pitiful at all. After all, she doesn’t think she’s pitiful. On the other hand, Kotono realizes that Smeagol is really just desperate for attention, and perhaps he (yeah, I’m surprised to learn that Kotono is a he as well) and Suzuna are not so different from the Tolkien character.

— Then there’s something about Suzuna being in the school choir, but she’s also recently lost her ability to sing… so yeah… I mean, the lesson of the story is obvious, isn’t it? Suzuna retreats to solitude whenever she feels threatened, but what she truly wants is other people’s company. Kotono tries to take advantage of this fact by drawing her into his world. It’s a bit hypocritical. They’re both loners, but he wants her to be a loner with him. He doesn’t want her to join up with everyone else. He even calls them “normies.” He has a serious persecution complex.

— Kotaro and gang reach the library, and even though the guy is screaming at the top of his lungs, no one in the library reacts. Upon closer inspection, Ritsu realizes that everyone here are dolls.

— Kotaro is not as bad off as Suzuna, but he’s a hot head who charges in without thinking. In that way, he’s a loner. He isn’t a loner by choice, but he’s a loner because he doesn’t think. The guy eventually realizes that he can’t find Suzuna on his own. If he wants to help the girl, he’ll have to reach out to the very fucking allies he called here in the first place.

— Kotaro eventually finds Suzuna, and they both discover that Kotono himself is a doll. Again, he’s a loner, but he also has this crab mentality in which everyone should just be a loner in solidarity with him. He even starts to turn Kotaro into a doll.

— So of course, Mr. Genius Ritsu stands there in front of everyone and starts explaining the obvious.

— As an anime villain, don’t you ever get tired of that? You’re trying to get stuff done, but then the protagonist thinks he has a point to make so he just interrupts the action to go on some rant. And because you’re just the villain of the fourth episode, all you can do is stand still and listen.

— Sorry, I can’t really get into the moment, because Suzuna’s giant chest is too distracting.

— So in the end, Suzuna solves her own problem by stepping out of her comfort zone. Instead of running away from Kotono, she reaches out to him. She still wants to be his friend even though he’s been “spiriting everyone away” at the library. It’s just an anime-like resolution. Let’s be friends! Let’s hold hands! Being trapped in a high school forever is terrible, but let’s act like high schoolers at every available opportunity!

— In fact, she wants to eat lunch with him. Ugh, that really hurt. I audibly groaned when I got to this point in the anime. Just kill me.

— And just like that, the spell is lifted… except Kotaro’s hand is still freakishly monstrous because the animation sucks.

— Kotono is still technically a Musician, so he can’t join their side. Instead, he kinda just… walks away. I thought we weren’t gonna be loners anymore. Maybe just Suzuna, I guess.

— All’s well that ends well, right? The group leaves the library with another member in the fold.

— Meanwhile, Mu watches from afar and whines, “Why do they all dislike this world?” I dunno, why don’t you ask them? No, seriously, why don’t you just fucking ask them? Gee, nobody likes this world that I’ve made for them. Do I collect constructive feedback? Nah, let’s just sing my stupid songs.

— I guess this lady will be the next antagonist. Whatever.

— The murder mystery and the likable cast of characters are why people (like myself) enjoy Persona 4’s story. You don’t just love the game for its heavy-handed take on Jungian psychology. You like it because it’s a good story to begin with. You need a solid foundation to a dish before you start add in the spice. The spice itself cannot serve as the basis of a dish. You can’t just throw a bunch of half-baked psychological concepts into the pot and expect to make a good story out of them. Unfortunately, this is all that Caligula has going for it. You still need strong characters, a well-told narrative, good visuals, so on and so forth. Caligula has some style, but it falls woefully short on so many other fronts. It has a decent premise, but it’s all wasted potential when we’re just sitting in a room, listening to Aria take one giant infodump on Ritsu’s chest. Moreover, none of the characters are remotely interesting, and there’s no suspense to speak of. Gotta beat the Musicians and save Mu. Gotcha. And oh yeah, the soundtrack is ghastly.

I’m just tickled that this guy gets a new dish to try in practically every episode. 

Hell, in this week’s episode, he gets a two dishes:

And even a dessert:

Sadly, his attempts to convince the Ainu to try miso continues to fail. Anyways, this episode is just fine… it won’t bore you, but it won’t rock your socks off either. The first half is quite slow as Sugimoto adapts to life in the Ainu village. In other words, more knowledge about customs and traps. We can’t live on squirrel meat forever. We gotta get some fish in our diet too. And did I say traps? ‘Cause I really meant it. Sugimoto almost killed himself had Asirpa’s uncle not stepped in. Also, look at the guy tote that bear cub around like a teddy bear. Shit, now I want a bear cub for a pet as well. Other than that, however, Asirpa’s uncle merely serves as an expository device. He talks about the missing gold, he talks about Retar and how the girl came to know the wolf, and most of all, he talks about how lonely his niece is. Information, information, information. It’s a bit unexciting and dry to listen to, but the last part about Asirpa is important.

Everyone emphasizes how Asirpa’s mood seems to have brighten ever since Sugimoto showed up. After all, she hasn’t quite gotten over her father, and it’s not as though a wolf can live in a village. And we’ve already learned from previous episodes that Asirpa is different from the other girls. She prefers to go out in the wilderness and hunt. As a result, she lacks domestic skills that would make her marriage material… for a traditional Ainu man, that is. So what’s so special about Sugimoto? Well, he definitely doesn’t remind her of her dad, that’s for sure. After all, she has to teach the guy everything. Maybe it’s just as her uncle says: she’s lonely. And since Sugimoto is an outsider, he doesn’t treat her any differently for being a tomboy. Rather, he values her wilderness skills, since he needs them. Well, that’s just my guess, anyway. As far as I can tell, they just have a friendly relationship. Asirpa’s grandmother is desperate to marry the girl off, but I really don’t think either of our two main characters want anything to have to do with that. Sugimoto, especially.

Our Immortal Sugimoto has been in quite a few sticky situations, but ironically, he’s afraid to take Asirpa with him. Seeing how happy and carefree she is in this village, how can he possibly yank her away from her people and make her go on a foolhardy mission for stolen gold? Even if the gold used to belong to her people, this is not going to be some walk in the park. Every bastard out there is looking for the gold as well. Plus, Sugimoto and Asirpa have already had a few close brushes with death, and it’s only going to get worse from here on out. There’s the 7th Division as well as the countless number of vicious ex-prisoners that they’ll no doubt run into. Asirpa has proven to us that she’s tough, but she’s still just a kid. Compare her with the other Ainu children. She doesn’t look much older than them at all. Would I have abandoned the girl if I was Sugimoto’s shoes? I don’t think I could. Not without a discussion, at least. But having said that, I understand why he felt he had to bail. He doesn’t exactly have a way with words, and if he had tried to reason with the girl, she would’ve just steamrolled him.

But we wouldn’t have a show if it was that easy to leave the girl behind. As soon as she wakes up, she embarks on a mission to locate Sugimoto. She even enlists the help of her trusty wolf and his keen sense of smell. Unfortunately, this leads her straight to the self-proclaimed Escape King, because he and Sugimoto had swapped socks a couple episodes ago. Needless to say, Asirpa is not pleased. The guy tries to get away, but I mean… c’mon, you’re up against a goddamn wolf. Plus, it must be scary to open the window and find this giant ass beast staring right at you. Anyways, the guy still knows where she might be able to find her partner, and they gotta move fast. Sugimoto has fallen into Tsurumi’s clutches, and we already know how much of a bastard the lieutenant can be. Sugimoto repeatedly tries to play dumb, but he’s a little too infamous to pull this off. I enjoyed the attempt, though. And even with two skewers stabbed through his cheeks, the guy continues to put up a good fight afterwards. I don’t care much for the twins nor Sugimoto’s fight with them, but I enjoyed our hero’s exchange with Tsurumi. The villain tries to intimidate Sugimoto and fails. I wonder how the former must have felt.

Anyways, like I said, this episode is fine. We get some character development, some world-building, and (finally) some tension as our hero comes face-to-face with one of the main antagonists. Also, Sugimoto playing mama bear is pretty amusing. Also, isn’t this the plot to The Rock?

In this week’s episode, Aoi gets the perfect opportunity to go back to her normal life, but does she take it? Of course not. 

— Look, boys, don’t go shooting your sticky fluids at girls. That’s just rude and gross… mostly gross.

— When we last left off, the spider siblings were having a feud, and well, they’re still at it. That doesn’t stop Aoi from sticking her nose where it doesn’t belong, though. Plus, if you ever want to get people to talk, just give them ice cream. That girl has one bowl in her possession, and she’s content to pimp the hell out of it.

— We’re getting this flashback again, but this time, it’s from Suzuran’s perspective. It doesn’t make it any less boring, though. Basically, the old man took them in, cared for them, fed them, then ditched them. Why? Beats me. He told them it’d be hard to survive in the apparent realm, but uh, isn’t that why they’re with him? He sent them back long before he adopted Aoi, so it wasn’t that. Maybe he just didn’t want to raise them anymore, but the story pretty much glosses over that since it can’t stop fellating this dead, old man. Seriously, even though he old his own granddaughter into an arranged marriage, it’s like a nonstop praise-fest for him every single episode. I just can’t wait for other shoe to drop: I bet there’s going to be a plot twist in which he never sold Aoi at all or something like that.

— Apparently, folks from the hidden realm like to make everything sweet. I’m starting to think that something like Panda Express would be a huge hit with the ayakashi.

— Suzuran also reveals that she could’ve worked at the inn, but she chose to become a geisha just because Shiro kept visiting the castle. And even though he’s been dead for quite some time, she still wants to go to the apparent realm. Why? So she can hang out with his dead body. No, really. She has no concrete plans other than to stay by his side even though he’s dead. She seems to have an unhealthy obsession with the old man, but again, the story glosses over anything that can be deemed negative.

— What’s also sad here is that Akatsuki is painted as the bad guy for getting in his sister’s way, but what brother in his place wouldn’t worry? My sister is going to go to a realm where she can’t earn a living nor have shelter? She’s going just sit by a dead guy’s grave? Of course I don’t want her to do that!

— Anyways, Aoi insists on mending the relationship between the two siblings, so when she returns to the annex, she whips up a smoothie and force-feeds Akatsuki. This turns him back into his human form, which allows her to suddenly tackle the guy and lecture him about how he’s supposed to encourage his sister throw her life away for no reason.

— The following day, Ginji drops by with all the ingredients necessary to make dumplings. Who’s paying for this? The restaurant isn’t open yet, so Aoi doesn’t have any money. Ginji must be paying for everything out of his own pocket, but why? What’s in it for him? And how can he keep affording to spoil Aoi? The girl promised Odanna that she would repay her grandfather’s debt, but after five episodes, she hasn’t earned a single yen (or whatever currency that they use in this realm).

— Cooking brings the whole family together.

— Oh yeah, Shiro taught Aoi how to make shitty food for humans just so that she can feed any ayakashi that she comes across instead. The girl thinks he did this to protect her, but I mean, he did put her up as collateral. Who’s to say he didn’t teach her to cook shitty food because he planned on having her marry that bastard Odanna in the first place? Hey, I’m not related to him, so I have no reason to defend his ass.

— I do like the fact that you can tell who made which dumplings.

— Eh, I prefer potstickers over steamed dumplings, ’cause y’know… fried food always taste better.

— Oh boy, we’re taming each staff member one-by-one!

— While I agree that both Suzuran and Akatsuki are adults, so they can make their own decisions, I still think the girl’s decision is really fucking dumb. She’s got issues and she’s living in the past.

— Anyways, the day of her departure finally arrives, but it is not without its share of excitement. The creepy guy who wanted to forcefully marry her two episodes ago is back. Luckily for her, Akatsuki has finally accepted the fact that he can’t prevent his sister from wasting her life.

— Odanna even gives Aoi tickets that will allow her to go back to the apparent realm. After all, someone needs to guide Suzuran to Shiro’s gravestone. But dude, this is the perfect opportunity for the girl to get out of this stupid predicament! Go back to school, establish a career, go traveling, so on and so forth!

— The animation is getting worse and worse. This white stuff is supposed to be Akatsuki’s spider webs. He shoots out one huge torrent in order to shield his sister and Aoi from the evil cannonballs.

— And we’re back!

— So Aoi takes Suzuran to her grandfather’s grave, and they continue to think about Shiro even more. Like, OMG, Shiro is so great, you guys. But when dusk arrives, Aoi turns to find that Suzuran has just gone poof into thin air.

— Not really, she’s right here. Like she said, she’s literally just gonna waste her life away with Shiro’s grave. Dumb.

— As for our heroine, she takes like one goddamn second to think about it and decides definitively that she’s going to return to the hidden realm. Even if she really wants to return, you’d think she’d have things to care of. Like, y’know, dropping out of school, ending the lease on her apartment (or whatever arrangements she has in place), making sure she doesn’t have any outstanding dues, canceling the power and water at wherever she was staying at before she got whisked away, etc. But nah, who cares about your responsibilities! Let’s just fuck off back to the land of pretty boy demons!

— Dumb.

— Is this a case of Stockholm syndrome? It sure feels like it.

— My posts on this show are probably the least read of out of everything I put out this season, but that’s fine. I’m going to keep blogging it because I can. Just like how I’m gonna keep ignoring Lupin III because I can!

Sorry for the late post. Yakuza 6 has been distracting me. It’s a good game. Not as good as Yakuza 0, but I’m still enjoying it more than anything that has come out recently. Anyways, due to time constraints, I’m skipping Piano no Mori this week, and I may drop it entirely from here on out. We’ll see.

3D Kanojo Real Girl Ep. 4 & 5

In the fourth episode, Hikaru gets branded a lolicon when one of the guys who likes Iroha tells his little sister to tell a dirty lie. As a result, the entire school gangs up against the protagonist. His close friends stick by him, but everyone else starts bullying him. Well, it’s hard to blame them if they truly think he’s a lolicon. Two wrongs don’t make a right, but emotions run high when you’re dealing with a potential pedophile. Anyways, his tolerance for abuse impresses Iroha, but the problem is that he’s this way for the wrong reasons. He’s only tolerant because he’s bizarrely negative. Hikaru honestly believes that things are going too well right now in his life. It’s too good to be true, basically. So as some dumb way to ward off danger, he doesn’t mind it if he’s getting bullied. But like I said, that sort of negative mindset will come around and bite you in the ass.

In the fifth episode, Hikaru is having a good time hanging out with Iroha at a festival when he suddenly feels the itch to be a shithead. He asks her why she didn’t just date this other guy instead — the same guy who had Hikaru labeled a pedophile. After all, that other guy is so hawt. As you might expect, Iroha is pissed off at his question. Not only does her boyfriend continue to trash himself, he’s also calling her shallow. She storms off, and Hikaru doesn’t even chase after her or anything. Nor does he even know what to say the following day. He just doubles down on his inferiority, then claims that she should tell him what’s wrong with what he’s saying. It’s really not hard to try and empathize. Put yourself in the other person’s shoes. Unfortunately, Hikaru is too wrapped up in his own self-pity.

Also, there’s a new girl who also likes the same shitty anime as the protagonist, so he’s going to fuck up even harder. You can already see him spending too much time with the new girl, then turning around and going, “Buuuuh, what am I doing wroooooong?” After five episodes, I still have no clue why Iroha not only likes Hikaru, but actually loves him. He’s got the dumbest fucking logic ever, he’s negative, he can’t empathize, and even his own brother thinks he’s a loser.

Dances with the Dragons Ep. 4

If someone could tell me what’s going on in this anime, that’d be great. As far as I can tell, the cardinal that our heroes had been hanging out with was not the actual Mouldeen. He staged a fake assassination attempt on his life just swing the balance of powers into the hands of the moderates (FYI, the moderates are the ones who do not want all-out war between humans and dragons). Basically, a bunch of men had to die just for this stunt. Hell, Gayus could’ve died too. And because he and his partner didn’t go down, they now have to fight against a pair of bishie bros? And Nidvolk will crash the party in next week’s episode as well? I like how she’s just casually hanging upside-down from a crane. I just… after four episodes, I still don’t know what our heroes are trying to accomplish. I don’t know where this story is headed. Do we want to prevent war, but in a different way?

Full Metal Panic! Invisible Victory Ep. 3

The vast majority of the episode is devoted to the futile defense of Merida Island. They manage to take out one Behemoth, but a lot of people die in the process. A lot of people. And to make matters worse, they still have two more Behemoths to deal with. But honestly, this part bored me, because I’m only really interested with Sousuke and Chidori. I just can’t get that worked up about Speck biting the dust. Now, if it had been Tessa instead, then you’d have my attention. Speaking of our heroes, those two resolve to do everything in their power to protect their friends. It’s predictable, but hey, most of us would do the same if we actually had Sousuke’s kickass abilities.

Gundam Build Divers Ep. 4 & 5

The kids are reminded that they can’t get hurt or tired, because it’s just a game. I like that. I wish more anime about VRMMOs would remember this… like Gundam Build Divers. After all, our heroes keep screaming out in pain whenever they get hit. Are they just roleplaying or what? Oh well.

High School DxD Hero Ep. 2 & 3

This is just straight up sexual assault. And to think, I used to watch like four or five of these trashy harem shows every season. These days, they can barely keep my attention anymore. I think the hero has to save a MILF or something, but whatever.

Hinamatsuri Ep. 4

So we pick up where we last left off, and Nitta kicks Hina out of his home for smashing yet another expensive vase. Also, she trashed his apartment in an attempt to clean the place. Anzu tries to help the girl out, but their relationship quickly goes south when Hina continues to bum off a bum. The girl has been spoiled rotten by Nitta, so she has no appreciation for hard work or the value of the food she relentlessly consumes. Still, she’s far more ingenious than Anzu. Hina eventually manages to survive on her own by using her abilities to put on a street performance. Eventually, she gets recruited by an up-and-coming rock band and they put on a kickass show. You can’t help but wonder why Anzu never thought to do the same. The blonde girl resorted to thievery then eventually collecting cans for pennies at a time. Sure, she’s a hard worker — and we’ve seen in the past that she’s not as strong as Hina — but still, there’s so much more she could do to earn money. Ah well. Maybe some gentle soul can adopt her one day, so she can be lazy like Hina.

At the end of the day, Hina would still rather be with Nitta. She even buys him a cheap-o vase to replace the one that she broke. He eventually relents ’cause everyone in his life was giving him shit for abandoning his “daughter.” You had to go “aww” when you saw it sitting up on the shelf with all the expensive ones. Nevertheless, Hitomi continues to be my favorite character on the show for obvious reasons. And like I said on Twitter, this is probably my second favorite show that’s currently airing (number one is obvious). Megalo Box is good, but I look forward to Hinamatsuri much, much more.

Hisone to Maso-tan Ep. 3

Slice-of-life dragon vore continues as Hisone not only meets her predecessor but also gets a TAC name. Y’see, her senpai’s name was Moriyama, so you take the Mori part and call her Forest. Makes sense, right? Hisone’s TAC name? Just Hisone. Am I missing something? Judging by the rest of the team’s reaction, probably not. As I’ve been saying over and over, the show’s cute, but it doesn’t really have much to say nor a very compelling plot. It’s just not that bad.

Legend of the Galactic Heroes – Die Neue These Ep. 4 & 5

I haven’t dropped the show or anything, but the remake is plagued by the same exact flaw that kept the original from becoming an all-time great anime. Like Reinhardt, Yang Wen-li is supposed to be a military genius, but more often than not, he only looks good because everyone around him fucks up colossally. I mean, c’mon, how do you just allow your enemy to beeline for your supply ships? How can you not defend your supply ships?! Also, I feel as though Reinhardt is a bit more well-rounded as a character than Yang. The latter is a little too… perfect.

Rokuhoudou Yotsuiro Biyori Ep. 3 & 4

In last week’s episode, the gang gets roped into opening a 3-day pop-up restaurant. At first, the patissiere struggles with all the attention he’s getting, but his bros remind him that their customers’ smiles give them strength. Do it for the customers! God, this show can be so corny. Anyways, after practically an unending focus on almost nothing but desserts, it’s nice to see a chicken tempura don show up at the start of the fourth episode. Now I want one, but I’m a little short on funds until Monday. Tempura tends to be expensive around here. I think it’s about 10 bucks for just an assortment of tempura shrimp and veggies at my hole-in-the-wall Japanese diner. Anyways, in the second half of this week’s episode, a lost kitten shows up and gives the big, fat orange cat a hard time, but they eventually bond. Afterwards, the owner comes by to retrieve the kitten. Nothing too serious here. This is slice-of-life, but with cute men instead of cute girls. I’m sticking around for the food.

Shokugeki no Soma S3 Ep. 16

Yukihara faces off against Akira, and the special ingredient is bear meat, so here are some fun facts!

• Bear meat can vary a lot in taste. By default, they are gamey, but if they’ve been eating a mostly vegetarian diet (i.e. fruits, berries, and nuts), then the flavor’s not so bad. But if the bear has been feasting on, say, salmon, hoo boy… I hope you like fishy beef.
• You can’t exactly cook bear meat like it’s a piece of steak. They can carry parasites, so you ideally want to cook the meat well done. Unfortunately, this will make the meat tough and chewy. As a result, bear meat is often slow-cooked. Something like a pulled pork preparation can tenderize the meat while simultaneously ensuring that it is safe to eat. Stews are also popular.

So yeah, the meat’s gamey. I cringed a bit when Yukihara tried it with just salt, but hey, you gotta start somewhere. It’s not surprising that both he and Akira eventually opt to rely on strong flavors and aggressive seasoning to dress up the protein. Akira will apparently deliver a Cajun dish while Yukihara relies on an amazing berry that supposedly contains all five flavors. The actual competition hasn’t taken place yet, however, so Yukihara might try to pull another trick out of his hat for next week’s episode, because a burger patty made out of bear meat is kinda dull.

Toji no Miko Ep. 16

Apparently, Yukari was good all along. She was actually suppressing three great aradamas within her, and now those three are out and about. The ones stealing all the noro? That’s Princess Tagitsu. The other two have names I don’t care about yet. I might remember them later, but for now, whatever. Also, Yukari is still alive. Hoo boy… this still doesn’t make me care about Toji no Miko, but at least the second cour is finally getting serious.

Tokyo Ghoul:re Ep. 4 & 5

This is everything that’s wrong with Tokyo Ghoul ever since the first season ended. The start of the auction was okay. Nothing too compelling, but not absolutely boring either. But since then, it has been just non-stop edgelord fights between people I don’t give a shit about. Any sort of psychological depth has gone right out the window. It’s so goddamn boring that I had to completely abandon the thought of even blogging the show on Tuesdays. Had the scope been limited to just Kaneki like it was at the start, Tokyo Ghoul could’ve survived its sequels. You just know, however, that a story is doomed when its cast suddenly begins to balloon in size. When a writer isn’t in love with what he or she is doing, they typically resort to creating new characters. Just look at what ended up happening to Bleach (not that it was ever that good in the first place).

Sorry, no food pics this week. I’m way behind schedule.

Now that we’ve gotten the prologue out of the way, we get our first major problem: locate future Mayuri’s adopted daughter Kagari. Apparently, Suzuha didn’t return to the past alone; she was joined by a little girl, but they got separated at some point in 1998. Suzuha had practically given up on Kagari, but then she saw this conspicuous necklace in a photo. Oddly enough, Mayuri’s adopted daughter appears to look a whole lot like Kurisu except obviously smaller. I thus can’t help but wonder if there’s a connection between the two (there probably is). Still, if she went missing back in 1998, then she should be a grown woman by now. Who knows what she would even look like these days. Plus, she didn’t just disappear normally (if that makes sense). Kagari behaved oddly the last time she was with Suzuha. The latter was in the middle of fixing some Y2K problem and talking about changing the future when the little girl started zoning out. Kagari had a vision of a mysterious man (I think) saying something to her, then all of a sudden, she grabbed a gun and pointed it right at Suzuha: “You can’t do something like that.” Do something like what? Avoid WW3? Why wouldn’t Kagari want to avoid it? This makes me think that the little girl might have been some sort of unsuspecting sleeper agent. It just seems odd to me that a child would not want to change the future in which her mother dies.

Anyways, this all comes about because Daru wanted to know what Suzuha had been up to lately. Seeing as how he wants to be such a good father, he turns around and asks Rintaro for help. Rintaro then enlists Amadeus, Faris, and even Ruka to the cause. I just don’t know how you can expect to find a missing girl from 1998. You’d have more luck waiting for the girl to magically come to you, since there are no records whatsoever of her existence in the first place. After all, she’s from the future. As a result, there’s no reason why she would show up in any sort of missing persons database. But maybe Rintaro will get lucky. After all, a red-haired lady has dropped by Ruka’s house… could it be a grown up Kagari? That’s a little too convenient, isn’t it? Meanwhile, Daru has also requested help from a very familiar face. Rintaro is freaking out, but I dunno… I kinda like Moeka. After all, she killed Mayuri a whole bunch of times, so how can she be evil?

Misc. notes & observations:

— At the start of the episode, Rintaro finds himself in a dream within a dream. Then maybe another dream? Because he’s supposed to be at the Christmas party. As a result, when the guy finally finds himself back on the rooftop of his lab, he rushes back to the party to see if Mayuri is okay. She’s fine, but there’s something sinister about the whole thing.

— Hm, if he needs help with this, he should go to Ruka.

— I dunno how the animators could’ve made such an obvious perspective error here.

— Anyways, Rintaro later apologizes to Amadeus for hanging up on her, but she tells him it’s okay because he had called her right back afterwards. Huh? He did? And I thought it was Maho who hung up on Amadeus. Now I’m all confused. I literally went back and rewatched the ending to last week’s episode, and yeah… it was Maho who ended their conversation. What is Rintaro apologizing for? Amadeus even goes “Huh? Senpa–” Maybe we are in a different timeline…

— When Rintaro finally meets up with Alexis and Maho, we learn that the professor wants Amadeus to fall in love with the protagonist. That’s just… bizarre. Maho doesn’t want Rintaro to treat Amadeus as if the AI is Kurisu, so shouldn’t she have a problem with this? Plus, I feel like we’re skipping a lot of steps. Maybe you should have Amadeus form other sorts of attachments first before working your way up to loving another person.

— Plus, you gotta wonder about the ethics behind such an endeavor. Even if you do manage to get Amadeus to fall in love, then what? If the AI is capable of being this human, then doesn’t it seem cruel to continue treating it like a test subject? There’s something very cold and heartless about Alexis. He doesn’t seem to have any regards for either Rintaro or Amadeus. They are just a bunch of lab rats to him. His friendly, jovial nature almost seems like he’s trying to overcompensate for his true nature.

— Plus, unless you’re Rintaro or Daru, all important male characters seem to be evil in Steins;Gate.

— Maho ominously adds, “Even if it came to that, Amadeus would never truly be a real girlfriend.” I don’t know what she’s even getting at. If she’s trying to say that Amadeus isn’t Kurisu, sure. But if she’s speaking from a broad point of view, I can’t agree with that. If an AI is capable of falling in love, why can’t it be a girlfriend?

— The girl has long suspected that Rintaro and Kurisu had a much deeper relationship than what he claims. She’s saddened by the fact that she never knew this side of her former friend. That’s fair. But this next part? Not so much: “I don’t even know her favorite words or numbers…” Yo, I don’t even have a favorite word or number. How many of us actually know our best friend’s favorite words or numbers?” Nevertheless, the girl takes a long, hard look at her laptop when she returns home for the day. Even though she’s been warning Rintaro not to treat Amadeus as if it’s Kurisu, she might be tempted to do just that.

— Daru at least seems thinner in the future, but he’s still wearing the same yellow hat. Plus, Mayuri wears the same dress she always wears.

— At least Rintaro seems to have taken Maho’s words to heart. Every time the AI does something that makes his heart skip a beat, he quickly ends the conversation. Still, how much longer can we keep this up? Certainly not the whole season, I hope.

— Still, this episode doesn’t feature a whole lot of conversations between Rintaro and Amadeus, so that’s a bit disappointing.

— I feel like Steins;Gate 0 is really making a concerted effort to play up Suzuha’s babe factor.

— If Ruka’s visitor is Kagari, it’s a bit silly that she also has a large chest. C’mon, guys.

Nanbu’s past catches up to him, and this might even result in Joe’s death. 

— The episode opens with a scene that feels like it is from an entirely different anime.

— Can a butterfly thrive in this environment? Or is this just a figment of someone’s imagination?

— Nanbu’s former student’s name is Aragaki, and he is a war veteran. Sadly, this alternate universe doesn’t appreciate its veterans either. Is he stuck with boxing or is he only sticking with it to prove a point? Maybe Megalo Boxing is the only way he can derive meaning from his life. Maybe he has something to prove, and this can only be done in the boxing ring.

— Aragaki says that he won’t show Joe any mercy. In fact, he blames Nanbu for his troubles. He’s out for revenge. He feels wronged by his former coach.

— The unsettling encounter with Aragaki has left Nanbu shaken, and he now wants to pull Joe out of the match. Is he afraid that Joe will die? Does he feel guilty about Aragaki? Maybe a little bit of both, but what’s clear is that the old man is unwilling to share his complete past with the team. Naturally, without a proper explanation, Joe won’t and can’t understand what’s really going on. Would it really matter, though? Joe must feel as though they’ve come so far. He’s 3-0, and he’s riding a huge wave of momentum off of the “Gearless Joe” gimmick. One more victory — especially over the 17th ranked fighter — would certainly propel him directly to Megalonia. After all, he’s not just fighting for his own sake. Both Nanbu and Sachio are depending on him as well. Even if the old man had been forthcoming about the drama between him and Aragaki, I don’t think it’d change Joe’s mind.

— Nanbu warns that Aragaki has learned everything from him, but Joe believes in himself too much to be intimidated by this bit of knowledge.

— It turns out that our war veteran lost his legs in that massive explosion at the start of the episode. Forget boxing — the fact that he’s still alive is remarkable enough. It is also perhaps a cruel twist of fate. Unless you’re rich, life doesn’t seem very enjoyable in this fictional universe. Plus, money isn’t everything. These men seem very lonely. Aragaki is bitter, because Nanbu was all he had. He feels as though his own family member abandoned him. But what about his actual family? What about anyone’s actual family? After five whole episodes, we have yet to see a single family anywhere in this show.

— By the way, Yukiko’s counterpart in the original Ashita no Joe ended up falling in love with the main character. I don’t suppose that’ll happen here, huh?

— The piano track during this scene is really good.

— As we had suspected, Joe won’t back down from the fight. This shouldn’t be surprising to Nanbu either.

— Sure, the fight is risky, but is there any other way for Joe to reach Megalonia? They’re quickly running out of time.

— The jogging animation here looks kinda awkward.

— There appears to be a healthy amount of food on the table; it looks as though Joe’s recent success has paid off somewhat. What about Sachio’s friends, though? Do they get any help?

— Aragaki seems to have lost all sense of restraint ever since he’s returned to boxing.

— As an aside, I can’t help but wonder what the war was about. I suppose it doesn’t matter, but since they’ve gone to such lengths to craft this fictional universe, the writers must have these miscellaneous background information jotted down somewhere.

— Lots of veterans end up committing suicide. Others suffer from PTSD. That part hasn’t changed.

— Nanbu heard that Aragaki had died, but he never tried to confirm it. As a result, when the guy returned from the war, he had no place to go to and no one to support him.

— Aragaki appears to take his anger and bitterness out on his opponents in the ring. Boxing isn’t quite his therapy; rather, it’s more like a dangerous sedative. By pounding opponents to near death, Aragaki gets to feel a little better at the end of the day. This is clearly unhealthy, but for now, it’s the only way he knows how to cope.

— Even Aragaki’s own coach wants him to back out of the upcoming match. I feel like it’s a bit too late now. This guy sat idly by as Aragaki destroyed all of his other opponents. He has no chance now that it’s personal.

— The boxer argues that a victory against “Gearless Joe” will bring in a lot of sponsors. A lot of sponsors translate to a lot of money, which he can then use to repay his team for sticking by him. I don’t this… but at the same time, his desire to provide for his “family” and his desire for revenge are not mutually exclusive.

— We get another flashback in which Aragaki nearly committed suicide until this piece of paper slipped out of his boxing gloves. We later see him roll up to Nanbu’s old gym in a wheelchair. The place looks like it’s been closed for quite some time. He’s haunted by former reassurances from Nanbu that the gym would always be his home. On the one hand, he’s clearly suffering with depression and PTSD from the war. He’s not quite right in the head. On the other, why didn’t he try harder to contact his former coach? Could he have tried to ring Nanbu up? Email him?

— Interestingly enough, Joe goes to meet with Aragaki by himself.

— Elsewhere, we see Sachio do some expert scouting, and as a result, he notices that Aragaki uses a lightweight Gear. Makes sense. Even if the guy has mastered the use of his artificial legs, it can’t bear a lot of weight. Even though Joe will continue to roll with his Gearless gimmick, his opponent won’t have such a huge advantage. Nevertheless, Nanbu has been reaching over and over that you can’t win with just brute strength alone. If Aragaki has taken his former coach’s lessons to heart, then it doesn’t look good for Joe either way.

— Still, Sachio makes a great point: why didn’t the old man notice his former student sooner? 17th in the world is no easy task. At the very least, Nanbu is guilty of forgetting all about Aragaki. It appears as though he deliberately tried to run away from the his former student’s tragedy, though.

— Aragaki tries to warn Joe that Nanbu will eventually abandon him as well. Maybe. Or maybe Nanbu has learned his lesson. We can’t really say since we still don’t know the old man that well. Nevertheless, Joe says that he believes in Nanbu, and likewise, Nanbu believes in him. This is like rubbing salt into Aragaki’s wounds.

— In a way, the kids playing basketball in the background are acting out the the verbal duel between Joe and Aragaki. It’s all pre-match intimidation.

— Of course, Joe thinks it’s unfair for Aragaki to blame everything on Nanbu, but at the same time, he doesn’t know the whole story either. I feel like it’s a bit presumptuous for our hero to weigh in on this drama without understanding where both sides are coming from.

— Obviously, Aragaki needs a scapegoat, but you can understand why he feels that way. War messes with you. Not only that, you rarely want to attribute your misfortunes to sheer luck. You want some semblance of control over your fate. As a result, it’s easy to blame your former coach for abandoning you. To a certain extent, Nanbu shares some responsibility, but so does Aragaki. Good luck convincing him otherwise, though.

— Nanbu doesn’t believe Joe can win, but it’s interesting to see Joe say that he’s not getting the right support from his coach. This contradicts what he said earlier to Aragaki. Basically, Joe thinks that the old man should only warn him if he actually cares. But since the kid believes that Nanbu has never really given a shit about him, then why not just continue lying? At least give Joe the moral support that he needs. The problem is that Nanbu will feel guilty no matter what happens.

— Later that night, Aragaki has a nightmare that directly blames Nanbu for the loss of his legs. If you really want to ensure that Megalo Boxing is safe, then the authorities should probably do psychological examinations of their contestants on a regular basis. Someone like Aragaki is not mentally fit to be in the ring.

— Aragaki even has a butterfly tattooed to his chest. The metaphor is a bit obvious, but oh well.

— Nanbu goes alone to meet with Aragaki. Nanbu doesn’t want Joe to die, so he tries to accept responsibility for abandoning Aragaki. But again, it’s a bit too late for that. The old man probably does care about Joe to some extent. It’s hard to be on the same team with someone for this long without forming some sort of attachment to them. At the same time, however, he doesn’t want to fully confront his past. He still wants to run away when the going gets really tough, and that’s why he doesn’t want this fight to play out. ‘Cause no matter who wins, he’ll be in a tough spot. If Joe loses, the kid might die. If Joe wins, however, then it’s just a reminder that Nanbu’s done his former student wrong. But like I said, it’s too late to change any of this now. Nanbu needs to accept that all he can do now is reap what he has sown. He doesn’t deserve all of the blame, but there’s no running away anymore.

— The fight begins, and Aragaki takes advantage after Joe gets a bit too cocky. Joe is still being brash and immature. He’s a bit of a showman. Meanwhile, Aragaki is all business. If Joe loses here, it’s doubtful he’ll even get into Megalonia. So can he lose here?  This is the only part that I have an issue with. Even though the stakes are higher than ever, I don’t feel as though Joe can actually lose here. He can’t afford to without the story grinding to a halt.

— Nevertheless, this is the series’ best episode yet. The story beats aren’t entirely original, but I enjoyed the high level of execution. Then again, I tend to live for these character-driven episodes.

Hanako and Taro have a toxic relationship. I’m not even gonna beat around the bush about that. I hate it when people act as though couples have to fight all the time. Yes, couples fight. It’s natural to butt heads from time to time. It’s not natural, however, to fight every other day. It’s not natural to rope your boyfriend into doing something he doesn’t want to do. It’s not natural to flirt with your boyfriend’s best friend. It’s not natural to call your girlfriend an ugly hag. It’s just weird how we’ve come to normalize emotional and verbal abuse, because our minds are so easily tricked by a handful of chemicals. First up is dopamine. When you’re having a great time, what’s happening is that your brain is getting blasted with dopamine. But as with every drug, dopamine has the greatest effect when you’re not getting it on the regular. When there are highs and lows, the highs can feel so high. Naturally, the lows will leave you feeling like utter shit, but that’s the point. We become so afraid of feeling like utter shit that we go chasing after that high. We think that if we pull out of the toxic relationship now, then utter shit is all we’ll ever feel. I can’t count how many times I’ve heard a friend ask for advice about their relationship, and it’ll go a little something like this:

Me: “Dude, I don’t think you and X are compatible. You guys shouldn’t be having screaming matches all the time.”

Friend: “But when things are good between us, they’re SO good.”

This, my friends, is called an addiction. A peaceful relationship just doesn’t feel as exciting as a hot-and-cold one, because we’d rather get our dopamine in irregular doses. It’s like how you’ll keep gambling even though you’re in the red, because you’re just so damn sure that the jackpot is coming. You can just feel it! Just like how you and your toxic SO will turn the corner any day now! Before you know, you’ll be right back to those happy feels. It’ll be like the honeymoon period all over again! You just don’t know when it’ll come, but that’s what makes it so exciting! This added mystery makes the toxic relationship all the more addictive. We are chasing the high, and we are obsessed with chasing the high. It’s an unending quest for that fleeting “fix” that our heart yearns for. This is what I see what I look at the relationship between Hanako and Taro. Even as an outsider, I find them exhausting. Fighting so much is a waste of energy. Why would you want to argue both at work and at a restaurant? Life’s too short to add so much stress to your life!

But aha, stress tricks us into staying. After just one drink, Hanako’s insecurities get the best of her. She knows she’s not Taro’s ideal type, and it doesn’t help that the first positive thing he has to say about her is her big breasts. She’s had enough, so she tries to storm off. Narumi quickly rushes to try to calm her friend down, but oddly enough, she’s fixated on Hanako’s chest as well. Nevertheless, tears are streaming down the woman’s face. She and Taro have been sniping at each other all episode. I half-expected her to say that she was tired of all the fighting — tired of all the toxicity. But what does she say instead? She goes, “If things stay like this, he’s going to get tired of me someday.” That’s what she’s worried about? She’s worried about being dumped by him? I know it’s anime, so everyone’s attractive, but does she really believe she can’t find another guy? Nevertheless, Hanako adds, “Is he satisfied with me? What if he’s just dating me because it’s convenient?” What just happened here is that oxytocin has screwed Hanako over:

“When we hug or kiss a loved one, oxytocin levels increase; hence, oxytocin is often called “the love hormone.” In fact, the hormone plays a huge role in all pair bonding. The hormone is greatly stimulated during sex, birth, and breastfeeding. Oxytocin is the hormone that underlies trust. It is also an antidote to depressive feelings.”

But wait! Doesn’t this make oxytocin sound like a good hormone? Most of the time, yes. But studies have also shown that oxytocin can play on our fears:

“Ironically, evidence of the ability of oxytocin to trigger anxiety in humans has recently emerged. Under times of social defeat or trauma, oxytocin appears to target a specific area of the brain that reinforces fear-based memories.

In July 2013, researchers at Northwestern Medicine published a study, “Fear-Enhancing Effects of Septal Oxytocin Receptors (link is external),” in Nature Neuroscience.

The study shows that oxytocin—which is typically associated with our most positive, intimite bonds and falling in love—is also responsible for some of our most long lasting psychological pain, including the memories associated with a break up.”

The chemical has become a double-edged sword. Hanako’s system is amped up with adrenaline, so she will either fight or flight. But where can she go? Our first instinct is to seek comfort in stressful situations, so she initially cries on Narumi’s shoulders. At the end of the day, however, Hanako has pair-bonded with Taro so she can’t help but go back to him even when it makes no sense from our vantage point. After all, she’s been with Taro since high school. If there’s anyone she’s attached to, it’s him. But at the same time, oxytocin is also heightening her insecurities and fears of abandonment. They’ve been together this long and they still haven’t tied the knot? In her mind, she must be wondering when the other shoe will drop. Her toxic partner becomes both a place of comfort and the very source of her insecurities and anxieties. But after fighting all night, she’s too weary to go on. At some point, we just get tired, y’know? We just get tired of having to stand up for ourselves constantly. We just give in because it’s easier. This is exactly what happens afterwards.

Taro eventually enters the lobby and continues to make his girlfriend feel even worse: “…you’re right. I’m sure I could find plenty of otaku girls who are cuter and easier to handle than you. And who have bigger boobs.” When she goes to slap him, he blocks her, and taunts, “You finally looked over here, ugly hag.” She tearfully admits defeat as she can’t extricate herself from this toxic relationship. All she can do is bemoan the fact that he rarely has anything nice to say about her. So what does the guy do? All Taro does in return is his hug his girlfriend and pat her on the head. All of a sudden, the happy theme song starts playing, and it’s like a fucking slap in our face. We’re meant to believe that these two have somehow managed to make up. Of course, if we want to be charitable to Taro — though I’m not really sure why we would — we can interpret his words like so: “Yeah, there are lots of girls who are more attractive and less annoying than you, but I stay with you because I really love you for X, Y,  and/or Z reasons.” The confession is supposed to be implied or something. But that’s fucked up. Why not just say it if that’s what you really believe? Why not also prove your love to her through your actions?

Ultimately, I think their relationship is unhealthy, and it’s a bit sad that the one between Narumi and Hirotaka is actually the model one. After all, Narumi starts wondering if perhaps they’re both settling with each other. The guy confesses that he’s just happy when she’s happy. In other words, he likes her for her. But we’ve known that from the start. We’ve known that Hirotaka has been in love with his childhood friend for a long time now. The only person who’s really settling is Narumi. But the word “settling” is problematic anyways. It seems to imply that our values can’t change as we age and mature. Sure, she might have been more interested in “normies,” but why can’t Narumi eventually grow to love what Hirotaka has to offer? I’m not suggesting, of course, that Hirotaka is perfect by any means. But I just hate the notion that girls are settling if they stop chasing after unattainable men. And as a result, the guy ends up being all butthurt because they think that their partner should’ve come out of their mothers’ wombs ready to love them right from the start. That’s just patently ridiculous. At the end of the day, all we can really say is that all four of these characters are amazingly immature despite the fact that they’re working adults. They’ve got a long way to go.

Misc. notes & observations:

We’ll keep it short here, since I’ve already written a ton up above.

— At the start of the episode, Hirotaka finds Narumi in tears over Sailor Moon, so he goes, “I mean, what’s the point of crying over anime at this age?” Bruh, can you rewatch Grave of the Fireflies and not shed a single tear? ‘Cause if you can, you’re a monster.

— In anime, all guys can magically become cute girls with just a wig and some make-up. On the other hand, I’m a lot like Taro when it comes to cosplay. It’s not that I don’t want to. It’s that no amount of make-up and well-tailored anime costumes will ever make me look good. It’s not low self-esteem. I know what I am and I’m merely an average-looking bloke.

— What is so embarrassing about loving your girlfriend? It’s a cute picture. But this is a prime example of what I was just talking about. These “highs” make it seem as though it’s worth staying in such a contentious relationship.

— Narumi has a one-track mind.

— Hanako: “I thought you were an otaku. I can’t believe you don’t cosplay.” I’ve never cosplayed once in my life.

— These characters often say the wrong things. It’s like they’ve never heard of the word “tact.”

— Taro doesn’t actually look good here, though.

— This is how Hanako roped Taro into a genderbent cosplay. I don’t know what a “Yudachi Kai-II figurine” is and I’m not gonna Google it. I’m sure if I did, I’d just lose even more respect for Taro.

— But I’ve heard that PDA is generally frowned up on in Japan.

— I think this is what they call asymmetrical docking.

— Jesus, Taro likes Ranka? Talk about basic.

— I really can’t agree with guys who think bigger breasts are automatically better. Nor do I think smaller breasts are better. It’s all about falling within two standard deviations of the mean.

He’s even got his collar popped and everything. I don’t think I could ever bring myself to like Kaoru, but at least he legitimately cares about his friends.Every year, the guy will pull out all the stops to cheer Tada up. And every year, this elaborate dog and pony show falls on the anniversary of Tada’s parents’ deaths. Seems almost morbid on paper, but the characters really do try to make the best of it. First, Kaoru cooks up individual dishes for the entire friend group. I’m really quite amazed that a single guy could make all this food by himself. Granted, it’s anime, so we’re just stretching the logic a teensy, tiny bit. Then afterwards, Kaoru treats them all to some random activity. This year, he takes them to a nearby bathhouse so that we, as an audience, can enjoy some fanservice. Oh, you meant this fanservice. My bad. Why does Kaoru go to such lengths? Because he can’t really understand Tada. Kaoru is annoying precisely because he wears his emotions on his sleeve, but you at least know what he’s thinking. If you’re somehow still clueless about current emotional state, don’t worry. He’ll let you know and loudly too.

On the other hand, Tada always keeps things bottled up. Even when he was visibly angry at his father for leaving early, young Tada kept his thoughts to himself. Even when he wanted to reach out to his parents and say something before they left, he couldn’t. Hell, he didn’t even cry at his parents’ funeral. Meanwhile, Kaoru couldn’t help blubbering. Nowadays, Tada has gotten better at putting on a smile… but that’s the problem. You rarely know if he’s genuinely smiling or just putting on a brave face. At the very least, he seems to be happy in this exact moment. Nevertheless, so long as Tada stays within his shell, he can always depend on Kaoru to stick by his side. That must be a good thing, right? I don’t know. I’ve personally never had such a close friendship, so I’ll just take the anime’s word for it. Nevertheless, the male best friend is often little more than comic relief. Annoying as he often is, Kaoru at least shows that he can be a good friend. Someone just has to teach him to shut up every once in a while.

Anyways, we’ve focused pretty heavily on certain characters in the past few weeks. First, we got an episode all about Nyanko Big, then we peeled back the curtains on the relationship between Hajime and Hinako that’s going nowhere fast. This week, the spotlight is on Kaoru and what he contributes to the group. As a result, I naturally thought that we’d go through the rest of the side characters one-by-one before finally getting back to Tada and Teresa, the two main characters. Instead, some blond bishie by the name of Charles has decided to crash the party, and he has his sight set on Teresa. Even though it doesn’t look as though Tada has even entertained the notion of courting his costar, he’s going to be dragged kicking and screaming into the competition. He shouldn’t worry, though; after all, this is anime, and as a result, black-haired protagonists always get all the hot babes. Hell, Teresa has probably already developed feelings for Tada. He just needs to reciprocate them. Still, I have to imagine that we’ll get episodes for Alec and Dog-kun eventually. They’ll probably just have to wait until this Charles nonsense blows over.

Misc. notes & observations:

—  They’ll still visit Tada’s parents’ gravestones on a rainy day, huh? Call me cold, but I don’t think the dead will mind if you come a day later.

— Geez, that photo will always remind Tada that he was being a petulant brat that day. It’s like he won’t ever allow himself to forget his sins.

— Ugh, of all the dishes that Teresa could’ve requested, she wanted Kaoru to fix her a natto roll.

— Naturally, no menu in an anime would ever be complete without curry making an appearance. Tada even wants it mild. Well, I guess that’s not surprising. After all, Teresa is his love interest, and all she has going for her is a tiny bit of quirkiness. It’s like getting lemon pepper chicken for dinner, but we’ll throw on a little “twist” by adding a touch of honey and soy sauce to give it a sticky, umami profile. Ooh, so adventurous!

— I kinda cracked up at her silly face. She just can’t help beaming all the time.

— Aw c’mon, they’re not that far away. You can afford to give them some eyes.

— See, Nyanko Big is actually cute when he doesn’t sound like an old Japanese man.

— Teresa looks at Tada’s father’s last photo and she instantly gets a “warm and fuzzy feeling” from it. Eh, I feel like they’re stretching it a bit here.

— Alec is your classic tsuntsun girl. Time will tell if she can ever be deredere.

— Leave it to Teresa to turn everything into a Rainbow Samurai reference.

— I don’t think you could ever convince me to go to a bathhouse. Bathing with my friends? Never. Ain’t gonna happen.

— One of the guys always has to be a creep.

— Anytime girls bathe together in an anime, someone must inevitably do a breast comparison.

— Yui comes right out and says that she hopes Teresa ends up becoming her brother’s girlfriend one day. Still, the girl asks if Teresa already has a boyfriend, and Alec says yes. The redhead eventually claims that she was just joking, but she didn’t so until she took a glance at Teresa’s embarrassed expression. I wonder if she was referring to Charles.

— I do like the fact that they sorta teased Alec for pretending as though she knows love from just reading some novels.

— For some reason, we learn that Dog-kun is in love with an older woman. Still, I wonder if he actually meant Tada as the “older woman,” and as such, he simply played along with Kaoru’s suggestion. After all, he always comes running whenever Tada calls for him, right? That seems pretty one-sided to me.

— A large portion of this week’s episode feels really aimless and slice-of-lifey.

— I always cringe when a guy kisses a girl’s hand without asking for her permission beforehand. Sure, sure, this is how gentlemen used to do it, but hey, it’s also 2018. Plus, you can’t really trust a dude who just enters your hotel room without even letting you know. How long was he even in there? How did he keep himself occupied until Teresa returned? That’s kinda creepy, Mr. Charles. It looks like he takes his romantic cues from Pepe le Pew.

Laaaaaaaaaaame. They just had to go and make the shota the evil mastermind, huh? But you’re probably wondering how we got here. Well, read on.

— So I was wrong about that guy from last week’s episode. He’s not Ryuuou. He’s just Chuo, and he’s collecting slaves for the little kid. Oh well!

— We get a bit of Zenichi’s backstory, but I’m not really sure why I would care. After all, he seems like a shithead rapist who just wants to prey on women. Nevertheless, he’s apparently responsible for Ayaka’s injured eye. I think it’s really lame that these characters are going to be interconnected to quite this extent.

— A couple of yakuzas try to accost Zenichi for hurting Ayaka, but the guy quickly murders one of them. At the very least, it looks like he did. So what does this make Ayaka? Some sort of prostitute? Or just a hostess herself?

— Zenichi’s brutish feat catches the attention of a shady dude with a handlebar mustache. He then formally introduces Zenichi to the SCM device. What does he want? He wants female slaves for his businesses in the red light district. They’re all shitbags, basically. Even Yuta is interested in acquiring slaves despite what he initially told Eia.

— This leads us right to the encounter at the park. Y’know, the one where good boi saves the day.

— By uttering this simple sentence, Zenichi unwittingly challenges the dog to a duel. Funny. We all know what happens next.

— Chuo then tries to convince Zenichi to become “their” ally instead. Somehow, I don’t think Ryuuou innocently wants allies. Zenichi obviously refuses, so he’ll have to be subdued via a duel. Chuo was about to challenge the guy, but Taiju wants revenge for Shiori’s mistreatment.

— Yeah, Zenichi doesn’t have to accept the challenge, but Taiju has a brick, so it’s basically tit-for-tat. These guys are all terrible.

— What I don’t understand is how Julia ends up winning her “duel” with Taiju. She had to help him save Shiori in order to win, but she didn’t do anything. The dog saved Shiori. How does this count as a win for Julia? I guess we’ll just have to roll with it. Since Taiju lost to Julia, this also means Shiori now becomes her slave as well. Dumb, dumb, dumb.

— Taiju is also incredibly stupid. Sure, Shiori is no longer in danger of being raped by Zenichi, but he has no fucking clue what Ryuuou even wants. Sounds to me like you’re just going from one bastard to another.

— The person who deserves the most pity of all is Shiori. She has no goddamn clue what’s going on. She’s still in a daze from being cruelly beaten by Zenichi, and now she’s just become a slave to some random person she’s never met. Taiju should’ve released her if he truly cared about her, but I guess he now feels indebted to Julia.

— And guess what?! Good boi used to belong to Eia! Every single character is connected! Imagine that!

— Chuo wants the dog as well… for their “work.” But when Yuta confronts him, the guy just leaves. I guess it’s too early for him to challenge Eia and Yuta. Maybe he somehow knows he that victory isn’t assured.

— Anyways, Eia wants to remove Good boi’s SCM, but the dog refuses. Hey, it gets to be the master now!

— Meanwhile, it turns out Yuta had stolen his money from someone with a lion avatar.

— All of a sudden, we are introduced to Zero, i.e. yet another new face. This sad sap has no life. All he does is work the assembly line in a shitty bread factory at night, then locks himself away in his home.

— Cute cat. Wait, does it have an SCM too?!

— That’s when this kid strikes up a conversation with Zero. We had seen him in an earlier episode lurking around Eia. The kid claims he wants revenge for his father, and Zero ends up being guilted into helping out.

— Oh look, he does have eyes.

— Honestly, why would you trust anyone who wears those shoes and socks together with boy shorts and suspenders? Someone with that sort of fashion sense has to be evil.

— Zero thinks he has to duel Chuo, and right off the bat, the setup is suspicious. They have to take turn answering trivia questions, and whoever gets three correct answers first wins. But isn’t that inherently unfair? The person who goes first gets a major advantage.

— Then the big plot twist drops: Zero wasn’t dueling Chuo at all! Instead, he was actually up against the little kid! And finally, we’re right back where we started at the top of the post: the little kid is none other than Ryuuou, and he targeted Zero simply because he thought it might be fun. Also, no one would give a shit if Zero suddenly disappeared. Great.

— I dunno, man… this episode went back to being boring. Granted, it would’ve been tough to top last week’s ending. I mean, how do you beat a dog enslaving some asshole rapist, right? But still, none of this week’s myriad twists and turns are all that interesting. They seem pretty rote and tired to me. Even the Ryuuou reveal only manages to raise an eyebrow and nothing more.

— At some point, we’ll have to revisit Lucie and her rapist. I wonder when that’ll happen.

It’s the moment we’ve all been waiting for! In this shoddily animated corner is the the Blaaaaaaack Prince of Dartania! And in this corner is Theo Coooooooooornero of Sistina! Two men will enter, and only one will leave! Place your bets now!

— Rather and sit idly until Marrine can join up with him, Milza wants to sally forth despite his disadvantage position. To sally… now there’s a verb that you don’t often come across in your everyday conversations. Naturally, Telius thinks this is a foolhardy move, but he should know the rules of the game by now. If he tries to protest, he’ll just find a blade to his throat.

— The Black Prince is confident that he won’t lose. At the same time, he says it’s a bad idea to involve Marrine’s knights, because they’re too slow to escape should they fail… but I thought he just said he won’t lose.

— Well, let’s face it… he knows he’ll lose. He’s too prideful to admit it, but he wouldn’t pull this stunt if he didn’t know he’d lose. His only gamble is to trick Theo into a one-on-one duel. That still wouldn’t guarantee victory, but it’s really his only chance at this point.

— Anyways, pride will be his undoing. I still don’t understand why Telius is so loyal to this dude. He’s literally in tears over this. He’s not even contracted to Milza, so why risk his life for him?

— True to his might makes right philosophy, Milza suspects that Theo might be onto something with this whole “power of the people” nonsense: “Perhaps soon we’ll see an age when the people choose their own Lords.” It’s all about victory to the Black Prince. If democracy is the just course of action, it is only just because it wins on the battlefield. Nevertheless, I prefer not to think of my elected officials as lords, though.

— Theo needs a new outfit. Now that he’s become a respected lord, he needs to step up his fashion game. That’s just how RPG heroes work. Ramza got a whole new look after the first chapter. Denam of Tactics Ogre fame also some swanky uniform for the fourth and final chapter. Meanwhile, Theo and Siluca are still rocking the same clothes they’ve been wearing all series long.

— Unfortunately for our hero, a lot of his so-called allies are elitist jerks: “Only those who come from a long line of eminent Lords are fit to rule as leader.” They rightfully understand that they will be obsolete in the new era. At the end of the day, it boils down to fearing their loss of status and prestige. Reminds me of this article, actually.

— I don’t know who this guy even is, and yet, he’s prepared to die right here and now. I’m sure he was more than likely introduced in a previous episode, but I can’t be assed to care about some minor character. I guess we have to trim the fat before Theo and Milza can officially have their rematch.

— Less than a minute later, this dude has already been defeated. Amazing.

— Milza’s army is just running circles around the good guys. This is hilarious. Of course, things will get serious once he has to face off against Theo, but it’s funny how a bunch of nobodies will have to die until that happens. Lassic finally joins the battle because he won’t let the Black Prince get to Theo, but I don’t understand why they’re not leveraging their superior numbers all at once to just crush Milza right there and then.

— Theo tries to do the generic good guy thing and send his volunteer army away, but they convince him that this is their fight as well. After all, what’s the point of rallying the people to your cause if you’re just going to let the lords and knights do all the heavy lifting? There can’t be a revolution if people aren’t willing to die for their cause.

— Telius: “Is this devious, underhanded strategy Siluca Meletes’ handiwork? Damn that devilish woman!” Dude, you’re following Milza. I don’t think you’re in any position to judge. Besides, what is underhanded about raining arrows on your opponent?

— Theo’s party members all take their turns throwing themselves in Milza’s way, but they can’t stop the Black Prince. Nevertheless, they don’t lose their lives either. It’s funny how that works. Our villain can butcher an entire army by himself, but he’ll just politely brush the two loli werewolves aside. Can’t kill them! Can’t even wound them where it might affect their appearances! They’re too cute!

— God, this looks embarrassing. Every single moment. Maybe A-1 Pictures will touch everything up for the blu-rays, but that’s even assuming that anyone will buy this series.

— Theo shows up fashionably late just so he can heroically rescue Siluca from certain death. Oh, these heroes…

— Milza challenges Theo to a one-vs-one duel, and you just know he’s going to accept. This is exactly what Milza wants, but it’s not as though we should be worried. After all, Theo’s going to win. Record of Grancrest War is not the sort of anime to throw massive plot twists at the audience. This ain’t Game of Thrones.

— The prudent thing to do here is to say “Fuck you” to Milza, and just take the Black Prince down with the rest of your team. Anime heroes just gotta anime, though. Could you imagine if Cecil tried to take Zeromus on by himself?

— Siluca voices her concerns, and the guy simply says, “It’ll all work out somehow.” Bruh.

— When she tells him that he better win, he then goes, “That might be impossible.” Bruh.

— This is terrrrrrible.

— In fact, the animation quality for this entire duel is absolutely pitiful. C’mon, this what we’ve all been waiting for. Everyone who has stuck by this dreadful adaptation has been eagerly awaiting the duel between Theo and Milza for weeks and weeks, and this is all that A-1 Pictures can deliver? Christ.

— Theo’s armguard is “made of metal from another world?” Okay, then. Just leave that bit of information there without any further context.

— Our hero also continues to rely on his strategy of defending until his opponent is too tired to fight back. For some reason, however, Milza is tiring out quickly.

— Milza has apparently been giving up bits and pieces of his Crest ever since he took over Altirk. This explains why he isn’t as formidable the last time he and Theo clashed. Plus, hasn’t Theo gotten stronger?

— The Black Prince’s army has surrendered while he is busy fighting Theo. So much for that. At the end of the day, Milza lost sight of the big picture. He thought he could win by himself, so he ended up neglecting his own men. Even if he won’t ever acknowledge that the era of the people are coming, no leader should ever lose sight of their army.

— Was it really necessary to kill Milza? I’d rather just imprison him so he could live with his failure for the rest of his life. It’s not as though he’s a danger without his crest. Ah well, it belongs to Theo now.

— Stupid is as stupid does: Telius decides to commit suicide now that Milza has died. Why? Why throw your precious life away like that? What a fool.

— Siluca wants Theo to promise that he won’t ever foolishly accept a duel again. He assures her that Milza was the only person that he ever wanted to take down himself. So was this his way of avenging Villar? Or did he want to reclaim his pride because Milza had been trashing him since he showed up?

— Look at how light is now shining down upon our heroes and Castle Unicorn. It’s a cheesy reminder that the gods are on the good guys’ side.

— Meanwhile, Marrine wasted wasted all her time and energy just to have to turn around at the last second. We have plenty of episodes to go, though. I can’t see her going down anytime soon unless there’s a supervillain waiting behind her.

— If I was Marrine, I’d be disgusted with Milza… but I guess he was useful soldier to her. How dumb would it be, however, if Theo spares Marrine and she ends up getting back with that pathetic ex-fiance of hers?

Eh, this episode is moderately more interesting than what we’ve been getting the last two weeks, but I wish the story had done a better job of giving Sarina a more compelling set of motivations. Unfortunately, she’s just a monster like most of the characters on this show. As a result, her showdown with Aya is so unsatisfying. In one corner, we have a wimp who is so goddamn nice to everyone that she ends up saving her would-be killer. Then in the other corner, we just have a sociopath. I don’t want to root for either of them. Anyways…

— Looks like Tsuyuno has been pulling out her parents’ killer’s teeth one-by-one.

— Yeah, I definitely didn’t need to see this much detail.

— No matter how much of an evil dirtbag the guy might be, I can’t justify torturing another person. I just can’t. Tsuyuno comes off pretty terribly here. Of course, she’s a traumatized young child, blah blah blah… but this just confirms it in my mind that there isn’t a single likable soul in this entire series. Yes, this includes Aya.

— I guess Sarina must have been following Aya, ’cause she’s now decided to make her presence known. The bully takes one look at the tortured serial killer and goes, “This is way worse than anything I ever did.” I always find it stupid when people try to compare and contrast heinous acts.

— Meanwhile, Nijimi is slowly making her way to Rina. I don’t think fingernails are supposed to be brittle. Also, I can’t take the acting here seriously whatsoever.

— Oh no, not the killer yo-yo!

— Aya manages to pick her best friend up and dodge Sarina’s attack, so the yo-yo ends up cutting the serial killer in half instead. Whoops.

— Tsuyuno is literally devastated that she can no longer continue torturing someone. Oh no.

— It’s hard to give a shit about either side, because one side is just so incredibly dumb: “You’re just an idiot pretending to be a victim, trying to play the tragic heroine.” What a hot take from Sarina. I mean, I don’t really care for the good girls either, but god, Sarina is so dumb.

— Anyways, a protective box suddenly prevents Nijimi from getting her revenge. Tsuyuno is pulling out all the stops to protect her former friend. Unfortunately, she’s just going to end up killing herself at this rate.

— Aya finally realizes that she has to do something if she and Tsuyuno both wanna make it out of here alive. But y’know, if you’re going to shoot a gun, you might want to keep your eyes open. Just a thought.

— Jesus Christ, I know Sarina’s a mahou shoujo now, but I didn’t know it came with amazing acrobatic abilities. She’s dodging all of Aya’s shots by backflipping all over the place.

— Luckily for Aya, her gun also serves as an indestructible shield. How convenient.

— Things start to go a little out of control as Sarina throws her yo-yo in every single possible direction. Of course, she never accidentally hits herself. I mean, c’mon… do you think this is her first day on the job or something?

— Aya somehow manages to grab one of the sticks in Tsuyuno’s possession and erect a protective box around the two of them. Now it’s time for Dumb to have a little debate with Dumber.

— Our heroine claims that she’ll do whatever it takes to save her best friend. Whatever it takes, huh? Would you even take a life? Somehow, I doubt that, and that’s the most infuriating part about the girl. Look, I don’t condone unnecessarily taking a life either. But if you have to subdue someone in order to protect yourself, well… so be it.

— Sarina stupidly counters that Aya had killed her friends. Y’know, the wannabe rapist and the rapist accomplice. Killer argument. There’s really no drama here, because Sarina is just plain wrong. There is no possible in which anyone would ever feel sorry for her. As a result, this argument between Aya and Sarina is just a waste of time. There’s no point in trying to reason with idiots. Nevertheless, Aya still feels guilty. It’s that easy to get to the girl.

— Aya finally stands up for herself: “And did you ever once consider how I felt?” Unfortunately, it doesn’t matter what has to say. No matter what argument she brings forth, it’ll fall in deaf ears because she’s not talking to an actual person. This is just some soulless monster in the shape of a cute anime girl for our entertainment.

— As predicted, Sarina’s response is just braindead: “Don’t you talk back to me! You make me sick! I never gave two craps about how you felt, you ugly pig!” Well, there you have it.

— All I’m saying is that this is supposed to be a powerful moment in which Aya realizes what she needs to do, and it falls flat on its face because her opponent is a caricature of an actual person.

— Anyways, Sarina accidentally did so much damage to the building during her rampage that the entire apartment complex is now falling apart. Whoops. You know exactly what’s going to happen next, right? Oh, you know…

— That’s right! Aya ends up saving Sarina! She’s going to do whatever it takes to save Tsuyuno, you guys!

— Sarina is even warped back to Aya’s desk, but do you think the bully feels any sort of contrition? Of course not: “You think I’d back down because of this?”

— Even though the entire apartment complex came crashing down, Aya still managed to protect Tsuyuno and herself at the last second. Good job!

— We briefly visit Nijimi, and for some reason, this involves a bunch of reused scenes. I guess the episode needed to pad its length. All you need to know is that the dog idol eventually realizes that Aya and Tsuyuno have been protecting Rina this entire time, and she’s going to go nuts on them. Her stalker is also… well, stalking her, but until he actually does something important, I won’t comment any further on his character.

— Aya and Tsuyuno are both rushed to the hospital. The former will probably be fine, but the latter…? Eh… Don’t worry. It’s only the fifth episode, so Tsuyuno ain’t going anywhere.

— Also, I guess the serial killer’s body will be buried underneath all that rubble for now? If the authorities are thorough, they should eventually discover his body chopped up into two halves, but we’ll see.

— Oh look, Aya’s parents are pretending to care about her!

— Jesus, Sarina’s little stunt ended up killing 19 people. She didn’t deserved to be saved.

— Nijimi tries to pay Aya’s home a visit, but all she finds is Kaname. She should have no trouble enslaving the guy… in theory.

— Last but not least, we are introduced to a whole new character. This girl likes to pop pills and breathe heavily. More importantly, she has a keen interest in Rina. The box cutter seems to suggest that she might hurt the comatose girl, but it appears that the new girl also wants information about the Tempest. So y’know, I don’t think she’s going to hurt Rina at all. But what is she going to do? Heal the girl by carving her up?

Huh. Well, this sure is one hell of a conclusion to an arc. Y’know what? This episode epitomizes why Beatless is so maddening as a series. At its foundation, the story explores some very interesting ideas and concepts. In better hands, this might even be the best show currently on air. It seriously has that much potential. Unfortunately, the execution is so terrible. Who’s responsible for this? Diomedea? It figures. Anyways, if you’ve been following along closely — and you really need to because the convoluted story is further hampered by the subpar storytelling — Kouka has two main issues. First, she’s designed to fight, so she can only fulfill her true purpose by going into battle. Unfortunately, her first owner isn’t up to the task even though she truly feels that they are kindred spirits. Kengo’s just a child. At best, he can throw tantrums and rage out against innocent androids that he meets on his way home from work, but he doesn’t really have an actual conviction. He aligns himself with the antibody network, but when push comes to shove, he doesn’t really have the heart to be a terrorist. So as an owner, he is wholly inadequate. He can’t craft a future that is worth fighting for. Hell, he can’t craft any future period. As a result, Kouka becomes a tool for the antibody network.

Our hapless terrorists can at least give Kouka something to fight for: rally against automation and the general proliferation of hIEs. They’re not perfect, though. In fact, they’re far from perfect. They don’t really have the resources to take on their opponents at all. Kouka is sure to lose her life if they become her owner. Ah, therein lies the rub: thanks to the airport incident, our red-headed android is going to lose her life sooner or later anyways. Her struggle is ultimately futile. Interestingly enough, she is a tool to help humanity beat out the competition. Does this mean that mankind is doomed to fail? Anyways, the point is that Kouka knows that she’s going to die anyways, so she may as well go out with a bang; in fact, she’s going to livestream her acts of terror. Why? According to Erica, the android is attempting to “outsource” its problem. Kouka’s second main issue is that she wants to survive. But we just said that this was futile, did we not? It is… that’s why she’s going to live on as a meme. No, seriously. Of course, we’re talking about an actual meme here and not stupid internet jokes. Mikoto flat out tells Kouka that assassinating the political android is pointless. Well, she’s not wrong. Nevertheless, Kouka’s livestream is broadcast across the entire world, and as a result, she will inspire others — people who are also dissatisfied with automation — to make a stand. This is how the hIE will “survive.”

This is all kinda fascinating, isn’t it? As an hIE, Kouka can’t change the world. She can only hope to inspire humans to act, and when they do, they will turn around use hIEs as the necessary tools to help shape the future. It’s basically the main theme of the show. Unfortunately, like I said up above, the execution is fucking ass. Beatless simply cannot tell its story without shoving giant chunks of clumsy exposition down our throat. Gosh, what is AASC? Let’s have Arato act real dumb, so his best buddies can painstakingly explain the concept to him (and the audience). Gosh, what is Kouka trying to do? Don’t worry, Saturnus! Your owner Erica is oh so smart, so as she watches Kouka’s livestream, she’ll spell out the hIEs exact motives to you (and the audience). It’s absolutely unending. But that’s not all. Another real problem is that the adaptation fails to convey a ton of crucial information that would help us contextualize the events onscreen. The first example I have to give is not actually the show’s fault. Rather, it’s Amazon’s fault (or whoever the fuck is subbing these episodes). Kouka is trying to inspire her viewers, so we see a mountain of text from people around the world. But can we understand any of it? Of course not. Someone decided that they shouldn’t bother to translate any of the text onscreen. Welp, good luck understanding the gravity of Kouka’s sacrifice!

But there’s a bigger problem than the one I just mentioned. And this problem is actually the show’s fault. We haven’t really gotten much information about the antibody network. Hell, we haven’t really gotten much information about this universe at all. Beatless has done a terrible job at world-building. If you just watch the previous 15 episodes (yeah, we may as well throw the recaps in there), you wouldn’t be wrong if you thought that our characters exist in a pretty swanky future! Nevertheless, Kouka spends a lot of time in this week’s episode talking about the disenfranchised. All of a sudden, we get a montage full of the supposedly disenfranchised from all across the world! These people are why the antibody network exists. These people are the ones who are truly hurt by automation. These people are not living in a futuristic paradise like Arato, Ryo and Kengo! Like what am I looking at here? Are these human or hIE prostitutes? And now we have Thai girls huddling in a corner, watching Kouka stir shit up? Up until now, we haven’t gotten any sort of information about any of these people! We haven’t learned a lick about them! Beatless hasn’t given us any context to understand one of the major conflicts within its own story! What. The. Fuck.

Ahh… the best (read: worst) moment comes right after the credits as Arato continues to disappoint. After watching Kouka commit self-suicide in front of the whole world, our boy hero goes to his precious babe hIE and whines, “Kengo was arrested.” Uguu, my buddy! We gotta save him! It’s like all that talk about automation and disenfranchisement just went completely over his head. All he cares about is his stupid friend. Luckily, Lacia shuts him down. If they try to save Kengo now, it’ll paint a target on their backs. Is Arato prepared to take on the authorities? Is he prepared to go into hiding and become a fugitive? God, why did she even pick this kid? All he does is pussyfoot around. And yet, I’m supposed to believe that he has the potential the craft the future that Lacia wants to bring to fruition? Really? Nevertheless, this might finally be the impetus that propels Arato towards the show’s ultimate conclusion. After all, Lacia knew what Kouka was up to, and had she warned Arato about it, he might have wanted her to do something. But she held her information to herself. In fact, all of the other Red Boxes reached to Kouka, but Lacia didn’t. Kouka got mostly what she wanted in the end, but she never got her “sister’s” acknowledgement. I have no clue if Lacia ever cared for Kouka at all, but she definitely intends to use this result to get what she wants:

Arato: “If I were able to use you better, could this have been avoided?”

Lacia: “If I am being frank, it would have been possible if you used my functions properly.”

In other words, he’s wasting her potential. Great, he loves her. Now what? Hilariously enough, the kid continues to whine:

Arato: “You don’t have to say it like that.”

YOU JUST FUCKING ASKED HE– ARGGGHDDLFJDSLJDFJLSDFJ

The kids aren’t without their share of hardships, but they’re trying to have a good time. “Trying” is the operative word. According to one of the boys, “[they] are to stand by and wait for [their] next mission,” so for now, they’ll still obey. For now, they will still give their thanks to Papa before every meal. The only person who doesn’t bother to follow tradition is Zero-Two, which makes perfect sense. From our vantage point, it’s easy for us to wonder when these kids will wake up and realize that Papa is not worthy of worship. Did they not see those plantations being made to blow themselves up? Did they not see Squad 26 sacrifice their lives just for nothing? Did Hiro not experience all of Zero-Two’s traumatic memories and see how she was physically and mentally tortured by the adults? How do you go through all of those experiences and not come out hating Papa and the rest of the adults? The truth is that they did see all of those things I just mentioned. They’re just not emotionally equipped to accept the fact that they’ve been worshiping a fraud. The truth is often hard to swallow, and no one likes to accept that God is dead. It’s doubly difficult when all you want is a brief respite.

Nevertheless, as viewers, we have reasons to be concerned for the kids (assuming that we care about them at all). People tend to get complacent when they feel as though things are going well for them. And when they get complacent, they lower their defenses. Nana and Hachi are instructed to ignore the kids as best as they can. At the very least, everyone is still being fed, but their water filtration system has broken and that’s real bad. Ikuno has been dealing with an intermittent fever lately, and according to Hiro, Goro is starting to suffer from the same condition as well. Everyone tries to be cheerful and put on a brave face, but deep down, they know that things are slowly falling apart. Of course, these illnesses could be due to a lot of factors. They have to conserve energy, so who knows if they’re keeping themselves adequately warm at night. They don’t get delicious-looking meals anymore, so maybe they’re malnourished. They’re running low on drinkable water, so maybe their immune systems are compromised. Or maybe — and this is the worst case scenario — these kids were never designed to live very long in the first place. Of course, that might just be my paranoia speaking, because I’m dreading a terrible outcome for these kids.

Early in the episode, Zero-Two is on messenger duty as she bangs on a pan with a ladle. It’s her turn to gather everyone for breakfast, and she takes on the chore with gusto. It seems as though she’s finally integrated herself into the team, and she’s trying super hard to make it up to them. After all, she did choke most of them out a couple of episodes ago. On the one hand, I’m glad that Zero-Two has become friends with everyone, but on the other hand, it almost feels like she’s overdoing it a bit. She even willingly sits with the rest of the girls during mealtime. Is that truly necessary? Still, like Hiro, she’s happy right now and probably just as complacent as he is. She’s wholeheartedly embraced this peaceful, domestic life. Nevertheless, danger is lurking beneath the surface. There are signs that things will eventually go horribly wrong, and worst of all, the kids will be defenseless because they won’t be expecting it at all. After all, what’s with Miku’s hair? Is it going grey already? Is this an indication that their lives are horribly finite? But even though this discovery gives Zero-Two pause, she doesn’t say anything about it to Miku or the rest of the girls. It’s almost as if she realizes that the paradise she now finds herself in may very well be short-lived, so she doesn’t want to shatter it.

Faced with a shortage of supplies and the real possibility that rations might just stop showing up one day, Zero-Two eventually suggests that they all learn to fend for themselves. These kids will finally have to learn for themselves what it means to become an actual adult. And I’m not just talking about those practically comatose geriatrics within the sterile cities deep within the plantation. Rather, I’m talking about what it means to truly grow up and become self-sufficient. How did people use to survive on its own? This is like the start of humanity all over again. It’s going to be hard, but it’s not impossible. The outside world doesn’t appear to be that devastated, but even if venturing beyond the plantation is not a viable option, it’s not as though Mistilteinn is without its resources. After all, we’ve just seen what looks to be a perfectly healthy fish swimming in the river. There might be other animals that they could hunt for food. They might even be able to forage for vegetable and fruits. We just don’t know until we try. That fish in the river is likely tastier than any concoction of meat paste that they can think of. It would behoove these kids to step outside of their protective bubble and learn to live without Papa’s blessing.

Zorome’s a bit unhappy at first at thought of having to catch and cook his own food, and I get it. Self-sufficiency brings him ever so closer to the realization that God (i.e. Papa) has abandoned him. He’s already an orphan, so he doesn’t want to be cast aside by God as well. He tries to be defiant about it later, but his pride is short-lived. After all, it’ll take more than a day to undo years of indoctrination. It would take more than a day for any of us to stop worshiping our parents. At one point, Zorome tries to get Futoshi to eat, but the latter accidentally drops his plate of food. Or maybe it wasn’t an accident. Apparently, Futoshi has been suffering from bulimia. He’s taking his “breakup” with Kokoro a lot harder than it seems. Nevertheless, this sudden confrontation shatters everyone’s facades. It’s like how a single, small crack can compromise the entire structure, and before you know it, the whole thing comes tumbling down. Zorome is the first to admit that he’s hurt; he just can’t understand why Papa is ignoring them. One by one, the rest of the group confesses that they’re all full of worries and anxieties too. They were just equally afraid to voice their concerns. The episode had been cloyingly corny up until this point, but it was all just an act.

Hiro tries to rally the troops and assures them that it’s fine even if they can no longer depend on Papa. After all, they have each other, and if anime has taught anything, it’s that friendship will overcome all obstacles. This is a coming-of-age story, so Hiro naturally tells his friends that they simply need to define their own purpose in life. They need to realize that there’s more their life than just fighting for the sake of the adults. Their future rests in their hands, and they no longer need to depend on the adults. That’s all fine and dandy, but I doubt that Papa and the rest of the adults are just going to let these kids grow up and become independent. It’s rare that freedom is ever given to us freely (no pun intended). You often have to fight for it, and Hiro will soon realize that becoming an adult has its own price. Can this optimism last? Can everyone — and not just Hiro and Zero-Two — really live happily ever after one day? I feel for them, because they’re just kids. Ever since birth, they’ve been poked and prodded at like lab rats. And now, they constantly have to put their lives on the line for the adults. When do they ever get to reclaim their childhood? Aren’t they allowed to get some rest? Unfortunately, a peaceful rest may very well entail death.

In last week’s SP episode, one of the show’s creators stated that the ending likely won’t be happy for everyone. Hearing that, I couldn’t help but dread for the future. Even though some of the kids are more annoying than others, it’s obvious that I like them as a whole. I want them to be happy, and of course, I hope that the group pulls through in the end, but… well, something just feels ominous about Hiro’s reassurance that he and Zero-Two will be together forever. It’s like if you have to say it, then it certainly won’t happen. Maybe I’m just being paranoid, but I think I should brace myself for the worst possible outcome. The new OP certainly doesn’t give us many reasons for optimism. It ends with Hiro attempting to embrace Zero-Two, but she dissipates in his grasp. Boy oh boy… We also have to remember that Zero-Two’s beloved fairy tale includes an evil witch. We have some crusty ol’ Sages, but no witch… yet. Is it time for us to meet the show’s true antagonist? And will she tear the princess and her beloved prince apart? So many shows have ended on a bittersweet note, so why should DARLING in the FRANXX be any different? Hell, even shows I didn’t like felt the need to give us a dour conclusion (looking at you, Aldnoah.Zero).

But maybe I’m worried about nothing. Near the end of the episode, we see Zero-Two with some paper and colored pencils. She’s truly accepted her past and moved on. In a previous episode, we had seen Zero-Two tear the library apart in an attempt to find another copy of her fairy tale. But now, it’s different. Instead of wasting her time and energy in a futile effort to locate the book, our heroine will do the next best thing: she’ll just recreate her fairy tale. Hiro is amazed that the girl can reproduce the original art so well, but of course, it was her first “pretty thing,” so the book left an indelible impression on her mind. But along with the power of recreation is also the power to rewrite the story. If you can recreate something old, then you can also create something new. Will Zero-Two give the fairy tale its original tragic ending? Or will she exercise her authorship and give the beast princess the happy ending that we all want? No story is ever set in stone. After all, Zero-Two understands that being human is more than just appearances. Rather, it’s about living together as one and helping each other out as a communal family. Is this something that the evil witch can truly take away from Zero-Two? Ah, we’ll just have to wait and see…

Misc. notes & observations:

— If you’ve noticed, I’ve switched over to taking 720p screenshots lately. Most shows aren’t even rendered natively in 1080p, and I was running out of space real fast. Sure, I could fork over even more money for a few extra gigabytes, but I don’t profit from the blog. Ad revenue might cover half of the yearly fees if I’m lucky. I get some nice donations from to time, but for now, I can’t afford to take giant-ass screenshots. That’s fine, though. They’re just screenshots.

— How lucky is it that the residential area was spared? Yeesh.

— Is she sharpening her horns? Or filing them down? Maybe she’s just examining them. By the way, I was actually hoping for the girl to have red skin again…

— Ah, the obligatory new OP. Same song (slightly remixed), but new animation and everything. Well, I guess “Kiss of Death” has grown on me a bit. It still isn’t something I would ever add to my playlist, though.

— Anime OPs and running… name a more iconic duo.

— Is it weird that I don’t think 60% sounds all that bad? Considering the previous episode, I honestly thought that the number of casualties would be much higher.

— Oh ho ho, some of the Sages don’t think they should’ve blown up the plantations.

— Naturally, they don’t tell us yet why the Sages want the Gran Crevasse so badly. Instead, we simply introduce yet another mystery to the story. One of the sages even go so far as to say, “I’ve already sent two messengers to you-know-where.” No, I don’t, jerk.

— “[O]ur final warning to them?” Is there a klaxosaur government that they’re potentially negotiating with?

— Two keys? Klaxosaur Princess? Oh lord.

— Hiro’s the inquisitive one, right? So he’s been sitting around for a month without trying to find out what’s going on with the adults? Hm. I guess survival is the highest priority for now.

— Mitsuru and Hiro, huh? Their relationship has improved markedly. The former might even regret his behavior earlier in the series if this look is any indication.

— Yep, this food is nowhere near as delicious as it was in the beginning. Ugh, it’s literally just meat paste.

— The girl can’t live without her honey.

— Zorome has the best reactions out of the group.

— Apparently, the adults aren’t supposed to reach out to the kids. Otherwise, their plans will be ruined. Huh.

— We still haven’t gotten much character development out of Nana and Hachi. I don’t actually care too much about the man, but I’m hoping for the woman to at least give us a little more than what we’ve seen in the first fifteen episodes. At times, it looked as though she cared about the kids, but due to her position, she had to hold herself back. So now what?

— Just as an aside, do you know how hard it is to write 2,000 words on a show while your cat insists on sitting on your stomach?

— Nana pleads with Dr. Franxx; in fact, she speaks as though the kids are being abandoned. Maybe the kids would try to stop the adults if they knew what was going on. This is just another reason why the kids (namely Hiro) should have remained vigilant.

— The woman suddenly winces in pain. Hm, how conspicuous. I wonder what that’s about.

— Goro feels a bit restless, because they haven’t gone on any missions as of late. Hiro, however, is content right now, and maybe he does deserve a break. After all, he went through hell and back to save Zero-Two. It’s not difficult to imagine why he might want to ignore all the bad signs and pretend as though everything is hunky-dory.

— Mitsuru suddenly wants a haircut. I guess he feels that he needs to change, and this is one way to take a permanent step forward.

— It’s odd to see him with frizzy hair. But how does Kokoro even know how to cut hair? It’s not as easy as simply whipping out a pair of scissors and going to town. People go to school for this sort of thing. In fact, who has been cutting their hair all this time?

— With Kokoro’s beloved greenhouse serving as an impromptu barbershop, Mitsuru suddenly eventually opens up to her about what’s been bothering him lately. Even though things are better now between him and Hiro, he’s not completely satisfied with the results. After all, he’s not sure what he even wants from himself or his former idol. At the very least, he understands that Hiro hadn’t wronged him. It takes a lot of self-reflection to admit this, but he also feels like he came away with nothing for all his hard work. But y’know, personal development should be its own reward, and this is something he can slowly come to understand after getting some words of encouragement from Kokoro.

— Oh my… Futoshi’s not nearby, is he? Actually, who cares if he is? He needs to get over Kokoro anyways. Still, I bet this moment will just stir up all those anti-Kokoro sentiments again.

— I prefer Mitsuru’s old hairdo. He looked different. Now he just looks like any generic anime character.

— Oh come on, you’ve already expressed your love to her in front of everyone. Why are you embarrassed to hold her hands now?

— Yeah… why don’t we just ask Papa to fix all of our problems?

— If you can cut hair, then you can learn how to cook. Hell, I think cooking is a hell of a lot easier than styling hair.

— Man discovers fire!

— Miku’s reactions are pretty good as well.

— Ichigo confesses to Goro that she now just wants the best for Zero-Two and Hiro. That’s good. But now I’m wondering how far she’ll go for them. I guess I just can’t shake the feeling that someone will have to sacrifice their lives for the rest of the kids at some point in the story. Ichigo is the most matronly of the kids, so maybe it’ll fall on her shoulders to protect them at all costs.

— That salad looks kinda lame, though.

— Zorome: “I bet none of the other squads actually cook for themselves, right?” Yeah, they probably just died.