Yeesh. 

— In this week’s episode, we spend a lot of time with Tetsuzou. He’s a noted bear expert. He claims to have killed over 200 bears in his life. Uh-huh. Just like how Wilt claimed to have slept with over 20,000 women. Anyways, the other interesting thing about Tetsuzou is that the guy is really, really obsessed with boners. Like goddamn does he really like boners.

— At the start of the episode, our heroes are still trailing the deer that Sugimoto had failed to finish off last week. Asirpa breaks out her slick snow-surfing skills.

— I’m always amazed that this sort of thing is safe. You’d think the dry wood around them would catch on fire or something. But I could be wrong. Not like I’m an expert on camping outdoors or anything. I’ll defer to the Ainu.

— Food critic Sugimoto is also Sugimoto, the animal lover. He feels guilty that the deer has to suffer because he failed to kill it in one shot.

— Asirpa, however, has her mind elsewhere.

— Oooh, I like blood sausage.

— But not for this reason. In fact, I’ve never heard of blood sausage being useful in that regard.

— Like I said, boners.

— All Tanigaki can do is eat his bear heart in silence. Y’know, I’m a bit surprised that he joined up with this old man. Sure, the old man helped him out, but I expected the soldier to go after Retar alone. Y’know, out of pride or something.

— Somehow, burning a hat also reminds Tetsuzou of boners.

— The next morning, Sugimoto and Asirpa continue their hunt for the deer. I’m a bit surprised that she hasn’t said anything to him about the footprints she had seen in last week’s episode. She knows that the Tanigaki is out there.

— Speaking of the soldier, he and Tetsuzou continue to stalk Retar. Look at their poor dog, though. It’s oddly afraid of wolves even though bears don’t spook it. That’s a bit odd to me, but oh well.

— Aww, that poor dog.

— Sugimoto finally gets the golden moment to finish off the deer, but he hesitates when he sees himself in the animal. Something about how the animal is fighting to survive even though it’s near death. He couldn’t help but identify with the creature, and this short lapse of attention allows the buck to nearly trample the guy. Asirpa’s pissed, but Retar is here to finish the job. Lots of good bois in this show. None of them better die. Honestly, I kinda wish the bears didn’t have to die either, but eh…

— Then we get the whole synergy with nature lesson that we always get from any story regarding natives.

— Retar can tell, however, that something’s up. Good ol’ animal instincts, I guess. As a result, our heroes have to abandon a good chunk of the deer’s carcass. They watch Tetsuzou and Tanigaki from afar, but they don’t realize just yet that Retar is the true target. Asirpa still thinks that the soldier might be after her (for revenge?).

— Still, they decide to call it a day. Plus, Shirashi has returned so it’s now a party. He even has alcohol with him. Can Asirpa even drink? Actually, it’s the late 1800s. I doubt anyone would care if she decided to imbibe.

— Ugh, I never want anything to do with deer brain. They’re even eating it raw.

— I’ll also pass on the deer lungs. Y’know, I’m not really into offal. Liver can be tasty, but I have yet to be convinced that something like kidneys are tasty.

— Asirpa must be drunk, because she starts bawling at the thought of Sugimoto dying. I thought maybe she was just joking around, but uh… yeah, I think she’s drunk.

— After the girl got so rowdy that she’s now sticking halfway out of the hut, everyone decides to calm down as Shiraishi relays what he’s learned in town. Luckily, we get to kill two birds with one stone; our heroes will have to deal with Tetsuzou, but it won’t be for naught: he is also one of the tattooed prisoners. Man, what a coincidence.

— Stop talking about your dick for just one second!

— So we get backstory about Tetsuzou and how he’s a total badass. He’s so badass that he killed a man right in front of the police.

— Yeah, um, that’s kind of the idea of hunting.

— Most importantly, Shiraishi clues Asirpa in on the fact that Retar is in danger.

— Awwww, look at the cute dog! Too bad it’s hanging out with the bad guys. Sugimoto should just take care of both Tetsuzou and Tanigaki, then adopt the dog.

— In an anime full of brutal killings — and don’t forget how Sugimoto got stabbed through the cheek with skewers! — we’re going to censor cartoon poop? Really? Anyways, the point is that Retar managed to elude the hunters for now.

— That won’t stop Tetsuzou, though… from talking about his boner.

— They’ve set up a trap Retar. In fact, Tetsuzou has his rifle ready to shoot the wolf right in the head as soon as it steps out of hiding.

— Goddammit, man.

— Luckily, Asirpa fires an arrow, which keeps Retar from moving too far out. The bullet barely missed the wolf.

— Sugimoto tries to confront Tetsuzou, but the boner-obsessed freak is ready to throwdown. Unfortunately, we have to end on this cliffhanger.

— Y’know, I have a feeling we’re not going to come anywhere close to that Ainu gold by the time that this adaptation calls it quit. Not at this rate, man. Not at all.

Aoi isn’t in any real trouble. Even though Moonflower hasn’t been doing much business lately (her best customer is sadly Oryo, a woman who used to want her dead), two strokes of good luck later and everything is suddenly A-OK. Without any semblance of a struggle, there’s also no payoff. We already lack a strong romance between the heroine and the main love interest. If the act of opening a restaurant fails to be compelling either, then what does Kakuriyo no Yadomeshi have left to offer?

— Byakuya, the chief accountant, is mad that Moonflower isn’t making any money, but nothing comes of it. He merely reminds Aoi that she better turn this ship around or she’ll have to marry Odanna! So, y’know, the basic gist of the plot. Our girl still has plenty of time before she has to throw in the towel. Plus, Odanna has stopped putting any pressure on the girl, and he’s the one who calls all the shot. Oh, he’ll tease her from time to time, but again, nothing comes of it.

— The only other interesting tidbit from Byakuya is that he hates Shiro. You either love the old man or hate him. For someone who lives and breathes numbers, it makes sense that the chief accountant would hate Shiro’s frivolous nature. In fact, he kinda seems like a dick.

— So Aoi is stuck with having to save her dying business, but she doesn’t have to wait long before the first stroke of good luck hits her right in the face. Apparently, a writer has been staying at the inn, but he’s struggling to finish his work. Because he’s struggling to finish his work, he’s not eating any of his meals. But because he’s not eating his meals, it becomes increasingly hard for him to focus on his work. Ahhh, how terrible! So Oryo suggests that Aoi whip up a week’s worth of bentos. Easy to eat bentos, to be exact. Why should Aoi lend a hand? Well, the writer also happens to publish his works in the local newspaper. Eh? Ehhhh? How ’bout that advertising that I’ve been harping about for several posts now?

— But before Aoi can come up with a suitable bento for a busy writer, she gets distracted by Odanna sauntering through the rain. She decides to join him, because… just because, I guess.

— So he takes her up to visit the nearby hot springs, and they’re red. Red hot springs, man. This short of thing occurs in real life, too. Thanks to a high content of iron in the water, this place literally has red hot springs. Kinda cool-looking.

— Y’know, I’ve had and enjoyed onsen eggs… just not literally cooked in an onsen. So what are onsen eggs? They’re really just slow-cooked eggs. If you love runny yolks, then you’ll love onsen eggs. Obviously, the real thing looks a lot better than what you see here. For instance, I like the photo in this blog post. Onsen eggs can be enjoyed simply with dashi, soy sauce, and green onions on top. I like ginger too.

— Afterwards, Aoi and Odanna dry each other, because this is still a lame-o romance, so we need lame-o moments. Wake me up when they ever escalate to making out.

— There’s ramune here. Ramune.

— Odanna is surprised that Aoi would join him on his walk. He starts to explain why he’s surprised, but then he cuts himself off. Does the girl press him on the matter? Of course not. It’s anime, so people naturally stop communicating all the time.

— Nevertheless, he shows his nice guy side by giving the heroine some encouraging words. He believes in her food, so he believes in her, blah blah blah. Don’t stay up too late, yadda yadda yadda.

— After Odanna finally leaves, Aoi is back at the bento conundrum. She finally figures out that a writer with a pen in hand would probably like a meal that can be simply eaten with the free hand. As a result, she puts together some bentos that can be eaten with a simple skewer. Welp, that was simple. I wonder why nobody else thought of that.

— The writer eventually drops by to express his gratitude. Every time Aoi sees someone with a non-ogre mask, her curiosity gets piqued, but honestly, I’d be surprised if the ayakashi who helped her doesn’t turn out to be Odanna in the end.

— So the writer is a tanuki, and he would like to try more of Aoi’s food, so she serves him a dish that includes one of those onsen eggs. It looks kinda uninspired, but this whole anime is rather uninspired.

— When the guy realizes that she’s related to Shiro, he kinda freaks out. Everyone knows Shiro. Everyone. In fact, fictional villains in the hidden realm are often based off of Shiro for some damn reason. I’m really getting tired of hearing about Aoi’s grandfather all the goddamn time.

— Then for some reason, this little girl shows up with a ball. She came by just because she had smelled some adzuki beans. Ginji had suggested just moments ago that maybe an anmitsu-inspired dessert would bring in new customers, so the little girl gets to try azuki gelatin. Personally, I’m not a fan of the thing, but to each their own.

–So the girl likes it, gives Aoi the colorful ball, then disappears. When Ginji returns, he suggests that the girl was a Zashiki-warashi. Basically, Aoi just got some good fortune. Maybe I’d appreciate this show more if I knew anything about Japanese folklore, but alas…

— All of a sudden, Moonflower is super busy. Not only that, it’s been busy for days now. Why? ‘Cause that friendly tanuki put in a good word about Moonflower in his latest article. But maybe the Zashiki-warashi had something to do with it as well. I wish the story had just stuck to one thing. Either way, however, Aoi’s business survives because she’s lucky. Sure, she came up with bentos that would work for the tanuki, but again, was her solution really all that clever?

— Nevertheless, the good times keep on coming: Byakuya informs our heroine that she’s been summoned to the imperial court. Why? A royal family member has a human wife, and she wants to try some human food. Tune in next week to see how that turns out… or not. Whatever. That’s how excited I am about this show.

Same. 

3D Kanojo Real Girl Ep. 7

The big drama between Iroha and nerdy girl Sumie ends up being a huge letdown. Our heroine is jealous at first, but she immediately changes her mind after talking to her “rival.” In fact, everyone is immediately disarmed whenever they get a chance to talk to Sumie. I personally think she’s kind of annoying, but honestly, they’re all pretty annoying in their own ways. Iroha basically realizes that if she wants Hikaru to trust her, then she should trust him as well. Sure, but he still does stupid shit like this:

But anyways… we just have some silly nonsense afterwards like Hikaru getting fashion tips from Mitsuya. This is apparently what’s cool:

Is this the standard fuckboy outfit in Japan or something? An ill-fitted blazer over a t-shirt and a fedora? Next week’s episode is going to involve a camping trip, apparently. I’m so thrilled.

Hinamatsuri Ep. 6

The first half introduces Hina to Nitta’s mother and sister, and this is just as funny as anything else we’ve seen from the series. It’s great stuff.

The second half, however, delves right back into Anzu’s melodrama. Thankfully, a family has finally decided to take her in, so maybe Hinamatsuri will stop trying to jerk my tears. It’s not that I don’t like emotions in my comedy. I just don’t like the way this show does it. If you wanna tug at my heart strings, do it gracefully. Have it interwoven into the comedy. What Hinamatsuri does instead is give you huge chunks of nothing but silly comedy, followed by a significant chunk of dead seriousness involving Anzu and Anzu alone. It’s such a huge shift in tone that I end up feeling something akin to emotional whiplash. Plus, if I gotta be honest, I have a hard time believing that those homeless men are such gentle souls. But like I said, now that the girl has been more or less adopted, maybe we can move on from all the sad Anzu moments. Maybe she can even start attending school with Hina and get into hijinks with Hitomi.

Hisone to Maso-tan Ep. 5

Interestingly enough, our dragon pilots are hand-picked precisely because they all have issues. Although they were all reluctant to become OTF pilots, the girls no longer want to be separated from their dragons. Minus Eru, of course; at the moment, she couldn’t care less as long as she gets to be a pilot some place else. The story here is written by Mari Okada, the same woman who penned melodramas such as Kiznaiver, so we’re not really treading any new ground here. Rather, we should actually commend her for keeping the melodrama dialed down compared to the rest of her oeuvre. So far, Hisone to Maso-tan hasn’t been too on-the-nose with its characters emotional problems, a major issue that tended to plague Mari Okada’s previous works. There’s still time for this anime to devolve into an emotional mess, but I hope it never goes too far in that direction. These poor girls don’t even have noses. They shouldn’t have to deal with typical Mari Okada melodrama as well.

In this week’s episode, the girls are forced to work together in order to survive being stranded on an island and return home to base. Why? In case they ever get shot down, I guess. But what’s the big deal, right? Can’t the girls just hop inside their dragons and fly home? Not so fast, my friends. If it was that simple, it wouldn’t be a test. For some odd reason, the OTFs refuse to take flight, and our heroines have only seven days to figure out why. If they screw this up, they might even get kicked out of the air force. To compound matters, they are given three days worth of rations, but the fat(test) dragon proceeds to eat them all in one go. Hisone tries her best to rally her team, but she’s got a crybaby in one corner, and Ms. Lazybones in another. Worst of all, Eru continues to be self-centered. She starts creating a raft which would carry her back to base, but obviously, big-ass dragons wouldn’t fit on a raft. She doesn’t care, though. She only wants to be an F-2 pilot, not necessarily an OTF pilot.

Anyways, Hisone eventually stumbles upon a shrine on the island, which also conveniently doubles as a fresh water source. Mayumi also pulls through and finds at least one shriveled-up potato for the girls to eat. Last but not least, Liliko knows all the ins and outs to creating fire (and apparently rainmaking as well). These three then agree that they should let the dragons have their fun before eventually convincing them to fly home. After all, they will eventually get hungry, so the dragons will want to return home. Food is always a prime motivator, and these three girls understand at least that much about their OTF buddies. Y’see, they actually love their dragons unlike a certain someone. In the end, it always comes down to teamwork. Teamwork is always the key to every solution in anime. Even Nao is pulling her weight in a unique, Astolfo-inspired sort of way. Unfortunately, Eru continues to insist on being the lone wolf. Obviously, the story won’t be able to move forward without her. Nevertheless, our little tropical island escapade looks to be a two-parter, so we’ll have to wait till next week to find out how the Eru situation resolves itself.

In other news, the guys on the show continue to suck. They act like they’ve never seen a woman’s body before. I think Haruto is the only decent man on base for some reason.

Rokuhoudou Yotsuiro Biyori Ep. 6

Sui used to work in an office job like a lot of us. He always wanted to continue Rokuhoudou, but he never had the confidence to match his dreams. He wouldn’t want to sully the restaurant’s reputation — a reputation that had been so carefully built up by his grandfather. After all, he’s not exactly the best cook. His version of omurice is a bit of a hot mess. On the other hand, his tea managed to impress at least one old man who used to patronize the restaurant when his grandfather was running the place.

And with Tokitaka’s help, the food’s not half bad either. Those two men thus decided to take the plunge. Of course, not all old memories are happy. Sui’s brother seemed to really reject the place for whatever reason. We’ll learn more later, I’m sure. We’ll probably also learn how the other two guys came to join the business. I’m even surprised that we got a savory dish in this week’s episode. Up until now, the show has focused heavily on Tsubaki’s desserts. Still, the whole episode was kinda snooze-inducing, so by the time I got to this point, I was ready to throw in the towel. Rokuhoudou Yotsuiro Biyori just isn’t very compelling.

Shokugeki no Soma S3 Ep. 18

It’s now time to taste Akira’s dish. It’s literally just chicken fried bear. In fact, eating it will make you have hallucinatory visions of a bear with wings. As far as the judges are concerned, Akira’s meat is superior to Yukihira’s meat. Oh ho ho! But wait, don’t celebrate just yet! What about the secret sauce! This time, the taste-testing goes in reverse as the judges indulge themselves in Akira’s secret sauce first. This should pretty much clue you in on the fact that Yukihira will win, but then again, we already knew that, didn’t we?

Yes, the sauce makes you lose your clothes. This is just par for the course. But when the girls try Yukihira’s sauce…

…they don’t lose all of their clothes? Whatever. Our hero’s use of honey and balsamic vinegar is apparently what makes his sauce a standout, and as a result, his dish has caught up to Akira’s. The judges have a hard time deliberating over which should count for more, meat or sauce? In the end, however, Alice’s dad praises Yukihira for adding a specific honey in his sauce. He didn’t just use any regular ol’ honey; nah, he used honey from a special tree — a honey that has a slightly bitter aftertaste, which helps to cut through the heaviness of the dish. He could’ve only stumbled upon this amazing flavor combination through sheer hard work. Meanwhile, Akira, uh, didn’t work as hard because he lost of sight of a special someone (read: Jun). In my opinion, only the taste of the dish should matter; hard work shouldn’t be a tiebreaker. I’m not really worked up about it, though. The story wants Yukihara to win, but not in a lopsided faction. As a result, the judges attribute his victory to an intangible quality like work ethic. It’s kinda bullshit, but it is what it is.

Akira wants to know what drove Yukihira to try so hard, and our hero claims it was all for his buddy. The former then tries his rival’s dish, and of course, he has a food orgasm over it. In fact, he feels as though he’s been visited by God. That’s a bit much, don’t you think? But it’s not all fun and games, because Jun quickly shows up to slap the guy across the face. Then she tearfully confesses that she doesn’t care about her research if it meant depriving Akira of his joy in cooking. Aw… too bad I don’t really care about either of these two characters.

Erina then bursts into the room all sweaty and worn out. She ran all the way here, because she wanted to know if Yukihira had won or not. Yo, why don’t you two kids just hook up already? Unfortunately, her father’s aide shows up with some bad news. While our hero may have been victorious, his friends definitely were not. Oh no, is everyone gonna get expelled! Of course not. Tune in next week to see the latest asspull that prevents our kids from leaving this dumb cooking academy.

God, it’s just a deep-fried chunk of meat surrounded by a moat of gravy.

Toji no Miko Ep. 18

Our heroines kinda suck. As soon as Princess Takiri decides that humans are not so bad, the girls allow Princess Tagitsu to attack and absorb her sister. Nene reverts to its old form to try and protect everyone, but it goes down easily too. Welp, so much for that.

Tokyo Ghoul:re Ep. 7

Welcome to the money-saving episode. Lots of talking this week, which I don’t necessarily mind. There are, however, moments, in which nothing is animated. Now that is going a little too far. Anyways, Hinami ends up being spared from death at Haise’s request; she’s currently imprisoned, and this might lead to tension between Haise and Akira later on. The entire Quinx Squad receives a promotion for their efforts, so Haise throws a party afterwards for everyone including Akira and Arima. Haise gets Ken’s old mask in the mail, so he revisits Touka’s cafe. Memories of his past life are slowly starting to leak out into his current life, but nothing comes of this just yet. He tries looking into Ken’s past, but he finds almost nothing. Right before the episode ends, we see Tsukiyama in great pain, but I’m getting kinda tired of the story drip-feeding us info about this guy. There are also character-building moments with the lesser Quinx Squd members, but I still don’t care about any of them. The status quo hasn’t changed much. For instance, Urie continues to be a jackass even if he begrudgingly admits that Mutsuki had really helped him out in their last mission. Speaking of which, Mutsuki is supposed to be a guy, right? Sometimes, I wonder…

I went to Gary Danko last friday to celebrate a friend’s birthday. The restaurant offers a prix fixe menu where you pay a set amount for, say, four courses. The price is inflexible, but the menu is not. You can pick whatever you want for your courses. For instance, if you want to have four meat dishes, go for four meat dishes. Likewise, if you also want have four desserts, so be it. It’d be stupid to pay $100+ for four desserts, but the restaurant leaves it up to you.

But before the actual courses came out — before the waiter even took our order — the kitchen gave us this pathetic soup. I hate, hate, hate lukewarm soup. To make matters worse, it had absolutely no flavor. It was just this watery, slightly meat-tasting soup with a tiny piece of lobster. The white stuff you can barely see in the soup? It’s probably supposed to be creme fraiche. Everything about this amuse bouche was just sad.

Next came my risotto with rock shrimp, dungeness crab, asparagus and beech mushrooms. It tasted fine, but one dimensional. Basically, it had a ton of cheese, and I had a hard time discerning any of the other ingredients as a result. But I like cheese, so I guess I could live with this dish.

For my second course, I got seared sea scallops with English pea puree, leek fondue, mint and turnip. You can’t really tell from the photo, but the scallops were only seared on one side. I don’t know about you, but that bugged me. That screamed laziness. I also thought that the pea puree was a little too grainy.

Next up was the lemon pepper duck with duck hash, bacon braised endive, and huckleberry bordelaise. I could have definitely used more of the bordelaise. The duck breast was cooked fine, but the duck hash threw the whole dish a bit off kilter. There wasn’t enough sweetness and acidity to go against all the savory elements on the dish. The endive felt like an afterthought.

Finally, I had a strawberry souffle with strawberry sorbet for my dessert. Souffles are pretty standard. Poke a whole in them, then pour in some creme anglaise and flavored sauce. In this case, I got a whole lot of strawberry sauce to make the strawberry-themed dessert even “strawberrier.” It was fine. I liked it. Maybe a touch of ginger would’ve made the flavor a little more interesting, but it’s obvious that this restaurant likes to play it safe.

All in all, my Gary Danko experience was pretty uninspiring. To be fair, other than the soup at the very start, nothing tasted bad. There were simply a lot of minor flaws and execution errors that I didn’t expect to see, especially considering how straightforward the food was. It’s a good place to get people acclimated to fine dining without having to step out of their culinary comfort zone, and this was precisely why I picked it for a birthday celebration. I didn’t want my friends to make a face at anything they ate, and predictably enough, they thought it was the best dinner that they had ever had.

Yeah, go away Mayuri. 

— I’m surprised to see that Kana/Kagari is suddenly conscious, though. What was the point of having her pass out at the end of last week’s episode if it wasn’t going to amount to anything?

— Gee, I wonder why. Maybe we could zoom in a little closer, ’cause I think the plot is going over my head.

— After watching the original series, however, it’s very difficult to trust anyone in this series at their word. Kana claims that the name Kagari is nostalgic, but how do I know that she isn’t some secret operative sent here to fuck Rintaro’s shit up?

— This situation must be hard for Suzuha to explain to the normies. Yeah, it’s weird to call Mayuri and Rukako normies, but compared to a time traveler, they are as normal as can be.

— Mayuri does her usual “sweetest girl in the world” shtick, and it’s not that I distrust her. It’s not that I think she’s a phony. I’m truly convinced that she’s truly this nice, which is great, because nice people are great. I’d probably love to have her as a friend in real life (if such a person could even exist). But in fiction, I prefer to follow interesting characters over those that I would like to befriend. And sadly, there is nothing more bland and one-dimensional to me than this archetype. Nevertheless, it is can be found across all forms of Japanese media.

— Rintaro fills Moeka in on the big news. He also requests that she continue to look into the group that is supposedly looking for Kagari. I thought he distrusted her. Was it really wise to give her so much information? He could’ve asked her to continue looking into the third party without letting her know that they had found Kagari.

— Whenever there’s a scene with Maho, but Rintaro isn’t present, someone will inevitably bring him up and tease her. I find this kinda dumb. She’s this brilliant researcher, and all her colleagues ever want to talk about is her love life.

— That’s pretty pathetic, lady.

— Rintaro tells Rukako to make sure that Kagari never goes outside alone, but he won’t tell the guy exactly why he’s worried. You could argue that he doesn’t want to scare Rukako, but don’t you think being this vague would also make the latter worry? Plus, would Rukako even have the means of protecting Kagari?

— God, I hate Daru’s voice so much.

— Suzuha looks like she has her guards up and for good reason. I’m not ready to believe that they’ve found Kagari just yet. Or rather, even if this new girl is Kagari, it’s a little suspicious that she fell right into their laps as soon as they started looking for her.

— Unfortunately, we have silly New Year’s nonsense at the shrine to deal with, and Nae has even been invited to come along.

— So is this guy still a member of the Rounders in this timeline?

— Moe still sucks.

— Even a simple conversation gives Rintaro a PTSD flashback.

— I’m feel a headache coming on.

— Maho is stunned that Rukako is a boy, and all I can think is that this is stupid. This is why I can’t love Steins;Gate. If you remove all the nonsense, the show would probably end up in my top 30 favorite anime series, but yeah…. The episode is more than halfway over, and I feel like we’ve barely gotten any plot. Real plot, mind you. I want intrigue and suspense. I want more time-traveling shenanigans involving shadowy organizations, not this slice-of-life bullshit with wacky visual novel background music.

— Now it’s Maho’s turn to stare at Kagari in disbelief.

— This is true, but Kurisu had a better hairstyle… and a more tasteful bust size. I hate straight bangs.

— Personally, I think the need for closure is a myth, but let’s not get into that debate. I do agree that Rintaro needs to decide whether or not to continue engaging Amadeus. He’s going to have to, anyways. After all, isn’t that the central premise of this spinoff? So in essence, we’re just delaying the inevitable because this Kagari subplot has come out of nowhere.

— The episode literally gives us a clip of Mayuri giggling for three or four seconds straight.

— Oh great, these two schmucks are here. Just about five or six minutes left in the episode though (you have to account for the ED), so I’m sure the story’s about to drop some bombshell on us. At the very least, it’s going to try and end on a cliffhanger. Judging by the last few episodes, Steins;Gate 0 appears to be obsessed with this storytelling gimmick.

— Oh good, a four-second clip of Judy’s blurry cleavage.

— Oh no, she gave them the side glance! Is… is she shady?!

— Christ, I forgot about the party after the shrine visit.

— But we just had a party… why are you doing this to meeeeee?

— Plus, there hasn’t been any Amadeus in this week’s episode yet.

— Oh no, another shady individual! This is all we get for plot this week, apparently.

— Finally.

— So as soon as you answer the call, Amadeus gets complete access to your phone? But until then, the AI has no clue what your phone is up to?

— Well, the cat’s out of the bag now; the entire party is now gathering around Maho as they express their curiosity in Amadeus. I’m just waiting for someone to remark on her striking resemblance to Kagari.

— This is hilarious. Maho just walks away from the group, leaving Amadeus behind to chat with everyone. Rintaro is thankful, though. After all, he can’t keep hiding everything from his friends. Plus, they won’t mistake Amadeus for Kurisu, so maybe this will help remind him that he’s talking to an AI, not an actual replacement for his lost love.

— The program abruptly closes itself (crashes?) as soon as Amadeus brings up Rintaro. Maho examines the phone, but finds nothing wrong with it. She can’t connect to the server powering the AI, though. All of a sudden, ominous music kicks in, and Mayuri notices that her watch has stopped working as well. Rintaro starts to freak out, and well, you know what time it is! It’s time for our cliffhanger of the week! Masked intruders storm the apartment with guns, and predictably, the episode comes to an end.

— Other than the last five minutes, this was a boring ass episode. Hopefully, we’ve gotten our need for mind-numbing holiday celebrations out of our system.

— I wonder if Rintaro is instantly going to put Moeka at the top of his list of suspects.

You can’t hide the truth forever. 

— That Joe… he’s so hot right now. Babes are even tattooing him on their thighs. Speaking of which, this show has a pretty low female presence. I’m not weighing in on this yet. Not until the end of the series, anyway.

— Look at these two jobbers that we aren’t emotionally invested in. The guy on the right is actually Yukiko’s brother. It has been speculated that the winner between these two will take the final spot in Megalonia, but we all know that this honor is going to go to Joe instead. I’ll admit that the fact that Megalonia is just a 4-man tournament is a little disappointing, but this is only a 1-cour show as far as I know.

— Plus, boxing is a pretty taxing sport. There’s no way an athlete could survive a gauntlet of matches in a short period of time. Joe has to spread his five pre-tournament matches out over the course of three months.

— How convenient: Yukiko and her entourage pass by Nanbu, giving him the chance to promote his guy. She whispers into his ears, however, that fighters are required to have Gears in order to participate in Megalonia. Oh? Since when? Is that in the fine print? Then again, she’s the head honcho, so I guess she can call whatever shots she wants.

— That reminds me: I still want the story to explain why her guy Yuri needs to win Megalonia, but I guess there’s still time to get into that later.

— That’s… not a healthy color for piss. And why is he all chained up?

— We see Mikio face off against Sugar, the world’s fourth-ranked boxer. Yukiko’s brother is making short work of his opponent.

— This is kinda unfair: the AI in Mikio’s Gear “probably determines the most cost-effective attacks and defenses….” Can I really call myself a chess champion if I let a computer tell me what moves to make? Sure, Mikio still has to know his footwork, but this feels like it flies in the face of sportsmanship. But maybe nobody ever made the distinction between boosting one’s physical prowess and boosting one’s mental prowess. If it’s not in the rule books, then it can’t be against the rules. Still feels kinda lame, though.

— All of a sudden, Mikio challenges Joe. Yukiko already seems to have something against Joe, so there’s nothing for Mikio to gain. If he beats Joe, he slightly boosts his chances of getting into Megalonia. If he loses, however, he gives our hero the perfect chance to crash the big party. Maybe Mikio knows something we don’t know, because at first glance, he doesn’t stand to gain all that much from fighting Joe.

— Man, that fake ID is gonna come back and bite Joe in the ass. I’m sure of it. The fact that Nanbu is bringing it up now means it’s going to become an important plot point soon.

— Just think about it: if he gets to the finals, all eyes will be on him. Every interested party will start looking into his past. Eventually, someone’s going to dig up the truth, especially if money is on the line.

— Ugh, I want a bao so bad.

— Unfortunately, Joe is still pretty damn beat up. It sounds like Nanbu kept him chained down just to prevent the guy from injuring himself even further. Stray dog, indeed.

— Joe’s pretty scrawny for a pro boxer. It’s hard to imagine someone with this frame lasting very long against some of the beefier fighters. There’s a reason why there are weight classes in actual boxing. Skill and technique can’t make up for everything.

— Plus, if Joe is this bruised on the outside, who knows what sort of damage he’s incurred on the inside. Internal bleeding is no joke.

— Every athlete knows they have to let their body recover. It’ll even come back stronger than ever. You literally do need to rest, though. Nanbu seems to have gotten through to Joe for now, but we’ll see.

— Turns out Yukiko helped set up Mikio’s match against Sugar, but she didn’t actually want him to win. She never expected his Gear to be so effective, but he now actually poses a credible threat to Yuri if things continue at this rate. Interesting. I wonder if keeping Mikio out was a way to resolve a potential power struggle between the two siblings.

— Look at all these men trying to push Yukiko around.

— So for the first time ever — and possibly the last time ever — Yukiko will bet on Joe, and hope that our hero can keep her brother out of Megalonia.

— What is Yukiko after? Is she meeting with a military general? How does Yuri’s success at Megalonia figure into all of this?

— If Mikio is cheating, then Yuri is also flirting hard with the boundaries of the sport. He’s willing to become practically half-machine in this quest to win Megalonia. The thing is, he’s already reached the peak of his craft. He’s the top-ranked boxer in the world, so he’s already proven that he can beat everyone else. What is Yuri fighting for? This is one of the major questions to answer as we head into the second half of the series.

— We now have a battle of two extremes: a man who has no Gear goes up against a man who puts everything into his Gear’s hands — even the actual battle strategy.

— Mikio accuses Yukiko of stealing the company from him. Fair enough. But how will he wrest control back from her by winning a boxing tournament? Maybe he’s a genius. Maybe he’s the brains behind his revolutionary Gear, and when he wins, the board members will be so impressed that they vote him in as the company’s next president. Still seems to weird to me, however, that Mikio would put his own body on the line to take this gamble, though. He could’ve recruited any fighter to promote his Gear.

— Looks like someone’s already started looking into Joe’s background.

— I guess these kids don’t need drugs anymore. Nevertheless, look at all these people lining up just to watch Joe train.

— Everyone loves an underdog. They also love someone whom they can identify with. I harped on Joe’s scrawniness earlier, but at the same time, it plays a big part in his appeal, doesn’t it? Lemme use an analogy from the NBA. Obviously, Lebron is well-loved by most basketball fans but Steph Curry’s meteoric rise isn’t a surprise either. After all, people can picture themselves in Curry’s shoes. He’s also scrawny. He’s tall compared to the average person, but he’s nothing impressive on the court. Nevertheless, he’s one of the best offensive players in the NBA through sheer skill and craftiness. Of course, he’s also very gifted athletically, but not like Lebron. We can thus identify with him much more easily compared to Lebron, who is a physical specimen. Unlike Curry, that guy is an athletic freak. 6’8″, 250 lbs, built like an NFL tight end, and can jump out of the gym? No shit he’s a star, but at the same time, you can’t even pretend to be Lebron when you’re having a pickup game with your buddies. But with Curry, it’s a different story. Same with Joe, too. He gives all the average Joes (pun much intended) out there the ability to dream. They can see themselves succeeding in the ring like Joe, because look at this guy. He’s skinny as hell, and he doesn’t even have any Gear! And yet, he’s winning through skill and grit. So we say to ourselves that we could do that… we could totally do that, too! If only we weren’t so lazy….

— Joe’s team breaks it down for him: since Mikio’s Gear does all the thinking for him, he doesn’t have slow reaction times. Again, this sounds unfair to me, but whatever. It’s also hard to simulate this in practice, because nobody else has Mikio’s Gear but him. At best, you could somehow slow Joe’s reaction times down, so he can at least see what it feels like to go up against someone who has this particular advantage over him.

— Our hero manages to knock Nanbu off of his feet with a single punch. It turns out he’s been taking extra lessons on the side with Sachio. But yeah, I guess that’s going to be the strategy going into the match: wait for Mikio’s Gear to make one small error, then finish the guy with a surprising punch. Since Joe trains out in the open, however, I’m surprised that none of his opponents have sent anyone to scout him out.

— If this Joe also dies, Sachio’s going to have to hope that Nanbu still wants to take him in…

— Well, what do you know? That fake ID business came back to bite Joe in the ass sooner than I expected it to. Mikio stops Joe short from climbing into the ring, then taunts the latter with the truth. What now?

— But maybe Joe has gotten so popular that no one will even cared about his “checkered past.” Maybe it’ll even endear him more to his fans. After all, nobody’s perfect. And in this world full of haves and have-nots, people may feel as though they need to pull a stunt like Joe just to even have the privilege of climbing into the ring.

— Mikio confesses that he never intended to fight Joe. How devious.

— It sounds like a bad idea to lose your cool here. Nanbu, however, prevents Joe from doing anything he might regret.

— The doors close on Team Nowhere, but there’s no way it ends here. Sadly, we don’t get a next episode preview to give us a clue as to what might happen next.

— This show’s soundtrack can be pretty hype.

It’s a little out of season, but it’s still good! It’s still good! 

— Ahh, the infamous kabedon. Thanks to Yakuza 6, I now know the actual name to this stupid move. Hirotaka’s execution is a little off, because you’re not supposed to use both arms. Naturally, this is all a ruse by the girls to get their boy love rocks off. They lucked themselves into having hot, tall boyfriends. This probably wouldn’t work out too well for the average otaku.

— Hirotaka misses out on a golden opportunity to capitalize on a generic anime moment with his girlfriend: she forgot to bring her umbrella and it is now raining, but as it turns out, he forgot to bring his too. Whoops. So it’s Taro to the rescue, but he’s still a jerk from what we’ve seen in previous episodes.

— He still casually swaps places with Narumi. Maybe it was to keep her dry, maybe it was to keep his games dry. Maybe both. Either way, she’s impressed, but impressed enough to like him back? Who knows? And yeah, I still don’t feel like she actually likes likes him, y’know? The way their relationship started, I kinda feel like she’s only dating him out of convenience (they work together, hang out together, have the same interests, so on and so forth). He has to gradually make her fall in love with him.

— I actually can’t remember if they’ve kissed. I think they have? I might be wrong, though. I might be mistaking my memories of Taro and Hanako kissing for our main couple. Either way, I’m surprised that the romance in Record of Grancrest War is the one that appears to have gone the furthest out of all the shows that I’m watching this season. Tada still has to admit that he likes Teresa. Hiro and Zero-Two kinda have this weird puppy love for now. Narumi is dating Hirotaka, but only in name…

— Look how nice Hanako is to Taro. Can you believe that he made her cry just two episodes ago?

— As an aside, I used to like rainy days. But now that I have to spend 30 mins every morning walking to my job, no thanks.

— The next morning, Hirotaka notices that Narumi is bummed out, so he asks his friends for advice. Maybe they know what’s wrong with the girl. Unfortunately, she doesn’t look any different to either Hanako and Taro, so they’re no help. I guess Hirotaka must really understand his girlfriend, ’cause she sure as hell doesn’t look sad.

— It’s apparently weird for the girl not to tweet something every hour. Sadly, I know some people like that….

— Hirotaka tries to invite Narumi out later that night, but she’s very hesitant. Knowing this show, though, what’s troubling Narumi is probably something stupid, i.e. something related to her otaku interests. Nevertheless, she keeps insisting that everything is fine. She, however, accidentally lets it slip that it has nothing to do with Hirotaka. So something is bothering her. Man, I can really feel the love from here. If you can’t depend on your boyfriend for emotional support, then why even have one? Man or woman, we always want to feel as though we’re needed. When our SOs try to shoulder their own burdens by themselves, it doesn’t make us feel any better. For an adult, she has a lot to learn about adult relationships.

— Eventually, the truth comes out: Narumi is sad because of something stupid. Welp.

— I actually don’t know what their job is.

— Ugh, don’t remind me of Gacha events. I’m getting Xenoblade Chronicles 2 flashbacks.

— We get another reminder that Taro is a terrible boyfriend. Nevertheless, Hanako forces herself to wear a smile. That’s pretty pathetic. Meanwhile, Narumi has no clue if she’s doing anything with Hirotaka for Christmas.

— This must be such a cheap anime to make. They’ve been waiting for that elevator for minutes. Most scenes simply come down to two characters standing or sitting still in one location and having a conversation.

— I was never told that Santa was real.

— Surely, Hirotaka won’t allow this golden opportunity to pass him by. Just give the girl what she wants. This reminds me of all those guys patting themselves on the back, because they think they’ve solved some big gift-giving mystery by just checking their spouses’ Pinterest accounts.

— They run across Nao giving out free samples of coffee in a Santa suit. I have to imagine that the drinks would go cold real fast.

— Why did Hirotaka pinch his brother’s face when they were children? ‘Cause it’s a Mario 64 reference! Ho ho ho, aren’t gaming references so funny?

— This conversation is so boring. They were talking about how cold it is, and now it’s all about how Nao doesn’t have a girlfriend. Who cares? Nevertheless, Hirotaka makes yet another gaming analogy. I can’t believe Wotakoi got this time slot. It’s such an aimless show with half-assed jokes. It’s not even all that well-directed or animated. Just comparing everything to games doesn’t make something funny.

— If Nao can’t get a girlfriend, it just means he hasn’t put himself out there enough. Either that or he’s actually a shit person behind closed doors. Shrug.

— Or maybe he’s just corny as shit, so you can’t stand being around him for more than a day or two.

— Later that night, we see Hanako trying to leave the office alone, because it looks like Taro will be working late again. But it turns out he actually made dinner reservations at a swanky place overlooking the city. Eh.

— You can make reservations six months in advance?! In what universe?!

— Try not opening that present in public, man. I kid, I kid… maybe. But at least they’re both genuinely happy. Still, that episode was kinda boring.

— And it looks like these two are having the time of their lives too. We’re just missing a cake.

In this week’s episode, Yui gets to channel her favorite French detective as she and the rest of the gang go on a search for a missing cat. Her missing cat, in fact. 

— Poiron? The Sunflower Express? Gosh, whatever could this anime be referring to? By the way, did I mention that I didn’t like the latest adaptation of Murder on the Orient Express? I expected more from Branagh.

— Afterwards, we randomly cut to Charles jogging through a nearby park. He seems to have come across something important… something short… perhaps even on the ground level. It’s probably the damn cat.

— In the morning, we see Yui freaking out over the fact that Nyanko Big has returned home. Even stranger is that he hasn’t eaten any of his food. If you’ve been following the show week in and week out, then you know that the cat is too chubby to ignore his food bowl. Something must be up.

— Speaking of which, my cat would never drink from that water bowl. She refuses to drink any water that is near her food. She prefers it if you fill up a red plastic cup and place it on a table somewhere for her to drink from.

— Apparently, Nyanko Big’s “girlfriend” is this chewed-up toy. No wonder he’s trying to upgrade to Cherry.

— Sure, cats do this, but Nyanko Big’s a bit too young to die.

— Oh wow, Yui actually socked her grandfather.

— In any case, it’s up to the gang to find a cat even though it’s only been missing for a single night. This seems like an overreaction to me, but what can you do when an imouto is crying?

— I would never even dream of sticking my cat in a bag unless I want to give myself permanent scars.

— Teresa’s heart seems to skip a beat whenever she sees Tada. Does he feel the same way? Maybe, maybe not. But after seven episodes, his character development is way too slow for my liking. He’s flat-out boring. For a romantic lead, he has damn near no personality whatsoever. Granted, he’s surrounded by a cast full of huge personalities, but it’s actually remarkable how utterly lacking Tada appears to be in this regard. All we know is that he’s stoic and likes to take pictures. Yawn.

— Just a couple of cute cats. I only took this screenshot for that reason and that reason alone.

— Even though a cat going missing for one night is really no big deal, Teresa’s fretting results in both herself and Alec lending a hand as well. I’m still pretty sure Charles had seen the cat, so if someone could just give him a call….

— The only people not here are Pin-senpai and his beloved HINA. Apparently, they’re shopping for his new clothes. Why? Remember when he wore that trashy outfit in public a few episodes ago? It wasn’t not a particularly funny joke, but I do like the callback in this week’s episode.

— Oh yeah, Yui likes Dog-kun. I had completely forgotten all about that. But she’s, like, half as tall as him.

— Luckily for the girl, she ends up with Dog-kun when the group decides to split up to cover more ground. We learned in a previous episode, however, that the guy is in love with an older person. As a result, I don’t think this is going to turn out well for Yui.

— Kaoru asks around about Nyanko Big, but the only pictures he has of the cat are also pictures of, well, him. To my great surprise, however, the guy is really popular with the ladies. So why doesn’t have a girlfriend yet?

— As for Teresa… well… she’s doing her best, okay?

— Well, what do you know? Charles did meet up with Nyanko Big last night. In fact, the dumb cat had fallen into a shallow stream, so he had to go and help the animal out. He’s such a nice guy. You know, you expect there to be a good guy and a bad guy in most of these stories, but Charles is hardly the bad guy. His only fault is that he’s in love with someone who isn’t enthusiastic about him. Other than that, however, he has Tada beaten on every front. Still, the heart wants what it wants. You can’t force love, and if Teresa doesn’t feel a connection with Charles, so be it. I mean, shit, they’re kids. Let’s not take relationships at this age seriously. This sounds depressing, but it’s also realistic: most people do not end up with the person that they dated in their teens. Either Tada and Charles will experience a heartbreak by the end of this series (or maybe both), but the pain will be minor. There are plenty of wonderful women out there.

— That bracelet again. I bet it has something to do with Teresa. There’s a small chance it might have something to do with Alec instead, but that’s only because I’m a romantic and I hope he realizes her feelings for him someday.

— Oh come on… Charles can talk to cats? What is he? A Disney princess?

— Eventually, the whole gang finds Nyanko Big just chilling out on top of a flower shop.

— Okay, I legitimately laughed out loud at this.

— Opposite the fat cat is none other than the prissy-looking Cherry-chan. She seems like she couldn’t care less for Nyanko Big.

— Nevertheless, you just gotta take a leap of faith sometimes. You never know where it might take you.

— Sometimes you’ll fly headfirst into a closed window, but eh… life’s full of surprises.

— Ah, so this is the older woman that Dog-kun is in love with. RIP Yui’s feelings.

— I know that look. That’s the look of acknowledgement… acknowledging that one’s love will forever remain unrequited. I’ve been there before.

— Afterwards, Charles has a short conversation with Tada and Kaoru about love. Needless to say, our hero doesn’t really have much to say. He continues to be such a blank slate even though we’re now more than halfway through this one-cour series. As for Charles, he sounds like he’s read ahead in the script.

— Meanwhile, Dog-kun tries to cheer Yui up, but he’s clueless about her feelings towards him. She’s too young for him, and he’s too young for his hairdresser lady friend. Shit, he’s just in high school. If a grown woman wants to date a kid in high school, there has to be something wrong with her.

— Later that night, Tada enters the coffee shop first, leaving Yui behind with Teresa and Alec. The little sister breaks down and cries. I’m actually a little ticked off that her own brother wasn’t even there to comfort her. Sure, Teresa is there to help out, but this guy just has so little presence. He hasn’t done anything wrong. That’s the amazing part. Tada is perfectly normal… and perfectly boring as well. He’s like the most unprotagonist-like protagonist ever. He’s the generic tall guy with black hair who always gets to be the lead character, and on some meta level, it’s almost as if he’s taking this blessing for granted.

— In the after credits scene, we learn that it was indeed Teresa who had something to do with Charles’ precious bracelet. In fact, he’s been in love with her ever since. Yeesh.

— The previews for next week’s episode seem to imply some more alone time for the canon couple. Let’s hope Tada finally decides to come out of his shell. Also, it looks like Charles might run into a few emotional obstacles of his own as well. Love has no reason to be fair.

— Cute episode. Far better than what Wotakoi had to offer… but I’m really losing my patience with Tada. Luckily, his friends and sister are around to keep this ship afloat.

I think I’m about ready to drop this show from my weekly rotation, but let’s see how this week’s episode goes. 

— Now that I think about it, the fact that her dog lost to Yuuga hardly even matters. Couldn’t she just tell her pet to then lose to her in a duel? Slaves have been stolen back and forth in this fashion all series long, so it hardly even matters that the dog became Yuuga’s slave.

— Oh my god, they’re giving the dog a human voice. Animals are cute precisely because they aren’t human, you guys. It’s not complicated. I don’t want my cat having the same internal voice as Nyanko Big, and likewise, I wouldn’t want my pet dog to sound like such a generic dork.

— I guess we now get to learn how he got his stupid doggy SCM.

— You got to be kidding me. The dog ran away from home because it fell in love. Christ.

— Classy.

— What the hell? So this professor finds a dog with a collar and goes, “Hurr, why don’t you stay with me until your wounds heal? I’ll put you to work, though!” Why wouldn’t you take the dog to the vet? Why wouldn’t you try to contact the dog’s owner? What the hell is wrong with the people on this show?

— The dog owes the man for saving his life? His life? All I saw was an injured leg! One injured leg.

— And why would a super-important research depend on a random pet that just showed up out of nowhere?

— Apparently, the professor created the SCM device simply to control pets. Naturally, its functionality has since been extended to apply to humans as well. Hey, we’re all mammals, so I suppose this wouldn’t be too much of a stretch considering all the other nonsense we’ve been dealing with. Nevertheless, for something this outrageously powerful to exist — you can turn other living beings into your slave! — you’d think it’d be a tad difficult to break into the lab and steal the research data!

— So the professor eventually left the university in shame and still didn’t bother to return the dog to its original owner. Amazing.

— Also, no one bothered to alert the authorities that the blueprints to a device that can create slaves had been stolen! I guess this could’ve created a huge scandal for everyone involved (including the university), but I can’t believe that not a single researcher on the professor’s team had the moral fiber to realize how dangerous the SCM could be if it ever got into the public’s hands. Stunning.

— The dog thought that he could use the SCM device to find the data thief, get the data back, and make the shitty professor happy again. Amazing. What an amazing plot.

— But it was too late! The professor eventually committed suicide!

— Christ.

— Yes, the chicken lady.

— In any case, we just got the dog’s backstory. At first, the dog seemed like a hero when it first showed up back in the third episode and saved Shiori. But after last week’s stupid shenanigans and now this, I’m done with the dog as well. It sucks too. There isn’t a single likable character on this show.

— If you’re smart enough to ask this, why did you accept the stupid ass challenge from Yu-… forget it. It’s just a dumb dog.

— Now that we’re done with the dog, we next see a redhead walk up to Yuuga and stab him in the butt. Like right into his asshole, too. Nice. She is our self-proclaimed “Crazy Person.” This show just keeps getting better and better.

— Needless to say, Yuuga allows the woman to dictate the terms of the duel. Not only that, she has goons to overpower the idiot.

— Oh, she was wearing a wig. She can’t even be a hot redhead. In any case, the woman introduces herself as Fujiko, and she’s already collected herself a nice collection of slaves. I can recognize their faces, but other than Ayaka, I’ve already forgotten their names.

— Fujiko claims that she’s looking for a certain someone. Apparently, this Shinnosuke person had saved her from being harassed one night, and after partying with him, she’s been obsessed with him ever since. Unfortunately, she was just a one night stand to the guy. Yeah, it’s not the most compelling backstory. In fact, none of these characters are interesting. They’re just c-c-c-crazy! The end result, however, is that they all end up being super boring, because they’re not doing anything remotely thought-provoking or even astoundingly offensive with their ability to turn people into slaves. It’s all just a bunch of juvenile shit. Yuuga wants excitement. Fujiko wants a certain man. The trap wanted Shiori to become his master. So on and so forth. Ayaka wanted Seiya to love her. It’s all so fucking pedestrian for a show all about BDSM and sadomasochism.

— This is honestly one of anime’s biggest weaknesses. The medium has the ability to explore darker, more adult topics, but at the same time, the writers are either gutless or lacking in imagination. As a result, the most extreme shit we’ve gotten was… what? The rape in episode one? Ayaka forcing Seiya to go down on her? Like shit, this is some teenager shit. Duh if I had slaves, I’d make them pleasure me! How dull.

— The anime wants you to think that we’re truly dealing with a bunch of psychos, but I don’t think the writer has ever met a deranged person.

— Plus, the show could’ve at least been somewhat novel if the duels were any good — if the duels actually required an ounce of brainpower. But no, everyone just cheats. Yuuga loses to Fujiko if he sees his mother before she sees hers. But of course, he’s tied up in his room, unable to escape as his mother goes to check up on him.

— Well, I’m not sure what Yuuga expected. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

— When Yuuga shows up at the designated location to try and trap Eia as he is commanded to do, a masked individual suddenly appears behind the guy and forces him into yet another duel. It’s just non-stop coercive duels! If you have firepower, you basically win. Just carry heat everywhere you go! Bang, bang, lose to me!

— This guy can’t really be this stupid right? If the masked individual claims that they’re going to throw rock, do you really think they’re going to throw rock?!

— The idiot goes with paper and instantly loses. Amazing. This is the same chucklefuck that wanted to test his limits at the start of the series. His greatest claim to fame thus far, however, is forcing a poor hostess to eat a fork.

— The masked individual then reveals themselves to be none other than Eia. Welp. I guess he’s free from Fujiko for now…. what a lucky bastard. He didn’t even have to suffer being Fujiko’s slave for a whole episode.

— Eia didn’t have to save him, but a promise is a promise! Lame.

— Since the dog was Yuuga’s slave, and the guy went and lost to Fujiko, does that mean that the dog is now Fujiko’s slave? I would have to think so, right? Unless Eia dueled her own pet offscreen or something. So even though Eia might have stolen Yuuga away from Fujiko, she still has to contend with the fact that her dog is still enslaved, right? That’s what I’d like to think. But Yuuga asks the girl if she’s going to walk away, so it sounds like she has the perfect ability to just up and leave right here and right now. That makes me think that the dog is also free from enslavement but… ah fuck it. Fuck this show.

— Eia also wants to keep playing as she claims that she now wants slaves. She’s not evil, though. Rather, she wants to be the hero. She wants to free every single person from enslavement. That’s commendable of her, I guess. Kinda weird that it took seven episodes for any sort of moral goodness to emerge from any of these characters. Just listen to that generic inspiring track in the background, though.

— Y’know, a lawful aligned bastard would just force everyone in the world to wear an SCM, then command them to be nice to each other. Clearly, however, I’ve been playing too much Shin Megami Tensei.

— At the end of the day, we still get the same ol’ trope about how scientists are irresponsible idiots.

In this week’s episode, Alexis shows his mettle. Unfortunately, his former fiancee continues to disappoint. 

— Welp, Lord Dawson is on his own. Honestly, Marrine is kinda useless as a leader. She couldn’t arrive in time to help Milza, and even if she had, she would’ve just needlessly endangered herself. And now, she’s unable to lend Dawson any help (not that the bastard deserves anything). The writing’s on the wall: Marrine is kinda incompetent. If all it takes is for a pep talk to turn the tides of the war, then she was never in a secure position to begin with.

— Alexis has suddenly become ruthless; he will only spare Dawson if he gets the latter’s crest. Amazing what a pep talk can do, huh?

— Oh look, another idiot thinks he can poke his head out from his heavily-defended position and win. If Milza couldn’t pull this off, what makes this Dawson chump that he can?

— If a guy has his eyelids half-closed, you know he means business.

— Guys, guys, can you tell that Alexis is a sensitive artist? Even his battle campaigns are works of art. Impressionist works of art, even!

— What’s remarkable is that Alexis is actually this good at leading his men. If he has always been this capable, then it makes it all the more damning that he hasn’t stepped forth into the battlefield until now.

— Oooooh, Marrine is shocked to hear that Alexis can stand up for himself! Maybe you shouldn’t have ditched him at the altar, girl! Then again, he waited years to get a backbone, so he deserved what he got.

— The more important question, however, is whether or not Marrine will really allow her former lover to die. She respects his talents, so she’s warning her allies to not take him lightly. In other words, she’s acting as if she’d be okay with him falling on the battlefield. Nevertheless, she later retreats to her bedroom and crumples in despair. Honestly, what a fool. She can cry all she wants, but the woman has no clue what she wants.

— Marrine claims that the war has just started. Uh, no, we’re already at episode 19. If anything, this war is about to end. Plus, if the Nords go down, who does Marrine have left on her side?

— This sorry excuse for a Viking warrior won’t take Alexis seriously. At the rate that this story is unfolding, I hope he gets his comeuppance by the end of the episode. After all, his daughter is kinda nasty.

— Boy, they sure do love the word “moppet.”

— This is kinda unbelievable, isn’t it? Alexis just crushed Dawson, and now he’s going to engage Sea King Erik shortly afterwards. Again, if he is actually this capable, then it makes it all the more pathetic that he was just sitting on his ass for the vast majority of this story.

— I like how all the Nord warriors have a moustache and beard set. It’s a requirement, I guess.

— I’m kinda surprised that Alexis is doing this alone, though. I know that Theo and the rest of the Altirk Treaty are engaged in a battle against Waldlind, but where are the rest of the Union forces?

— So apparently, Sea King Erik can turn his men into mindless idiots. They’re almost like zombies… except that they can die.

— Eventually, Alexis gains an advantage, and Erik is too proud to retreat. Typical. The latter insists on dying like a true warrior, whatever that even means.

— Oooh, turning the image negative! That’s a good animation trick!

— I’m not going to comment on Alexis’s battle strategies, because that’s not my forte. I’ve never taken an interest in this sort of thing. I’m told that his naval maneuvers here are inspired by a particular strategy used in WW2, but whatever. It’s not of particular interest to me.

— Erik charges in headfirst, and this shakes Alexis’s confidence. I guess our marquis never expected his opponent to put himself in direct danger. Maybe Erik will win, but even if he does, he’ll incur a heavy price. Nevertheless, he’s doing this out of pride. Erik no longer cares if he dies in the process so long as he dies like a warrior. It’s hard to win against someone who has nothing to lose. It’s also stupid.

— The animation is pretty terrible right now, but this is the first time that a Crest-wielder actually looks like an actual raid boss. He’s literally at least five times bigger than Alexis.

— I do like the fact that Alexis can’t actually fight. He can only cower as Erik slowly advances towards him. He’s a great commander, but he’s certainly not a warrior. This would probably explain why so many people — like Erik — refuse to take the marquis seriously.

— Haha, wow, Alexis’s mage suddenly reveals herself to be a badass ninja. Like with Alexis, if she could do this, why didn’t she try and stop Erik before the madman could take down so many of Alexis’s poor soldiers? I feel like I’m watching an adaptation of one of those stupid musou games, where these poor footsoldiers’ lives mean nothing to the heroes above them. They’re just meant to throw their lives away.

— Still, I like the imagery of Alexis having to willingly stain himself with blood in order to save Marrine. He’s no longer the innocent “moppet” that everyone views him as.

— Siluca is meeting with Marrine to negotiate a truce between Alliance and Union. The girl claims that the three major powers are now even on the battlefield. Is this really true, though? I mean, Marrine just lost two of her top allies in the course of three episodes. They keep painting Waldlind as this fearsome force, but when was the last time they won a major battle? Y’know, without resorting to chemical warfare.

— Needless to say, Marrine refuses to accept anything but complete victory for her side. What an idiot.

— Our girl tries one last gambit: she suggests that perhaps the Mage Academy was responsible for the Great Hall Tragedy. Our true enemy, she says. But Marrine remains stubborn. Sigh.

— Siluca even tells Marrine that Alexis entered the battlefield out of his love for her, but it’s to no avail. The sad part is that I bet Marrine will survive all this nonsense just to rub it in our faces. It’d be doubly hilarious if Alexis has to give up his life for her.

— After Siluca leaves, Marrine tells her mage to begin planning for an all out war against the other two factions. She wants to force the evil faction out of hiding, basically. All of the lords will be gathered in one place, so the Grancrest might end up being forged as result. She thinks that this will thus tempt the true enemy into coming forward, and she might even be right! But isn’t this also playing into the bad guys’ hands? Isn’t this what they would want? She’s practically begging to be played like a puppet. First, she’s outnumbered 2-to-1! Neither the Altirk Treaty nor Union are suddenly going to turn around and join her side! Second, they actually wants her cooperation. They’re literally begging her for a truce. Theo sent Siluca to meet with Marrine for exactly this reason, and yet, she spurns their advances. What. A. Fucking. Fool.

— Once Aubeste departs, she tells herself that a great tragedy might result from trying to forge the Grancrest. This new tragedy might even be greater than the one she endured, and yet, she won’t stray from her foolish plans! Ugh. Uugggggggggggggh. My head hurts, man.

— Plus, this show has only one gimmick:

Bad guy: Even though I’m in a bad position, my enemy is weak and pathetic! I’ll show ’em!

*time skip*

Bad guy: Oh no, I’m losing! But I can’t back down, ’cause m-m-muh pride!

Rinse and fucking repeat.

— It’s too bad that Marrine sucks too, because the idea behind her character isn’t bad. She just can’t back up her actions with credible motives. It also would’ve been nice to see her kick ass as a leader, but she hasn’t. Marrine hasn’t done anything impressive. She’s only in her position, because she was born into it. She hasn’t proven herself at all. Again, the best she’s done is resort to chemical warfare. Even Alexis gets to look good.

Lacia has been insisting over and over that Arato needs to create a suitable future… but what if that’s just a lie to gain his trust? His precious hIE is obviously up to something. Unfortunately, Arato is far too gormless to do anything about it. This doesn’t mean that either of his friends are right. I still think Kengo and Ryo are both hIE-discriminating jackasses, but it doesn’t help that Arato has his head shoved so far up Lacia’s ass that he can no longer separate truth from fiction. In this week’s episode, he insists that they rescue Kengo at all costs. Rescue the kid from what, though? Is Kengo truly in trouble of going to jail? Not really. Because according to Lacia, all that it would take for the the police to release Kengo is for Arato to hand over a better lead. As a result, this involves having our hero get picked up by HOO, the PMC that just took down Kouka. Apparently, they also have that kidnapper from way back when in their custody. After a short bout of questioning, Arato discerns that an individual high up in the Antibody Network had forced this kidnapper to… film the destruction of hIEs? This individual might just be the very lead that would interest the police and thus free Kengo. But if Kengo isn’t in any real danger, why is our hero going to such lengths to “save” him? At this point, I can’t even say that he has a good heart, because he sure as hell didn’t seem to give a shit about stopping Kouka from going on her rampage. At this point, I’m not even sure I really understand what’s going on.

Eventually, the police take Arato in for questioning. They put up three different sketches of what looks to be three different women. These ladies have been seen in and around Arato’s apartment complex, but our hero claims to have never seen them before. Not only that, they don’t appear on any of the building’s security footage. All we have are eyewitness accounts of their existence. After staring at the pictures intently enough, Arato finally realizes that all three sketches kinda resemble Lacia. In other words, she’s been doing stuff behind his back. But that has always been the case, hasn’t it? All throughout the series, it felt as though Lacia knew ahead of time what decision her owner would make, and as a result, she was instantly prepared to take action. For instance, during the airport incident, she had arranged so that her device would arrive on time in a separate car. During the kidnapping incident, she had the device stored nearby so that she could whip it out at just the opportune moment. It was as if she knew where her kidnapper was taking her. Lacia has been in complete control this entire time, and yet, she insists over and over that she has to take orders from Arato, that the kid has to take responsibility for her actions, and last but not least, he needs to come up with a suitable future. Who’s actually the owner here?

But like I’ve said, this doesn’t mean that either Kengo or Ryo are correct. Just because Lacia is likely — very likely, in fact — manipulating Arato, that doesn’t mean that she’s no good and that they — his friends — are actually the good guys. We already know that Kengo is kinda pathetic. We’ve seen him confess that he’s only lashing out because he feels as though he’s falling behind his buddies. When Arato finally gets the chance to meet with Kengo, the latter claims to be glad that he never assumed ownership of Kouka. Why? ‘Cause he cares more about humans than hIEs. As a result, he didn’t want to get wrapped up in her fight for survival. He didn’t want to get wrapped up in the bigger struggle between the five Red Boxes and their competition to shape the future. He says all of this like it’s a good thing. But from my vantage point, it’s hard for me to see how humans continue to put themselves upon such a pedestal. It’s hard for me to see how humans could justify maintaining their superiority over hIEs. I’m adamantly opposed to both Kengo and Ryo. Their positions are simply untenable. They insist upon some innate sacredness of humanity, but they never put forth any sort of cogent defense for their claims. Both kids often resort to verbally browbeating Arato with the fact that humans are special simply because they are humans. That’s not good enough.

Of course, I have no clue what Lacia is up to. Maybe she’s just as bad as those two, but at least that question is still up in the air. As a result, whatever she’s after is easily better than the alternative, which is apparently maintaining a status quo in which humans continue to lord over hIEs even though AI has far surpassed them in every regard. These androids are faster, stronger, smarter, and probably more energy efficient than their fleshy counterparts. You might even say that humanity is lucky that all they’ve had to suffer thus far has been Kouka’s terrorist attack from two weeks ago — a terrorist attack that didn’t even claim any civilian lives. So again, even though Lacia’s motivations are still shrouded in mystery, it has a greater chance of being far more preferable than anything that Ryo has in mind. As for Kengo, well, he was a non-starter right from the get-go. Yeah, Lacia’s been manipulating Arato, but so what? He’s been pathetic and indecisive all series long. Only now does it look like he has any determination in him. He can’t tell anyone — much less Lacia — what an ideal future should be. After months and months of episodes, he still doesn’t even the faintest clue what she wants from him. Sure, she doesn’t love him, but again, does he deserve her love? So yeah, unless Lacia turns out to be some evil robot mastermind, I’m in her camp despite everything I’ve seen in this week’s episode.

Sigh. 

— Kosame explains to the girls that she can’t undo the effects of overusing their sticks. She can only heal their wounds. Well, I figured. If she could actually save them from dying early, then we wouldn’t have to bother with the rest of the plot.

— Hey, look, Nick Fury also has one working eye. Coincidence? I think not. Kosame intends to form an alliance between the girls from Aya’s site and the girls from her site It’s, like, the Avengers but for tortured mahou shoujos. I now half-expect Tsuyuno to turn to Aya in the last episode, and tell the girl that she suddenly doesn’t feel so good….

— Afterwards, Tsuyuno and Aya share a conversation in bed. It sounds like we have a beach episode coming up, ’cause that makes sense. Gee, we got middle school girls murdering each other, but what if they did it in their bathing suits?

— Normally, this would be cute, but eh….

— Oh hey, it’s the Toji no Miko girl. Huh, is she supposed to be a daughter of an important yakuza family or something?

— As for this girl, we last saw her bullying her butler. Surely, the show does not expect me to remember everyone’s names. Speaking of her butler…

— …fuck everything.

— And now, we have ourselves a transgendered mahou shoujo. Naturally, she’s also a target of bullying. Mahou Shoujo Site is just so full of warmth and love.

— God, look at that kid on the right.

— Anyways, the transgendered girl’s name is Kiyo, and even though she could take her revenge on her bullies now, she intends to wait until they’re adults with happy lives before she ruins them. Yeah, sure, but how do you know you’ll even live long enough to do any of that?

— Uh, yakuza girl only has one eye?

— Wait, maybe the animation just sucks, ’cause Nijimi now has no eyes.

— Oh hey, she’s got one eye back!

— And now the missing eye has swapped places. Man, I’m at the edge of my seat here! Which eye will disappear next!

— Oh ho ho, what a cheeky breeze. Basically, Tsuyuno manages to convince Nijimi to cooperate for now. She’ll help the girls capture a site administrator, then it’s right back to murdering Rina. Seriously, let’s see how long this lasts.

— According to Aya’s homeroom teacher, Sarina has gone missing. Oh no. Please. Someone save her.

— Meanwhile, Rina is a big, fat idiot, so she’s decided to transfer into Aya’s school. Naturally, she also has to end up with Aya’s class, because why not?

— Looks like someone’s about to snap!

— Tsuyuno immediately tackles Nijimi to the ground to prevent the dog idol from murdering Rina right then and there. At first, I was like, “Why don’t you just freeze time?” But I forgot that she and Aya had lost their sticks in that incident against Sarina. Whoops.

— Think fast, Aya! And thought fast, she did. She immediately steals Nijimi’s panties much to the boys’ delight.

— Look at the teacher on the right. He looks like one of the kids! If it weren’t for his stubble, you wouldn’t be able to tell him apart at all!

— Tsuyuno, however, refuses to be punished. She simply runs off with Nijimi’s panties. Ugh, gross. It’s likely still warm, too. Also, Nijimi was about to use it, right? So maybe it even has a bit of blood on it….

— So after hiding Nijimi’s panties somewhere safe — it’s probably not safe — the girls all meet up at the park to greet their new allies. Ah, our crappy Avengers have finally taken shape.

— Kiyo pauses when she takes a look at Tsuyuno, but then says nothing. Um, okay.

— So the new girls show off their powers, and it really feels like the author ran out of ideas. For instance, yakuza girl can harden anything she wants. This allows her to cut said thing with her katana. Uh, lame.

— The girl who sexually abuses her butler has a broomstick that can fly. Boring.

— All this dork over here can do is run fast. Like fuck, man. Technically, her stick enhances all of her physical attributes, but it’s still pathetic compared to an app that can freeze time.

— Last but not least, Kiyo has telepathy. Okay, Professor X, calm your panties.

— The girls then say Kiyo is simply a cross dresser. Huh, really? I thought she was transgendered. So which is it?

— Everyone on Team B — let’s just call them Team A & B — starts bickering, so even though Nijimi wants to murder the shit out of Rina, Team A looks a hell of a lot more stable than their newfound allies. Out of nowhere, Kosame wants to cut herself in broad daylight.

— Meanwhile, we get to catch a glimpse of what Sarina’s been up to. It turns out she’s the one who took all of Team A’s sticks (minus Nijimi’s panties, of course). Nana wants the sticks back, but the girl refuses. She still intends on getting her payback, but we already know that motivations suck, so… yeah…

— After that short diversion, however, we return our attention to Aya and company. Rina has decided to also transfer into our heroine’s home. Gosh, her parents must be so patient. It’s too bad the dad is real dick.

— And Kaname is, of course, doing his usual oniichan bullshit.

— We may not have a beach episode ready for you eager beavers yet, but we certainly have middle school girls frolicking in the bath!

— Unfortunately, the fun is short-lived, because you’re watching Mahou Shoujo Site. Kosame calls Aya up to deliver some bad news, but the viewers don’t get to hear said bad news. All we get to see is Aya falling to her knees and crying. Ugh. This storytelling sucks ass.

— I really want to relegate either this show or Dorei-ku to the “Everything Else” trash heap. Which one, though? I’ve got some serious thinking to do….

Hachi tells Ichigo that they will soon have to abandon Mistilteinn for the parasite camp. As a result, the children of Squad 13 will soon lose their precious home. Being the emotional leader, Hiro is always full of silly ideas. Plus, he’s inspired by Zero-Two’s favorite book, so suggests that they hold a wedding ceremony for the group’s latest and newly established couple. Unfortunately, I can’t help but feel like I already have the general idea of what’s going to happen next. The kids will try and have their fun, but Papa and his army of Nines will swoop in and ruin everything. Do I know exactly what they will do to the kids? No, of course not. But because I can kind of feel out the the overall tempo of the story, it makes me a little less excited for the ensuing drama. Nevertheless…

Futoshi’s lack of character development

I’m rather surprised at how well Futoshi manages to cope with his friends’ impending union. He even wants to play a pivotal role in the ceremony. Unfortunately, he’s not even asking for the role; he’s forcing himself into it. My biggest problem with Futoshi as a character, however, is that I have very little reason to empathize with him. I really don’t. Out of the entire cast, I feel like he, Ikuno, and Miku have gotten the least amount of character development. In last week’s post, I kinda misspoke when I said that the characters are well-developed. Most of them are, especially Hiro and Zero-Two. These three, however, are not. We can excuse Miku, however, because she never seems to have any actual problems to deal with (other than her hair prematurely turning gray). Despite having such a loud personality, she kinda just blends into the rest of the group. She has no beef with anyone, but she isn’t particularly close to anyone either. Even her voice actress admits that all she shares with Zorome is a sibling-like relationship. On the other hand, Futoshi has issues, but he’s not fleshed out enough to lend any weight to them. After all, he’s only defined by two things: his eating (and subsequent lack thereof in the second cour) and his one-sided love for Kokoro. That’s kinda pathetic.

Sweeping Ikuno under the rug

Unlike with Futoshi, I actually want to empathize with Ikuno. Unfortunately, she doesn’t have much to her character either. She’s cold to everyone but Ichigo, because naturally, she only likes the latter. This pretty much defines the girl as a character within this story. I also couldn’t help but realize that she never did get her own episode. Even though I lumped her in with Futoshi and Miku in terms of not having enough character development, the guy at least got to spend at least one week in the spotlight. Sure, he shared it with Kokoro and Mitsuru, but Ikuno has never been the focal point at any point in the series. Her worries and problems have instead been scattered across several episodes, so it feels as though she is the forgotten character. I don’t really know her as a person, and it seems like her friends don’t know her all that much either. Remember when the girl got really pissed off in last week’s episode and slapped Nine Alpha across the face? In this week’s episode, Ichigo says it herself that she has never seen Ikuno so mad before. Even Ikuno’s teammates are surprised by her sudden outburst. To be clear, however, I’m not trying to say that Ikuno has a simple issue. It’s more that… it’s never really gotten the attention that it deserves. She’s in love with another girl, but in order to survive, she has to obey a system in which she pairs up with another guy. Is that not cruel? She’s right: the system does suck. She’s aware of it, you’re aware of it, and even the writers are aware of it. But I don’t think their approach is adequate.

When Ikuno hears about the impending marriage between Kokoro and Mitsuru, she wears a melancholy expression. She’s probably a realist at heart, so she assumes that she can never marry the one that she loves. Ichigo eventually notices that Ikuno is not in good shape, so she goes to speak with friend. Honestly, she’s the only one who really can. Even though Ikuno and Mitsuru no longer have to butt heads as partners, I don’t think they’ve ever really sat down and hashed things out. Does Ikuno even respect Hiro? Who knows? She’s friendlier with Zero-Two nowadays, but that’s about it. So yeah, Ichigo is really the only person who Ikuno can open up to. As a result, the girl decides that now is the time to come clean. Goro straight-up confessed his feelings to Ichigo, but it was to no avail. So up until now, Ikuno must have felt as if there was no point in revealing her true feelings to Ichigo. Still, with everything that’s been going on lately — her faltering health, the adults taking their precious home away, etc. — Ikuno probably feels as though she has to say something before it’s too late. As a result, she pins Ichigo down and finally tells her friend that she loves her. She also admits, however, that she knows nothing can really happen between the two of them. In fact, she seems to intrinsically attribute hers and Ichigo’s personalities to the restrictive system that they’ve been brought up in. All the girl can thus do is hate herself for being different — for having such complicated feelings. Life would be so simple if we could all be the same. Unfortunately, it sometimes hurts to force ourselves to be the same as everyone else.

Of course, there’s nothing Ichigo can do but offer platonic comfort. She holds her friend and pats her hair while soft music plays in the background. She offers cheap platitudes as a salve for Ikuno’s pain. And somehow, we’re supposed to believe that, gee, maybe everything will turn out okay in this crazy, topsy-turvy world! Nah, this is a cop-out. I’m not saying that Ichigo has to return Ikuno’s feelings. Obviously, you can’t force someone to have romantic feelings, especially if Ichigo isn’t into girls. At the same time, however, this sort of shtick happens all the time. This often involves an outsider like, say, an LGBT character coming out and opening up about their vulnerabilities, then someone hugs and tells them that everything’s going to be alright. The scenario looks nice on the surface, but it offers little comfort beyond that. All we’ve done is milk a serious issue for feels, but have nothing substantive to offer in return. So at the end of the day, Ikuno can only claim that she won’t give up. She’s gonna keep on trying, and gosh, she’s a stubborn one! But think deep and hard whether or not she’ll truly find the happiness that she seeks. That’s why Ichigo’s cheap platitudes feel like such an insult. It’s like we’re just sweeping Ikuno’s issues under the rug. There are no easy answers to her situation, sure, but it feels like such a slap in the face to see the story trying to give us one. And you know that the writers think that they’ve done a good job, because we immediately follow up this scene with a montage of the kids having fun, prepping their home for the wedding.

Zero-Two’s sins

Zero-Two also has her own little moment of despair this week. Midway through the episode, we see that the girl is still in the middle of reproducing her favorite book, but as she nears the end of the process, she pauses to consider how everything might end. In the fairy tale, the princess felt as though she didn’t deserve to be with her prince, so in the end, she gave up her life for him. Zero-Two must feel the same way. How can she truly reconcile the reality of her past with the future that she currently wants to share with Hiro? This schism causes the girl to hallucinate. She sees a skyline of a devastated battlefield. This is where she used to live before she transferred to Plantation 13. A black pit then opens up in front of Zero-Two, and her former partners emerge from what looks like the very depths of hell. They eventually grab hold of the girl and try to drag her down into the pit with them. Had Hiro not freed the girl from her nightmare, what else would she have seen? What other ghastly sights might her guilt have shown her? Zero-Two knows that she’s done terrible things in the past. She knows that she hasn’t atoned for her crimes either. If she believes in karma at all, then she must feel as though justice will eventually come for her soul. Is Zero-Two a good person? That’s a tricky question to answer. We are both defined by our pasts and who we are in this very moment.

The girl could always try confessing her sins. Hiro is no heavenly father, but it always helps to talk to someone, especially the person you love. Unfortunately, Zero-Two decides to keep everything to herself. She tells him that she simply dozed off for a second, opting to say nothing about the nightmare she just saw. Her anxieties, her worries, her guilt… she won’t open up about any of them to Hiro. I find this frustrating, because it’s like she’s learned nothing from the first cour. Remember when Hiro could tell that something was bothering her, but she kept it all bottled up? That turned out well, didn’t it? She only nearly killed him, after all. Well, Hiro can once again discern that something is bothering her now. If he truly loves her, then she can’t really hide her feelings from him. Maybe Zero-Two will eventually say something before we reach the climax of the series, but I hope it happens sooner rather than later. I hope it even happens at all before she decides that she needs to sacrifice herself like her favorite fairy tale.

Near the end of the episode, after Kokoro and Mitsuru had been torn apart, we see Zero-Two with her completed book. She managed to finish her fairy tale just as soon as another one had ended. Hmm.

Misc. notes & observations:

— In most situations, it would be weird for a guy to wake up naked next to a doll. Most situations are not DARLING in the FRANXX.

— Man, these two kids are gonna get a bad end… at least for this week’s episode.

— I’m kinda disappointed that we didn’t dive right back into the whole Princess of the Klaxosaur subplot. I’m honestly more interested in that than Kokoro and Mitsuru. I don’t hate either of them, but I’m not emotionally invested in whether or not they make it to the end of the series either.

— Camps… camps… history has taught me to be wary of camps. Plus, the adults are all liars, after all. At the very least, they’re lying by omission. Who knows what else they could be lying about? If you think about it, Dr. Franxx’s little experiment has forced these kids to pick up some survival skills. They can’t quite survive on their own, but it’s a start and that’s a good thing, right? For the kids, sure. But for Papa, the last thing he would want is for his children to become completely self-reliant. He needs to pull the plug before the change is irreversible.

— The adults have been watching the kids’ every move. I wonder if they even saw Kokoro and Mitsuru have sex… that would be kinda gross of them, wouldn’t it? I mean, they’re kids.

— Goro’s fever is getting worse. Miku is also developing a fever. Oh dear.

— Why are you guys talking about rations now? I thought you guys figured out how to fish for food.

— Oh, maybe this is why. Maybe the adults have stopped the water from coming into Mistilteinn.

— Life here wasn’t that bad. It was the fighting that sucked.

— Look at our blushing bride and groom. I’m kinda surprised that Hiro didn’t wish to marry his darling as well, but maybe he doesn’t want to steal his friends’ thunder. Or maybe this is a test run in case anything goes bad.

— What does Miku know anything about romance, though? I’m not trying to insult her. I’m actually serious about this. Maybe there are romance novels in their library, but wouldn’t said novels also contain references to sex and baby-making?

— Good ol’ Zorome never really understands anything, but he’ll roll with it.

— Man, I was just thinking about how none of these teenagers seem to care all that much about fashion. Granted, the concept is probably alien to them, but it’s a bit odd to me that no one has ever tried to vary up the appearance of their clothes. This wedding dress is the first time anyone’s even thought of wearing something other than their uniforms.

— I don’t know how I feel about all of this. Again, I still really want to return our attention back to the Klaxosaurs and thus explore the setting of this anime. Sure, I like these kids, but… we’ve spent like 90% of our time with them already, y’know? On the other hand, we’ve barely spent any time world-building.

— Didn’t Hiro say something to Zero-Two about seeing the cherry blossoms with her? So at least there’s that.

— Feels like we’re killing time just watching these three play soccer.

— Ooh, Ikuno actually backhanded Nine Alpha. I forgot that little detail.

— Ichigo has two admirers now, and yet, she probably still harbors feelings for Hiro. Some people have all the luck.

— Ikuno fell in love Ichigo because the latter named her? I agree that this is a silly reason.

— Yeah, kinda…

— Let’s see how many people in this picture will live to see the end of the story.

— Her default outfit looks way better than this one.

— They couldn’t give Mitsuru a new outfit to match his bride?

— The kids did a good job with the dress, all things considered.

— Famous last words.

— C’mon, Futoshi, don’t bring the whole celebration down with your glum face.

— But nothing’s worse than the looks on the adults’ faces. God, Hachi is such a joyless man. I mean, I know why he’s joyless; his emotions have been fucked with. And to give him some credit, it doesn’t look like he’s going to do anything to stop the kids’ fun.

— Instead, the Nines have decided to drop by at the worst possible time. As they often say, speak now or forever hold your peace. Well, APE definitely has something to say about all of this this.

— “[T]he parasite camp’s re-indoctrination program…” Not for everyone, though. Just those two. You know which two. Welp.

— Hiro was re-indoctrinated, wasn’t he? Wasn’t this why he came back to the group without his memories? So I bet you they’re going to erase Kokoro and Mitsuru’s memories.

— But what if Kokoro is pregnant? And what if — and I know this sounds crazy, but it’s possible — the adults don’t notice this? Wouldn’t it be weird for her to suddenly have a baby after losing all her memories of Mitsuru and their fateful encounter?

— Wow, do they really have to storm the premises with guns? Do they really think that Squad 13 is going to fight back? The kids have no weapons outside of their mechas. Only Zero-Two has any sort of hand-to-hand combat prowess.

— Dude, if you can’t bear to see them kiss, you don’t wanna know what they did the other night…

— HINT HINT METAPHOR

— Oh, we’re gonna get some action?

— As I’m watching Zero-Two fight off the entire group of Nines, I can’t help but wonder what on earth her darling is doing?

— Oh, he was already overpowered. And she eventually succumbs to the Nines as well.

— I’m actually curious as to why they didn’t just bother to re-indoctrinate everyone. Why even take the chance? These kids will remember what went down today. They will either fall in line because they’re scared of Papa, or their resentment will fuel their rebellion. So y’know, I think it’s silly that nothing happened to Hiro and the rest of the gang.

— Nothing’s going to change, buddy. Nothing’s going to change unless you make it happen. Time to stop dicking around and having fun in Mistilteinn. Time to fight back. And god, I’m so ready for these kids to take it to the adults. I want the rest of the plot to move forward.

— Oh hey, Nana has also been detained.

— Interestingly enough, Hachi wants to know how he could have comforted the children. Maybe his character will have more to offer in the final few episodes. In a sense, he’s been more of a father to these kids than Papa, anyways. Cold, stern, and emotionally unavailable. Yep, sounds like an Asian father to me.

— We catch a glimpse of Nana in her younger days as a happy parasite. There’s still the possibility that these kids — like Miku — have been designed to die young, but maybe not all hope is lost after all.

— Was this Hachi with longer hair? I believe so.

— And this was the rest of their squad.

— “…a world where APE and humanity can live for all eternity.” So Papa and his ilk are definitely not human. Well, we could kinda tell after last week’s episode, but this makes it official. But what are they, though? And why do they need to be “freed from the shackles of [their] shells,” i.e. their bodies? Are they AI? AI wouldn’t need a body, though. Are they spirits of some sort? This show doesn’t seem very mystical. Hm.

— The replacement key? For what?

— So this is the parasite camp. I wonder who designed all of these buildings.

— Our kids still won’t rebel. They’re still listening to the adults. They’re still just sitting idly by until they receive their marching orders. C’mon! Do something!

— After weeks and weeks, Kokoro and Mitsuru finally get to rejoin the rest of the group. Unfortunately, their memories have been erased just like how Zero-Two and Hiro’s were. In fact, they don’t even know each other.

— This memory-erasing process sucks, though. Mitsuru thinks that Kokoro is new to the team, but she thinks that he is new to the team. Wouldn’t such inconsistencies ultimately doom this whole stunt? And of course, there’s also the fact that the other kids will keep reminding them about their wedding. Sorry, but I’m having a really hard time believing that the adults think this would work.

— They didn’t even confiscate the wedding ring!

— Well, now Hiro knows that if he tries to marry Zero-Two, they’ll fuck with his brain again. See? It’s always good to have a test run with guinea pigs.

— Yes, you’re at the end of your rope, Hiro. Now will you fight? Or will you perish like a dog?

Again, Yusuke’s Persona looks cool. I’m iffy on Yusuke himself, though. But as usual, we’ll start from the beginning.

— Thanks to the perspective, this hallway actually looks cooler in the anime than it does in the game… I think. Again, it’s been months since I last touched Persona 5.

— So up until now, they haven’t had a plan? I know what Morgana is trying to say, but it just comes across in a funny way.

— Oh hey, it’s Ohya, the worst girl! She looks like a grown-up Chie, doesn’t she? I actually can’t remember much about Ohya’s personality other than that she really likes her alcohol. Plus, her Confidant abilities are practically worthless unless you’re a terrible at the game. I don’t believe I ever really used Devil personas all that much either. There’s really no redeemable quality to this character.

— “We’re all fishy, so let’s be friends.” That’s what I tell people, but they never listen.

— I think they could’ve done a better job than this at concealing Ann’s outfit…

— For me, this scene was by far the funniest moment in the game.

— I never really understood why the door had to be opened in front of Madarame. If you’re just trying to convince him that it’s not unopenable, simply breaking in and leaving the door ajar should do the trick. Of course, I know I’m nitpicking over nothing.

— This is a good line.

— Aw, this is a cute angle. I miss Morgana’s English voice, though. I think out of the entire cast, I only really prefer Ren, Yusuke, and Haru in Japanese .

— Something’s off about the size of those garments.

— Aw, they left out Ann’s bad acting. If they joke about it later, it won’t be as funny without this scene to call back to.

— When the big doors open, Ren and Ryuji are supposed to run into a big, fat Nue to kill. Unfortunately, it looks like we’re jumping ahead to the cool, interactive paintings instead.

— It’s like Mario 64 all over again. Speaking of which, I think that was the last time I ever got 100% completion in a game. As I get older, I just care less and less about doing everything that a game throws at me. Despite replaying Persona 5 three times, I still haven’t touched the fishing minigame. Blame it on Persona 4 and that stupid Guardian. To this day, I still haven’t maxed out every social link in that game simply because you have to catch a Guardian for the fox. Forget that.

— The man looks really tiny here. I feel like there are weird perspective errors all throughout this episode.

— Watching Yusuke confront Madarame, it just reminds me how I have very little reason to hate this guy. No, no, he’s bad. It’s just that I really wanted to kick Kamoshida’s ass by the time Shiho committed suicide. On the other hand, my only reaction to Madarame is a shrug at best. Oh no, you committed fraud…

— To be fair, we went into Kamoshida’s palace and saw all those kids being tortured or molested. On the other hand, the only evidence of Madarame’s evil are some boring portraits of his pupils and a dumb, gold statue.

— It’s also funny how he reports Yusuke and Ann to the police, but nothing comes of it until after the deadline. Ugh, I hate those kids… but it can wait!

— Plus, it’s hard to take him seriously when he looks like this.

— Madarame: “[Ordinary people] can’t distinguish between a genuine and a fake…” Yeah, but who cares? That reminds me of a joke from King of the Hill:

Asshole: “You Americans, you’re so gosh darn ignorant and self-centered. Tell me who our prime minister is.”

Hank Hill: Why?

That’s how I feel about Madarame’s “social critique.” It shouldn’t matter one bit to most of us whether or not we’re looking at a genuine Renoir. If people can derive meaning and enjoyment from a fake anyways, the distinction between it and the real deal is literally academic.

— I’m disappointed that these guards aren’t turning into actual Personas.

— But this is new. Having Madarame drive Yusuke to tears with both physical and verbal abuse does help the old man seem a little more heinous. I just wish it could’ve been executed a little better. It takes a second after Madarame slaps Yusuke for his cheek to turn red.

— Oh, there they are. I remember losing to these jerks on my first playthrough of the game. I had the difficulty set to Hard, and they just kept dodging my spells even with Sukukaja up. You live by the RNG, you die by the RNG.

— As an aside, I’ve been pretty damn lucky in my current playthrough of Strange Journey Redux. God, I love that game. If it had been made for an actual console instead, it’d probably be my favorite mainline SMT entry by far. The soundtrack is so good. Right now, it’s in a dead heat with Nocturne.

— Yusuke does have a pretty painful backstory. We won’t learn everything about it here, but suffice it to say, he’s surprisingly strong for someone who has been through so much.

— Pasta of the light? Huh?

— Oh man, I wish I could’ve called him a piece of tofu instead of Fox.

— Well, that about does it for this week’s episode. In the after credits scene, our heroes have already secured a route to Madarame’s treasure, so we’ll be wrapping this up next week. We didn’t even touch the M.C. Escher portion of Madarame’s Palace. Still, this is fine by me, ’cause it just means we’ll get to move right along to Makoto and her badass Persona. Nevertheless, this episode felt pretty short even though it’s the same length as all the other ones.

— Plus, Ren has barely touched any of his social links. C’mon, man, you draw your strength from your friendships! Get to it!

— You also know what I really like about Persona 5? The fact that nobody constantly goes over to the main character’s house and goes on and on about how cute Nanako is. Persona 4 is great in a lot of ways, but ugh, the cast really wore on me by the end of Golden.

Looks like our heroes messed up. Let’s see how it got to be this way. 

— I’m not gonna lie; I’m a little disappointed that this week’s episode starts out by turning back the clock a bit to revisit an earlier moment in the night. I had prepped myself for the exciting conclusion to the arc, so now I’m kinda left hanging.

— Class 1-B’s instructor won’t let the rest of the kids fight, because Aizawa only allowed them to fight in self-defense. They’re only allowed to fight so that everyone could get back to safety. What do I say to that? Look, not everyone’s here yet, so let’s go out there and fight until they are! Eh? Ehhhh? Look, I get it, don’t break the rules, don’t give heroes a bad name, blah blah blah. I guess I just can’t help but feel that 1) Aizawa’s instructions are open to interpretation and 2) if I’m genuinely worried for my friends, I’m gonna do what I feel I gotta do. If these kids want to play it safe, so be it. But if someone actually dies when I could’ve helped them, I don’t think I could ever live with myself. Ultimately, being a hero is a state of mind. Yeah, yeah, if you get kicked out of the academy, you can’t be an official hero later in life, but if I feel like I’m doing the right thing, I could live with that consequence.

— Unfortunately, my bigger point above is rendered moot, ’cause nobody ever really dies, huh? Yeah, sure, Kota’s parents died on the job, but when was the last time someone important died? So if we are results-driven, then we should always follow the rules and play it safe, ’cause everyone’s going to be just fine!

— Luckily for these kids, they don’t have to go to the fight, ’cause the fight has come to them.

— Dabi got the jump on everyone, but no one even got hit. Yeah, it’s a shounen, but I feel like the stakes are never really all that high in My Hero Academia. Even during the Stain arc, I never felt like Iida was going to die at any point. And I don’t think anyone’s going to die here either. At worst, Deku is going to fail to save two of his friends. Big whoop.

— This is probably not the real Dabi, anyway.

— The bad guys want to shake society’s confidence in heroes, but I feel like there are easier ways to accomplish this than kidnapping a child. If I read about this incident in the news, I’d just say, “Oh, that sucks,” then go on with the rest of my day. I wouldn’t be shaken to the core or anything. On the other hand, look at real world terrorists and what they do. They’re pretty much experts at shaking society’s confidence. But again, this is supposed to be an easy-to-digest shounen show about superheroes, not an actual treatise on good guys and bad guys. I’m fine with My Hero Academia being all fun and games, but I wish there was also a show that could scratch that deeper itch for real, cold-hearted villains. ‘Cause let’s face it, Shigaraki is a Sunday-morning cartoon bad guy.

— Dabi: “Look, there are so few of us, and we’re driving you into a corner.” ‘Cause the good guys are so disorganized and unprepared. The instructors never even once considered having the kids fight, and I think that makes them irresponsible. We’re going to train you to be good guys who fight bad guys, but under no circumstances must you fight a bad guy right now! Okay, okay, you can totally fight if you’re in direct danger, but once you are safe, totally ignore the fact that your friends might also be in direct danger. Let them defend themselves!

— If you want to hop into the comments and defend the adults’ logic, go ahead. You’re not going to convince me otherwise, though.

— Figures.

— Aizawa shows up and just repeats the same thing that Vlad had said to the kids. Yeah, they might be after other students as well, but are you okay with keeping yourself safe while your friends fight for their lives?! I wouldn’t be able to do it. I wouldn’t be able to sit tight.

— So we’re finally back to the main attraction.

— Interestingly enough, Todoroki is also on the kill list. I think he’s corruptible. I really think anyone’s corruptible, including myself as well. I’ve always subscribed to nurture over nature, though. The bad guys think there’s something intrinsic to Bakugo that would make him a good villain. They also think that this quality is missing from the other students. I don’t agree. I think you could even turn Deku into a bad guy. I’m not gonna sit here, however, and spell out exactly how one might mentally break a little kid, so use your own imagination.

— Oh hey, sucky sucky girl is in love with Deku. I guess what’s attractive about yandere girls is that we can safely adore them from the distance. Most of us wouldn’t want an actual Toga in our lives, but since she’s not real, it’s whatever. Fantasize about it all you want. That’s why I always find it funny when people look down on women enjoying the weird-ass relationship in the Twilight novels. “B-but Edward is abusive and creepy!” No shit. But he’s also not real. You could argue to a certain extent that something popular like Twilight is helping to normalize his bad behavior, but then that becomes a more nuanced argument that is way beyond the scope of this post.

— Do characters like Toga normalize girls acting crazy? Naaaaaah…

— What is kinda lame, however, is the realization that this girl will keep coming back just because she is a darker love interest for Deku. He won’t ever get with her, but it kinda feels like this is going to be her primary role from here on out.

— So, uh, Mr. Compress compressed himself into a marble to avoid Dabi’s blast. But while he was a marble, what was going on with the other marbles, i.e. Bakugo and Tokoyami? Did they become even smaller marbles within him?

— Shoji claims to have stolen his buddies back, but I bet it’s not that simple…

— Mr. Compress soon reveals that the real marbles are actually in his mouth. But why taunt the kids at all? Shoulda just stepped through the portals and let the kids walk away with the fake marbles.

— When you compress things, logically, they also shouldn’t become lighter. So maybe Mr. Compress is really strong since he can carry two children in his mouth. I know, I know, no nitpicking a silly shounen anime…

— Aoyama to save the day? The scaredy-cat finally comes through with an attack right to Mr. Compress’s mouth. But see? Villains always screw themselves by talking to goddamn much. Shoulda just left quietly. My confidence in them is more shaken than my confidence in our heroes.

— Deku is pretty much far too injured to do anything, so it’s up to Shoji and Todoroki to save their buddies.

— Of course: Dabi swipes the one marble that they were originally going for in the first place. The kids only manage to save Tokoyami.

— All Deku can do is watch his precious Kacchan disappear before his very eyes. I’m not going to make the all-too-easy Thanos joke.

— I’m not too worked up about losing Bakugo either. Like yeah, I hope they manage to save the kid before the bad guys make a Sasuke out of him — because seriously, that would suck — but at the same time, I don’t feel all that emotionally torn up either. I guess part of the problem here is that we’re supposed to sympathize with Deku. He tried so goddamn hard to save his childhood friend, but in the end, he wasn’t strong enough. He pushed his body to the limit, and it failed him. The whole point of this summer trip is that these kids aren’t ready, and he sure as hell wasn’t ready for what the bad guys threw at him. That must suck. At the same time, however, part of that emotional anguish is blunted by the fact that Bakugo’s a giant asshole whom I’ve never endeared myself to. That doesn’t mean Deku can’t feel bad, but it does mean I just can’t feel as bad as I should alongside him. This is our bad end, and I’m just like eh… Maybe if a lovable character had been kidnapped instead (like Uraraka or whatever), I’d be just as gutted as Deku. You guys would just argue, however, that it makes no sense to kidnap anyone else.

— Oh? What happened here? Isn’t that Ragdoll’s headgear?

— Let’s be fair, though. They didn’t completely lose to the villains. They saved Kota and Tokoyami, and nobody else lost their lives… except maybe Ragdoll. But she’s not a major character so….

— Man, they didn’t do anything with Kota’s powers, huh? Deku gave this inspirational speech about how the kid should use his powers to save people, and it never came to fruition.

— According to Deku’s monologue, fifteen kids ended up in serious condition.

— Sure enough, the school is under siege. Oh no, it’s the public’s shaken confidence!

— Of course, the pros blame themselves for their lack of foresight and preparedness, and they should. It always sounded stupid to me that they thought a secret camping trip would actually work.

— One of them even wonders if there’s a traitor in the ranks. After all, the location of the training camp was supposed to be a secret! Yeah, but that doesn’t mean that there is a traitor. Information security is a complicated topic.

— The police calls up All Might, because they believe they might have a lead on the League of Villains’ hideout. But that reminds me… what about that tracking device that Momo had created?

— In any case, it looks like the adults are going to go raid the bad guys’ bar.

— Yo, guys, he just woke up. Let’s not all swarm the kid at the same time.

— As a result, Deku breaks down in front of everyone… but what I said earlier still holds true. If someone more endearing had gotten kidnapped, I’d really feel for Deku. I currently feel kinda bad, but not that bad.

— Yep, Momo saves the day, and both Kirishima and Todoroki overhear her talking to All Might and the police. They thus hatch a plan to try and save Bakugo on their own.

— Man, I’m tired of leaving everything to the adults, though.

— As expected, Iida has a problem with Kirishima’s plan. If Bakugo is Chaotic Good, then Iida is easily Lawful Good. Dude has a fetish for rules.

— I say fuck the rules. Become the Ubermensch and transcend the morality of your society! Look, this world is already kinda anti-egalitarian…

— I’m half-joking, half-serious. A serious discussion on the Ubermensch and how it might relate to My Hero Academia is something I might have entertained three or four years ago on this blog, but I’m too old for that shit now.

— Most of the kids will hang back and be scared. I’m sure, however, that Deku will seize the opportunity to save his precious Kacchan. We’ll just have to wait till next week to see him officially make his decision. Since Momo facilitated this possibility in the first place, I sure hope she gets to join the rescue group.

*shocked in Japanese* 

— I’m gonna be level with you guys: after DARLING in the FRANXX, Persona 5 The Animation, and My Hero Academia, I’m way too tired to take a serious look at this show. As a result, this post might end up being a little… janky.

— I also want to wrap things up quickly so I can get back to playing Strange Journey Redux.

— The episode opens with Karen buying herself a brand new P-chan. Apparently, it’s a rare gun. How strange. I would’ve thought that something like P-chan would be commonplace in a game like GGO.

— Afterwards, we return to the ending of the very first episode. If you recall, a bunch of girls had come over to Karen’s house to watch a replay of the last Squad Jam. In fact, these girls were the very same opponents that Karen had to defeat in order to win the whole tournament. What a coincidence.

— Isn’t your avatar’s appearance completely determined by chance? So you also want me to believe that these six girls from the same high school gymnastics team managed to roll six female avatars in GGO? Really? Reeeeeeally?

— Apparently, they used to suck as a team in real life, so these girls all joined GGO in order to fix that problem. Man, video games are truly the solution to everything! I’ve always wanted to be a lawyer, and thanks to Ace Attorney, I am now qualified to represent the President of the United States!

— Afterwards, Karen hangs out with her old friend Miyu. It’s like a victory parade for our heroine. It’s one kudos after another. Odd how nobody seems to care about my last Fortnite victory.

— I’m just kidding. I’ve never touched Fortnite in my life.

— Zekken? Where have I heard that name before…? Oooooh, you mean that girl. Oh, I wouldn’t feel too bad, Miyu. At least you’re not dead.

— So there’s going to be a Squad Jam 2, and those high school girls are eager to sign up for it. Since they finished second, they’ll even be seeded for the upcoming tournament. Karen insists, however, that she’s going to sit this one out. Yeah… right.

— Sure enough, someone shows up to convince Karen that participating in a fucking video game tournament is a matter of life and death.

— Needless to say, M is even weirder in real life than he is in the game.

— Buddy, it’s called personal space.

— He continues to claim that the real life Pito is a real nutso. She apparently has this strange obsession with death, and because she missed out on being stuck in SAO, she’s been in despair ever since. What kinda bothers me is how she claims she would’ve been one of the player-killers had she managed to get herself stuck in that damn game. If that’s truly the case, this girl isn’t just nutso. She needs to be locked up.

— It’s so obvious that Pito and Elsa are one and the same.

— Karen offers up the commonsensical solution, but we’re in an anime, so get that shit outta here!

— Hm, it’s kinda hard to kabedon a taller person. But to be fair, she’s not that much taller than him.

— First kabedon? Are girls supposed to get multiple kabedons in their lives? Shit, I need to start kabedonning my crush at work.

— So why does M tolerate Pito’s bullshit? First, he’s obsessed with the girl. Second, he’s also a complete nutjob himself.

— At this point, it’s obvious what Karen must do. The only solution to this Pito problem is to have Karen join the next Squad Jam 2 and defeat both the girl and M. Why? ‘Cause she made a promise with her online buddy, yo! A promise between onnas!

— Not only did they make a promise, they banged their guns! Dude, that makes it extra special.

— Any normal person would just call Pito’s bluff. Oh, she’s gonna kill herself if she loses? Shrug, whatever. I bet she won’t. Even if you really believe that she would do it, you would do what Karen suggested first and call the police. You’d tell them that the so-and-so is potentially suicidal, and let them take care of it. If you ever try to break up with someone, and they claim that they’ll hurt themselves, now you know what to do. But again, we’re in an anime, so… yeah…

— In the end, Karen agrees to take Pito and M down. After all, if she didn’t, we’d be out of an oh-so-wonderful SAO spinoff. If that had happened, what would we watch between now and the actual SAO sequel?!

— Obviously, Karen can’t do this alone, so she needs a friend. Those high school girls already have a full team, so she only has one person to turn to.

— Fuka… ziroh? Man, I’m just gonna call you Miyu.

— Why she gotta be naked though?

— Also, if Miyu’s GGO avatar is also a goddamn loli, I’m gonna be pissed.

— But hey, this write-up was relatively painless. I now get to sit back, eat my cheesecake, and watch as everyone tells me how wrong I am about all of the shows I’ve written about today.

When we last left off, Zero Seven had taken Tsukasa as her hostage, and she’s now making her getaway. I’m glad that they are minding their safety and are thus wearing their seatbelts. You can never be too safe!

— Meanwhile, Anzai finally gets to meet the garden gnome. He’s a doctor who has treated devils before. He’s even familiar with ONLO. When we last saw him, he was able to recognize both Anzai and Lee. In any case, he’s here to basically dump a bunch of exposition on us. Devils feel inferior around humans, devils can control their urges, blood tolerance is just one form of control, yadda yadda yadda. Basically, Anzai technically doesn’t have to drink Tsukasa’s blood. He just has to figure out what’s causing him to transform when he’s with her, and learn to control that! It’s sex, isn’t it? I bet you he has to do her if he wants to control his beastly side.

— Or just do what Lee suggested and masturbate.

— Tsukasa tells Zero Seven all about how not all devils are bad, mm’kay? For example, her boyfriend is, like, so awesome, because he only stalks her and nearly kills her from time to time, but it’s okay, because it hasn’t happened yet.

— When Lee finally returns to the bar, he cowers behind Jill for some reason. I don’t know if he’s just playing pretend here or if he’s actually scared of the garden gnome.

— The perspective keeps switching back and forth between Tsukasa and Anzai for the majority of the episode, so we’re right back to how the girl is worried about Zero-Seven’s condition. She really suffers from Stockholm syndrome, doesn’t she? Even if Zero Seven is simply misguided in her hate — and even if she has no intention of hurting Tsukasa — she’s still a murderer in all technical sense of the word. She’s still killed a countless number of devils in cold blood. The story is trying to get us to sympathize with her. Oh, she just doesn’t understand that not all devils are bad! Oh, her organization are now after her, so she’s not exactly a bad guy! Nah, man, Zero Seven still needs to be locked up for her crimes.

— Anyways, sniper girl eventually meets up with the nerdy-looking Zero Nine. By the way they embrace each other it would seem that there are romantic feelings between the two of them. Nevertheless, she got what she wanted, right? So there’s really no real reason for her to keep Tsukasa as a hostage anymore. You’d think that, but they drag her with them to a nearby hotel anyways.

— Finally, after Anzai has milked the garden gnome for all of the necessary information, he learns that Tsukasa has been taken hostage. Isn’t that convenient?

— I’m laughing at Zero Nine’s proportions.

— Anzai immediately wants to go and save his girlfriend, but unfortunately, he doesn’t even know where she is. Jill and Lee also talk him down, arguing that Zero Seven won’t hurt Tsukasa. Yeah, that’s true… but that doesn’t that the people going after them won’t.

— Tsukasa tells Zero Seven that if devils drink blood, they don’t even get those dark circles around their eyes. The latter starts to freak out. Why? ‘Cause these devils can blend in with the rest of the population? But I thought she used infrared vision to tell them apart? Maybe she’s freaking out that perhaps Kikuhara is a devil, but that would be odd. I mean, why haven’t they bothered to check him for his cold body temperature? Maybe I’m just misunderstanding something here.

— Elsewhere, Sawazaki finally learns that there are moles within the police ranks. This is all old information to us. The good guys are just now catching on.

— Zero Seven tell Tsukasa to stop trying to get involved. After all, she can’t do anything. She’s not a doctor, so she can’t treat devils. She can’t fight, so she can’t protect devils. What exactly can she do? Nothing. As a result, the girl falls to her knees in despair. But uh, why hasn’t she been let go yet? She’s no longer useful as a hostage. Zero Seven and Zero Nine know that the moles going after them would more than likely kill Tsukasa too in order to keep any information from leaking out. If Zero Seven didn’t want Tsukasa to die, she should’ve released the girl a long time ago. Tsukasa also should’ve tried to leave a long time ago.

— Sure enough, we see the moles get in position to kill everyone, and that includes Tsukasa.

— Blah blah blah, help me protect muh girlfriend, but I don’t trust you! Lee can’t catch a break with Anzai. He’s helped the asshole out over and over, and he’s still getting this cold treatment.

— So finally, the guy points out Anzai’s major issue, but honestly, this is a problem for all anime characters.

— Zero Seven warns Tsukasa about a guy with a birthmark on the left side of his face. He’s apparently Zero Five, and he’d likely kill our heroine if he could. Even though they’ve only spent a short time together, Zero Seven hopes that everything works out for Tsukasa. This is why she gagged and tied the girl up, leaving her a sitting duck. Fantastic.

— Oh hey, it’s the guy with the birthmark!

— Oh okay, I guess that makes you feel a little less guilty.

— Zero Five starts grilling Tsukasa, and she has a terrible poker face. She pretty much gives him all the reasons he needs to kill her. Luckily, Zero Seven had given her a stun gun, so at least there’s that. Our heroine quickly loses Zero Six for now, but she’s still stuck in a hotel.

— She needs to call her boyfriend for help, but she doesn’t even know her boyfriend’s phone number. Sigh. These characters, man. Anyways, she ends up googling Bar Sakaki, and calling the establishment instead.

— As for Zero Seven and Zero Nine, they don’t get far. They eventually run into Zero Six and get shot at. The girl starts whining about how both humans and devils are her enemies now, so her partner starts trying to be all romantic. Again, the story kinda wants me to root for these to escape, but they’re still murderers. Maybe Zero Nine hasn’t directly taken anyone’s life, but he still aided and abetted those like Zero Seven. So y’know, fuck both of them.

— Anzai is in the middle of trying to intimidate Lee when he finally gets that phone call from Tsukasa. What had happened was Lee getting tired of Anzai’s whiny talk, so he threatened to steal Tsukasa away. He knows he can’t. The girl’s smitten with Anzai. He also knows that if he makes Anzai jealous, the latter will stop being such a lil’ bitch about his girlfriend. Uguu, I need to mamoru her, but I… I can’t hurt her! For fuck’s sake, get your shit together.

— Here’s Johnny!

— Even though Zero Five has found her, our heroine just has to sit tight and kill some time. After all, she has two devils jumping across rooftops for her.

— Thankfully, the bad guy is a stereotypical bad guy, so he is more than happy to blabber on and on about his organization, his motivations, so on and so forth. Yes, yes, just keep talking.

— By the way, Zero Five’s motivations are particularly dumb. He kills devils, because he feels sorry for them. That’s right. He sees how much they suffer within this cruel society, so gosh, let’s just off them. That’s retarded.

— Anyways, Tsukasa’s saviors arrive just in time to see her get shot at. The bullet doesn’t hit her, though. It never, ever does. We simply see her falling dramatically out the window in slow motion.

— Then after Anzai sees a bizarre flashback — the guy talking to the younger Anzai looks and sounds like an older version of him so… dad?! — he transforms in an instant and barely manages to save Tsukasa. At least the episode isn’t ending on a cheap cliffhanger, I guess.

Last week’s action-packed episode must have really put a strain on Satelight’s budget, because half of this week’s episode is all about a goddamn hotpot. Lest you think I’m joking, read on.

— An entire month has passed since we last spent time with Ritsu and his gang. Apparently, has been sleeping ever since she went nuts on the city. As a result, everyone has just been biding their time. Kotaro has side missions to keep himself entertained, but I have no clue what everyone else has been doing to keep themselves busy. Apparently, Shogo has a part-time job, but I’m having a hard time understanding the point of having a job in this fake universe.

— Also, the city still hasn’t recovered from Mu’s destruction. Since she’s sleeping, the NPCs have to do all of the work, and they work about as fast as you can reasonably expect them to.

— Speaking of Kotaro’s side missions, he’s been masquerading as Rescue Man. He’s supposed to be enjoying this hot pot with the rest of his friends, but duty calls. People can make odd requests on the internet, and before they know it, Rescue Man will be there for the, uh, rescue. There are no exceptions! Even if you’re just an NPC, you too will be helped!

— I do like the fact that Shogo openly drinks beer in the clubroom. After all, he’s an adult in the real world, right?

— We get brief glimpses of the Musicians every now and then, but they never have much to add. They’re also sitting around, but instead of indulging in hot pot, they just gripe about the good guys. Thorn will eventually show up and tell everyone that Mu will be just fine. As a result, they’ll soon have business to take care of later. Cool, I guess? But right now, it’s still all about that damn hot pot.

— Like I said, more hot pot.

— More and more hot pot talk.

— By the way, I know nothing about Izuru. He just kinda showed up one day, and now he’s an official member of the group. The game probably needs two seasons worth of episodes to properly tell its story, but it only had the budget for one.

— Also, Marie drops by the club often even though she’s not “woke.” She’s not even a member of the club. She just drops by because… well, the characters seem to hint at the fact that she likes Ritsu. We did see him instinctively try and rescue her in the very first episode. He also invited her out to the water park. I guess she plays the role of the girl who has the unrequited love for the main character. This seems to be a thing now in JRPGs. Tokyo Xanadu is no different. The childhood friend pretty much loves Kou, a.k.a. Tokyo Xanadu’s main character, but like Japanese heroes, he’s a dense asshole. But back to Marie, she never sticks around long, especially if Ritsu’s not there. We live in the age of smartphones, though. If she wants to meet up with him, why not just ask him whether or not he’s going to be at the club? Nah, that would make too much sense.

— I thought that Naruko would finally have something important to tell us, but no, they simply bought meat for the hot pot. Sigh.

— Don’t let Chie hear this.

— We’re still talking about food, by the way.

— …nah.

— Shogo tries to break up the hot pot circlejerk to talk about all-important plot information, but no, we can’t have that. Our attention boomerangs right back to the hot pot when Aria freaks out at Suzuna dumping udon noodles into the simmering pot. Sigh.

— Finally, after the episode is half over, we pay Ritsu a visit in bizarro land.

— He walks himself into a wasteland, then he walks himself into an abandoned conference room. It’s not exactly the most imaginative dream sequence.

— Eventually, he sinks into a body of water, then finds himself back at his original starting point. Mu walks up to him, and they engage in a conversation but not really. He doesn’t quite understand her, and she definitely doesn’t understand him.

— Again, Mu wants to make everyone happy, but she doesn’t even understand what happiness is. Ritsu tries to explain it to her, but he uses somewhat big words. He doesn’t realize that he has to dumb things down for her.

— What I find more perplexing is the fact that these two are conversing as if they know each other well. But from my perspective — the perspective of watching this shoddy adaptation — I don’t think they’ve ever formally introduced themselves to each other. Nevertheless, she’s trying to ask him for advice.

— Happiness is happiness, right? Yes and no? But then again, what if Mu had just taken a simpler approach? What if she just blasted their brains with dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, and endorphins?

— Plus, this shared dream doesn’t like a good idea at all. She wants to make everyone happy, but why do they have to be happy together? Because she insists on everyone being happy together, compromises need to be made. So no matter what age or sex you are, you ending being a stupid high school student. Obviously, however — obvious to us, but not to Mu — everyone has different ideas of what would make them happy. Maybe someone’s idea of happiness is reliving their high school days over and over. But personally speaking, I’d probably be happiest pretending to be a space explorer, blasting off from one alien planet to the next. Maybe Mu’s grip on these individuals wouldn’t be so tenuous had she crafted individual false realities for each and every single one of them. Then again, I’ve been told that she’s both dumb and being misled so… yeah, whatever.

— Meanwhile, midway through this fruitless conversation with Mu, Ritsu suddenly have visions of his real world counterpart. It’s all kinda vague, but my theory for now is that maybe he’s responsible for this world. Maybe he’s even responsible for Mu. Eh, I dunno… something about his real world counterpart claiming that happiness is just a state of mind just makes me think that maybe this is all his fault.

— Eventually, Ritsu comes to a realization, but he won’t tell us what said realization is. He wants to talk to Mu about it first. Unfortunately, she’s already come to the conclusion that she just needs to double her efforts. Welp.

— Mu eventually wakes up with Thorn right beside her. The latter tells the idol that people just need to hear more of her crappy J-pop songs. That doesn’t make me happy at all.

— After Thorn leaves, Mu finds herself oddly in tears. Uh oh, looks like someone isn’t happy!

— Anyways, Ritsu finally returns to the club and guess what? He’s bought more ingredients for the hot pot. Ah, for fuck’s sake…

— Wait a minute? When the hell did this guy defect to the Go-Home Club? This adaptation, man.

— Kotaro suddenly bursts into the room and tells everyone that something bad is gonna happen. On that cue, Ritsu tells his friends that it’s time for them to stop stuffing themselves silly with food and finally do something. After all, we really only have five episodes left. Shoddy adaptation or not, Caligula must have been a short JRPG.

— I hear the PS4 remaster adds a lot of extra content, but this also seems to be another trend lately. A lot of mediocre Vita JRPGs are getting ported to the PS4 with extra content, but I’m not sure if that justifies buying the game again at the same price.

We know that Tetsuzou will lose his life. The only question is if Retar will also survive. 

— I feel like this should be an easy fight with Shiraishi’s help, but unfortunately, the guy can barely handle a dog on his own.

— Shiraishi finally gets his hands on a rifle, but Tanigaki somehow manages to take Asirpa hostage. I wish we could’ve seen how that happened. I guess he just snuck up on her.

— Tanigaki drags Asirpa away so that she doesn’t have to see her partners-in-crime die at Tetsuzou’s hands. In the meantime, boner guy ties Sugimoto and Shiraishi up. He conveniently forgets, however, that Shiraishi is the notorious Escape King, so our heroes quickly free themselves easily… within seconds of being tied up, too.

— Tanigaki can’t even get far without walking right into a trap. Asirpa could’ve just left him behind, but she’s too kind. She’s willing to help the guy out even though he’s after Retar. Even if she can forgive this, there’s still no reason to assume that he’s a good person.

— There’s apparently no antidote for the poison, so she ends up just having to carve the affected chunk of flesh out of Tanigaki’s leg. Brutal. He doesn’t even get painkillers to cope with the pain. Luckily, they have a lot of snow around them to keep the swelling down.

— Because she stuck around to help the soldier, it’s Tetsuzou’s turn to take Asirpa hostage. Welp. Personally, I would’ve run. I wouldn’t have helped Tanigaki, but I guess she’s a better person than me.

— Why are these guys so confident that Retar is the last wolf? I’m especially confused that Asirpa believes this, because didn’t he leave her to specifically live with his own kind?

— Well, I obviously hope the wolf won’t die. We’ll see what happens, though.

— A new challenger has appeared! I guess Japanese wolves aren’t extinct after all.

— Maybe what they meant was that he’s the last silver wolf in all of Japan or something, but whatever. This isn’t really that important in the grand scheme of things.

— Still, I’m surprised to see Tetsuzou go down within the first third of the episode. I assumed that it would take all episode for the good guys to overcome the beastly hunter. After all that talk about his boner, you’d think it would put up a better fight.

— Well, doesn’t this just make your heart melt?

— Oh hey, look at all of Retar’s babies. The wolf has been keeping itself quite busy ever since it stopped living with Asirpa. I’m kinda surprised that Retar has never taken the girl to see his family and vice versa.

— Now she remembers why Retar left her in the first place?

— I don’t really get the sad music being played here. Is it supposed to be a tragedy that Tetsuzou died or something? I have no sympathy whatsoever for the guy. He was a nasty man who hunted just for the thrill of it. I don’t have anything against hunting for survival, but the man clearly did not need anything from Retar.

— Our heroes end up taking Tanigaki and the dog all the way back to her village. I say “all the way back,” but I really have no grasp of the distances between all these locations. It actually feels kinda odd to me that the entire story seems to be unfolding within such small radius.

— According to Asirpa, the shiba wouldn’t abandon its owner unless they take him with them. They really should just adopt the dog.

— It wouldn’t be a Golden Kamuy episode without a stew. Granted, the world around them is blanketed in snow, so there really isn’t any better option than yet another damn meat stew.

— Yes, Sugimoto, tell us how delicious the food is.

— I-is she actually trying to pull a reverse psychology on miso?

— Man, that bear is so cute. Too bad the village will kill it in two years.

— The Ainu hang slices of salmon off of a tree until it freezes, so when they finally get aroudn to eating it, the flesh melts in their mouths. I love salmon, but I dunno if I’d enjoy that mouthfeel.

— I guess Tetsuzou died early so that we can learn more about Ainu history/folklore. The biggest revelation here is that the hidden cache of Ainu gold might actually bigger than we had initially believed.

— You really can’t get too greedy, or you’ll just shoot yourself in the foot. A ton of gold sounds cool, but how would you transport it? How would you trade all of it without alerting people’s suspicions?

— Tanigaki has regained consciousness, so we now get some backstory on Tsurumi and the 7th Division. Basically, everything is the government’s fault. Tsurumi is still an unhinged, cruel bastard, but his bitterness is justified to a certain extent. Only a certain extent, though. Unfortunately, he doesn’t just want justice for his fallen soldiers. He also wants power. He wants to install a military dictatorship with himself at the very top. As flawed as the current government might be, I doubt the country would fare much better under Tsurumi.

— Plus, he doesn’t even have the people on his side. That’s why he needs the hidden Ainu gold so badly. He literally needs a pie in the sky scheme to work out in fund his insurrection. Even if he manages to overthrow the government, his rule wouldn’t likely be very stable. Plus, do you really want these arms dealers to have all the money?

— Yeah, fuck his burden.

— Our hero assures Shiraishi that he’s not gonna quit now. But honestly, if there really is that much gold, Sugimoto doesn’t need all of it. He just needs enough to fulfill his promise to his former partner. He could easily leave the rest to the dogs. Asirpa doesn’t really want the gold either. The only person who seems to be interested in being wealthy is Shiraishi — not that there’s anything wrong with that.

— Uh, okay.

— Towards the end of the episode, we get to see what Hijikata has been up to. Maybe he’ll finally meet Sugimoto, since I don’t believe those two even know that the other person exists.

— That’s… interesting.

— Unfortunately, Shiraishi carelessly runs into Ushiyama at a brothel. The latter is so fearsome that he can throw a horse to the ground with just one hand. As his last resort, Shiraishi sics some of the 7th Division soldiers on Ushiyama, and that’s where our episode finally comes to an end. But you can probably safely assume that the dude will easily survive this encounter somehow. Maybe their bullets will all bounce off his weird forehead.

This show has three recurring subplots: cooking food, figuring out which ayakashi had saved her from starvation when she was abandoned by her mother, and last but not least, getting herself into trouble so that one of the show’s many bishies can save her. This episode is no different.

— As a reminder, Aoi has been requested to cook for royalty. Even though her restaurant has only been popular for a week, her reputation has reached the Imperial Court. I guess news travel fast in the hidden realm.

— Cats are cute. I like cats. I just wish they had used actual cat sounds for these cat ayakashi. Instead, you have a bunch of voice actors squealing into the mic and pretending to be a cat, and it’s cringey as fuck to listen to.

— Every bishie has a good side, and Byakuya is no different. Predictably enough, he likes these cats. Too bad this show is tropey as all hell, so he’s also embarrassed to be seen doting on the cute ayakashi. Dude, pet those animals and be proud. Ain’t no shame in it.

— I’m familiar with the inugami (thanks Shin Megami Tensei!), but I’ve never seen a tube cat before.

— These poor cats have no hind legs, so they’re kinda just like… cat-shaped sperm.

— Apparently, Aoi’s grandfather used to blackmail Byakuya. That’s one more piece of evidence for the “Shiro was an asshole” column.

— Of course, our heroine isn’t going to blackmail the guy. She’s just going to ask Byakuya all about the royal couple.

— Still, you’d think said royal couple would’ve sent over a list of their likes and dislikes when they made the request for Aoi. I mean, what did the wife do? Did she simply exclaim, “I wanna eat her food,” then left it at that?

— The wife was born in the early Showa period? That would make her pretty old, wouldn’t it? Or did I forget some crucial fact like how people age slower her or something?

— Aoi hears that the couple used to dine at Western-style restaurants, so she decides to make them beef stew or fried cutlet? Really? That’s so homey.

— Don’t get me wrong, though. There’s nothing wrong with beef stew. In fact, I love to make it once a month with my crock pot. But that’s the thing: anyone can make beef stew. You don’t go out to a restaurant to eat beef stew! You don’t request a chef to come all the way out to the Imperial Court to make beef stew!

— Ginji always magically provides Aoi with all the ingredients she needs. If he doesn’t have them on hand, he knows exactly where to get them. It’s almost kinda creepy how he’s always lurking around the corner, just waiting to spring into action.

— There’s a “foreign delicacy market” for what Aoi needs. Do you think they would carry Twinkies?

— Odanna doesn’t want Aoi to go alone, because obviously, it’s dangerous for her. That’s not an exaggeration either. This is not a “stop being such an overprotective boyfriend” situation. When certain ayakashi realize that Aoi is human, they literally want to eat her. So yeah, I actually understand Odanna’s position. He’s busy with a important meeting tomorrow, so if she goes alone, he can’t keep her, y’know, alive.

— Nevertheless, our heroine wants to go tomorrow! She just has to!!! Like… why? Can’t it wait? Does she really need to shop tomorrow or the whole royal dinner is going to go down in flames? Or is this just another cause of Aoi being far too careless?

— It’s actually kinda infuriating how flippant she is about this. This is not her world. This is not her people. She doesn’t quite understand that her life is at stake. Aoi is annoyingly stupid.

— Unfortunately, Odanna is not too bright himself. When she compares him to her late grandfather, the guy loses his nerve. Uguu, don’t compare me to a dead, old human! Pa-the-tic.

— This is hilarious. Odanna makes a very reasonable suggestion: why not just let Ginji get the ingredients by himself? After all, he’s already used to doing this for Aoi. But no, our heroine insists that she must get to choose the ingredients herself! It’s a special dinner, so it’s only special if she literally gropes each ingredient with her bare hands!

— Aoi then reveals her latest trick: “Look, if you let me risk my life, I’ll give you this bento.” I… I can’t even, man.

— In the end, he gives her a necklace with a special pendant that will supposedly protect her. Naturally, he has to put it on her from the front… so they can get all close and steamy… dokidoki…

— He also tells her to stay by Ginji’s side at all times. Do it. Make sure you goddamn do it! Never go anywhere alone! Just watch… she’ll ignore said advice.

— What frustrates me is that nobody’s willing to be the bad cop. No one ever really yells at Aoi when she fucks up. Even when Byakuya summoned her to talk about the restaurant’s poor finances, he didn’t really yell at her. He just reminded the girl that she would have to marry Odanna if her eatery kept doing poorly. Aoi can get herself into all sorts of trouble, and all these bishies will do is smile at her. People only learn from their mistakes if there are consequences. I bet they did the same thing with Shiro, too. Oh, they’ll complain about him now, but they were probably gutless in front of him.

— Oh look, another golden opportunity for a dokidoki moment. Our dear girl is deathly afraid of thunder and lightning, and this forces her right into Odanna’s arms. I like how in these stories, the girl will always have one major phobia that disarms her.

— Anyways, the story uses this situation to tease us with the whole “Is Odanna the one who helped Aoi back then?” Gosh, I dunno! Is it? Isn’t this mystery just so delicious?! It’s stupid, though. ‘Cause I dunno about the hidden realm, but I bet it’s got plenty of hours in a day! Maybe even twenty-four hours! And in one of those hours, Aoi could’ve just easily been like, “Hey, when I was a kid, I almost died, but this ayakashi saved me — you wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, wouldja?” Bam, done, finito, we can thus move onto a different subplot. But no, I bet you anything that the author is content to dangle this one goddamn subplot in front of us for the rest of the series. As a result, every recent episode has Aoi going “Uguu, is… is he the one?” Fucking ask him, dude! Move your mouth! Vibrate those vocal cords!

— Speaking of just coming out and asking the guy…

Uh huh… go on…

Why would you stop?! WHY WOULD YOU STOP?! What is wrong with you?!

— Oh yeah, my mom used to do this, too. Except it wasn’t just carbonated water. She used this carbonated coconut soda.

— I have a hard time believing that Odanna’s “overprotectiveness” honestly reminds her of her grandfather considering how he put his own granddaughter up as collateral.

— “He doesn’t want me to be eaten, so he’s treating me like a child!” I’m rolling my eyes so hard right now. Aoi literally thinks she’s just going down to the local Whole Foods or some shit. C’mon, what’s the big deal! I’m just buying groceries!

— Byakuya wants to know why Odanna gave her permission, but we already know. Bribed by a bento, my guy, bribed by a goddamn bento…

— “She was so serious! Dude, you don’t even know!” Yeah, whatever you wanna say to save face.

— Then we slow fade from the stern-looking Odanna to this dumb-looking face. I’m laughing my ass off right now.

— Oh shit, I must be on drugs, ’cause I’m tripping out.

— The boisterous market in the eastern land looks just the same as every other boisterous market in anime.

— Is it that much of a hassle to just send Aoi back to the human world in order to procure the ingredients that she needs? Odanna already knows that she’d return.

— So just because Ginji likes curry, she can’t help but wonder if he’s the one! Gimme a break.

— Later that day, Aoi sees this ayakashi who is literally glowing in the middle of the street. The mysterious girl suddenly smiles and floats away. Guess what happens next. Go on, guess. If you guessed “she will carelessly leave Ginji’s side and get herself in trouble,” congrats!

— This time, however, the story acts as though Aoi couldn’t help herself. Her legs just moved on her own outta magic. Gosh, I guess we can’t lay all the blame on the girl!

— When our heroine recovers her senses, she finds herself locked in a storeroom. She’s missing Odanna’s necklace. So much for its supposed protective powers.

— A disembodied voice also tells the girl that she’s trapped here for the next two days, because they don’t want her to cook for the royal couple. Two days? So she could’ve waited a day and gone shopping with Odanna instead? That’s it! I’m putting all the blame right back on the girl!

— Oh hey, she’s stuck in a dark space, and it’s storming outside. Time to freak out.

I feel the same way about this post. I have all these shows to watch when all I really want to do is play games (Hinamatsuri being the sole exception). Anyways, I haven’t dropped Toji no Miko. I am, however, feeling very lazy at the moment, so I’ll just catch up next week. As for Rokuhoudou Yotsuiro Biyori, ehhhhhhhh…

3D Kanojo Real Girl Ep. 8

What an exhausting episode. Yuto likes Sumie, but Sumie likes Hikari. Arisa is half-heartedly interested in Mitsuya, but Mitsuya is half-heartedly interested in Iroha. Meanwhile, Iroha is jealous about Sumie, and Hikari remains painfully oblivious. Unless you spell every social situation out for him, he won’t understand anything. On the one hand, we can’t expect our partners to read our minds. On the other hand, Hikari is truly, truly that dumb. He can’t even grasp the basics of social interactions, much less the complexity of an actual romantic relationship. Anyways, I despise all of it. I absolutely despise this entire episode, because even Iroha has gotten annoying to deal with. Characters like Sumie are especially unbearable, however, because they’re always crying or pitying themselves. Worst of all, she claims that she’s in love with Hikari, and she had to let Iroha know. Absolutely had to. She couldn’t keep quiet any longer, because her feels, man. Her feels. I hate it when people toss the word “love” around so carelessly. It’s so goddamn irresponsible. She barely even knows him!

Full Metal Panic! Invisible Victory Ep. 5

In a lot of ways, this series is easier for me to watch now. I already knew ahead of time that Sagara would lose Chidori to Leonard, but I was still dreading it. As a result, I didn’t have all that much fun watching the first four episodes. It’s just unpleasant to see bad things happen to characters you like, y’know? I’m kinda dreading DARLING in the FRANXX right now for the same reason. Anyways, with Chidori somewhat out of the picture, I can breathe a sigh of relief and watch Sagara do his thing. Obviously, he’s doing everything he can to save her, but in the meantime, we also finally get to escape the confines of suburban Japan. Sagara currently finds himself in Namsac, a rather lawless land, and as you’ll soon see, this story won’t win any awards for creativity. Our hero is here for information, but he’ll only get it if he participates in a brutal, coliseum-style sport. This sort of thing seems to happen all the time, doesn’t it? Thor: Ragnarok is the most recent example that comes to mind. The only difference here is that Sagara has to fight with AS units, but it’s all the same functionally.

Anyways, Nami is cute, but uh… don’t expect much from her character. She’s just a Chidori replacement for this arc. That means being a Whispered, having absurdly amazing programming skills, and all that jazz. The biggest question here is whether or not Sagara can truly keep anyone safe. We all know he can beat up a bunch of thugs, but Amalgam is a whole different story.

Hinamatsuri Ep. 7

Good as always. Not much else to add.

Hisone to Maso-tan Ep. 6

I didn’t care too much for the episode. The resolution to Eru’s conflict feels too simple and straightforward. Like, I get what the show is trying to accomplish. She faces an upward hill all because of her gender, and it’s unfair. It’s actually kinda annoying how the girls often have to shut up and deal with a lot of their mistreatment. for instance, that pervy designer is actually infuriating. He constantly makes Hisone feel uncomfortable, but shhh, it’s okay because it’s supposed to be humor! Anyways, my point is that the story devotes so little time to Eru’s backstory, and as a result, her bitterness and anguish still remain relatively underdeveloped. I don’t feel all that connected to the character even though I should sympathize with her. This is then followed by by a predictable sequence of events in which Norma, Eru’s dragon, nearly dies as a consequence of trying to save her life but still forcing itself to hide its true form. The girl eventually and predictably swallows her pride within a matter of minutes and accepts her partner. The story beats here are too generic for its shiny, dragon-themed skin to make a difference. The story simply wants its audience to accept the happy ending, but I don’t feel as though everything has been resolved. For instance, it’s not as though Eru has really addressed her feelings of resentment — resentment not towards Norma, but the gender discrimination that they all face. After all, this dark cloud is what made her reject her dragon in the first place. I feel as though it’s being swept under the rug just because she now openly loves Norma.

It’s also kinda weird that the dragons are all male.

Shokugeki no Soma S3 Ep. 19

Basically, most of Yukihira’s friends got expelled. In order to save them, the sole survivors will have to challenge the Elite 10 for their seats in, well, a shokugeki. Of course, Azami isn’t going to just agree to this. After all, there’s nothing in it for him. That’s when Yukihira’s dad suddenly shows up out of nowhere and saves the day. He can do this, because both Azami and Erina oddly have a crush on him. I couldn’t help but laugh at how the anime tried to make Saiba look like such a badass. His long flowing hair, his not-too-wild stubble, and his sweet blouson. But I digress. Saiba proposes that they all compete in a Regiment de Cuisine. Ooh, that sounds fancy! What is it? It’s actually just a team shokugeki. So what is Saiba offering to get Azami to agree to the challenge? Himself, of course. If Yukihira’s team loses, then he will close down his diner and join Central. It’s as simple as that.

I’m always amused when I see second-tier characters like Megumi exclaim that she’s going to try her best for everyone’s sake. She’s a sweet girl, but bless her heart, she will always lose in the middle rounds or so. On the other hand, Yukihira and Erina can’t lose. It’s not because Saiba is finally involved. It’s not even because their friends will be expelled if they don’t win. Rather, they’ll win simply because they’re the main characters. This anime doesn’t exist to subvert our expectations. It’s certainly isn’t going to make its main character drop of out school, go on a personal journey of growth, and return stronger than ever. That’s also tropey, but simultaneously a little too daring for something like Shokugeki no Soma. As a result, we must begrudgingly accept that it’s not about who wins or loses. Rather, it’s all about the journey. It’s also about the friends that we make along the way. Most of all, it’s about the number of girls that we can strip naked with just one taste of our food and our food alone.

Like father, like son.

Also, hachis parmentier sounds so goddamn fancy, but it’s really just a French take on the humble shepherd’s pie (I guess cottage pie would be more accurate since we’re sticking with beef). I don’t know which came first, but it’s not really important. What’s important is having our heroes hone their teamwork, so not only do they gotta make this dish in a short amount of time, they’re not allowed to speak to each other either. I think both Top Chef and Hell’s Kitchen have forced their contestants to go through a challenge like this.

Tokyo Ghoul:re Ep. 8

God… I’m starting to dislike this sequel as much as I disliked Root A.

Too many characters when the Ken/Haise is the only person that I remotely care about. Most of all, too many dumb moments.

W-what is this? C’mon, what is this? May the gods have mercy on our souls.