Yo, you’re not allowed to pick one of the girls! This is supposed to be a harem!

Current Standings

Grisaia no Kajitsu: 44+4 = 48 points
Trinity Seven: 35+5+1 = 41 points
Ushinawareta Mirai no Motomete: 34+3 = 37 points
Madan no Ou to Vanadis: 18+1 = 19 points
Daitoshokan no Hitsujikai: 11+1+1 = 13 points

Madan no Ou to Vanadis and Daitoshokan no Hitsujikai both got the same number of votes in last week’s poll, so I’ll personally break the tie. To be honest, however, it doesn’t really matter. I think the bottom three shows are pretty much locked in place. On the other hand, Trinity Seven will likely make its way to the top of the trash heap by the end of the season.

Daitoshokan no Hitsujikai Ep. 10

Quick Thoughts:

Remember how it turned out that Nagi is really Kyotaro’s imouto? Well, it’s okay! You don’t have to worry about any potential birth defects, because she’s just a step-sister. So nothing immoral here, haha! They’re not really related, so the clam jam is still good to go! The two of them are just related in the symbolic and thus more meaningful way! In fact, they only spent like three months together a long time ago! Nevertheless, the girl is deeply in love with Kyotaro anyway, and that’s because he had saved her from… from what? Evil, rapey servants? Ah well, the details aren’t terribly important. So she moves into Kyotaro’s apartment, and the harem lead doesn’t put up much of a fight because he must secretly enjoy it or something. After all, she takes to cooking cup o’noodles for the guy, and hangs her wet underwear all over the place. If harem anime has taught me anything, this is what you call living the high life. Who doesn’t like wet underwear in their face?

All of a sudden, Tsugumi shows up and asks if the harem lead will be her boyfriend. Gasp! But it’s just pretend, y’see. Uh-huh. She just wants to pretend to have a boyfriend, because this will make her sick imouto happy. Oh well. The imouto is much smarter than Tsugumi, so she knows it’s all just a lie. But she plays along, because she also knows that her big sis is in love with Kyotaro. Shit hits the fan, however, when both Tsugumi and her imouto drop by Kyotaro’s apartment. They run into Nagi, and the sickly imouto demands to know who Nagi is! Nagi had the perfect opportunity to play it cool. After all, doesn’t she want Kyotaro to hook up with one of his haremettes? Doing so would disqualify him from becoming a Shepherd. Nevertheless, Nagi makes trouble for the harem lead, because this is payback for the previous night when Kyotaro had locked her out. As a result, the sick imouto gets so worked up over her own sister’s love life that she ends up having to go right back to the hospital. Talk about dramatic.

The harem lead then has to beg Nagi to use her powers in order to save the imouto. I don’t know why Nagi has to cop such an attitude about this. It’s kind of her fault, after all. She was so desperate to make a mess of the situation, so she has a hand in making the imouto collapse. And hell, even if it wasn’t her fault, shouldn’t she leap at the opportunity to save a life? In any case, the truth is now out of the bag. Tsugumi knows that Kyotaro is training to become a Shepherd. Naturally, Kyotaro thinks that the girl will pull away from him, but she surprises him by confessing her love! Wow! Unfortunately, all is not swell, because when everyone returns to the clubroom the next day, it has been taken over by… disgusting boys! Ugh, my harem! This must be a dastardly scheme by that evil, lesbian vice student council president! Who else would do such a thing?!

Elsewhere, Senri and Kana are having a sleepover or something, but who cares about them?

The Hareming:

Grisaia no Kajitsu Ep. 11

Quick Thoughts:

Good lord, this is boring. Lord of the Flies, this is not. Rather, it’s just a bunch of perfunctory survival scenes in the wilderness accompanied by Amane’s dry and emotionless narration. You’ll never forget that taste of dog meat? Well, you coulda fooled me with that lifeless performance. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves! And yes, dog meat is involved! My point is, I just never really got the sense that everything was as desperate and fragile as Amane claimed them to be. To compound matters, the story wasted too much time on a potential romance between Amane and Kazuki and not enough on the entire group’s deteriorating mental state. It’s like a bunch of dying girls in the woods wasn’t tragic enough. We have to work in this relationship that never was to really drive home the sadness. But even when the story tried to focus on the precariousness of the situation, it ended feeling super forced. What ultimately got me, however, was how the story nevertheless ends up feeling skeevy despite it subject matter.

Case in point, every time the girls had to sterilize this girl’s wounds, they also had to strip her clothes off just enough so that the viewers can get an eyeful of the girl’s bra and panties. Needless to say, the camera was always angled perfectly for these occasions. In another example, an injured girl ended up soiling herself because she obviously can’t go to the bathroom when she can’t even walk. In any other medium, I wouldn’t think twice about this. In anime, a.k.a. the very same medium where female characters seem to piss themselves on a regular basis for the audience’s delight, I’m a little wary. And to top it all off, this show really has some fucked up obsession with murdering cute, defenseless animals. First, it was a cat. Now, it’s a fucking puppy. Why did a basketball team on a trip even bring a puppy with them in the first place? Nevertheless, we got to stare deep into the puppy’s vacant eyes as Kazuki, well, bashed its eyes out. Woo.

I can’t wait till the girls start eating in each other in next week’s episode.

P.S. Wasn’t Kazuki just the smartest girl ever?! She turned ten carrots… into eleven!!! Wow!

The Hareming:

Madan no Ou to Vanadis Ep. 11

Quick Thoughts:

– An assassin tries to end Tigre’s life… but she has one critical weakness: the flaw of being a woman! Yeah, that’s right. All you have to do is grope an assassin’s breasts until she goes away. It’s so easy! Tigre then stares stupidly at his hand and goes right back to sleep.

– Guess what? Regin, the blonde girl that Tigre had saved a few episodes ago, is really the crown prince of Brune! Well, more like crown princess. She disguised herself as a prince, because… ah, it’s a long, boring story, and frankly, I just don’t give a damn. All you need to know is that even though Regin is really royalty, she and Tigre still used to be childhood friends! Looking good as always, Harem Lord Tigre!

– Why does Regin trust Tigre so much? ‘Cause she asked him to bathe her, and he didn’t take the opportunity to rape her! Wow! You mean there are men out there who can control themselves?!

– Anyway, Tigre has to help Regin prove that she’s royalty, so they’re headed for some shitty cave… I think. The details are fuzzy when you just don’t care. Along the way, they run into the bad guys, because obviously, the bad guys want both the throne and the kingdom to themselves.

– This is the ugliest dragon I’ve ever seen.

– Still, animal cruelty seems to be the recurring theme of the season. These poor dragons didn’t know any better. They’re just animals. Oh well.

– The best part about this episode? A good chunk of it is devoted to an epic battle between the two Vanadis maidens and the enemy’s dragons. As a result, you’d think Satelight would at least shell out for the occasion, but nuh-uh. Oh well. what can you expect from an harem anime that can’t even draw decent-looking breasts? Anyway, you can check out the bad animation below.

The Hareming:

Trinity Seven Ep. 10

Quick Thoughts:

– As you might recall, Arata became the demon lord at the end of last week’s episode. But it’s okay! Any sort of action renders Trinity Seven highly unstable. As such, it wants to revert back to its safest, most inert form: having everyone engage in a conversation in a tiny room! You’ll see what I mean in a bit. But first…

– …let’s tear off these girls’ clothes! Just demon lord things…

– So how do we save Arata from himself? Just have Mira act all tsundere. Yep, a demon lord is that easily defeated. Shit, we’re barely four minutes into the episode, and Arata has already reverted back to normal. Like I’ve said, any sort of action or potential points of interest is inherently unstable and cannot maintain its form for very long.

– Quality!

– Arata then gains Ilya as a haremette.

Ho-hum.

– More quality!

– It turns out Hijiri is well and alive in this world. Not only that, she intends to kill her own cousin, because he is standing in the way of her destroying this world. Okay then.

– Ah yes, we’ve finally returned to the safe confines of a tiny room. Nothing quite encapsulates the Trinity Seven experience like trapping yourself in a small area and vomiting exposition to the audience. But according to my Twitter feed, this show somehow has fans.

– S-s-s-super quality!

– There’s not much else to say about the episode. Naturally, Hijiri is a demon lord as well. After his haremettes travel across great distances in an instant just to save him, Arata learns that his own school is about to be destroyed. Oh well.

– You said it, buddy.

The Hareming:

Ushinawareta Mirai wo Motomete Ep. 11

Quick Thoughts:

– If Yui can manage to save Kaori, something potentially horrible will happen to her. Oh no! Will we have to choose between the haremette? But they’re both so terrible! The only way to win this game is to not play.

– In other words, Yui’s now conflicted about her mission, because she’s in love with her father figure. Blech.

– Sou’s now all sad about Yui, Yui’s all sad because she’s confused, Kaori’s always sad, and hell, let’s just Airi into the mix as well! We’re all fucking sad!

– You know an anime’s bad when it can’t even make a cat look cute.

– This rest of this timeline, however, veers drastically off course… much like that bus! Heeeeyo!

…

…bah.

– Anyway, Yui ends up skipping the rest of her classes on the 13th, i.e. the eve of the accident. Sou ends up skipping class too just to chase after her. They end up going on what is basically a date.

– By the end of the day, it’s just the two of them alone on that hill. Normally, the entire group would be here, and Kaori would confess to the harem lead by the end of the night, buuuuut…

– Yui tries one last time to convince Sou to respond to Kaori’s feelings. She thinks that’s the key to unraveling this unending time loop.

– But when the day of the accident comes, Sou not only rejects Kaori’s feelings, he goes and confesses to Yui! That’s just great. in this timeline, he knows her for a total of two goddamn weeks, and yet, he’s in love. Anyway, she then confesses to him! That bus then arrives annnnnnnnnd…

– Aw, nobody died!

– But a-ha! Nobody died. As a result, Yui has done her job. Yes, Sou ends up being in love with her, but hey, she was only sent back in time to save Kaori! All of the other stuff is none of her concern!

– As a result, the girl fades from existence and everyone’s memories… except maybe Nagisa’s? Ah well. Next week’s episode will be the last episode, and I’m pretty sure Yui will worm her way back into our existence somehow. Man, I can’t wait to see how that happens!

The Hareming:

Like usual, no real fanservice in this week’s episode.

Week 11’s Poll