Review

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Boruto: Naruto Next Generations - Episode 70 [Review]

Team 5 takes center stage this week as Metal once again finds himself at the mercy of his pervasive anxiety. Upon discovering that his son is using a phony amulet to keep his nervousness in check, Rock Lee decides to put Metal's Eight Inner Gates training on hold. Hoping to get some pointers from the master, Metal, Denki, and Iwabe assist Guy in giving a demonstration to Shino's new class at the Academy, only to have Metal's anxiety mess things up once again. In an effort to help Metal get a handle on his anxiety, his father decides to try immersion therapy and challenges him to a match—one that will take place in front of the same group of Academy students from earlier. To keep things fair, Lee agrees to admit defeat if Metal is able to land a single hit. With his anxiety in overdrive, Metal initially makes a number of mistakes and once again embarrasses himself in front of the audience. However, after incurring a few blows and being laughed at by his younger peers, Metal is able to own his embarrassment, open the First Gate, and hit his father with a Leaf Hurricane. However, Metal's most prominent quirk isn't about to go away overnight, and by episode's end, he's returned to his usual state of perpetual (comical) anxiety.

Although the lesson Metal is being set up to learn is clearly spelled out within the first minute of the episode, the story does a good job of chronicling the younger Lee's path to anxiety relief. Sure, Metal's problem is still played for laughs, but the episode is careful to never go overboard with this, opting instead to present a semi-realistic picture of anxiety in an adolescent. Spending time with the disabled Guy is a creative and narratively appropriate way to teach Metal that accepting oneself—even the parts that make life difficult—is key to dispelling self-doubt. Sure enough, the “anxiety-fu” he cobbles together makes his attacks unpredictable and hard-hitting (much like Lee's Drunken Fist), enabling him to best his far more experienced father in combat.

While it doesn't really make sense that Guy's disability is the only physical injury no one in this world is able to heal—heck, Naruto cured Kakashi's blindness, and Tsunade put herself back together after being sliced in half—keeping him disabled serves as a reminder of the war's consequences and provides the audience with a positive role model. (Though it is weird his leg is in a cast all these years later instead of a brace.) Despite one of his legs being out of commission, Guy is still able to fight—he's just adapted his fighting style to accommodate his limitations and has grown stronger in other ways. True to life, however, things like stairs still pose a challenge for him. In works of fiction, magical cures too often erase representation for disabled persons, so it's nice to see the Naruto-verse stick to its guns in this area.

Well-paced, uplifting, and intermittently amusing, Metal's tale is one of the show's best side stories in recent memory. Not only does the episode present a practical message, it also features enough action to please viewers who are only here for the combat. A far cry from Cho-Cho's three-week turn in the spotlight, episode 70 makes for an all-around diverting installment.

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Overlord III - Episode 7 [Review]

Last week we learned about a bunch of freelance adventurers who had been hired to raid a newly-discovered tomb. This episode confirms that the so-called tomb is indeed Nazarick. (So much for the mock-up tomb to be a distraction!) The real question is how much of this is damage control by Ains vs. some kind of setup orchestrated by him or his people, since the source of the raid and the amount of gold behind the quest is rather suspicious. After all, Nazarick was set up as much to be a death trap for unwary adventurers as it was to be the guild's HQ, and what proper dungeon master wouldn't occasionally want to test his stronghold's defenses with the sacrifices of some low-level adventurers?

It's suspicious how easy this endeavor starts out for the victims. No outside traps? Treasure laying out in the open? The lowest form of undead foes sent out for a first encounter? Something smells, and it's not the skeletons. In fact, this reeks of a sucker play, and the adventurers are the suckers. Given how overpowered Nazarick is, the adventurer slaughter that ensues is utterly unsurprising. This was really more of a way for some of the tomb's lesser denizens – the cockroach guy and the unfathomably gross torturer – to introduce themselves and show off their skills, providing an object lesson in all of the unpleasant ways that adventurers can go down. The best scene was definitely the arrogant swordmaster with the half-elf slave girls being soundly trounced by the combat-ready Hamusuke, who puts in some pretty impressive moves for a hamster, although the following scene of the slave girls kicking his corpse while the lizard men and Hamusuke try to figure out what this "ritual" might be was rather satisfying too. I have to wonder if these girls aren't out of the frying pan and into the fire though, since Sebas isn't around to take pity on them.

That just leaves Foresight, which was always destined to get feature treatment since they show up prominently in the opening theme. Last episode spent some time time developing them, and while that doesn't necessarily prevent them from being expendable, I have to think there was a purpose beyond the cliche trick of giving characters backstory right before they're killed off. It's a mystery as to how they might survive this scenario, especially when they're facing down Ains himself. Actually, that probably increases their chance of survival, since he's more likely than most of his denizens to see some value in their lives. My suspicion is that he's going to discover the little mage's ability to judge people's power levels and find that to be potentially useful, since exploiting it would allow him to ferret out potential powerhouses. Besides, she has more specific and less greedy motives than most of the other adventurers. How many of her companions will survive is more up in the air.

With some pretty good fight choreography, strong musical selections, and a little extra effort put into giving these bit players personalities, Overlord delivers another solid episode. The only major flaw is some minor breakdowns in the animation quality, but that's easy enough to overlook given how much is going on.

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Free! Dive to the Future - Episode 7 [Review]

Everything I've been predicting about Free! Dive to the Future has been coming true, but I'm no psychic. It's simply that with a cast this enormous, the plot has got to buckle at some point. The show tells a story from a dozen different perspectives, and in order to piece it together into something intelligible, it has slowed down and been simplified to the extreme. That said, although it's been signaled from miles away, it was great to see Haru undergo some significant character development this episode. Even in the middle of so many perspectives, he manages to stand out as the protagonist by becoming more talkative than we've ever seen him before.

There was nothing solitary about “A Solitary Medley!” Instead, it was filled with scene after scene of no more than two (2) characters interacting, just talking about the plot every time. One distinctive exception was Haru's wordy flashback, a response to a teammate who asked if Haru has always aspired to swim on the global level. Just like with his monologue at the start of this season, it's another indicator that Haru has taken control of his own story, and this socially-awkward swimmer has become more comfortable talking about himself. “Free was my specialty” is a very telling line. Yes, past tense. After two-and-a-half seasons, Haru and his informal coach have somehow worked through backstroke, breaststroke, and butterfly—styles that other swimmers devote their careers to—within half an episode.

This theme of quick resolution continues for Ikuya. After a brief talk with Asahi (who's been trying to find Ikuya all season and suddenly happens on him by chance), both of them find that their angst is nearly cleared up. It's a good thing too. Now that this season is more than halfway over, what other choice do they have? That's why I don't feel too bad for Hiyori, even if last episode was a doozy, and in this episode Ikuya isn't sure anymore if Hiyori is his friend! Sousuke, Natsuya, and everyone else we see for about half a second are going to either figure out their problems or fade into irrelevance forever. There's just so much that has to be crammed into what remains of Free!'s run. Even though Rin doesn't appear, our high school cast (also pretty neglected) has a conversation specifically to imply that he's still relevant to the story. In the end, a cheap cliffhanger is what amps up the suspense to get me excited about next week, even in the midst of all this chaos.

Free! Dive to the Future really should have been two different shows, one about our college cast and one about our high school cast. Perhaps it could have worked in the style of Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak High School, in which the show offered an update on an alternating arc every other episode. Maybe then we could focus on just a few characters each episode and really have their stories matter. There are still some great scenes (I loved Kisumi and the baby and Makoto's “bless your heart” iciness toward Haru's new coach), but so much of what exists here is just stacking on plot, not building character. Haru's fascinating new role as his own agent for change in his life is what most strongly makes it still worth watching.

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