Ascendance of a Bookworm - Episodes 13-14 [Review]

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Ascendance of a Bookworm - Episodes 13-14 [Review]

The first cour of Ascendance of a Bookworm closes out with the consecutive airing of episodes 13 and 14 separately rather than as a double-length episode. While the latter format probably would have worked fine here, getting through episode 14's content before going into a seasonal break was unquestionably a necessity, as the end of episode 14 rather than the end of episode 13 is where a proper break point should be. In every sense this feels like the conclusion of the first stage of the story and the set-up for the next stage.

In that vein, episode 13, while it has interesting content of its own, is really just the set-up for episode 14's highly dramatic events. Still, it's a necessary set-up for fully understanding why things happen in episode 14 the way they do. It lays out much more fully than episode 12 how the Church in this world is set up and what its reputation is, a point which episode 14 eloquently hammers home with one additional line: the church is basically a dumping ground for people rather than an institution to aspire towards. Commoners who enter the church are typically orphans and wind up doing the grunt work of the church; nobles who are “extras” or not wanted/needed are also consigned there. (The latter in particular is not much different from how the Church operated in our world for centuries.) In a utilitarian sense it's actually an efficient arrangement, as it allow a way for those who wouldn't get recommendations for apprenticeship through family means to actually have a life and for the extra nobles to be useful, though why this would engender a negative opinion of being part of the Church is also obvious. While I had noticed the blue vs. gray robes before, I had assumed that was more of a internal hierarchical rank matter, but it's also a sign of class division in this world. Hence why Myne's family would be adamantly against her apprenticing as a priestess is completely understandable.

Just as interesting is the revelation about how The Devouring fits into things. It turning out to actually be a coveted trait for the Church – as they need mana to empower certain magic items – is, in a meta sense, the “out” that was required for Myne, but it's also a logical one. That Myne is benefiting from political troubles that reduced the number of nobles who could provide the mana (as otherwise commoners wouldn't have value) is maybe a little too convenient but still explains Myne's desirability in a way that doesn't stretch logic one bit. That Myne never realized The Devouring was mana was a bit surprising, but upon reflection, that word never was actually used in her presence. That having mana would make her even more prone to victimization by nobles isn't a surprise, nor is it that Benno's concern for Myne goes beyond just business arrangements, despite what he might claim.

And then we have episode 14's dramatic meeting between Myne and her parents and the High Priest. Turi's concerns about her parents' safety becoming justified is the one place where I've found this series to be heavy-handed, even if it is in line with established historical behavior across many cultures. However, it does allow for the introduction of the Crushing, an ability that sufferer of the Devouring can manifest when sufficiently riled up which can basically (as it looks like) overwhelm a target with the force of your mana. It seems like a potent and dangerous ability if one could learn to control and manipulate it, though not widely practical because you have to have the condition in order to use it. We've seen the mana manifest in times of stress before (and her parents were not apparently oblivious to it after all), so her being able to do something like this isn't a big surprise; that the High Priest had no defense against it is. I don't entirely buy that the Head Priest is going to be able to sweep it all under the rug, but this also, finally, shows that he's a decent guy and will quell misgivings about him that have arisen because of his actions at the beginning of the series. More importantly, it allows Myne and family to walk away clean with the deal that's best for her. We'll see, I guess, if this proves to be too good to be true in the long run or not.

I was also impressed that the story was able to keep Lutz involved (even if not directly most of the time) or that it finally found time for Turi again. Taking time to acknowledge Lutz's concerns was, I think, important, as was keeping Myne's family in general involved in events; we just don't see that much of that in anime, and it makes a nice counterpoint to the norm for the Church. Finally, the range of Myne's expressions in these two episodes only reinforces her visual adorability.

While this series hasn't been perfect, it's done plenty enough right so far that it's a shoe-in both for my pick as the top series of the Fall 2019 season for my Top 5 of the Year list. It's been a delight to watch, and I eagerly look forward to its return in April.

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Assassins Pride - Episode 11 [Review]

Assassins Pride has suffered at times from condensing its story beats too much and/or just not fully explaining things well enough in general. Episode 11 gets hit harder by that flaw than most, as there are several things going on here which don't make much sense. The result is an episode which is hard to follow even as it tries to make things more interesting.

The most confusing point is where, exactly, the two girl who came to help Melida and Elise last episode actually stand. Mule clearly has her loyalties geared towards her older brother, but based on last episode I was under the understanding that her brother's cabal already knew that Melida was Paladin class and so was seeking to off her. However, Mule here seems more intent on just gaining more substantive proof of this. She has plenty of opportunities to leave Melida in a potentially deadly situation but doesn't, even going so far as helping Melida and Elise complete their quest. That seems counterproductive to a purpose of eliminating her. Where Salacha stands is even less clear. She was also at that meeting but seems intent on securing the book needed for the quest completion (and where Melida's Samurai class is written down) for herself. Is she trying to do things her own way or actually protect Melida? It feels like some scenes are missing her where this could be explained better.

Why Guild Grimfice would go after the other girls at the school also is a head-scratcher, unless I missed something. They just come off as garden-variety terrorists here (albeit ones where their leader can take on an undead form to control the ghosts in the library better). At least that move shows that Kufa was genuinely giving Rosetti an important task rather than just trying to get her out of the way so he could be cool on his own. That almost backfired on him, too, though it did allow for the surprising return of Williams Gin, the ribbon-manipulating lancanthrope from earlier in the series. The Headmistress also proved surprisingly tough and strong.

It's entirely possible that some of my concerns will be addressed in what I presume will be the series' finale next week, but there are a few too many holes her to be just dismissed as trying to work in an element of mystery. On the plus side, the Once Upon A Time parts were cute and Melida just continues to impress more as a take-charge heroine. Better be careful, Kufa, or she'll leave you in the dust.

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No Guns Life - Episode 11 [Review]

In the spirit of the season, it's a wonderful life—unless, however, you have a comically oversized revolver where your head normally goes, and you currently happen to be minus one functioning arm. Our smoking gun of a detective Juzo gets battered and bruised pretty badly this week in No Guns Life, but unfortunately that doesn't translate into a very compelling installment of this cybernoir thriller. While it leads with a valiant attempt at a moody, action-heavy spectacle, it can't help but feel like a major swerve in tone after last week's more thoughtful treatment of Colt's plight. There's a time and a place for schlock, and I don't think this was it.

The prime suspect in this Case of the Lackluster Episode is Berühren's company resolver, the melodramatic and loosely-clothed Pepper. While she shares a job title with Juzo, the two of them couldn't be any more different, and in theory, I'm all for a flamboyant foil to Juzo's deliberately stone-like presence. The problem with Pepper is that she's distractingly over-sexualized, and not even in a fun way. First of all, any potential tension in the scene is undercut by the nagging thought in the back of my head that her boobs are about one second away from sliding out of her top. It's difficult to say that without sounding lecherous, but just look at this. There is NO undercarriage support happening here. This is a disaster waiting to happen. On a more serious note, however, her flagrant hypersexualization takes a turn for the gross when she starts talking about “owning” Juzo and gives his metal jawline a good licking. The femme fatale is certainly a familiar archetype to the noir genre, but Pepper's appearance and behavior are just too incongruous with the parts of No Guns Life that I like. Ironically, if this were a worse show, I wouldn't be as harsh on this.

What further exacerbates Pepper's presence in this scene is that it ultimately doesn't really go anywhere. The most important idea emphasized in their battle together is the further clarification of a Gun Slave Unit's original “purpose,” which is to literally be a tool of someone possessing a specific extension called a “Hands.” Pepper uses her sidekick, the soft-spoken Seven, to deal some major damage to Juzo (and, to Christina's chagrin, her building) thanks to her ability to unlock some of that scary automated weaponry we saw Juzo sport a few episodes back. Of course, this ties back into one of the key thematic thrusts of the show, which is Juzo's staunch refusal to allow either himself or his friends to become mere tools. A surprise flashback further clarifies where this impulse came from, as we see a short scene with the person who used to function as Juzo's “owner” (hence the name of the episode) during the war.

I'm sure we'll be seeing more of those memories in the future, and I'm frankly eager to see Juzo's character fleshed out more. He can be fun in doses—I love, for instance, how he makes a point of continuing to smoke his cigarette even as Seven blows his entire body clear out of the building and down into the alleyway. However, his aggressively hardboiled demeanor can only go so far and only be so appealing. There's a subdued theatricality to it, and I want to dig into the vulnerabilities he's trying to hide with his very conscious performance. His unflappable gun face belies some of that soft, squishy humanity we've all got inside of us.

Tetsuro and Mary very weirdly show up out of nowhere and Tetsuro does what he always does: recklessly uses Harmony in front of a Berühren lackey, shorts out his sub-brain, yet saves the day in spite of himself. Nevertheless, he continues to languish as he always does in his perceived inability to do anything for anyone. As with my thoughts about Juzo, I'm eager for Tetsuro's character development to break out of its so-far stagnant pattern, but here I like how his retreat into hiding functions both as a necessary means to escape detection, and as a manifestation of his own depression. He doesn't want to do anything or see anyone. He does, however, have a nice, quiet little scene with Juzo, and the two continue to grow closer in their imperceptibly machismo-poisoned way. Kronen also tells Juzo that Berühren has called off their search for Tetsuro, which despite appearances, cannot be good news.

I was honestly expecting us to gear up for a confrontation with Mary's brother for the season finale, but No Guns Life swerves completely away from that this episode. I guess we're saving that stuff for the second cour. However, we now have the best substitute plotline possible: a haunted house with a robot ghost. Or something to that effect, at least. This is arguably an even wilder swerve in tone than the one I complained about at the start of this review, but I'm actually very excited to see what goes down next week. I genuinely love it when shows decide to focus on a random ghost story apropos of exactly nothing else in the narrative. Think back to how good the “Toys in the Attic” episode of Cowboy Bebop was. While this installment of No Guns Life might have felt lacking, it still knows how to reel me back into its particular flavor of cyberpunk ridiculousness.

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Stars Align - Episode 12 [Review]

What the hell? Stars Align has always delighted in the post-credits gut-punch, but this final episode took a couple of very sudden, and one incredibly dark, turns that make it feel like something got lost in translation somewhere. I don't mean that literally, but rather as a failure on the part of the creators to adequately portray what they intended in anime form, because no matter how many dark hints there were, nothing, and I mean nothing ever indicated that Maki would show up at his father's place with a knife and the intention of committing murder.

The symbolism is fortunately more on the level. Throughout its run, the series has juxtaposed the basic, cheery underdog school sports show with the horrors and traumas that the team members were living through in their home lives, touching on the fact that such sunshiny shows rarely give us any indication that anything bad could happen in the world. Even if the team ends up losing the big game the players are still emotionally gratified and able to keep going with a skip in their step and a smile in their hearts. But that's never been true here, a fact driven home by Toma's conversation with his mother right after the game. It at first looks to be a moment of triumphant reconciliation before she turns the tables on him, announcing with glee that she's divorcing and leaving Toma with his (never seen) dad while she goes off with Ryoma. She knows full well how devastated Toma will be by this statement, and she clearly revels in the fact, like a wicked mother in a fairy tale getting ready to cook and eat her child drooling in anticipation.

That moment brings the happy anime façade crashing down, reminding us that in this show, happy endings only happen in Disney films. There's not going to be any nice resolution, because things aren't that neat when abusive parents are involved, and the soft tennis club (and school in general) is only a respite from the rest of the kids' lives. When the game ends, it's back to their real world, where it doesn't matter if you took on and almost beat the local champions, because no one outside of school is going to give a damn. If Stars Align was trying to send a message, that would seem to be it – that perfect sports anime, or any school-set story, is just an idealized vision of life with all of the shadows removed. In that respect, the ending does work, especially after the exhilaration of the tennis match against the wonder twins.

But worthy as that message is, it isn't necessarily the one most viewers were looking for, and it doesn't actually resolve anything, much less give any sense of closure to the story. (Except for Mitsue, who is still drawing her new realistic art. Good for you, Mitsue!) We spent so much time finding out about everyone's difficult pasts, delving into home lives and sexualities and aspirations, that it feels like a cop out to only get real resolution for one character and partial for two others. That may be part of the overall symbolism (there's rarely resolution in real life), but it doesn't make for satisfying storytelling. If you want to see an ambiguous ending done well, read Courtney Summers' novel Sadie. This just feels dark for darkness' sake, eschewing months of building Toma and Maki's relationship for Maki to charge off on his own with blood on his mind.

If we get a second season, maybe this could be made to work, but as a final episode, it really feels like it drops the ball. I wouldn't say I feel betrayed by Stars Align, but this ending does leave me feeling equal parts angry at the sloppy storytelling and a little bit empty, because if ever there was a group of kids I wanted to be okay in the end, this was it.

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Review 3

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Psycho-Pass 3 - Episode 1 [Review]

Despite continuing the story of the two TV anime and four films before it, Psycho-Pass 3 seems to have no problem blazing its own path through the cyberpunk dystopia of its predecessors.

As the first episode of a multiple season series, the premiere of Psycho-Pass 3 has three major jobs: 1) Introduce us to the new status quo, 2) introduce us to all the new characters, and 3) keep us interested while doing so.

The new status quo is more than a bit of a shakeup. When we last saw the full CID team back in Sinners of the System 1 - Crime and Punishment, everything was more or less unchanged from how things had been since Psycho-Pass 2--i.e., series heroine Akane was catching criminals with her team of inspectors and enforcers while simultaneously trying to keep the Sibyl System in check.

Psycho-Pass 3 starts three and a half years later with Akane locked up in a rather luxurious prison. Her former second-in-command/rival, Mika, now sits in the boss' chair and the team Akane built has been completely replaced--except for a single other member: the shy and reserved Sho.

This drastic change is itself a mystery--and one that overshadows the entire episode. Why is Akane in prison? Is it because of what she knows about the Sybil System or was something else the cause? Where is the rest of the team? Why is it that only the least loyal to Akane (Mika) and one of the most loyal to her (Sho), remain? And what of all the setup we saw across the Sinners of the System films, how does that fit in?

But even as we start to ponder this, we are introduced to our new protagonist pair, Kei and Arata. Kei is the typical straight-laced bureaucrat we've come to expect from this Sybil System world--at least on the surface anyway. It's clear rather quickly that this is a facade and he is actually loyal to Arata alone--and to their secret shared goal.

Meanwhile, Arata, by his very existence, stands to throw the grounded, cyberpunk world of Psycho-Pass right out the window. While claiming to be a “mentalist” he actually receives haunting visions at crime scenes--and accurate ones at that. Whether he is just using technology as he claims, is a real psychic, or is seeing psychotic delusions built from his own intuition and observations remains to be seen. But regardless, the fact that a person of such obvious mental instability could exist within the Sibyl System's control is a captivating mystery in and of itself--which brings us to the weak point of the episode.

Compared to the mysteries of what happened to Akane and what exactly is going on with Arata, the actual mystery of the episode is little more than incidental--though this is likely by design. How and why this man was murdered is little more than a narrative tool to introduce our new cast through action rather than verbal exposition and sow seeds for the future. Likewise, the mysterious cabal pulling strings in the background is, as of yet, nothing but a hook to get you to come back next episode with the promise that more is going on here than it seems.

All things considered, this is a pretty solid premiere for a multi-season anime. It does all the heavy lifting it needs to do in re-establishing the setting and introducing our new heroes. And while the episode's actual self-contained plot is rather weak, the characters--both new and old—and the mysteries surrounding them are more than enough to keep things interesting.

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No Guns Life - Episodes 1-3 [Review]

A dingy neon-lit alley illuminates the man's broad shoulders. He moves deliberately and with composure as he watches some goons run away from the bar he just finished cleaning out. He strikes a match and lets the cigarette smoke waft lazily as he mulls on the War, this City, and the corporate lynchpin piercing its center. The dame behind him tries in vain to flirt, but he has no time for women, children, or humidity. He doesn't trust anybody. He sighs heavily. A muted trumpet crescendos in the background. The man's head is a gun.

This was the point at which I knew I was in for something special with No Guns Life and its blend of noir and stone-faced absurdity. The crime/police procedural has been a standard fixture in anime for decades at this point, so it's important for any modern iteration of this genre to have a good hook. The shadow of Blade Runner has also loomed large ever since its debut, and we've hardly had a shortage of stories about private detectives, robots, and the ambiguity of humanity. No Guns Life walks onto a very crowded platform, but I think what really sets it apart is its straightforward commitment to the noir aesthetic. If this show were any more hard-boiled, you could bounce that egg like a superball. With every labored cigarette puff, Juuzo slots himself perfectly into that brooding and masculine archetype of the reluctant hero battling against—yet inevitably tainted by—crime.

Also, his head is a giant revolver.

Like any respectable tech-noir series, No Guns Life has its own set of terminology to explain its history, but the background should feel familiar to fans of this genre. There was a war, during which many soldiers underwent cybernetic enhancement in order to become the Extended (which I'd like to add is a legitimately fantastic name with a lot of character). These upgrades were facilitated and managed by the über-conglomerate Berühren, which now reigns over the post-war city as its vampiric capitalist overlords. Former soldiers, now finding themselves both destitute and possessing sweet cyborg powers, have turned in droves against the law in order to make their livings. However, our good gun lad Juuzo, also a former soldier, has instead set up shop as a detective-for-hire specializing in Extended-related crimes—otherwise known as a Resolver (which is a terrible gun pun I have to begrudgingly admire). Thus, it would seem fair to expect a lot of cyborg-related crime and conspiracy as Juuzo navigates the dark underbelly of a city gone to rot.

This is, more or less, exactly what we get in the first three episodes. Shocking nobody, Berühren turns out to be pretty evil! They've been experimenting with augmentations on kids under the pretense of running and orphanage, and Juuzo gets mixed up with a runaway named Tetsuro who's able to hack into the mechanical components of any Extended. It's a powerful (and illegal) ability called Harmony, but the procedure also rendered his body mute and immobile, forcing him to hijack a giant robot body in order to carry his puny human body to safety. The first episode plays this with a surprisingly decent amount of pathos, and I was especially impressed with how the direction utilized the cyborg's noh mask of a face. Traditionally, these masks were used in theater to communicate a spectrum of emotions, which could shift based on the lighting and angle at which they were looked. Tetsuro looks large and frightening when we first believe him to be the kidnapper, but in the end, his slumped head looks tragic and resigned to his fate as a guinea pig.

Similarly, Juuzo's face seems totally non-expressive at first. It's worth emphasizing that it's not even an anthropomorphized gun—it's just a gun. Still, the anime manages to fit a lot of character into his presence, thanks in no small part to veteran voice actor Junichi Suwabe inflecting his low velvety voice with just enough grit to blend in with his surroundings. Juuzo also frequently goes into chibi-mode for comedic purposes, which both feels like cheating and works against the hyper-noir aesthetic the lion's share of the show aims for. I can certainly understand the desire to add some levity to your gun-faced protagonist, but I wish No Guns Life were instead more confident in playing itself straight and using the excesses of noir as a genre as its vehicle for comedy. I don't need a full-on parody, but when you've already committed to having a gun for a protagonist, I think you can stand to poke some fun at yourself. While the second episode gets at this a bit by throwing Juuzo into a desperate search for his favorite cigarette brand, the writing could definitely be sharper.

Conceptually, though, I love Juuzo. What better way to comment on the hypermasculine, violent, and morally grey noir protagonist ideal than literally making the main character a gun? Juuzo's inability to emote with his face slots perfectly into a genre where men pride themselves on their ability to distance themselves from their clients' problems. That's not to say Juuzo doesn't have a lot of personality, and to that end the direction deserves a lot of credit. There's a great beat in the first episode where he casually pushes his head cylinder back into place: a practical action that reads quizzically. The third episode has him loudly sip on some coffee as soon as a mob boss tries to stare him down. He's cool and collected in a delightfully over-the-top way, and it makes him a fun protagonist to follow.

Juuzo on his own might have become overbearing after a while, however, so I'm glad he's been given some partners to work with. So far the story has revolved around Tetsuro, whose youth and uncomplicated sense of justice create friction when paired with the older and more jaded Juuzo. It's a classic dynamic for a reason, but Tetsuro's decision to hijack Juuzo's body already blurs the boundaries of his morality, and I'm eager to see how that progresses. It should be said, too, that Tetsuro both looks like and shares a voice actor with Narancia from JoJo's Part 5, and that's been very hard for me to ignore. The third member of their motley trio is Mary, a back-alley engineer/surgeon for Extended who has a playfully antagonistic relationship with Juuzo. She's mostly been there to provide levity so far, but she's spunky and has an interesting character design (you don't seen an anime girl with a lip ring that often), so I like her.

Thematically, No Guns Life strolls along well-trodden ground, but while the novelty of its messages remains up in the air, it at least seems to be heading in the right direction. The most singular villain we have so far is the entire Berühren corporation, a towering monolith representing the culmination of the military industrial complex. In this world's late-capitalist hellscape, people are used as tools and discarded into the dregs of society when they're no longer useful, which is the cycle Juuzo vocally opposes. Of course, No Guns Life spices things up with nuns who strip into bikini-wearing gunslingers, and with giant spider cyborgs who shoot poison bullets, but the core of its message should be familiar to anybody living in 2019. When corruption and exploitation reign supreme, a man with a gun for a head hardly seems like the most objectionable thing. It's important, too, that Juuzo hasn't even fired his head revolver yet. Sure, he punched a train, but he's a person, not a weapon.

Overall, No Guns Life is off to a solid start—it's marries a familiar setting with a head-turning (or, I should say, head-revolving) protagonist, and the execution has been competent enough to match. I appreciate any commitment to an aesthetic that flies in the face of good taste, and I think having a gun for a head fits that bill. And gimmick aside, it's remained a decently entertaining mixture of both high-octane action and noir-tinged conspiracy. I wish the writing, both plot- and character-wise, were sharper, straighter, and funnier (intentionally or not), but there's room to grow. Most importantly for these early episodes, No Guns Life has established a unique identity for itself, and I'm eager to follow its trajectory.

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Review 2

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Blade of the Immortal - Episodes 1-4 [Review]

The first episode of LIDEN FILMS' new Blade of the Immortal adaptation was a a killer introduction to the property for folks like me who are only passingly familiar with the original manga or the first anime from 2008. The story of the orphaned Rin Asano taking on the immortal swordsman Manji as her bodyguard and mentor on a gore-soaked quest for vengeance was presented with a gripping, dreamlike sensibility, like the world's most somber splatterhouse.

Unfortunately, “Act Two - Foundling” is a huge nosedive in terms of quality, almost derailing all of the goodwill the premiere built up in the process. The biggest problem is that it marries two disparate stories that barely have any connective tissue between them. The first sees Rin and Manji visiting the eccentric painter, Sori, who uses a blade to streak his canvases with gashes of bright red paint. He was an old friend of Rin's father, and also a onetime spy for the Shogunate, and Rin thinks he could make for a capable second body-guard. He believes is traitorous blade is not the tool to be helping out a genuine friend, though, and refuses. It's hardly any surprise when another agent of Kagehisha Anotsu's Itto-ryu School comes a knockin' though, along with a gaggle of eager cronies who all want to take Manji's head.

On paper, this seems like another basic recipe for success, a straightforward blending of plot and carnage similar to what we got in the premiere. In practice, “Foundling” - the first story - is a hot mess, mostly due to its piss-poor editing and presentation of it's the action scenes. The battle between Manji, Rin, and the Itto-ryu assassin's is a mangled hodge-podge of quick cuts, overactive camera pans, and nonsensical progression – it's literally impossible to tell what is actually happening most of the time. The episode tries to play this off as comedy when it shows Sori completely ignoring the fight as he puzzles over the right shade of red for his newest piece, but the joke fails to excuse the scene for completely failing as a sequence of animated storytelling. The bit also concludes with the bizarre gag of Sori going bonkers over how the blood of his enemies makes for the perfect paint; it was a predictable payoff, but played way over the top, and then the story just moves on to the next segment with little fanfare.

“Foundling” is just as unsuccessful in its second half, cramming in another villain-of-the-week with a glossed over tragic backstory that barely gets outlined while he and Manji go toe-to-toe in the middle of the muddy woods. Since Manji apparently didn't kill the guy, I'm sure he'll be back, but I can't imagine why Blade of the Immortal felt compelled to cram what had to be several chapters' worth of manga material into a single episode if it was all going to amount to bupkis in the end. I'll be honest, as excited as I was to cover Blade of the Immortal this season, “Foundling” had me worried that I'd actually gotten stuck with a real lemon of an anime.

Thankfully, “Act Three - Dream Pangs”, is leagues better than “Foundling”, and possibly my favorite of the bunch. It pulls off the neat trick of reversing perspectives and telling the story from the antagonists' point of view. In this episode, the swordswoman is a one-time prostitute named Makie, who moonlights as a geisha when she isn't pining for her master of the Itto-ryu, Kagehisha, and killing Manji is just the kind of devotional act that would secure her place as Kagehisha's paramour. It's a haunting, emotive story that takes the plight of women in feudal Japan very seriously, painting a picture of hardship and resolve that comes from living one's life as an object to be traded, abused, and used – whether it be for sex, or swordplay.

I was a little wary at first of how Rin's jealously of Makie and Manji's “connection” would be handled, but the show did an exceptionally fine job of emphasizing the two women's personal relationship with violence as the key to their understanding of one another. Manji starts the episode at his most chauvinistic worst, and though he still ends up griping about being beaten by one woman and saved by another in a single day, Blade of the Immortal is careful to frame his place in this plot as a foil to Kagehisha's toxic hold on Makie. Rin's vengeance may be cruel and immoral, but it is her own, and Manji is as much an extension of her will as he is a protector of her person. When we see Makie take her first steps toward an unknown future away from the Itto-ryu at the episode's end, it feels like a tenuous but well-earned victory.

The action is much better in “Dream Pangs” too. The art is more consistent overall, and while there is still too much reliance on frantic camera movements and choppy editing, there are beautiful cuts of violence and drama to balance all of it out. While I don't think Blade of the Immortal has matched the technical quality of its first episode, “Dream Pangs” had me feeling the most with every slash of the blade, and I've always been inclined to favor an episode that ends up as more than the sum of its parts.

Rin's solid character-writing is what makes the otherwise standard “ Act Four - Rin at Odds” work as well as it does. The animation is back to being pretty weak and ineffective again, and the heavy reliance on dialogue and poorly paced flashbacks kills the plot's momentum a bit, but its central conceit is absolutely solid: After getting frustrated with her own lack of progress as a fighter, even under Manji's tutelage, Rin happens upon her prized target in the middle of the woods: Kagehisha Anotsu. He's slicing apart single leaves with his obscenely heavy blade, and though Rin makes an admirable attempt to take the man out, she's no match for him, and finds herself at the villain's whims.

This is where we get a massively important plot and character dump, which effectively (if a bit inelegantly) lays out our primary conflict in full for the first time. Rin's grandfather, as it turns out, effectively stole the legacy of the Muten Ichi-ryu School of swordsmanship out from under the feet of Kagehisha's own grandfather. A driven and cruel man, the elder Anotsu swore vengeance on the elder Asano, but not before his paranoid eyes turned to his grandson, who even at ten years old was skilled enough to inspire mutiny amongst the Itto-ryu practitioners. Kagehisha's grandfather was killed by one of the young boy's earliest followers, but though his relationship with the old man was never what you would call “warm”, Kagehisha still felt honor bound to strike back against the progeny of the charlatan who defamed the Anotsu name.

Which is what has led Rin here, her body and her pride both badly bruised, having an unexpectedly calm conversation with the man that ruined her life. It's classic genre storytelling that works even when the episode's visuals aren't always up to the task. Even though Kagehisha's flashbacks felt a bit lopsided in the way they were sandwiched at either end of an otherwise Rin-focused story, his full presence in Blade of the Immortal's narrative gives the whole thing a shape and purpose it was lacking up until now. Before, the man was simply an idea that motivated our heroes forward in their quest, but here he is allowed to be nuanced, even likable - or at least as likable as a murderous workaholic bastard like him can be. It's often said that a story like this one is only as good as its villain, and in Kagehisha Anotsu, Rin and Manji have found themselves one hell of a final boss. Let's just hope the series can see things through to the end without too many more bumps in the road.

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Ascendance of a Bookworm - Episodes 1-4 [Review]

Though I had not read the source material, Ascendance of a Bookworm was still on my radar going into this season because it sounded like an interesting variation on standard isekai fare. What I did not expect was that its first episode would so completely win me over that it would become my priority view on Wednesdays, which this season is one of the busiest days on the schedule. (And this is true without even factoring in my new review responsibilities for it.) After four episodes, the series still hasn't missed a beat.

The success of the series so far comes down to two main factors. One is that it's not at all a typical isekai reincarnation series, even down to its set-up. Urano did die, but her death was implied to have been a result of a natural disaster rather than the traditional truck. She was reincarnated into another world, but not to be the world's hero or champion or anything of the sort. (Or if she has, that hasn't even been hinted at yet.) By all appearances she is merely a normal, even frail little girl from a very humble background. Rather than being reborn or appearing whole in a new body, her soul seems to have replaced that of five-year-old Main (pronounced “mai-een”). The faint implication here is that the original Main may have been dying and Urano took her place as the true Main's soul exited, but the possibility that the original Main is still in there cannot be ruled out; that her memories remain to allow Urano to instantly know the language and the identities of those Main should know keeps that option alive while also allowing a slick way around the language barrier problem.

Because Main doesn't have any apparent special powers, her story isn't a grand one but rather a smaller and more intimate tale about the little details of living in a late Western medieval-level world. It's about practicalities which often get overlooked, like the use of bedpans, how children become indoctrinated into their career paths from a relatively young age, or how town life can function just fine on such a low level of literacy (most people can read numbers, but that's about it) that formal education isn't even thought about by commoners and books are something that only the rich own. In other words, the series is almost purely a world-building exercise. If I had to liken it to any other fantasy series in tone and pace, it would probably be Spice and Wolf, but without the sense of danger.

That she's in an environment without books, when books were her life, sets up the series' conflict and gives it an overall goal: Main will seek to make books herself. First she has to learn to read and write in this world, then she has to figure out the physical practicalities. One episode focuses on her attempting to weave papyrus, and when that proves impractical she shifts to clay tablets. These, too, face practical issues, and some of the humor in the series comes from Main's trial and error process. Along the way she also applies some other knowledge from her original world on unrelated but practical items, such as makeshift shampoo (made from fruit oils) or using a fruit pulp normally reserved for animal feed to make a type of pancake. This is the one place where the series' nature as an isekai title becomes readily-apparent, but this is on a much lower-key level than normal. While Main may not have powers, her advanced abilities in things like basic arithmetic make her quite precocious, almost like she has powers. Or does she? There's a curious scene in episode 4 where she seems to glow and her eyes change when she is genuinely infuriated, and it doesn't seem to be just the normal “angry anime character” aura. What that might mean is a mystery for now, but a potentially juicy one.

This isn't all about Main's discovery process and day-to-day life, either. The writing is careful to establish the characters around Main and how she relates to them as well. In fact, one underlying theme of the story so far could be the way her experiences as Main are expanding Urano's world beyond just books. Her bibliophile nature suggests social isolation, though her personality doesn't, so whether this is coincidental or an intended angle is unclear at this point.

For all of the character-building and world-building elements it has, the series has another factor in its favor which may be even more powerful: it is possibly the most visually attractive series of the season. Instead of trading in glitz and glamour, it concentrates on being cute, but in not in the carefully-calculated fashion all-too-commonly seen in anime. Main is absolutely adorable as a character design, with one of the most captivating smiles I've seen in quite some time, but almost every other named character in the cast so far is also endowed with an uncommon level of warmth, charm, and appeal. Even aside from what the story is doing, this series is just a delight to watch. Kudos also to the prolific Yuka Iguchi for hitting just the right cute note as Main.

With the utterly harmless nature of the content, the main complain I could see surfacing against this series is that it's boring. Without question it is a low-key series, and those who can't get wrapped up in the little details (and Main's inherent cuteness) may not find it interesting enough. However, I can see this series deeply endearing itself to at least as many people, and I am definitely in the latter camp.

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Vinland Saga - Episode 16 [Review]

Thus far, I've been going easy on Vinland Saga for how it has handled this approach to pacing, mostly because I like the characters and the setting enough that I'm happy to just spend some time with the show, week after week. That said, it would be disingenuous to begin criticizing Vinland Saga for spinning its wheels as if that was some kind of new problem, because in a way, wheel-spinning has been half the point of the show. It's been obvious from the get-go that Thorfinn's journey from naïve young boy to hardened warrior to whatever he will end up becoming after that would be a long and complicated one, and in the tradition of the oldest epics, his journey has involved a hell of a lot of walking. And talking. And stabbing. And then walking some more.

Point being, I think what can often feel like an un-economic use of time on Vinland Saga's part is simply a by product of the manga not necessarily being prime adaptation material. This whole journey through Wales and Mercia, for instance, is something that I would imagine plays a lot better when a bunch of the manga's chapters are collected in larger volumes, where its easier to see the connective tissue that binds everything together. The Vinland Saga anime has stumbled every now and then in that regard, but the strength of the show's atmosphere and tone has kept things afloat well enough.

You've probably picked up on the big “But” that I've been telegraphing, and yeah, as much as I hate to admit it, “History of Beasts” might officially be where my patience and goodwill starts to run out. A big part of this has to do with where we are in the show – everything up until the last couple of weeks has felt like the rising action of this arc's plot, so I could forgive a little meandering, but with Ragnar dead and Askeladd barreling head first towards a bloody reckoning, Vinland Saga can't afford to twiddle its thumbs any more. Yet that is exactly what we get here, in an episode whose entire plot could be boiled down into two basic statements: Askeladd tortures a guy for some information, and then everyone freaks out because Thorkell is coming either way.

The torture scene seriously lasts forever, too, taking up a majority of the episode's runtime up to the ten-minute mark, with the other couple of minutes being reserved for the OP and the beat of Canute learning about Ragnar's death. The latter moment is actually quite well done, but it becomes background noise as Askeladd and his men take their boots and a pair of shears to a poor Englishman's fingers and face. It's gratuitous, but also too rote and banal to be particularly shocking. In the wake of the genuine horror we've seen Askeladd commit over the past couple of episodes, this all just ends up feeling redundant. We get it Vinland Saga, Askeladd is a brutal and remorseless killer.

To give the episode credit, this scene does provide the most thematically interesting morsel we get this week, which is Askeladd's monologue on the violence that has followed the history of the land he's currently spilling blood all over. The Englishman decrys the Danes as nothing more than beasts, but Askeladd is quick to point out that the Celts settled the territory before the Romans did, and when the Romans disappeared the Anglo-Saxons came and stole it for themselves. As far as Askeladd sees it, his violent re-appropriation of the soil is simply the next step in a recurring cycle of violence. It's a good point, albeit another one I think the show has already made, and more effectively, since the endless recurrence of violence and revenge is basically the crux of Thorfinn's entire character arc.

After the torture scene, Askeladd's army gets word of Thorkell's impending arrival, and this is honestly where the episode feels the most like pure, unapologetic filler. Sure, Askeladd's apparent willingness to let his scared men defect to Thorkell is something, but it isn't a complex enough beat to carry half an episode. Just in case you haven't been paying attention, yes, there's going to be another run in with Thorkell, and yes, Askeladd's men are suitably spooked about it. Vinland Saga was telegraphing this a month ago, so I don't know how or why the show expects us to pick up that old sense of suspense and dust it off like nothing has happened in the meantime.

By his very nature, Thorkell is basically only interesting when he is actively murdering fools on the battlefield, and specifically fools that we have at least some modicum of investment in. There are only so many times he can magically turn his enemies' bodies into so many pieces of disembodied meat before his schtick gets old. “History of Beasts” might have worked as a single chapter of a comic that you could read in a matter of minutes, but it has absolutely no business taking up nearly a half-hour of our attention. Normally this is where I'd leave off with some kind of foreshadowing statement about the impending battle or whatever, but I've already done that twice before in reference to this exact scenario, so I'm not pressing my luck. Let's just get this over with already.

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Stars Align - Episode 1-2-3 [Review]

There is a real tendency to paint childhood with a rosy bloom, but the truth of the matter is, for a lot of people, the memories are more painful than perfect. Of course, when most stories try to go the other way we end up with the torture porn of kiddy lit, so striking the balance is a much more difficult proposition than you might imagine. My prime examples of works that get it right are the Sunny series by Jennifer and Matthew Holm and anything by Raina Telgemeier, but if it continues to handle itself as well as these three episodes, Stars Align may manage to get itself added to that list.

On the surface, this is a show about a pretty awful boys' soft tennis club at a suburban middle school. What makes them so bad at first just looks like plain old indifference, but about midway through the first episode, the little details begin to add up. Not only is their faculty advisor not a sports guy (I believe he's an art teacher), but the girls' team is phenomenal and has a coach who knows what she's doing. Since the guys keep getting compared to the girls no matter what they do, it just becomes easier to embrace their general suckage and just try and let everything roll off their backs. After all, if you know and accept that you're the laughingstock, the words can't hurt you, right?

The one exception to this seems to be Toma, the team captain. He's almost absurdly motivated compared to everyone else, and in episode three we finally start to see why he's so invested: his mother doesn't think he's worth much. Why she thinks that is still unclear, but hopefully it's more than just “he looks like x deadbeat relative” or something similar. It could have something to do with the temper we see him display this week – every time he and Maki win a match, he grimaces horribly, like he's furious about something. Granted, middle schoolers don't have the best control over their emotions (like when he throws down his racket or when Itsuki hits the bully with his), but there's something almost alarming about the whole thing. Yes, the club will lose school funding if the team doesn't improve, but why is he so invested in this particular thing over all others?

The answer may well lie with his older brother, who in school was a soft tennis player. That's certainly part of the appeal for Maki, as well, albeit for different reasons. While Toma may see succeeding at the sport his brother played as a way to make his mom love him, Maki remembers it as a symbol of kindness and possibly protection from an older kid. When we first see Maki with Toma's brother, his face is bruised and cut, but the initial assumption it's easy to jump to is that he's just fallen or run into a tree or something. But after the reveal at the end of episode one, when we learn exactly why Maki and his mom move so often, the scene takes on a darker tone: it's very likely that Maki was beaten by his father in the recent past.

While abusive parents are no oddity in anime, who could frequently give Hansel and Gretel's (step)mom a run for her money, it isn't often presented in such a matter-of-fact way. It's clear that Maki's dad has done this before (he knows the tricks) and that Maki is familiar with it, but like many who suffer from abuse, he can't bring himself to just walk away. But if he has a weapon, a skill, maybe he'll also have the courage to do something. Soft tennis may at least in part represent that to him, a thought that's driven home this week with Itsuki hitting the boy who's making fun of his family situation with his own tennis racket. Like Maki, Itsuki was abused by a parent, in his case a mother possible suffering from post-partum depression, but his story is mostly out in the open. That doesn't make it easier, but at least people around him understand his actions. Maki isn't yet at the point where he can tell someone what he's been through, and it will be interesting to see if he ever reaches that point.

Even besides these big plot moments, it's worth mentioning that Stars Align also does some nice things with just the everyday bits and pieces. Maki totally accepting Yuta and his crush on Toma is a great understated and almost brushed-by moment, and it has the added bonus of Maki simply having too much to worry about to care about crap like who someone is attracted to. Mitsue's entire character is so true to the proto-goth middle school girl that it's simultaneously funny and painful to watch her, and that goes for all of the way-too-familiar instances of bullying. Middle school can hurt, and this show seems to know that.

With all of that it's a shame that the ending theme, with its excellent displays of character, is caught up in a controversy that could easily have been avoided. But even if that changes, we'll still have smoothly animated tennis swings to watch, and if the show can keep up this level of honesty and keep itself balanced, I think we could be looking at a winner.

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Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Die Neue These Second - Episodes 1-3 [Review]

Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Die Neue These is back! Well actually, it's been back for a while, so let's go about catching up on these episodes. As you probably already know by now, the ‘premiere’ of this Second Season frankly feels much more like a proper finale to the first, which rather frustratingly just coasted off with little in the way of any resolution at the end of its cour. That episode immediately brings back everything that was working so well about the story of the Alliance's botched invasion of the Empire and the following chase and regrouping in Armistar. There's crazy come-from-behind plans, victories of measure for both sides' leads in Yang and Reinhardt, and an assessment of the fallout, including restructuring of the Alliance government at the hands of ol' President Tricky Trunicht, which all would have made a pretty solid finale for that freshman season of this ambitious remake. As-is, it makes for a bit of a jarring re-entry after nearly a year-and-a-half, if you aren't already rather familiar with the story or took in a recap episode recently.

Conversely, the next two episodes definitely feel like a more characteristic new-season catchup for LOGH. Both episodes fourteen and fifteen focus entirely on detailing events that aren't super-exciting supreme-scale space showdowns, but are here to move the new status quo into place. Episode fourteen is mostly focused on the Imperial side, following up on the big shock from the end of the premiere: The death of the Emperor himself. The narration explains the scattered family situation that will lead to an inevitable power vacuum and succeeding struggle around the throne, introducing several new characters and placing many of their motivations in relation to our main boy on that side, Reinhardt.

Reinhardt's involvement in the swirling conspiracies and decision to use them as a power-play isn't terribly surprising. His ambitions have been known pretty much since the beginning and this fits with his character, particularly with Oberstein on-hand to nudge him now. Viewers might be a bit more taken aback, however, by Reinhardt going so far as to make his intentions known to his whole squad of fleet commanders, effectively making them culpable in his long-con coup plan. But this, as well as what we see of him in the following episode, is an aspect of Reinhardt that solidifies his abilities beyond mere combat strategies: He's a natural leader, able to ride a thin but effective line between inspiring presence to follow and deft master manipulator. It's a pointed contrast to the old ways we're shown are otherwise ruling the Empire's leadership system, chock-full of classist and sexist notions of succession that bring its governing to a halt the instant its figurehead dies of natural causes. Even with the dedicated bureaucrats of the system trying to steer it as simply as possible, we're told by Reinhardt that civil war in the Empire is the only eventual result, sooner or later.

That foresight, that long-term planning-within-planning, leads Reinhardt to orchestrate the events that cross over into Yang's part of the plot in the next episode and set up how the landscape is going to shift for the Federation. Yang, being Yang, gets to demonstrate his own acumen for thinking ahead, as he recognizes Reinhardt's intent in this situation immediately, spending almost the whole episode merely ruminating and discussing with others how to recognize and handle it. There's a certain amusement factor in the prisoner exchange between Yang and Kircheis being recognized in-universe as such a 'peaceful, respectable' event, even if you aren't aware of the explosive, far reaching consequences it will have, since the powder-keg nature is immediately communicated via Yang and the episode itself. LOGH has dabbled in it before up to this point, but it's a very interesting element to see warfare between nations carried out on fronts other than simple mass combat.

It might be more interesting, however, if the show's presentation would loosen up a little more. Maybe all the time off has tainted it by comparison, but this new season, especially the fourteenth and fifteenth episodes, feels sterile even by typical LOGH standards. With all the procedural piece-moving occuring in them, these episodes in particular come off the most ‘history documentary’ the series has been. There are a few bright spots, like Reinhardt's salute of a retiring officer or some of the atmosphere in the Alliance sections feeling amusingly modern-style for a setting ostensibly in the far-flung space future. It does an effective job selling the sometimes-uncomfortable similarities in the Alliance's simmering issues with the weaknesses we're weathering in our own western democracies. But these presentational flashes leave less impact due to the extremely dry direction and oddly-stiff characters. The biggest casualty there is Kircheis, as virtually everyone in the cast comments on his amiability that established fans will recall from previous passes at the material but is barely shown here beyond a few soft smiles.

Even as they're seemingly turned up for this reintroduction though, LOGH's style and pacing are aspects that viewers are probably familiar with and accepting enough of by this point. To that end, these episodes are still eminently watchable for what mostly amount to in-universe textbook summaries, though it's still disappointing coming off of the premiere episode's blockbuster finish to a more traditionally-exciting story arc. That execution at least bodes well for when LOGH really gets going again, whenever the various fuses lit in these opening episodes finally go off. This series has taught us enough patience to wait for that, anyway.

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Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Die Neue These Second - Episodes 4-5 [Review]

If you weren't yet aware, the second season of Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Die Neue These is being released as a series of movies in Japan, borderline-concurrently with these episodic showings Crunchyroll is chopping them up into. I haven't seen the film versions, but it's worth noting here as unless some major editing wizardry is taking place, the tidy run-times and clean subject breaks between episodes seem to make it clear that these were the intended format regardless. That's exceptionally clear heading into these next two episodes, which kick off two separate story arcs for each side of the war, seemingly setting us up to alternate between parts of them as we go.

Episode 16 takes us to the Empire and their incipient civil war. It's heralded by the arrival of another new character, one whom if you didn't already know was important would probably be able to guess. Hildegard von Mariendorf is an immediately endearing presence, not just by being a female character connected to Reinhardt who isn't reduced to a mere motivating plot device the way his sister Annrose is, but because of how quickly she comes off as sharp and entertaining. Hilda gets a solid amount of focus in the opening minutes of this episode, recapping the situation of unrest in the Empire and laying out once again why Reinhardt is the one we're supposed to be rooting for here. Reinhardt's natural leadership abilities have already been commented on, and will continue to be shown, but having this character established as a smart situational judge reiterate how he can feed into the current structure to be more successful sets another clear trajectory for Reinhardt's ambitions. It's not just that he'd be a good leader, as Hilda points out, the Empire is truly in need of reform if it wants to last longer than it already has, and Reinhardt's abilities are exactly what's needed to deliver that to them.

After that overview, the rest of this episode proceeds with a bit of the same ‘historical overview’ style from the previous two episodes hovering over it, but nowhere near to the same degree. There are a lot of moves involving a lot of characters to cover in the run-up to open war between the divided sides of the Empire, and these narrated-between vignettes handle them effectively enough. One of the big movers turns out to be Merkatz, an otherwise-reasonable commander who gets effectively conscripted into calling the tactical shots for the nobles' side. Of several quote-worthy soundbites this episode, he gets to drop the point that 'Privilege is the worst poison of all. It rots away a person's spirit.' That's followed up with a fairly successful show of emotion in him leaving the letter for his wife and children as he heads off to a battle he's fairly certain to lose.

There's more complex conceptual work in the rest of the episode, with Braunschweig's nobles clashing a bit over strategies in dealing with Reinhardt. There's a multi-side consideration of the practicality of taking Reinhardt out via assassination instead of trying to tactically take him head-on, but the prideful head of the nobles can't discard his perception of his own honor to take such a route. The payoff here comes from when a half-assed unauthorized version of the assassination attempt utterly fails anyway, and Reinhardt brings in Streit, it's would-be orchestrator. Reinhardt's handling of the situation and Streit's impressed reaction to the whole affair effectively wraps this episode by demonstrating what Hilda laid out at the beginning: Reinhardt's actual inspirational leadership (manipulative as it is at times) is much more effective than the entitled attempts the nobles are making. Original LOGH author Yoshiki Tanaka earlier demonstrated a lot of political leanings in the Alliance side of the story and his clear distaste for nationalism, but in this section he shows that he has just as little patience for self-absorbed ruling aristocrats.

Don't worry if you missed all those Alliance-based musings though, since we're right back to them in episode 17! The previous episode worked pretty well, but this one turns out to be the show really getting back into its cinematic gear. Unlike the pseudo-montage of interconnected developing events that drew us into the Empire's civil war, this one kicks off by showing a direct, inciting incident. Remember Falk, the commander who got temporarily blinded by the sheer level of his catastrophic failure? He's back and he's a part of the rebels we saw scheming last episode, and his seemingly-spiteful assassination attempt on an official is what sets everything off. It's a pretty interesting transition from the previous episode when you recall that this was just one more angle set in motion by Reinhardt.

This episode does stall a little bit in the middle there, pointedly having Yang and company piddle around with busiwork and a lack of knowledge of what's coming next. It's at least a decent, unnervingly-accurate depiction of dealing day-to-day in a country where you know things are in flux and about to boil over, but you have no way of knowing when or how. And fortunately for the entertainment value but less so for the Yang Gang, the payoff comes sooner rather than later, with a pretty solid surprise for first-time fans: Frederica's father is the leader of the rebels orchestrating the coup in the Alliance. Her reaction is just the start of the effective emotional plays this episode makes for everything.

Before the more characteristic and personal aspects come into play though, the founding ideas of the coup attempt in this episode are worth analyzing. As Bewcock points out, Dwight Greenhill seems like a decent man, not prone to being manipulated by Imperial scheming the way the other upstarts in his crew have been. It makes clear that Reinhardt's plan worked because we can sympathize with the need for reform that's taking place across both sides this episode: We've seen throughout the show so far that the Alliance government really is super-corrupt. But LOGH makes the key point that violent attacks to jump right over fair democracy straight into installing fascism is no answer.

It's repeated several times in episode 17 that Reinhardt had no way of knowing how the coup attempt he orchestrated would actually play out, that that lends an effective atmosphere to the events of the episode itself. There's a strong ‘thriller’ atmosphere as things progress here, as we wonder how the sides will shake out in their successes and what eventual lesson might be learned by the people of the Alliance from all this. To that end, the show effectively touches on a few of the player's in Yang's own team. Getting the story on Frederica's opinion of the situation again calls up that base emotional investment I've been so desperate to see from the show for the last few episodes. But more intensely than that is the discussion between Schönkopf and Yang on the subject of the coup and how to handle it. There's an effective segue into discussing Yang's leadership style and its implicit comparisons with Reinhardt's as covered in the preceding episode. Yang's inherent contradiction as a war expert who hates war is reiterated here, and he remarks on his personal disinterest in being a leader of the people, especially a benevolent dictator as Schönkopf suggests setting him up as. But that's contrasted later with a scene from Julian where it's shown how much faith the notion of Yang's command instills in the people of the Alliance, proceeding to a direction of actions where the fate of that side itself is in Yang's very hands. And through it all there's an actual clash of personalities, a character-based intensity to the interaction between Schönkopf and Yang.

It warms up a lot in episode 16, but the 17th especially feels like LOGH DNT's second season finally starting to fire on all cylinders. There's a ton going on just in terms of the concepts being thrown around and how the writing articulates them, and that's all contained in a section of the plot that's still in the well-known LOGH mold of 'Watching armies prepare to do something they'll get to doing a couple episodes from now”. Episode 16's coverage of the Empire is no slouch either, and if we're going to keep alternating between the sides and stories in this format for the time being, I'm quite excited to keep following both of them.

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Food Wars! Shokugeki no Soma: The Fourth Plate - Episode 1-2-3 [Review]

Food Wars has been consistently impressive in a variety of ways, perhaps the most striking being that it took the basic “competitive cooking” premise that originated in shows like Cooking Master Boy (and yes I'm using that particular example on purpose) and somehow made it even crazier. Sure, the judicious amounts of fanservice for all genders helps, but it's really in the personalities of the characters that the story succeeds. Everyone loves an underdog story, but part of what makes the Rebels so good is that they alternate between accepting that they're the underdogs and absolutely rejecting the idea. Or rather, they know that they're not the favorites to win, but that doesn't stop them from believing in themselves completely.

Not that that faith always works out. After all, in this Team Shokugeki arc, the members of Central also have unshakable confidence in their own culinary superiority, plus the smugness that comes of aligning themselves with the source of power at their ludicrously hierarchical high school. Being smug is definitely one of Azami Nakiri's defining traits, and even though he hasn't opened his mouth to do anything but smirk in these three episodes, it's clear that he's given that particular gift to all of his lackeys as well. Not that the Elite Ten were ever known for being all that humble, but for most of them, Nakiri's encouragement has lifted them to a whole new level of obnoxious.

The major exception to that rule among current Elite Ten members (which excludes Ishiki, who honestly never suffered from that particular issue) is Tsukasa, the first seat. He's got a more self-effacing manner, and when he goes up against Kuga in episode two and beats him in episode three, he's the first to admit that it was a legitimate challenge that was difficult for him to win. While I (and the Rebels) may not agree with his philosophy or choice to stand by Central, it is hard to accuse him of doing so because he's power-hunger or has an inherent belief in his own flawless superiority. He has confidence because he's actually good, and he's also willing to admit that Kuga was a tough opponent to cook against. Unlike the rest of Central (and some of the Rebels), he doesn't take victory for granted or assume that his opponent won't be difficult, and when this arc is over, that may be what ends up saving him as a character.

It worked for Erina, after all – once she learned to admit fault and to get to the bottom of her issues, she started to grow into the confident (but not snobbish) young woman she is in these episodes. She's channeled her anger into leadership, and while Soma may be the driving force of this revolution, Erina is quickly becoming its head. She does respect some of Soma's weirder ideas, like the fact that he'll have been in most of the individual battles, but that seems to be mostly because she knows he's capable – and can accept that maybe not everything is going to go precisely their way.

And they certainly didn't in episode two. It was a resounding victory for Central, which is either a terrible sign going forward or a classic case of things getting worse before they get better. Kuga losing to the First Seat did feel a bit like a foregone conclusion, if only because he's been presented as a much less versatile chef than his rival, but seeing Perfect Trace fail Mimasaka was an upset. Likewise having Rindo beat her opponent was unfortunate, although at least that alligator didn't get skinned in live combat for nothing. Her choice to use an unusual ingredient and less complicated recipe (for a given value of “complicated”) may have pushed her over the edge; it feels very likely that her opponent was trying too hard to work the theme into his signature food (ramen) while also going head-to-head with her in terms of unusual savor.

While the plot is moving at a good clip here, that does come with some sacrifices. In keeping with the Third Plate, we're seeing much less actual cooking, basically going from “these are the ingredients” to “here's my dish!” with very little in between. More disappointing is that the foodgasms feel a bit toned down, although the nonconsensual snake imagery which makes up the most memorable one I could have lived without. (It makes sense, but feels in poor taste.) The characters also don't look quite as consistent as they have in the past, so that's going to bear keeping an eye on.

As we begin the next phase of the Team Shokugeki next week, there's plenty to be nervous about. I feel confident about Soma and Takumi, but putting Megumi up against Momo, who's definitely veering out of “cutesy” into “creepy” territory, seems like a recipe for disaster, with the older girl having perfected her form of condescension and Megumi already suffering from a lack of self-confidence. Will Soma's adult rival showing up at the end of this week's episode give her the boost she'll need? How the hell do you make butter sushi? We'll have to tune in next week to find out.

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Assassins Pride - Episodes 1-3 [Review]

Let's dispel one theory about this light novel adaptation which arose during the Preview Guide: this is not an intentional genre parody. Episodes 2 and 3 reinforce both that the series takes itself much too seriously for that and that nothing about the writing shows it being capable of executing a stealth parody. If the series at all gives the impression of being a parody, it is because its attempts to be taken seriously sometimes fall painfully flat.

As I had mentioned in the Preview Guide entry for the series, the setting for the story – with the world being housed in domes within a candelabra, with train tunnels connecting each dome – is an intriguing one. However, the more one thinks about it, the more the impracticality of it stands out. Why build a civilization this way? Is the compartmentalization of the world part of some grand experiment, or perhaps a statement about the subdivision of humanity by social class? Without some more background, this just smacks of “hey, this seems like a cool thing to do” logic, as it does not at all feel like a physical set-up that could develop naturally. The structure where possessing mana distinguishes one as being of noble birth is a more common and realistic one; supernatural and fantasy tales are awash with accounts of nobility possessing powers beyond commoners and/or cases where having innate power makes one a noble. That one noble lacks innate power because she may be illegitimate, rather than just some aberration, is a different and interesting twist on the concept, as is that her life literally depends on that truth (which she isn't even aware of) not being revealed. The perpetual night concept, though not common, is also not unknown. The class system for mana types is suspiciously game-like but there are titles out there every season with far more blatant game mechanics bases.

On the surface the story so far is congenial enough: an assassin is assigned to tutor a girl and kill her off if she does not sufficiently develop mana abilities because of the implications that has about her true bloodline. He's impressed by her resolve and decides to secretly help her, putting both in the situation where their secret has to be maintained or they're both dead (for differing reasons). However, like with the setting, things start to fall apart if the characters and story structure are exposed to any scrutiny. Kufa's motives for helping Melida are thin at best without some support; does he see her resolve as similar to his own. Staking your life on just "I like her resolve" seems indefensibly weak. That he's actually a vampire may be the least surprising reveal of the season, given his last name, but why is a vampire mixed up in all of this, when it seems like he should be more aligned with the lancanthropes? The villain in episode 3 seems intent on doing experiments with mana, but what does he gain from that? Too many motives are too thin here, without applying meta logic to this scenario - in which case things work out just fine. Kufa gets a loli to fawn over, a young girl gets an imposing first love, and hey, we're on the road to romance! (At this point it's actually only clear that Melida is crushing on Kufa, especially based on things that happen in episode 3. He doesn't seem to see her that way yet, but hey, give it time.)

The story will ultimately need to be more compelling because this one isn't shining on the action front. While action scenes are active enough, the animation effort struggles to keep up with how the series stages its battles. Kufa also looks less than thrilling when he manifests his vampire form; despite the musical score's desperate efforts to give that whole scene some sense of gravitas instead more contributes to it being laughable. The uniform designs for the Melida and her classmates are also odd choices; if they're supposed to give the impression of the girls' breasts being monstrous eyes then they have succeeded, though it leaves me wondering what kind of statement is intended there.

On the whole, the first three episodes of this series are not a disaster, but I am also not terribly optimistic about the series' chances to get better.

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Boruto: Naruto Next Generations - Episode 126 [Review]

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Boruto: Naruto Next Generations - Episode 126 [Review]

This week, Boruto: Naruto Next Generations closes out its latest arc with a cute, laidback epilogue. Fearing that Shukaku will once again be targeted by the Otsutsukis, Naruto makes arrangements for him to be placed in protective custody. However, it'll be a few days until the safe house is ready, so Naruto decides to take the beast to the Uzumaki residence until everything is in order. Although Shukaku is initially resistant to cohabitating with humans, he becomes interested in Himawari after learning that she was able to knock out Naruto (and Kurama) while in Byakugan mode. However, once she reveals that she has no recollection of the incident in question, Shukaku becomes sullen and insists on being left alone. Shortly thereafter, a misunderstanding leads to the still-tea-kettle-bound Shukaku being hauled off to the scrap yard, where Himawari uses her Byakugan to rescue him seconds before he's crushed. Grateful to the little girl for her help, Shukaku comes to understand why Kurama has comfortably settled into his role as the Uzumaki family's protector.

A surly character coming around due to the infectious innocence of a child is well-tread ground, but this week's outing is entertaining enough to excuse its cutter-cookie premise. Not only does the miniaturized Shukaku (who was one of the best things about the previous arc) get plenty of screentime, we also get an extended look at how the Uzumakis function as a family unit. Since Naruto is generally an absent parent and Boruto is fairly independent despite his young age, it's rare to see the whole clan together for longer than a scene or two. However, with Boruto on a post-mission breather and Naruto actually taking some time off, the whole family is able to let their hair down and enjoy each other's company. Shukaku seeing through Kurama's aloofness by episode's end and realizing why the Nine Tails is fond of the Uzumakis is a particularly nice note for the story to go out on.

Though Himawari is indeed young, her level of maturity seems a bit uneven this week. She's slow to understand that Shukaku isn't a toy, even after being told multiple times. Furthermore, she gets hurt enough to leave Shukaku unattended after their tiff, even though she knows her father has been tasked with protecting him. This would all be more understandable if she were three or four instead of somewhere between six and ten. Still, it's impressive that she's able to summon the skill and strength necessary to save Shukaku in the end, even if the dump crisis feels rushed and contrived. (Also, it's unclear if an industrial trash compactor could harm a Tailed Beast.)

An enjoyable standalone episode that put a nice bow on the recently concluded arc, this week's Boruto serves as a nice breather from the usual action. Although Naruto's sure to resume his workaholic lifestyle, it was nice to see him spend some time with the fam without coming into conflict with his son. It's just a shame that we have to say goodbye to chibi-fied Shukaku so soon.

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Boruto: Naruto Next Generations - Episode 126 [Review]

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Boruto: Naruto Next Generations - Episode 126 [Review]

This week, Boruto: Naruto Next Generations closes out its latest arc with a cute, laidback epilogue. Fearing that Shukaku will once again be targeted by the Otsutsukis, Naruto makes arrangements for him to be placed in protective custody. However, it'll be a few days until the safe house is ready, so Naruto decides to take the beast to the Uzumaki residence until everything is in order. Although Shukaku is initially resistant to cohabitating with humans, he becomes interested in Himawari after learning that she was able to knock out Naruto (and Kurama) while in Byakugan mode. However, once she reveals that she has no recollection of the incident in question, Shukaku becomes sullen and insists on being left alone. Shortly thereafter, a misunderstanding leads to the still-tea-kettle-bound Shukaku being hauled off to the scrap yard, where Himawari uses her Byakugan to rescue him seconds before he's crushed. Grateful to the little girl for her help, Shukaku comes to understand why Kurama has comfortably settled into his role as the Uzumaki family's protector.

A surly character coming around due to the infectious innocence of a child is well-tread ground, but this week's outing is entertaining enough to excuse its cutter-cookie premise. Not only does the miniaturized Shukaku (who was one of the best things about the previous arc) get plenty of screentime, we also get an extended look at how the Uzumakis function as a family unit. Since Naruto is generally an absent parent and Boruto is fairly independent despite his young age, it's rare to see the whole clan together for longer than a scene or two. However, with Boruto on a post-mission breather and Naruto actually taking some time off, the whole family is able to let their hair down and enjoy each other's company. Shukaku seeing through Kurama's aloofness by episode's end and realizing why the Nine Tails is fond of the Uzumakis is a particularly nice note for the story to go out on.

Though Himawari is indeed young, her level of maturity seems a bit uneven this week. She's slow to understand that Shukaku isn't a toy, even after being told multiple times. Furthermore, she gets hurt enough to leave Shukaku unattended after their tiff, even though she knows her father has been tasked with protecting him. This would all be more understandable if she were three or four instead of somewhere between six and ten. Still, it's impressive that she's able to summon the skill and strength necessary to save Shukaku in the end, even if the dump crisis feels rushed and contrived. (Also, it's unclear if an industrial trash compactor could harm a Tailed Beast.)

An enjoyable standalone episode that put a nice bow on the recently concluded arc, this week's Boruto serves as a nice breather from the usual action. Although Naruto's sure to resume his workaholic lifestyle, it was nice to see him spend some time with the fam without coming into conflict with his son. It's just a shame that we have to say goodbye to chibi-fied Shukaku so soon.

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Black Clover - Episode 98 [Review]

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O Maidens in Your Savage Season - Episode 9 [Review]

I have to admit that it was almost a relief when I got to be mad at Niina and Milo-sensei again for their intensely stupid or annoying actions after the first half of this episode. Not that I approve of what either of them are doing, or particularly enjoy watching people actively be jackasses, but the walking-on-clouds first love aspect of Kazusa and Sonezaki was also incredibly irritating. In that case, however, it's not because the characters are being ninnies, but rather because it's all too familiar from my own high school days – the way a friend suddenly became some mushy pink lump the moment they began dating someone.

As I've said before, with O Maidens in Your Savage Season, part of the difficulty in reviewing is distancing myself (or perhaps yourself as a viewer and reader) from the parts of it that hit too close to home. At this moment, and possibly for the remainder of the series, Momoko is the most relatable character for me, because while she's dealing with one very important realization about Niina and her own feelings, right now she's much more invested in trying to preserve her friendship now that A Boy has gotten in the way. Momoko's afraid that Kazusa's and Niina's crushes on Izumi are going to destroy their friend group, something that Niina is all too willing to facilitate. She flat-out tells Momoko (or implies, at least) that she's going to choose her crush on Izumi over her friendship with Momoko and Kazusa, which is an awful (albeit fairly believable) thing to say. Momoko quickly goes into crisis mode, desperately trying to keep the trio together, but while she's doing that Niina is actively sabotaging her efforts, along with Izumi's relationship with Kazusa. Her parting line, that you don't have sex with your friends, sends Momoko reeling, but we can see her quickly shove that little moment back into its lockbox in her brain as something she's not ready to deal with yet. While that's a little too bad, it also makes sense, since two of her clubmates and friends are currently obsessing over romantic feelings for boys. This is not the moment she wants to pop up and say that she's different, especially since the Niina/Kazusa dynamic is so threatening to her peace of mind and ideas of the way things have always been in the first place.

It's worth wondering about Niina's motivations for what she's doing as well. There are definitely a few options here: she could be reeling from Izumi's rejection (when, after all, she's The Pretty One as far as the school is concerned, so how could he choose someone else), she could be suffering from her abuse at the hands of Saegusa, who continues to take advantage of her for his own entertainment, or she really could be exactly what everyone thinks she is – the kind of girl who steals someone else's boyfriend just because she can. Since reality is rarely so neatly divided, the truth is probably some combination of all three, and Niina's own internal wounds are almost certainly driving her actions.

The use of Antoine Saint-Exupery's novel The Little Prince is particularly interesting here. Saegusa tells Niina that she is the Fox in the novel, while Izumi is the Prince and Kazusa is the Rose. The Fox wishes desperately to be tamed by the Prince, to have her wildness removed and to belong to him, because it will make the Fox special and unique among foxes, just as the Prince's Rose is special and different from all other roses. But the Prince can only have his Rose, and at the end of the novel he sheds his corporeal body so that he can return to his planet to be with her again, his ephemeral something, ultimately leaving everyone else – Fox and Narrator, King and Lamplighter – behind. Even if Niina does succeed in briefly winning the Prince (in this case, sleeping with Izumi), this seems to imply, she is not his eternal, ephemeral Rose, and she never will be. Perhaps even more important is the fact that it is the Fox who tells the Prince that true things are seen with the heart rather than the mind, which is a lesson Niina herself could definitely stand to learn.

Regardless, what she's doing is awful. And Milo-sensei agreeing to sleep with Hongo? Also bad, although I'm definitely not sure he'll go through with it. Hongo probably should know better than to proposition him, but he's still the adult in this situation, and he really should have shut her down right away instead of letting this play out.

But maybe everyone in this story is just living out their time as the King in Saint-Exupery's book – trying to order the sun to rise and set when and how it suits them best.

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Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? II - Episode 8 [Review]

Haruhime's situation, it turns out, is even worse than Bell and Mikoto at first assumed. Not only was she tricked and sold to Ishtar and forced to become a part of her familia, it wasn't just for her special skill of raising people's levels temporarily. Or rather, it was, but not in the sense that she's simply brought into the Dungeon to buff someone. Because why settle for that when you could give everyone in the familia the ability to raise their own levels via magic cheat? Sure, the way to do that is not only forbidden but also will result in Haruhime's death, but as they say, to make an omelet, you've gotta crack those eggs.

The egg in question is actually a stone – a Killing Stone, to be precise. It's a ritual performed on Renards in order to separate them from their innate abilities by placing those powers into a magical stone via soul transfer. Once the soul is in the stone, it can then be shattered, and each shard will contain the powers of the whole. The catch is, of course, that the soul will also be broken, and there's absolutely no way to put it back together again. The Renard then dies, but her power lives on, usable by anyone who possesses a piece of Killing Stone. That's what Ishtar has planned for Haruhime, and since the only actual requirement for the ritual to create a Killing Stone is a full moon, that implies that making Haruhime work in a brothel has all just been her own twisted idea of fun. It isn't enough that she plans to murder the young woman; she feels the need to humiliate her first and break her spirit. I'd say that perhaps Ishtar just wants to give Haruhime a taste of the sort of activities she herself clearly enjoys, but given that we've now seen her sexually assault both Hermes and Aisha and that Phryne, who also gets a kick out of nonconsensual sex, is her right-hand Amazon, any sort of altruistic motive doesn't seem terribly likely.

This all makes Ishtar the most threatening villain of the series thus far. Apollo was petty and selfish, Freya's calculating and probably going to try something else not good in the future, but Ishtar is utterly ruthless and has zero compassion or concern for the wants or well-being of others. As we saw with Aisha's flashback, she doesn't hesitate when it comes to brutal punishments if she's crossed. Both Bell and Haruhime are just means to a desired end for her, which means that she basically sees them as disposable tools rather than people. She's about as far from Hestia and Takemikazuchi as it's possible to be, almost making Soma look like a semi-decent god.

It also makes “threat of rape” the main weapon for this particular story arc, and I can't say that I'm wild about that. This is the second time Bell has been in danger of being assaulted by members of Ishtar Familia, and Phryne is a terrifying predator. At least the scene in Phryne's sex/torture dungeon isn't played for laughs like Bell's earlier experience with Aisha and the other Amazons. It's also followed up by a very sweet moment when Haruhime comes to rescue him and he hugs her while sobbing. Bell's trust in Haruhime, the fact that he turns to her for comfort, is a balm for both of them: Bell because he's traumatized and she's a safe person, and Haruhime because it means that Bell sees her as a person, one trustworthy and good enough that she can soothe him in his time of need. Given how she sees herself as tainted, Bell's trust and approbation go a long way towards her regaining some sense of self, although this episode makes it clear that she's still more than willing to just give into her fate as Ishtar's sacrifice rather than fight to live.

Fortunately for Haruhime, Mikoto, Bell, and the rest of two familias are willing to fight for her. This may not achieve the scale of the War Game with Apollo Familia, but the emotional value of it may be much, much higher.

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Black Clover - Episode 98 [Review]

A while back we met Fuegoleon Vermillion, the captain of the Crimson Lion Kings. He was immediately one of the coolest and most likable characters in the series by virtue of his strength, but also his willingness to support others. His "Being weak isn't something to be ashamed of," pep talk to Noelle is probably the single best piece of rhetoric in the show. However, he was quickly dispatched by the Eye of the Midnight Sun, losing an arm and falling into a series-long coma which led to his sister taking over his squad. This week, Fuegoleon finally returns in a blaze of glory.

The majority of this episode focuses on the remaining members of the Crimson Lion Kings fighting off the elves while Mereoleona is away from home base. Before Fuegoleon's arrival, this is Leopold's brief time to shine as he proves to himself that he has the grit to one day lead the squad. Our main antagonist is an elf whose name I don't think we receive, so we'll just call him "Randall" after the Lion King vice captain whose body has been taken over. The audience doesn't really have any stake in who Randall was before the possession, or who he is now in elf-form. He's a cookie-cutter bad guy so the heroes have something to react to.

There are only so many ways to extol the virtues of raw shonen magnetism, but the Vermillion family exemplify that spirit unlike anyone else in this show. They'd come across as parodic in their "RAH RAH, NEVER GIVE UP," passion if they weren't so charismatic. As opposed to Asta, who is an underdog with something to prove, the Vermillions are royalty and have already claimed positions of leadership. Their conviction is a part of their responsibility—if they can't stand up for what's important, then who will? Black Clover has been hit-and-miss when it comes to streamlining Shonen Jump tropes, but this week is working for me. Fuegoleon is in a very Goku-like position where he's been taken out of commission long enough for the weaker characters to struggle and fight, and then he appears to save the day when he's most needed. He even arrives with an unexpected power-up in the form of Salamander, the fiery dragon spirit that was fighting with Fana a few arcs ago. The story could not get any more straightforward than this, but the emphasis is on the strength and dependability of heroes like Fuegoleon. We follow him for a reason.

The episode caps off with a tease of what's to come. Elves are gathering all over the kingdom, and the ones we've been fighting are just the tip of the iceberg. We meet Latry, the elf inhabiting Langris' body who also happens to be Patry's cousin. He's powerful enough to fight his way out of the prison that Langris was being kept in, and the episode ends with Finral waking up with the determination to save his brother. (Even though Langris, like, super doesn't deserve it.) With so many moving pieces and various battles all running simultaneously, I'm reminded of Dragon Ball Super's Tournament of Power. There's suddenly a ton going on in the story, but it's all in service of setting up fights and I worry that there won't be enough variety in the plot to help structure it all. It's working well so far, since we can take it one week at a time, but Black Clover's magic duels have a pretty dry pattern to them. On its own, this episode is snappy and exciting, with just enough visual polish to keep things impactful. Whether or not the show can keep building on this momentum is dubious, but for now I'm still enjoying myself.

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Fruits Basket - Episode 21 [Review]

 

Fruits Basket - Episode 21 [Review]

After so many weeks of going out of its way to see the hidden good and potential for change in everyone, Fruits Basket finally reaches the limits of its empathy with Motoko Minagawa and her underlings. The Prince Yuki fan club refuses to learn from their mistakes so hard that their own feature episode is actually about their sworn enemy instead, Saki Hanajima, who manages to grow from the valuable lesson that these three stooges miss completely.

To be fair, Motoko and her posse aren't painted as malicious on the same level as Akito Soma or Tohru's extended family members; they're irredeemable yet harmless laughingstocks rather than actual threats, and it's still entirely possible for them to get more development in the future—but this episode promises no such future, because Fruits Basket seems to understand that a redemption arc for this trio just isn't something the audience is dying to see. In a story about outcasts and weirdos forming found families by learning to grow alongside one another, the Prince Yuki fan club's greatest limitation is their own banal normalcy. Even the charming girl-next-door Tohru feels like a believable outsider thanks to her difficult personal history, but despite the trio's wildly differing personalities, it's easy to sum up all three as easily freaked-out squares who don't have to learn from their mistakes to blend into society and blunder their way through life with the begrudging support of other exhaustingly insecure normies. (Mio has always been my personal favorite. She's like the Karen Smith of the group, the girl most likely to leave all this drama behind once she finds less toxic friends.) After high school, either their teenage hormones will finally ebb, or they'll turn their bullying energy toward harassing other tired moms on the PTA until another Hana or Megumi finally calls them out so they can blame everyone but themselves all over again.

The Prince Yuki fan club's presence in Tohru's life is best played for laughs rather than drama, so Motoko's warped perspective on our heroine provides engaging if unexceptional comedy this week, as she and her minions blunder their way through a revenge plan that was doomed to failure from the start. Because we already know the softer side of Hanajima, the relative normalcy of her house doesn't offer the audience any surprises—with the exception of her bizarre little brother, Megumi. It's anyone's guess how this very cool middle-schooler (perhaps what Hiro would be like with a stronger support network) became so wise beyond his years, but his presence helps shake up a dynamic that could otherwise have become stale as Hana remained unflappable in the face of Motoko's monotonous empty threats. Of course, considering that Megumi's so close with his sister, it's reasonable to assume his insights into the nature of jealousy come from personal experience, as he's watched Tohru and Uo steal away Hana's time just like the Somas have gradually taken Tohru further away from her middle-school friends.

Between its many lighthearted scenes of effortlessly terrorizing would-be bullies, this episode's theme packs a surprising punch for how it stands out against Fruits Basket's usual messages. In a story that usually focuses on the importance of finding diverse ways to share your feelings with others, Hana realizes the necessity of holding back when the love you feel turns into entitlement, sometimes without you ever noticing the change. Megumi points out that "love" is such a powerful word that people will often use it to excuse horribly selfish actions, simply because they feel love toward the person they're mistreating, disrespecting, or attempting to control for their own satisfaction. Love can be an emotion, but cultivating a loving relationship, rather than admiring someone from a distance, has to be a two-way effort that both sides practice together. Feeling love toward someone makes this hard work easier, but it is work because love means choosing to put another person's feelings before your own as much as possible. At the point you claim that speaking over that person or crossing their boundaries is actually "love", simply because you feel love toward them while using parts of their life to enrich your own, you can't be surprised when their feelings toward you turn to hatred, just like Yuki has come to hate Akito despite the admiration he must have once felt toward his master. In his own way, Megumi is actually being quite kind to Motoko and friends, warning them of the nightmare that could ensue if their secret fantasies about Prince Yuki ever did come true.

Motoko's problem isn't that she doesn't "really" love Yuki—her infatuation and admiration for her Prince are not only genuine, but quite possibly stronger than Tohru's own feelings—but she's been using that passion to try and control him by saying Yuki belongs equally to everyone (and therefore no one), without regard for his own desires. This is especially tragic considering what we know about Yuki's growing need for support and intimacy with people outside the Soma family. Who knows how much more difficult the Prince Yuki fan club's machinations have made things for a boy who already struggles with opening up to others? As the narrator points out, the secret ethos of the Prince Yuki fan club is basically "Since I'm not good enough to have him, I'll only be happy if nobody can." Motoko assumes that Tohru thinks she's better than everyone because she's breaking their rules, but Tohru hasn't been thinking about herself at all. She may not feel love toward Yuki as powerfully as Motoko does, but she's much better at the work of loving him in the ways he needs, which is what's allowed Prince Yuki to become even more beautiful to all the girls basking in the glow of his newfound happiness.

I don't think Hana was ever in danger of locking Tohru up in her lair out of jealousy, but her frustration with so many Somas stealing her best friend's time away is certainly valid, so her loneliness could have deceived her into making more selfish demands on Tohru's life over time. Seeing how ugly Motoko, Minami, and Mio's entitled flavor of "love" has made them gives Hana a wake-up call, just in time to be reminded that Tohru will always come running when she needs her most. This was a slight but vital step forward for Fruits Basket's story, reminding us yet again why Uo and Hana are such an important part of Tohru's life—perhaps even the most important, as they firmly put the "support" in supporting cast. No matter what Akito and Shigure are scheming in the shadows, and no matter how Yuki and Kyo stumble in their efforts to support the first girl they've ever come to love, we can rest assured that Tohru's guardian demons will be there to protect the bond they've forged together not just in their hearts, but in their actions.

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Dr. Stone - Episode 7 [Review]

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Dr. Stone - Episode 7 [Review]

Last week's episode didn't give me much to dig into, due to its transitional nature, but now that we've fully moved from escaping Tsukasa into Senku's attempts to rebuild a brave new world, hopefully things will begin to accelerate.

“There's always an idiot that will try anything.”

One of my initial complaints about the core group of Senku/Taiju/Yuzuhira was that Senku was the only one with much motivation. I get that they're trustworthy friends, but their secondary goal of being together had already been met and didn't give much room for growth. So while it seems odd to immediately dismiss two-thirds of the main cast so early on in the show, I applaud the choice now that we have a taste of what's currently replacing them. The stone world villagers all have their own ideals and ways of life, which finally gives Senku something—or someone—new to bounce off of.

While the quick friendship with Kohaku is nice enough (though I could do without the standard insecure strong woman gags), the real star of this episode is the interaction between Senku and the village sorcerer, Chrome. It starts as a one-sided contest, where Chrome does what looks like some basic snake-oil charlantry to impress, only to be immediately deflated by Senku's dull reaction compared to the other villagers. It isn't until the contest is over and Senku gloats over how easily he bested those elementary parlor tricks that he catches himself and the entire tone of the scene changes. He switches from punching down at Chrome's basic skills and turns to admiration for managing to develop them at all in the stone world. It's rare that this type of self-reflection and humility is highlighted rather than simply glorifying the protagonist's overpowered-ness, and it immediately positions Chrome as a more relevant and receptive vehicle to Senku's scientific explanations than Taiju was. That Chrome has also pushed himself in order to save Ruri also conveniently fills Taiju's role of striving to save Yuzuhira, thus making his replacement easier.

The biggest point in favor of this character trade is that it's a much stronger base to showcase Senku's ideals. While Taiju and Yuzuhira had a high school education from their time, Chrome is proof that no matter how hard Tsukasa tries to stop scientific progress, in the long run it's a fool's errand, since science doesn't just come from those that already know it. It comes from curiosity and effort, and as long as there is a goal or a dream, some will seek ways to achieve it. For Senku's new closest allies, Kohaku and Chrome, that means healing Ruri, so rather than Senku's companions aligning to his plans, we've reached a point where Senku has to work towards theirs. This mutual progress is another hallmark of the series, as Senku's recruitment plan isn't as simple as forcing domination or making them pay back debts after he uses his knowledge of modern science to fix their problems, but rather to completely incorporate science into their lives and improve their civilization as a whole. It's grand and audacious, but that's exactly what we need, and I can't wait to see how his influence transforms this future.

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Granbelm - Episode 7 [Review]

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Granbelm - Episode 7 [Review]

Poor Anna. It's been obvious for a while now that she was pigeonholed as Granbelm's tragic villain for its first half, and this episode sees her firmly closing the book on her own chapter. My misgivings about motivations aside, this episode absolutely succeeds at communicating that tragedy, and it begins and ends with Anna herself. Her seiyuu, Yōko Hikasa, was absolutely killing it in her swan song for the role this week. She has a great time finding new and interesting ways to scream Ernesta's name, and she sells the breakdown every step of the way down to the end, when she's just yelling the names of brain chemicals. It's a testament to her performance and the execution of this episode that I found Anna such an engaging and sympathetic character, even if I still wasn't completely down with the hows and whys of her turn.

This episode tries to put a new spin on the story we got last week, the idea that Anna's inferiority complex is rooted in her naturally low magical aptitude. I like one major point that comes up late in theory—that Ernesta saw Anna as being in an enviable position for not having to participate in the Granbelm at all. It's an effective contrast coming off last episode, where Mangetsu expressed how fun and exciting she thought the magical battle-royale was. This is a good counterpoint to bring up, especially in light of how wrong we see a fight go by this episode's end, but it feels shortchanging for Ernesta to only voice it late in the game, to say nothing of how she spins it as some sort of raw deal for her to have been born with such a naturally awesome magic power level. Otherwise, the overall motif of Anna's breakdown echoes any number of tragic villains—she was someone who couldn't be happy with herself, who has to hurt and drag others down in order to feel better. In doing so, Anna hurts and loses more and more of herself, all supposedly in the name of proving herself worthy to people who already love her.

The problem is that the previous episode didn't really sell any conflict in Anna's self worth beyond everyone telling her what a lousy mage she was. From what we saw last time, her mother and Ernesta were less about feeling proud of Anna no matter what she did, and more simply accepting her lack of aptitude as the only thing everyone in this show cares about. This whole aspect probably would have hit in a more meaningful way if they'd at least tried to present an alternative route Anna could have gone that may have actually made her happy. But simply living quietly as a pampered rich witch, cozy a deal as that is, doesn't satisfy as a missed opportunity for a tragic character who simply wanted the wrong thing too much. Adding insult to injury, it becomes clear by the end of the episode that her eventual death was ultimately just to provide pathos for Ernesta's character instead. Ouch.

Thank goodness Granbelm shows no sign of slowing down in the giant robot department. I thought that the final fight with Nene was already a high point, but this one pulls out even more stops for a skyrocketing sisterly smackdown between Anna and Ernesta. The lava-baked arena is a cool new place to see the fight take place, and the necessary escalation of this battle means we get to see some extremely cool new tricks pulled out by the ARMANOX. More madcap mid-battle mecha upgrades happen, like getting to see Anna's robot bust out a mane of super-mode energy, manipulating flames and ice and creating an army of doppelgangers for Ernesta to carve her way through. Ernesta believably proves that she has the ample ability to defeat her sister, but she's keeping things in-check as much as possible. One appreciable element of an original anime production like Granbelm is seeing the crew's enthusiasm for all the stuff they get to completely make up to animate. For as much as the subject matter of this show is the most serious it's been, it's good to know that won't stop them from showing off stuff like gigantic fire-axes, mecha that summon even bigger mecha to fight with them, or robots yanking themselves around with shadowy tendril hands.

There's a kinship between Granbelm as a series and its depiction of Anna this week, as I feel kind of bad for both of them in their desperation to be noticed. Last week's shocking cliffhanger scene felt like it was engineered entirely to get people talking, yet I scarcely saw a peep about the show in my own social media-sphere. Anna's attempted mom-murder turns out to not take (she just ends up in a coma), but even shortchanging that shock leads into this showcase of robot battles. There are so many magnificent cuts of imaginative excitement in this episode that even if I disagreed with its ideas completely, I'd still at least stay on for the thrill-ride aspect. Ultimately, they got me to sympathize with Anna, and the final direction of her death scene hit as hard as any of the other major moments Granbelm has delivered so far (to say nothing of the posthumous pathos of finding out that she was the one who encouraged Ernesta's magecraft in the first place). Granbelm clearly has entertainment chops, and now that it's done depicting the prevalent issues with Anna, we can see if the ideas it embraces moving forward will be more balanced.

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One Piece - Episode 892 [Review]

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YU-NO: A girl who chants love at the bound of this world. - Episode 15 [Review]

As predicted, this episode of YU-NO turns out to be about Takuya and friends having their beach excursion. It's another of what can be charitably categorized as the ‘faffing about’ parts of the show: These mostly-uneventful interludes where we ostensibly spend time with the characters to endear and develop them so we'll care when the eventual time-travel action starts up again. But you know what isn't so predictable about this one? I actually thought it was okay! Yes, the plot twist this time turns out to be that if YU-NO does something enough it might finally get the hang of it, and in this case that means it got me through a half-hour of Takuya, Kanna, and two supporting characters who don't really matter anymore having fun in the sun without me checking my watch.

The secret to the success of this standout slice-of-life is that it's trading on an idea beyond merely endearing Takuya, Kanna, and their relationship to us. It takes a while to get there, but by the time the relatively low-stress threat of a stray dog has made a mess of the gang's barbecue and fireworks plans, Takuya briefly entertains using the Reflector Device to return to his earlier savestate and try to fix things. He doesn't, of course, because that's a frivolous use of such a power, and robs the friends of the time spent together, good or bad, besides. When you remember that this was the guy who previously was happy to use the device to pass a test in Summer school, it acts as a more-understated-than-expected example of character growth. It also sells us on why this little vacation was presented as uneventfully as it was: These simple, non-sci-fi-enhanced times are the point unto themselves.

Even as I'm not really complaining about it, I should also stress that going on this trip isn't actually as uneventful as I initially described. The main intrigue points revolve around that pendant of Kanna's, and the creepy old man Hojo who seems to be pursuing her for it, for some reason. That he hints at this information while using a public restroom alongside Takuya and also commenting on his junk is probably the least-appreciable part of the whole affair. But then they put him on a train out of the plot for the rest of the episode, so at least that's dealt with.

The other element of the episode with some depth to it is where it's characterizing Kanna. Calling her purely derivative of the old ‘emotionless girl’ anime archetype honestly seems unfair (especially given the age of the character's origins) but thus far there was just that little to go on. This episode actually sneaks in some fun asides that make her seem like she has a real personality, albeit a withdrawn one. Her prowess at watermelon splitting was a fun revelation, and the storytelling and character work here were strong enough to believably present her as someone who wanted to enjoy herself with her new friends. It makes it odd that Takuya's connection with her now was barely established by him trying to speedrun the visual-novel route, since she actually slots into this group quite well despite just barely having met him. Or has she? I'll get to that in a moment.

Just a moment though, because there really isn't that much else to discuss about this episode. It's all very cozy and enjoyably-presented. The aforementioned ideas and functional character work carry it further than YU-NO's usual time-wasting. The most tense part is when Kanna's pendant and the Reflector Device go missing, and even that gets deflated in just a couple minutes when it's revealed to be that stray dog tearing up the place. Even then, I'm so accustomed to the show's adventure-game puzzle-box logic that I was momentary like “Wait, is that supposed to be the curse beast that Eriko's old boyfriend has his soul shunted into?”. Obviously that wasn't the case, but it says something that the episode can deflate a serious situation with an anticlimax like that and have me nonplussed about missed opportunities.

Perhaps that's because this episode is bookended with well-paced intrigue regarding Kanna and how she actually figures alongside Takuya, his father, and the rest of their family. A flashback at the beginning of the episode shows Kanna, seemingly the same age she is now, accompanying a young Takuya at the beach. That's honestly time-travel 101 as far as setting up situations goes, but we seem to be getting right back to it when she has another one of her collapsing fits at the end of the episode. And wait, how did I only just notice that Kanna and Takuya kind of have some family resemblance in their character designs going on? See, this one episode of well-utilized downtime just did its job of pacing out the intrigue in the story, and I'm genuinely ready to keep following it into next week.

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One Piece - Episode 892 [Review]

The reputation of the One Piece anime has surely not been lost on anyone. Generally speaking, I'm probably kinder on it than a lot of people have been if only because I still have so much room in my heart of the hundred episode marathons that I raised myself on over the years. Between One Piece and DBZ and the like, I get it. I get that these shows are slow and not always the prettiest, but there's still a charm to be found in a pulp-y alchemic kind of way. Though, even by my own personal metric for One Piece, the point of diminishing returns started somewhere at the 300 episode count. The rise of much higher-quality Shonen Jump adaptations like My Hero Academia certainly haven't helped my ache for something better, either.

Starting with the new opening theme 'Over the Top' by Kitadani Hiroshi, the differences this week are staggering. It's an actual anime opening! One of my big pet peeves with the New World openings was how they always defaulted to the Straw Hats' Fishman Island outfits, as if that was what the characters actually wear on a regular Tuesday. This new opening shows the crew in their new ninja/samurai duds, really selling us on what's actually going to be happening in this story arc. The new sketchy hand-drawn art style is also greatly appreciated, and the (slightly) shorter runtime for the opening means there isn't as much room for bland or generic shots. It's all action and exciting teases for scenes to come, even if that means the opening isn't shy of spoilers.

As we step into this brave new world, we need to catch up on what the missing half of the crew has been up to since Luffy made his trip to Whole Cake Island. Zoro, Franky, Usopp, and Robin have been blending in as citizens of Wano, taking up local jobs and Japanese aliases. (Zoro's Wano name is "Zorojuro", for example.) They've been instructed by Kin'emon not to make a scene, as they need to wait for Luffy and the others before they can properly begin their attack on Kaido and his crew. An important motif of the arc is introduced to us in the form of a stage curtain opening to reveal Wano's landscape. This arc is a samurai film/kabuki play/rakugo performance and this is formerly 'Act One' of Wano. The curtains go along with the masked shamisen player—a teal-haired woman who's sure to become an important character soon enough. I eagerly await how this arc is going to develop its act structure hook. I feel like we have to see the artifice take on a literal meaning by the end of the story.

For all the updates to the visual and directorial style, the question of pacing is still a big one. I felt as though the voice actors were talking slower than usual this week, like the anime is trying new ways to pad the story out without it becoming immediately apparent. There's at least one significant flourish to the plot, as we're being led step-by-step through the events that led Zoro to being tried for murder, something the manga just cut to in media res. Obviously, he didn't do it, but the sequence leads to a showstopping fight scene where Zoro smokes a bunch of swordsmen with a tiny seppuku blade. He's not blending in very well, is he?

Things are really looking up for the Wano anime, as we've barely gotten started and the visuals are already singing. At its heart, this is still a fairly standard One Piece episode, but there's so much more care put into avoiding the trappings that made our last few adventures feel like a chore. Even when the animation quality inevitably takes a backseat again, the new art direction will ensure that there's at least some baseline charm keeping the show's head above water. There's a lot of good anime being released every season, so it'd be nice if One Piece had a chance at competing with any big franchises other than itself for once.

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Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba - Episode 14 [Review]

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Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba - Episode 14 [Review]

Let's talk about Tanjiro's fight with Inosuke, the Boar Guy. It takes up entire the first third of “The House with the Wisteria Family Crest”, and it does exactly what it needed to do, which is give Tanjiro and Inosuke a chance to throw down so ufotable can flex their muscles and remind folks why so many consider them to the producers of some of the best fight scenes in the business. There's not a lot to analyze about the sequence, outside of marveling at all of the little animation cuts that make Tanjiro and Inosuke's movements feel weighty yet effortless, but there's virtually nothing to complain about, either. It's a quick and brutal tussle between two expert fighters, and the simple satisfaction that it provides is exactly what I come looking for in a good Demon Slayer episode. However, if action and drama is your primary hook as an audience member, then this episode of Demon Slayer is likely to disappoint you, because once Tanjiro and Inosuke finally call off their bout, the rest of “The House with the Wisteria Family Crest” is devoted completely to broad, wacky hijinks.

It starts when Tanjiro finally headbutts the boar mask off Inosuke to reveal that, underneath his beastly guise, the monstrous fighter is really pretty. It's a goofy joke, and definitely not the kind of thing I'd spend three whole weeks building up to, but Demon Slayer isn't out to rock anyone's world with its jokes this week. Inosuke is a beautiful but insane brawler, Zenitsu is a screeching oaf, and Tanjiro is the straight-man type that desperately tries to hold all of the insanity together. The rest of the episode has no plot to speak of – Tanjiro's raven simply guides the bickering boys to a local Inn that can help them rest and recover their wounds (all three of them managed to break their ribs over the past few episodes). The script isn't concerned with laying track for future plot threads or crafting deep moments of character development – this is Demon Slayer the Sitcom, through and through, and all you need to get out of this week's story is that these three dysfunctional Demon Slayers are just so much.

I can already predict a lot of viewers dismissing this episode entirely, and I wouldn't entirely blame them. Zenitsu has already proven to be a divisive character, and Inosuke is just a different brand of loud, buffoonish crazy person. Over dinner, Inosuke reveals that the only reason he's a Demon Slayer is because he's a literal Crazy Mountain Man who robbed an actual Demon Slayer of his weapons and fought in the Final Selection just to see what killing demons was like (as you might have guessed, he really likes it). Later, when Zenitsu discovers that the demon Tanjiro has been carrying around all this time is his ridiculously cute little sister, Zenitsu flies off into an uncontrollable rage. There are many choice reaction faces from nearly every character involved and, to absolutely nobody's surprise, a hell of a lot of yelling.

As for me, I actually dug this episode a lot. I think it veers a little too hard into pumping out comedic relief, but Demon Slayer was never going to last with just Tanjiro and Nezuko as our leads, and even though Zenitsu and Inosuke are incredibly obnoxious in their own ways, I like the dynamic they share with our hero. The show has done such a good job handling its mythology and the more serious episodes that I'm willing to indulge its wackier instincts, at least for now. I wouldn't want to watch week after week of Three Teenagers and a Little Demon Lady, but given how gory and morbid Demon Slayer can be, there's no harm in the show embracing its goofier side. Humor is subjective, though, so I won't be surprised if fans decide to fast-forward through episodes like this one so they can get to the actual demon slaying that Demon Slayer does so well.

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JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind - Episode 37 [Review]

Alright, this is it. For all intents and purposes, this is the climax of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind. From the sound of things, there will be a one-hour finale send-off in a few weeks and there remains a tiny bit of the final battle left to show after this week's cliffhanger, but in terms of emotional punch this week's episode feels like a resolution.

For starters, we must finally say goodbye to Bruno, who ascends to heaven like the cherub angel baby that he is. The stylized clouds do a ton of work in conveying the otherworldly sensation that comes with this scene, and the solid gold that force-ghost Bruno radiates makes him pop from the background in a way that's distinct even by JoJo's standards. This scene makes me wish there had been a little bit more bonding between Bruno and Giorno throughout the show. Most of their personal connection happened nonverbally to keep Giorno's mob boss ambitions a secret from the rest of the team. Abbacchio's death had a really clear poetry to it that spoke to his personality and inner-conflict, but each successive death has resonated slightly less with me. They're more tragic inevitabilities that barely scratch the surface of what their respective characters have been through. Bruno's death is very "Thanks, Dad."

With Chariot Requiem defeated by Bruno's final actions (again, I don't really understand the back-of-the-head light thing) the battle refocuses on the golden arrow and getting to see who upgrades their Stand next. Diavolo is rejected by the arrow and Giorno is the one whose hand it ends up in. There's an interesting beat here where Diavolo plans to retreat, but because Trish calls him out for it he decides to stay and finish the fight despite having clearly lost. This gives Diavolo a brief glimpse of hope when it looks like the arrow is rejecting Giorno as well, but in actuality Gold Experience is going through a metamorphosis and becoming Gold Experience Requiem. Giorno's hair grows longer and he can hover off the ground with his new Stand, so he looks like the halfway point between a godlike being and a Super Saiyan. This is a Shonen Jump manga after all.

The arms race of confusing Stand powers has reached its natural conclusion, where the heroes and villains are at the furthest points in their stories and the author likely doesn't have to write serious challenges for them to overcome anymore. What does Gold Experience Requiem do? Whatever it needs to in order to give the middle finger to Diavolo specifically. There's some time rewinding to repair King Crimson's erased time, and Requiem will always stand between Giorno and whatever premonition Diavolo sees. If a character must operate in another dimension of space and time in order to defy conventional logic, then the way to beat him is to operate in the dimension beyond that.

As formless and unyielding as this final conflict has been, it's too visually interesting for me not to concede to it in the end. I'm certainly going to remember Bruno's ascension and Diavolo's panicked demise for years to come, though hopefully that upcoming one-hour finale can offer some balance after everything that's left me scratching my head. JoJo's is a special series in that it has such a clear personality and soul beneath all the weirdness, and it validates my belief that an audience will be rewarded if they open their hearts to all kinds of possibilities within storytelling. The way Golden Wind has balanced the love between its characters and the dark fascinations of its author really put it a step above the rest of the franchise for me, though I think back to how much I loved the end of Diamond is Unbreakable and I've yet to feel anything like that in this final stretch so far. As of right now, Part Five is still ending strong, but the flicker in its eyes is hardly the bonfire I once saw.

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One Piece - Episode 890 [Review]

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One Piece - Episode 890 [Review]

When the Straw Hat alliance split up back in Zou so Luffy could pick up Sanji, most the remaining gang made their way to Wano to wait for them while Cat Viper took a group of Minks to go searching for Marco and the remnants of the Whitebeard pirates, hoping to recruit even more allies in their battle against Kaido. After Whitebeard died, his crew got into a battle with the Blackbeard pirates, now known as the "Grudge War," and their organization has seen better days. The lives of powerful pirates like Marco, Jozu, and Vista have remained a mystery in the fallout of their crew's destruction.

As of this week, we're not quite done with the expanded world-building in the calm before the Wano arc's storm. This episode sets out to show us where Cat Viper's journey has taken him, filling us in on Marco's new gig as well as providing some fresh insight into the life of the late Edward Newgate. The filler this week puts us in an odd situation, since this episode is very Whitebeard-focused and we already got a Marineford recap a few months ago. The show's solution is to give us another Marineford recap, overlapping footage be damned. I'm going to call this the end of my mini-retrospective reviews, since we're so close to starting a new arc and the new story material this week is interesting enough to discuss.

Marco now lives in a small village and works as a doctor, using his regenerative phoenix powers to heal the local people and animals. This is not the first time a character has been retrofitted into a doctor role (looking at you, Trafalgar Law), but it still makes perfect sense. I'm just never ready to learn that a pirate of such high rank also has a medical degree. The island where Marco now lives is special, because it was Whitebeard's secret pride and joy. The old man used to funnel dirty money into the place, and because the village was poor, it was never able to join the World Government, so it needed protection from somebody strong. There's a surprising amount of heart being communicated in such a small amount of detail. We see Marco fighting back tears, remembering how stingy his father-figure was and how everybody on the crew was okay with it because they knew what he was actually doing with all his treasure. I always appreciate how One Piece can show the delicacy of familial love like that, where a seemingly negative quality has a secret true meaning that only those closest to them can see. Because this island was Whitebeard's final memento, Marco has decided to spend his retirement protecting it in his stead.

It's an interesting piece of the world to show us at this point in the story. When Cat Viper first set out to search for Marco, I figured that had to mean Marco was eventually going to join the main story again, but now he appears to be rejecting that path. He and Cat Viper's conversation is brief but effective, and I can't help but wonder what kind of role Whitebeard's legacy will have in the coming arcs. He could have something to do with Rox (which we know is relevant to Big Mom and Kaido), or perhaps Weevil (the man claiming to be Whitebeard's biological son) is finally going to become important soon. Either way, it doesn't look like the former Whitebeard pirates are going to be following us into Wano.

This is yet another episode that I wish didn't have to be weighed down by excessive amounts of recapping, but I appreciate the new material quite a bit. Even in a vacuum, this side-story paints a complex picture of a man who had already felt like a fully-realized character. When you map out Whitebeard's life story in your head, even the parts that were filled with smiles and happiness leave you with an aching feeling. There's a lot of chest-puffing in this series over who's going to leave the biggest impact and be remembered by history, but even the larger-than-life characters eventually succumb to the fleeting impermanence of life. There's a good mix of sweetness and sadness in this episode, and it manages to say a lot with a little.

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Attack on Titan - Episode 58 [Review]

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Attack on Titan - Episode 58 [Review]

Despite the portentous title drop, “Attack Titan” is a deceptively low-key episode that pumps the brakes on the action in order to give both the characters and the audience time to reckon with everything we've learned during the bombshell flashback to Grisha's origins. It's actually the kind of story that I love to see from Attack on Titan, one that gives the show a chance to flex its dramatic and comedic muscles in a more naturalistic manner, delivering different kinds of standout moments that remind you how damn good this series can be even when it isn't focused on spectacle.

As far as juicy new morsels of plot are concerned, the Grisha portions of the episode still have a lot to offer. After Grisha understandably asks Eren Kruger why he waited until after his comrades were murdered and his wife had been Titanified to transform, the Owl gives his own backstory monologue. His story isn't much different from Grisha's, it turns out; he too lost family to Marleyan persecution, and throughout his life as a double agent, he's killed many of his own people in order to maintain his position and keep the Eldians' fight going from the inside. He saved Grisha because he thinks that he intimately understands both the hatred and self-destruction that infects the soul through war, and he wants to give Grisha a chance to start over. He tells him to find a new life and build a new family, to establish his mission for liberation on the foundation of love rather than hate, lest all of the Eldians repeat the same cycle of violence and betrayal that got them on top of this wall in the first place. It's powerful stuff that serves to reinforce the core of empathy and self-reflection at the heart of Attack on Titan's story, which helps me contextualize its irresponsible appropriation of real-world iconography as ultimately well-intentioned, despite the accompanying discomfort.

We also get some fascinating (and grim) revelations on the rules of becoming a Titan Shifter. There are Nine Titans whose powers can be passed along to people of Eldian blood, with the Founding Titan being at the center of it all. The whole reason that Eren is privy to the finer details of what Grisha experienced is because the Founding Titan forms a kind of psycho-spiritual fulcrum or “coordinate” that binds the memories and souls of all Titans. This explains why the power of the Founding Titan can manipulate Eldian memories, and how Eren can have such vivid flashbacks of his father's life before coming to the City. That power comes with a price, though – another reason that Eren the Owl gifted Grisha with the power of his Titan, the titular Attack Titan, is because anyone who inherits this power will only have thirteen years to live. After that, their abilities must be consumed by another, or they will be randomly transferred to an unborn Eldian upon death. This means that Armin's resurrection comes with a thirteen-year expiration date, and Eren has only about eight left by now.

It's not all doom and gloom, however – “Attack Titan” is filled with some delightfully sweet and funny moments too, which are all the more important when the stakes have been raised so high. I cracked up when Hange called out Eren's dramatic title drop of “Shingeki no Kyoujin”; what seems like such a cool cut-to-commercial moment would look bizarre to anyone not watching through a TV screen. I laughed doubly at Levi brushing this off as Eren's puberty running wild, and then again when Hange and the military court did the same thing near the end of the episode. It's easy to forget when so much Serious Business™ is going on, but Attack on Titan can be surprisingly funny!

It can also be heartbreakingly earnest, like we see when Queen Historia receives Reiner's letter from Ymir. I hope we get more time to work out their relationship in season 4, because this moment with one of the show's best characters was great but all too brief. More than anything, I appreciate that Attack on Titan doesn't shy away from being explicit about Ymir's feelings. She refers to her message as a love letter and says that her one regret is that she was never able to marry Historia. While making the one explicitly queer character we've met so far such a tragic figure is somewhat unfortunate, I will never turn down an opportunity to shut down the tiresome “They're just good friends!” argument. And judging by Historia's wistful response to her friend's unconventional proposal, there's no reason to believe Historia doesn't reciprocate those feelings.

More than anything, I live for the moments in Attack on Titan that can delight and shock longtime fans in equal measure. These can be small reveals, like when you realize that all of those little exposition excerpts the series has been using for its interstitial eyecatches came from Grisha's notebooks. Or they can be scenes that send chills down your spine in their implications for the characters or the story at large. In this episode's final moments, as Eren is contemplating how his connection to Dina might play into his future relationship with Historia, we cut back to Eren Kruger, who's just about to give Grisha his dose of Titan Serum. He explains the necessity of fighting onward and finding a family to anchor him to the world, but then he says, “To save Mikasa, Armin, and everyone else, you must see it through.” Grisha has no idea who Mikasa and Armin are, and even Eren wonders whose memories just bled into his own. It could be nothing more than a sly easter egg, but the implication that these Titan memories can travel through time is such a cool and unexpected wrinkle that I can't help but feel giddy just thinking about it. At the very least, it's a powerful reminder of how deeply our heroes and the Titans are connected, across a cycle of war and redemption that they've been caught in for generations. It's difficult to say whether they'll be able to make it out of this war intact, but after everything that's happened across these three seasons, I'd like to think they have a fighting chance.

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Dororo - Episode 24 [Review]

For an anime I have enjoyed as much as Dororo, I was not as impressed as I'd hoped to be with its conclusion. Sure, it checks all the boxes and ties up all its loose ends. But after all the chips fall, our two protagonists' lives drift into a big question mark. Why did they separate? What did they talk about when they finally reunited? Who are they now? I wish I knew. This 2019 interpretation of a story that's over 50 years old has made a lot of changes to its originally rushed pre-cancellation conclusion. It had a lot of chances to innovate on the themes of the Dororo manga, but it didn't take as many opportunities as I would've hoped.

Before we go into the ending, I have to warn you that I'm going to spoil a few elements of the Dororo manga and the video game Blood Will Tell. Prior to the 2019 anime, Dororo's various conclusions have shared one theme: Hyakkimaru is faced with the decision of whether or not to kill Dororo. In the manga, it's a fake-out—Daigo asks Hyakkimaru to kill Dororo to prove his loyalty, and he pretends he's going to comply. In the video game, Dororo is possessed by the demon that has eaten Hyakkimaru's right arm. Then Hyakki discovers a loophole: he can exorcise the demon inside Dororo so that nobody has to die. In this version of the story, however, Dororo isn't part of Hyakkimaru's grand moral awakening at all, but simply relegated to the sidelines. Dororo doesn't appear until Hyakki is done fighting his brother and reuniting with his “mamas” Nui and Jukai. (It's a shame these two had to die, but I can't deny they've both had a series-long deathwish.) Later, Dororo waits passively in the village while Hyakkimaru “checks something.” Finally, Hyakkimaru goes on a multiyear journey without Dororo, and the reveal of their timeskipped character designs and subsequent reunion doesn't do enough to quell my disappointment that an episode titled “Dororo and Hyakkimaru” is anything but.

What does work about this finale is that the final battle cannot be won through violence. Hyakkimaru wins the fight against his brother when he makes the decision not to kill him. Later, Daigo's continued livelihood presents a moral challenge for Hyakkimaru, and once again his choice to spare a life turns out to be the right one. According to Biwamaru, Hyakkimaru has killed far too many people to be redeemed simply by choosing not to kill two more. Still, the belief that he must undertake this journey alone goes against the message the anime has been repeating all along, that Dororo is Hyakki's conscience, the vital factor that's been keeping him from becoming a demon. I thought for sure the path toward Hyakkimaru's regained humanity would be through Dororo, but instead, it's something he needs to reclaim without his companion.

So let's talk about Dororo's gender. “Dororo is pretty,” is Hyakki's first line upon seeing his friend's face for the first time. It's reminiscent of the Dororo manga when Hyakki regains his sight and realizes for the first time that Dororo is biologically female—though it's an identity that the 1969 version of Dororo repeatedly denies. In the 2019 anime, Dororo's gender has hardly been discussed, except for in moments of extreme trauma when his body is revealed against his will. Because Dororo has only had his biological sex connected to moments of violence and disempowerment, I previously went with the manga's assertion that Dororo identifies as a boy. But when we see an aged-up Dororo presenting visibly female, I have to assume that the anime wasn't interested in making that identity part of this retelling. It's the same way that I hypothesized early on that 2019's Dororo might have something to say about disability, and that simply reclaiming body parts wouldn't make Hyakki whole again. But once again, this is something the anime doesn't touch upon; Hyakkimaru's sight is portrayed as something that completes him, allowing him to finally focus on being a good person. (Though I'm disappointed that the ending sequence didn't get any less fuzzy—I thought when Hyakki got his eyes, the sequence would lose its blurriness altogether!)

Even Mio makes her presence known in this final episode, as Hyakki is seen planting her grains of rice before taking off on his journey. At last, when Dororo and Hyakkimaru are aged up (they both look so much like their mothers!), their reunion takes place in a golden field of rice. Where have Hyakki's travels taken him? What kind of trials has Dororo faced while growing up? Surely they will discuss those topics with one another, but unfortunately, we won't get to see it.

Probably. I'm still holding out hope for an OVA.

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Fruits Basket - Episode 10 [Review]

"So what was cut from the Fruits Basket manga in the first adaptation?" It's the most common question from fans of the 2001 series who never read the source material, but it's not an easy one to answer. The changes between versions were mostly ones of tone rather than content, so trying to break down the minutiae of what made it in and what didn't was just an exercise in tedium, before this remake proved how much of a difference little tone choices can make between two interpretations of the same plot. But every once in a while, we get a perfect encapsulation of the juiciest cuts from the manga, like in this remake's most mysterious and foreboding episode yet. What was cut from the Fruits Basket manga the first time around? Well, basically everything we get in episode 10.

While Akitarō Daichi's version of this Valentine's Day story only retained the manga's comical chocolate-based escapades before skipping ahead to White Day, Natsuki Takaya's original intention was to make this cuddly holiday about romantic love the most uncomfortable step in Tohru's journey with the Soma family so far. Episode 10 raises a thousand questions but gives almost no answers, leaving us with zero closure for the mysteries raised about Kyo and Shigure's respective motivations. Barring some brief high school hijinks, this Valentine's Day episode is a thoroughly unromantic series of vague conversations in unnervingly quiet spaces, and I love it.

With little in the way of concrete answers for why this time of the year is so painful for Kyo and Shigure, the best we can do is make some educated guesses. Kyo is haunted by a nightmare from his early childhood, where he reached out to someone who appears to get obliterated right in front of him. This helps explain Hana's seemingly contradictory wave report about Kyo's heart being especially "innocent" today, despite being full of chaotic emotions. Kyo is unusually quiet yet extra confrontational around Yuki, because his flashbacks have mentally regressed him to a more childlike emotional state. Instead of challenging Yuki to fight in his more ambitious and rambunctious way, the Cat seems genuinely afraid of the Rat, to the point that he can't so much as look at Yuki's face without bristling up to defend himself. We saw something like this happen to Yuki back in episode 3, when he thrashed Kyo especially hard just so he could stop having to look at him. Yuki explained that this was because he envied Kyo's relative freedom and got angry whenever he was reminded that the Cat wanted to throw it all away just to join the Zodiac's inner circle. But for Kyo, the emotions at play seem to be less irritation and envy and more fear and hatred, feelings so raw that he's too terrified to share any of them with Tohru.

Of course, Tohru is initially relieved to dismiss Kyo's chaotic heart as a consequence of Kagura coming to visit for Valentine's Day. It's nice to see Miss Piggy return to liven up this unusually dour episode, and my favorite detail we learn about her this week is that she sincerely cares about Kyo's well-being outside of their relationship. It would be easy to dismiss Kagura's lovey-dovey enthusiasm as selfish and possessive, but whenever she can manage to cool her head for long enough to express it, the Boar exudes unabashed love for the people in her life, even her romantic rival Tohru. Kagura doesn't just want Kyo to be hers, she wants him to be happy, and she's probably right that his life would improve if he could open up to Yuki, since their mutual admiration is becoming just as obvious as their surface enmity.

But in a first for Fruits Basket, Kyo refuses to take even the smallest step toward addressing the feelings that are tearing him apart, even telling Tohru to ignore his obvious psychological pain that's supposedly none of her business. Fortunately, that doesn't mean Tohru has failed to help Kyo, turning a scene that could have just been foreshadowing for future reveals into a thoughtful exploration of how respecting boundaries—even if we don't understand them—can sometimes heal people more safely than pushing them, especially if they aren't yet feeling strong enough to make changes to their life without breaking their spirits. I love the shot of Tohru gently approaching Kyo while his back is turned to her, curled up on the ground as if trying to protect himself from his own heartache. It's classic Beauty and the Beast imagery that illustrates the power of stubborn kindness in emotionally hazardous situations, eliciting that intoxicating combo of tension and sympathy that makes well-written melodrama so rewarding.

It's not easy to make an episode where "nothing" happens so engrossing, but Fruits Basket makes it look easy as Tohru resolves the situation for now by telling Kyo that it's okay for him to keep hating Yuki, if that's what it takes to keep him stable enough to keep living. Considering that Tohru's New Year's wish was for exactly the opposite outcome, this is difficult advice for her to share with Kyo, but I don't think it's a weak or appeasing decision on her part. Tohru's just coming to understand that the Soma family has damage much deeper than she can handle on her own, no matter how happy it would make her if the boys became friends instead of enemies. She would rather see Yuki and Kyo continue to grow at their own pace than risk damaging their fragile hearts, and after hearing Hatori's story, she probably understands that there's a personal risk to her prying too deeply as well.

While Kyo doesn't feel safe enough to re-open his old wounds to Tohru just yet, it's clear that she's softened his heart once again, as he opts not to run away from home, but return to the cottage after nightfall and even agree to go on a double date with Kagura the next day! Then he delivers the cutest moment of the episode by expressing his growing affection for Tohru with a little bop on the head. We know from past episodes that Kyo is more comfortable expressing himself through his physicality than his words, which must make life difficult for him as a Zodiac member whose options for physical contact are limited, so it's cute to see him finding his own unique way to flirt with Tohru that the otherwise emotionally astute riceball doesn't yet understand.

Unsurprisingly, Shigure's to blame for all this drama, as he reveals to Hatori that he riled Kyo up as part of a little experiment to see how Tohru would handle the situation. Her indomitable empathy had the desired outcome, calming Kyo down from a deeply traumatized state to relative normalcy more quickly than ever before, and these results couldn't be more promising for his long-term schemes. Over the course of one conversation with his "obligated" best friend, all of the audience's trust in Shigure goes right out the window, as he states explicitly that he will follow his master plan to the end, no matter what lies he has to tell or who has to get hurt along the way.

It seems that while the Cat has been running away from a nightmare, the Dog has been chasing a beautiful dream. But the most captivating thing about Shigure's situation is his self-deprecating self-awareness over this wild goose chase that's consumed his life. "I had a dream about the one I love, and then it was all over for me" is his bitter way of summing it up. This mysterious vision from his childhood is one Shigure shared with both his best friend Hatori and another friend we've yet to meet named Aya, but those other two Zodiac members have long since left the dream behind, because time had warped that once-beautiful morning into something painful. As much as he may have tried to move on in the past, Shigure finds himself unable to let go of the eternal beauty he saw in that mysterious love story, which may explain why he devotes his time to writing romance novels that run the gamut from sleazy to sentimental, despite not needing the income and not caring enough about the deadlines involved not to torture his editor. Perhaps it's the only thing he can do to keep that fading dream of love at the forefront of his mind as the decades pass him by alone.

Regardless, it's hard to harbor much sympathy for Shigure's dream when he's so frank about manipulating Tohru and the others to achieve it. While everyone else in the Soma family finds Tohru's boundless optimism soothing, it mostly agitates Shigure, like a demon shrinking away from heavenly light. The darkest and most embittered parts of Shigure find Tohru's innocence irritating, because her level of open-hearted goodness is so alien to his own twisted personality and calluses of life experience. At the same time, the shriveled remains of his conscience that still cares about Tohru and the boys finds her kindness painful, as a constant reminder of how far he must have fallen to be okay with using someone who trusts him wholeheartedly. Since we don't know the true nature of Shigure's dream or what he will have to sacrifice to make it come true, it's hard for us to know what to make of all this, but Hatori's determination to remain neutral in this scheme at least reassures us that Shigure isn't going out of his way to hurt anyone—it's just something that might happen in the fallout, and Hatori doesn't want Shigure to come crying to him when one of the boys (or even Tohru?!) punches him right in his smug face.

So what educated guesses can we make about this mysterious dream and Shigure's plan to make it come true? Well, it obviously has something to do with the Zodiac, and since this is a shojo series, it's not unreasonable to assume that Shigure, Hatori, and "Aya" are the Zodiac's oldest members, now in their late twenties. Since they shared the dream before our teenage members of the Zodiac were born, its secrets are almost certainly known by the Soma elders, including that ominous family head, Akito. Back in episode 5, Shigure mentioned that he understands "jealousy" more deeply than Kagura could know, and in this episode, he mentions being jealous of Tohru, Hatori, basically all the people he considers to be "good" in his life, because his lone quest to fulfill the dream that Hatori and Aya gave up on makes him "the most cursed one of all". So he considers his desire to make this dream come true to be villainous in some regard—even though the dream itself was pure and beautiful—and it all relies on a wager he's made with Akito. We know that Akito is always on the lookout for people who might have the power to break the curse, but that he didn't consider Kana or Tohru particularly eligible for the task. So does Shigure think that Tohru has the ability to break the curse? It's probably not that simple, because Shigure's dream was about creating something that will last forever rather than breaking something. Either way, this doesn't bode well for the three children whose fates are being nudged around like pawns in a childish game between two selfish adults.

We probably won't understand the true nature of Shigure's master plan until we know who matters most to him. Naturally, he gives conflicting answers to this question within the span of five minutes, telling Akito that the Head of the family matters most to him (in a scene that heavily implies they share a sexual relationship of some kind, as Hatori warns Shigure not to let Akito catch a cold while they're playing doctor), before telling his editor that no one matters more to Shigure than himself. Yuki's spot-on in his assertion that Shigure plays a wicked game of letting people in before pushing them right back out, like a ripple on the water (or perhaps an ornery jellyfish). We can only hope that Shigure's better instincts override his temptation to sting those who venture too close to the truth.

Stray Snippets Lost in Adaptation This Week: Tohru originally recognized Yuki's comparison of Shigure to a jellyfish as an analogy that Hatori invented on her visit to the Soma estate, but the mystery of who came up with the initial "ripple on the water" phrase is left unsolved. We only know that the metaphor was floated by a woman around Shigure's age (not his beleaguered editor) who we see in a vague profile shot. On a totally unrelated note, eagle-eyed viewers may have noticed that Mayuko Shiraki, Tohru's homeroom teacher who's intent on dyeing Kyo's hair, is the same woman who visited Kana at the Soma estate before New Year's. Now that's an unexpected connection between two worlds! (Side note: it's my personal headcanon that the Somas are magically unable to dye their hair, because nothing else makes sense to me given how much strife those unusual colors cause them.)

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One Punch Man Season 2 - Episode 8 [Review]

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One Punch Man Season 2 - Episode 8 [Review]

After several weeks of structural chaos, One Punch Man actually delivered a reasonably paced episode with a solid beginning, middle, and end this week. There are a couple diversions to remind us that Garou is playing with a dog and Mumen Rider is defending his friends in the hospital, but aside from that, we focus entirely on the monster assault in the wake of the tournament's end. Most surprising of all, Suiryu steps in as the protagonist now that Saitama has been thrown out of the stadium for his illegal wig. One Punch Man is a weird story, so it's not unprecedented to have an entire episode that (mostly) ignores Saitama, but this honestly felt like a breath of fresh air. In a sense, it's unfortunate to have to resort to plot contrivances that remove the main character in order to craft a story with stakes and tension, but I'm not going to complain.

After moseying towards the stadium for what felt like two weeks (because it was), the Monster Association's secret weapon finally crashes through the gate and reveals himself to be none other than Goketsu, the presumed-dead first champion of the tournament. I didn't expect the story to directly link the monster invasion and tournament arcs at all, so this came as a pleasant surprise, even if it's not the most novel twist. Goketsu reveals another arm of the monsters' master plan, which is to convert normal people into monsters to add to their ranks. The fighters are thus presented with the moral quandary of becoming a monster and working for the enemy versus staying human and dying. This is what I expected Suiryu's conflict to be this week, but he also manages to pleasantly surprise me.

In the wake of his defeat at the hands of Saitama, I expected Suiryu to have more of a cognitive breakdown, but he quickly picks his pieces back up and shoves those uncomfortable thoughts back down where they can fester unseen for a while. I like seeing this new facet of his insecurities, because it humanizes his bravado. He has enough swagger to shamelessly flirt while he preemptively claims victory over the monsters, and he's just arrogant enough to be entertaining. Suiryu also turns out to possess a stronger moral code than I gave him credit for, because at no point does he consider betraying his fellow fighters and turning into a monster. One thing I hope OPM goes into down the line (probably through Garou's story) is that being or becoming a monster isn't an inherently evil act. But in this current situation, Suiryu's refusal demarcates the line between what he's willing to do for strength and what he isn't willing to compromise.

Unfortunately, many other contestants think differently and start chowing down on that monster goo almost immediately. It's especially funny how Choze, Mr. Genetically Pure And Superior In Every Way, exhibits zero hesitation when the opportunity presents itself. It's an understated but pointed observation that guys like him only care about the power to subjugate others, and they have no intellectual or ethical framework outside of that, regardless of their many excuses. Thankfully, Suiryu is all too eager to step up to the challenge and put Choze in his place. As far as fight scenes in the second season of One Punch Man, this episode doesn't do too badly with its intelligible and competently animated brawls. There are still some headache-inducing shots of motion-blurred stills moving on top of each other and plenty of awkward close-ups, but there are several good punches and kicks buried in there too. I have to take what I can get.

Suiryu just barely beats Choze, but the crux of the episode is his gradual realization that he's hopelessly outmatched. Goketsu proves to be every bit the monster he's been hyped up as, swatting Suiryu's body around like a gnat. Bakuzan also emerges as a monster of his own making, similarly giving into the lust for power that tempted everyone else. While he gives his all, Suiryu simply doesn't have enough strength to contend with these titans. The shell-shocked Suiryu is even more flabbergasted once the licensed heroes put their already bruised bodies in between him and Goketsu to help him escape. It's a futile effort and they all know it, but their willingness to try despite impossible odds is exactly the kind of the fist-clenching heroism that makes this kind of story compelling.

I really like how the episode handles Suiryu's experience with palpable fear. This is a guy with the swagger of someone who's never had to struggle with anything, so there's definitely some schadenfreude to his sudden brush with death, but there's also more than just desserts going around. Suiryu begging for help could easily be seen as evidence of weakness—and the monsters even taunt him about this—but it's contextualized as a moment of strength for him. The acknowledgement that he's not all-powerful is an important point of growth. Knowing when to ask for help is a lot harder than most people think, and it's as much a sign of maturity as asserting one's independence. Lucky for him, Suiryu has a bald guardian angel listening to his pleas.

Built around the highs and lows of Suiryu's character arc and culminating in a classic feat of heroic salvation, this is one of the most straightforward and strongest episodes of this arc. I still find it funny that the narrative doesn't really know what to do with Saitama right now, but this is proof that the show can be pretty good in spite of that. After all, Mumen Rider's parts in the first season were some of the most memorable and emotionally resonant. ONE can be excellent at finding the heart in absurd situations, and I hope we see more of that quality as the season progresses.

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Isekai Quartet - Episode 8 [Review]

The prospect of a field trip to the beach, a staple event in any high school anime, is just too big to contain within a single episode of Isekai Quartet, especially given the students involved. As this episode proves, setting up the trip easily warrants a full episode alone.

Spinning off from last episode, Emilia quickly proves to be the ideal choice for Class Rep; she can even soothe Aqua without resorting to intimidation, and that's no mean feat. The activities chosen are all field trip standards, including a Test of Courage, which as Subaru points out, becomes more interestingly twisted when a bunch of monsters are already among the student body. I can't wait to see what Roswaal comes up for this test, especially what might scare Ains and his crew; I dearly hope either giant frogs or alligators are involved for the KONOSUBA crew.(1) The end result could only be a disaster, and I wouldn't have it any other way! Also, there's a nice catch on Puck's reference to the time, which is a deep cut for Re:Zero fans.(2)

Shopping for swimsuits is also a core part of field trip preparations, although it takes on more involved gags for this crowd. The spit-take moment is Albedo and Shalltear's ruminations on possible swimsuits for Ains, with Shalltear crowing about one suit fully showing off his pelvic bone (it's best not to think about that one too much), although Tanya also brings up a point that's only slightly addressed in her series: Visha, her right-hand woman, is the only (other?) female in a battalion that's otherwise all-male. Normally this isn't an issue because the uniform and combat gear mute gender differences, but it won't be possible to conceal Visha's figure in even a conservative swimsuit. Of course, word has probably gotten around to Tanya's underlings that Visha is not to be messed with(3), but I still foresee all sorts of shenanigans coming from this change in appearance.

That brings us to the episode's funniest sequence at the end, where Kazuma and Aqua encounter Albedo and Shalltear. Kazuma finally realizes that Albedo is indeed a succubus(4), but the big joke is that both Albedo and Shalltear have been hiding mortifying secrets. Albedo is actually a virgin despite being a succubus(5), and Shalltear pads her bra. Naturally, the KONOSUBA crew unwittingly walks in on both reveals. (Also watch for a cameo of a random adventurer from KONOSUBA at the end.)

In general, the series is back to maintaining its meticulous balance between the four crossover series, and it's still not missing a single opportunity to make deep references or take advantage of the weirdness that spins out of this group trying to do normal things. The fun continues unabated!

Aqua was once terrorized by alligators, and multiple members of the group have been swallowed by giant toads.

Puck has to go to sleep at sunset.

Visha proved in the epilogue of one episode that she has a mean right hook in her sleep.

This is more significant because Kazuma has some previous experience with a succubi-run bordello.

There's a funny scene in Overlord III, where Albedo isn't able to ride a demonic horse because she isn't impure.

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Black Clover - Episode 84 [Review]

The most important story conflicts may have been dealt with already, but the Royal Knights exams still have one heck of a climactic battle up their sleeve with the final match, where Team P (Yuno, Noelle, and En) faces off against Team I (Rill Boismortier and two others). With Asta's crew, there was a clear effort to make teamwork a foundational element of the tournament—even if the fights themselves have been oddly bereft of any actual teamwork—but this week throws pretense completely out the window. This is a Yuno vs. Rill fight, no more, no less.

There is a certain thematic alchemy at play, as we've focused on topics like peasantry vs. royalty and characters working hard to fight their way to the top. Now that the relevant characters have burnt themselves out, the spotlight returns to the wunderkinds. Yuno and Rill are natural talents; they're not bad people like Langris, but there's still a melancholy that comes with them getting the coolest, flashiest fight in Asta's absence. This definitely feels like a counterpart to My Hero Academia's Sports Festival arc, where Midoriya's the most sympathetic fighter, yet it's Bakugo and Todoroki in the final round. But at least MHA is good at giving its whiz kids comprehensible faults and emotional issues. Rill's gifted-artist/mama's boy thing is still loopy, and Yuno is a plank of wood.

However, none of this should distract from how absolutely stellar this episode looks. These two are going all out, and so are the animators. It's nearly twenty minutes of straight flexing, as Yuno's wind spells and Rill's art magic go head to head. The animation is similar to the original Demon Asta fight, where the battlefield is abstracted to a much larger size and the two fighters practically surf on each other's attacks with balletic precision, even if the art isn't as deranged or experimental as that episode. It's easily a production value high point for the entire series.

In the end, Yuno claims the victory, but only because Rill got careless and let his magic go so wild that he shattered his own team's crystal by accident. No one truly won or lost this battle, since the two of them proved to be on roughly equal terms, and losing in the tournament doesn't mean you're out of the Royal Knights. The fight itself is a delight to watch, but the episode's final scene is its strongest moment, where the Wizard King meets with Zora and encourages him to join the Magic Knights for real. The Wizard King was on good terms with Zora's dad back in the day, and the Magic Knights' star ranking system was introduced specifically to reward people like him and move the organization away from royalty masturbation. Zora shrugs the kind words off in order to play it cool, but you can tell a heartfelt conversation was had under the surface. There's an emotional finality to this scene that's really nice.

Overall, the Royal Knights exams have been pretty indicative of how I feel about Black Clover in general. I don't think it's particularly well-executed as a shonen battle series, and having a tournament like this really highlights that this show doesn't know what to do with the genre conventions that it apes so freely. The mechanics of the story are so messy and underdeveloped, which occasionally contributes to that earnest heart-on-your-sleeve fervor, but just as often it feels curiously soulless. Regardless, Black Clover does reliably reach its peaks—moments that come close to making the grind feel worth it—and I wouldn't want to deny it that praise.

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One Punch Man Season 2 - Episode 7 [Review]

It feels like things of consequence actually happen in this episode of One Punch Man, which is small praise but a welcome reprieve from the last few weeks of wheel-spinning. The tournament arc finally comes to a head (and a shiny head at that) as we blitz through the final rounds. There are still too many stories happening concurrently for us to connect with any single one of them, and somehow we're introduced to another new subplot this week about Silverfang's friends. Meanwhile, Garou shows up for all of five seconds, and Genos wakes up at the end of the episode in the same crater the big bad monster left him in at the end of last episode. There's no sense of flow to how all this is pieced together. This probably won't be as glaring an issue when the season is digested all at once by later viewers, but the week-long breaks just add to the sense of disjointedness.

This entire arc feels structured like a hedge maze—full of branches but with few leading anywhere. A particularly weird consequence of this is the name of this episode, “The Class S Heroes.” These heroes are present in the episode, but they're nowhere near what I'd consider the most important part of this segment, which is Saitama finishing his tournament. The staff don't even consider them the most important part, because all of the production value they can muster goes towards Saitama's fight with Suiryu. The handful of Class S heroes pretty much show up to introduce themselves to the audience, presumably because they'll be more relevant later on. That's fine for basic storytelling, but they're certainly not a significant enough presence to deserve the episode title. This might seem like a petty complaint—and it is—but it's one of the many consequences of this arc's lack of focus.

At least the Class S showcase gives One Punch Man the opportunity to flex some if its weirdness. Some of the top heroes have predictable powers—Tornado and her telekinesis, Silverfang and his martial arts, Genos being a robot, etc. But some of them are just plain out there. Garou is all too eager to pick a fight with a dude who wears a dog costume and sits sphinx-like in the middle of a public plaza all day. The big poisonous muscular snake lady is defeated by the Pig God swallowing her whole, like he's some kind of snake. It's hard not to make comparisons to My Hero Academia and its variety of Quirks, but One Punch Man's more jokey nature sees it indulge in much more esoteric means of fighting evil. Sometimes the jokes don't land, but I appreciate the willingness to experiment and poke fun at the absurdity of superpowers.

Despite its many divergences, the main thrust of the episode is the conclusion of the tournament Saitama grifted his way into. Naturally, he makes his way to the final bout with little effort, punching out both the boisterous Sourface and the sadistic Choze on the way. Choze unleashes an entire spiel about his inherent genetic superiority guaranteeing him the victory, only to be immediately knocked into the stratosphere. It's a familiar riff on one of ONE's pet themes, which is that people are defined by their own choices and their own actions. Nobody is born with any kind of guarantee, and that sure as hell applies to a eugenicist wannabe-übermensch. It's good to see some people get punched.

As he finally squares off against Suiryu, the fight actually manages to craft some tension in an amusingly absurd way. Saitama is never in any danger of losing the match, but he is in danger of losing his toupee thanks to the sheer force of Suiryu's blows. It's difficult to make any battle with Saitama interesting, so I'm glad for this outside-the-box thinking. Along the same lines as Choze, Suiryu postures himself as one of the chosen, whose strength alone is more than enough to elevate him above the masses. To him, being strong is fun because it lets him do whatever he wants. Saitama, of course, is the complete opposite. Becoming strong has sapped all of the fun he once had from his life, because there's nothing to struggle against except his own ennui. Saitama is a thoughtful and humble guy when it comes down to it, and Suiryu is too shortsighted and intoxicated with himself to actually reflect on what he could do with his strength beyond proving its potency. His fate is the same as all the others who meet the business end of Saitama's fist—only in this case, it's Saitama's butt, which is even more poetic.

Saitama is still disqualified because his non-Charanko identity is discovered, but the damage to Suiryu's inflated self-esteem is done nonetheless. And the story isn't over, because monsters are still overwhelming the city, and a particularly bad one seems to be headed the tournament's way. This episode also makes sure we know that people can ingest monster cells to become monsters themselves. Silverfang has already cautioned that Garou might be going down that road, and it's possible Suiryu might succumb to that temptation as well in his pursuit of unmatchable strength. Either way, with one of its biggest subplots concluded, the end of this mess of an arc should hopefully be in sight.

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Bungo Stray Dogs - Episode 32 [Review]

The Great Gatsby fans, this one's for you. After the crash of the Moby Dick at the end of last season, many of the remaining Guild members were left unaccounted for. (And no, I'm not talking about Lovecraft's walk into the sea/journey home.) We know where a few of them are, perhaps most importantly that Nathaniel Hawthorn joined up with Dostoyevsky, and as of recently we learned that Lucy Maud Montgomery has cleaned up her act and now works at the café on the ground floor of the Agency's building. But the most important member of the Guild was missing: leader F. Scott Fitzgerald himself.

Well, wonder no more, because after what we can assume to be months of diligent searching undeterred by the assumption of his death, Louisa May Alcott has found him. As the Moby Dick went down, Fitzgerald unconsciously used his Ability to cash in the last precious thing he had on him – his wedding ring – and save himself, but broken by his defeat and his lack of funds (which equates to lack of power given his skill), he's been living in those same slums that Chuuya started out in. When Louisa finds him, he's a broken man, convinced of his own worthlessness.

Before we get into the fun Gatsby references, however, I'm not sure I'm thrilled with how Louisa May Alcott's being portrayed. Alcott, like many of her heroines, wasn't exactly a wilting lily of a woman, although she may come off that way today if you don't take into account the time she lived in. Her most famous heroine, Jo March, is famously strong, and even her less overtly rebellious creations, like An Old-Fashioned Girl's Polly, show a strength of mind and character that stands out among contemporary children's books. (For comparison, look at the heroine of Kate Douglass Wiggins' The Birds' Christmas Carol.) So why, then, is Louisa so completely reliant upon Fitzgerald? Her one wish when she finds him again is to have him “give her orders,” something not even saintly Beth March necessarily desired. While none of the characters in the show are meant to be taken as exact representations of the authors or their works, Louisa still stands out as feeling very off when many of the other characters have at least a trait or two that is in line with either their source or their bibliography. Perhaps Alcott's books come across differently in Japanese translation.

In any event, Fitzgerald certainly needs Louisa's devotion in order to come back to himself. Whether you read that as her being the Daisy to his Gatsby or not, he certainly doesn't waste any time returning to his old, confident self. Even before we start to get into the Gatsby references, this makes for some fun scenes, not the least of which is him discovering the wonders of bargain shopping, although him just walking into some guy's apartment and sitting down to watch TV is pretty great too. But the real meat of the episode is when he confronts T.J. Eckleberg, a character from his novel. Eckleberg in the book is an oculist, or what today we'd call an ophthalmologist, and in the show he's the developer of a facial recognition software, which seems like a reasonable update. He's also accused of having killed George Wilson, the man who in F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel murders Jay Gatsby. (In the book it's Wilson's wife who dies.) More interesting for fans of the author, the actual killer is Thomas Buchanan, whom Fitzgerald based on William Mitchell, a man he actively resented. Getting to ruin Buchanan in the episode can be seen as wish-fulfillment for Bungo Stray Dogs' Fitzgerald and an example of how the little details can really show the research that went into this.

In terms of the overall plot, we now know that Dostoyevsky has been sitting in a basement slowly filling a vessel with his blood, which can't possibly be good. Fitzgerald is still after the book he initially came to Yokohama for, and with Louisa and now Eckleberg, he's ready to get the Guild going again and resume the hunt. Lucy's friendship with Atsushi also may be a portent of warmer relations between Guild and Agency, because Edgar Allen Poe (and his rabies-bearing friend) and Ranpo clearly still have an amicable relationship, and Louisa does specifically send Poe to Ranpo when they need to solve Wilson's murder. Like the Mafia and the Agency banded together to fight the Guild, perhaps the Guild will now team up with the other two to fight the Rats in the House of the Dead. If Dostoyevsky is as bad as he seems, that may be the only hope any of them have.

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Fruits Basket - Episode 6 [Review]

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Kono Oto Tomare!: Sounds of Life - Episode 6 [Review]

Take that, Vice Principal! With that non-issue out of the way, we get yet another assailant to bring drama to the koto club. This week, Kono Oto Tomare!: Sounds of Life puts its passion for music on the back burner in favor of leaning into its teen drama angle. The title “An Invisible Boundary” refers to the club's emotional weak spots, which both Hiro-senpai and the previously unimportant koto club adviser seem to relish in attacking. Who would have expected a Japanese traditional music club to be such a drama magnet?

I love how the koto club kills the vice principal with kindness. Satowa and Chika know exactly what they're doing when they “thank” the VP, while Takezo and the rest are a little purer in their motives. The group enjoys wild applause, the adoration of their peers, and a soda toast (except for Chika, the big softie who gets strawberry milk) to their renewed commitment of aiming for Nationals. On the surface, the koto club's challenges are all music-based; Takezo wants them to compete in a regional music festival while Satowa wants them to develop a more well-rounded sound by adding a classical piece to their repertoire. But lurking just beyond the club room are two unexpected threats: a callous club adviser and a sinister new member.

Both of the koto club's new villains have something in common, and unfortunately it's weak motives. Takinami is lazy, and Hiro is bored. Takinami-sensei's concern seems to be that if the koto club does well, he'll have less free time and god forbid he possibly have to chaperone them to nationals. But since this show has a habit of slowly peeling away its characters' facades to get at their gooey koto-loving centers, I suspect Takinami may be reformable. There had to be a reason he became the koto club adviser in the first place, right? Maybe some sort of trauma involving Nationals made him stop caring about whether his students make it there or not? Kurusu Hiro is even more of a one-dimensional villain. Her friends call her sociopathic hobby of manipulating people and tearing apart friendships “Hiro's bad habit” and “the worst way to kill time.” But could there be a passionate center underneath Hiro's terrible personality? She tells us that she's not a beginner, and we learn she isn't lying when she says her grandmother plays the koto. It's just that she's clearly distanced herself from it lately—the first thing Satowa notices about Hiro is her elaborate manicure, definitely not the trimmed nails of a musician.

Chika continues to live up to his role as the delinquent with a heart of gold, and while some of the other members may be swayed by Hiro's manipulative insinuations, Chika flat out declares that he doesn't believe anything unless it comes directly from the person's mouth. It's almost enough to make Hiro give up, until she learns that Satowa has a secret that she suspects could be exactly the wedge she requires to destroy the club once and for all. But why, Hiro? It's all drama for drama's sake, the kind of thing that will soon be resolved with a little direct communication between Chika and Satowa—and their budding love story gives them more vested interest in learning to understand one another. It's just not believable that a brand new koto club could possibly make this many enemies so soon, making this one of the show's weaker episodes so far.

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Fairy gone - Episode 6 [Review]

Fairy gone hasn't proven to be especially good at any given hook for an anime series. Its animation is often ugly and flat, its characters are one-dimensional, and its obsession with the minutiae of its world-building only highlight its deeply generic and uninteresting setting. None of these criticisms were intended as a challenge for the show to outdo its own mediocrity – yet here we are, with “Fellow Traveler”, an episode that takes the cake for the single most boring half-hour of television I've watched all year.

For the past month-and-a-half, Fairy gone has been just okay enough to keep me interested in where things are going, but this episode doesn't even rise to Fairy gone's tragically low standard of being the kind of entertainment you can put on in the background while you fold laundry or something. It's truly that weightless, lacking in anything worth even half-paying attention to. We open with yet another extended world-building exploration that goes nowhere, this time about the five different dukes who were put into power after the Unification War. Most of them died horrible deaths after being suspected (rightly or wrongly) of treasonous intentions. Given how Fairy gone's political plotline seems to be advancing at a snail's pace, it's possible all of this hokum will pay off by show's end, but somehow I doubt it will end up being worth the wait.

Then one of the government's artificial fairies goes berserk and has to be put down, leading the Dorothea agents to split up and investigate while still hunting for the Black Fairy Tome. The gimmick for this episode is that the usual pair of Free and Marlya are separated; Free goes with Chase to investigate the artificial fairy, and Marlya accompanies Klara on the hunt for the Black Tome page. Free and Chase's B-plot literally amounts to nothing – they wander around not learning anything until the final minute of the episode, when Free just happens to bump into the guy who has information that might prove useful next week.

Marlya and Klara get the meatier part of the episode, though the increase in screen time doesn't amount to more impact, depth, or entertainment. The two visit a morbidly obese informant who eventually spills the beans on yet another secret auction where a man has recently won “The Black Four” pages of the Fairy Tome. Then they find the guy, chase him around, hop on a train, and eventually catch him with little effort. Outside of one mercifully fun little action beat where Marlya and Klara beat up the informant's goons, this plot offers little more than a few barely animated sequences of two women slowly running after some bland-looking guy for a while. It isn't exactly riveting stuff.

To make matters worse, the episode doesn't even bother to do Klara's character justice. She's another generally nice and competent member of Dorothea who speaks mostly in exposition. Her one flashback simply explains that she's a war orphan who owes her life to Nein. That's all. There's no real drama between Klara and Maryla to play with, no conflict for them to resolve outside of chasing some guy down for a while. It's as hollow a narrative as you can get, and Fairy gone commits to its execution with the usual amount of half-hearted energy. At least the soundtrack is nice, I guess.

That's pretty much it for this episode. We meet some more political figures, like the Vice-Minister of the Ministry of Fairies, but lord only knows when their inclusion in the story will manifest in some manner of real drama or intrigue. As with almost every other instance of lore-dumping in Fairy gone, this entire episode feels like it just exists to pad out the show's wiki. Telling an interesting story is apparently a secondary or even tertiary goal. Hopefully Veronica comes back into the picture soon. Her relationship with Marlya is the only thing Fairy gone has going for it now, and without some kind of shot in the arm, this show is liable to put me to sleep before I can even start writing about it.

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Dororo - Episode 18 [Review]

This week's Dororo depicts a showdown between opposing factions, but it's nothing so clear cut as good vs. evil. “The story of the cape of no mercy” excels at demonstrating how everyone clings to an uncooperative worldview that looks perfectly reasonable from their own perspective. Caught up in the conflict between Shiranui and Itachi's bandits—and now between Hyakkimaru and his brother as well, Dororo must navigate an unforgiving world filled with adults who refuse to compromise. Interspersed with tension-packed action sequences, this episode's script excels at navigating the moral ambiguity of Dororo's world with well-rounded empathy.

After two episodes apart, it's a softer and wiser Hyakkimaru who reunites with Dororo—and just in the nick of time. Their reunion is utterly adorable; the cheek pinch and forehead rub that Hyakkimaru delivers are the exact same motions that his “mama” Jukai used to greet him in the last episode. It's a fresh indication that Hyakkimaru sees Dororo as his family—and sees himself in a parental role toward the younger brother. Dororo's reaction of embarrassment and half-hearted fury that quickly fades into affection is exactly what we've come to expect from his character. It's little moments like this reunion that give the show its heart, beyond even its most dramatic fight scenes. Hyakkimaru's journey toward becoming “more human” isn't really about arms or legs or hearing or speech—plenty of humans are perfectly whole without those things. Instead, the most pivotal moments of Hyakkimaru's reclamation of his humanity come from these quiet emotional moments.

It's a happy coincidence that Shiranui's demonic shark had Hyakkimaru's leg just when he needed to regain his full mobility. That said, Shiranui's grief and rage aren't necessarily evil. The flashback that shows him with his dying mother draws a parallel to Dororo's own past. Maybe if Dororo had met a pair of sharks instead of a big bro with swords for arms, his life might have turned out differently. Shiranui is one of the three factions Hyakkimaru must battle on this merciless cape. Tahomaru has tracked down his brother to this supposedly remote place—and he's brought an entire army with him. The younger brother has hardened himself against his feelings, but he's doing this to pursue his own vision of morality, by doing whatever it takes to save Daigo's land. Finally, there's Itachi and his bandits single-mindedly making their way toward Dororo's father's gold stash. While they are thieves, they also consider themselves to have honor—when Tahomaru appears, Itachi's primary concern isn't even his life, but making sure the samurai don't get the gold, sharing the same goal that Dororo's father had until his death. Even Hyakkimaru himself follows a gray morality, since his goal to get back his body “because it's mine”. But what about when that body is weighed against the lives of everybody in Daigo's land? This is why Jukai won't help his “child”; he's not willing to make that judgment.

Because everyone has at least some semblance of a sympathetic reason to fight, the episode's body count is indeed a tragedy. It's hard to coldly judge anyone who has died this week or say that they really deserved it in their pursuit of what they thought to be right. It wasn't a clear strength advantage, but simple chaos that led to the chips to fall where they did. In a final summation of this story's rejection of stark black-and-white views on humanity, Dororo decides not to take the money yet—but he still nabs a few coins for the road. “All or nothing” isn't as noble as it's sometimes portrayed, and it's not realistic for a pair that sometimes finds themselves starving to hoard a stash of gold. It's not any one person or any one viewpoint that's evil, but the reliance on violence against others to justify one's actions that's wrong—and this episode is one of Dororo's most masterful examples of this message.

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Attack on Titan - Episode 52 [Review]

“Descent” is another table-setting episode after last week's explosive standoff with the Armored Titan, and it gives us some long overdue focus on Reiner and Bertholdt. The former is still alive after getting the top of his skull blown off by the Thunder Spears, and Bertholdt is literally thrown into the battlefield to rescue his fallen friend. Leading up to all this, we get some flashbacks to the pair's time working undercover for the human military, along with the sacrifices they've had to make to get this far.

While it's nice to get some more perspective on the Titan side of this war, most of this episode didn't work for me nearly as well as I wanted. The opening act of flashbacks feels very dry and straightforward, even as it reveals how the death of old Marco Bott was directly caused by our Titan traitors. You see, Reiner and Bertholdt were rather stupidly discussing their heinous plans and true identities out in the open during the Battle of Trost way back in season one, and Marco overheard everything. Despite Reiner trying to play it off as a weirdly morbid and specific joke, Marco caught wind of the truth quickly and made a run for it. Reiner and Bertholdt had to get Annie to strip Marco of his ODM Gear so they could leave him for dead, which led to his brutal death.

Given what we already know of Reiner and Bertholdt, this scene doesn't offer anything new for us to chew on, with the one notable exception being Annie's reaction to the whole tragedy. It's been forever since she's been a real presence in the story, and she was always portrayed as the cold and calculating loner of the group, so seeing Annie so shaken up over killing Marco showed us a very different side of her personality, which I appreciated. We also get a reminder of the blond guy who's operating the Beast Titan, which is bound to become relevant soon.

After that, it's time for the scouts to continue their defensive maneuvers against Bertholdt, and this is another sequence that doesn't play as well as it should. The weak direction and inconsistent art of this week's production really hinder the episode's attempts to build tension around Bertholdt's inevitable transformation into the Colossal Titan. We later see the explosion caused by his transformation, which explicitly echoes a nuclear bomb detonation, so there should be some real urgency and danger to Bertholdt's arrival, but it doesn't quite click. Later, when Bertholdt finally does transform, the CG used for the Colossal Titan, especially its lanky arms, looks especially wonky and almost comical.

What I liked about this episode, in spite of its pacing and production issues, was how it got back to AoT's complicated criticism of war and the varied perspectives caught up in it. Armin tries to engage Bertholdt with dialogue rather than violence, but all of this chaos has given the Colossal Titan a newfound sense of grim resolve. He doesn't hate his former comrades, and he doesn't believe they deserve to die, but he'll kill them all the same. His timidity has been replaced with bitter resignation at the battle lines that have been drawn for him, and he'll do whatever he must in order to capture Eren, eradicate the humans within the walls, and buy Reiner time to regenerate from his injuries.

Reiner's apparent anti-human sentiments make him an easy villain in the moment, but Bertholdt proves that not every Titan-shifter shares those feelings. In fact, the Scouts' despair over killing Reiner makes the point of showing how hard it is for soldiers to kill when their formerly monstrous enemies are revealed to be just as human. While I hear the show's handling of its allegorical politics might be getting messy before long, conflicts like Armin and Bertholdt's are enough to keep me interested for now.

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Fairy Tail: Final Season - Episode 308 [Review]

Fantasy worlds are, by definition, lacking in some real-world things in exchange for other, usually more awesome things. Every so often, however, there's a lack that could really use filling because it could help avoid some particularly irritating problems. In the world of Fairy Tail, two of those roles are “bra fitter” and “therapist.” Okay, the first is totally my own pet peeve (maybe magic helps make those tops more comfortable?), but the latter really could help to, if not solve problems within the story, at least prevent them from happening again. I'm speaking specifically of Brandish and DiMaria's issues this week, both of which appear to stem from an inability to recognize and deal with their own emotions on difficult subjects. Sure, therapy may not cure their ills, but it might help them to stop trying to kill other people over them.

Snark aside, both women do stand as foils to Lucy and Natsu in this episode (and Gajeel and Levy, to a degree) in that they cannot handle their conflicted feelings. Where the Fairy Tail members draw strength from the warm feelings they have for each other, whether those be romantic love or familial love, neither Brandish nor DiMaria know how to cope with emotions usually viewed as positive. Brandish, to a degree, seems to know this, and she plays it up in order to hopefully drive off DiMaria, whose burning jealousy she can presumably feel behind her. And yet there does seem to be some truth to her statement to Lucy that she can't deal with the conflicting loyalties Lucy embodies – as a member of the Twelve and Zeref's army, she's supposed to hate Lucy and all of Ishgar. But now that she knows that Lucy was her childhood friend and the daughter of the woman her mother adored, she isn't sure that she wants to hate her, much less hurt her or anyone she cares about. When Brandish says that killing Lucy is the solution to her problems, she may actually mean it, at least in some small corner of herself, because she's been uncomfortable with her role in the entire war ever since the two women met.

Of course, she also knows that DiMaria isn't going to take this well. Technically speaking, she's known DiMaria well for far longer than she's known Lucy, and she has to be aware to a certain degree that DiMaria's not only jealous, but also prone to acting poorly when that jealousy is activated. Like a third grader arguing over who her first best friend and second best friend is, DiMaria isn't going to just stand aside while Brandish finds someone else to be pals with, and her reaction is just as mature: hurt the person who makes her feel this way. In DiMaria's case, that's both Brandish and Lucy, because she blames both nearly equally: Brandish for leaving and Lucy for taking Brandish away. Add in the way Lucy's guildmate Wendy humiliated her and DiMaria's out for some serious blood.

It's this that allows both Lucy and Brandish to shine, though. Lucy has always been strongest in moments where all hope seems lost, and her fights with the two Alvarez wizards are no exception. She doesn't know that Brandish is play-acting, remember, so she's really going all-out with her use of magic in the battle, something we don't often get to see her do. Not only does this give us the chance to see a couple more of her Star Dresses, but it also reaffirms that a large part of her strength is in her bonds with her spirits: among the Dresses she wears is the one for Aquarius, a spirit she's no longer contracted to. Much like Lucy's strength was able to save Loke, now it allows her to call upon Aquarius despite not having her key, something that also speaks to the feelings Aquarius has for her. It really shouldn't be possible for it to happen, whether she has Aquarius' boyfriend's key or not, and it's a good reminder that despite not being as outwardly strong or flashy as some of her guildies, Lucy's still a force to be reckoned with.

That's going to be very important going forward, because Natsu's E.N.D. is showing. Porlyusica's statement that the tumor isn't what she thought it was and that by regrowing it Brandish has triggered something dangerous is no exaggeration, and with Gray reeling from what he thinks is Juvia's death and the revelation of E.N.D.'s true identity, things are not looking good. The real battle of ice and fire is on its way – dragon and demon included.

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Fruits Basket - Episode 6 [Review]

As Fruits Basket's first arc wraps up and a new Zodiac banquet begins for the Soma family (plus one riceball), it's time for this anime to make like Tohru Honda and roll up its sleeves for a little house-cleaning. Episode 6 combines manga chapters 9 and 7 (in that order) to deliver a landslide combo of resolution and setup that leaves little breathing room for emotional release.

Overall, I've been happy with this remake's adaptation changes thus far, but the end result was never going to be without sacrifice. For reference, Fruits Basket's ultimate dramatic structure breaks into three big Acts that each contain several dramatic arcs and a smattering of side stories. (The 2001 anime adaptation ended at the climax of Act 1 but left out its denouement, replacing it with an anime-original conclusion.) The appearance of the Soma family's enforcer Hatori signals the start of the second arc, which means every smaller hanging thread from the first five episodes must be squished together expediently before Tohru's world gets much bigger, even if it squashes down their emotional impact to footnote size in the process. So it's a shame that the handful of sentimental moments in this episode weren't given room to breathe, but on the other hand, there's so much story left to convey in such a limited runtime that if we must rush through material, these more brass-tacks-and-foreshadowing chapters are the best place to pick up the pace.

The surprise appearance of more Soma cousins at his school brings Yuki's insecurities about his body into sharp relief. Not only does Dr. Hatori snap a photo of him in a dress to show Akito later, but he even conducts Yuki's skipped monthly checkup in front of the gawking class. It's obvious that Yuki never wanted Tohru to know that his health was unstable, and it's also relevant to note that children raised in traumatic environments often grow up with weakened immune systems due to stress, which makes getting distance from their abusive families even more difficult. Even if his Zodiac powers allow him to kick a man through a wall, Yuki's asthma flare-ups could send him kicking and screaming back to the Soma house if he's not careful, and going back every month just to keep tabs on his condition may be equally triggering, given that he keeps skipping appointments. Although we still know so little about him, it's possible that Akito has similar persistent health problems, since the only thing keeping the head of the family away from Yuki's school appears to be a high fever.

Anyway, that excitable rabbit Momiji is to blame for all this, and he only makes things worse when he embraces Tohru without a drop of shame, forcing Yuki to emasculate himself even further in front of his classmates. (And in case we weren't already aware of the Soma family's obscene wealth, Momiji's father is the CEO of the corporation that owns the building Tohru cleans. What a spoiled brat!) The whole debacle is played for laughs at first, but Yuki takes his perceived lack of masculinity very seriously, leading to another trademark pep talk from Tohru. (Yuki also had hangups with discussing his feelings around Tohru because "that's shameful for boys", whereas Kyo derides himself for going overboard with martial arts around her. This is another interesting reflection of their equal-yet-opposite fears, since Kyo is afraid of driving others away with his boisterous boyishness, while Yuki is afraid that other people will mock him for not being manly enough.)

Even though the episode sprints through it with fairly workmanlike direction, there's nothing missing from this little detour into Yuki's gender insecurities that won't be revisited more thoroughly later. He needs to learn how to be confident in his own skin and embrace his feminine traits as an equally powerful part of the Prince Yuki underneath that everyone else already sees, but this is something Tohru can't really help him with, because she's bowled over by the beauty of his feminine side herself! As a result, her therapy session in this episode is a little more watered-down than usual, but since Yuki's already started thinking about the many different ways in which people show kindness, he's able to accept that Tohru's right about the class trying to express their love for him rather than mocking him, and that's enough to quell his fears about looking "weak" for now. Maybe someday he'll realize that he's already cool and masculine in all the ways that matter.

After the dust settles, Tohru finally has to reckon with the enormous secret she's been keeping from her two best friends. In the manga, Tohru volunteered this information to Uo and Hana as soon as her living situation with the Somas became permanent, but due to the way the material was rearranged, this remake opts for an accidental airheaded blurt instead. While I think it's slightly out of character for Tohru to hide the truth from her friends even after she's chosen the Somas as her new home, it's also firmly in-character for Uo and Hana to detect something is up for themselves and coax it out of her, so that's probably a harmless nitpick overall. Uo and Hana are fiercely protective of Tohru as a pair of outcasts who found their first and dearest friend but felt helpless to support her after Kyoko's death. By that same token, they've also seen enough hardship and prejudice to be more sympathetic to fellow unpolished weirdos like Yuki, Kyo, and even Shigure. (While he is a published novelist, given that this horn-dog also writes smutty bodice-rippers under a pseudonym "for the lulz", it's possible his livelihood doesn't actually pay for the Soma cottage.)

Uo's won over by Yuki and Kyo's heartfelt assessment of Tohru's character, and Hana sums up their own appeal succinctly: "They have good waves, but they don't know it." While it's not great for their self-esteem long-term, the fact that Yuki and Kyo don't know how special they are probably makes things easier on a self-sacrificial busybody like Tohru. So the girls give the boys their blessing with minimal drama, freeing us to mix up the supporting cast more often going forward. They truly have an invincible friendship, even if I still think Tohru's candid speech about it is one of her most unconvincingly cheesy moments. I love these characters, but moments like that remind me why Tohru would get dismissed as a "Mary Sue" so often in the old days. Would that we all could be so beautifully humble around the people we love.

Then there's that baseball cap. This remake has gone overboard with pregnant shots of this plot device from the start, and this episode finally delivers all its built-up foreshadowing in the last five minutes by raising more questions than answers. It turns out that the hat belonged to Tohru's first crush, a little boy who brought her back home when she had lost her way, even if he kept his distance the whole time and vanished immediately afterwards. It doesn't take a detective to suss out that either Yuki or Kyo was the kid who rescued Tohru that day, but there seems to be equal evidence for both parties. Kyo's the one who overhears Tohru's story with some sense of recognition, but the child's silhouette is closer to Yuki's, and we get a shot of him reading in his room under Tohru's line about the boy likely having forgotten his act of kindness. Is Tohru fated to rekindle her first love once again, just like in a fairytale? Or is the truth behind this baseball cap much more complicated than a kind gesture from one mysterious boy?

Speaking of mirrored meanings, this episode gives us another glimpse of Shigure's dark side, as he leaves the teens behind to scheme alongside Akito once more. It seems like they have some kind of wager going over what will happen to Tohru in the Soma house, but we don't know what outcome either of them is betting on yet. Their rapport is frosty as they sit on opposite sides of the room, yet it's also strangely intimate, as Shigure's jab about Akito being a terrible person compared to Tohru is only met with an amused self-deprecating remark about "always wishing for the moon." So even if they appear to be at odds on the surface, Shigure is clearly acting as a double agent by reporting everyone's actions to Akito, and there's no way he could get away with insulting the head of the family so directly if they didn't share some kind of unique relationship. Just like their chronic illnesses, this "wishing for the moon" phrase is meant to tie Yuki and Akito together, as an abuser and victim who share a history we've only just begun to unravel. Yuki admires Tohru for being brave and strong enough to think of others' needs first, but this could make Akito especially dangerous to her as a person who knows that he makes unreasonably selfish demands but doesn't seem to care.

It seems like it's far too early in the story for these opposing forces to meet, but Hatori Soma has other ideas. Once again, there's a slight change in context for this scene due to reordering manga material, but the only thing we lost this time was the humorous juxtaposition of Tohru being called to the teacher's lounge to meet Hatori mere seconds after she was warned not to be caught alone with him. In this remake, their meeting happens over the phone instead (notably while Shigure isn't home to answer it), without the levity provided by Momiji hopping up to interrupt Hatori's mention of a meeting with Akito Sohma. With the Zodiac's memory-erasing giant and its malicious leader drawing Tohru away from the cottage next week, things look bad for our humble heroine. But then again, Hatori did try to protect Yuki in his own small way by taking Momiji to the culture festival in Akito's place, so perhaps he's got something more benevolent in mind for Tohru as well.

Stray Snippets Lost in Adaptation This Week: Kyo got slightly more lines and focus during the culture festival in the manga, following his embarrassing cat-astrophe during homeroom in episode 3. He puts his all into constructing festival stands after being inspired by Tohru's speech about pickled plums, and his classmates grow closer to him as a result, nicknaming him "cat lover" now that his magnetic effect on felines is common knowledge. Yuki kicks everyone's asses at Rich Man Poor Man to pay off his own confidence boost from episode 3, and most importantly, we learn that he struggles greatly with mornings compared to early-riser Kyo. When Tohru tries to compliment Kyo for not battling Yuki when he's groggy, Kyo begrudgingly reveals that he has tried to attack his rival early in the morning, but Yuki is actually stronger when he's sleepwalking because he isn't lucid enough to hold back. Rats!

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Boruto: Naruto Next Generations - Episode 106 [Review]

As Boruto: Naruto Next Generations heads into a new arc, the titular character and his friends are given an extended vacation. Instead of chronicling one of Team 7's adventures, the latest storyline (an adaptation of a 2016 novel) is a road trip comedy starring Mirai, Kakashi, and Guy. Upon learning that she's been tasked with escorting Kakashi, one of her personal idols, and Guy (whom she has far less reverence for) on a trip, Mirai is over the moon. Believing her latest assignment surpasses an S-rank mission, she can't wait to hit the road with two of the Leaf's greatest heroes. However, by the end of the first day, it becomes clear that Kakashi and Guy aren't on a mission—but rather a hot springs tour. Furthermore, just as Mirai begins getting comfortable with the idea, Kakashi reveals that this “mission” is set to last for 20 days—as opposed to the two-day timeline Mirai had prepared for. With the Land of Steam being the gang's next stop, Mirai ends the episode by reflecting on the prospect of visiting the home country of her father's killer.

It's always nice to get an extended peek at what the previous generation's key players are up to, and Kakashi and Guy make for a consistently fun pairing. Throw in Mirai to act as both an audience-insert and an effective comic foil, and you've got a winning combination of old and new. Her unwavering dedication to her “mission” provides an amusing juxtaposition to Kakashi's and Guy's laidback attitudes, and since the bit would have gotten old if drawn out for too long, her misreading of the situation is cleared up fairly quickly. Given this arc's premise, it should come as no surprise that episode 106 contains a bevy of hilarious moments, most notably Kakashi treating a specific filming location from Make-Out Paradise's big-screen adaptation like hallowed ground.

While this isn't necessarily a mark against the franchise, side stories like this demonstrate that Boruto: Naruto Next Generations is often more focused on being a sequel or continuation to the parent series than a starring vehicle for Boruto. Again, this isn't really a bad thing, as this series' connection to what came before is likely what drives fan interest, and as a protagonist, Boruto isn't quite as interesting as his old man. Plus, with an enormous cast comprised of two generations of characters, having to shoehorn the current iteration of Team 7 is liable to seem cumbersome. That being said, it is a little strange to see Boruto so frequently omitted or reduced to supporting status on his own show.

With a premise that's ripe for shenanigans, the latest arc is off to a very strong start. Kakashi and Guy continue to play off one another nicely, and it's nice to see Mirai receive some time in the spotlight. Having grown up without a father, she may have even more in common with Naruto than his own son, and seeing her come to terms with this absence might provide some compelling parallels to Naruto's journey. Assuming this level of quality is maintained, RobiHachi may have some steep competition for unconventional road trip comedy of the season.

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Bungo Stray Dogs - Episode 30 [Review]

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We Never Learn: BOKUBEN - Episode 6 [Review]

Romantic comedies, Shonen Jump titles, and all the intersections between can sometimes take a while to come into their own. We Never Learn has been no stranger to the checklist of recurring genre building blocks, but all that waiting seems to have finally paid off, as the last couple episodes have been much stronger for their higher volume of content. Interestingly, it seems that putting the more distinctive tutoring elements of the show on the back-burner to focus on the romance itself has been a boon to the show, as the characters' affections grow to make their shenanigans more interesting. This episode is all over the place in terms of focus, but the central thread of Nariyuki and his charges becoming closer keeps it unified enough to be engaging all the way through.

This episode's first priority is to properly introduce another new character: Kirisu, the teacher and former tutor of the girls who's only been on the periphery of the story until now. Granted, even in her starring segment, she mostly functions as a straight-man to facilitate one of the show's funniest gags yet. Each of the girls busting in to futilely ‘explain’ their improbable romcom antics with Nariyuki was a great way to recap how things have gone for everyone so far, with poor Nariyuki delivering his own ‘stop helping me’ reactions. We don't get much to define Kirisu as a character beyond her coldly analytical nature, contrasted with her apparent willingness to give Nariyuki the benefit of the doubt in the face of his tutoring success. Her remarks paint her as someone similar to the girls who ended up having to pursue her natural talents instead of developing what she actually wanted to do, which allows her to let her guard down and develop alongside the other characters later.

For now though, this segment mostly seems to exist for some comedy, recapping the status quo, and making sure we're aware of how Nariyuki and Rizu's accidental kiss will affect the rest of the cast. Rumors spread, and Uruka's conflicted concealed-crush complications can only continue to worsen as this situation carries on. As with last episode, We Never Learn demonstrates a surprising strength when it comes to simple and sincere romance: Uruka's issues with thinking Nariyuki may be out of her reach are played completely straight and land with emotional impact as a result. I keep expecting the show to pull back with a comic-relief punchline or more overblown melodrama, and instead it keeps delivering a decent dose of basic, relatable high-school feelings. If this series wasn't particularly strong on the wacky comedy side of things, just going for the emotional beats like this is a simple, effective way to make up for it.

Surprisingly adjacent to the growing emotional entanglements of everyone else is Fumino, who hasn't really been given many hints of romance with Nariyuki. So she finds herself in a supporting role to the other girls this week, which works well in terms of giving everyone varied roles in the narrative. Fumino is notably the one member of the study group who seems to have a higher degree of emotional intelligence, so she easily decodes Uruka's thinly-veiled requests for romantic advice and figures out what happened between Nariyuki and Rizu. It's sweet to see her trying to figure out how to support both of the other girls, and it's also interesting to see her in this unique role. She's not yet interested in Nariyuki, but now she's the only one fully privy to the pseudo-love-triangle going on. It makes me curious to see how her character trajectory will progress, and while she and the others are still talking about Nariyuki through most of it, it's also nice to see all the girls interacting with each other.

This increasing emphasis on the lovey-dovey elements of the show gets its final boost at the end, as we fully transition over to Uruka's efforts to woo Nariyuki. I continue to prepare myself for disappointment given how tragically perfect I think these two idiots are for each other, and their romantic power-walk is another comic highlight of the series. There's layers of misunderstood messiness to their situation now, with Nariyuki thinking Uruka is interested in someone else so he should keep his distance. The characters' connecting scene at the shrine is bolstered by stronger art than usual in this episode, particularly character animation like Uruka's. And while I shouldn't find myself expecting an actual confession this early in the show, I was still rooting for Uruka to go for it anyway in her roundabout dialogue at the end, and I'm intrigued by Nariyuki's ambiguous reaction, wondering whether or not he's figured it out.

This episode did feel disparate in its focus, like it was wandering between character interactions outside of a clear format, but each portion was entertaining and still stuck close to the focal idea of the developing romances. I definitely feel like We Never Learn wasted its time at the beginning, and halfway through a one-cour series isn't an ideal place for it to finally pick up, but on the bright side, it's good to find myself more entertained and engaged by it now.

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Bungo Stray Dogs - Episode 30 [Review]

I almost rated this episode lower because it's all over the place – from chilling in the café below the Agency to taking on fingernail-stealing baddies to finding a former Agency member to zaniness with Chigusa. That's a lot of only moderately related stuff to happen in a single episode, and it doesn't quite work in the first eight-odd minutes. But I ultimately went with the higher rating because some of the Chigusa bits are so funny that I enjoyed it far more than I expected. Ratings are always “your mileage may vary,” but this may be one of the most pointed examples of that.

In any event, it is nice to have a more lighthearted episode after the four heavy ones we began the season with. Now that Dazai's backstory with Chuuya is taken care of and we've had a better introduction to Fyodor Dostoyevsky and his dangerous Ability, it's time to check back in with Atsushi and the rest of the modern-day Agency members. What have they been up to since defeating the Guild? The answer is “not much” – as might be expected, everyone is wiped out from their battles and in desperate need of some downtime. The two exceptions appear to be Atsushi and Kunikida, neither of whom may even be aware of the concept of “downtime”. For Atsushi, it's probably more that he's happiest when he feels useful; Kunikida's issue remains to be seen. Both are at their best and most energized when they're doing something, however, which is probably why they're the ones sent out with the Rats in the House of the Dead's bugged computer component to find a former Agency member whose skill lies in electronic manipulation.

This member would be Tayama Katai, best known today as the author of the short story “Futon” (called “The Quilt” in its 1981 English translation). Given that he lived between 1872 – 1930, casting him as a hacker may seem a little bizarre, but if you consider him as a founder of the “I Novel” in Japanese literature, it does make more sense. Apart from the fact that the genre is a confessional-style narrative, which we see today in online discourse like blogs, there's also pretty decent wordplay in there – rather than “I Novel” we could read it as “iNovel,” which has some definite electronic connotations. More interestingly, real-life Katai was close friends with Doppo Kunikida and had a falling out with Koyo Ozaki – who in the show is a member of the Port Mafia.

More importantly for this episode, he's got a crush on a mysterious beautiful lady he spied from his window, and he refuses to do any work for Kunikida unless he and Atsushi help track her down. It's just their bad luck that Chigusa of the Mafia also spotted the lady – getting close with Akutagawa, no less. Since she's got a major crush on Akutagawa, she wants to take out the competition, putting her at cross-purposes with Katai. That everyone's got the wrong idea about the woman, who turns out to be Gin, the Mafia's ninja and Akutagawa's sister, just adds to the insanity of the situation, and the whole thing is played out in an almost Scooby-Doo style that's not only pretty darn funny, but also a nice breather between two darker storylines. Between the panicked way Gin tries to throw on her disguise, Chigusa oh-so-kindly critiquing Atsushi's style, and Katai taking a header into a pile of recycling, it's a good mix of verbal and visual humor. It's also especially silly after one-off bad guy group The Park challenges the Agency only to discover to their horror how insanely good they are at their jobs – you know that Kunikida or Atsushi could have just ended the whole thing in a second, but they're so flummoxed by the whole crazy turn that they just sort of stand there.

Next week is likely to get back to the more serious stories (and more Sad Orphan Flashbacks), so for now treasure the image of Kunikida manically doing Katai's dishes and Chigusa trying to get Gin to call her “onee-san.” You may want those happy memories as things get back on track.

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Wise Man's Grandchild - Episode 5 [Review]

I admit that my stomach dropped when the preview image for this week's episode on Funimation was Sizilien. I find her vastly annoying, but more than that, her storyline at this point doesn't seem to be filling any real need in the series overall except the desire to have a romance included. While I'm all for romance, this show doesn't really need it, and the fact that neither she nor Shin have to work for it instead relying on the insta-love trope, just makes it feel like a distraction to the more interesting plot and characters.

On that same note, did we really need to open with a scene of Maria blissfully enjoying a bidet in Shin's house? Again, it seems to serve no purpose other than to shoehorn in some barely-there fanservice (rather like the girls' school uniform tops or Shin opening a gate and ending up facing his classmate's boobs) and just feels like a cheap way to fill a few seconds or a shameless bid to entice viewers to keep watching. If the rest of the show is done well enough, it wouldn't need to bolster itself with things like this, or if the fanservice was given a more devoted effort, it would feel less intrusive and more like a part of the series as a whole. But this half-assing it just feels like an irritating disruption.

Much more interesting, albeit truncated because this show is trying to do so much, is the fact that Shin is trying to teach his school friends his style of magic as a means of combating Schrom and the demonoids. Shin doesn't believe for a minute that they've seen the last of the villainous fiend, and even though he doesn't find out until the end of the episode that the kingdom's enemy, the Blusfia Empire, is mobilizing troops for war, it isn't hard to guess that he suspects it. Shin may be good, but he also doesn't have the sort of ego that makes him think that he can handle all problems entirely on his own, so he's willing to take advantage of the study group he was basically roped into forming.

It isn't hard to think that this may have been Aug's plan all along, either – despite being all buddy-buddy with Shin, he and his dad are still clearly gearing up to use him in more subtle ways. This is perhaps best seen when Shin goes to the palace to get his medal for defeating the demonoid and Schrom – the king makes a big announcement to the assembled people that Shin is Merlin's grandson. He follows this up with his promise not to exploit Shin for political gains (and Merlin's threat to leave the country if he does so), but the whole thing feels disingenuous. By first announcing who Shin is, he's calling attention to the boy as a potential savior, especially since the nobility can be reasonably expected to have at least heard rumors about Blusfia's war preparations. He's also explicitly stating that he, the king, has made this promise – but not that he's spoken for anyone else on the matter. Basically we can see him as calling open season on Shin, something borne out by the fact that Shin can't get out of his house or school for the crowds trying to get a look at him. It's also notable that Aug has made no such promise, and with every mention of the danger the kingdom and its citizens are in, he can be seen as quietly manipulating Shin's sense of justice and his fondness for his friends into doing precisely what Aug, and his father, want him to do.

With all of this, it's nice to see that Merlin is truly looking out for his adopted grandson. When Shin announces his plans to teach his friends to use his kind of magic, Merlin whips out a gate spell to show that anyone can learn how to do it. Later we find out that he had to really work at it, but he did because he wanted Shin to feel like less of a freak with his friends and to be able to live as normal a life as possible. That's some good parenting and the first true sign of someone looking out for Shin as a person that we've seen since he's hit teenhood, and it's a nice counterbalance to the scheming behind the scenes. If the series can focus more on things like this and trust that its plot is enough to carry the rest, we'll be a lot better off.

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Isekai Quartet - Episode 5 [Review]

Episode 5 finally delivers the talent show that has been built up for the last couple of episodes. While it's not as riotously entertaining as I'd hoped, it still gets in plenty of decent jokes, including a couple that only viewers who are extremely familiar with one series or another are likely to get.

The most unexpected twist is that teachers aren't exempt from the random selection of participants, resulting in Rerugen getting caught off-guard by being selected first. He's a dutiful guy, so he's not going to shirk from this duty even while dying of embarrassment on the inside, which is not lost on the students; the funniest part isn't even that he's bad at singing his national anthem or that various characters take heart that they can't do anything worse, but that Darkness gets dreamy over experiencing that kind of embarrassment herself. Her own performance, where she virtually begs one of Tanya's upstanding underlings to literally whip her silly, spins the conversation off into condemnation for the underling because she implies that he always does this. It's a wonderfully ludicrous crossover between unexpected characters. I'm honestly not sure what Weiss' deal is though, as I don't remember anything from his series that could be connected to his "talent" or why Tanya would be flummoxed enough to cut him off.

Amongst other foolishness, the star scene is Megumin using her Explosion spell. Unsurprisingly, Ains is keenly interested, even though the target is a bronze statue of Pandora's Actor, a minion of the Great Tomb of Nazarick that he personally created. Ains wanting to follow that up with a display of his own wasn't surprising, but I was surprised that he used some kind of weather manipulation to create a snowfall. That was actually a neat touch, and the episode didn't waste the satisfaction of the moment by lacking in jokes, such as Megumin being helpless in the snow.(1) The other gag that requires deeper knowledge to get is Grantz's reaction to the snow(2), which was definitely worth a chuckle.

That may be the strongest aspect of this series: it doesn't miss any opportunities. The musical selection while it snowed and Ains' reasons for choosing snow were neat touches as well, especially since Overlord has never delved much into the background of Ains' player. This ending does leave the series without any clear direction forward, but I still look forward to seeing what it comes up with next.

1) Megumin depletes all her magical and physical energy after using Explosion, so she's completely helpless.

2) Tanya ran the recruits for her battalion through a winter hell in an effort to get them to drop out (so she could delay going back to war), but to her consternation, all of them bore through it and qualified. Ironically, it's one of the main reasons why her unit is so effective.

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One Punch Man Season 2 - Episode 5 [Review]

I'm very amenable to the concept of what's often uncharitably called “filler” material. There's this idea that everything in a story needs to serve a unilateral purpose in regards to moving a narrative forward, but I think that's a narrow-minded way to approach storytelling. People and their relationships are messy and complex, so it's only natural that this be expressed in the way that we tell stories to each other. “Filler” gives creators freedom to explore narrative and thematic avenues they might not be able to touch on otherwise. It can grant depth to side characters or grant additional flavor to an imaginary world. It can provide a grim story with some levity or add weight to a normally farcical one. I always want to see storytellers experiment, and sometimes a narrative detour is the best way to accomplish that.

All that said, this current arc of One Punch Man sure is some frustratingly unfocused filler.

At a distance, it seems like there should be a lot going on. Saitama is checking out a martial arts tournament. Garou is patrolling the city for heroes to hunt. Silverfang is on a mission to reel in his rogue student before he becomes another monster. Powerful monsters are executing a coordinated attack in order to completely overwhelm the Hero Association. And yet it feels like nothing of consequence happens in this episode. With all of these plotlines happening simultaneously, the result is a jumbled mess hopping from scene to scene without letting any of them gain enough momentum to do something meaningful.

Garou continues the fight he started with Metal Bat last week, and like the rest of the fights this season, there's not much to comment on. The gimmick this time is that Metal Bat paradoxically gets stronger the more he gets beaten up, but with no resources to communicate that visually, One Punch Man falls back on merely telling us what's happening, which is neither elegant nor particularly exciting. I do find it cute that the fight ends because Metal Bat's angry little sister shows up and tells them to stop. Again, it highlights that Garou is still a decent guy deep-down, who wouldn't stoop so low as to harm a precocious little girl, and he even defends her from the scheming of two nearby monsters. This is interesting, because as much as Garou aligns himself with the plight of monsters, the monsters themselves have zero allegiance to him. These guys just want to use him to further their own agenda, even trying to lure him in with a phony “Monster Association.” Fortunately for Garou, he's all about that lone wolf lifestyle right now. Since he's currently the most interesting part of the show, I want to see how his own twisted sense of heroic idealism rubs up against the reality of a monstrous situation.

Meanwhile, monsters everywhere are creating more chaos than the heroes can keep up with, but the supposed urgency of the situation is lost when the show keeps jumping back to a martial arts tournament going on without a hitch. It's also difficult to understand what exactly the monsters are trying to do. They make a point of showing that they have more than enough strength to do whatever they want, but then some of them decide to retreat for unspecified reasons. It honestly feels like the show is stalling for time by dangling some mysterious master plan in front of the audience. I have to commend One Punch Man's attempt to pander to me by throwing in another dominatrix villain, but halfway through the season is unfortunately too little too late. I can't even get too excited about a matchup between her and Blizzard because the show isn't able to make its fight scenes very intelligible.

At least the martial arts tournament has finally started! The emcee quickly introduces all of the competitors, and we're treated to some flavor about ongoing grudges and backstories, but it looks like most of this stuff won't pay off for a while. It also looks doubtful that we'll actually get to see any of these fights, but that might be for the best. I did get a modicum of amusement from Zakkos' complete whiff against Saitama, compounded by the spectacular failure of his ambition to propose to his girlfriend. The way Saitama and the audience mercilessly flog his arrogance tickled my schadenfreude just enough in the episode's final moments.

Much like a city-sized centipede burrowing its way underground, One Punch Man currently seems content to stick its head in the dirt and flail around instead of moving forward with any one of its subplots. With almost no narrative hook, mediocre production values, and largely stagnant characters, there's not much punch to be found in this man at the moment.

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Black Clover - Episode 81 [Review]

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Black Clover - Episode 81 [Review]

Coinciding with Langris' onslaught against his brother last week, Team G technically won the match because Team E's crystal got destroyed in the process. Elsewhere on the map, Leopold came this close to taking the enemy's crystal, but it looks like this is a day for the bad guys instead, which brings us back to the Black Bulls' stare-down with Langris. This episode rewinds a few moments to show us exactly how Asta and company managed to fly across the battlefield so quickly (Charmy catapulted them with her sheep), though I was wrapped up in the moment enough that I didn't think twice about it at the time.

This tournament is certainly going in a few unexpected directions now. Langris has gotten on Asta's naughty list, so our hero is demonstrating an uncharacteristic anger. The Wizard King is not opposed to letting these kids get a quick and dirty fight out of their system, but he also wants to keep everything within the confines of the exam. Since Asta and Langris' teams would be facing each other in the semi-finals anyway, their match is getting moved up to now, which seems weirdly unfair to the other teams waiting for their fights! I'm trying to think of another shonen anime that's done something like this. The Wizard King's just like, "Well, shoot. The emotions are running high now. Gotta keep that momentum going!"

So because Asta went and got all hot-headed against Langris, who's still digging his heels into the ground with overcompensating douchebaggery, his teammates have to get whisked into an unexpected battle as well, and this is where we get a lot of new Zora content. It turns out Zora's distaste for the Magic Knights comes from his dad, who was a peasant like Asta who managed to get in to the club with hard work. Zora's dad revered the Magic Knights and relished the opportunity to fight alongside them, but when he eventually died, Zora overheard his teammates mocking him for not being a wealthy noble like them. The idealistic vision of who the Magic Knights are supposed to be—compassionate warriors fighting to protect the weak—was ground into the dust. It turns out that this special group of heroes is inescapably tied to wealth and nepotism, even when it pretends not to be.

Langris makes an especially good antagonist for Zora, who rises to the challenge with a strong appetite. Langris is everything Zora could possibly hate about the Magic Knights, and by the end of this episode, Zora goes from looking like a bitter prankster to a genuinely swell dude biting back at the establishment's failure. It's not that the idea of the Magic Knights is bad, it's that vile people are constantly allowed to make a mockery of the name. This is an angle that Black Clover has always lightly explored, that the people who are supposed to be the good guys are low-key responsible for many of the world's problems, and I hope it can keep pushing these ideas. Even if someone like the Wizard King truly is a stand-up guy, is there a chance he's been complicit in some of the kingdom's ugliness and simply hopes to plant the seeds of progress in a new generation? Or perhaps he's secretly been scheming to fix the system from the inside? This thread has to go somewhere.

Things are getting much more intense in the Royal Knights exam, and this episode offers a healthy variety between the more atmospheric action and the flashbacks fleshing out Zora's story. Once again, the class themes are among Black Clover's greatest assets, allowing characters of different backgrounds to coexist meaningfully and sewing some honest-to-goodness world-building into the narrative. Thankfully, this tournament seems to have finally found its pulse.

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