Weekly Anime Watches: 11/12/18

These weeks are turning out busier and busier. Jeez, it’s getting too the point where I wake up 7:30 every morning and suddenly it’s 5pm before I even knew it. I guess there is nothing wrong with being busy and I am the kind of person to complain about being busy while secretly liking it. At the same time, Thanksgiving Break is getting closer!

-Episodic Watches-

Golden Kamuy S2 Episode 5

Is it strange how this show can go from being completely goofy to being completely serious naturally? There were some amazing moments in this episode like how Sugimoto and the new guy they found last week, who is the master of disguise, put up a smart offense to get Shiraishi out of the prison to Sugimoto’s eventually escape with Arispa, Shiraishi, and Ogata on top of an experimental blimp. After that the show gets completely serious when they are all on a mountain side in a harsh wind. In order to survive, each one of them had to hide inside of a dead deer’s insides and this is where we get a heart to heart moment between Asirpa and Sugimoto that we haven’t had for a while. It’s episodes like this that show how multi-faceted Golden Kamuy is and why I love it as much as I do.

Thunderbolt Fantasy S2 Episode 6

Last week’s insanity has been maintained in this episode somehow. After Shang fully recovered from the poison, he and Lang fight off this show’s bad guys. A lot of fun plays of swordsmanship in which Shang showed how superior he is when he injures the woman that poisoned him. She runs away and Shang and Lang chase after her where they meet up with a monk that questions why both of them are chasing after our female villain. This causes a conflict between Lang and Shang as Shang tries to get the monk to escape before Lang kills him. There are a lot of complicated things going on here that I can’t wait to see click together.

Space Battleship Tiramisu S2 Episode 6

This episode feels like a dud to me. After Subaru took a bullet for his brother Isuzu last week, Isuzu had is hanging out in Subaru’s hospital room as Subaru recovers. This could be a dramatic moment, but it gets continually interrupted by a famous baseball player that hands Isuzu a signed baseball. There are some good reflective moments about Isuzu and Subaru playing catch and how Subaru was a stronger thrower, but that even gets interrupted by a continually falling baseball. There is just too much of a tonal whiplash from all of that nonsense for a seven-minute episode. I guess we see how Subaru’s clone is exactly like him, but that seemed tacked on and didn’t go anywhere.

Run with the Wind Episode Episode 6

It always amazes me how good the characterization is in this show because it does a more then decent job of characterizing its cast of ten people. This episode organically sort of resolved King’s small drama of trying to find a job and not running through the rest of the case with small character interactions here and there. We also dig more into what is going on in Haiji’s mind and the doubts he has on this running journey. We also see that people are moving forward in their journies of running faster even if they still have somewhere to go. I have some strong doubts they are going to run in the Hakone Enki though.

RErideD Episode 10

This week, the first half of this episode was dedicated mercenary Donna’s backstory. We see that she went completely crazy when she was she heavily involved in the test of a ZV (robotic) copying her personality and slowly becoming her. The robot even took her name, which caused her to completely lash out against it AND she also murdered are pseudo Donald Trump figure in this anime so she is good in my books. The rest of the episode just leans on the idea of what happens when scientists and engineers leave whatever projects they are working on behind. There are good ideas at play here, just no spark of inspiration or creativity behind it all so it just feels so blah. GAH.

Karakuri Episode 5

After the craziness of the last four episodes where we supposedly lost Narumi, this is a breather episode. Masaru returns to school after so many things happen to him and he shows how much he’s changed. He used to be bullied in his class, but after his experiences where he almost died and the all the scars he has, he just shakes all of it off. At the same time, Shirogane joins a highschool class where she shows how perfect she is. She tries not to stand out, but Shirogane shows how much smarter, athletic, and perfect she is compared to everyone else. Also, Shirogane is going to work at a local circus and we also have a possibility of Narumi coming back. A lot of good stuff going on in this show, but everything does seem a little forced.

JoJo Part 5 episode 6

I heard that this fifth part of JoJo was supposed to be bad and I am still waiting for that to happen. This episode was everything a good JoJo episode should be. It’s crazy, it’s emotional, it’s a stand battle with a mystery behind it that requires strategy to solve it, and so on. This week we learn about Bruno and Abbacchio’s backstory. Abbacchio was a person that was able to live his dream of being a cop, but soon how much fraud and lies were involved with the job. After a bad encounter that ended up with him drinking, Bruno was the one that got him out of the alcohol phase and that was so powerful. The stand battle itself was fun and involved one boat being two and stands sucking the air out of people and sucking them into pipes. I love JoJo.

The additional fun I had was realizing that Abbachio was voiced by the new Oberstein from the latest Legend of the Galactic Heroes and Eraser Head from My Hero Academia. That was a lot of fun.

Bloom Into You Episode 6

I am really falling for this show even if it is a little slow, but maybe I shouldn’t get ahead of myself. This episode’s is on Minami herself. I mean, she is interested in having the school council put on a play and we learn over the course of the episode is that because it’s for her lost sister. Yuu spends a lot of time investigating who was the student council president seven years ago and it was our current president Minami’s lost sister and she is giving the outward appearance of wanting to be like her sister. In an interesting confrontation through visual representations of how close the characters are throughout the conversation by use of stepping stones across a river. Yuu sees both sides of Minami-san and wants to be with her because who else could she figure out what love means with because she still doesn’t feel it. Bloom Into You’s direction is so wonderful to watch and really adds something to this emotional story.

SSSS.Gridman Episode 6

Oh hey, there is the plot. I kid sort of. This week was a character focused episode that I liked. The general plot is that big, because it’s just Akane sending Anti after Yuuta/Gridman, but it was interrupted by a lot of character moments, so no Gridman vs Kaiju this week. The Rikka and Anti relationship is not something I fully understand, but it’s interesting seeing Rikka just accept Anti so quickly, mother him, and giving him a bath. Then there was the Utsumi and Akane part of the episode which is when they both nerd out about Kaiju, which is infinitely relatable to me because I would do the same with anyone who wants to talk about mech anime. No, the plot reveal in this show comes from a Kaiju who explained the story how the world works and how there is on certain high schooler in the middle of it all who is the god of this world. This is the goofy, stupid, and frightening science fiction B.S. stuff that I love.

Double Decker Episode 8

Well, this was the most insufferable episode that I’ve seen this show. Last week was kind of eh because it resolved Doug’s conflict. Here we have an episode dedicated to characterizing Maxine more. The thing is that this was a “our group is at a school” episode and it was centered on prom. You know, because Maxine’s terrible backstory is that she and her partner switched gender roles at the prom and they were kicked out. That was it? Also, dealing with catty school girls who automatically point fingers at whoever they think the victim is because of popularity things. It’s just that there is no depth to this episode or the depth is puddle deep, ok? A lot of this says that whatever happens in high school sets up who people are for the rest of their life and while that might be true for some people, it’s not true for everyone. Gah.

-Somewhat Bing Watches-

Fullmetal Alchemist (2003) Episodes 25-29

Well, this is the part where Fullmetal Alchemist 2003 does its own story thing. The death of Hughes was still presented here and it was even more emotionally impactful in this series because half the show was centered on Hughes helping the Elrics in some capacity. Rush Valley also happened, but it was a lot more emotionally grounded and not as action heavy which I liked better in the long run. Where the differences start is when Ed and Al are stuck on their training island again and there is a guest here that looks like Al with possibly Ed’s arm? Turns out it’s a homunculi and we learn a little more about how those are constructed. I kind of like this turn, but it feels forced in some way. I will see how this plays out in coming episodes. Let’s see what kind of emotional journey this is.

Gatchaman Crowds Insights Episodes

I feel like I am watching this show just to see how bad it’s going to get. In the center of the conflict that is happening right now, we have Tsubasa the annoying teenager. She and the alien Gelru are running the country of Japan right now. I can’t blame the alien because they don’t understand humanity and is trying to get human kind to get along, but at the center of this is Tsubasa who is really dumb, doesn’t understand criticism, automatically detaches from people that go against the way she thinks despite the fact that she openly says she doesn’t understand things, and actively makes Japanese society worse because of all of that. Now we have these creatures that randomly show up to comfort everyone and then just eat people when they don’t agree and it’s just so stupid. I can’t wait to write about this one further in a complete review/discussion.

-Older Mecha Watches-

Giant Gorg Episodes 8-9:

Episode eight of Giant Gorg is a little redundant because it’s still centered around Giant Gorg and our little bit of a crew still running away from the oppressive G.A.I.L. The difference here is that our crew was running out of fuel, so they had to hold their ground while fighting off G.A.I.L. before running away. Episode Nine was just a necessary pause where we learn more about our characters while hiding from G.A.I.L. Yuu and Alois, the younger boy, have a huge argument because they are both boys, but they get in sync with each other when killing a monster in a cave to fight for their lives. This show is still a huge, delightful Saturday morning cartoon.

Genesis Climber Mospeada Episodes 8 and 9

These two episodes are some of my favorites from this show so far. Episode eight was an episode where our protagonist Stig met his childhood hero and why he became a soldier in the first place. It was a big reminder that Stig is still young and impressionable despite how focused he is on his journey. Episode eight was also the classic “my hero is bad, but he redeems himself in the end where he does” kind of episodes, but It was still fun. Episode nine on the other hand was a complete WTF episode where Stig, Ray, and Mint fell down a hole into an Inbit laboratory where they had DINOSAURS. What? I thought Giant Gorg would be the anime that would have dinosaurs. I feel like this is the non sequitur episode that will never come up again, but I am glad it happened because it’s a lot of fun.

Armored Trooper Votoms Episodes

Armored Trooper Votoms, I already love you. Why do you have to pander to me so much with these three episodes? I mean, we have two space fleets in combat leading to the mysterious force from Quent deciding it had enough with this nonsense and gets rid of most of both fleets. I guess we know why the Quentins don’t fight around their home world. After the fleet battle, we go to the science B.S. stage. Chirico, Rochina, Fyana, and the rest of their group are captured by the society and are called to this mysterious area in space that no one in this group has ever known before. That area is full of advanced technology that must have been left behind by an ancient race. It’s here where we learn that Chirico is something called an Overman and is the next person to watch over this universe. I expected this. I’ve honestly felt that he was other worldly for a while now, but I don’t see what this had to do with his ptsd he’s still suffering from. Then again, it was commented on that he’s changed since planet Sunsa. Maybe he actually died and became something else. Everything will lead to an answer soon I’m sure.

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I’m sorry if this isn’t as edited as it could be. I had a head ache all day yesterday so I didn’t have my complete mental facilities.