I was struggling with whether I wanted to drop Karakuri Circus, but last week killed it for me. Yeah, it’s obvious one o the worst manga adaptions that I have ever watched, and I have never watched this before. While the flow is still alright, there are so many things that the show is obvious skipping and I just can’t stand any of this before. It feels like so much drama and character narratives that should be there aren’t. I am just not here for it anymore.
This last week was ok I suppose. I mean, it was finals week and I was able to get my report cleaned up and turned in and I think I did ok on my final. After that though, I had to back completely in order to leave the dorm. I mean, I am done with school now. I guess I have a Master’s degree in Aerospace Engineering now. Hooray! It hasn’t hit me yet, because my path to acquiring it was so incredibly weird. That’s why I haven’t said anything about it on twitter yet. Maybe I should? Nah, that will just sound like me showing off and I’m not a big an of that.
This next week will be me and my family driving my car back home so fun stuff there. I’ve been stuck in a car with my parents a lot, so that isn’t anything new or terrifying. It just means that I am going to have a job search in earnest after the holidays. *sigh* Adulting is hard.
-Episode Watches-
Saint Seiya: Saintia Shou Episode 1
I feel like such a casual watching this. I have never watched a Saint Seiya series before and I don’t think that this is a good place to start, but I had fun. For one thing, this is the gender swapped version of Saint Seiya and it’s kind of cool. Also, it’s 90’s shoujo style and it’s just a lot of fun. Also, it has that very anime plot about being about two sisters that are so close to each other and eventually one is taken over by an evil goddess while protecting the actual cursed one, so now is the fight for revenge. Yeah, I am digging this one so far.
Golden Kamuy S2 Episode 10
Oh hey, our characters got to the prison finally and had an interesting scheme of breaking into the prison as well. I mean, there is something funny about a group of people fishing and paying off the guards with Salmon while people are digging into the prison at the same time. You know, because fishing on the side of the prison is perfectly normal. Also, the prison scheme fell apart as expected with Shiraishi and Sugimoto currently in a bad spot, but at least Asirpa might be seeing her dad soon. Overall though, this episode does everything that Golden Kamuy does right. So yay!
Thunderbolt Fantasy S2 Episode 11
Talk about the perfect storm of terribleness. Ok, first part wasn’t terrible. Shang was practicing swordsmanship with a character from S1 and I was so happy to see this guy. Of course, that was so he could hand the scroll of swords to the guy so he is in hiding. Still, there are two swords of insanity still going around now. After Glasses cop’s reputation fell through, he’s now forming a gang with the mystical sword that he stole from the Princess of Cruelty. The monk with the sword is still around as well, but at least he’s in the air right now and not able to hurt anyone. You know, never ask this show I it can get worse. It always does.
Space Battleship Tiramisu S2 Episode
Welcome to blatant rip offs of mecha concepts instead of subtle elbow jabs. The first segment of a pure parody of the Raiser pack set up from Gundam OO season two. The fun part was the pilot seat ended up on top of a good and that was scary. Then the second segment was a blatant Eva rip off. Yes, there was comedy about how Isuzu is still a kid and refuses to sync in with his guest mech because of the operation. Also, the mech looks like an Eva unit and the explosion of its laser comes out as a cross. It’s fun stuff, but still more obvious rip offs than usual.
Run with the Wind Episode 11
Compared to last week, this episode was much more laid back. I say this despite the rain that took up half of the episode’s weather patterns. It was also focused on Shindo, though Haiji’s doctor visit focused on his leg, and Nico’s weight lost got a scene as well. The episode starts with the twins and Musa making their times of running a 5K in less then sixteen minutes and thirty seconds. Yuki and Shindo however, didn’t make it. I honestly thought that would lead to some drama, but I forgot these were college kids and the drama was minimal.
Then there are some scenes about how hard Shindo works, how he’s trying to rally support for their track team, how he broke up with his girlfriend, and he is self-motivated to try so many things. I thought I related to Prince more, but Shindo has a lot of my personality traits. Also, I like the continuous theme of people putting down Kekaru’s rival and Kekaru slowly being more social. It’s all good amounts of characterization that I approve of.
Bloom Into You Episode 11
Well now, I suppose that was the requisite spa episode of this. I mean, it happened during Student Council camp where everyone was rehearsing the play. Still, there was a focus on that and how awkward it was. I mean, this is technically a love triangle and every girl was nervous about their crushes seeing them naked for the first time. There were shots of the girls in their underwear and then immediately into the bath, so no major fanservice was on display here. I really like that. Sayaka, Yuu, and Touko were so awkward around each other, it was hilarious and felt incredibly believable. Poor, horny teenagers.
The main highlight of the show was Touko meeting one of her sister’s class mate who was helping the student council they were helping, Tanigaki, who told Touko how lazy her sister was. She was trying to make herself a copy of her sister without getting a full picture, which is interesting. I wonder how that is going to change everything going forward.
JoJo Part 5 Episode 11
With this episode, I feel like Part 5 solidifies that Bruno, not Giorno, is the actual main protagonist of Part 5. He’s endlessly kind, fathers each of the strays he picks up, and knows exactly what they need. Narancia’s backstory as a street kid who constantly misunderstood what was going on and didn’t like his father was completely endearing and seeing Bruno treat Narancia the way he should have been treated was so nice. In other news, Narancia won his battle by the skin of his teeth because he was about to be killed by a spider.
The hitmen villains now know what is going on or where the boss’ daughter is, so that Is still a loss for him. At the end of the episode, Bruno gets a message from the boss to get a vehicle for his daugher’s safety, so Fugo, Abbachio, and Giorno are on the case to get the keys. I wonder how that is going to go next week.
SSSS.Gridman Episode 11
Well, here we are. The episode before the finale and what an episode It was. I like how both the emotional stakes and physical stakes were ramped up to a large degree here. For starters, should we talk about Akane stabbing Yuuta and Yuuta ending up at a hospital? Yeah, apparently Akane doesn’t know how to stab people so Yuuta so she missed anything vital on him. Still Yuuta couldn’t wake up because he is Gridman in Yuuta’s body because Yuuta’s memories don’t actually exist and the computer needed to be repaired.
While that is happening, Anti otherwise known as Gridknight, is fighting all the Kaiju that Akane built by himself until Gridman shows up, which he does. Utsumi feeling useless is something that should have been brought up later, but I guess that’s ok. The biggest twist of this episode is Akane being the Kaiju after Rikka tried to cheer her up. Man, talk about a stakes ramp up. Let’s see how all of this works out in the end.
Double Decker Episode 12
This episode felt a little rushed to me. On paper, there isn’t that much going on. Kirill got tricked to join the military because he carries Anthem antibodies in him and the rest of the crew goes out to save him. The problem with this is that everything still felt like they happened too quickly. There was a lot of set up, some explanation about the general and Kirill come from a space colony that needed specialized humans, getting Seven-O put together with a lot of other things, and some stuff I forgot about. Yeah, I am bad but it’s hard to remember everything sometimes.
They really need to not have this “your partner is dead now” twist two times in a row, because apparently Doug is dead now. There is a lot of emotion behind that because that relationship has been built up over the course of the series, but it’s still annoying. That better not be a fake out thing. Deaths are supposed to mean something.
Tsurune Episode 9
We hit the big time, folks. Seiya has finally snapped and it’s as calm of a snap as you would expect it to be for this show. I mean seriously, it was an incredibly calm break down for Seiya to Masa-san that he hates him. Damn. Now, there were a lot of good moments in this episode like our Kyudo gang eating food at a restaurant and each why they cook their food displaying different parts of their personalities, which is great stuff.
The big reveal that drove this show forward was how Narumiya lost his mother. I have a feeling that Seiya thinks he played a heavy hand in it and it’s been weighing on his consciousness. Especially now that Narumiya still has to visit the doctor after being hit by a car years ago. That’s a lot of drama and I hope Seiya figures everything out before our crew makes it to the tournament. Probably not though, because that’s not how these stories seem to work.
-Non-episodic Reviews-
FMA 2003 Episodes 50 and 51
I suppose I feel a lot different about this show’s ending then a lot of other people. Why? Because I feel like “the adventure continues” endings are pretty alright. Especially with the brother focused episodes and endings like this one. All the work set up in the beginning went somewhere with this conclusion. Also, are you really expecting a series where characters go against the flow of humanity is going to end well? Maybe I guess, but this isn’t Brotherhood. It’s a lot more personal and tonally dark then brotherhood. Also, I guess that Conqueror of Shamballa movie was a thing.
FMA: Conqueror of Shamballa
Ok yeah, I do see why a lot of people don’t like this film. I do have to mention that on a world building, animation, direction, and pacing level, it’s pretty good. No scene felt like they were too long and every moment was given the right amount of impact for what was going on. With that said, on a character level and story telling level, everything was bad. The villain aspect just went with “they are nazis” which fits the time period and location that Ed was in, but that felt like a completely cliché move that Fullmetal Alchemist 2003 wouldn’t do. Should I even mention Alphonse or the main villain’s motivations don’t make sense at all or the fact that a character was somewhere to deliver one thing to some one or the ending doesn’t make any sense? Probably not, but I just did, didn’t I?
Tiger and Bunny Episodes 11-15
I am watching the dub of Tiger and Bunny this time around, which is a good decision because the dub is so good. Especially when the killer of Bunny’s parents, Jake Martinez, is voiced by Steve Blum. He is very joker like, which is great. The annoying guy is very powerful and results in the fall of hero after hero to provide how much drama. Tiger and Bunny have some drama themselves in the face of Bunny facing his killer and their partnership helped take Jake down.
The two episodes afterward where side stories with Tiger and Bunny becoming more popular and allow other characters to get the spot light. Sky High had his episode and there were plenty of scenes of Tiger and Bunny being all commercial and even dancing. The conflict right now? Tiger’s power increasing, but also losing the amount of time he can use it is decreasing. Uh oh.
Giant Gorg Episodes 16-17
It’s discovery time this week. It’s time to learn about some of this show’s secrets and be scared out of our minds. Doris and Yuu meet an alien by the name of Manon who must be the keeper of the watch or something of this alien society. I think what happened was Manon and his alien race have been asleep for 30,000 years to wait to see what specials grows up enough to talk to. There were a lot of sleeping gorgs. The big scary thing came from GAIL finally breaking into the alien’s compound, with the doctor and Skipper being somewhat bad ass, and Manon disintegrating the intruders with his Gorg’s laser weaponry. Like holy crap, kids were watching that, guy. What were you thinking? Still a lot of interesting plot reveals. I guess I can’t wait for more to come. This is getting pretty nuts.
Genesis Climber Mospeada Episodes 16-17
Quite a couple intriguing episodes this week. Partially for their stories and content and partially because of some interesting reveals. Episode 16 was focused on our crew finally making it to North America. They stopped at a naval base for a while where they had a go time interacting with each other and Stig struggling to swim, which is an incredibly human moment for our hardened warrior. Some naval ships got to be used to fight the Inbit and it was cool. Episode 17, the more dynamic episode for me because of how interesting it was shot. If last week was a beach episode, this was a snow episode with everyone getting lost in the snow and fighting off the Inbit that came to fight them. It was all very striking for me. The core element that held these two episodes together for me was the fact that the Inbit are now using human pilots. Human pilots that don’t understand what is going on, which is what Aisha mostly likely is. I wonder where that is going to go. It’s getting kind of scary.
Mechanical Anime Reviews 