Weekly Anime Watches: 12/24/18

Happy Christmas Eve, everyone. I hope all of you have enjoyed your holidays and your anime watching. I mostly have. While Voltron: Legendary Defenders is technically not anime depending on who you talk to, each episode of its final season was pretty difficult to deal with. Honerva being an unconvincing villain or me didn’t hamper this season too much, because the Voltron character drama was still pretty decent. I am just not sure how I feel about the end.

Anyway, I hope you all had a good Christmas tomorrow with all of your media watching and family gathering things. Be prepared for a post tomorrow

-Episode Watches-

Saint Seiya: Saintia Sho Episode 2

Episode 2 was ok. It set up the general conflicts of the world of this show, had some interesting character moments, and had some gar to it. Females can be incredibly gar, everyone. Don’t deny it. Sho has been a very relatable character so far. She forgot to do her homework last episode and now she is showing how unrefined she is to a maid she rode in a car with to her Saintia master, and also is working hard to save the sister who sacrificed herself for Sho. She climbed up a lot of steps and found the goodness and altruism in her heart to fight off the evil poison that was within her during her new master’s tests, so she does what she has to when she needs to. Also, Athena got sentimental about all the people she sent to get Saint training not making it. I guess this wasn’t a winner of an episode, but I look forward to watching more of it.

Space Battleship Tiramisu S2: Episode 12

Here we are, the penultimate and maybe I am tired for driving all far, but I loved it. Cadillac is a villain that only appeared recently, but he’s just so funny and has do much more energy and uniqueness to him then the rest of the cast at this point. Him stealing the device Izusu made and Cadillac’s “wife” dumping it on the curve was just great. Also, him using that ultimate power device just to destroy family Court on Earth and forcing the heroes and villains to team up is just good comedy for me. I hope the final episode is as good.

Golden Kamuy S2 Episode 11

After episodes of what I consider great filler, we are finally back to the meat of the show and oh boy is the meat good. Every single character got to play a part in this episode. You can say that it’s jam packed, but it was directed in a way that just feels natural and easy. Asirpa got to prove who she was and be awesome, a prison break with prisoners versus the military happened, immortal people fought each other with both ended bloody and damaged, and we found out that the assumed person that might be Asirpa’s father has blue eyes. I guess he is Asirpa’s father. That isn’t everything that happened, but I don’t want to say anything else. Just know that everything about this episode was on point.

Thunderbolt Fantasy S2 Episode 12

I never know what to ever fully expect from Thunderbolt Fantasy. It always has some certain twists that I could never expect. For one thing, I didn’t expect the former monk to love this mystic sword of blood draining so much that he wants to be its last wielder. He wants to die with it on the desert and the sword doesn’t want that and is trying her best to get the former monk to fight Shang, our protagonist, and she succeeds. Also, glasses cop gets his butt kicked by Shang when Shang controls the sword of mob rule, but that’s not important. What is important is Shang, Lang, and Lin following the monk into the desert. Let’s see how that goes.

JoJo Part 5 Episode 12

This week, we learn about the last member of Bruno’s gang, Fugo. He is an incredibly intelligent, but also has anger issues. He lived the perfect life rich person’s life made it to University at the age of 13, but also was kicked out if because he killed a professor and lived the rest of his life on the streets. In the anime, the reason he killed the professor was because the guy was trying to assault Fugo. Apparently was anime only and I don’t like this addition at all. Does a crazy person who almost stabbed their parents need a reason to beat a college professor to death with an encyclopedia? I wouldn’t think so. Waste of a scene, don’t do it again JoJo.

 Currently, Fugo is caught in a mirror realm because of a villain and his trying to use his volatile stand by the name of Purple Smoke to try and get himself out while Giorno and Abbachio argue about what to do. That’s a lot of stuff going on with no clear out at the moment. I wonder how that is going to change.

Bloom into You Episode 12

Well, the love triangle is still in full swing this week. Sayaka wants to keep Yuu completely out of what is going on with Touko, so the shopping trip they go on for the student council camp doesn’t end well. Still, the play does seem to be going together pretty well. Everyone is acting with their hearts out, especially Touko. Also, after the camp is over, Yuu and Touko have some incredibly intimate moments in Yuu’s room which results in Touko still not sure what direction to go in and Yuu wanting to do something about it. My favorite part of this episode was at the end where You wanted to rewrite the ending of the play, because she wanted to give the message that Touko can live her own life without copying someone. That’s the kind of positivity that Touko needs in this time of confusion.

SSSS.Gridman Episode 12 (Finale)

Woo whoo, Gridman stuck its landing. Akane turned into a kaiju and was taken over by an alien, but was defeated by Gridman in the end. The kaiju vs Gridman and/or Gridknight action was amazingly solid, even if there were some asspulls here and there. It’s a super robot show, so I fully expect and accept those as long as they are thematically consistent to the show, which these were. Still, the heart of the story was still between Akane and Rikka. Akane admitted all of her flaws and faults, and Rikka telling her that all of that is ok and gods aren’t perfect beings either. Humanizing a god is hard stuff to do, and I think Gridman fully succeeded at what it and other things. What a good show.

Double Decker Episode 13 (Finale)

I was just kind of whelmed about Double Decker’s Finale. Not Overwhelmed, not underwhelmed, just whelmed. Just to say it out of the open, all remaining Seven-O fought against the final boss and won through some trickery. There were some cool shots and everything, but the action was a little too CG and kind of bland to me. Then should I even mention that the people who were dead weren’t actually dead? Doug not dying was fine, because that was all apart of a plan, but Yuri actually being alive felt like an asspull despite her being a robot. Still, that was alright finale to what I guess could be an otherwise half on and half off show. There was a cliff hanger, so I guess there is more to come. Still can’t see how this is a prequel to Tiger and Bunny.

Tsurune Episode 10

What a powerful and thoughtful episode this was. Especially since it focused on Seiya’s dramatic turn that was resolved in such a meaningful way in this episode. An episode where he was sick at home and everyone in his crew were diminished by his presence and can’t even get along. That results in them going to a shrine in order to calm down their nerves, which of course they had to come across their rival team. I’m just happy the annoying twins were shut down by Narumiya this time. Also, I really hate Shu but I am glad that he told Narumiya what was going on. I mean, it resulted in a very heartwarming scene between him and Seiya where Seiya got his confidence back. Characters thinking something is a lone wolf sport is a serious pet peeve of mine. Suck it, Shuu.

-Non Episodic Watches-

Tiger and Bunny Episodes 16-20

Wow, so many things to talk about. For one thing, super heroes losing their powers is now a prevailing theme through out the show. Whether or not a hero can accept that fact and think about a possible future for themselves or get drowned in that fact and alcohol is a theme now. Tiger is taking the positive route, but his hero Mr. Legend drowned himself in alcohol and beat his family because he couldn’t imagine being anything other than being a super hero. Tiger found out he has something to live for in the form of teaching his daughter how to use her powers, so good going Tiger. On the other hand, the world of Tiger and Bunny is falling apart now that the real villain with memory erasing and rewriting powers has appeared. There are so many interesting layers going on here that I like.

Giant Gorg Episodes 18-19

I never thought that this was just an adventure anime with a human becoming friends with a giant robot as a selling point. Still, I was not ready for the possibility of humanity being wiped out because it’s cruelest face appearing when they had no idea what was going on. The first episode was centered on Manon and his death robot fighting against Gorg in an epic short battle that will possibly decide mankind’s fate then Gorg working on escaping the alien fortress. The second episode was Gorg escaping, but GAIL taking over the carriers crew after Madam Lynx captured them, Doris and Yuu then getting captured, and then Gorg getting hit by a bunch of GAIL weaponry out of anger. Can’t say I blame them. I wonder how Yuu’s goodwill toward people will change and how he will get out of this situation once it’s all over. I noticed that Skipper is out of the mix now, so he must be planning something. So many elements are up in the air and I want to see how they land.

Genesis Climber Mospeada Episodes 18-19

One boring episode and one more introspective episode this week. Episode 18 was just an episode about old mechanics from the first wave of the Martian Attack Force finding their wills to fight again and sacrificing themselves to accomplish a mission. The only important thing from this episode was that there is about to be a third attack wave. Episode 19 had a lot more interesting things going on. After finding an abandoned town, everyone has a time to cool down and be themselves. Ray and Houqet spent time playing in an arcade while Stig showed how much of a complete dork he was when taking Aisha out on a date. It was more character stuff that Stig needed for me not to hate him. Of course, this period of peace is broken when the Inbit attack possibly giving Aisha’s affiliation with the Inbit away, but it was still a great episode.

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