Weekly Seasonal Watches: Fall 2019 Week 4

Not much to say this week other then it’s been a more then decent week of anime with some good surprises! Oh, Psycho Pass season three hasn’t appeared on prime for us Americans yet. GRRRRRRRR.

Ahiru no Sora Episode 4

Ahiru no Sora is definitely that “ok” sports anime of the season, but it has so much charm to it that I can’t help but keep watching it. Especially that opening scene with Sora’s mother at the hospital reading her son Sora’s check in for the day. You know, when he tells her all the goings on, how Sora is going to be apart of a basket ball game for one in his life which she seems happy about, and then seeing her reaction when she sees the photo of Sora and rest of the basket ball team. It’s that sort of charm which gives the game some life and energy that I really like and it’s all over this episode.

I like how Mamoharu and the other bullies are actually working as a functional basket ball team by actually practicing the game in the proper times and even playing a shooting contest for who cleans the court after practice. Of course, Sora being himself and practicing his one thousand shots with stories about his mother are pretty great too. There is some good emotional resonance here. Plus Madoka asking for Sora’s phone number was pretty good too. Just be yourself around other people and good things will happen.

The most unbelievable part here was the basket ball game in the second half of this episode. I do like the general team set up that Sora, Momoharu, and the others playing a good game, but them winning against a more professional team is kind of questionable honestly. Momoharu and Sora being shocked by the results is good, but lamp shading it doesn’t help the fact that the show is still doing this. A little bit of cheap story telling for me like how this show uses some stock footage for Sora’s movements. I would love to see the tension raise up next episode in a more realistic manner. I can’t wait for that honestly.

Blade of the Immortals Episode 4

An interesting episode based around comparing the assassin that walked away from Manji after the fight in episode 2, Magatsu, and Rin herself. Magatsu has had a horrible past where he was too soft to weld a sword from his grand father’s point of view. Why? Because a female warrior saved him. How was this warrior treated? She was hung up on a tree and if she survived her night, she would be let go. I know that Feudal Japan was harsh, but I am definitely with young Magatsu here for this. Of course, this lead to him becoming not a completely harsh person, but a swordsman that not many people can mess with.

How this compares to Rin is because of her own sword training. Compared to Mr. Manji and the others, she’s still too soft and uses way too many tricks instead of actually having any sort of skill. Something she gets upset about considering everything that has happened. Manji tries to be soft on her, but Rin just doesn’t have all of it combat skills and experience she needs. Her technique of throwing knives and maybe hitting isn’t that exceptional either. With that point of view in mind, she leaves where Maji and her are staying and runs into Magatsu in mid training. What does she do? Fight and lose despite her knife hitting Magatsu.

The most intriguing part of the episode was after Rin trying fighting against Magatsu where they had a slight heart to heart scenario. Why? Because despite all the skills Rin lacks in sword fighting, Magatsu still sees her as a warrior which is some very powerful stuff honestly. We also get more context into the conflict at hand too with Rin’s grandfather disgracing Magatsu’s grandfather’s fighting style resulting in the Asano family slaughter and the current hunting of the Itto-Ryu situation at hand. There are so many interesting layers of character conflict here that I can’t help but like. With it’s somewhat muted but still stylish visuals, I still love everything being presented here. Onto the next episode!

Chihayafuru S3 Episode 1

Read my full review from yesterday here.

Gundam Build Divers Re:RISE Episode 4

I’m constantly astonished by how good this show is from a character front and how visually stunning it is too for certain scenes like the opening with Captain Zeon. (Not sure how I feel about having a Captain Fascists wondering around the Gundam gaming universe. I know he just represents Zeon on a show and not real life, but it’s still very questionable on a political level.) But anyway, the character writing in Re:RISE is actually good. Not because it’s doing anything ground breaking, but there is a little bit of hinting at some character things and then paying those hints off. That’s it. That’s all that is needed and Re:RISE easily does that. Plus, the meta element between the game and the players is pretty great too.

This episode was a major example of all of this. In effectiveness, this mission was just a sort of nothing episode. Not much happened except character interactions with a gundam training mission on the side which will play into the next one because of a mission object. Not only was the builders vs villager conflict of the villagers really needig the builders their and the builders being dismissive, we see some humanity being put into those moments from the villagers that really starts to make the builders question the legitimacy of what was going on. Was this just an extended cut scene for them OR was it something else? It’s such a fun thing to think about. Maybe it’s the idiot Kazami who thought that, but it was on everyone else’s minds too.

The most meaningful thing in the episode was the talk between Parvis and Hiroto after the mission. It was a wonderful sort of conversation where Parvis wanted to prove he wanted to be something like Hiroto and not just be the noob that he is at the moment. Then Hiroto complimented a lot of Hiroto’s gunpla design which is a dragon. Then Hiroto mention wings which the dragon can’t actually do which resulted in Parvis being late for the mission. I’m sure that will be meaningful for next episode. Pretty excited about it.

No Guns Life Episode 3

This episode was average I suppose because of how generally typical it was. There was some set up in the episode from with some thugs from a gang from Kyosei showed up at Mary’s door and told Juuzo about kids and others are being kidnapped for their extended technology. That technology is stolen from them, but the kids are left in the gutter. There were some interesting interactions between Juuzo and those gang members and such. Especially with Juuzo drinking coffee with the basic stare down. Was fun. Of course that was a trap that Juuzo didn’t fall for because it was a Beruhren plot. So what happened?

Our friend Joutaro who couldn’t walk himself, but completely took over Juuzo because of it. If nothing, it showed how naïve he was for not getting what everyone else saw. There were some fun sequences from some person with Juuzo’s acting like a kid and the two kids being abducted were the perpetrators themselves, but that’s about it. It had some good stuff in it with some eh visuals, but that was about it. Still really enjoying this watch so far but I hope Joutaro learns to not be so naïve.

Stars Align Episode 3

So the huge controversy over the ending sequence with stolen dancing moves from creators that weren’t paid for their forced contributions aside, I really still really like this show. There is a big emotional sort of resonance with this story a lot like fruits basket that gives it some great information and everything else. Usually I would mention something about the solid and full of character, but that wasn’t the case this time. But, the direction and story boarding are still pretty great. There is a lot of good cuts, some solid action cuts, and shots that tell you a lot of information like how one member of the boy’s soft tennis club is left handed without ever telling you that specifically. I like it when a show does that

With that, we jumped into more practice with Makie in the boy’s soft tennis club. It’s him and Shinjo vs other members of the club trying to beat them every single time. The last club set involved one of the teams aiming specifically at Makie to win. Makie mocks the boy’s club wondering what they’ve been doing since they all joined the club. Shinjo immediately gets angry and storms off because he only seems himself as a failure. Then there is the real and emotional stuff that appears in the second half. Not just for Shinjo after Makie made him feel better and joking about getting paid, but one of the boy’s tennis club beamed a boy who made fun of his family situation with a racket who immediately started bleeding. Various people including the guys sister and the club advisor talked about it too, but it was Makie who took the seen here for the better of the club. So yes, good episode. Woo.

LOGH Reboot S2 Episode 5

If you want to know the entire plot of the episode itself, it’s the appearance of the rebellion with imperial ideals taking over Heinessen and holding important people hostage besides the leader of their entire space nation, Trunicht, and he made it into his own shelter to survive the conflict at hand. Yang was originally ordered to put down all four rebellions happening on different planets and while he sets out to do that, Yang also has to defeat the rebellion on his capital too while the enemy is sending a fleet after him. That’s a lot of things to do. Yang is going to be a busy man going forward.

It’s all the intimate moments that matter in this episode. The intimate moments between Frederica Greenhill who noticed that her father was apart of the rebellion. Originally she thought she would be fired from her job at Yang’s aid because of this situation, but Yang never even considered it because Frederica really is the best at what she does. Such a beautiful human moment from the literal human cat, Yang. Also nice to see more Frederica on display here besides being the nice person who she is and just standing in the background. More Frederica in the future, please.

There is also a quick moment between Schonkopf and Yang was interesting too because it was about power. Yang has a chance to take over the entire Free Planet’s Alliance and Schonkopf is the one that has the ambition that Yang doesn’t. The two are opposite sides of the coin and here we see it. In the end, Yang doesn’t want the power even if it would mean his life would be different or never under pressure. Yang is too good to see this ambition even if he has the skill. With all of that, the Yang fleet launched to defeat all of the Free Planet’s Alliances issues. All the combat and politics jump into high gear next episode.

MHA S4 Episode 3

After completely botching his All Might face, or so we think, Midoriya is quickly schooled on different sorts of All Might faces and then kicked out by Night Eye. Of course, Midoriya immediately mentions that his face comes from one specific incident that happened before Night Eye and All Might joined forces when All Might saved a guy from a river. This of course leads to Night Eye deciding to challenge Midoriya to grab the stamp from him so he himself could stamp the papers. What could happen here other then an action scene. Night Eye constantly taunts Midoriya about how he isn’t the right person for All Might’s powers with it being Mirio instead and Midoriya constantly controlling where his leaps go to miss the All Might merchandize around the board. Midoriya loses, but that simple act allows him to be signed on although he would have been anyway.

With that, we got a quick scene with 1-A where other heroes are also asked to be apart of work studies. There were some fun moments between Todoroki and Bakugou in the background, but this just felt like a necessary thing to make sure you knew these characters were alive. I wish that this season did more with these characters right now but then again I suppose this arc is Midoriya’s arc after all. He’s being challenged for his role of the One For All successor at his work steady. With that, the mission of Night Eye’s unit is clear. They are checking the area for Over Haul’s group Shie Hassaikai who have been causing a lot of evil recently. So this was a solidly animated and thought out Midoriya episode, but I hope that other 1-A characters make a stand too. I heard there is more Kirishima appearing but at what level?

Fate/Grand Order Babylonia Episode 3

First part of this action: the action portion. Gilgamesh challenged the crew to a fight and so Mash and Anna fight in a fun, quick action sequence. It’s pretty nice seeing Gilgamesh using his Gate of Babylonian in different ways then just firing weapons at people for once. Using it to block attacks was fun along with the rest of. Our heroes lost the fight and Gilgamesh refuses to give the grail over, so Ritsuka and Mash are to be put to work. Of course, Ishtar breaks through the ceiling which we have another action sequence after Rin’s patterned tsundereness (a good reminder that Isthar is Rin) where Anna tries to use chains against her, Ishtar quickly chains up Mash’s fight instead and some other things. Just more fun things.

The most interesting part of this episode was the second half. We learn how Gilgamesh is pretty tsundere too by giving Mash and Ritsuka a home to stay while they work around Uruk and other things. There was also a fun scene where other heroes came by just to drink and those interactions were pure gold even if I don’t remember all of their names. Ritsuka and Mash are put to work, but the most interactions where between Anna and our Chaldeans. That interesting perspective around Anna not liking humans and Ritsuka trying to warm Anna up to them. I suppose where we will have to see where that goes next episode.

I don’t think I will ever get how people can complain about the fanservice in this show. It’s there, but the camera never focuses or zooms in on any particular booty shots provided by how the armor for our female characters are designed. That goes along with the fact that there are almost no fanservice shots outside of battle. I suppose I just can’t see how people would complain about those things but that’s just me I guess.

Vinland Saga Episode 16

This episode is nothing but the result of Askeladd’s gambits and luck finally biting the dust. The episode starts with Canute grieving over Ragnar and the torture of one of the englishmen who survived battle yesterday. All of this in a gambit of Askeladd making Canute much more manly and polished then the grieving child that he’s been. In the end when Thorkell came to destroy all of them, people started turning against Askeladd. The vikings who stayed behind in the village got eliminated immediately for being betrayers and the rest, besides Bjorn, turned on Askeladd after taking down a bridge which seemed pointless. Askeladd lost his leadership when everyone else didn’t want anythign he was selling.

That’s a short description, but that doesn’t make any of that any less powerful. Akeladd being on his last rope is truly interesting material and it’s going to be said to see him die soon because he really is a fantastic character with a lot of complexities. Seeing him at this point of his life where he can’t escape anything at all is interesting stuff because he still wants to escape and be himself because of his ambition, but ambition can only get you so far. Not a beautiful animated episode as some of Vinland Saga’s best, but the writing here is still incredible. Especially with Vikings that have been following him are people too. Maybe a singular mob of people, but people none the less.

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