MHA S4 E4 didn’t air this week due to rugby airing on the channel the episode usually appears on. So yeah, sports has delayed our watching of it again. CURSES! That cliff hanger ending was pretty powerful.
But anyway, I found Psycho Pass Season 3 on Amazon Prime. Once again, Amazon seeks to ruin it’s American audience in watching the shows on its platform. If you are an American and want to watch it, search Psycho-Pass3 on Prime’s search bar and you will find it. There you go! Have fun by watching it!
Chihayafuru S3 Episodes 2 – 3
Read my review that came out yesterday here.
Ahiru no Sora Episode 5
With this episode, Sora’s ideals and pride are completely challenged along with his basketball team. It’s his first game and the opposing team seeks to completely demoralize him from the game a possibly even further. All thanks to all the playing brought on by the opposing team’s player Takami who used Sora’s weakness of a certain side of the court he shoots on matters because he can’t shoot there. Plus, one of his team mates got fouled out. Madoka helped him too by looking over Sora’s hurts mid game and noticing he sprained his right arm by playing too hard. What does this lead to? Sora using a technique he learned from his mom to shoot, a women’s technique mostly.
There were other things going on too like the opposing team’s captain complaining to his crew about them all being soft considering the state of the team we are cheering for is falling apart everywhere. Plus Chiaki suffering some jealousy over the girl who has more hots for Takami then anyone else. I wonder if that will be a catalyst for him wanting to join the game later. At least that’s what seems to be the case. Yes, Chiaki is just a constant problem through out this series so far who hasn’t done anything so hopefully he does something.
So no, this isn’t a complex show with a lot of complex ideas and such making an appearance, but it’s obvious this show is about inserting a different approach about some levels of toxic masculinity and saying that it’s ok for males to be a little more soft and feminine. Not something a lot of sports shows seem to handle, from what I’ve seen, but this show is making a statement by inserting Sora into a mix of people that want basketball players to be short or a gang life style. Once again not complex, but it does mean something.
Blade of the Immortal Episode 5
Another episode of Blade of the Immortal in and it seems like a vague formula is at least appearing. Maybe. Ok probably not, but seeing Mr. Manji saved by Rin in one way or another is pretty nice. But anyway, this episode of Blade of the Immortal discusses the concept of immortality. Manji’s opponent this week is a guy who was given blood worms 200 years ago and has killed thousands of more people then Manji has ever killed. The guy appeared as a monk just passing by but of course that didn’t work. What that amounted was a fight that resulting in showing each person was immortal in an evenly traded blow. Or so we thought.
This is where I think the episode should have been at least two episodes in length because it felt rushed. Mr. Manji just lying on the floor dying and then given the Asano medical cure for everything including the poison for blood worms that got into Manji’s system. Also, Rin getting captured after running to find someone help Manji which turned out to be an old lady and baby that were killed for some reason in a quick one off line after Rin was captured by this episode’s opponent? Also the themes of what immortal does to a person who has been walking around for two hundred years? That ending fight where Rin got into the guy’s mind enough for Manji to defeat him could have been a little strong is what I’m saying.
The direction behind this episode was what kept it coherent an understandable along with some great visual story telling and characterization too, but that doesn’t mean that it could have easily gone on longer for a longer for this episode to be a little more meaningful and less disposable. Still another solid episode in another seemingly solid franchise for now. Hopefully that is a thing I continue saying without the “for now” part. You never know though. That’s the fun part of watching these episodically.
Gundam Build Divers Re:RISE Episode 5
Re:RISE comes with another simple episode with simple interactions, but it’s somehow meaningful and impactful despite that. The mission from last week our divers were building up to is still at play here so this is when the mission happens with a Parvis who is very reserved about himself for his gunpla unit not being able to fly. Considering that Parvis is the not as experienced player as the others and isn’t as confident in himself here as he could be.
His mecha not being able to fly is an extension of that. So when our group comes into the one eyed base in order to destroy it with villager support, it’s obviously going to be Parvis’ growth of confidence and his gunpla’s wings that appear which save the day. Yay Parvis even if we expected everything what was going to happen to happen. Kids shows can be good sometimes.
With this, there is still the extra sort of character growth or experimentation for the other characters. Kazami the horrible one is still the same big talking, no resulting person that he is. Same with May who is the secret worker behind this project and keeps to herself because she never wants that attention herself. On the flip side here, we see a lot more villager personality now.
We see two dumb guys who doesn’t seem to understand what war is about at all which is fine for the show itself. Still gives some clear character to them which makes the villagers more interesting. Lastly, Hiroto was the character that grew a lot too. He actually smiled at the end of the episode and he’s a guy who hasn’t had a facial expression besides a frown for most of the episodes so far.
No Guns Life Episode 4
Following last episode where Tetsuro took control of Juzo’s body and got caught up in a situation where Juzo met the Buruhren children attacking extended units for their parts to bring Juzo out, this is the conclusion. Yes, this is the pay off here and it is everything I wanted from the just ok episode from last week. This is where we see the harshness at play when Beruhren people just used their extended as complete toys when taking away their dolls personalities to ruin Kyosei areas and cause all sorts of hell everywhere for our characters. Plus all of Tetsuro’s plans fail and Juzo comes back to a hurt body. The episode is a resolution with meaningful character interactions between the two.
Somehow all the extended’s survive this scenario despite his laser blasts towards the end. Tetsuro ends up learning something about his own values when using Juzo like a toy just like how Beruhren is using extended as toys. Plus that whole falling into traps thing that Tetsuro needs to learn about due to his lack of life experience. That relationship between Juzo and Tetsuro is the heart of this series which is why this episode was better then episode 3. Also the cliff hanger at the end with things getting worse. Things always get worse, but how well things get worse now?
Stars Align Episode 4
With this episode begins the break down of Maki’s two sides of his life. The first part of the episode resolves around the switching around of soft tennis pairs to find teams that would work better for everyone. Not just dominate people and other. Shinjo and Maki don’t play there best, but that’s to get their players to have confidence back. Something Maki has been doing to put his passion into something other then letting it get destroyed by what is holding himself back.
Plus, it’s really fun to see these characters interact with each other in a lot of what looks like stock footage swings during games. Along with the whole thing where Maki has people eating over at his house for dinner with fun interactions too. Kozue’s opinions are always fun and the club advisor leaning into his role by getting a practice matches are fun
Then the after credits scene happens again with Maki’s father’s appearance. What happens this time? The father breaks his tennis racket while dismissing all the effort Maki has been putting into the boy’s soft tennis club. Maki can’t make up what happened anymore. He has to come out clean here to his friend Shinjo or else he will just toss everything he’s down aside.
That’s the believable character drama in this scenario. Maki has been seen as the positive, perfect, and ever focused person who has been helping a club with a lot of problems in it. What happens now when he’s shown as not perfect? That he’s more broken then he’s been showing to other people? I can’t help but admit that I am both scared and interested in seeing what happens next.
LOGH Reboot S2 Episode 6
Oh wow, I wasn’t expecting this episode to spread through a lot of material from the original Legend of the Galactic Heroes light novel in this episode. This episode focused on Reinhard’s forces attacking the traitors in the Lippstadt war. I guess since this isn’t as character focused as it could be. For example, there isn’t any sort of large conflict of Mittermeyer fighting against his teacher Satan very quickly. Same for Reinhard’s attack on the traitor controlled Rentenberg fortress.
There was some struggle between Reinhard’s forces lead by Ruenthal and Mittermeyer, but after five minutes of screen time and an angry Reinhard, they defeat the forces of the angry admiral with an axe by out smarting him. That admiral is sent back as a traitor and is killed and that’s the episode. I’m not going to state what things were rushed through, but Reinhard did call that admiral an ape from an ancient time and they should be able to out smart him. That line isn’t shared here which is interesting. Still excited about seeing what in the future.
Psycho Pass Season 3 Episodes 1-2
Hey, I finally found it on Amazon Prime finally. Yay! Each episode is 45 minutes in length, but it’s pretty easy to describe the plot for them pretty quickly Most of these episodes was full of characterization and investigation which I really dug. I’m a sucker for investigation sstories like this. Our two new protagonists Kei (the military immigrant) and Arata the mentalist are two new Inspectors for the Public Safety Bureau Unit 1. Their first mission was to investigate a drone plane carrying immigrants into Japan. Not usually their job, but they were asked to investigate this situation for an unknown party.
There were those enforcers in place trying to break this duo, but our inspectors already knew how to handle their tricks. The drone investigation takes them all the way to the secret leader leaving on a plane that gets met up by a foreign investigation unit. That’s 1.5 episodes of Psycho Pass 3 content right there. The other .5 episode revolved around Arata investigating an idol whose other partners were measured as latent criminals by the sybil system and Kei who is investigating a professional wrestler. So some cool world building cases and experiment things.
While I do have some questions concerning what in the 8 years since the movie, some world building things like how mass criminal elements could be alive and how areas don’t have sibyl system in them, and other things, I really do like these two episodes. They are slower, more relaxed, and less involved then season 2 which is why it feels like a real thing without that much insanity to it all. It feels like a criminal case which is good stuff. It even has some on going themes focusing on immigration and a villain group that is people sitting around a table and planning. I think the visuals are pretty fantastic too with some obvious cg here and there. Not a bad thing. That opening is phenomenal too.
Fate/Grand Order: Babylonia Episode 3
Not much to speak of this week besides a surprisingly happy Gilgamesh (is he really?) and Fujiwara’s group being assigned to check out the city of Uruk and see what the human situation is now. Their time of labor is over and it’s time to do actual work like they were meant to do. So that happens, our group goes through the horrible environment to the city of Ur where there are no monsters while getting a greeting by Jaguarman (Taiga in a fursuit) is in their way. The core is that Ur needs to sacrifice one person a day OR ELSE the Jaguarman man will no longer bless them. No fighting won the day due to Jaguarman’s divinity causing a retreat.
So yes, a simple episode with fun concepts and characterization. Ritsuka got glimpses of his personality by wanting to come back after being defeated and questioning his choice of becoming the final human master and merging with Mash for things, but that’s about it. I do really like the servants like Merlin and Anna plus Mash and the others are good too. Gilgamesh is the more intriguing one for me so far. I do have to mention I really dig the scenery and action scenes too. There is obviously a lot of care being put into this ok series. I will continue because it’s Fate, but I do hope it picks up when the major things happen. Woo.
Vinland Saga Episode 17
Looks like Askeladd’s life is still being extended by a little bit. You know, despite the fact that he has a small amount of Vikings who used to be his trying to kill him in this episode. Sort of. Askeladd’s end is near, but this episode more then proves that he still has some tricks to unleash before he dies. Including allowing the Prince to escape with some friends on a sled. Unfortunately, it turns out that the vikings following Askeladd for a decade are at least tactically smart. They had horses to chase down the sled while others are still surrounding Askeladd who slowly are killed one by one. You know, until those Vikings finally thought about “what if we shot him”.
It’s too bad that’s where all their intelligence leaves off. They don’t seem to get that whole “Thorkell won’t kill us if we give them the prince thing” thinking about how their lives can just be bought. Then again, I suppose none of these vikings really know Thorkell and what he stands for either despite the fact that Thorkell whose men also only see glory in armed combat and those who die with weapons in their arms. I don’t know. But anyway, the major high light of this episode was Thorfinn chasing after the Vikings who are intent on going Askeladd and challenging Thorkell instead of saving the prince. Really not that smart is he? Then again when all you have is brute strength and one guy is smart and that is the guy you are turning again, then things are looking finite aren’t they? Yay Thorkell punching a horse and angry Thorfin about to fight?
I’m honestly surprised that I had this much to say about this episode? Why? Because it felt like another in between episode. An in between episode that had a lot of important things going on, but an in between episode none the less. One of those “we need to get our characters to be in certain spots, so let’s just put them there somehow” sorts of episodes. With that, it it’s job exceedingly well by giving Askeladd’s vikings some combat sense so they can at least feel like real people. Otherwise, eh. More excited about the episode in two weeks then anything else. Thorfinn finally appears again to fight and Askeladd is going to be face palming the entire time.
Mechanical Anime Reviews 
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