Weekly Seasonal Watches: Fall 2019 Week 6

No Vinland Saga this week which is rather unfortunate. I guess Wit needed some time to provide an awesome fight to us. Otherwise, everything else is here even if they were delayed. I think that’s ok.

Chihayafuru Episodes 4 & 5

Read my episodic review here.

Ahiru no Sora Episode 6

Not much to say here besides I’m glad that this long basket ball game is finally over. Especially with how we knew it was going to end in the first place. Sora’s team was always destined to lose but it’s nice to see that they had the love and passion to keep going despite the ever opposing pressure in it all. Plus we also knew that Chiaki was finally going to play in the last portion of the game showing his hidden skill as a point guard. A visually ok episode with the obvious result of the other team not going to look down as much on shorter people. A good ending, but it took along time to get there. Now to see how life is going to be like without a basket ball game.

Blade of the Immortal Episode 6

Ok, this episode more then made up for the last episode on the story telling level. I am also a big fan of minimal visual presentations so that’s ok. In this episode, we completely flip the script on the very premise of this show. Rin notices that one of the Ito-Rytto assassins has a child. He’s a guy that earns money by painting masks and handing them to children for a leaving while hiding his real self who is a deadly assassin. Rin seems to opportunity to try to appeal to the assassin’s gentler side which amounts to nothing when Rin is once again at death’s door. (She really needs to start poisoning her blades so they are more effective.)

Of course, Mr. Manji finds the middle ground here. He killed the assassin with the kid watching and to avoid the sense of revenge the kid wants to have, he allows the kid to thing he killed Manji. Rin always plays into this factor by cutting off one of Manji’s arms and telling the kid I buried him already. I really did like the older sister and young brother mechanic the two had to make this episode drive home it’s themes further. For the short amount of time it was on screen, all of it was completely powerful and wonderful. So all in all, possibly my favorite episode of Blade of the Immortal? Hard to say honestly and that’s ok.

Gundam Build Divers Re:RISE Episode 6

The theme for this episode seems to be trust. Trust that villagers have for the build divers team except for Kazumi who doesn’t care about casualties and only wins and results that he doesn’t get and that HIroto doesn’t have for his build divers team because he wants to do everything resulting in others being pushed in the corner. Plus there is the fact that Kazumi just likes to Leroy Jenkins things rushing in while completely failing in everything he tries to achieve. I wouldn’t be surprised if his character is played by a 13 year old who only values victory because he wants to win and never thinks about getting there. He doesn’t understand why Captain Zeon’s losing is ever important so this must be the case.

While the build divers were able to get the trust from the questioning resistance member for the resistance’s retreat due to previous deeds besides Kazumi, nobody else was lucky here. While playing a sort of pre-emptive mission for the mission the build divers are taking, Kazumi’s previous team shows up to take the challenge as the opposing force. Hiroto never tells anyone about the conditions of the mission which gives the other team the strong advantage in their victory. Plus, Kazumi did rush ahead to fight and lost again showing he still hasn’t changed. Once again, the newly formed Build Divers is at odds with itself. So many things to happen going forward. Wonderful animation on the fog of war scenario in this episode. Really digging this wonderfully written Kid’s show.

No Guns Life Episode 6

This episode was a little bit of a fun world building episode with the full effects of Juzo firing off his gun and causing a laser explosion making it’s appearance. With that firing comes the worry about another organization called the CMS who keep up to date registrations for extended. Juzo firing off his weapon is against the regulations for this. So after Juzo, Tetsuro, and Mary enjoy a crab meal with Juzo’s land lord and Juzo visits a cleaner considering he filed his weapon, Juzo and friends are immediately arrested by the CMS. Well, it seems that way at first until Juzo is assigned by officer Olivier to go after the number one ranked extended in order to get off of his charges.

I’m beginning to see some value in this show for Mary because she seems to be the only attractive female character who doesn’t immediately have a huge crush on Juzo. At least up front. Mary seems more interested in just hanging around Juzo as a buddy for the moment and I really do like the relationship between the two. Plus, I like seeing Tetsuro and Juzo together because they are like each other in some ways. I do admit that this show is a little drab in it’s presentation (on purpose of course) because of it’s browns and grays of city life. A little more color would be better for me but that would ruin the tone wouldn’t it? This was another good episode in a just good anime series which is fine. Can’t wait for prisoner hunting to happen next week.

Stars Align Episode 5

I can’t help but think about how this episode is disjointed a little bit. I’m not saying because there was any sort of weak part of this episode anywhere, but none of the parts felt like they belonged together. Let’s discuss this a little further. The first part of this episode featured dealing with the after credits sequence from last episode. Maki’s “dad” broke his racquet. So what happens? Maki tries to pass it off as “I broke my racquet”, but Toma knew something was up. What happened? Maki confessed about his father breaking things, getting beat by him as a kid, and the money stealing. Afterwards, Toma and Maki encountered the bad father figure together while skipping practice together followed by a touching moment when Maki just hugged Toma for ages. Some powerful stuff right there.

Nothing else afterward clicked together right. Well, for not at least. I’m sure Maki’s “father” will make a bigger presence as time goes on. The class president, Kaori had a small amount of focusing on with her family life. You know, the whole elitist aspect with her mother and grandmother arguing about her future while she’s just on her phone. I guess she’s used to that. Another scene involved the soft tennis club protecting their manager from very toxic nut cases in the locker room. Finally, the boy’s tennis club meets up another team to start playing. Is this an in between episode? Is it me thinking about all of this incorrectly? I don’t know how all these things fit together honestly. I suppose this is a necessary episode, but I wish that it could have worked better.

LOGH Reboot S2 Episode 7

Wow, what a powerful episode that came around this week. Not that all of them aren’t, but a lot of story elements and political talks just had so much meaning and power behind them. Yes, Yang put down the rebellion on the planet Shampool and Yang defeated an opposing space fleet easily while doing with the assassin sent to kill him, but that wasn’t the important thing. The talk about how the historical yang is much different from the real Yang? Why? Because history books read important figures the incorrect way and/or how try to blow up their reputations. Such fun stuff all around.

Despite all that, the biggest moment happened during a peace rally in one of Heinessan’s stadiums. Jessica Edwards, one of Yang’s friends, was leading it. What happens? Of course the rebellion had to show up to it wih weapons and military vehicles? After their attempted disbandedment and Jessica Edward’s death, a riot happens with gun fire and sorts of killings happened. Yang tried to hide his fae all day by wearing sunglasses, but the effects were strong on him. Plus, it spells an end for the rebellion when the people won’t support them anymore due to rash actions. That one hit because shootings like this are happening around the United States all over the place.

Psycho Pass S3 Episode 3

This episode was a fun investigation episode featuring the exploration of both sides of the current elections at hand. Apparently I was too or too excited to notice that last week considering I was just in that “yay Psycho Pass” mode. The elections are between our pro wrestler with his can do and slightly liberal policies and our idol Karina who is obviously has some issues going on and is the more conservative side of this experience. Well, as far as we know. It’s strange that one of our enforcers has some family working for the wrestler who look at genes for the reason why his psycho pass level is at the latent criminal level (Todoroki). Something is off there.

But anyway, this episode focused on our characters investigating the suicide at a building from their only lead. Of course, that lead was assassinated while our crew was there lead to even more leads. A criminal boss who owns her own fighting arena outside of the Psycho Pass controlled area. With that meeting happening, I am finally able to remember another one of our enforcer’s name (Irie) and at least get a glimpse of what sort of backstory he has and maybe why he wanted to be an enforcer. Arata and Irie really hit it off. There was also the explanation that the Psycho Pass system knows it can’t control every area for people’s Psycho Pass so there are abandoned zones were things can happen. Yeah, sure. That’s believable and not at the same time.

If there is something I am kind of questioning, it’s Kei’s sudden irrational behavior at the end of this episode. He’s always had such a cool head from what we’ve seen and this didn’t seem like him. I realize that a boomer with an immigration problem bother him at the doctor’s office when getting treatment for his wife and Todoroki was accosted by his family for having bad genes, but that doesn’t seem like something he would hit somebody over. At least that’s what I’ve gathered from the two episodes I’ve seen from him previously. Is this just a ploy to get Yayoi on the scene here? I suppose it felt genuine because Aratata has seen Kei doing that before because their duo is powerful, but you can just insert Yayoi into the force itself. I liked seeing her, but was this a stunt of actual character things?

My Hero Academia S4 Episode 4

Definitely my favorite episode of this season so far even if it is very Deku focused. I like seeing Morio or Lemillion trying to make Deku keep his cool when encountering Over Haul and Eri. Especially since Eri was afraid and wouldn’t let go of Deku at all. Talk about stressful. I also like that this was a genuine learning experience for Deku from Night Eye telling him not just rushing into things and to wait for actual help before doing anything. Also, moments between All Might and Deku are always good. Especially with All Might’s reveal of the truth behind Deku AND him telling Deku he’s not going to die yet.The most important part here is that next week’s episode won’t focus on Deku for once. It will be Kirishima instead. Yay, some other adventures for once.

Fate/Grand Order Babylonia Episode 5

Well, this week we get a Gilgamesh focused episode. Yay! He asked for Mash and Ritsuka to follow him for today’s adventures and it’s fun seeing multiple sides of him. The side he gave when saying he was just going to goof off, he was actually doing some investigation for the water in his village. Also, I really liked how he did give Ritsuka and Mash the time of day to listen to their adventures so we understood more about Mash and Ritsuka while seeing more from Gilgamesh who just wants to enjoy himself. Of course, the main moment came when fake Enkidu appeared and Gilgamesh had to fight him. It’s obviously that Gil misses Enkidu a lot and there is some of Enkidu in the fake one because he ran off when he had an advantage. Oh, that fight was awesome too. So far, this is my favorite episode of F/GO Babylonia.

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