A lot of two parted episodes this week. Interesting.
Chihayafuru Episode 6
Read my episodic thoughts from yesterday here.
Ahiru no Sora Episode 7
I wasn’t sure what to expect from this episode after the game happened, but it’s nice to see the basket ball club still have a major interest in basket ball after losing their game. Ummmm, getting ahead of myself here. This episode was split into two parts. The first part featured Madoka carrying Sora back home, learning about the hospital situation between Sora and his mom who is currently away in a hospital, and her reacting as she gets conned into getting a hair cut and getting really upset over how Sora and his team mates practicing the Sunday after the game. If this was a series that was only Madoka reacting to all this crazy stuff, I would be a little more invested then I am honestly. Otherwise, it’s still ok.
The second half featured the basket ball club trying to sign up to be a real club which involves the club no longer getting into fights and such. For the moment, the club is in limbo and can’t practice on the court. Plus, we got the introduction of a new character who is fast but also rather violent and impulsive towards the rest of the basket ball time. I suppose some progress needs to be made in future episodes and such.
Blade of the Immortal Episode 7
This is one of those episodes were my lack of instantly remembering names is going to haunt me because more names were introduced in this episode and it will take me a while to remember them. But anyway, this episode was split into two parts which is getting more and more common for these seasonal shows. The first part featured a lot of Itto-Ryu movements or should I say, the Itto-Ryu on the run sort of. A new group wants to form a new dojo system with Itto-Ryu swordsman as masters to get focus to get the training of their general soldiers to improve.
Plus new assassins appear that kill specific Itto-Ryu members including a fem fatal lady who suffered from the poison she used to kill a target, an apprentice leaving a dojo after the master converted to Itto-Ryu and his lady that she meets up with at the whore house dying after he said good bye, and other things. There is a lot of touching and funny moments here which just shakes up the foundation for this series just a little bit.
The first half was good, but the second half is really where things took off for me. Rin is working her hardest to become better at sword play with Mr. Manji because of a limit time span of the Itto-Ryu leader’s stay in the current area and Mr. Manji telling her that skill doesn’t work that way. Of course that bonding moment is ruined (wonderfully) with a guy who doesn’t care for Rin at all and only wants to talk to Mr. Manji.
The morning after their meeting, the guy talks to Rin about killing and what it’s like stating that the meat (which comes from a hog) is like killing. Rin takes those words up and sees what she most become but then the guy lays a surprise on Rin when he shows where the meat actually came from. A very interesting way to teach Rin about what killing feels like I suppose. Very powerful stuff there. How will Rin take it?
Gundam Build Divers Re:RISE Episode 7
In this episode, the mission to protect the villagers finally starts. There are also start seeing some development from Kazami. He starts the episode with seeing a new Captain Zeon video and just notes that it’s one where he loses again probably. He didn’t watch it. So here we go, the mission happens and the one eyes attacked the villagers who are retreating to their new base. May and Rev own and Kazami and Hiroto do ok. Then the non trusting ass hole member of the villager goes a different route leading Kazami to sending Hiroto leaving Kazami by himself. Kazami, the person who hasn’t fought won any fight so he’s only a distraction.
The next part is the most important part. Hiroto gets there on time and saves the annoying villager showing they can be proven, while Kazami is set back more and more to the point where his gunpla doesn’t work as well anymore. What happens now? Kazami sees the ending of the video he just pushed. Captain Zeon was joined by his friends to defeat the threat. That’s when Kazami finally understands what’s cool about his idol. He feels empowered by Hiroto and other’s return and is able to defeat the boss unit by himself. After that, the masked diver shows up to kill the new base and our group escapes. The next mission is in place now.
That was a simple, but powerful episode for Hiroto and Kazami. Kazami still hasn’t solved his problems yet, but he has a place to start. He can be the leader that he wants to be. The only character we don’t have an understanding with now is May and she’s the secret keeper for this mission. Maybe she’s next? Fun things to consider.
No Guns Life Episode 6
I can’t help but admit that while I enjoyed this episode quite a bit, but it felt incredibly basic for me. The director of EMS Olivier, after enjoying her smelly food, sent Juzo after the #1 criminal Hayden. Along his way, he meets Kronen who is a human with the ability to ruin an extended’s systems with needles. The two are the typical opposite sides of the wall group meet up and solve crimes together.
Kind of boring considering that Ghost in the Shell did it with Batou and Togusa a lot because they had a good connection. They find the extended by the name of Armed surrounded by a crowd to protect him. They defeat a fake Hayden while Armed was taken in by a young girl who actually is Hayden. Pretty classic stuff here executed pretty well. So no complaints here other it’s a classic sort of story told pretty well without any classic amount of elements. So in general, still pretty good. I hope relationships deepen later on though because it’s very surface level.
Stars Aligned Episode 6
This episode was all about sports and fun bits of education for our soft tennis club against the elite team. No drama today, just our groups doing surprisingly well in their first or later sets and then finally getting crushed when the other team got into gear. They each got the lessons they needed from this to improve with decent animation and direction, but that’s about it. Of course, the ace of the group they are facing are against Toma and Maki and they are decimating our two kids right now unless they follow with Maki’s plan. Not that much to explore here honestly.
LOGH Reboot S2 Episode 8
A lot of powerful things happened in this episode focused on the empire. On one side there is Kircheis who took down one leg of the imperial rebellion through very human means. He met his opponent in combat, tried to solve it quickly by attacking the leader directly, and then used the humanity of the groups his opponent used to escape by killing his supply crew to run in order to kill him. Kircheis is always the positive side of the experience and relationship with Reinhard.
On the other end, Reinhard made fun of his opponents and caused the younger nobles of the rebellion to attack instead of using Merkats who actually knows what he’s doing. The young nobles think they’ve won a battle, feel invigorated, and all of them including the leader of the nobles get caught in combat until they were saved by the person they got rid of. There is also a rebellion in this nobles lands which he decides to completely nuke. Reinhard could have stopped this and saved 2 million lives, but instead he used it as a PR stunt because of Oberstein infecting his good nature. Nothing good could come from this.
Psycho Pass Season 3
It’s election time in Psycho Pass and since it’s Psycho Pass you know what that means! Political corruption, holograms, police hijinks, mafia involvement and seeing our two Inspectors do their thing to solve everything. Umm, are we sure that this is just Psycho Pass? So anyway, with Yayoi’s entrance to temporarily take the place of Kei (she made it back into society, yay!) We get two tips of things going on. Enomiya is ending her criminals asleep in a drugged state towards the colossum where the final debate is happening and Irie got a tip that the doctor left behind from his death three episodes ago has a laboratory. It means it’s time to split up. Oh, Kei is watching the elections too.
What we learn from the laboratory is directly connected to what is about to happen in the debate. The good doctor who died living behind his work on holograms that could almost be identical to the human consciousness and that candidate Karina is using that for her election speeches. Enomiya’s thugs are there to reveal Karina’s secret in order to discredit her in front of the public. Section 2 was protecting the event, but they were easily taken out and section 1 (our guys) rushed to the scene as soon as they can to resolve the situation. And Kei helped too in his own violent sort of way. In the end, Karina’s a.i. was revealed to the public, but the public didn’t care.
With the debate completely ruined and candidate Yasushiji (the wrestler) under suspicion from Sybil, th Karina won the election. Enomiya completely failed and was killed by her superior before she could make her escape. Karina and Arata met together and had a date with some political talk behind it all. I guess Karina was saved by Arata and there is an attraction between the two so why not? I like them together. But anyway, I also liked how the message that continued from the original Psycho Pass with human will being more powerful and meaningful then Sybil. This show really does get the original, funky CSI and NCIS quick mystery solving aside.
My Hero Academia S4 Episode 5
Yay! An episode focused on other heros. Mainly Kirishima, which is good, but Tsuyu and Uraka appeared in the opening minutes fighting giant villains (with Nejirme of the Big Three’s help) so this episode opened strong and just kept going. Kirishima was on patrol with his club mentor Fats with Tamaki of the big three (the mopey one) alongside him. Fats and Tamaki were able to defeat criminals pretty easily before one comes out with a bullet and fires at Tamaki. Kirishima hardens himself and takes the bullet, though Tamaki’s food based powers were temporary distorted from the bullet while Kirishima ran for him.
What happened was a stand off. The scared villain tried to pout while Kirishima sympathized with him. Something the villain didn’t want, so he pushed his short blade capabilities further by using an illegal drug that allows him to form knives all over his body. With Kirishima’s new training he pushed his hardness to a hardness level he can hold for less then a minute and defeats the villain almost single handedly. He saved civilians doing that too which put his face in the paper along with Tsuyu and Uraka.
Of course that’s not all that happened. Shigaraki came to Overhaul’s Yakuza den and came to agree on a plan with Overhaul and his illegal drugs for future attacks. His dealings are huge, but I wonder if the two can come up with a plan which we will see later on I suppose. Plus, the heroes working together in a preview to capture the villain gang is pretty fun. Yay, my favorite episode of this season so far and everything is getting into motion! :D.
Fate/Grand Order: Babylonia Episode 6
That was a fun episode. A very educational one too so I think I am starting to enjoy this series more and more as time goes on because it’s getting much better and understandable. In this episode, Gilgamesh orders Ritsuka and others in his party to go find the tablet of destiny in the city of Kutha. Before that, Ritsuka talks with Ushiwaka about her legend and how Ritsuka really loves it. It’s odd meeting a legend from history and finding them attractive isn’t it? Then again, she doesn’t seem to be wearing much clothes which she doesn’t care about, but Ritsuka can’t help but blush.
But anyway, with that our group travels to Kutha in Ishtar’s territory. It’s a long dead city where the villagers just looked like they died sleeping. Our friends separate to investigate the city and Ritsuka just casually goes into the underworld where he’s attacked and then saved with the tablet they were all looking for. Ishtar also attacks our group wins a fight by using the sunset that weakens her power. Then they ask her some questions. Of course, they let her go and she saves all of them with her powers so there is a nice friendship developing here.
We also learn some things here. Ishtar was summoned using a human so they are separate from the other gods who are just blonde. Ishtar is blonde on occasion only. Plus, we now know that the Goddess alliance is formed after the three goddesses who want Gilgamesh’s grail. The three work seperately as a form of game. Also, Ritsuka got some development here too. From Ushiwaka’s tale to working hard to be worthy of Mash, he’s gotten more character this week. I think this is my favorite episode so far.
Vinland Saga Episode 18
Ah, an episode of two parts yet again. Is this just the week for those? In this case though, it’s all warranted considering that Thorfinn and Canute are different sides of the same coin and this episode proves that. At least the narrative writes them that way because their stories are similar yet different enough for it all. In this episode, Thorfinn has his fight with Thorkell and he’s done a pretty decent job considering that he’s a small guy with knives and Thorkell is huge, wearing armor, and is wielding two axes. There is talk about them missing some parts of ultimate combat and Thorkell explaining more about Thorfinn’s backstory (like his mother being either related to or being a former Jarl). Of course, it leads to nothing when Thorkell launches Thorfinn far into the snow knocking him out.
As Thorfinn falls asleep, Canute has a massive awakening. He had the dream of his father figure Ragnar where he gave him love before telling Canute that he should grow from this experience and stop holding himself back. Completely heart breaking honestly. Immediately afterward, following a talk with his priest about how love can’t be found on Earth at this moment, Canute finally awakens with complete conviction of “if there is no paradise on Earth, I will create it myself.” His has steely eyes and is able to give commands to Vikings without being questioned on it. That’s where the episode ends. A sleepy boy and an awakened boy.
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