Weekly Season Reviews: Fall 2019 Anime Week 11 (Now With Some Finales)

This post is going to get a lot easier to write now that two shows have ended. It’s early in the season, but shorter episode lengths and starting earlier rather then later are interesting things.

Obsolete Episode 2

Dang, Gen Urobuchi is just not holding back with this show so far. There is no way you can doubt that he’s after US foreign policy considering that this episode’s plot was about the US getting secretly involved in another little civil war in progress. This time it’s in Africa. Of course, there is more to it here then that. This episode obviously takes place before the first one and is when the aliens first arrived. The aliens talked to the local humans and discussed trading exosuits for a certain tons of limestone.

With that, the US tank force investigates an African village using these exosuits for farming. That sense of using them for everyday things is really cool. I wish more creators followed that Tomino/Patlabor line of thinking where mecha aren’t just used for combat. It really adds some interesting world building. Anyway, you guys know what happens right? Chaos. The African Exosuits battle against the US tanks and a lot of people die. On the US side, only one person survived to call home. Talk about world changing technology for a third world country and just world itself. I wonder where the next episode will take us.

Chihayafuru Season 3 Episode 10

Please read my episodic review here.

Blade of the Immortal Episode 11

Well, that was definitely a fun episode of this show. I mean, it was mostly Mr. Manji and Magatsu playing off of each other when fighting Shira. The only not fun part here itself was Shira whose in full psychopath mode. His arm that was cut off is just sharpened bone. I was so happy to see Magatsu completely skip out on the fight and let Magatsu do it to get revenge for Ren. You know, his friend who worked at a geisha house but Magatsu refused to sleep with. Poor girl.

Of course, nothing happened as planned except Magatsu was able to get Shira over a cliff to where he cut Shira’s other arm off. I can’t believe that Shira is so excited about seeking revenge against two people. I know he’s a monster that murders woman and is completely unstable, but come. This guy is the worst. He’s going to come back isn’t he? I can see that happening now. At least that was fun and entertaining with some beautiful animation here and there.

No Guns Life Episode 10

Well, that was certainly an episode wasn’t it? A very easy sort of episode but an episode in itself. On one end of the equation is Mary and Tetsuro hoping to help or stop whatever Colt is doing. You know, him causing a huge ruckus at a festival and hoping to bomb a bunch of Beruhren officials to make a statement. Instead, Colt almost bombed a bunch of orphans. Almost because Tetsuro was able to use harmony to connect to an extended and save Colt before it went out of control. No one got hurt except for Colt who lost his arms while being shot by Beruhren insurgents.

On the other end, Juzo just captures a guy that gave Colt some drugs. He does it very easily too. Not much lead in here, but we did find out that the person distributing extended parts in the black market may be Mary’s brother. That’s a lot to think about, right? So yeah, this episode was ok. It wasn’t good visually and all the character stuff came off pretty easily way to do it isn’t it? Not a low stakes episode because Colt’s kids lives are at stake because they are hungry so I can’t write it off but it almost did feel like a waste of time.

Gundam Build Divers Re:RISE Episode 11

If you want an episode that really felt like it wasted some time, it’s this one. I know that building drama and suspense is good along with people traveling to the moon to hear something is apart of Gundam lore, but why did our fighters have to travel to a moon base to get information we already know about? Alus was incredibly vague, mentioned the words protect and then never explained it. Even worse when the A.I. hated our fury friend Freddie.

I’m sure this will be paid off later for one reason or another, but did we really need all of that non existent exposition and hate? Couldn’t our forces have made it up to space and immediately fought against a larger amount of enemy mecha and then have the moon laser canon aimed at Earth anyway? Not much would have changed. I suppose this at least let the animators rest their hands for the battle to come. Kind of excited about this.

LOGH Reboot S2 Episode 12 (Finale)

This was the kind of episode that is centered on the consequences of taken and untaken actions on both sides. This episode was centered on Yang and the Free Planet’s Alliance considering that the last two were focused on Reinhard and the Empire, but their connections were pushed at the end. This was also the set up episode for future seasons that I hope are made in the future. Very by the book sort of episode, but one that had enough emotional reach to make it more then good.

Yang had to deal with shaking hands with Trunicht which is probably the most disgusting thing anyone can do. He saved the Free Planet’s Alliance instead of taking it over, so he had to deal with that aspect along with his own suffering. If he lost, he would could have just retired. Instead, he’s here to save people at the expense of himself. Poor guy. Though, Merkats from the empire defected and now joined Yang’s fleet in Iserlohn. With that and Yang and Reinhard placing flowers on their friends graves, the plot for tomorrow appears.

Psycho Pass Season 3 Episode 8 (Finale)

This episode ended in the way I thought it would, but also through in some monkey wrenches like doing it in a documentary sort of story for what happened after the case itself happened. Still, I would call this more of a set up episode then anything else because it inserted a lot of plot threads to be used later on if a season 4 is going to happen. Kei and Arata’s argument over Kei’s wife’s incarceration there, Kei becoming an inspector in BiFrost, Arata’s growing relationship with Governor Karina, and other things.

I knew they weren’t going to rush everything. I hope this show did well enough for a season 4 because despite my problems with this season, I would like to see it. I like this cast and I like the intriguing things a future season could play around with. I also liked the introspection that Yayoi’s question asking did to provide more insight to what was going on here. Very good character stuff with a lot of good questions. I’m glad they took this path. It was a simple yet beautiful episode with not a lot of animation but interesting direction style.

Plus some touching moments for those of us who have watched the original with Kogami and Akane. Awwww. (Poor Yayoi).

My Hero Academia Season 4 Episode 9

Another episode of My Hero Academia, another episode in the depths and dungeons of Chie Hassaiki and their craziness. However, this episode featured Fats and Kirishima after being taken away from the group for their own sorts of craziness. It’s an episode where we see Fat’s power and seeing that he absorbs the strikes from other opponents and Kirishima’s backstory when he was frozen all the way to where he finds his motivation despite being scared. A very cute backstory that also characterizes Mina a little bit too and leads to Kirishima making a stand agains the enemy attacker while Fats uses all the impacts he absorbed to defeat his enemy. Very passably visual episode. That’s all I’ve got to say really.

Fate/Grand Order: Babylonia Episode 10

A bit of a convoluted episode this week. Not in terms of fate nonsense because this episode is a fetch quest to retrieve an axe that can kill Tiamat/Gorgon. It’s just that it comes with many parts. The first part of it being Quetzalcoatl, an mesoamerican sun goddess killing one hundred people in Uruk a day then having Jaguarman bringing them back. To counter them, the usual group (Ritsuka, Mash, Anna, Merlin, Fou, and now Ishtar) journey out to her temple in order to get the axe and hopefully get her on their side.

This leads to Jaguarman’s quick joining of their group after making some very comedic fate references, and the one hundred people that were killed were revived to join Quetzalcoatl’s army. Of course, they don’t’ want to be there. Now all there is to do is defeat Quetzalcoatl herself and retrieve the axe which will be next episode. A not very painful episode plot wise, but one that takes some time to put together. I also love the effort put into the animation this week. The subtle detail of Ishtar turning blonde when sneezing and with Jaguarman’s special attack. I love it. This is such a fun show. I’m glad I have this show and MHA as my Saturday morning cartoons.

Vinland Saga Episode 22

Here is the episode where Askeladd finally lays out all his plans and motivations after a quick duel with Thorfinn. In defeating Thorfinn in yet another duel after ten years, he lays down his complete backstory. His sick mother and her love of the Arthurian legend, hating his father, getting noticed by his father, getting training then killing his father with one of his father’s episode. It’s a beautiful and scary tale of Askeladd’s success and Thorfinn’s failure through Askeladd’s amazing intelligence and Thorfinn’s stubbornness.

That reveal of Askeladd’s “thank you for being useful” to Thorfinn was wonderful in tearing him apart. I was worried about this show’s animation, but it’s well directed and animated in it’s last episodes here. Two more to go and it’s going to be only get more painful for our poor Thorfinn. I wonder what he will do now that it’s finally been unveiled that he’s only been a pawn this whole time. Looking forward to it.

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