All posts by draggle

Hidan no Aria 10 — Repeat After Me

Hidan no Aria,

I will not reflexively hide and peek on girls changing. I will not reflexively hide and peek on girls changing.

This episode was mostly the usual fanservice, but it came across as uninspired even by Hidan no Aria’s standards. The main problem with this episode though isn’t the fanservice: it’s a complete lack of logical coherence and focus.

They’re going to infiltrate Vlad’s house? Ok, sure, waste time having Aria dress up as a maid and look embarrassed calling Kinji master, I’d be more surprised if they didn’t at this point. Riko tells them that they are recovering her dead mother’s heirloom, and everyone is sad. Everyone knows that cute girls only do bad things because of their tragic pasts.

Then Kinji runs into Jeanne D’Arc playing piano. It turns out she made a deal with the judge to become a student- no explanation needed, cute girls always join the good guys eventually. This short conversation had some extremely awkward voice acting. Jeanne, harem glasses girl with poor drawing skills, GET-O.

Next, Riko tells Kinji to meet her in a medical room. He hears people coming, and instead of going to greet them, he hides in the nearest locker. Why he would do this is completely beyond human understanding. And why Riko expects him to do this is even more incomprehensible. But it turns out his perverted friend is hiding in the locker as well. Then we confirm that Kinji is a lolicon, the male teacher enters, and Reki discovers Kinji hiding in the locker.

Up until this point, the episode was stupid but at least made some vague sort of sense. I guess. But now, a giant rabid wolf jumps through the window and attacks the changing girls. It runs away after Kinji tries to tackle it, and he and Reki chase it on the perverted friend’s motorcycle which was hiding in the bushes for a getaway.

Now Kinji starts to feel sorry for the rabid wolf, and worries that Reki will kill it because she’s “heartless”. He’s more worried about the wolf than he was about Aria, Riko, Shirayuki and Jeanne D’Arc combined. * The producers of Hidan no Aria proudly support animal rights. * Kinji must have only been worried because the wolf wasn’t wearing body armor.

Reki shoots the wolf and temporarily paralyzes it. * Warning: do not try this at home. * She then tames it and makes it her pet. That was her plan all along. Its old master was mean to it. Now it is cute and shakes hands. Ok. I am truly shocked by this development.

We have forgotten all about recovering Riko’s heirloom, but we have a new pet wolf. The episode ends with Aria beating up Kinji once again. I guess as random as this episode was, it still beats having to spend more time listening to Aria talk.

Ano Hana 10 — Tamaya!

Ano Hana,

This episode was quite the tear jerker, and by far the strongest episode of Ano Hana yet. It makes you cry, but it’s not the kind of thing where there are a couple especially sad moments: the creators took their time to wring out every last tear from every single character and pile all the emotions together into a bundle of fireworks for a spectacular climax. Yukiatsu’s replaying of the day of Menma’s death worked brilliantly, just like blasting a hole in a dam. They didn’t let up on the tension at all after this, following up with a breakdown from Anaru, a conversation between Jinta and Menma, Yukiatsu’s talk with his wig, Menma’s hug with her brother, and culminating with the fireworks launch. Rather than having a few cry-worthy moments, as in earlier episodes, this episode had me right on the border of breaking down and sobbing for the majority of the time. It made for a much more intense and memorable experience.

The way they dealt with Menma’s mother was quite nice (I’m going to guess that the part for her parents to play is mostly over). In any other show I would have expected Menma’s mother to end up coming to the fireworks launching, to forgive everyone and to finally let go of Menma. Unfortunately it’s never quite that easy. But you can tell that, with the help of her husband and son, Menma’s mother has come a few small steps closer to accepting her death, as she cries to see the fireworks launching in the distance.

Poppo and Mysterious Girl Tsurumi even get some time in the spotlight as well. Tsurumi, as we’d guessed, is in love with Yukiatsu, and it turns out that she can actually be rather jealous, although she doesn’t seem to blame Anaru. Poppo’s cheery exterior does serve to hide some scars from Menma’s death, it turns out: it seems that he blames himself for being able to “only watch”. I wonder if he was actually there and knows what happened when Menma died.

The biggest surprise of the episode came when Poppo began pressuring Jinta to reenact that day, joining in with Yukiatsu and Anaru. I haven’t really been able to figure out why. Perhaps he knew what Jinta would say, and wanted to help him say it? I kind of doubt it though, considering how downright scared he looked as he was chanting. My guess is he was trying to confront his own regrets, and I think that the final episode will probably have the answers.

To feel truly human, characters need to be flawed, and this is another area where Ano Hana truly shines. Take, for example, Jinta, who wants to keep Menma to himself even though he knows it’s best for her to be reincarnated. I already mentioned the case of Menma’s mother; there’s also the different jealousies of Anaru, Tsurumi and Yukiatsu. All of the characters have experienced growth, but it’s gradual: it isn’t easy for them to overcome their flaws. Yukiatsu tries to force Jinta to overcome the same problems he has, but still talks to his wig at night. Anaru wants Jinta to love her, but cannot help feeling somewhat glad that Menma is gone. Tsurumi believes that her love for Yukiatsu is hopeless, but can’t let go. Jinta wants to set Menma free, but calls her back at the last moment.

This episode was sad, but Menma knocking herself on the head and looking sheepish helped to cheer me up at the end.

Dog Days 11 — Angry / Blushing Eclair = Win

Dog Days,

The end of the demon sword was anti-climatic even by this show’s standards. It separates from the host like it’s going to be the final final boss form, causes an earthquake, and is put down in short order like it was nothing. Generally your latter forms should be stronger than your initial forms. Learn this well, demon swords.

In general, this episode had way too much talking and very little going on. The two minute “date” with Shinku and Eclair was probably the highlight. And it seems like there’s a problem with Shinku going home. All the touchy-feely stuff between Leo-sama and the princess is more or less a waste of time. Even more so for the crappy J-Pop concert and montage. And all the characters need to stop being so polite! I feel like so much time is wasted just with people saying “excuse me, I’m off!” and “hello”. Same thing with Leo’s apology: you don’t have to make half the show about people apologizing and exchanging pleasantries.

Anyway, have some more Eclair. She’s pretty much the only thing I’m still enjoying about this show.


Steins; Gate 11 — Sending Memories through Time

Steins; Gate,

It reminds me of my favorite xkcd, only Kyouma’s time machine sends things in the opposite direction.

Christina discovers how to send memories through time, and apparently it’s simple enough that they can do it with supplies from Akiba. Part-time girl accuses Christina of being a CERN agent. The threats against Kyouma were upped again this week, although I found last week’s picture much more intimidating. Oh, and Kyouma has control of the LHC. The world is doomed.

The biggest question now, for me at least, is what is the story with part-time girl and Christina? I highly doubt that Christina is actually an agent of CERN. But since part-time girl is from the future, perhaps Christina eventually becomes an agent of CERN in some parallel universe. If you’ll recall, Christina was killed in the first episode but then came back with a timeline shift. I’m guessing that there is some organization in the future opposing CERN (including part-time girl and possibly Moeka, assuming they aren’t in CERN themselves, but not Kyouma, since he would have kept his memory…? or perhaps not, his memories seem to always go sideways in time, but never backwards).

Someone from the future probably arranged to have Christina killed, but then another change in timelines prevented this. Or maybe Mayushi changed the timeline— I have my suspicion that the microwave isn’t the only factor in allowing time travel, and that there’s more to Mayushi than meets the eye. Anyway, whatever happened, one of the effects may have been that Christina met Okarin and didn’t join CERN. Perhaps even part-time girl’s return to the past was the cause. I have my suspicions that Christina’s father will turn out to be with CERN, so this could help to explain how Christina joined.

If you actually managed to read through everything I just said, you can tell that my thoughts are even more confused than the Steins; Gate timeline. Which is exactly how a time travel show should be.

My one gripe with this episode is that its portrayal of science is stretching my suspension of disbelief. Chrstina was a genius physicist since elementary school? No, I’m sorry, but it doesn’t work that way. The myth of the child genius never actually happens. And the “Oh, I forgot, but I wrote a paper about the exact problem we’re trying to solve” never happens either. Same with “I can build a machine to connect to your brain and send memories through time with parts found next door by tomorrow”. I know, I know, it’s more entertaining this way, but this kind of portrayal of science in fiction sets ridiculous expectations among non-scientists. Same with its portrayal of hacking. “CERN hacked into our system, so now we have control of the LHC.” No, it doesn’t work that way. And anyone who was even aware that the LHC control system was on an outward facing network ought to be shot.

Softenni: Alternative Uses for Trophies

Discussion,

As someone who recently packed / disposed of my childhood trophy collection, I cracked up at this:

I guess I shouldn’t have thrown half of them out after all.

Softenni is Xebec’s seasonal excuse for drawing panty shots, but it’s still been surprisingly enjoyable so far. The fanservice is toned down compared to their other recent exercises in the same vein, and the humor is spot on.

This season’s been marked by a pretty decent crop of fanservice shows, as far as these things go: I’m enjoying Softenni, Dog Days, 30-Sai, Hen Zemi and Oretachi ni Tsubasa wa Nai. That’s four or five more than I usually like. The first four I appreciate mainly because of the humor (which the fanservice complements well). Oretachi came as the biggest surprise for me, as I decided to drop it after the first episode, watched the second a month or two later and was hooked. It takes a unique twist on your usual harem, which makes “one” guy having multiple girlfriends somewhat plausible. Oretachi also has a great sense of energy and a tight script.

We still have the usual mix of mediocre fanservice shows (Aria, Astarotte, and A Channel: I’m looking at you), the extraordinarily mediocre (Hoshizora) and the beyond terrible (Qwaser). I can’t help but wonder if this season might be the beginning of a trend for the better, but the cynic in me says it’s just an outlier. Let’s hope for more Oretachis and less Hoshizoras in the future.