All posts by draggle

C: The Money of Soul and Possibility Control 06 — …*sigh*…

C: The Money of Soul and Possibility Control,

I have no idea what the creators were thinking with this episode. Let’s start with the beginning. After Mashu and Kimimaro’s poor communication skills led to their defeat last week, they begin this episode with perfect teamwork and knowing their opponent. All of their cooperation issues from the previous episode are resolved. This could have been a good opportunity to develop Mashu’s character, whose most notable trait is that she likes ramen. But we skip all of that development and jump straight to the result. Well, it’s a short series, so maybe they didn’t have time.

Except then the next twenty minutes are spent with three different people spouting gibberish at Kimimaro (and sexually assaulting him). I honestly have no idea what the point of this was or even what their disagreement was. Something about Souichiro fighting for the present, IMF girl wanting to destroy the root of the problem, and the other guy fighting only for the future. I’m not sure how their actual plans result in these things though. Kimimaro has a big decision: let the other guy forfeit on his behalf, or fight it out. Here’s a brilliant idea for the two of them: instead of paying money to forfeit, why don’t you both just stand there and do nothing?! That would make everyone happy. But no, Kimimaro, genius that he is, decides after all of this discussion, that he must fight and win. And he proceeds to (apparently) bankrupt the guy, the one outcome that every single person wanted to avoid.

I say apparently because they skipped the only potentially interesting part of the fight. They had Mashu get beat up and bleed her black blood all over the place. Then she and Kimimaro hold hands, scream at the top of their lungs and walk forward into the light of battle… only to immediately skip over to the aftermath.

Somehow, we have romantic hints being dropped between Kimimaro and Mashu this episode, which came completely out of nowhere. I guess we can forgive the creators for this one, since we probably would have noticed if the two main characters didn’t have a net personality less than a block of wood’s. Also the IMF woman has transformed from one of the more interesting characters into a complete joke of fanservice fodder and fast food.

Overall I’m rather disappointed in the direction that C has taken. It has an interesting premise… but it hasn’t fleshed it out well, isn’t making the best use of its time, and the characters are completely uninspired. It took over from Fractale this season in more than just its timeslot.

Ano Hana 06 — Booty Calls and Nosebleeds

Ano Hana,

This was another emotional episode of Ano Hana. Everyone is having difficulties and working to overcome them. Anjou is facing rumors at school that she’s a prostitute, Jinta works up to courage to go to school, only to defend Anjou and run away, and Menma is worried about her mother. Poppo seems lonely, Tsurumi faces jealousy at school because of her relationship with Matsuyuki, and Matsuyuki is still trying to get over the past. I particularly enjoy how Ano Hana presents all these issues at once: we don’t have one episode focusing on Anjou, one on Tsurumi, etc., but all their problems are intertwed. Jinta, in overcoming his own fear of school helps Anjou face the rumors

My favorite scene in this episode was when Menma was crying and telling Jinta not to see her mom, and then Jinta got a nosebleed. It just seemed like a perfect release for all that built-up steam. It was anti-climatic and completely unexpected, and served to show the turbulence and uncertainty behind both Jinta and Menma’s feelings. Menma is yelling at Jinta, but then she immediately forgets about it and starts stuffing him with tissues when his nose starts bleeding. It also serves as a reminder that she’s still a child. And Jinta likewise goes from angry at Menma, to surprised his nose is bleeding, to blushing and running away when she jumps on top of him. The return of his nosebleed when he saw Anjou again was a nice touch too.

Hidan no Aria 06 — Shirayuki, Miko Newlywed Childhood Friend

Hidan no Aria,

This episode focused on Shirayuki and trying to see how many annoying cliches  the creators could stuff into a single character. This seems to have become popular lately (the example that comes to mind first is Kore wa Zombie Desu Ka?!, but I know that other examples precede it). The creators seem to say: oh, there are so many mikos lately, that’ll be boring. There are too many childhood friends too, we can’t have one. And everyone has the obsessive wanna-be newlywed. But I have a brilliant idea! Let’s make a character that’s all of these at once! No one’s ever thought of that before!

The only problem is that this only serves to make the character triply annoying. Now Zombie had the same idea at a high level: let’s combine a newlywed and a vampire and a ninja, or a zombie with a magical girl. But that worked because it was funny. A male zombie magical girl is WIN. A miko newlywed childhood friend is a triple fail. That’s not to mention her tragic past, isolated by her parents and bullied by everyone at the temple (yet another cliche…). Or how she’s a damsel in distress needing bodyguards. Or how she has supernatural powers. Still, I should point out that despite all her baggage, Shirayuki still annoys me much less than Aria.

The pacing was pretty terrible in this episode too. Kinji is watching Aria and Shirayuki fight as they rip his apartment to shreds. Then he leans back against the wall and has a flashback of how he knew Shirayuki as a child. Way to dump all the excitement out the window.

This episode was terrible enough that I think I will continue to blog it. It certainly gives me plenty to complain about.

Steins; Gate 07 — Swapping Timelines

Steins; Gate,

Now the mystery and time travel aspects of the story begin to deepen as Kyouma attempts to use the time machine to change the past. Instead of trying to bring world peace, Kyouma tries to win the lottery. Only third place though, since winning first would only serve to draw the Organization’s attention. They fail to win due to writing the number down wrong, but do manage to change both the past and future into a brighter one with more Dr. Pepper.

The strange part is that Kyouma is the only one who remembers the old timeline, the same thing that happened when Christina was killed. Now who changed the timeline to prevent Christina from dying? Was it CERN, and was the intention even to save Christina? It seems that it must be something related to her, since it’s too much of a coincidence for a satellite to fall through the roof of the same building. Crashing a satellite does seem like a rather drastic action to take though.

My other question is what happens to the memories of Kyouma from the new timeline. It seems that they’re just overwritten with the memories from the old timeline.

And Kyouma once again interacts with John Titor. He really needs to just meet up with John Titor. I still have my suspicions that Titor is Moeka, considering that she always talks on her cell phone and wants the IBN 5100. The shot of her while John Titor was speaking seemed suggestive as well.

Now that Kyouma has become the Messiah, hopefully he won’t feel overwhelmed with responsibility or anything. Remember that your first duty is as a mad scientist, not as a savior!

Dog Days 07 — Fetch

Dog Days,

I’m starting to lose hope for Dog Days. It seems set to be a classic case of a show having a great start, only to abandon everything which made it great to focus on things no one cares about, like love and friendship. Where are my explosions and pole fights?!!

The best parts of this episode were literally the princess and Shinku playing catch, and Shinku’s and Gaul’s chocobos making out with each other.

Aside from the hot chocobo action, we also get to see Shinku and the princess go on a date. They ride together on the chocobo, hold hands, frolic in a field of flowers, Shinku pats the princess’ head, they promise to see each other again, and they talk about their wedding rings. I don’t care about their budding romance: where are my explosions?!

The rest of the episode is concerned with nerve-wracking, high stakes politics: the next battle will be truly high risk, as each country puts their sacred weapons on the line for a two month loan. Please just get to the battle next time – it is impossible for me to worry that something bad will happen given this show’s premise, so stop trying to make me worry and just focus on making me laugh, which was completely neglected this episode.