All posts by draggle

Hourou Musuko 08

Hourou Musuko,

Hooray, somebody else understands how awesome Chiba is! This show has a lot of characters, all of whom are quite strong and well-developed, but Chiba stands out as my favorite. She’s just so refreshingly selfish and honest. There’s none of this do I / don’t I and no effort to put up with anything that bothers her. Characters in anime (and Japanese culture in general, from my impression) seem to always be concerned with appearances and politeness. As a rude, obnoxious American I do not share these values and love the way Chiba tells it like it is.

I’m also enjoying Ana’s character from this episode. Her relationship with Nittori is so cute. I wish there were more shows with middle schoolers who entered actual relationships and acted like… middle schoolers. Oh, and bonus points for the glasses.

But she loses points for talking in the bathroom. Talking at a urinal is bad enough, but from inside a stall…?

This show is moving really quickly, which is both a strength and a weakness – there’s no risk of getting bored, and they’ll be able to fit more into the short timeslot, but some parts need less time spent on them than they deserve. There were a few things I seemed to have missed / forgotten at the start of the episode – I hadn’t realized that a new school year had begun, and didn’t remember why she was skipping school again. But the creators have been doing a great job at fitting as much in as possible – the show flows really smoothly in spite of how much they’re stuffing into every single episode.

Chiba once again had the awkward quote of the episode award. And Nittori’s awkwardness-breaking attempt was hilarious.

Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica 10

Puella Shoujo Madoka Magica,

In this episode SHAFT takes a play from Higurashi’s book and looks at the possible futures Homura has gone through and her transformation from someone even less decisive than Madoka into a total badass. The contact lenses and stolen weapons helped too. It turns out that shotguns are stronger than magic wands, even if you’re a magical girl. Oh, and Madoka finally became a magical girl and Mami came back to life (each multiple times). LOLOLOLOL

Now both Homura and Madoka have been fleshed out quite thoroughly. These were the only characters that were missing, so I’m expecting the rest of the show to head straight to the climax. Still, one question has noticeably not been answered – what did Madoka wish for all the other times she became a magical girl? Perhaps a wiser wish could lead to a brighter future, particularly now that she knows more about Kyuubey’s true nature beforehand. Such as wishing for a xenocide of all the Kyuubey aliens and the witches and the return of the souls of the magical girls. I highly doubt this will happen though, or any particularly cheerful ending for that matter. The best I would hope for is either a reset ending, given the creators’ history, or Homura dies but Madoka doesn’t. Or Madoka wishes she could stop Homura from becoming a magical girl and the universe explodes, or they become yuri time travelling pals and abandon the world to its fate.

The pacing was particularly excellent this episode – by the time the episode was over I hadn’t even realized we’d passed the halfway mark. The music was integrating very well and served as a driving force. Needless to say, the animation was beautiful as well, particularly in the scenes of the Witch’s realms and the Walpurugis Night. They had more variety than usual in these scenes as well.

An aside: In case you haven’t seen it already, I highly encourage you to check out this Homu-homu Homura-chan video.

Kore wa Zombie Desu Ka? 09

Kore wa Zombie Desu Ka,

Why is it petting you, you ask? Why not?

Overall a stronger episode than the last few. The rolling ferris wheels and giant stuffed animals falling from the sky have my whole-hearted approval. The drama with both Eu and Sera’s decisions were well done too. But Yuuki’s transformation and Ayumu’s power of love was way too corny.

First of all, where exactly did that golem thing come from again…? There’s a difference between funny nonsensical randomness, like the yellow animal thing, and randomness because the creators just pulled something out of their rear ends. Second, the power of love winning like that is just way too corny and overused, so much so that it isn’t even funny in spite of how ridiculous it is, just depressing. Besides, any actual drama with Yuuki working is hopeless since I (and I’ll assume everyone else) never liked her in the first place. The only way I can see to have made scene work is to do what this series does best – over the top ridiculousness. Yuuki’s golem should have been a ramen bowl or something, and Ayumu could charge through a bullet cloud of noodles, having his dress ripped apart in the process, to defeat the golem by drinking all the broth, which would transform into Yuuki and a bonus kiss scene. Why do so many comedy series feel the need to insert some terrible corny drama?

I’ve noticed that Sera’s insults seem to be improving from the rather generic piece of s**t which accounted for every other word out of her mouth in the earlier episodes. The “wait, you always looked like that” in particular was perfectly timed.

Onii-chan no Koto 09

Onii-chan no Koto,

At this point, I’m just continuing to lose interest in this show every week. It began ok, but it’s just become bogged down in using the same jokes over and over again with little to no variance. This week saw the addition of a competition in pervertedness between Nao and Iroha, which was even more painful to watch than the jokes they keep retelling.

As usual, the highlights were the ten second cameo by Nao’s friends and the AGE’s activities. I will admit though, this episode was better than much of the long stretch where Nao and Iroha were getting along for no apparent reason.

Also, I’m completely confused about Kondou. I thought she was going abroad for a while, but she’s back already? Her brief scene at the end was one of the best parts (relatively speaking), but that’s probably only her nipple fetish is their latest joke, only introduced one episode ago. I’m sure that in an episode or two I will be tired of it already.

Star Driver 22

Star Driver,

Star Driver’s build up is starting to pay off in droves and we’re on track for a fantastic finale. School plays do not exactly have the best track record for transferring well to anime episodes, but the way they did it here really worked as a microcosm of the entire show and a retelling of Sakana-chan’s version. The creators’ approach reminded me of the school play from Gunparade March, which also was one of the better episodes of that show.

This episode was chock-full of revelations, but also a proportional amount of new questions. As I speculated last week, one of the last characters to be developed  is the drama club president, Sarina Endo. And she or the vice president or both appear to be aliens who watch over the Cybodies. I wonder if the vice president is a cousin of our other furry little alien friend (that was the happiest picture I had of him).

The big question remaining seems to be what is the role of the maidens in all of this. With Keito being caught in her naked nighttime excursions, it appears that we should be getting some answers regarding this shortly. The fact that Wako and Sugata are in the same club as the President, and Sakana-chan told the same story to Head indicates that they know something about what’s going on. Are the maidens also aliens, or collaborators? Wako’s ephemeral role in the play seems to suggest that they may be, but the president’s statement in the play about not using magic would seem to distance the maidens from herself.

The actual story was great and all, but this episode was completely stolen by Sugata’s maid. Apparently her name is Tiger Sugatame (the other one is Jaguar Yamasugata, and yes, I had to look this up). Very creative on the last names there…. Some phenomenal voice acting, as well as an actual good and interesting use of fanservice.