Hanasaku Iroha 20 — Into the Magical World

Hanasaku Iroha,

Of cooking.

This week’s developments are fairly predictable: Ohana, Yuina and Nako help Minchi reconcile with her classmates, and they end up cooking omelette rice. Nako makes a friend. Minchi writes “LOVE” and draws a heart on Tohru’s omelette rice. Everyone is impressed with Minchi’s courage. Tohru thinks they write that for everyone.

It was a decent episode, but at this rate, the creators need to get moving if they want everything to come to a conclusion. We’ve spent a while in this rut of episodes focusing on the side characters, and Ohana and her family have been more or less neglected. Ohana’s relationship with Ko has no resolution in sight, we haven’t seen the mother for a while, and Ohana’s relationship with her grandmother hasn’t changed much, if at all, for the past ten episodes. Hanasaku Iroha has the potential to be something more than another cute girls doing cute things series, and the creators seem reluctant to latch onto that possibility.

In other news, little kid Minko is cute. She dreamed of entering the magical world of cooking ever since she was little. And Nako’s titling of her new friend’s painting as “Sloppy” appears to have been part of a dream. The “it was all a dream” ending is the first entry in the book of terrible cliches, and even if it wasn’t the application here was not amusing at all. I found myself laughing surprisingly little in this episode, actually. The only parts that were mildly amusing were Ohana and Minchi crying over the onions, and Ohana working at her job to stuff down failed culinary creations.

So I have to say: this episode wasn’t that funny, it didn’t advance the plot much, and it didn’t tell us much we didn’t know about the characters. Well, we did learn that Minko wanted to be a cook since she was little, but I think this was already fairly obvious. So what were the creators aiming for with this episode? I can’t tell. Perhaps a relaxing atmosphere? It did succeed at that, since it almost put me to sleep. Of course, it may be the other way around: I didn’t get much out of the episode because I almost fell asleep.

Steins; Gate 19 — Domestic Violence

Steins; Gate,
ArcRewrite doesn't sound suspicious at all... What could they possibly do?

Now this is more like it! I was a bit worried with Steins; Gate’s recent string of episodes focusing on the addition of new haremettes, but Moeka’s case is fortunately not so simple.

Probably the most frightening part of this episode for Okabe- to come back from a time leap and discover he's been caught eating Christina's pudding.

In the initial episodes, Moeka was one of the characters I liked the least, mainly because she never talked. She came across as unemotional and level-headed. This episode disabused me of that notion. She broke her silence, but didn’t speak so much as scream and wail. She is a broken character, with an overriding dependence on FB. The whole scene with Okabe and Moeka in her apartment was downright intense. I wouldn’t say I *like* Moeka now by any stretch of the imagination, but I can say that she’s managed to capture my attention and a bit of sympathy.

Okabe has changed a lot. He went from a boastful yet timid mad scientist into someone willing to physically assault a woman in her home. His character has taken on a darker tone: how much of his beatdown was to save Mayushii, and how much was for revenge? His recovery when that woman walked in was… creative. Transforming a scene of domestic abuse into a rape scene. Of course that is completely socially acceptable, so the woman lets out a giggle about “lovers these days” and walks away. Anime… *sigh*. Yet it disturbingly mimics reality. Okabe shows a hint of sympathy for Moeka towards the end, but then leaves her crying on the floor.

As for speculation, I’ll be honest: I have no idea who FB is, except it’s probably someone we already met. Maybe Daru is a double agent… I kid, I kid. But perhaps if Okabe can recover the IBN5100, knowing FB’s identity won’t be necessary. This seems like a logical first step, at least.

And I have to wonder: how did Mayushii die at the comics festival? I’ll be interested to hear that one. Okabe has really come to trust and rely on Christina- I’m guessing he’ll need to eventually trust the rest of his harem (and Moeka) with the truth to free everyone from their fate.

Dantalian no Shoka 05 — Heroic Suitors of Light

Dantalian no Shoka,

Dantalian no Shoka certainly has a penchant for keeping its viewers on their toes. The directions this show takes are just downright bizarre. Two weeks ago, we had evil geniuses who were too lazy to do anything and villains who randomly got eaten by a cactus. Last week the victims of a phantom book evolved to gain immunity from death. This week we have a set of suitors who look like they’re cut out of a cheesy soap opera who end up becoming the five heroes of light. The direction is bizarre, but aside from last week’s ending, I love it. It’s just the right mix of absurdity and profundity.

Last week I had trouble with Dalian and Huey impassively observing a killing spree, but this week I had no problem at all with them rolling their eyes by the sidelines. The whole setup looked like it was taken out of a bad play filled with incompetent actors. The humor the creators used in this situation was top-notch as well. I was eagerly awaiting Dalian’s kick to Huey’s friend, and the interruption by Huey in favor of an even stronger kick was unexpected and delightful. Fortunately Dalian got her turn later on. I enjoyed Dalian’s retelling of the story of princess Kaguya just to get in a jab about how men are so stupid to get twirled around the woman’s thumb.  I also liked how corny the ending fight scene was. Viola’s final choice of suitor was the icing on the cake.

We did get a little more development of Huey and Dalian, in particular with the flashback to the mystical library, but the show could bear to put more of the focus on its main characters. I’m starting to wonder if this is part of the series’ charm, though: by not becoming intimately involved in each of the mysteries, Dalian, Huey and the viewers are able to view the unfolding events as cynical outsiders. Which leads back to the scene in the mystical library: Dalian, Huey and the viewers have seen all there is to see about each of the short stories, but have they really experienced them by remaining as outsiders? Dalian claimed to know about sleeping in a warm bed by reading a book. The two could say they know about love by observing the suitors in this episode and the couple in the last. But do they truly know love?

As for this week’s phantom books:

  • The Salamander’s Tablet. This may refer to the Book of Mormon, or, as is more likely, is fictional. The salamander is believed to have powers associated with fire.
  • The Anthology of the Burning, Golden Pearls. Apparently one way to tell if a pearl is authentic or fake is by putting it in a fire- real ones won’t burn. All I could find about golden pearls were references to jewelry and a quote from some crazy Frenchman who intended to summon Nessie at Loch Ness: “Nessie will breathe golden pearls for all the children from the earth, this endangered innocence that badly needs air.” I wouldn’t attach much significance to that.
  • The Sage’s Lithograph. Couldn’t find anything about this.
  • The King’s Codex. This one looks like it’s an actual book. I haven’t read it, so I’m not sure how it relates to healing.
  • The Manuscript of Nagarjuna. Nagarjuna was a Buddhist philosopher who thought about existence and non-existence, so the power to revive those killed by illusions is both pertinent and convenient. The book is most likely the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā.

Usagi Drop 06 — Rin Becomes a Ninja

Usagi Drop,

This was my favorite episode of Usagi Drop so far. The ending of this episode was one of the most emotional moments in the show so far.

We spent the majority of the episode focused on procuring a tree for Rin. She plants some seeds for when she enters elementary school, but wishes she had a tree from when she was born. Daikichi does some detective work, interrogates Rin’s mother with ice cream, and discovers that his grandfather did indeed plant a tree for Rin. He goes to the house to pick it up. While he’s gone, Rin speaks with Daikichi’s mother about her birth tree, and how Daikichi’s sister has the same tree. When Daikichi returns home, he tells everyone that Rin has the same species of birth tree as him, and everything comes together in the scene where everyone in the family walks through the cherry blossoms. This scene captured themes of family continuity extraordinarily well.

Another thing which stood out to me was how childish Rin acted in this episode. She’s mature for her age, but really: she’s only six years old. The entire thing with the cereal, her jumping over the tree to become a ninja and her choice of tree— these all added humor and showed how she really is still a child. The danger of having a highly capable little girl who cooks breakfast and wakes up her father for work is that she doesn’t seem quite like a child, but it’s moments like this which keep Rin as a child in the viewers’ minds.

I’d also like to point out the animation in this episode. Once again: it was gorgeous. Not only did we continue with the plethora of bright, pastel colors, we also had some very detailed scenes. Just look at the scenes from the grocery store below. The scenes inside homes may not be the most exciting, but when Rin and Daikichi leave home, the animators just go wild.

One last thing which stood out in this episode: I just love the way they’ve developed the familial relationships between Rin and Daikichi, and Kouki and Yukari (the boy who went to Rin’s daycare and his mother). Kouki and Yukari have barely gotten any screen time, but you can still tell how closely intertwined the two families have become. Rin and Kouki walk to school together, take entrance pictures together, and play ninja together. And Daikichi is acting as a father figure of sorts to Kouki. He removes the burs from his jacket, combs Kouki’s hair, scolds Kouki quite often, and thanks him for protecting Rin. There is some male bonding going on here that Rin is amusingly oblivious to.

No. 6 06 — No. 6

No. 6,

It’s episode No. 6 of No. 6. Over halfway done and it doesn’t seem like we’ve gotten that far…

I will say that this episode was an improvement just for the fact that Safu came back, so we spent less time on Nezumi mounting Shion this week. The episode also did a good job of showing the cracks in the walls of No. 6. The grandmother’s coffin at the twilight home, the man assuring Safu of how her grandmother died happily, and the return of a box with only the grandmother’s glasses did a good job of indicating that something wasn’t quite right in town. It wasn’t exactly subtle, but one step at a time. We also confirmed that No. 6 is the only one of the cities that is so draconian— Safu can’t even bring in her Picasso art book, and it seems to be the only city where they wear the bracelets. I am curious how these cities view the suffering of the population outside of No. 6, and whether they have similar issues.

Safu is not the smartest chip on the block, and after searching to discover that Shion is accused of murder (that search alone probably put her on the no-fly list) she has to go and visit Shion’s mother and ask. Shion’s mother is smart enough not to say anything, but Safu doesn’t realize the house has been bugged since they moved in. Then Safu gets kidnapped, and Shion’s mother sends a message to Nezumi. This part kind of surprised me: I had a low opinion of Nezumi, and assumed his struggle would be over whether to do anything at all about the kidnapping. He seems to want all the inhabitants of No. 6 to die, so Safu could be step one. But I got the impression that he does intend to help Safu- he was about to tell Shion, and then stopped and destroyed the paper out of concern for paper. But I get the feeling he still plans to do something on his own. An enemy of an enemy is a friend, I guess.

I think I may have finally been able to put my finger on what bothers me so much about this show: it’s the dialogue. It’s just too well thought out and over-dramatized. It doesn’t sound like the characters are having a conversation. It sounds like they’re reading out the lines from a play that they memorized. This has the effect of making the characters’ interaction feel superficial and downright corny. This comes out even more strongly in the BL scenes, when what’s going on is corny enough as it is. The character that suffers least from this is the dog woman: her spontaneity rescues her from an impression of superficiality, even if some of her lines are a bit too in-your-face philosophical. No. 6 tries  to be intelligent by having the characters quote Shakespeare and Oscar Wilde, and argue about philosophy: this makes it come across as pretentious. Compare No.  approach to Mawaru Penguindrum, which involves stalkers, delusions, penguins, magical hats and slapstick comedy. Which of the two shows is more intelligent and witty?

I’ll put out posts on Usagi Drop and Steins; Gate eventually- hopefully tomorrow. Penguindrum isn’t airing this week.