Dog Days 06 — A Head Pat

Dog Days,

The highlight of this episode was the Princess patting Eclair’s head. That’s not a good sign. This episode was just boring. The first five minutes of head patting and training with Eclair were decent but nothing special. Then Shinku goes on a random camping and fishing trip with the ninjas, Shinku and the princess have a long tea party, and we have a budding romance between Eclair’s brother and the older ninja.

This show needs to focus on what it does well: stupid funny stupid, like the battles. They will not be able to do a decent romance between any of these characters. I don’t think anyone will feel bad for Shinku over his tragic loss at all. And no one believes that Shinku and the princess are going to die. Just work on trying to make people laugh; there’s no need for a “serious” plot. Trying to include one is just a waste of time.

Koi Sento OVA — Fighting Deer

OVA,

This is the kind of thing they would only make in Japan. We have a genetically engineered damsel in distress and a desperate young high school male on a field trip who are united and fall in love due to the efforts of a white buck and a herd of deer who fight against giant robotic oni. Koi Sento actually aired almost half a year ago, but it slipped past my radar.

Unfortunately, this OVA isn’t quite as awesome as it sounds. The characters are your stereotypical damsel in distress and loser teenage boy, and the plot is 25 minutes of teenage wish fulfillment. Quite literally, in fact: the boy spends the first few minutes of the show wishing he could meet and fall in love with the female, who is a celebrity (I didn’t follow why). The deer were entertaining, certainly, but not enough to make it worth sitting through the rest of this OVA.

C: The Money of Soul and Possibility Control 04 — Unborn Children

C: The Money of Soul and Possibility Control,

I suppose this episode was decent, but I’m still underwhelmed by this show. The characters are just boring. Let’s face it: the teacher from this episode, who will probably never appear again, and even the convenience store manager are more interesting than Kimimaro, Souichiro, and Mashu combined. Souichiro has the potential to become more interesting once they look into his background, I suppose. But Kimimaro is just weak, and Mashu is just there floating around inside her card and complaining.

The part of this episode about the teacher’s children was interesting. Losing your future doesn’t mean losing your life. It sounds like the suicides were actually side effects of losing something else. It’s probably significant that the main character’s father didn’t lose his wife or children. Hopefully we can avoid several episodes of emoness for being unloved by his father.

The battles in this episode were definitely nice though (especially the last one). Well, at least they looked nice. I have no idea what was actually going on since it was all economics gibberish. Since Souichiro invested in Mashu, I’m guessing that means he takes most of their profit now? Souichiro’s group seems pretty decent if they want to minimize the effects of the Financial District in the real world. Let’s hope it isn’t that straightforward and they actually have some secret evil plan. We still have no idea what the Midas money does in the real world.

Hidan no Aria 04 — What Just Happened?

Hidan no Aria,

This came completely out of left field, but this last episode of Aria was absolutely amazing. The first three episodes had me shuffling the show away in the refuse bin of Shakugan no Shana retakes, but then an episode like this comes along and blows my mind. Ok, so Kugimiya Rie’s little girl voice is as annoying as ever, and the Holmes / Lupin thing is retarded, but I’m willing to put that aside based on everything else in this episode.

First of all, Riko is an excellent character. I would say she’s an excellent villain but I don’t feel that she’ll remain one for long. Her evil plotting skills are top-notch. Her insanity is super high-level. She has two faces, one demure and ditzy and one pure evil. She’s even good at seduction. I complained last season about how Kyoko from Kore wa Zombie Desu Ka failed as a crazy bitch, but everything they did wrong with Kyoko was just right for Riko. In case it isn’t obvious, I’m a big fan of this character type.

I never thought I’d be saying this either, but the background on Aria that was revealed this episode was great too. How often do you see a character who lives alone because her mother is in prison? (Now if only mercenaries and government officials here in America had the same level of accountability here in America as they do in Aria…)

Kinji’s brief stint in Hysteria mode was awesome as well. We really need to get more of it. The thing is, if this show could have less of Aria and her super-annoying voice it would actually be really good. This episode showed that it can be great even in spite of her voice. Let’s hope it keeps going in this direction.

With Moshidora’s sobfest, continuing excellence from Ano Hana, a spike in quality from C, and now this, today set some pretty spectacular standards for a single day of releases. If they keep it up this season will be one of the best we’ve had in a long while.

(note: I’m not going to start blogging Aria, just felt like commenting on this one episode)

Ano Hi Mita Hana no Namae wo Bokutachi wa Mada Shiranai 04 — Crossdressing

Ano Hana,

Another excellent episode of Ano Hana. I appreciate series that mange to intersperse serious moments with comedy, and this show is doing quite well at it. The first meeting at the clubhouse was a good example of this: as everyone is searching for Menma and there’s tension over whether they believe each other or not, Menma is also searching for herself and disappointed not to find her. The way the show handled Jinta’s seeing ghosts was excellent as well: usually in this situation the person who sees the ghost would try to make everyone else believe it’s real, but here, Jinta is much more reasonable and instead doubts whether Menma exists himself.

Both Tsurumi and Matsuyuki, who had been sidelined up to this point, begin to develop and become strong characters in this episode. The best description of Tsurumi is probably Hisakawa’s “mysterious girl”, although you can tell that she is worried about Matsuyuki. She didn’t seem too concerned about Jinta seeing ghosts, but now that I think about it, that’s probably because of Matsuyuki’s hobby. The only part that she didn’t believe from his story was that Menma made the cookies, not that he saw Menma.

Crossdressers tend to be overused in anime, but Matsuyuki is one of the few portrayals (along with the characters of Hourou Musuko) that I can actually buy. The thing is that Matsuyuki isn’t a crossdresser in general, he is Menma. He has (I presume) a longing for Menma, not a desire to wear female clothes. That kind of desire is much more compelling than a desire to go to a girl’s school or the far more common lack of any reason whatsoever.