Mahou Shoujo Madoka 09

Puella Shoujo Madoka Magica,

Nooo, Kyouko!!!! She went out with a spectacular bang, so I can’t say I’m disappointed though! Now all that’s left to see is whether the creators will be able to outdo themselves in the finale, and given this episode, that may prove difficult. But now they should have plenty of time to develop Homura and Madoka, who have largely been left out so far, since they’re the only ones left.

The second half of this show, particularly the battle scene, was simply beautiful. Shinbo’s style really worked out well here, with the orchestral music in the background, the concert hall, Sayaka’s crazy-awesome new form, Kyouko’s spear skills and Madoka’s crying. Everything just really came together in that scene – the animation, music, and voices, and blended together perfectly.

Another (of many) things this show does quite well is manage to keep you sitting on the edge of your seat. I don’t think I’ve anticipated the next episode of a show so much since watching Code Geass (well, it certainly did have other flaws, and let’s pretend the second season never happened). This is how you do a tragedy – something you know will be so terrible that you can’t look away. It manages to inject hope up to the point where you can believe that things could turn out all right, such as when Kyoko and Madoka head to help Sayaka, only to dash that hope with an even darker fate than before. Yet in spite of the dark fate of magical girls, we must conclude that all is well and hope overcomes despair, as Kyouko overcomes the darkness in her own soul and reaches out to Sayaka and Madoka.

If I had to nitpick, however, I was disappointed in Kyuubey infodumping all the secrets about his nature to Madoka. I feel they could have drawn this out a bit later to the end of the series. It seems that now there are few unanswered questions, except Homura’s past. I don’t doubt that there will be more surprises as we go along, but they could have found a more interesting way to reveal everything. Plus, aliens are lame. Things that walk in the darkness on Earth are way scarier.

Kore wa Zombie Desu ka? 08

Kore wa Zombie Desu Ka,

This show’s episodes have really been hit or miss with me – about half, such as last week’s and the whale episode, were pretty funny, but the rest have been very disappointing. Unfortunately this week’s episode falls squarely in the miss category.

The main problem is that Yuki is not an interesting character. Over half of this episode involved watching her blush about becoming a “wife”. It wasn’t funny last episode and it’s even less funny now. And this episode didn’t make up for it by having her defeat monsters with ramen.

The rest of the episode, with Haruna being jealous, was certainly an improvement in terms of boredom over the earlier parts. It did seem out of character for Haruna though. Why is she suddenly admitting that she likes him now? Well, whatever.

Pretty much the only part of the episode that made me chuckle was when Ayumu was surprised to see Haruna wearing clothes, so this was definitely a low-point on the comedy front. Even Eu’s voiceover was disappointing this week. I probably would have laughed at the background images before they left the Mask Donald’s, but my brain was still waking up from the rest of that scene.

Onii-chan no Koto… 08

Onii-chan no Koto,

Hooray! It seemed to be increasingly unlikely, but we finally have an episode where Nao and Iroha do something other than stalk Shuusuke! It only took what, five episodes? With Nao able to do something other than slobber over her brother’s patheticness, the humor took a turn for the better.

Speaking of how pathetic Shuusuke is, I didn’t think it was possible, but he managed to outdo even himself at the beginning of this episode. Crying on his knees in front of a girl because of bad grades? If Nao were there she would have died from a nosebleed.

Nao and Iroha also ended their apparent truce this episode, which I still can’t figure out why they started. The dynamics of the entire show are much more interesting when they aren’t getting along. With Kondou in the mix it is even better. Her interests are becoming more and more unusual. It seems like Kondou is leaving, so Nao and Iroha will need to carry the show without her. This might end up being a good thing, as Nao is the most interesting character in my opinion and she’s been pushed to the side ever since Kondou’s appearance.

The jokes this episode were generally pretty good, but not great. None of the jokes really stood out, except for the AGE president’s cameo in Shuusuke’s dream and Kondou’s interest in men’s nipples. And the latter was more disturbing than funny.

 

Star Driver 21

Star Driver,

This episode was all about crazy lesbians, Wako’s wildly raging libido, and Head’s shriveling libido. Decent, but not one of the best episodes. The main reason is I still can’t take these lesbians seriously at all. This episode gave one of them a bit more background, but their introduction up until this point has left them where they don’t seem like a threat at all. It also didn’t help that the additional background consisted of upgrading them from aimlessly crazy lesbians to crazy lesbians who want power for the sake of wanting power. I love crazy characters as much as the next person (and lesbians get bonus points) but couldn’t they at least come up with a decent reason why they’re crazy? For crazy characters to be believable, their actions have to make sense within the confines of their own mind. Star Driver’s resident crazies seem to be choosing actions uniformly at random (it did improve a bit in this episode, but I’m still confused from the previous ones). Fortunately it seems like they’re leaving soon.

We’re in the uncanny valley now.

Also Wako finally begins to unleash her libido and utterly destroy everyone. Why is the Hiraboshi worried about Takuto when Wako could destroy them so easily? Takuto’s libido is nothing compared to hers. I thought for sure that she would kill the driver without any worries, especially after the knife scene earlier, but it was only a downgrade to v. 3.0. This is why upgrades need to be thoroughly tested before deployment.

I’ve been wondering for a while, who is the drama club president (Sarina Endou) and what does she have to do with everything? She knows about the Maidens and zero time, but I haven’t actually noticed her showing up during the fights. Maybe she is somehow central to the mystery – perhaps serving to maintain a final seal on zero time, or part of the thing which is being sealed. Since she is pretty much the only character being overlooked to this extent, it seems like there must be a reason and that she will get her turn in the spotlight…

 

Fractale 06

Fractale,

This was certainly an improvement from the loincloth antics in the last episode… but still… what is the point of all these Clain is a pervert jokes? It wasn’t that funny the first time, it still isn’t funny the fiftieth time. Please come up with something else that’s supposed to be funny. More Nessa would be acceptable.

In this episode the world acquired a lot more depth and variety, as we meet another person like Clain who has a house and likes tinkering. We also saw some of the aftereffects of the Fractale system’s failures as refugees fled the area which lost its’ connection. It seems odd though that the temple wouldn’t have predicted this or reacted after the fact to move these people to a new area. It isn’t like the world is suffering from overpopulation… And everyone seems to have a mobile lifestyle anyway. Can’t they just drive their mobile homes somewhere else?

I was also wondering up to this episode why anyone had actually heard or cared about Lost Millennium since they seemed rather… incompetent. But it turns out there are other branches which are much more ruthless. This was definitely a nice touch and it seems like we’ll be seeing more of them.