There’s no Dragon Ball Super this week, but that’s okay. After all, Overlord II has finally joined the party.
Dagashi Kashi S2 Ep. 7
This looks painful for both Coconuts and the new character — physically painful for him and mentally painful for her. Anyways, Hajime is a 20-year-old university dropout. She supposedly went to a prestigious school, so she’s not a complete idiot, but uh… she can’t even get to work on time. On the one hand, I totally understand her inability to fit in. Frankly, workplace cultures are stupid. On the other hand, showing up on time is like the most basic of the basic. Whatever. Hajime is not only looking for a minimum wage job, she wants to give Coconuts to offer her a place to stay. All that just to run a dagashi shop? Are you kidding me? But this is anime land, so the girl gets what she wants.
And yes, Hotaru continues to be MIA. The next episode preview doesn’t even hint at her existence either. Lame.
Hakata Tonkotsu Ramens Ep. 7
Yep, even the butler is a hitman. Anyways, another arc, another convoluted setup. Oh, the story is perfectly understandable if you watch the episode. It’s just a hassle to summarize without using too many words. Basically, an anti-hacker group is after Enokida, who happens to be the son of an influential politician. He was a bit of a problem child, however, so his own father ordered a hit on him. Nice. As a result, Enokida is technically dead… in the system, anyways. Also, Saito is one unlucky dude. Another hacker used his computer to send out all sorts of death threats. They even planted child porn on the guy’s computer. He’s not the main focus here, though. Finally, the bad guys have some sort of underground fight club where they go after homeless people and vagrants, so that’s another fun thing for Banba and crew to take down. The preview for next week’s episode shows what looks like Enokida taking heavy punishment from one of the bad guys, but knowing this anime, there’s probably a twist to the scene.
Ito Junji Collection Ep. 8
Don’t you think it’s silly how much emphasis people put on continuing the family bloodline? Well, I think it’s silly, but I’m biased; I don’t plan to have any kids despite being an only child. Sayonara, family bloodline. I hardly knew ye. Anyways, the first short story is pretty much taking that anxiety and amplifying it beyond comprehension. Shuuichi’s ancestors want him to rape a girl just to continue their family tradition of… whatever you see in that screenshot above. Basically, his ancestors can continue existing by stacking their skulls, but this puts a strain on the actual living person at the very end of it. Shuuichi will do whatever it takes to continue this twisted tradition, however, because he thinks his ancestors’ memories are invaluable. The girl tries to escape, but she eventually succumbs to shock. Sadly, the story ends with her falling to the ground. We don’t need to know what happens next.
As for the second short story, it’s a silly tale about a twisted circus that lures dumb men to their deaths. The evil ringmaster offers Lelia’s hand in marriage to any man can successfully perform one of the circus acts. Naturally, these acts are magically rigged to… dun dun dun, kill you! As a result, dumbasses die left and right, but it’s okay! The audience is full of eligible bachelors just chomping at the bit to take their chance. Why? I guess Lelia is just that beautiful. Or magic. Probably magic. The answer is always magic. Anyway, the adaptation is missing one small scene where the main character’s sister runs home to tell their mom that her brother has gone missing, but this doesn’t really affect the story all that much.
Karakai Jouzu no Takagi-san Ep. 7
Ah, this show would be so much better if every other male protagonist in animedom wasn’t also incredibly dense. But since this is an all-too-common trope, Nishikata sadly becomes another dime a dozen character. His obliviousness is therefore no longer cute; it’s just tired and overdone. Week after week, he continues to miss all the signs coming his way. Takagi isn’t even throwing him breaking balls. She’s grooving every pitch right down the middle, and he’s whiffing on every single one. The show’s Wikipedia entry says, “Nishikata, in some ways, loves Takagi but is oblivious to that fact,” but I don’t even know how that’s possible. How can you love someone and not realize it?
Overlord II Ep. 7
Some obviously evil assholes show up looking for Tuare, but Sebas insists on protecting the girl. This ticks Solution off, so she finally rings Ainz up on his cellphone (not really) and claims that the head butler has gone rogue. But he hasn’t. So next week, Ainz is just going to show up, test Sebas’s loyalty a little bit, then eventually decide to take Tuare in. After all, Ainz is a softie. Assuming nothing bad happens to Tuare, that is.
In any case, I decided to relegate Overlord II to the weekly “Everything Else” posts, because as I was watching the episode, I found that I couldn’t even muster up at least 500 words about this week’s events. I just don’t care about any of the human characters.
Ramen Daisuki Koizumi-san Ep. 8
Are we eating ramen on the beach? I hope not.
First, we get some tips on how to make instant ramen. I didn’t know this was necessary. Aren’t those things designed to be idiot-proof?
Beauty Women’s Ramen? Is that supposed to be better for my skin or something? Anyways, enough with the infodumping. Let’s eat some ramen.
That’s a lot of egg for one bowl. I’m not huge on the kelp flavor, either.
I’m not fond of seafood ramen, but who doesn’t like tuna? I think I’d order this if it was ever available here.
That’s a lot of nori for one bowl. I think I mentioned before that I don’t particularly like nori.
Later, we follow four guys as they enjoy “Iekei” style ramen. The show kinda does a poor job of explaining what that is. The best I can tell is that the broth is a mix of tonkotsu and chicken.
I will admit that this bowl of rice does look good (minus the nori). On the other hand, if anyone thinks adding rice to the leftover broth will make it taste like Italian risotto… sorry, but you haven’t had good risotto. I don’t think I could ever get rice with my ramen in San Francisco, though. The ramen bars never have rice on the menu, because they pride themselves on serving strictly ramen. As a result, I’d have to go to a restaurant that serves Japanese food in general, but the problem is that those places never make good ramen. Ah well.
As for me, I finally got around to visiting Nojo Ramen. Like Mensho Tokyo, these guys also specialize in tori paitan, which is a creamy, chicken-based broth. Basically, I wanted to compare the two places, so I got Nojo’s standard chicken paitan bowl:
There’s an option that comes with shoyu and an entire chicken leg, but I felt that was a little too busy for the comparison I wanted to do. Anyways, whereas Mensho Tokyo’s tori paitan was thick, frothy, and full of umami flavor — I likened it to cream of mushroom soup — Nojo’s take is considerably lighter. Right from the very sip of the broth, I got a heavy dose of ginger and yuzu. Once I dug into the rest of the bowl, I was inundated with an herbaceous earthiness that married well with the creaminess. You can always win me over with green onions (or anything from the allium family). I still think Mensho Tokyo’s heavy broth was the best thing I’ve ever tasted ramen-wise, but Nojo didn’t disappointed.
Here’s a closer shot of the noodles, which were thicker than average. The tsukune meatballs were advertised as the fluffiest meatballs you’ll ever find in San Francisco, and they weren’t lying. Those things were like clouds of ground chicken meat. Sounds weird, but they were pretty remarkable. Sadly, you only get three with every bowl. The bowl is missing the soft-boiled egg, but I don’t think it would’ve made sense flavor-wise. In the end, I think Nojo is now my second favorite ramen bar in the city. Oh yeah, I also had chicken gyoza and a tall glass of iced green tea to cut through the fattiness of everything I ate that night.
Next week, I’ll just talk about my visit to the Hawaiian fusion restaurant, since I’m feeling too lazy to find yet another decent ramen bar in SF.
Takunomi Ep. 7
Michiru finds out that Makoto works part-time as a barista. The latter ends up having a bad day, so our heroine tries to cheer her up by fixing some coffee-themed cocktails. You got coffee rum iced tea, coffee rum coke, coffee rum everything. I can’t say I’ve ever had coffee rum. I tried Baileys once and didn’t enjoy it all that much. Personally, the idea of a drinkable dessert doesn’t sound palatable. I do have a sweet tooth (more like an eat everything tooth), but not in liquid form. I tend to find them cloying.
Toji no Miko Ep. 8
So Hiyori’s mom had some ridiculous ability where she can approach the speed of light. Of course, we’re all physics experts, so we know that as you get closer to the speed of light, time slows down. The anime goes in further to suggest that when you hit the speed of light, you will be eternally stuck forever… something like that. That doesn’t sound very useful, but if you’re ever stuck fighting a hopelessly powerful foe, you can trap them with you! Basically, you’re sacrificing yourself for the greater good, but wait… what does this have to do with the netherworld? Oh well. Obviously, this plan didn’t work, so the evil aradama ended up possessing Yukari.
Even back then, however, the team referred to her as Yukari-sama, so I still don’t understand why she’s so revered. They respected her so much, nobody protested when Hiyori and Kanami’s moms were written out of history. What happened to their sense of justice and righteousness? I guess nakama is just a hollow term nowadays. Also, the girl that Kanami has been speaking to in her dreams is actually her mother… but a younger version of her. Odd, but whatever. Finally, that vial that Erin stole is probably going to lead the villain straight to her sister. Whoopsie. In any case, at least we got some meaningful plot developments this week even if it was clumsily told.
Moe Sucks 
