Same.
Cells At Work! Ep. 8
In this week’s episode, Red Blood Cell is determined to circulate without getting lost, so we get to see her go through all sorts of silly obstacles. It’s nice to take a break from all the shounen-esque battles against killer pathogens. What Red Blood Cell doesn’t know, however, is that White Blood Cell is following her every step of the way to make sure that her journey is successful. Then at the end of the episode, we get a cute, little moment where she recounts her adventures to him.
This is what I initially wanted from Cells At Work! Fighting bad guys is fun, but it doesn’t need to happen every week. I read some fan theory about how Red Blood Cell is actually a sickle cell, and this is why she gets lost all the time. I don’t enough about that to comment, but it seems like a fun theory to think about.
Chio’s School Road Ep. 8
Eh, it was a decent episode overall. I didn’t care for the part with Momo, though. The tone suddenly got way too serious.
Grand Blue Ep. 7
Iori gets beaten up because the guys think he’s living with and/or dating Chisa. Kinda dumb. I know it’s supposed to be a joke, but I don’t really see the punchline. Haha, we have crab mentality?
Holmes of Kyoto Ep. 8
Near the end of the episode, Holmes gets a second chance to say something to Aoi only to be interrupted again. Do we really think he was going to confess to her, though? I mean, if it’s really that important, then why wait? Hell, it’s Christmas! This is the perfect time to confess! Just shoo Rikyu away and get the job done. It’s not like Holmes is lacking of confidence. It’s not like Holmes is one of those sniveling, weak-willed anime protagonists. Nevertheless, yet another episode of Holmes of Kyoto ends without much fanfare. The girl even tells us, “That night on Christmas Eve, I wonder what Holmes-san was going to say. I couldn’t find it in me to ask because I’d decided I’d draw a line.” Oh ho ho, is our heroine not as smitten with the guy as she lets on? Or has she been too recently hurt by her past relationship that she would rather put a temporary hold on all things romance for now? I get it. She’s a little gunshy. Nobody wants to put themselves out there just to be disappointed, especially after they just got cheated on. Well, if a confession is gonna happen, it’s gonna happen in the last episode anyways. Then again, the show is based off of a series of light novels, so I really have to wonder if we’ll even see a confession.
Anyways, some miscellaneous observations:
— When Aoi hears about a hunk cafe — a place where hot guys serve you coffee — she’s actually a fan of the idea. Amusing.
— Speaking of amusing, here’s a funny line: “Um, please excuse my mother’s aggressive politeness earlier.”
— Look at all these ladies lining up just to order coffee from a “hunk.” I know they’re thirsty, but coffee isn’t exactly going to quench it.
— Aoi freaking out in front of said ladies is pretty cute.
— The story involving Izumi and her fiance just shows that lies — even if you tell them with good intentions — can still hurt. I know that all too well.
Island Ep. 9
Setsuna ends up in a dystopian future in which 99.99% of the world has supposedly frozen over. There is only one inhabitable patch of land on the entire planet and — you guessed it! — it’s on our favorite island. Why have things turned out this way? We don’t know yet. Still, you’ll be glad to know that the three main girls have also reincarnated into this bleak timeline. Rinne is now a scientist/engineer of some sort, and she’s just as lolitastic as ever. We learn that she’s been working on a familiar-looking device. Maybe this one will send Setsuna back into the past. Sara, on the other hand, is a representative of a religion that pretty much controls the island’s entire operation. Sara is still nice, but her people definitely are not. Also, she’s all grown up and stuff. Yep. Last but not least, Karen is still a child. More importantly, she’s an “untagged” child. The Church keeps track of who’s allowed to procreate and who isn’t. Karen and her ilk are children that were never allowed to exist. Anyways, a bunch of pointless nonsense happens that I don’t care about because this depressing future is going to be rewritten anyways. All that’s important is that by the end of the episode, Setsuna finally remembers why he’s even here. Please don’t tell me that saving Rinne in the past will somehow avert an apocalyptic event in the future. Please don’t.
The episode kinda sucks, because even though the show is presenting us with a depressing subject, there are still stupid harem-y moments galore. Hell, there was less groping back when the world hadn’t gone to complete shit. I don’t mind a story switching between dead seriousness and silly humor. There’s a reason why the Yakuza games make up one of my favorite series ever. But you can bet your ass that Kiryu has never accidentally groped some poor girl’s chest in the middle of a serious cutscene.
Overlord III Ep. 8
Ainz agreed to show Arche some “mercy” by allowing Shalltear to kill the poor girl “painlessly.” Even if she died so fast that she couldn’t feel any physical pain, fear was driven into her heart. More importantly, she felt the emotional anguish of not only leaving her party behind, but also disappointing her younger sisters. Yes, she’ll never return to save those two from their spendthrift parents. The fools will spend themselves into ruin, and Arche’s two sisters will probably end up being sold into slavery or something. As for the other members of Foresight, they’ll probably be tortured for the rest of their lives. Yeah, Ainz is a right bastard in this week’s episode. This is the first time that he truly seemed inhuman. Sure, Foresight was a bunch of filthy thieves, but the punishment doesn’t fit the crime. Also, all of these soldiers lost their lives for no other reason than to intimidate their ruler. On the one hand, this makes Ainz a far more compelling character to follow. He’s finally living up to that overlord moniker! He’s not just some wannabe dictator who is actually a decent person underneath. But on the other hand, now I hope someone does him and the rest of his sycophants in one of these days. I can’t root for evil bastards, so I can only hope that he gets too arrogant and loses everything as a result of his hubris. It’ll probably never happen, though. Even if we do ever see a definitive conclusion to his story, it won’t be for a long, long time. The author of the light novels is gonna milk this story for all its worth.
We Rent Tsukumogami Ep. 6
The young master accidentally loses a valuable item in the river, and when someone else picks it up, he enlists Seiji’s help in buying it back. Unfortunately, the other guy is a jerk, so he reneges on the original agreement of 30 ryo (10 ryo is apparently equivalent to a million yen in the present). He thus demands 50 ryo instead. In any case (no pun intended), the tsukumogami finds its way back into the right hands by simply biting the jerk’s nipple. If he had just stuck to his word, he’d be 30 ryo richer by now. Instead, he gets nothing. Whoops. Remember, kids, greed doesn’t pay–… well, no, that’s not true. We shouldn’t delude ourselves. There are tons of people who get away with being greedy. That’s why we have to make up these stories to cheer ourselves up.
We also learned this week that Seiji had helped Oko even though this meant possibly losing her to another guy. In order to prove herself worthy of marrying Sataro, Oko had to turn a simple comb worth about 10 ryo at most into 80 ryo. After much pleading, she finally convinced her brother to lend a hand. He took the comb and traded it for a 15 ryo netsuke. By continually trading up, he should in theory be able to hit the 80 ryo mark. I’m not sure if he ever got there, but considering how Oko’s still unmarried, something obviously didn’t turn out correctly. Either they fell short or someone (e.g. Sataro’s mother) didn’t hold up their end of the bargain. It’s also possible that Oko may have backed out, because she never agreed to marrying Sataro in the first place. He was the one pursuing her, not the other way around. She only agreed to the whole comb nonsense, because Okono, Sataro’s fiancee, insulted her.
Anyways, I still don’t know if I wanna root for Seiji. He’s just not very appealing as a protagonist. I’ve always maintained that if he likes Oko that much, he should confess. He’s kinda wimpy, though.
Yamishibai 6 Ep. 8
So… the sacrifices are still happening?
Quick & Dirty Weekly Rankings (That You Should Totally Take Seriously)
- High Score Girl
- Asobi Asobase
- Persona 5 the Animation
- Holmes of Kyoto
- Chio’s School Road
- Hanebado!
- How Not to Summon a Demon Lord
- Yuuna and the Haunted Hot Springs
- Grand Blue
- We Rent Tsukumogami
- Cells At Work!
- Banana Fish
- Planet With
- Shichisei no Subaru
- Island
- Kakuriyo no Yadomeshi
- My Hero Academia
- Harukana Receive
- Yamishibai
- The Master of Ragnarok & Blesser of Einherjar
- Phantom of the Twilight
- Once again, Sirius the Jaeger‘s latest episode hasn’t been subbed, so I can’t rank it. If I have to go off of the sixth episode, then I’d probably rank it second right beneath High Score Girl.
- Steins;Gate 0‘s latest episode has been delayed a week.
- I skipped both Dude of Red and Happy Sugar Life this week just because I didn’t feel like watching them. Maybe next week. At the end of the day, I’m still watching a ton of shows.
- That TV-only episode of My Hero Academia was pretty bad.
Moe Sucks 
Kind of feeling glad that I dropped island at this point.
As expected, the studio toned down the Arche stuff in the anime. If they have to tone down that, how the f*ck are they going to adapt the rest of that trashy light novel series? And sorry to burst your bubble, Sean. I don’t think Ainz is going to get any comeuppance. The last time I check that shit, he or rather his sycophants have outright committed a racial cleansing and the author still attempt to portray him as some sort of likable goof by using “It isn’t his fault, but his sycophants’ fault” defense as usual.
Oh I’m not gonna be shocked or anything if Ainz and his band of idiots get a happy ending. I just hope they don’t.
I still see Ainz as the “more favorable evil” of Overlord. After seeing characters like Danzo (Naruto) or Light Yagami (Death Note), we should be thankful that we are not given a main character that completely Lacks any sense of compassion or other positive traits, which would be horrible. Currently, Ainz is probably more closer to Lelouch (code geass) due to how even someone like Lelouch can make mistakes, killing or controlling people who have families, yet still retains plenty of redeemable features. In comparison to the corrupted nobles, who enjoy exploiting or killing commoners for whatever worthless desire, Ainz is a more “productive evil” as there is a method to his madness where he brings results that can benefit the world. Anyway, while Ainz did neglect to ask why they needed money, where money can be used for a lot of positive things like feeding orphans, typically those who desire money are just greedy low-lives.
Greedy low lives or not, I wouldn’t torture them for the rest of their lives.
Yep, this would be where Ainz starts going full sociopath, then.
What do you do when a dictator commits genocide and tortures his enemies eternally without so much as batting an eye, whilst simultaneously ending world hunger and curing all disease?
Overthrow him. I’m not a utilitarian. I don’t care for complex ethical calculus.
It’s not mentioned here (possibly censored for TV, or maybe they just didn’t have enough screentime) but Arche’s little sisters do end up being sold into slavery and eventually killed in the LN’s. It’s easy to pin the blame for that on Ainz since he killed their caretaker, but ultimately it’s only one of many such cases; just another day in Goldenboi’s Slave Empire… which is, for reference, described as being far better off than the Yandere Kingdom, which is effectively ruled by underground criminal cartels and puppet aristocrats while the poor die off to famine in droves.
So I don’t think there’s really a correct or incorrect answer. The genocidal sociopath should be overthrown on principal, but the aftermath of doing so would allow for even more suffering than his crimes did… well, I guess this is kind of a moot point thus far since Ainz doesn’t have all that many non-Nazarik subjects as of yet… and has been spending his time orchestrating pointless attacks(?) on the one village that he does control…? For… reasons?
Yeah, I kind of spaced out on the GobTown arc, and now I more-or-less just pretend it never happened.
Overthrow them all. Look, I’m not exactly here for serious debate on how best to govern this made-up fantasy world. I merely said that I hope Ainz one day meets his end. If people want to leap to the guy’s defense because everyone else sucks, so be it, but considering how my original point is that he’s a bastard, so what? A bastard is a bastard is a bastard. So he gets slightly better results than most. Still evil.
I didn’t mean to defend Ainz’ actions, and I’m not really taking this seriously either. Tone is hard to convey over text (#KappaFor27thLetter). I just think it’s an interesting premise, and I’m glad the “overlord of an evil organization out to conquer the world” show is finally starting to touch on themes of morality, lol
These premises are only interesting insofar as people are afraid to endure any suffering to get the job done right. So they hem and haw, accepting one evil bastard because he gets the trains to run on time unlike the other evil bastard.
DRAIN THE SWAMP, DRAIN THE SWAMP, DRAIN THE SWAMP
There are also the cases of irl historical revolutions, where people do put in the work to bring about ‘change’, but the end result is often worse than what they started with. People rise up and manage to overthrow oppressive regimes all the time, but the power voids left behind are quickly jumped on by all the most ruthless, ambitious dictator wannabes. Working towards generic ‘change’ isn’t enough; gotta have the specific changes you want in mind and be prepared for the endgame as well.
This is all way beyond anything explicitly touched on in this show so far ofc, but they’re the kinds of themes I hope it gets into; underlying questions and problems involved in the concept of conquest. A dangerous sociopath’s struggle with the gradual erosion of their moral compass. There’s a lot of potential with the premise imo, I just wish it would grow out of it’s power-fantasy shell and start taking advantage of it. I’m actually starting to think that the main reason I enjoy Overlord isn’t because of any questions the story is specifically asking, but because of questions that I ask myself while reading/watching it.
Okay? Nobody disagrees with that. I keep saying Ainz is bad and should meet his end, and you return with “Yeah, but…” Revolutions sometimes suck. That’s a separate problem. Ainz and his kind suck. That’s the current problem. It’s okay to address both.
Tangents have been embarked upon. All I’m tryin’ to say is that I’d like to see the story take advantage of its premise to address some deeper questions & themes (or at least make me, as a viewer, consider them). I feel like this episode was a step in that direction.
I imagine an ending where his sycophants discover that he was human and they kill him and it ends like this. That’s all folks!