Just a bunch of stuff that doesn’t deserve their own post.
New Saga Ep. 10
Unfortunately, Kyle still isn’t confident that he and his friends can win right here and now against their demonic foes. As a result, he proposes a duel in three days. Kyle wouldn’t make such a bet if he wasn’t confident, right? Gazus will make him an item that will secure the win, right? And yet, Kyle secretly tells Theron to kill the demons if he loses. A bit underhanded for a hero, but honestly, I’d probably have done the same. Why would you expect demons to keep their word?
Unfortunately, despite the duel being proposed at the start of the episode, we only get around to seeing round two of the girls versus the female demon, who still doesn’t want to fight. She’s just in it for Theron’s new magical sword. Moreover, I don’t know why this show is so insistent on keeping the genders segregated, but it is what it is. The fight choreography leaves a lot to be desired, but the overconfident female demon gets the wind knocked out of her. But that’s it for the episode. As a result, Kyle’s part of the duel will have to wait till next week.
Even if our heroes wrap things up in Karan soon, they are nowhere close to the end of their journey. Hell, it feels like it has barely even started. That’s the annoying thing about watching anime adaptations. If the source material is well-paced, you can still reach a satisfying conclusion of sorts by the end of the first season. But oftentimes, we get something like this little conflict against the two demons that doesn’t feel like much of a climax. So what can we do? Well, either learn Japanese and read the source material, or suck it up and wait for a sequel adaptation that might never arrive. To be honest, even if I could read Japanese, I’d have higher priority books to read than New Saga‘s light novels. Oh well.
By the way, since Liese fights with her fists, I wish they would’ve given her a bit of muscularity. She doesn’t need to be jacked, but c’mon, she’s basically got noodle arms.
Onmyo Kaiten Re:Birth Verse Ep. 8
I can’t believe we’re doing yet another lore dump episode. So it turns out Tsukimiya is from the future where Earth has gone to shit, and there’s massive wealth disparity. Wait, that sounds familiar…. But moving along, somehow all the future’s problems can be traced back to Seimei’s ridiculous experimentation, and that’s where we are now. I’m honestly kinda shocked that they did two back-to-back lore dumps like this. It’s such clunky storytelling.
The problem is that there are still plenty of questions that need answers. For example, how come Seimei and Tsukimiya can share their memories across parallel worlds? Where did Seimei even get the ability to create parallel worlds? Why did Takeru get pulled into this mess? Why does the fire rat have its special powers? This small list is hardly exhaustive; I’m sure there are other mysteries to solve. As such, I can’t help but imagine that we’ll get yet another massive expository episode in the near future. Hell, it’s probably already out in subbed form. I’m not quite tempted enough to veer away from the dub, though.
Speaking of the fire rat, I hate its involvement in this week’s episode. As it turns out, Takeru can transform so long as the fire rat doesn’t run out of stamina. Sure enough, the damn thing tires out at the worst moment possible, which leads to the current Tsukimiya sacrificing her life in order to protect Takeru. Then as soon as she breathes her last breath, the creature is suddenly good to go again. That was the most blatant attempt at tearjerkery in quite some time. Sure, we should be used to Tsukimiya dying by now. Her loss is often the trigger that sends Takeru to another parallel world. Nevertheless, whoever wrote this episode should be ashamed for employing such a cheap storytelling move.
Dealing with Mikadono Sisters Is a Breeze Ep. 7
This week, it’s Niko’s turn to realize how much she can’t stand to lose Yuu. In case anyone’s forgotten, she is the athletic one; even though she’s about the same height and build as Yuu, she’s the martial arts master who can beat up a purse snatcher all on her own. That’s fine and all, but like most anime waifus, she’s designed to have noodle arms and legs. Like with Liese in New Saga, god forbid we vary things up a tiny bit. Again, I’m not saying someone like Niko needs to be bulky or anything like that. Don’t start spewing hyperbole just because you disagree. I’m just saying it’s a bit immersion breaking.
So what’s Niko’s problem? Some guy from her past — they used to go to the same dojo — wants to recruit her to his academy. It’s supposed to be a fancy place that will cater to her every martial artist needs. There’s no one at Niko’s current school who can challenge her, so Niko’s senpai reckons she can only surpass her limits at his academy. Unfortunately, if Niko accepts the offer, she’ll have to leave her family behind for months and months on end, which is already a good enough reason to say no. Also, “no” is a complete sentence. Yeah, you could grace them with an explanation, but that’s a courtesy and not a requirement.
So what does anime always do when an annoying guy is persistent and won’t the waifu’s no for an answer? Naturally, the male protagonist has to step up and put his body on the line. The man has to save the day, so Yuu stupidly challenges Hayato to a sparring match. That’s right, Yuu, the kid who can barely run without losing his breath, will be fighting someone with years of experience and training. Bro probably can’t even beat up a cat (don’t beat up cats, though). Yuu obviously can’t win. Even if Niko personally trains him, there’s just no time to get him up to speed. But that’s besides the point, because Niko already said no. Who cares if her senpai doesn’t accept her answer? Who cares if the other guy is angry? Seriously, so fucking what? All I’m saying is that I would have preferred to see Niko work out this situation without Yuu playing such a large, active role. And in a way, she already has. She said no. End of discussion. If her senpai throws a tantrum, let him. Walk away and tell an adult or something. Oh wait, a helpful teacher in anime? I often forget that those don’t exist.
But seriously, there are all sorts of supportive things Yuu can do and has already done. Listen to Niko gripe? Sure. Offer advice? Sure. Continue being a gofer and cook all of her meals? Naturally. But entering a sparring match as if he needs to defend her honor with his body? C’mon, bro, be serious. But most of all, I just can’t get past the fact that Niko already said no. What else needs to be said? It’s not like the dude can compel her to leave with him. I turn down all sorts of requests every week (mostly from my product manager), and I’ve never had to fight anyone! It’s easy!
As an aside, according to Wikipedia, Niko is voiced by Aoi Koga. I’ve been slowly rewatching Love is War with a friend who hasn’t seen it, so this is wild to me. I can’t hear Kaguya in Niko at all, so nice range, I suppose. She was also in Varlet, a game I recently played. I could definitely tell Ema was her there.
The Water Magician Ep. 7
At first, it seems like the anime would continue unfurling its two plot threads separately. While Ryo is busy flirting with his future elf girlfriend in the library, Abel and the research team get teleported to a floor full of demons. There’s even a demon prince, i.e. a baby demon lord! Oh no! Well, you need not worry, because we only see a bunch of faceless grunts die. Even when the situation calls for it, the anime fails to build any sort of tension. Sure, Abel’s mages run out of mana, so he tries to fend off the demon prince all by his lonesome. But your best bud can’t die, so Ryo suddenly appears out of nowhere and starts… well, he starts being a real dick about it.
“Whoa ho, what’s up Abel! Why are you looking so weak and pathetic! Never thought you’d struggle this much, bro! What’s up with that! Heh, guess you still got room to grow!”
No, seriously, go watch the episode if you think I’m exaggerating. Ryo then starts RP walking at the demon lord. I’m sure fans of the show must have seen this as a real Chad shit move.
On a related note — and I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before — but I actually watched a few Youtube reactions to Solo Leveling just to get a sense of how others felt about the show, and people were just nutting themselves endlessly over Jin Woo smashing all his enemies without breaking a sweat towards the end of the second season. I thought the ant encounter was incredibly anticlimactic, but I’m in the minority it seems. Protagonists folding every single opponent is the storytelling meta nowadays. Well, not entirely. Traditional shounen heroes still have to train, get beaten to a pulp, train some more, etc. But every other anime protagonist — even female ones like our precious Silent Witch — cakewalks every single encounter. And the people love it.
Anyway, Ryo technically hasn’t defeated the demon prince yet before the episode ends. Ideally, I’d be chomping at the bit to find out what happens next. And it’d be easy, too. The next episode has been live for a week now. It’s just not dubbed yet. If I wanted to find out whether or not Ryo prevails, I simply have to click on it! But I already know he’s gonna win so what’s even the point?
Welcome to the Outcast’s Restaurant! Ep. 10
The first half of the episode is a brief look at Vigo’s backstory. It seems as though he has always been a nasty sociopath even as a child. He seems initially pitiable, because his father’s dead, his mother’s a deadbeat, and his brother is sickly. But once you murder a dog, you’re pretty much done. Few people on this planet will empathize with you after that. But to make a long story short, Vigo has been murdering his way to the top, and he’s aiming for the throne.
I never really like unveiling someone’s backstory like this. He’s been a recurring character since the very first episode, so they could’ve peeled back the layers of his character over time. Doing it in one big chunk feels lazy to me.
In the second half of the episode, Dennis crashes the conspirators’ dinner. Well, there are only four conspirators, so this isn’t exactly the deep state. Nevertheless, our hero’s first course of action is to feed them fried rice. He then uses something called “Dread Voice” to force everyone but Vigo into submission. As a result, the noble spills the beans on everything, and his confession ends up being broadcasted to a bunch of very important people. Dennis is in the pop-up restaurant business now.
This is only the tenth episode, and it’s hard to imagine a 1v1 duel against Vigo taking up more than a week to resolve. But hey, what do I know? Maybe it does. There are still a few lingering story elements to resolve, though. For example, what’s with the level 100 thing? How is that going to factor into taking Vigo down?
I also feel like the sickly brother has to come into play somehow. He’s still out there somewhere, and he’s only person Vigo has ever been kind to, i.e. there’s still a tiny glimmer of humanity in him. But maybe even that is too charitable for our villain. After all, he’s a dog murderer so fuck him and his humanity. I don’t even like dogs and I’m disgusted.
Another thing that caught my eye was the Tournedos Rossini. Pretty frou frou dish consisting of filet mignon, foie gras, and shaved truffles. It’s basically a bunch of decadent shit together on a plate. I don’t see foie gras very much anymore — not since California banned it over a decade ago. The last time I saw foie gras on the menu was when I had to travel to Chicago for work. Do I miss it? Eh. It’s a little funny, because French restaurants are kinda making a comeback here.
Tougen Anki Ep. 9
Shiki is supposed to fight the bad guy, but like your average shounen, Tougen Anki immediately jumps around to other people because who the hell would want to watch the protagonist in action? I totally want to suck all of the tension out of the room instead and watch a bunch of losers being losers.
For example, it turns out Juji is a major creep. His own people are in the midst of being slaughtered by the enemy faction, but he’s more concerned with getting laid. He literally asks Homare if she’s DTF in front of their professor. Again, his friends are fighting for their lives underground. This show is so unserious.
Speaking of Homare, she finally gets to be useful by using her blood golem to trigger an earthquake — something about evacuating tourists in the area. We then get to see Jin and Ikari square off against that Momotaro with breasts bigger than her own head. And by square off, I really mean mostly staring at each other until reinforcements arrive. This prompts the Momotaro to shed her jacket so we can get an even closer look at her cleavage. Again, this show is so unserious.
Eventually, the perspective does finally return to Shiki, but we’re nearly out of time by then. Remember how Captain McWussyPants got to have nearly all of last week’s episode to himself? Kinda funny when you think about it.
Y’know, they got some pretty big names for the English dub: Zeno Robinson, Allegra Clark, Erica Mendez, etc. Well, I think they’re big names, but I could be wrong. Maybe I only really recognize them because of the games I play. But if I’m right, did people actually think this show was going to be big? Wait, is this show actually popular?
Kaiju No. 8 Ep. 20
How to sum up the first chunk of the episode? Well…
“24% isn’t going to cut it!”
“But 41% will!”
“Wait, it’s down to 22%.”
“It’s back up to 44% now!”
[supsenseful music]
[loud thunk]
Yeah, enough said about that.
Aaaaaand another flashback as a chaser. Ogata’s question is silly anyway. He wonders if Hikari Shinomiya would still be alive today if he hadn’t supported her way back when. Well, to answer that question, first things first, you’d be a bad friend. And second, I have to assume she managed to save countless lives in spite of her tragically short career. Not only that, she probably inspired others (like her daughter) to strive for greatness themselves. And in turn, they will save countless lives. So why drag her memories through the dirt with your hypotheticals? Celebrate her victories instead. Again, it was a pointless bit of dalliance from an old man who should know better. No, you won’t tug at my heartstrings that way.
Elsewhere, Hoshina tries to convince Kafka to stop transforming into No. 8, because if you keep making that face, it will stay that way. But Kafka can’t fight without transforming. As a result, Hoshina will take our middle-aged hero under his wing. Smells like a training arc. I just hope it doesn’t last very long.
Lots of people love training arcs, but I think I’m traumatized by watching Goku run along Serpent Road. I think it took him 13 episodes. Well, who’s counting? Then he had to chase a monkey around at King Kai’s behest and that took a while. Look, as a kid, that was torture. I had to wake up at 7am every Saturday just to watch our stupid Saiyan hero barely make any progress. And then sometimes, they would rewind the series all the way back to the start because they ran out of dubbed episodes! Truthfully, I made it as far as the end of the Frieza saga. By then, I was done. I wouldn’t watch another Dragon Ball anything until Jiren showed up. And even then, I barely watched Super. You don’t know how glad I am that Okarun’s training “arc” in Dandadan was confined to one short and sweet musically-inclined episode.
Scooped Up by an S-Rank Adventurer! Ep. 10
Grist, one of the four demon generals who kidnapped Claire the first time, looks like one of those bumbling villains who can’t do anything right. But somehow, no one can put a dent in him, which is kind of surprising. But then you realize it’s the tenth episode, so we gotta pretend that our heroes are helpless despite spending the last two episodes getting stronger. Well, maybe if Claire’s childhood friend wasn’t such an arrogant jackass, he could’ve worked together with the S-rank party. But he’s a loser who looks down on everyone, so he tries to fight the demon general alone. As a result, Claire gets the Princess Peach treatment yet again.
Other than that, nothing particularly interesting happens this week. According to Merlin, Lloyd might be the chosen one, which is exactly why I said nothing particularly interesting happens this week.
Apocalypse Bringer Mynoghra: World Conquest Starts with the Civilization of Ruin Ep. 10
Most of this week’s episode involves Atou defending Dragontan from a horde of enemies all by her lonesome. So instead of the MC being overpowered, his love interest is overpowered. But like I’ve said before, she might as well be the protagonist.
Is there anything to say about the horde of monsters? Meh. Apparently, game genres are colliding. Why? Beats me. But what we do know is that the monsters are from a legally distinct Dragon Quest game. As a result, we get to see JRPG game mechanics face off against 4x strategy game mechanics. Does this make the story interesting? Not really. It’s just characters explaining said game mechanics to you as they come up. We’re not using these elements to facilitate deep characters with conflicting desires, intriguing plot developments such as political machinations, or even fascinating world-building full of mystery and wonder. It’s simply Takuto informing Atou that they couldn’t anticipate the invading horde because JRPGs have random encounters. Ho ho ho, so clever. So referential. As someone who plays both JRPGs and 4x strategy games, I can’t wait to clap like a trained seal when another reference crops up!
Elsewhere, we see the saint murder a witch for the umpteenth time. I forget if the witch is supposed to be another player who has also been isekai’d to this world. Is this why she keeps respawning over and over? What does this subplot have to do with Mynoghra anyway? Shrug. We don’t get to know that yet. So for now, it’s just two characters we barely know anything about fighting each other. Riveting stuff.
Man, I could go for some takoyaki.
Gachiakuta Ep. 9
Before hitting up No Man’s Land, the group needs to pay a visit to Job, a famous graffiti artist in the town of Canvas. When he paints with his instrument, he can imbue his art with magical powers. For instance, gatekeeping jackasses. Unfortunately, the guy succumbed to pollution because… he wouldn’t wear a mask? On the other hand, it’s a heavy handed way to show how the rich and powerful — and this includes all of us in industrialized nations — are blind to the damage we’re doing to our planet.
But also, the story wants to convey the idea that you gotta let passionate people burn as brightly and as freely as they want. If this means their candle goes out sooner rather than later, then so be it. We shouldn’t put any limitations on their brilliance. This is why Canvas Town is just plastered from top to bottom in graffiti. It’s a free-for-all for artistic expression. I just wish the story had come up with a better reason for Job’s passing than “Yeah, he kinda Darwin’d himself. Look, It’s just hard to swallow the idea that a mask would’ve stifled Job’s genius.
Anyway, after a bunch of sad talk and the shedding of many tears, Job’s successor has had enough, so she storms off to light a bunch of fireworks with her newly inherited instrument. This reminds me how some cultures approach death in a much more jovial fashion. Instead of mourning extensively and getting tricked into buying exorbitantly priced coffins that we’re just gonna bury in the ground, some people prefer to sing and dance the night away. Funerals are often used to celebrate the deceased’s life and what they’ve accomplished, so why do we have to be so dour about it?
By the way, why is Riyo so concerned with Rudo anyway?
Some random gaming thoughts:
I recently bought and beat Varlet. It’s an Aquaria developed JRPG that desperately wants to be Persona without understanding why or how Persona works. For example, instead of characters undergoing personal breakthroughs in order to awaken to their powers, your party members in Varlet will just casually say something like, “I also want to revolutionize!” Then bam, transformation. There’s a lot more that I can bitch about, but I’m mostly just disappointed. These devs have been around for a while. They should know better. For what it’s worth, the graphics are decent for a low budget JRPG.
Currently, I’m in the middle of playing Super Robot Wars Y. The SRW series has always been sold to me as the biggest JRPG series to never make its way to the West until now. As a result, I feel like I have to give the game a fair shake. Well, I’ve put about 20 hours into the game. It’s actually more visual novel than JRPG. You get to read oodles of text, followed by robot combat in a grid-based system. Tactics Ogre is probably my favorite game of all time, and I just platinum’d Triangle Strategy, so gameplay-wise, I feel right at home with SRW Y. Unfortunately, the story is predictably a hot mess. You can’t really pull in characters from 10+ mecha series and somehow tell an interesting and coherent story. Honestly, I’ve kinda given up on the plot. I’m still reading it, but I’m letting the various events and details wash over me. I’m not intently reading every single line of dialogue. I simply look at the game now as a form of preservation, i.e. look at all these mechas from the past! Oooooooh~
Other than that, I’m playing Silksong in small chunks. SRW Y came out first, so I feel like beating it first. The single player version of Atelier Resleriana is coming out soon, so I have that on the docket. I’m saving Silent Hill f for the latter half of October. And oh yeah, as long as it’s reasonable to do so (i.e. less than 100 hours of playtime), I’m hoping to get the platinum trophy for the Final Fantasy Tactics remaster as well.
Wow, you’re back! ^w^