Well, that was a random offer of sex. Anyway, more episodes that don’t deserve their own post.
New Saga Ep. 11
So we have two demons, a male and a female. They are named Garnias and Yuliga respectively. One’s not so cute, but the other is. Can you guess which one gets to survive by the end of the episode? If you guessed Yuliga, you’d be right. Not such a hard question though, is it? Who would ever want to hurt an anime waifu? Even when Theron goes to kill her, he ends up saving her from her would-be assassin instead.
We also learn that the current demon king does not desire war. Rather, the one that Kyle fought in the past, i.e. another future, was actually a black-winged, hornless usurper. Can you also guess the gender of the anti-war demon king? If you guessed female, you’d be right again! Another hot, potentially redeemable anime waifu to recruit? Well, naturally.
Anyway, the girls have honor and the guys don’t. Kyle was losing his half of the duel until he literally glued his foe to the spot. I suppose it’s not very heroic, but he hasn’t been heroic for a few episodes now. Plus, don’t we always grumble when status effects fail to work on bosses in our JRPGs? Finally, one of them works… in a super mid anime, but what can you do? Still, Kyle essentially tortures Garnias to death by kicking the latter into the surrounding lava. It will supposedly take the demon days to die, and he’ll suffer painfully the entire time. That’s a bit much for me.
Last but not least, Theron has no shame. How can you honestly accept an offer to sleep with someone you were more than happy to kill just minutes ago?
Onmyo Kaiten Re:Birth Verse Ep. 9
Weird developments, man, just weird developments all around. Apparently, Tsukimiya is the true villain now? Maybe she didn’t lie about her origins, i.e. being from a bleak future where mankind barely ekes out a miserable existence on the moon. And maybe she did initially want to preventing her tragic future from coming to pass. But it’s clear that Seimei isn’t the only person who’s batshit insane. Like him, Tsukimiya can share her memories with all of her copies, and she seems to have gone mad from all the overlapping feelings and emotions. It’s as if they had an exponential effect. Seimei’s cruel experiments have somehow created the ultimate hedonist, and she wants nothing more than to keep the party going. I guess this sorta makes sense? Tsukimiya essentially went from someone who knew nothing but suffering to becoming the world’s biggest (and only) idol times a hundred. But are they all crazy? Every single Tsukimiya in all 100 parallel worlds?
I just wonder if this series is still going to end up being a love story. If I were in Takeru’s shoes, all my love for Tsukimiya would have gone right out the window as soon as she hurt the fire rat. But you know how soft them anime boys can be. Maybe he’ll still try to talk some sense into her.
I dunno, man. Sure, I didn’t expect this twist, but something about it feels off to me. I think I’m going to have chew on this while I wait for the next dubbed episode to come out. We still need Seimei’s explanation about the some world convergence event, i.e. the primary motivating factor behind his experimentation. He’s always had “good” intentions. It’s just that his methods are beyond extreme. But we’ll see.
Dealing with Mikadono Sisters Is a Breeze Ep. 8
Well, the drama with Niko’s senpai continues. To start things off, he insults her. According to him, the old Niko would’ve made this decision without anyone’s help. But… she did? She said no? I feel like a broken record, but I honestly do not understand this arc. At least the fake date with Kazuki made some sense. This whole nonsense with the boarding school, however, is beyond ridiculous. Am I the only person who heard Niko right? Am I the only person who understands that you can’t just force someone to leave their home and family behind just because you want them to? Niko said no, he refused to accept her answer, and now he calls her pathetic. Huh?
But we can’t resolve this like normal people. Instead, we need to cook up a scenario in which Yuu gets to make Niko swoon. At first, he wanted to fight the senpai alone, which is ridiculous. We know he has no chance of winning even if he had a year to train. As a result, we switch things up this week: they’re going to tag team her senpai and not in a fun way! Yuu’ll go first in order to weaken their opponent, then Niko gets to finish the job. Needless to say, his plan works because it kinda has to. There was no way the series would ever ship off one of the sisters to a boarding school. But to ratchet up the drama, it has to look as though Niko’s going to lose. This way, we can have the all-too-predictable game changer: Yuu’s indispensable support from the sidelines.
With his encouragement, Niko starts to let loose and accept that she has myriad facets to her personality, i.e. she’s both strong and vulnerable. All of a sudden, her senpai can no longer predict her attacks, and she proceeds to overwhelm him in just a few moves. Uh, sure. Great. Fantastic. But seriously, this guy can’t fight if he doesn’t know his opponents’ moves ahead of time? This is your champion? Hah, whatever. At the end of the day, all of this could have been avoided if people in this universe could simply understand the definition of the word “no.” So no, I’m never gonna get over it, because I can and will refuse to do so. Funny how that works.
What about the other two sisters? Well, with Yuu busy training with Niko for a good chunk of this week’s episode, Miwa and Kazuki decides to step up and take care of dinner. I don’t know why the pink, filly aprons are necessary. More importantly, they can’t cook for shit without Yuu to guide them. Miwa and Kazuki are too ambitious, I suppose. They want to make Niko’s favorite meal, which is cute. But if you try to jump into something complicated right from the get go, then yeah, you’ll probably fail. That’s why you start with a “Hello, world” program, and not a billion dollar app that “disrupts” the industry. Well, with so many vibe coders these days, I bet most of them have skipped past “Hello, world,” but once again, I must digress. Basically, Yuu saves the day, and the girls eventually finish making dinner. Their reward is Yuu being too weak to even lift a spoon due to all his training, so Miwa has to personally feed him. Ridiculous. Then Kazuki gets jealous and wants to feed him as well. I’m feeling secondhand embarrassment from watching this scene.
The Water Magician Ep. 8
To no one’s surprise, Ryou pretty much destroys the demon prince without breaking a sweat. These isekai losers sucked in real life, so they now live in fantasy la la land where they’re always the biggest, baddest bitch around. I’m actually trying to remember the last time an isekai protagonist wasn’t madly overpowered after one or two episodes. Seriously, who actually stayed relatively weak for at least an entire season? Out of all the isekai series we’ve seen over the past decade, there has to have been a few, right? I thought I remembered one, but no, it was just a regular fantasy series with no truck-kun to ruin a fantasy world with yet another spoiled brat. Ah well.
Now, you might argue that Ryou isn’t OP because of what happens later in this episode. Y’see, Sera, his oh-so-obvious future elf girlfriend, challenges him to a duel shortly after they both feasted on curry¹. Although he impresses her mightily with his skills, he can’t beat a true master of the blade. So there you go, he’s not invincible! Well, no, he still is. He merely lost at a swordfight. If he could use his magic, Ryou’d probably destroy Sera.
We even get to see Leonore, that “akuma” from episodes ago, talk Ryou up. She defeats the so-called hero with ease — man, everyone just goes down with ease in this anime — then starts praising Ryou’s power level. What is she? A combatsexual like FFXIV‘s Zenos? Is she another future waifu candidate for Ryou as well? My biggest beef with this scene is that Leonore can’t even terrorize a group of adventurers just for the fun of it. Instead, we need to use this opportunity to fellate the main character even harder even though he has nothing to do with the hero or his party. We literally just saw how powerful Ryou was against the demon prince, but somehow, we still need Leonore to double down on his strength. Pretty silly if you ask me.
¹The curry thing bugs me to hell and back, because it is such a failure of the imagination. Kill me if I ever write a goddamn isekai novel, but if I did, I wouldn’t have my hero grabbing cheeseburgers at ye ol’ fantasy pub. And it’s not just curry. These isekai losers will also invent soy sauce, noodles, tempura, so on and so forth. Every Japanese ingredient is fair game. At least try to maintain the fantasy.
Welcome to the Outcast’s Restaurant! Ep. 11
As you might have expected, Vigo won’t go down without a fight. Dennis initially keeps up with his opponent thanks to his chef skills like, uh, summoning forth multiple giant woks, but he’s slowly loses ground to his more combat-oriented former friend. But just as he’s about to admit defeat, he finally understands his foster mother’s hint: in order to reach level 100, stop half-assing when you need to whole-ass. Amazing advice, honestly. We could all be level 100 too!
I think what hurts me most are the burned books. No matter what Dennis does to Vigo and his fellow conspirators, you can’t bring those books back. I’m projecting a bit, because every year, the number of people who actually read for enjoyment keeps dropping. Everyone’s too busy watching 30 second TikTok videos to crack open a book. And now, we have to contend with lazy, talentless idiots flooding the market with AI novels — novels that nobody wants to read anyway! So yeah, the thought of rare books being burned for good pains me a bit.
Tougen Anki Ep. 10
The show introduces a new Momotaro character just so the anime can vomit more information at us. And yes, the new character also looks like a blowup doll, but let’s get to the juicy exposition, shall we? An Oni savior always appears whenever they’re about to be wiped out, so this pointless war will never end. Y’know, maybe the Momotaro can stop being dicks about the whole thing. The Oni are clearly coexisting peacefully with humans these days, so c’mon, stop with the whole genocide thing. I know that’s a hot take in some circles these days, but it really shouldn’t be! Anyway, at some point, the story really needs to introduce a new pro-Oni, anti-genocide Momotaro, i.e. someone other than Shiki’s dead foster dad, but I doubt I’ll be watching this show long enough to meet this hypothetical individual.
As for Shiki’s fight against Momomiya, it’s the worst kind of shounen battle. There’s no fight choreography whatsoever. There’s no interesting strategizing like, “Oh, if I use this skill to exploit that weakness, I might be able to pull out an upset against a foe who has way more combat experience and strength!” No, we don’t get that. Instead, we get Shiki’s voice actor doing major damage to his vocal cords while Momomiya has him pinned down with gravity magic. Eventually, Mei, the recently orphaned girl, finds the courage to cheer Shiki on. As a result, he magically becomes stronger, summons a bigger gun, and blows Momomiya away. The end. Yep, that’s it. Just scream until you power up.
Kaiju No. 8 Ep. 21
So Kafka gets his phone back… I’m sorry, he gets his “terminal” back, but despite having over five hundred unread messages in his inbox, he is too scared to look at any of them. Reno immediately calls him, but he accidentally hangs up out of nervousness and doesn’t even bother to call his buddy back. He’s not “weady.” Finally, he reluctantly answers a call from Iharu, but it’s really just Reno calling from a different phone. So we have to sit here and listen to his friends tell him how much they truly care and worry about him. We’re supposed to find this moment all wholesome and shit. “H-h-honto, you guys don’t actually hate me?” Ugh, I hate it when anime protagonists do this sad sack shit. It’s like fishing for compliments, but it’s the author doing it for their precious fictional character. It’s even more pathetic when the character in question is an adult. My heart is not warmed. I’m just disgusted.
At least with kids, you can write it off as being young, inexperience, and stupid. But an adult? Get a grip, man. It’s your goddamn friends. People who fought with you and risked their lives for you. It’s one thing if he had actually read a bunch of negative messages, then decided to turn off his phone for the night. Sure, totally understandable. But he didn’t even give them a chance, and there are few things more pathetic than not having faith in your friends. Especially when he’s been told directly that no one — not a single soul — within the Third Division thinks of him as an enemy. And he’s still like this. “But he became a monster, so he thought they would hate him!!!” Yeah, then face it head on. Again, you’re not a kid. I have never been so disappointed in a character. This shit was billed as a shounen but with a mature hero! Sadly, it’s just a child pretending to be one.
Too scared to have lunch with his childhood friend, and also too scared to read text messages. What a joke.
Anyway, Isao’s consciousness is still floating around somewhere within No. 9. Freaky kaijus then start appearing all over the world. But as soon as I saw a bunch of boring ass men yapping in a board room, I mentally checked out in an instant. “wE foUNd CanDiDatEs for wEaPONs 3, 5, anD 7!!!!”
You give me that loser Kafka and now this boring shit? Fuck off. I rather go read a summary of the episode, because it’ll be just as exciting as watching the show itself.
Scooped Up by an S-Rank Adventurer! Ep. 11
There are a lot of shows I don’t really like, but they at least understand one crucial thing about telling a story: give your heroes a powerful, emotionally resonant motive that the audience can latch onto. Sure, I think Solo Leveling goes too far with the Chad hero shit, but we know exactly what Jin Woo is all about for the majority of the two seasons: fighting to save his mom. That’s a motive almost everyone can relate to and cheer for. If nothing else, him finally reviving her was at least somewhat emotional. I think Demon Slayer is pretty generic, but at least Tanjiro is fighting to save the one family member he has left. Saving your mom, protecting your sister — none of this is original, but they all work because we are humans with human concerns.
Meanwhile, I’m watching the ugliest chimera block our S-rank party from escaping a doomed airship, and I have no clue what our heroes are risking their lives for. No, I get it, they’re good guys, and good guys save the damsel in distress, i.e. Claire. But that’s not a motivation that resonates with the audience unless Super Mario Bros is enough to bring you to tears. Lloyd and company are just doing their job. Nothing here makes anyone want to get up and cheer. The cast doesn’t even have the chemistry or humor to carry them like, say, Konosuba. Rather, it’s a bunch of generic guys and gals doing generic adventurer shit. For once, the girls aren’t fawning over Lloyd, and for once, there are actually other guys in the same party. Unfortunately, every single person here, including Lloyd, is terribly dull. Other than Lloyd’s annoyingly low self-esteem and the one time Silica was strangely mean about Yui’s weight, nobody else has exhibited even an ounce of personality, good or bad.
If you still care about the story for some reason, our heroes get past Grist’s inhuman defense by having Lloyd pull new spells out of his ass. The party chases down the world’s slowest airship by literally hopping from one ice block to the next. And uh, a fragment of the former demon lord turns Grist and a bunch of animals into the aforementioned chimera thing. Yep. Cool beans.
Apocalypse Bringer Mynoghra: World Conquest Starts with the Civilization of Ruin Ep. 11
Isla speculates that the JRPG demon lord might actually be another isekai protagonist, but Takuto doesn’t care. It’s just the one thing that’s remotely unique about this show, i.e. there are potentially multiple isekai protagonists from different gaming genres clashing with one another. Bah, who cares! Why bother understanding why any of this is happening! Just fight, no think! And that’s pretty much what we get for roughly 23 minutes of runtime. A fraction of the demon lord’s army directly attacks Mynoghra, so we get to see Isla put her skills to the test. It’s… not very interesting to watch, so it won’t be very interesting for me to describe either. The episode heavily foreshadows Isla’s death, however, so maybe something somewhat interesting might happen next week.
First, we already know that combatants must obey the rules and conventions from every gaming genre involved. As a result, cutting the enemy general down must have triggered some kind of unavoidable JRPG trope that is bad news from Isla. Second, the bug mom simply triggered way too many death flags. “Don’t worry, elf twins! I’ll definitely come back safe and sound! My master even gave me all of the kingdom’s mana reserves for the upcoming battle. Oh no, my psychic link with my master has been severed, and the elf twins have suddenly teleported to my location! What could this possibly portend!” The story also tried way too hard and way too quickly to establish her bond with the two elf twins. Like why are you in such a hurry? Why not have the twins bond with her slowly over time? Oh. Ooooooh. Someone is supposed gonna die. Unfortunately, none of this matters to me as a member of the viewing audience. I’m not attached to a bug that only just appeared two episodes ago.
Gachiakuta Ep. 10
Sometimes an episode speaks to you, and sometimes it doesn’t. The way the narrative approached Job’s death last week spoke to me, so I was able to write a few paragraphs about it. On the other hand, we have this week’s episode, which might as well be all setup. It just has a lot of events that don’t feel particularly interesting to dissect or expound upon. Everyone gets their protective spell from the new spellcaster, Rudo gets to pick out a new toy, Rudo gets his face mask, everyone bonds via a ritual that involves blood, everyone flexes their new gear by beating up a bunch of generic scorpions in the desert. By the time the dust has settled, most of the episode is already over. What is there to say about any of it? Shrug, stuff happens. Like I said, the episode doesn’t speak to me.
Anyway, we finally meet the enigmatic “lady” who has supposedly seen individuals reach The Sphere from the surface. Since Rudo is hellbent on getting his revenge on Spherites — and this might include his childhood friend — he needs to pump the new lady for information. She seems more like a troublesome child than a lady, though — a child who may or may not have had the healthiest upbringing. In other words, she seems a little unhinged. I’m sure her backstory will be very sad and perhaps even disturbing. But despite what the ending suggests, I suspect she’s too cute to stay a villain. Hey, don’t look at me like that. Anime has rules to follow, and this is just one of them. Cute characters may not be evil! Hell, her name is literally Amo, i.e. love.
Everything else about everything else:
Actually, I got nothing. I’m still playing Super Robot Wars Y, because it’s kinda unwieldy. The game’s got huge battles with like 50-60 units participating from both sides, and these battles can really drag on higher difficulties. I’m almost tempted to lower it down to “Casual” just so I can finish the game in a timely manner. After all, I’ve long since lost interest in the story. The platinum trophy also looks like a huge grind I don’t want to do.
Oh yeah, I’m working on a passion project on the side, but it’s nowhere near completion, so there’s no point talking about it now. So yeah, it’s pretty much just work, gaming, anime, anime blogging, and project.
Finally, these entries are getting kinda long. Maybe I’ll break them up into shorter, more frequent posts for the fall season.
