Let’s do these two together to save some time. I have other hobbies I want to get to, so I can’t be watching and writing about anime all day long.
Shabake
I wasn’t quite sure what to make of this show at first. It felt like it was going to be a lowkey slice-of-life anime about a sickly, soft-spoken boy who can see and interact with supernatural beings. For example, one of his attendants is an inugami. I’m no expert on familiars and spirits. Most of my very cursory knowledge about them comes from video games, so when I hear the word “inugami,” I picture that noodle-looking dog thing from the Shin Megami Tensei series. My friend and I like to call them unagi dags as a joke, so yeah, I’m an idiot when it comes to this stuff. But I digress.
Ichitaro is coddled by everyone around him to the point that it’s frustrating even to watch. Sure, he gets sick easily, but they pretty much won’t allow him to do anything. Well, that’s no kind of life to live. As a result, he rebels from time to time by sneaking out of the estate on his own. Tonight, he plans to see someone — a him, to be specific — but this person’s exact identity isn’t exactly clear to me. A friend? A lover? I might have missed a detail or two, so pardon me if the show actually told me who Ichitaro was trying to meet up with. Either way, his plans don’t pan out, so he slinks home defeatedly. Pretty chill anime so far, right? I figure we’d just watch him learn how to run the family business, gain a little independence, maybe come into his own as a full fledged adult in the future, so on and so forth.
All of a sudden, the last third of the episode takes a wild swerve into murder mystery territory. On his way home, our protagonist stumbles across a murderer. He barely escapes with his life only to then discover the victim’s body by the riverbank. So can I assume that our sickly boy will be solving mysteries with his supernatural sidekicks going forward? Well, I do like mysteries. On the other hand, I’m not a huge fan historical fiction in general. And despite being a weeb, the Edo period (or anything that precedes it) doesn’t interest me one bit. It doesn’t help either that some of the spirits and familiars in this show look kind of derpy, which clashes with the whole “Help, I’m being chased by a crazed maniac” tone in the last third of the episode. I feel like I can’t take this show as seriously as I should. Honestly, I think I could have done without the spirits and familiars. Just a straightforward murder mystery would have piqued my interest a lot more. Basically, I don’t think I’ll do a weekly post on this show. If the second episode is decent, it might go into the “Everything else” pile, but that’s about it.
My Gift Lvl 9999 Unlimited Gacha
In this universe, there are nine races, and humans are sadly at the bottom of the totem pole. Hell, they’re so oppressed that they’re barely literate. Nevertheless, our boy hero sets out on his own to be an adventurer even though he is only twelve. His name is Light, and he hopes to one day improve humanity’s standing. This way, he can secure a happy life for his dear family. Twelve, though? Couldn’t you wait a few more years? Naturally, Light is unique, because he has a special gift known as “Unlimited Gacha.” With it, he can spawn an unlimited number of items.
But like most gacha, all Light ever gets is a bunch of useless junk. Sorry, man, you’re going to have to spend hundreds of dollars if you even want a chance to pull anything decent. Sure, you can be a F2P shitter who only pulls selectively, but even then, you’ll probably lose the 50/50. But it’s okay, because you can totally cope by claiming that you’re simply building pity for the next banner, which is the one you totally want! What’s that, you say? I sound bitter? Never! Needless to say, Light’s gift doesn’t get him very far. He finds only menial work as an adventurer, and any meager pay he gets is quickly stolen by the superior races.
All of a sudden, Light gets a stroke of good luck when Concord of Tribes, a high level party comprised of the other eight races, takes him in. Not only that, they claim to be fighting against human discrimination as their mission statement. Wow, how convenient! That’s also what he wants to do! But we all know this is a ruse. When something seems too good to be true, it often is too good to be true. In actuality, the other eight races believe that the “Unlimited Gacha” gift might herald the coming of the “Maestro,” so the party is only here to keep a watch on Light. The hot elf lady even pretends to crush on him. Sheesh, do we really need an elaborate dog and pony show just to observe a kid?
Anyway, the party eventually comes to the obviously erroneous conclusion that Light’s gift is useless, so they decide to dispose of him. For some reason, this needs to take place within the Abyss, the most dangerous dungeon in all the lands. Why? Beats me. They make it sound like this murder needs an elaborate cover-up, but the way humans are treated in this universe, it’s not like anyone would care if a random kid shows up dead in the gutter one day. Sadly, actual people die like this all the time, and if they’re homeless or a member of some undesired group in society, few people will bat an eye.
Light barely escapes with his life by triggering one of the dungeon’s teleportation traps. Unsurprisingly, his troubles don’t end there. Scary-looking monsters quickly find him, and they’re even bigger threats than his former party. But it’s okay, because we’re just following a tried-and-tested (read: dogshit) formula. These fantasy protagonists always manage to fall into a deep hole or whatever, run into a near death experience or two, only to then discover that they’re actually OP all along. They just never had the chance to show their true powers until now! In Light’s case, he needs the ambient mana around him to be dense in order for his gift to spit out anything decent. And since this is the deepest level of the Abyss, he manages to pull a Super Ultra Rare. So I just need to go into the sewers to play Honkai Star Rail? Hm, I don’t think I would get any reception down there…
This is anime, so of course Light pulls a waifu. Extra points if it’s a battle maid, which is exactly what we get. The lv 9999 girl is instantly devoted and attracted to Light, because of course she is. Why bother with forming and developing a relationship when you can just have it all right from the start? After Light’s safety is finally assured, our kid starts planning his revenge. The weird part is that he isn’t content to just sic his lv 9999 battle maid on his foes. Instead, Light wants to kill them with his own two hands, so that means he needs to get stronger. That also somehow means establishing an kingdom in the Abyss. Uh, sure, whatever. But what about his family? Isn’t he worried about them or humanity in general? While he’s dicking around down here in the dank pits of the Abyss, something really bad could be happening on the surface. Oh well, I’m not an anime protagonist, so what do I know?
I used to like a good comeuppance as much as the next red-blooded individual — like y’know, Django Unchained — but these days, it feels as though anime has gotten pretty mean-spirited about when it comes to the topic of revenge. The bad guys do horrible things to the protagonist, so the hero feels justified to pay them back a hundred times over. Don’t get me wrong, because I’m not trying to defend a bunch of racist, wannabe child murderers. I just don’t want to enjoy watching, for example, an villainess become a slave and get assaulted by her master, y’know? No matter how evil someone might be, there’s gotta be a line we can’t cross. I might understand it a little if these protagonists were more like antiheroes, and it can sometimes be fun to root for a real bastard. But anime usually wants to have its cake and eat it too. As a result, we get protagonists that are still gleaming defenders of justice, but it’s totally okay to torture someone on the side as a treat! Well, I don’t agree with it, and I have yet to come across a revenge story that I’ve liked in recent years. Maybe Light will surprise me. Maybe he won’t be as bloodthirsty as his predecessors. But considering how he wants to kill everyone in his former party, I doubt this show will buck the trend.
Yeah, this is also going to go into the “Everything else” pile.
There are so many new shows to check out, so I haven’t even gotten the chance to check out the second season of Kakuriyo no Yadomeshi. All in due time, I guess. In a way, I’m almost glad something like A Star Brighter Than the Sun is stuck on Amazon Prime (yes, I know I made an exception for Sanda), because it just means one less thing on my plate to deal with.
