Balls.

Black Torch Ep. 5

The bad guy is sorta yandere about Rago. He basically sees the cat mononoke as one giant spiritual battery, and he can’t wait to get his hands on all that juice. At one point, he also says something like how he’s tired of humans acting as if they own the planet. I started wondering if you could blast them off into space. Or maybe you could find space mononoke. What if they’re on the moon! …yeah, that’s how invested I am in the current story. I don’t like Daemons of the Shadow Realm, but at least the stakes were suitably high right from the start. Yuru’s world collapsed, and the sister he thought he knew was a lie. In Black Torch… eh, kid gets a power up from a cat spirit. Now what?

Well, the fight only lasts half an episode, because the kids’ allies were able to break through that seal. So the bad guy literally opens up a portal and slips away. Wait, he’s supposed to be a recurring villain? Noooooo, c’mon. Him? His design is so generic! Recurring villains gotta at least look and sound notable! Like Jesse and James from Team Rocket! Ryosuke even tells Toko that the rookies deserve congratulations for surviving against such a powerful mononoke. Eeeeeeeeeh… I think it’s okay for shounens to be a little stupid so long as you obey the rule of cool. Nothing I’ve seen so far this week suggests that they’re adhering to that rule.

In fact, they introduce another “friendly” mononoke who completely breaks the rule of cool! But she’s necessary for the second half of the episode, where she tests each of the kids by trapping them in a world of illusion. Y’know, overcome your fear, trauma or whatever. Jerkass Reiji faces off against his brother. Ichika has to relive the last day she saw her mother alive. She did get to see her mother again, but the woman had been turned to stone. Hey, maybe there’s still a chance to save her! Y’know, like Coco’s mom in Witch Hat Atelier! Just gotta defeat the mononoke who did this to her!

Meanwhile, Jiro has to face some vague, indistinct beast? Is this his trauma or Rago’s? Before the previous bad guy blasted off like Team Rocket, he dropped a cryptic hint about Jiro’s actual father. Just your obligatory dangling plot carrot. Well, if there’s a dad, there must also be a mom. Don’t forget her too, Jiro! No, your mom was not a dog, c’mon now. Ah well. If I gotta nitpick — and I just gotta! — I hate how every single illusion boils down to a fight. Yes, yes, it’s a shounen, so you might even say it’s a clever way to give us backstory without halting the action. At the same time, however, you really shouldn’t approach your trauma with violence.

I do have to commend the show for its restraint, though. Usually, it would be shoving Ichika’s ass in our faces right about now, but since the subject matter is so seriou–… oh, for the love of…

Daemons of the Shadow Realm Ep. 17

Turns out Asa is here at the werehouse all along. The other Asa — there are so many fake Asas — is just Jin’s angler fish doing its best impersonation. Wait, it could also help Hikaru with his manga? That’s one impressive angler fish!

The problem, however, is that a fight breaks out anyway. I’m only really invested in the twins. Oh yeah, include the village girl, too. After all, she’s been through hell and back, and she’s trapped in the modern world, which completely alien to her. I want to see her get saved. But this confrontation between Gabby and Akio…? I couldn’t care less. Gonzo stealing all the assholes’ daemons? Don’t care about that either. In fact, who the hell is Akio? He’s barely above an extra. Why does he get almost a full episode dedicated to him being a turncoat? It just doesn’t move the needle for me. As for Gabby, I still can’t forget how she butchered those kids’ parents without any remorse. Yes, yes, those villagers were probably guilty of something. Did they deserve to die, though? Yes, yes, Gabby cares a lot about Asa. Cool story, still a murderer.

Look, I’m just here for the inevitable fight between the twins and Ivan. Yuru and Asa finally being on the same page and fighting for the same cause is exactly what everyone is waiting to see. Anything else is just padding. We do see Yuru try to turn the tables on his captors, but it’s short-lived. So yeah, they’re dragging this out even further.

Tomb Raider King Ep. 4

Ultimately, Joo-Heon doesn’t end up dating the gyaru girl from the end of last week’s episode (thank god). He has her jot down as many prophecies as she can before he destroys the Future Guide. So that’s it, huh? Relic gone for good? This also doubles as an act of mercy, because it frees the girl from the relic (and thus the Republic of Bent wanting to use her). Hopefully, this means we’ll never have to see the gyaru again. I still don’t know how old she is, but I’m betting she’s a minor.

Joo-Heon soon jets off to Las Vegas where they all inexplicably speak the same language. Amazing. Must be due to a relic! Anyway, he plans to crash an auction, but he needs a ton of money. Duh, he’s in Las Vegas, so all he has to do is win his money. As a result, we see him nail jackpot after jackpot on the slot machines. I feel like the casino would quickly pull the plug on this and claim malfunction. But no, someone merely searches his body to see if he’s tampering with the machines. I assume he gets his money, because we see him at the auction later. It’s anime, so whatever. Just roll with it.

This is when Joo-Heon meets Irene Holton, a woman who has so much bad luck that she can bankrupt almost everyone. She’s also voiced by Saori Hayami. I would say this role is a total waste of her talents, but she does some absolute shit every season (e.g. Hero Without a Class). She’s just a massive workaholic. I only hope we don’t see one of those all-too-common “Actress So-and-So is taking a break for health reasons.” Stop accepting every shit role, girl! You a huge seiyuu! Can’t you afford to be picky?!

Anyway, Joo-Heon probably needs to delete Irene’s super bad luck relic as well. This way, he can make her a waifu. Unfortunately, he needs her bad luck for the auction. Basically, her presence alone drives most of the competition away. Joo-Heon’s goons got terribly sick when they tried to flirt with her. This allows our not-so-nice protagonist to home in on his true target, i.e. the guy who betrayed him in the original timeline. And what are they fighting over in this timeline? Oh, just a sapling.