Time to chow down on some fighting, fighting, and even more fighting!
TOUGEN ANKI: Nikko Kegon Falls Arc Ep. 1
The new season starts with one of the Momotaros going to their leaders to argue for peace with the Onis, but the screenshot above is what said leaders look like. What the fuck? Good people do not look like this. You shouldn’t normally judge a book by its cover, but sometimes you should. Sometimes, when the book looks like some bondage, mummy freak, go ahead and judge all you want!
But I think the screenshot is a good encapsulation of what this show is, which is that it’s rather ugly. Ugliness can still be utilized in an interesting way, though. One guy unveils his powers by pulling back a zipper on his arm, unleashing a torrent of blood. Without any context, you might mistake this for a scene in something like Hellraiser. But these characters only use their shapeshifting blood for shounen battles.
Anyway, the kids are undergoing some training on a snowy mountain. At one point, Shiki and Homare get separated from the rest of the pack, and he has to give her a piggyback ride. Could’ve paired him with anybody, but the story went with Homare, who barely had a role to play in the first season. Welp, let’s see where this goes. The problem is that these series can never write a well-rounded, interesting character. They just have one personality trait which they lean on constantly. Noelle from Black Clover harps on and on about being a royal and how she totally doesn’t like Asta. Homare just has crippling self-esteem. They never have an extra dimension to them that makes you sit up and take notice.
Tokyo Revengers Ep. 51
There’s actually no fighting that I can recall in this episode. Even so, I’ve voiced my qualms about the series as a whole elsewhere. Another thing that takes me out of the story is how we have something that would normally be grounded and hard-boiled… if the main characters weren’t kids. At one point, a character pays his respects to Izana, who is no longer of this world. I’m not gonna lie and pretend that I remember every detail about every single character in this gigantic cast, so I had to look him up. And what do I read? “At age 13, he founded the S-62 Generation.” Age 13. Can you imagine commanding a gang at age 13? It boggles the mind, doesn’t it?! They probably can’t even wipe their asses properly at that age! But it’s a world where adults only exist on the periphery. It’s like Lord of the Flies but the setting is the rough streets of Tokyo! You almost can’t take it seriously.
Another thing is that these characters just care way too much, and maybe that’s why they keep falling back into trouble over and over. They can never let things go. They can never find peace unless they time loop over and over until they get the perfect outcome. Midway through the episode, Takemichi launches into this passionate spiel about Kisaki, who was the primary antagonist for practically all of the last fifty episodes:
“…there’s no way I’ll ever forgive him for what he did! But on the day that he died, he said that it was all for Hina. And he even told me that he respected me too! I didn’t know. That’s why… I wish we could have had a real chance to settle things!”
For me, that’s such a bizarre position to hold. I would just move on. I would not care one way or another about Kisaki. Why is he shedding tears for such a terrible person? “His death just doesn’t feel right,” he cries. What does it mean for a death to feel right? Can a death ever feel right? Does every bad person deserve a deep dive into their motivations? Is this an admirable goal to have? Well, Takemichi’s the shounen protagonist. He is supposed to embody the best in all of us, but I don’t accept it. I don’t accept it the same way I roll my eyes whenever Kiryu waxes poetic about what it means to be a true yakuza. I think he cares too much about shit that don’t matter.
After listening to Takemichi spill his guts about how he’s been time-traveling in an attempt to fix the future, Mikey suddenly disbands the Tokyo Manji Gang, which comes as a huge shock to everyone. But in my mind, all I can think is good. No peaceful future exists in which roving bands of boys can go around, beating each other up. But this is too easy. It can’t end like this. It won’t end like this. Time traveling stories in anime or other anime-related media never play out this way. There’s always a golden ending to strive for — an ending that can only be achieved after the protagonist has crawled through miles of shit — and Takemichi crying over Kisaki is a huge hint toward our ultimate destination. I’m not suggesting that Takemichi will time loop just to save Kisaki, which would be ludicrous. But with Emma dead, this victory feels hollow. But who’s gonna be the bad guy? Who’s even left? Well, throughout this entire story, he has had to fight everybody but Mikey. And with the ominous look on Mikey’s face at the end of the episode, I think it’s pretty obvious where we’re headed.
Black Clover Ep. 171
Yes, I managed to binge about 170 episodes of Black Clover in about two weeks. It was actually relatively fast and relatively easy. Relatively fast, because there’s just so much you can skip. Every episode reminds you about the show’s premise… “In the past, a demon blah blah blah until the wizard king blah blah blah!” Right, skippo. “In the last episode, Asta and so-and-so blah blah blah.” Uh-huh, skip that too. “Here’s a generic J-rock-pop-whatever OP!” SKIP SKIP SKIP. It’s not like you’re missing anything. Every time there’s a hype moment, the first OP starts playing in the background. Skip again for the ED. Now, the first hundred or so episodes would have goofy moments between the cast at the end. I actually didn’t skip those. But out of a 23 minute episode, I’d say a lot has been cut out!
And then there’s the easy part: this show isn’t complicated. Every other sentence that comes out of Asta’s mouth is “My magic is never giving up!” Yeah, I’ll admit he stops screaming as much as the first few episodes. They really poisoned the well. I remember exactly why I stopped after two episodes when the show first aired, because the kid was that annoying. And beyond that, everything else is just simplistic as hell. I don’t know what Yuno is supposed to be. I mean, sure, I guess he’s supposed to be the show’s Sasuke, but with a tenth of the screen time and no angst whatsoever. I’m fine with no angst, but they really position him to be Asta’s rival just for him to only show up for the big fights. You barely know anything about the guy. I guess this whole thing about him being the prince of the Spade Kingdom is supposed to rectify that, but he’s still relatively thin as a character for someone who is supposed to be the deuteragonist. Point is, he just shows up, kicks some ass, then motivates Asta, then the girls swoon.
Speaking of the girls swooning, you can characterize all of the women as having one-sided crushes on their meathead targets. Not only that, the series leans so hard on them being tsundere. Or maybe it’s just Noelle and that captain lady who likes Yami. But hey, they’re like two of the major female characters, so it feels like everyone is tsundere! And part of why the anime is so easy to binge is that they’re all terribly one note. They have one side to their personality, and that’s it. There’s nothing to dig into or uncover. One girl likes Yuno and eats a lot. I honestly cannot tell you anything else about… what is her name? Charmy? Well, I can’t tell you anything about her other than that she eats and she eats a lot. Even after 170 episodes, what do you say about Noelle other than that she’s tsundere and one of the royals.
Speaking of the royals, oh my god, the conflicts are so braindead. But you know how it works? It works by ragebaiting you so you end up giving a modicum of shit. Like so many anime or manga series, there’s a massive gulf between the classes, and the royals are humongous dicks about it. “Hurr hurr hurr, how could a commoner ever do… well, anything!” Then a commoner proves them wrong! “Ugh, how?!” Rinse and repeat for a billion episodes (well, 170). There’s no depth to it. There’s nothing thought-provoking about it! I should just dismiss it outright. But it still makes you so mad that you kinda wanna see what happens next. Kinda!
There’s a recent arc where a woman loses her family, so she joins a group that goes around persecuting the people who were possessed by devils. This includes a little girl. There’s a twist in the story, so there’s more to the woman than we initially think. But for the majority of the arc, you’re just rage-baited by these insanely stupid people wanting to execute a little girl, so you can’t help but be like, “Fuck, can Asta just kick their asses already?”
But the thing is, when every conflict is a ragebait, it’s hard to change directions when the story wants to flip the script on you. Take Noelle’s relationship with her family, for instance. They’re so unbelievably nasty to her, why would you ever stop disliking them as a viewer? You’ve been ragebaited into hating them! But then it turns out her brother didn’t really hate her! Wow, what a shock! “I want to protect you because you’re the spitting image of our mom! But to protect you, I’m going to bully and torment you for years and years! This way, you’ll join a shit squad and never be in danger!” It’s this weird fucking thing people do when they try to compare bads. Oh, dying is objectively worse than being mocked endlessly and estranged from your family, so y’see, Nozel (or whatever his name is) is actually a loving brother! No, fuck that! You convinced me to hate the guy and I still hate the guy! His reasoning is bullshit! I’m not changing my stance! You earned this with your ragebaiting!
As for the episode itself, even though the anime claims that it’s time for the Clover Kingdom’s counterattack, Asta still has more training to do. In fact, he gets trained by some Bloodborne hunter-lookin’ mofo. No, he literally looks like one. A hoonter must hoont! Did the mangaka just get done playing Bloodborne when he drew these chapters? Point is, the rest of the gang is ready, but our boy is not ready. Asta only manages to utilize his true power for apparently a split second. He’s still gotta run through the equivalent of snake way or whatever to master his newfound teamwork with his devil thingie. As a result, you can’t even see what the finished product even looks like. All you get is… what? His aura? Gotta hold that card close to the chest for a hype moment, I guess. But that’s it. That’s the gist of the episode! Yep, most episodes are that simple. I imagine a manga chapter would be even easier to read through. It’d probably take less than a minute.
And then lemme see if there are any goofy vignettes at the end of the episodes anymore… nope. None. They really stopped doing them. Bah, they were truly the only entertaining parts of the show to me.
Tomb Raider King Ep. 12
Right off the bat, the finale starts on a bad note when the MC sticks a lecherous worm on a female tree. Jokes about consent are always gross. It doesn’t matter if they’re relics and thus not human. We then have a final showdown against the military lady, but it isn’t the MC who fights her. Rather, Irene gets to kick some butt. Eh, I guess that’s a nice change-up, but like I said, the bad joke at the start of the episode is the rotten apple that ruins the entire bushel. Besides, Irene is overpowered, so the action wasn’t even any good. Ultimately, the MC wins and the story goes on. Hopefully not another season, though. I don’t need more of this show. It’s just bad. Take the scene with Irene’s parents, for instance. They are finally healthy again thanks to the MC’s help, but it’s just a throwaway scene. There’s no emotional impact. Compare it to, say, Jinwoo fighting to the death to get the necessary ingredients in order to save his mother, and then finally healing her in the hospital — the execution is a billion times better, and I don’t even like Solo Leveling! I wouldn’t necessarily call Tomb Raider King a cheap and shabby knockoff, but it certainly is amateurish.
Dragon Ball Super can replace this show going forward, which I suppose is a moderate improvement.