Random Curiosity

Summary:

Many years ago, Alicia was a child in an institution where she was experimented on and sometimes went unfed. Selvaria, however, had been with her and had shared her bread. Alicia recalls all this in a dream, and she wakes up thinking about what she did in the previous battle. Welkin meanwhile isn’t being allowed to see her, so he instead goes to talk to Faldio who is currently being held prisoner for his actions. Faldio admits that he shot Alicia to awaken her Valkyria powers, and he’s glad that he wasn’t mistaken with his theory. He reminds Welkin that this is the reason they’re alive now, and since Welkin is still angry, Faldio questions what Welkin thinks he should have done. Welkin has no answer for this, and he doesn’t say anything either when Faldio asks him to support Alicia in whatever happens from this point on.

Sometime later, Damon visits Alicia to inform her that she’s being transferred to the regular military and is being promoted four ranks to captain. Alicia is initially against this, but Damon and his men try to convince her that people see her differently now and that she doesn’t belong in the militia anymore. Damon even claims that Welkin agreed to this, but Alicia doesn’t believe him and runs away. She returns to Squad 7, only to overhear them talking about her and acting unsure of how to deal with her given her Valkyria blood. Before Welkin can address these concerns, Alicia reveals herself and the fact that she’s being transferred. Unable to come up with anything else to say, she thanks them for everything up to now and then runs off again. Welkin goes after her and tries to convince her that people are just confused right now, but Alicia is already convinced that she doesn’t belong anymore. Welkin responds by pointing out that she’s their friend and that they’ve overcome so much together, and he also reminds her of how she helped him when Isara died. He therefore wants to help her this time, but Alicia takes off her red scarf and tells him that the Alicia he knows no longer exists. Instead, she feels that she’s a monster, and she bids him a tearful farewell.

Preview

This was a decent, but fairly predictable episode in terms of Damon deciding to use Alicia and Alicia’s subsequent emotional break with Welkin and Squad 7. I’m not saying that that’s a bad thing because it’s really just the natural course of events given how they’ve set everything up. In fact, during the Faldio and Welkin scene, I found myself even agreeing with the course of action he took, and I’m surprised Cordelia didn’t pardon him or anything. I also couldn’t get annoyed at Damon because, if I were in his shoes, I’d probably have done the same thing (though I guess he could still be less of a jerk about it). Regardless, I’m sure that Alicia and Welkin will reconcile sometime right before or during the upcoming final battle, and the red scarf that Alicia left behind will likely play some role in it.

The most interesting things about this episode were actually related to the Imperial side. First, the fact that Alicia and Selvaria did indeed share a past together seems to foreshadow some sort of resolution between the two of them outside of just fighting. I’m sure they still will fight, but maybe Alicia will decide to spare Selvaria or something. The other interesting thing was the shot of Maximilian’s new apparent landship which I guess will be the main obstacle aside from Selvaria in the final battle. I bet Alicia could still take it down with ease though if it ever came to that. All in all, I’m excited to see what the finale will bring, but there’s still a few more set-up episodes to get to that point, and next week looks to focus on Alicia’s departure.

Summary:

While recovering from his injuries, Mustang lectures Hawkeye on losing her will to fight during the previous battle. However, he continues to entrust her with watching his back, and he’s more concerned now with why no one has come to finish him off. As it turns out, Envy does want to kill him, but Wrath has other plans for him. Meanwhile, Al is worrying about the state of his body, and Ed theorizes that his and Al’s spirits got mixed in the aftermath of the failed transmutation of their mother, so it’s possible that their bodies are connected. The two later go to visit Mustang and Havoc in the hospital, and they get involved in a discussion about how the Fuhrer might be connected to the Homunculus. Mustang ends up warning Ed not to act rashly, but he’s still excited about this development and expects the fullest out of his subordinates. Havoc, however, counts himself out because he can’t feel either of his legs thanks to the spinal cord damage he suffered. Not content with seeing Havoc having to retire because of this, Breda asks and gets permission from Mustang to go look up Dr. Marcoh.

Ed and Al meanwhile try to investigate on their own, and although they’re not able to find any worthwhile leads, Ed does remember how the Homunculus called him a valuable human sacrifice whose death would be troublesome. He suspects that it has something to do with opening the Gate and wants to find out more from the Homunculus. By chance, he then learns that Scar is back in town. Aside from the fact that he’d like to confront Scar about killing Winry’s parents, he’d also like to use Scar attacking him to lure out the Homunculus. The problem is how they would capture a Homunculus, and that’s when Ling suddenly shows up to offer his services. He’s still interested in the Homunculus immortality, and Ed decides to accept his help. Ed also wants Winry to stay in Central for a while longer in case Scar breaks his arm, and she shows her concern by telling him not to do anything too dangerous.

Back at the hospital, Roy learns from Breda that Marcoh is missing, and to make matters worse, Havoc is seriously getting ready to retire from military service. Havoc knows that he’s useless if he can’t move and wants Mustang to let him give up. Mustang decides to leave him behind for now, but he wants Havoc to catch up with him at the top. After Mustang leaves, Hawkeye tells Havoc that Mustang isn’t the kind of person to abandon them, and when Havoc calls Mustang stupid, Hawkeye suggests that it’s good to have an idiot like that around. Mustang then discharges himself from the hospital and he goes to track down Ed and Al. As it turns out, Ed has been doing good deeds around town to draw attention to himself, and right as he and Mustang are talking, Scar strikes. Ed springs into action to fight him while Al explains everything to Mustang, and they get Mustang’s help in keeping the military away so that the Homunculus can show up. Mustang thus gets to work spreading misinformation around the military intelligence network about Scar’s location. Unbeknownst to him, Wrath and Gluttony have already shown up on the scene. Ling and Lan Fan are waiting for them, but Wrath demonstrates such speed that Lan Fan is caught off guard and gets her mask shattered.

Preview

I don’t know if it was me missing watching this series after the break last week, but this episode felt longer than usual. That’s not to say that it was slow or boring though. The middle parts of it were great, starting with the powerful confrontation scene between Mustang and Havoc (it’s a shame to see Havoc out of the picture, but I suspect he’ll be back) and then moving to hilarity when Ed went around fixing things. That humor then turned real serious real fast with the appearance of Scar and then Gluttony and Wrath, all of which were pretty cool scenes. They also ended on a good cliffhanger with Wrath injuring Lan Fan, so I came out of this very excited about where the series is going.

I think my main question from this episode is about Marcoh. Whatever did happen to him? Aside from being mentioned a few times, including this episode, I don’t remember seeing him since episode six when he met Lust. They’re just now finding out that he’s missing 15 episodes later, so I guess they’re finally going to do something with his character. In any case, I’m looking forward to the continuation of the battle next week, and the preview seems to indicate that it’ll be more Winry and Scar focused than anything else.

Summary:

Yunyun tries to pretend not to recognize Maria, but she ends up having no choice but to join the group. During a rest stop, she reveals that she’ll die if she runs out of medicine, and she had wanted to see her home village again. Maria doesn’t want her to die, and Canaan doesn’t either, but their conversation is interrupted by the appearance of a gunman. Canaan tries to stop him, but it’s hard for her to fight without her synesthesia abilities, and ultimately it’s Hakko who disorients him with her yell. That leads to the gunman taking off his helmet, and the exposure to the sun causes him to die. Afterward, Santana identifies the man as an Unbloom, and Minoru has Maria take a picture of the corpse. The group then proceeds on to the village, and once there, Santana finally explains to Minoru how he used to be in the CIA. They had spread the Ua Virus to the village and used it to test an anti-virus, but Santana didn’t realize until later that this was actually an experiment to manufacture Creatures using the side effect of the Ua Virus. Minoru realizes that this means that the CIA was actually working with Alphard’s organization. In any case, Santana eventually left the CIA, and he met Natsume whose NGO’s job was to find traces of the crimes that the CIA committed.

Santana also explains that Unblooms are those who couldn’t become Borners, and at the end of the discussion, he asks Minoru to help Hakko if anything happens to him while he tries to deal with his past. This is cut short by the sudden arrival of an attack helicopter piloted by Liang Qi, and she starts firing missiles at the village. She manages to hit the building that Canaan takes shelter in, but her assault is interrupted by another helicopter, this one under the control of Alphard. Alphard is here to take out Liang Qi, but when she runs out of machine gun ammo and tries to have Cummings give her more, he shoots her because he doesn’t want her to kill Liang Qi. Alphard, however, had replaced his gun with an air gun, and she points her own gun at him for betraying her, allowing him one last word before he dies. Cummings can only say Ai (love) before he gets shot, but it turns out that Alphard also isn’t using real bullets either and has spared him because she’s interested in his and Liang Qi’s concept of love.

After Liang Qi flies off, Alphard lands her helicopter and locates Canaan inside the rubble of the destroyed building. When she realizes that Canaan can’t see her color, she reminds Canaan of Siam and how she killed him. Canaan notes that Siam was her light, but she has a new light, and this prompts Alphard to tell her not to die until she shows her true power. With a trace of her synesthesia ability now active, Canaan realizes that Alphard has an odd color – the same light brown color that Siam had. Canaan then loses consciousness, and Alphard feels that Canaan wasn’t hope and that there doesn’t need to be two with the name Canaan. Nevertheless, Alphard drags her out of the rubble just as Maria and the rest of the group arrives. Santana wants to shoot her, but Alphard explains that she’s going to the place called Factory where she’ll destroy everything, so they should let her go. She also instructs Maria to tell Canaan that Canaan’s true name is despair.

Preview

This episode answered some questions about the terminology they’ve been using (Unblooms, Borners, Factory) and about the village, but it raised even more questions with the way Alphard acted. I’m still not sure what her motivations are or why she wants to see Canaan’s true power so much that she’d save Canaan. I mean, it seems pretty clear that Canaan disgusts her, and she seems to want Canaan to suffer. But then there’s the fact that Canaan sees in her the same color she saw in Siam, and the fact that she claims she’s going to destroy everything at Factory, both of which would seem like good things. It makes me think that she’s not the villain I thought she was, but I really have no idea what she’s going to do or where the story is going. I will say again though that I love Sakamoto Maaya in a role like this so different from her norm.

As for the other characters Yunyun was amusing in the beginning, but it was really Liang Qi – and to a lesser extent Cummings – who was more fun to watch thanks to her love craziness. I had thought she’d be dead by now, but it looks like any fight with her won’t be until at least next episode. The preview doesn’t hint at anything in that regard, but it does show Hakko looking desperate with a gun and Canaan with her synesthesia abilities back, so they’ve at least piqued my curiosity.

Show Spoiler for Bleach Chapter 371 ▼

Thanks to nereidaia and Maximum 7 for the cleaned page

OP Sequence

OP: 「ambivalent world」 by 沢城みゆき (Sawashiro Miyuki)
Watch the OP! Mirror 1, Mirror 2, Streaming ▼

I never thought of Sawashiro Miyuki as much of a singer since pretty much everything I’ve ever heard her in has been a group song, but she does a pretty good job on her own with ambivalent world. The song itself isn’t too bad either, thought it feels a bit disjointed between the main verse and the chorus.

Summary:

When Suruga was in elementary school, she used the mummified left hand that had been left to her by her mother and had wished to be faster. It led to four of her classmates who were going to run a race against her getting attacked by a monster, and they were all absent the next day. Suruga had later learned about the Monkey Paw story by Jacobs and had been afraid of the consequences, so she never joined the track and field team and made sure she didn’t put herself in places where there would be people faster than her. She joined the basketball team instead, and sometime after she became the team’s ace, she met Hitagi and fell in love. Even when she got rejected, she resisted making wishes with the hand, but that changed after she saw Koyomi with Hitagi, and before she knew it, her own left hand transformed.

Back in the present, Oshino is able to suggest two easy ways to solve the problem: let Koyomi get killed by the Rainy Devil or chop off the arm. When Koyomi objects to Oshino suggesting that Suruga’s intent was to kill, Oshino points to how the left hand didn’t make Suruga faster and instead hurt her classmates. Unlike a monkey’s paw, the Rainy Devil adheres to contracts, so if she really wanted to be faster, that’s what would have happened. Instead, Suruga actually wanted to hurt her classmates, and Oshino thinks that it’s because she wanted revenge for being picked on during a hard period in her life right after she lost her parents. He suggests that although it was an unconscious desire, Suruga actually did know and just didn’t want to admit it, so she sought another explanation, and that’s how the monkey’s paw came to be. What this also means is that Suruga actually did want to kill Koyomi.

A short while later, Koyomi lets Shinobu drink from his neck, thereby boosting his own powers, and he then heads to a confrontation with Suruga. He’s met first by Oshino, and the two talk about the plan to make the Rainy Devil realize that it can’t kill him. Being unable to fulfill Suruga’s wish means that the contract would be invalidated, and the Rainy Devil would leave. When Oshino questions Koyomi’s desire to help Suruga even though she tried to kill him, Koyomi is forgiving and feels that hating is a natural part of living. He then proceeds into the room where Suruga is waiting in her raincoat, and she immediately attacks him. Koyomi tries his best to knock her down, but much to his surprise, she’s able to use not just the left arm, but her legs and the rest of her body as well. This makes him realize that Suruga unconsciously still wants to kill him and hadn’t given up on Hitagi like she earlier indicated she had. Unfortunately, it’s too late now, and Suruga proceeds to rip a hole in Koyomi’s abdomen and throw him around by his intestines.

Just as Koyomi thinks that it’s over, Hitagi suddenly appears, and Koyomi realizes that Oshino had used his cell phone to call her. Hitagi isn’t happy that Koyomi had lied to her about what happened at the utility pole and had kept all this from her, and even though she thinks he deserves to die 10,000 times for it, she forgives him given the condition he’s already in. When Suruga tries to charge again at Koyomi, Hitagi steps in between them and stops her. She also emphasizes how, if Koyomi had died, she would have had to kill Suruga, and Koyomi realizes that what she’s doing is another solution to the problem. By swearing that she would kill Suruga if Koyomi died, Hitagi had made it clear for the Rainy Devil that it was impossible to fulfill Suruga’s wish. Hitagi then approaches Suruga and holds her hands, returning Suruga to her normal self. Suruga confesses that she likes Hitagi, and though Hitagi doesn’t return those same feelings, she apologizes.

The next morning, Koyomi finds Suruga waiting for him outside his home after Hitagi had apparently told her to meet him. Suruga reveals that she can’t play basketball anymore because, even though the Rainy Devil is gone, her arm didn’t return back to normal, however she’s content with it.

Preview

The plot twist this arc (if you could even call it that) was weaker than the Mayoi one, but this was overall a bit more interesting to watch thanks to the gory fight and the Hitagi conclusion. It was a relatively short but intense battle, and while I suspected that things wouldn’t go according to plan, I certainly didn’t expect to see Koyomi get tossed around by his intestines. I think it’s interesting to note too that SHAFT’s use of neon colors for blood actually de-emphasized the goriness during that scene. Regardless, I like Koyomi’s character a bit more after he went through all that because it showed how he wouldn’t settle for a less-than-ideal solution (i.e. just cutting off Suruga’s arm) yet he’s not annoyingly self-righteous about it.

Of course he would have been dead without Hitagi coming to save the day, and I laughed at how they did the 3-2-1-0 countdown upon her appearance. I also liked how what she said earlier about killing whoever killed him came to be part of the solution here and how Koyomi was able to succeed in helping her regain something that she lost, both of which were first mentioned two episodes ago. I think my main complaint is that the actual end felt a little unfulfilling story-wise since the arm is still there, but I’ve been told by a novel reader that there might be an explanation for that next episode. In any case, my ultimate point is that this was another good episode and story arc of Bakemonogatari, and I’m curious to see what the next (and final?) one brings.

A new commercial for Darker than BLACK: Ryuusei no Gemini aired with this week’s episode of Basquash. This one revealed that the new girl is named Suou and that the initial setting will be Vladivostok, Russia, but I didn’t see anything in it that wasn’t already shown in the longer promo video that’s available on the official site. Assuming they go with a normal promotion strategy, there’s probably two more commercials in store before the premiere of the show, at least one of which will feature the new OP or ED. I’m hoping one of them will be a Rie fu song.

Summary:

The news of Eclipse’s break-up along with everything else that’s happened has Dan feeling unsettled and fuzzy-headed, and that frustrates him. Over in Skybloom, Yang reassures Flora’s father that his Ultinium ore would activate with Eclipse’s song, and he claims that the king will be able to save the moon and Earthdash from colliding. As part of the plan, Citron and Violette spend their rehearsals playing basketball. Back in the desert, Flora wakes up one night to find Dan gone, and Miyuki directs her to a moped and indicates that the rest of them will come once the maintenance on the Bigfoots is done. Flora thus takes the moped and chases after Dan who had left for Skybloom earlier, and she soon catches up with him. Dan is going out of concern for Rouge, and while he’s not sure what he’ll do when he sees her, he’s sure that it’ll clear his hazy feelings.

To get into Skybloom though, Dan and Flora have to put on disguises, however an argument with Spanky gets their cover blown, and the two are forced to escape from the checkpoint. The only other way in is through the underground waterway, and although they’re ultimately successful in navigating it, they lose Spanky during the journey after he gets knocked off Dan’s head. Dan and Flora thus end up in the city, and as they’re evading the security patrols, Dan suddenly hears Rouge singing. He realizes that it’s coming from a blimp flying over the city, and he responds by bouncing his basketball around the city to match the tune. He’s unable to get through to her though, and his basketball alerts the patrols to his location.

As they’re trying to get away, Flora again asks Dan what he’ll do if he sees Rouge, and his only answer is that he’ll Basquat so that he can clear those hazy feelings since Basquash doesn’t lie. Watching as Dan uses his Basquash skills to try to fight the guards, Flora reflects on these words and on what Basquash means. She finally decides that her journey as Alan is at its end and that a new journey as Flora Skybloom will start from here, so she reveals herself as the princess and gets all the guards to bow down. She urges Dan to go after Rouge, but he expects her to come with him and doesn’t care about her background since she’s a Basquasher like him. This makes her quite happy and she ends up being the one dragging him along.

Preview

For an episode titled Total Eclipse, I was expecting a lot more Eclipse. They were certainly in the episode, especially with the return of Rouge, but their scenes were more of just setup for the concert and for whatever big thing Yang is planning. Instead, Flora ended up being the main focus. I don’t want to sound like I’m complaining though because it was a fairly amusing episode that had some decent character development for Flora (including her almost admitting that she likes Dan) which culminated in a nice scene with Running On playing in the background; it was just not what quite I was expecting.

As for Rouge, not surprisingly, her eyes looked dead all episode to signify that she’s not all there, and Dan probably won’t be able to get through to her until he sees her face to face. What confuses me a little is how she looks normal again in the preview for next week, and it appears that she and Dan will play Basquash. It’s all part of Yang’s plan I’m sure – as much as I hate that an obvious character like him is the villain, I’m glad that there is at least a villain. It’s probably also important to note that we learned this episode that they’re apparently trying to prevent the planets from colliding with all of this legend stuff, and I assume that’s what the final episode or two will be about.

Summary:

Haruhi wants Yuki to use magic against Mikuru for the next scene, but when Yuki just waves her wand around, Haruhi decides to have Kyon add in some special effects afterward. She then tries to have Kyon shoot a scene with Mikuru and pigeons at a nearby shrine, but they get driven off by the priest. Brainstorming what to do next, Haruhi takes what she perceives to be Itsuki’s suggestion to add more characters, and her ultimate goal is for Mikuru’s character to have a tough time before the happy ending. As for the rest of the fight scene, she decides to not use the guns anymore and instead wants Mikuru to shoot a beam out of her eye since that’s the meaning behind the colored contact. When Haruhi starts beating Mikuru over the head for not doing so, Kyon finally steps in to stop her and yells at her for expecting a normal human to shoot a beam. A disappointed Haruhi claims that it was a joke, and Itsuki defuses the situation by suggesting that the effect be added in via CG later.

However, when they go to shoot the actual scene, Kyon notices Mikuru’s eye flash right as she tries to do a Mikuru Beam. Before he knows what’s going on, Yuki is standing in front of him with her hand in front of him if she just caught something. When Mikuru blinks again, Yuki appears to catch something again, and in the confusion, Mikuru looks toward Itsuki and somehow cuts his reflector board in half. Yuki then sprints towards Mikuru and tackles her, and by the time Kyon and Haruhi get over there, Yuki is done and Mikuru’s contact is now missing. Unable to find it, Haruhi adapts and decides that Mikuru’s eye color should only change after her transformation and that she normally goes around as a bunny girl.

While Haruhi is thus off forcing Mikuru to change clothes again, Kyon gets Yuki to reveal that she took Mikuru’s contact and that Mikuru had actually fired a laser from her eye earlier. Yuki’s hand is even burned from protecting Kyon, though she’s able to heal it instantly. Regardless, she and Itsuki are able to conclude that this was Haruhi’s doing because Haruhi wanted a Mikuru Beam to exist. The group continues shooting until it gets dark, and they continue the next day after calling in Taniguchi, Kunikida, and Tsuruya. Mikuru, however, doesn’t show up, so Haruhi goes to get her. While Haruhi is gone, Itsuki reveals to Kyon that he and Yuki have made sure that Mikuru can’t fire lasers anymore. When Mikuru finally does arrive with Haruhi, she explains to Kyon that it was through a nanomachine injection. Haruhi then leads the group to the large pond by Itsuki’s house to continue shooting the movie.

Thoughts:

I thought this would be another pretty straight-forward episode of shooting the movie, but it got interesting with the whole Mikuru Beam thing. It was a nice change of pace, even if it was pretty obvious that this was all Haruhi’s doing, and seeing Yuki in action is never boring. Hopefully this won’t be the only odd thing to happen to the production of the movie either. I also liked that Tsuruya made an appearance since she’s such a cute and fun character, and it was nice as well seeing Kyon stand up to Haruhi for once. He should do that more often if for no other reason than because it’s more amusing to see Haruhi pissed off instead of always bossing people around (if you can’t tell, I get annoyed by her character sometimes). In any case, there’ll probably be two more episodes of Sighs, and then the rest of the 28 episodes that make up this chronological run will probably be from the original series, so we might already be near the end of the “new” material.

Summary:

As Unohana, Kyouraku, and Ukitake review what’s going on, Shuuhei and Renji come face to face with their own Zanpakutou. Renji doesn’t even recognize his Zanpakutou at first due to how its human form has two halves, a baboon female and a snake child. They attack him because, as they explain, they heard a voice that told them to follow their instinct. Kazeshini tells Shuuhei the same thing, and he claims that Shuuhei doesn’t understand how he wants to reap lives. Ichigo meanwhile regains consciousness inside of his inner world, and to his surprise, Muramasa is there as well. Muramasa explains that he’s able to be there because he’s a Zanpakutou, and he goes on to reveal that he killed his former owner. He’s now interested in Ichigo’s Hollow powers, and when Ichigo tries to attack him, he easily stops Ichigo with a wave of the hand. He then uses his powers to summon Hollow Ichigo out of Ichigo. After figuring out that Hollow Ichigo was the source of Ichigo’s earlier power, Muramasa introduces himself again and reveals that his power is to awaken Zanpakutou instincts, and he wants to do the same again here. Hollow Ichigo, however, isn’t affected and attacks Muramasa.

Preview

I wouldn’t call this a slow or boring episode since it had a few decent action scenes that made up the start of some interesting showdowns, plus the introduction of Zabimaru’s human form, but I was hoping they’d make a little more progress than they actually did. As it stands, all this episode did was basically set up three fights and emphasize the whole instinct thing amid a lot of flashbacks and recap over what we already know. They ended the episode right as we were getting to the best part, so while I look forward to seeing what happens between Hollow Ichigo and Muramasa next week – and to a lesser degree, Renji and Shuuhei in their respective battles – this week was somewhat lacking. I do find it interesting though that Muramasa claims to have killed his former owner, and I’m still waiting for some plot twist revelation on who that owner was. I’m also curious about why the title of episode 236 in two weeks refers to some new Getsuga Tenshou.

SCANDAL, the self-proclaimed “Most Powerful Japanese Girlie Pop Rock”, appeared on NHK’s MUSIC JAPAN Shinseki Anisong Special (新世紀アニソンSP) earlier this month. While I didn’t know anything about them prior to today, some of you may know them for performing “Shoujo S”, the tenth opening theme to Bleach.

Anyway, instead of performing one of their songs on this TV special, SCANDAL opted to perform a cover of the ever-so-popular K-ON! ending theme, “Don’t say ‘lazy’”. They’re not quite the Yui, Mio, Mugi, and Ritsu we know, but they are a real-life group of high school friends from Osaka who formed their own band and made it to the big leagues, so it was pretty cool to hear their rendition of this awesome song. The only thing that would’ve made this a bit cooler is a keyboardist for the true Houkago Tea Time composition.

P.S. Anyone else see a bit of ZONE in them?

First Full Moon ended. Then Ichigo 100%. Then Suzuka. Then ARIA. And now, To LOVE-Ru?! The manga gods must hate me. WHYYYYYYYYYYYYY

The 39th issue of Shonen Jump magazine confirmed that TLR will be ending in the next issue, due out August 31. The 5th post by jaalin today is confirming that his interest in manga will coincidentally and tragically end on the same day.

I’ve been wondering to myself why TLR is one of the few manga series I’m drawn to, and I’m pretty sure it’s because of the character design. First was the Lala and Haruna lovefest, then came Magical Girl Kyoko, then Konjiki no Yami got my jb meter firing, and then this ridiculously hot girl Riko showed up, and then Momo came and smashed them all into obscurity. I say it’s the character designs because frankly, I thought the anime sucked, whereas with ARIA, I enjoyed the anime as I did the artistically-superior manga. And no other form of media has made me write an ode to feet.

Sigh… anyone got any suggestions to fill the impending void? Ane Doki is alright, I guess… hey, is Yuria 100 Shiki still going on?

[source]

Mouse over screens for captions
 
Summary
It’s the start of the individual tournament! After a short pep speech by Hisa, the troops disperse and waste no time in destroying the competition. Yuki made sure to splurge for the extra inventory slots and enters battle with a full arsenal of taco power, which surprisingly scores her the top ranking of the day. Everyone else is pretty much going about their business versus nameless competitors, with the exception of Touka vs the dumb bimbo from Tsuruga – Touka rons a couple times off her, but then loses all that on a beginners-luck yakuman. Anime, where years of high budget disciplined training has nothing on cuteness and luck.

Meanwhile, captain wahaha is getting a report from one of her mates that there’s some weird chick that’s owning everyone. Could it be, the rumored Miyanaga Teru? I don’t understand how Teru can be so recognized as an elite player and so much of an unreported enigma – I mean, some dude in Saki’s class is watching her on his phone during class, for chrissakes. How is the infinitely well-informed Hisa not aware of this?

Somewhere in the guy’s side, Suga gets his ass handed to him by a douchebag, a monk, and a guy that looks like the club pres in Sora no Manimani. Sad.

Matchups are reshuffled later in the day, and Yuki continues her hot streak – one wonders when she will run out of tacos, or if she will bump into a banana-powered mahjong playing robot from the future. Elsewhere, Hisa and Kazekoshi’s captain get matched up and go head to head – both do pretty well against each other, so both will advance to the next round. Hisa finally remembers who the hell this chick who keeps calling her Ueno-san is after she sees the blue eye, which seems to please Kazekoshi’s captain very much. Hm… the start of a more… mature yuri relationship? Sorry Kana, you can be the pet.
 
Preview

Up next on Saki: Teru teru bouzu
 
Thoughts
Just when you thought that the team tournament was the climax of the show… nope, here we go again. I don’t really get the point of this, besides telling teams that they all suck and are carried by one or two good players. It’s clear that those two from Kazekoshi are gonna make it, those two from Tsuruga, probably everyone from Ryuumonbuchi, everyone from Kiyosumi, then a few other standouts, like those hot chicks from Teru’s team. I know they’ll make it because their hot. Ahh this show makes things so predictable.

Saki doesn’t seem to be destroying opponents as much, probably because she’s worrying about her onee-chan. She’ll probably limp by until one of Teru’s teammates gets matched up with Saki, then Saki will have tangible proof (you know, besides countless magazine articles and press coverage) that her sister even exists, so she can stop freaking out and start getting rinshian kaihou on every hand.

Zenzen in the episode 19 comments raises an interesting issue – apparently the anime has caught up to the manga, so technically, everything from hereon out could be entirely up to Gonzo’s discretion. Whether this is a good or bad thing remains to be seen – all I know is that it’s kind of hard to screw up this type of sports/game anime with hot chicks, cuz that’s all it’s about. I’ve been quite impressed to this point with the balance they’ve struck between all the moe-pumping filler and the actual mahjong, and I hope they can continue that balance. Maybe they’ll have Saki come up with some new tricks besides the endless kan kan kan kan kan kan kan kan…

With 22-26 left, that’s still 5 episodes to go, which should be plenty of time to finish the individual tournament and have Saki make out up with her sister. It might be quite some time before we get a season two about the national tournament, though!

On an unrelated note, I preordered a PS3 slim today. Anyone wanna be my friend on PSN? lol

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Summary
Saki dreams about the time her sister was nice and sisterly with a nice onee-chan facial expression, but little does she know that her sister is some crazed mahjong monster these days. I wonder what the backstory behind that is? Gonzo don’t let us down.

Meanwhile, Hisa has come up with some amazing idea – a club retreat to the pool. Supposedly it’s for training purposes, but then she flat out admits she wants to see Nodoka in a swimsuit. I do not object nor do I complain about the inherent lack of plot these types of episodes are cursed blessed with.

And as with all mizugi episodes, we get a nice head to toe (woohoo!) pan shot of the goods. Unfortunately the animators didn’t take too much care in the feet area, and Saki and Yuki look like they have cankles, and really really small feet. The toes are all messed up too. Oh well, you can’t win em all.

Over at Kazekoshi, those losers are standing around wondering how they can get their captain to stop doing laundry and practice mahjong. Speaking of which, why the hell does the mahjong team need to do laundry? Oh, right, their thighs sweat incessantly.

Back at the pool, team Kiyosumi bumps into team Ryuumonbuchi, and while their conversation isn’t unpleasant (rather, a gawking session at Nodoka’s boobs), it isn’t until Koromo starts doing her cutsey non-mahjong shit that people start to lighten up. From there we get some backstory on Ryuumonbuchi, and how they went to Tokyo the previous year and ate fried shrimp at some family restaurant that skimped on the tartar sauce. I don’t really care, but Koromo is doing a lot of cute shit, so it’s all good.

As with Tsuruga, Yumi-chin is sprawled out on the roof with her invisible yuri admirer hanging all around her. The newbie blonde girl is prohibited from practicing in order to maintain her beginners luck (go figure), and the real captain says “wahaha” a lot. Or at least I think she does, cuz I can’t hear anything else coming out of her…

 
Preview

Up next on Saki: The individual tournament begins!
 
Thoughts
Saki spends the whole ep on this caffeinated teenager high, presumably because she is going to see her daisuki na onee-chan soon. Nobody but her yuri lover Nodoka seems to notice, and those endless looks of concern she bats off indicates that Saki’s hyperness might actually be overcompensating for her nervousness. Indeed, she is going to see her onee-chan soon, and she has no idea how the reception will be – as the end of the episode shows, her doubts are rightfully placed, as Teru seems to have disowned Saki. I’m guessing it’s something to do with why they’re separated in the first place, something that Teru blames Saki for. Teru, you suck. Saki would be an awesome imouto.

The individual tournament starts next episode, which means it’s gonna be some crazy family reunion at the final table…

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Summary
Koromo gets pissed off and mounts her final attack – apparently her aura is nuclear because she causes some monster EM pulse that makes all the lights go out – and goes straight into another haitei raouyue. Great, now the lead gets bigger again. Everyone is pretty much screwed now, but apparently Saki hasn’t given up and Kana is still forging on like she still thinks she has a chance.

On the final hand, Saki gets herself a pretty monster draw, but it’s still not enough in itself to make up for the 50-something thousand points that separate her from Koromo. Well, so I thought, but apparently there’s this obscure rule called a “melded kan” – whenever you make a kan with an opponent’s discard, that opponent has to pay up all the points. Being the one-trick beast that she is, Saki does just that – first 12k (meh), then a chained kan for another 12k (oh shi-), and then a third kan for one more 12k (IT’S OVER 9000!!!!!) – normally that wouldn’t be enough but since it was all ponied up by Koromo, Saki makes up for the entire difference and wins the game. Well, not before a violently euphoric mahjongasm and some Gurren Lagann galaxy-throwing tile-drawing action. Schoolgirl mahjong – where the fate of the world is always on the line.

 
Preview

Up next on Saki: Poolside training, aka excuse for mizugi episode
 
Thoughts
Well we all knew Saki was going to win somehow, thing is we didn’t know how it would come about. There could’ve been some crazy point controlling reminiscent of her plus-minus 0, there could’ve been some new move that Saki busts out… or there could’ve been the “I’m just gonna kan everyone to death” approach. Unfortunately they went for the obvious route, but much to my surprise and titillated delight, it came out really well!

If there’s one thing in anime that never fails is this huge sense of sportsmanship, even though everyone except for one just got totally owned. There hasn’t been a single sore loser in this show, and in other sports anime like Prince of Tennis, even if someone is a total bitch on the court and goes for the jugular (literally) every time, they always seem to finish the game a total good sport. LeBron James might have something to learn after walking off the court vs the Magic in the playoffs – I mean, cmon LeBron, you guys had no chance. At least Kana was nice about it, then she got a hug from cyclops-senpai.

Astute user SierraEdge sent me an email pointing out an particularly odd soundbite from Jason Mraz’s Try Try Try, which can be heard in the above video at 0:08 and again at 1:07. About 100% of all anime fans will instantly recognize it to be the eyecatch audio clip from moe blob Akiyama Mio showcasing anime K-ON.

The song itself is pretty good, but having Yui’s mono-ized voice chime in doesn’t fit with the song at all, which naturally begs the question – what the hell? Could it be some huge fan-made troll that has somehow pervaded itself in every single Youtube clip and mp3 found online? Could someone at Atlantic Records be on Kadokawa’s payroll? Or is Jason Mraz every bit of the crazy otaku as those guys who celebrated Ritsu’s birthday? The only other mention of this I could find is on the ZOMG Forums, where people seem to be just as confused…

While Mraz does communicate to his fans via traditional means like Twitter, perhaps, if we are trusting and optimistic enough to believe the addition was completely intentional, he’s showing a bit of his closet otaku self as a big wink to those who would understand…