Random Curiosity

A gentle ride, like the breeze of a blue spring.

If I had received a horoscope at the beginning of the season telling me that Ao Haru Ride would be one of the shows I’d look forward to talking about the most I would have been sceptical. Because astrology is crock. But also because, on the surface, there isn’t all that much to all that much to Ao Haru Ride. I had a conversation with Zephyr the other day about pure romance anime being a dying breed, and there must be a reason why. It may just be a question of demand; the modern viewer simply demands something more. A romantic comedy, perhaps. Or a star-crossed tragedy. Or an action show with hints of belligerent sexual tension. The last habitat of the thoroughbred romance is in shoujo anime, to the point where it is almost subsumed. And yes, while genre is already a flimsy construct and ‘target audience’ isn’t ‘genre’, if there was ever an anime that could be described as ‘shoujo’ it would be Ao Haru Ride. As I have said elsewhere, it’s so abashedly, stereotypically shoujo in its 23 minutes of talking about feelings that it could be a caricature of itself if it wasn’t playing things straight. Having Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun air just the day before made the experience rather surreal.

All that said, Ao Haru Ride turned out well because it was entirely comfortable with what it was and focused very intently on making that good. It was a love story with a ‘main couple’ and the pairing was pretty much a given, so there wasn’t as much of the ‘will they, will they not’ tension. Instead, the focus is on processes: building chemistry between the characters instead of just tying them together because they are the default couple. In fact, Ao Haru Ride goes one further; Futaba and Kou already have chemistry, and just need to rediscover it. Their past relationship allowed us to skip past much of the initial ‘boy meets girl’ faff and jump right into the drama. Futaba is quick to concede that she’s attracted to Kou, because that’s not really the important question. The important question is ‘why’ she is attracted, and whether there’s anything of that boy she used to know inside Kou.

At first, that setup sounded really cliché to me. Now, having watched the entire series, it’s…still really cliché. It doesn’t bother me as much as it perhaps should. Yeah, the developments aren’t really going to surprise you. The plot gets cheesy at times. And characters aren’t embarrassed to spout platitudes aplenty. But I found myself readily forgiving Ao Haru Ride. I’ve always been of the position that good execution easily compensates for originality. And Ao Haru Ride‘s execution can only be described as ‘meticulous’. Remember, the plot wasn’t really the point of the entire affair; the two will probably get together eventually. Every trial and obstacle thrown in the way was not done for thrill or surprise; it’s done purely to develop a relationship. Ao Haru Ride spent almost every moment of its runtime getting into the heads and its characters (well, mostly Futaba) and exploring exactly what makes them tick at any given moment. This is the kind of story where there would almost be no conflict if the characters just took some time to air our their feelings normally like sane people. Under other circumstances I would be dissatisfied, because conflict with obvious but ignored solutions is contrived conflict. But Ao Haru Ride takes great care in fleshing out its characters inner turmoils and motivations, making them believable. Indeed, while I spent many episodes critical of all the characters, it was not criticism of the writing. The characters were just flawed, and that’s a good thing—flaws demonstrate humanity and capacity for growth. If emotional repression and adolescent confusion is part of that package, then so be it. Oh yes, we won’t just spend 23 minutes talking about feelings; we’ll also talk about not talking about feelings.

Despite the anime’s very deliberate pacing we still ended at a rather curious spot. Not only did it leave several subplots largely unresolved, like the Aya, Shuuko, Tanaka-sensei love triangle, it also did things I think last episodes should never do—introduce new hooks. Kou’s father coming back into his life, that orange-haired kid from the library who may emerge as a love rival—I know they were built up from previous episodes but they’re not the sort of thing to leave hanging in the last one. Could it be? Season 2? After that title drop at the very end? I know nothing about the manga, but it still feels like the ride isn’t over yet.

「三日目」 (Mikka Me)
“Day 3″

While the epilogue finale of Haikyuu was mostly subdued like I was anticipating, there sure were a lot of frustrated outbursts to keep things interesting. It was somewhat humorous since it’s not often we see Kageyama blow his cool

Aside from that, this episode proved to be both a heart-wrenching and promising look at Karasuno’s volleyball team, whose desire and determination to improve foreshadows some exciting things to come. It also re-emphasized that Shiratorizawa—and not Aoba Jousai—is the real team that they need to strive to beat if they expect to have any hope of getting to the nationals and doing well there. That in turn implies that they will at some point improve enough to compete with not only Oikawa’s group, but also Ushijima Watatoshi’s (Takeuchi Ryouta). The mere thought of that makes me tempted to go check out the manga, but I’ll refrain from doing so in anticipation of a second season. With that said, on to the final impressions!

Final Impressions:

To Random Curiosity readers old and new, the most meaningful impression that I can probably say about Haikyuu is that if I had known about it sooner, I would’ve gotten out of my two-plus-year blogging hiatus sooner. That’s coming from someone who doesn’t normally follow sports anime too, except the odd one that catches my eye while doing research for a season preview. However, as someone who used to play a fair bit of volleyball and been enamoured by the sport, I’ve longed for a modernized anime about it. There’s a lot of anime about baseball and soccer given their popularity in Japan, but volleyball always seems to be forgotten for some reason despite its popularity. Along comes Haikyuu and that void is finally filled. It’s not filled in just any old way though, as Haikyuu turned out to be one of the most enjoyable and engaging anime series that I’ve watched in a while.

That’s largely credited to how the series highlights many aspects of the sport, presents them in a non-alienating way to those who are unfamiliar with it, and features a huge cast of unique and relatable characters to draw viewers in. That last point is especially important, as Haikyuu not only tells a multifaceted and layered story from the protagonists’ perspective, but also from those of their opponents. At times, I found myself torn between whether I wanted our protagonists to win a match or their opponents. Because of that, I found the series very true to the friendly yet competitive nature of volleyball, where the lack of direct contact with one’s opponents makes it really easy to appreciate what they do well on their side of the net. Generally, nothing is considered a “dirty play” in volleyball, so once a match is over and the disappointment for the loser has subsided, experienced players will generally take away what they did well and how they can improve based on how their opponents played. Haikyuu has done an exceptional job at depicting this nuance, and uses it effectively as a means to propel the story forward for the members of Karasuno High.

Volleyball aside, I can’t stress enough how good Haikyuu is to those who aren’t into sport or sports anime altogether. The series has a knack for engaging viewers by telling a story where subplots just flow seamlessly into one another. It also has the perfect balance of seriousness and comedy, and knows when to use each of them so that it doesn’t disrupt the competitive mood. The production values—despite some dips in quality in one or two episodes—are well above average thanks to Production I.G and the music that goes with it is incredible for inducing feelings of excitement and anticipation. When we put all of that together, it simply means that Haikyuu has all the makings of a great anime. This adaptation is well-poised for a sequel and based on how the manga volumes are selling in Japan, it looks like it will probably get one. If you haven’t gotten on the Haikyuu bandwagon now, as one fan of anime to another, I strongly suggest that you get on board now and find out first-hand what all the well-warranted commotion is about. It’s been a pleasure covering the second half of this adaptation and I look forward to covering a potential second season in the future.

Full-length images: 15.

「この気持ちが恋じゃないなら、きっと世界に恋はない。」 (Kono Kimochi ga Koi Ja Nai Nara, Kitto Sekai ni Koi wa Nai.)
“If This Feeling Isn’t Love, Then There Is No Love At All”

Osu, Zanibas here subbing in for Stilts (again) while he’s out doing even more dubious activities (again). Let’s dive right into this finale–a bittersweet goodbye to what has been a show full of laugh-out-loud comedy. Although the last episode ironically used one of the most overused plot devices known to romance, the ending was sweet and hopeful, as all feel-good romantic comedies should do. It’ll be tough to say farewell to this cast of inverted tropes, but here’s to hoping someone sensible (or crazy) convinces the right people to give us another season.

The Valentine’s Day skit and the first half of the festival skit shouldn’t have been of surprise to anyone. It is the show’s way of introducing all of the major characters one last time, wrapping up any loose ends unrelated to shipping before the curtain call. Today’s setup was misunderstandings galore, where it seems that getting everyone on the same wavelength at once is an impossibility. It’s always been amusing to see every character think sensibly about everyone else’s scenario save their own, such as Kashima’s inability to recognize how her relation to Hori is viewed by everyone else, or how all the male characters can question Nozaki and Chiyo’s relationship while simultaneously not recognizing their own. Wakamatsu is an especially ridiculous case of this, where his imagination knows no bounds when trying to figure out Seo’s seemingly random actions.

Overall, it was an alright lead-up to the fated fireworks scene, allowing us to peek into the misunderstandings of our cast one last time. Some of the misunderstandings have gotten dry and over-used, such as Nozaki’s unyielding (and narrow sighted) focus on his craft, but overall, it was still a pleasant episode to watch.

But, after all those last gags, we come to that scene. Clearly, we’re all thinking, “will they kiss!?” hoping that the show pulls a fast one on us and breaks another trope one last time, and the show definitely put some of us on the edge in what was ultimately going to happen. Despite all the warning signs of poor lighting, loud fireworks, and a still largely unconfident Chiyo and unaware Nozaki, there was still hope! Hope in the face of trope-tastic adversity!

Before we got to that scene though, the flashback was a sweet call back to the beginning of the series, before Chiyo regularly wore her signature polka-dotted ribbons. The flashback had what that we expected–an awestruck Chiyo falling in love with a pretty cool Nozaki. However, what was interesting about this moment is that it gave us a small window into what their beginnings were like, before all these misunderstandings clearly came into play.

For much of the series, the comedic gold and character progression has largely been fueled by constant misunderstandings and spontaneity, yet the relationships formed in the series stem from a genuine and honest common point. Kashima and Hori are on completely different wavelengths, yet they both mutually respect each other for the acting ability they possess. Seo and Wakamatsu, though they seem like two dancers with four left feet, share this common aspect of being good. As I mentioned in my last post, Seo does good but ends up coming off as bad, while Wakamatsu tries to dissuade Seo but instead ends up being nice. For best girl Mikorin, his own big mouth gets himself into lots of trouble, yet shares rapport with the rest of the cast for his genuine ability to be charming when he’s not trying.

For Chiyo, these 12 episodes have been a long journey in attempting to figure out Nozaki, whose thought processes are all over the place. Starting from square one where her confession was misinterpreted, every episode, Chiyo’s expectations get let down when she’s hoping the hardest, while suddenly being lifted up again when Nozaki does something completely unexpected. Nozaki’s character is a shining example of how appearances betray what’s inside, which is why today’s flashback was so important. For Chiyo, we must remember that she didn’t fall in love with Nozaki because he was a mangaka–that’s precisely the source of all of her misunderstandings. Instead, Chiyo fell for Nozaki because of his ability to make her smile and to take her under his wing. From lifting her above the gate, to inviting her to help with his manga, all the way to offering to walk her home under his jacket, Nozaki has consistently been looking out for Chiyo, just as much as he’s looked out for his manga. It is this sense of just being nice to Chiyo despite his appearances that caught her eye and, as Chiyo mentioned herself, “has only continued to grow.” We can clearly see how that has grown with all the nice things that these two have done together despite misunderstandings, because it is that core relationship that has kept them together throughout the series.

So the flashback scene ends and we hope to god, we hope that things are different and then BAM! One of the most used tropes in romance is used. Misunderstanding because of loud fireworks, closely followed by, I’m happy with where things are anyways!, with a dash of, I love…the fireworks! For a show that has spent most of its time as a parody of shoujo and romance, it is painfully ironic to see the show cliffhanger in such a fashion. Perhaps that’s the point, as a twist within a twist, as hinted by Chiyo’s laugh and realization, but I still wish they’d have just taken the cake and kissed, from a fanboy perspective.

However, you know what, ending trope or not, it was still a sweet ending that gave one hope to all the shipped couples that came about this season. Instead of ending on some hugely comedic note, we witness a sweet curtain call to all of our main characters, giving hope that eventually, all those misunderstandings will clear up when Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun finally ends.

Now that we’re at the end, here’s your main man’s final impressions, since he left them for me before he left to do [insert dubious activity here]. It will then be followed by my own impressions, which I hope to keep short in compensation! Here goes!



Stilts’ Final Impressions

I started out thinking Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun was a romcom, but it’s not. It’s a comedy with a dash of romance, like Acchi Kocchi with shipteasing instead of fuwa fuwa. Which turned out to be great, because Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun is an excellent comedy, one which was only enhanced by the love-love misunderstandings and hjinks.

Toying with Gender Stereotypes

Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun stands as one of the rare series that is roundly popular with both male and female fans. Or rather, it’s one that seems tailored for both guys and girls. That’s because it toys with gender stereotypes until it’s hard to remember where the originals are. This is a shounen manga with a female main character about a male shoujo mangaka. But their roles/jobs aside, Nozaki and Chiyo aren’t gender subversions themselves—it’s everyone else who is. Mikorin, the true heroine. Yuzuki, the dense, blunt girl. The female prince Kashima, and the shorter guy who doles out comic violence at her, Hori-chan-sempai. Wakamatsu, the genki nice guy who’s constantly thinking about love, though he doesn’t realize it. Everyone is a half-step off from their “proper” (accustomed) roles, which makes the story both feel fresh, and avoids pinning it down by the usual tropes.

Comedic Misunderstandings

Another thing Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun does really well is comedic misunderstandings. This was especially clear early on, when Nozaki completely misunderstanding Chiyo’s feelings should have been aggravating, but it was not. I’ll evoke Acchi Kocchi again, because that series also benefits from not being a true romcom. The romance adds to the story, but because we don’t really expect development, quirks like this don’t rub us the wrong way. It’s also an outgrowth of how Chiyo doesn’t really push the issue, which would get frustrating quickly if she did, but since she’s busy self-sabotaging and leaving things as they are, it continues to work. Ditto with Yuzuki x Waka, and Hori-sempai x Kashima. They use dense characters being dense for laughs and it’s not annoying. That’s a hard trick to pull off, judging by how many stories founder on those rocks.

Reaction Faces

One of the things I love about comedy in anime is the reaction faces, and Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun’s are top tier! I could do an entirely compilation of Chiyo’s reaction faces alone; they’re everywhere. Take a stroll back through our collection of screen caps and you’ll see what I mean. It’s a simple thing, but it made me laugh every time. Mostly because…

Shiptease Galore

I’ve spent a lot of time alluding to the romantic aspect. What I like is how it enhances the story, while teasing at resolutions while never demanding them. It does this through drawing us closer to the characters and making us care about them. I compare this to pure comedies like Danshi Koukousei no Nichijou—a superb comedy, but because they never really draw us into the characters and give us reason to love them, it lives or dies by its jokes. And its jokes were usually great! But I can’t really remember the character’s names anymore, whereas with Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun, I doubt I’ll ever forget.

These characters are more than just vehicles for comedy—they’re living, breathing, developed characters who just happen to be quirky and hilarious. That makes me care about them more, which in turn makes the laughs better and the shipteasing sting so good. Add into that how the characters are imbued with real depth—Hori-chan-sempai’s pride and respect for Kashima’s acting comes to mind—and the characters draw us into the comedy all the more.

Looking Back, Looking Ahead

Since I’m off galavanting around the world while Zanibas writes the rest of this post (thanks Zani!), I won’t get to find out if the series ended with a troll ending or not for another week. (And I won’t be thinking about it at all until I return, because gah, I want to know!) But I can safely say that this is one of my favorite comedies of the year, and I’m glad I got to spend a season talking about it with all of you. Thanks for helping with the screen caps Zani—and encouraging me to pick the series up—thanks everyone else for reading and commenting, and I’ll see you again next season.

Zanibas’ Final Impressions

When I wrote the preview for this series, I was largely unaware of what to expect. The credentials didn’t look that amazing, the promotional video wasn’t anything great, but hey, I’ll check it out and see if it was any good. I am glad to say that I was blown away by the first few episodes, as a huge gust of fresh material brought life to a dying art of laughs and love. It teased us with couples that we know are canon, but have to wait out to see it actually happened. It created sweet scenarios where the characters would each become likeable in their own way, keeping a balanced focus on the entire cast instead of our main couple. It gave us such amusing art and and comedic scenes that even if you didn’t find it laugh out loud, hopefully you found yourself smiling on the inside due to all the silly things these characters inflict on themselves. Above all else though, it gave us something new, something that hasn’t really been treaded on much, and it did it well. That’s why people talk about it in anime clubs. That’s why both guys and girls can talk about this show excitedly. That’s why people both new to romantic comedies and veterans alike could find something in this show to enjoy. It was new, and broke away from the all-too-treaded paths that shoujo and romantic comedies like to walk. While not ever show can be a parody from here on out, Gekkan Shoujo gives us an excellent example of what not to do in Shoujo, as well as what TO do in a romantic comedy. Tease enough, but don’t make it overt. Make jokes based on cleverness rather than ecchi. Don’t put all your story eggs with one or two characters. By doing this, Gekkan Shoujo has showed not only the importance of originality, but also of balance, both of which are critical in making a world that can appeal to and keep a larger audience. I hope with this show, along with LOVE STAGE!! and Bokura wa Minna Kawaisou, we can see more effort put into romantic comedies–the genre is far from being exhausted.

Thank you dear reader for following along with this series to the very end–it was a blast watching this show and capping it for Stilts! Unfortunately, tomorrow will be my last post (with a terrible triple-post of Hanayamata), so this is also one of my last goodbyes to you guys before I take a sabbatical until at least Spring 2015. It’s been a pleasure to write this finale for you guys, and I hope to see some of you soon if and when season two comes out, or when another great romantic comedy comes out, whichever comes first!

Full-length images: 20.

Epilogue:

It might’ve been over 5 months ago, but I still fondly remember Captain Earth’s first episode like it was yesterday. The first expansion sequence, the insert song, the nostalgic Eureka Seven (Did I ever mention my quote from this article got referenced on the official BD’s?) references/vibes. It was a great start to a series I had high expectations for, and it delivered in a way that made me hopeful for its overall run. As time would tell however, this didn’t quite end up the case. The middle of the series ended up a series of twists and turns that took away from the overall narrative, and ultimately, Captain Earth found itself bogged down by the sequential introduction of the Kiltgang members, which ended up being akin to an “encounter of the week” affair.

Despite this (and the drop in coverage) however, I was always of the belief that a great second half was incoming, and why not? The gradual build up was pointing toward bigger, better, and more exciting things, and the factional divides slowly came into fruition with each passing episode. The question was whether the wait for this inevitable climax would come before it was too late, and while I’d wager to say most felt it was (and dropped it midway as a result), I’m glad I stuck with this series because it really delivered in a way that left me glad that I continued to watch. Considering how many series this year underwhelmed with their finales (and the episodes leading up to them), that’s high praise indeed, and there’s much to be said about how the series tied in its fairly well developed cast with its thematic foci.

Bringing up the top is the always profound question of what it means to live, and in this sense Captain Earth manages to deliver—giving us various factions with their own views and characters who were firm in their beliefs and were neither truly good/bad in the end. The fact is that when you’re facing imminent demise, there’s no one right way, and the Ark + Intercept Faction interplay highlighted that notion in particular. After all, who’s to say that sending off a part of humanity away from Earth in order to seek out and repopulate another viable planet wasn’t a bad idea? There’s no guarantee the Intercept Faction would be able to fight off the Kiltgang—Earth barely survived the first strike many years ago—and the fact remains that even if that plan’s success would yield the best overall result, it’s one that’s lacks in the certainty department. Flipping things back on their heads though, is the notion that being shoved on a spaceship for thousands of years isn’t exactly the life to live (Hana could attest to this), and it all goes back to whether or not the results justify the means.

Put it all together and you have the makings of a great set-up—one that really played out well when it was all said and done. The thing is, it wouldn’t have worked without a strong cast to support it, and one must ultimately discuss the fact that all sides not only had justification for what they wanted to do, but also demonstrated the necessary resolve to stand by those choices.

The fact that every side had a proper pairing of justification + resolve made a lot of Captain Earth worth watching (especially in its second half), and there’s at least one lesson to be had here:

Those lacking resolve cannot do anything (and arguably shouldn’t be trying to do anything either).

The Ark Faction might’ve done some shady things and looked like the villains in our view—framed from the perspective of the Intercept Faction—but that doesn’t mean they didn’t want to have a scenario where Earth could be saved. It’s just that they didn’t believe it was likely to happen, and honestly you can’t fault them—or on the flip side even the Kiltgang—for feeling and doing the things they did. Needless to say, strength of character wasn’t something Captain Earth lacked, and it setup for what was both a flashy and nostalgic (cue the Eureka Seven vibes) end to what turned out to be a pretty good series (especially from the Sci-Fi/Animation/Action perspectives).

In this sense, I think it’s only fitting to apply some of the same commentary I had (and have seen applied) previously on Eureka Seven, and it’s that Captain Earth ultimately ends up being a flawed, but worthwhile experience. It’s not quite the flawed masterpiece I consider Eureka Seven to be, but it’s a BONES production through and through, and everyone knows just how much I love how they do their thing. The Captain deserves this one last hurrah, even if a fair amount of people would believe otherwise.

Just according to keikaku¹.

Well, here I am. It appears that luck was on my side and the stars have aligned in my favour, resulting in me being given this fantastic opportunity to blog for RandomC. So let’s get started with the introductions: I’m Samu, from bonnie² Scotland, and I’ll be the latest addition to the weird and wonderful cast of RandomC!

Like many others, I watched anime throughout my childhood without even realising what it was. But Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Digimon, and Beyblade aside – as well as far too much money spent on merchandise and trading cards over my childhood – my real introduction into anime came in the glorious year of 2011. Since then I’ve been watching series by the season with help from the previews, schedules, and episode reviews available on RandomC. Before that, though, was my first ever ongoing anime/manga experience: Bleach, which is still my top manga to date. We all had our gateway series, I suppose!

To give you an idea of what grabs my attention, my favourite anime would easily be Ano Hana, for being packed with incredible character drama, development, and having me sobbing for the entirety of the final episode. My second place would go to Shin Sekai Yori – a series that took the dystopian genre to greater heights whilst balancing a tightly written plot with ambitious ideas (at the cost of being commercially unsuccessful, I suppose). Haikyuu!! is another love of mine. I’ve been reading the manga since it started, and the anime adaptation is so perfect that every episode is like watching a giddy, loveable dream unfold. I would recommend it to absolutely everyone; there is a reason Divine returned to blog this show in particular! And to give two more of my favourites, I’d have to say Kuuchu Buranko and Kyousougiga, both of which are equally as enjoyable to the eye as they are to the mind.

Overall I’d say my taste is pretty expansive, spanning across a plethora of genres and themes, such as long-running battle shonen, imaginative anime with artistic flair, realistic series that deal with serious themes, comedies with heart and humour, and a good slice of life to sit back and enjoy every now and then. Then there is also my latest new-found love: sports anime. I could list more, but feel free to visit my MAL profile for the whole list.

As for a little bit about me… I’m a bartender at the moment, Tsukishima (from Haikyuu!!) is essentially me in anime form – though I would like to think I’m more positive than my anime counterpart – and as mentioned earlier, I hail from Scotland, so the global diversity of RandomC increases yet again! I’m a big A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones fan, and as a result my all-time favourite fictional character would unquestionably be Sansa Stark, who I will defend to death! There has never been a character I’ve found so easy to empathise with and root for… but sadly I know she’s not a popular choice among fans – you might find a trend in me liking unpopular characters every now and then, by the way! Also, due to my love for animation, I went on to study it at university and found that whilst it wasn’t the profession for me, it is certainly one that deserves respect; animation is damn hard. Doing it for three years makes that clear and it certainly has shaped how I view anime these days.

So that’s my introduction! I look forward to getting started this coming fall season, and to reading all your comments. If you have any feedback then I’ll be more than willing to read and write back. Also, feel free to add me on MyAnimeList, or follow me on Twitter

And with that, I’ll be seeing you all soon. Anime awaits.

よろしくおねがいします。
Yoroshiku onegaishimasu.

_________________________
¹ Translator’s note: Keikaku means plan.
² Translator’s note: Bonnie means beautiful.

「幻の銃弾」 (Maboroshi No Juudan)
“Phantom Bullet”

After weeks of enduring episodes full of dialogue and flashbacks to build up to this moment, I’ll be frank and say that I was a little disappointed that we still haven’t hit the climax. However, it looks like what we all want is right over the horizon!

Last Man Standing

I really don’t want to get into how the first half of the episode was all about planning and flashbacks again, so instead let’s chat about an interesting point that Kirito brought up about the remaining players in the tournament! Something which really piqued my interest was how the player count doesn’t seem to add up. Sure, it could be something as simple as Death Gun really “killing” another player and causing them to logout, but with how the rest of the episode played out (specifically Death Gun refuting Kirito’s theory), I can’t help but wonder about how big of a role this “missing” person could play. As crazy as it sounds, could you imagine a second Death Gun actually participating in the tournament? While I haven’t figured out how it would actually benefit his plan of slaying others, it never hurts to hunt in pairs!

Death Gun vs Kirito

The big battle is finally underway! While I’m a little hesitant to actually call it a battle since there hasn’t been much fighting yet, I’m just happy we’re finally at the point of no return. With the two staring straight at each other, I’m dying to know how Kirito overcomes that stupidly overpowered estoc made from spaceship metal. And as much as I want Kirito to do it all by himself, I’m willing to bet that Sinon will play a huge role against defeating such an overpowered enemy. Even with her scope destroyed, who says she still can’t hit something with it? (I’m sure all the CS players out there understand the bitterness when someone just blows you up with an awp. And if anything, Sinon has an overpowered awp!)

Looking Ahead

While it drives me crazy that Kirito may actually never figure out Death Gun’s old name from SAO, all I’m really hoping for at this point is that he turns the tables next week and smacks the grin off Death Gun’s ugly face. Because at this point, my body is ready and waiting for a rush of adrenaline as Kirito unleashes whatever ace he has up his sleeve. Besides that, I really don’t have much else to say about this one. See you next week!

「東京にいます / よせおっ」 (Tokyo Ni Imasu / Yoseo)
“I Am In Tokyo”

I’m not sure if this week’s episode was supposed to emotional but I’ll tell you all about that after I find some tissues.

Handa’s Home life

After spending the entirety of the show in the countryside, it was a little odd seeing Handa back in the bustling subways of Tokyo. Full of people who care about you as much as they do about some garbage rolling around on the street, everything in the city had a very unwelcoming attitude about it. That said, if there was one positive thing about Handa suddenly running back home, it would be watching him demonstrate to everyone just how much he’s grown. From humbling himself in-front of the very man who he got so infuriated with he punched right in the face to openly expressing his gratitude to others for thinking about him, the stark contrast between what Handa is now compared to where he was only a few months ago is crazy! All I know for sure is that I’ll never get sick of seeing people act surprised when Handa shows them some genuine emotions.

While I’ll go on a huge tangent next week about how amazing the people who surround him are, I have to give major props to the Art Director for being such an upbeat gentleman. He doesn’t seem like the kind of person to give someone a free lunch so you you have to love how he originally intended to lecture some humility into Handa had he not surprised him with such a sincere apology. At the same time, you have to give him some props for playing off whatever anger he had after Handa for dowsed him in tea!

The Feels, Takaii Edition

I don’t know about you but I was on the verge of tears the moment I heard Naru’s voice squeak over Kawafuji’s phone. While the scene itself had a really upbeat feel to it, something about knowing Handa wasn’t with everyone in the village felt awfully bittersweet. Listening to each person take turns to give their words of encouragement didn’t help but when Naru finally got her chance to talk I couldn’t stop the tears any longer. I mean, how could you!? The odd part though is that with such a big disconnect between how I felt and how I thought the episode wanted me to feel, I can’t figure out if I’m just being overly emotional or something. Someone, help pls.

Looking Forward

GOD DAMNIT WHAT A CLIFFHANGER. Teasing us with a fade to black just as Handa reveals his masterpiece “Stone Wall”, I have to compliment the director of the anime for instilling a rage within me I didn’t think was possible. All jokes aside, it looks like next week’s episode is going to be a doozy. With a crucial turning point in Handa’s life about to occur as well as his lack of an answer when Miwa asked him about returning to the village earlier in the episode, I can’t help but feel next week is going to rob me of all my tears. See you then! ><

「#12 たとえ天が堕ちるとも -Childhood’s End-」 (Tatoe ten ga Ochirutomo -Childhood’s End-)
“Even the Heavens Can Fall -Childhood’s End-”

Well – never let it be said that Aldnoah.Zero didn’t end its first season with a bang…

A couple of thoughts just to start with…

• Yes, I believe she’s really dead this time.
• She better be, or credibility destruction is complete.
• As I said once already – Slaine shot first. Just remember that.

For the second time this week (it must be a new rule for shows I cover at RC) we got a sequel announcement right after the first season ended. It’s even less surprising here than it was with Tokyo Ghoul, given that Aoki Ei had all but announced that this show was split cour, though that was informally – and until there’s an official announcement (Aldnoah got this one right, doing it in the end card rather than 18 hours later on a Chinese website) you can never be certain. As such, as is my normal practice with split cour shows I’ll treat Aldnoah as a single series and thus save the full series review for after the end of the second cour (assuming that’s the last one).

To be honest, I think – like much of the last several episodes – that finale was a pretty big mess. In fact, it was a clusterfuck of epic proportions, but one can’t deny it those epic proportions. Aldnoah goes big, and when it needs a change-of-pace it goes bigger. Stuff doesn’t always (or often) make sense, but it’s always a spectacle. And as season-ending cliffhangers go, even if this one wasn’t especially logical it was certainly memorable (and curiosity-inducing).

We had the blockbuster battle Aoki-sensei had promised us for the final episode, though for the most part it followed the standard Aldnoah script – a Martian landing castle that seemed ridiculously overpowered, but had an obvious flaw that (along with the arrogance of the pilot) gets it defeated by Inaho (at least that last part seemed destined to change). Frankly I was hoping for better from Saazbaum, who may just have ended up as my favorite character in the cour. But he wound up being struck with the same stupid stick as all his comrades when the chips were down, and met a similar – though it’s too early to say identical – fate.

The first 18 minutes of the episode are entertaining enough, but quite straightforward – there just isn’t much to talk about until the ending, where things get really interesting (and crazy). We do get what amounts to a statement of purpose from Inaho, who declares that wars – like everything else in his worldview – are driven by practicality. We get Saazbaum pulling off a pretty interesting gettai move, though we’ve seen the flying fists approach from Kataphrakts already. Lots of shots of wounded on the Deucalion, but no one with a name seems to be dead. It’s all there, really, to set up those last four minutes.

So what do we get there? We get Saazbaum pledging that he intends to “stop the cycle of hatred”. We get Inaho using Inko as a decoy. We get Slaine arriving and being saved from Terran soldiers by a Martian, who’s promptly snuffed out as reward. Slaine rides to the rescue of Saazbaum, who’s on the verge of being killed by Inaho. Why was Slaine able to power up his Kataphrakt in the first place – was he granted the power by Asseylum and didn’t realize it? Is it somehow connected with his own bloodlines? Most of the real intrigue here in this finale surrounds Slaine, though a lot of it is never really justified or explained.

This is indeed a highly confused situation, at least on moral grounds. Inaho is a pure consequentialist, Saazbaum is declaring noble intentions intended to be carried out through assassination, mocking his own prejudices while acting on them. And Slaine is a complete mess, certainly from a narrative standpoint. I could almost see Slaine having some sentimental regard for Saazbaum, who’d at least saved him from Cruhteo and freed him to choose his own fate. But this is the man whose professed and practiced intent was to kill the girl Slaine is in love with, so to say Slaine’s actions at the end are confusing is perhaps generous. Charitably, I think the interpretation would be that they’re the confused actions of a confused young man.

Being Slaine is certainly suffering, of that we can be sure. He finally sees Asseylum again, but as she’s ministering to the wounded Inaho in an unnervingly tender manner. Then he sees her shot by Saazbaum, who he’s just saved – first through the chest, and then in the head (so congrats on causing Asseylum’s death there, Slaine). Slaine shoots Saazbaum repeatedly, but before he can deliver the head-shot Saazbaum is asking for, Inaho crawls from his cockpit and stops him. He drags himself towards Asseylum’s body, a strange little smile on his face, but Slains stops him and points a gun at his head. Naturally Inaho pulls out a gun of his own, and Slaine kills him. The end, for now.

Status check, then, shows Inaho and Asseylum dead, Saazbaum possibly close to death, and Slaine… what, exactly? In the first place if Inaho and Asseylum aren’t actually dead, that’s going to amount to a serious breach of faith with the audience. If indeed they are, where does that leave us for the second cour? This ending frankly doesn’t make sense to me – it plays as if it was set up for dramatic purposes with no regard for logic or character consistency – but it does leave some fascinating questions hanging over Slaine. What did he do with Asseylum’s body (please, let it not be some kind of Aldnoah-based resurrection – or improper activities. Anything else I can live with). Does he step in as the new MC? Does he become the new top boss, driven over the edge by what’s happened? Does he continue to stand on the precipice between the world of his birth and the world of his upbringing, everything riding on him? Obviously no one can say for certain, but it feels to me as if Slaine has thrown his lot in with the Martians by his actions here, which favors the “big bad” option. And I smell a fairly lengthy timeskip looming, too, though that’s strictly a guess on my part.

I for one don’t think anyone can argue that the first cour of Aldnoah.Zero wasn’t well-produced, great to look at and listen to. And I think most would agree that it was entertaining on a superficial level. But it would probably therefore be fair to ask – what separates this series from the likes of Guilty Crown, which its detractors have compared it to from the beginning? It’s not all that easy to refute that charge, honestly, based on just how scattershot things got over the last few episodes. I think for me the difference is that Aldnoah.Zero has a core of interesting characters and a sound premise, whereas once you got past the frosting on Guilty Crown I don’t think there was any cake. Things may have degraded substantially in terms of logic and believability, but enough of a foundation was laid that I never lost my buy-in (at least not totally). If you never have that buy-in to begin with, stuff like we saw in these recent weeks is pretty much a deal-breaker.

Even if I do have major issues with the way Aldnoah.Zero developed, I’ll still look forward to the second cour with a good deal of interest. I’m banking on Saazbaum being alive, since even when you’re dead in this series you’re not necessarily dead, and we never saw him die (in fact he pointedly didn’t die). As Saazbaum and Slaine are considerably more interesting than anyone on the Terran side, that might be a good sign for the second season. I have no idea if Gen Urobuchi will be involved in writing the second cour – I would guess minimally at-best – and for all his faults and the fact that Aldnoah followed the usual Gen pattern of shows that falter near the end, I do think his touch was missed once he ceded creative direction to the rest of the staff. It’s pretty much a crapshoot at this stage trying to predict what might happen, but there’s a certain appeal to that. I think the only things we can with certainty are that Aldnoah.Zero will be a spectacle and that Slaine will suffer.

Zephyr’s Finale/Overall Impressions:

What does it take to end a war?
Well, if both sides wish for peace and set aside their hatred…
No. Warfare is nothing but a means of negotiation between states.
Wars break out even when there is no hatred.
Territory, resources, or interests that you are determined to own.
Ideology, religion, pride.
Wars are fought over those objectives all the time.
Meaning that when those objectives are met, the war will end.
That, or the war will end when the human cost outweighs the gains.
Anger and hatred are only tools to tilt a war in your favor.
I’m not interested in those emotions.

The first cour finale is here and I think the aforementioned quote really summarizes a lot of what’s gone on this series as a whole. Episode-wise, you knew this finale was going to be epic—the only question was how epic—and I think it exceeded even the most extreme of predictions. Saazabaum proves himself to be the most boss of all villains so far—literally taking parts from all their Kataphrakts and spouting lines like “Oh? I would gladly hate on a Terran for that reason alone.”—and it was pretty fun to watch him strut his stuff. He doesn’t end up defeating Inaho by himself as expected, but given a timely assist from Slaine, does manages to at least kill Asseylum—now she’s pretty dead—before meeting his maker.

And really, I can side step it all I want, but that Slaine. That. Slaine. At this point he’s clearly the walking symbol of Murphy’s Law and the amount of suffering that he endures is probably the most I’ve seen of any character this year. Not only does his decision to save Saazabaum (I could swear Saazabaum left the communications open for this sole purpose) backfire, he ends up not being able to exchange even a single glance or word with Asseylum before she dies, AND goes off the deep end by both killing Inaho AND hiding Asseylum’s body. No amount of “I don’t even…” could fill the void here, and I just hope he didn’t do anything to the body in his crazed state.

Looking back, the first cour of ALDNOAH.ZERO really passed by quickly didn’t it? It wasn’t the strongest of narratives in terms of its story or its characters, but it was always a joy to watch week in and week out. The soundtrack was absolutely superb (the OP/ED themes were also some of this year’s best), the action sequences adrenaline rush inducing, and the weekly count of how many faces Inaho makes always a fun activity. I don’t think it necessarily met the hype put upon it and I wish that the development of Rayet and Marito was handled a bit better than it was, but ultimately, hype’s something you take with a grain of salt, and the flaws present weren’t anything that really hindered ALDNOAH.ZERO’s watchability in any serious way for me personally. I can however, see where others may have found much fault with the aforementioned aspects to the point where the series didn’t do much for them, and this is just one of those cases where the subjective experience and personal preference really comes into play. Needless to say, the polarization of this series is high, but the fact does still remain that everyone should be watching the series—if not only to see what the hoopla is all about.

And that’s about it really. Thematically, much of what needed to be touched upon was already broached with the discussion between Inaho, Asseylum, and Saazabaum (the notion of breaking the cycle of hatred among them), and I will say that I quite look forward to a winter season that should not only boast ALDNOAH.ZERO’s second cour, but Sidonia no Kishi’s second season, and the third cour of Jojo Stardust Crusaders while it’s at it. Talk about an explosive season filled with series I wish I will have time to cover! In any case, the usual thanks goes out to those of you that come in every week to view and comment on the dual posts here by Enzo and I. I’ll likely be taking a hiatus for the fall season personally (and possibly the winter), but I hope you’ll enjoy the ongoing weekly coverage from other writers. In the meanwhile, I’ll see about getting the occasional ALDNOAH ARCHIVEZ-isque post out. Thanks! See you guys around.

Obligatory tribute full-length: ASSEYLUM!

End Card

「襲撃・ESPガールズ」 (Shuugeki ESP Gaaruzu)
“Attack ESP Girls”

In case you haven’t heard, Stilts is away this week on a lovely vacation overseas and I’ve been given the privledge to blog Tokyo ESP in his place. I don’t usually blog in his format, but for the sake of consistency, I will give it a try.

Overpowered Rinka… but how?!

I hope everyone is wondering the same question I am because this episode left me so confused as to how Rinka suddenly went from zero to hero. She was literally beat up to a pulp (and died!) two episodes ago and now she’s come back stronger than ever. I don’t think it’s because the villains just miraculously got weaker so that’s a huge fault in the writing that I wish they explained. To the very least, they could’ve made Rinka’s training progress look like it wasn’t all for naught in the previous episodes. I got the impression that Rinka was just far too inferior to the other girls and hence why all was doomed for Tokyo… at least, until this episode. On top of all that, she doesn’t even have her powers back yet! She’s doing all this with her eyes closed and no superhuman powers. That is just insane and I have no other way to describe it.

Silly Pelicans

Just when I thought thinks couldn’t get any weirder, they do. And they get weird with birds. And romance. I would say that it’s totally uncalled for, but I’ve seen my fair share of thinking “out of the box” and talking pelicans that want to fall in love? That’s cool. I can live with that if it’s their way of explaining how Kyoutarou will make his way back to Tokyo. It’s just a shame that he reappeared back into Rinka’s life for only half a day, before he was made completely useless again on some island off the coast of Japan. Don’t get me wrong, I actually really like Kyoutarou’s character and his relationship with Rinka is definitely a ship that I’m on, but he feels so uninvolved in the entire second half of the story. I wish he played a more centric role in general.

Coming Back to Episode 1

It took a while, but we finally get back to the cold opening. The story comes full circle and I get a different vibe now that I’ve seen everything that has led up to this moment. In the first episode, you see a bunch of people wreaking havoc and killing innocents, but you still have this hope that someone will save them. This time around, I don’t feel that same hope towards Rinka as I once did; not to say that she’ll lose, but I’m not excited to see her fight. Maybe that’s because I know she’s powerless and the Professor is actually incredibly dangerous, but I think it’s simply that the story leading up to this point has lost a lot of its hype. I was so anxious to find out what led to the cold opening, and now that it’s revealed, everything is just mediocre. The background story for the villains wasn’t one that I particularly liked so I neither empathize nor sympathize them and Rinka has just been beat around a lot until this episode. Unfortunate for Tokyo ESP because I had a lot of high expectations for it even after watching the first episode. I guess it’s just hard to condense everything into a one-cour show.

Finale Next Week

Next week, I would expect to see a few things in our finale and probably all predictable from other viewers. The fight between Rinka and Minami will be the most interesting one for me because I’m genuinely curious how that will turn out. The other event would be Peggy’s involvement now that Kuroi, Edoyama and Oozora have saved him. I wonder if he’s just going to go around eating everyone’s abilities – especially the Professor’s. That would be too easy, but that’s still better than a cliffhanger or leaving plot holes everywhere in the show. I don’t think Tokyo ESP needs anymore issues for people to poke at so I will take the ending for whatever it’s worth. I just hope that somehow Kyoutarou’s reappearance will actually mean something and maybe we’ll finally get to see some Rinka x Kyoutarou reunion.

Bottom Line – @RCCherrie: #TokyoESP finally comes full circle but uh… How did Rinka suddenly become so kickass without her powers? O.o and mind reading birds? Sure.

Random thoughts:

• Since when could Roshi walk again?! Wow, rehabilitation works fast.
• Seeing Edoyama and Oozora work as a combat duo was a good way to break away from the rest of the episode. I like this ship as well!
• So many secondary characters get neglected in this show even though they actually do stuff. It’s a shame that they’re not given the proper time to develop or connect with the audience.

Preview

「HELTER SKELTER」

“No matter what a single detective shouts,
it will be no more than a small voice amidst a storm.
That voice will disappear before it reaches anyone.”

“Even if that is the case, I will continue to shout. I will never forgive you.”

And honestly, one could argue that’s the story in a nutshell. Zankyou no Terror is a story about never forgetting the past, revealing the truth, about never giving up in an attempt to attain it, believing that others will come to believe your version of the story, and using that revelation to pave the way to the future. It’s about ensuring that things come to light before the sands of time erase everything, and everyone has their own motives for ensuring that the dice of history rolls their way. We have the United States trying to determine whether or not Japan altered their constitution in such a way that allowed them to secretly produce an atomic bomb, the Japanese trying to sort themselves out by covering not only the presence of that bomb but of further atrocities committed in the past, and both Shibazaki + Sphinx trying to make sure that the lid gets blown off the entire thing.

Amidst the storm and the singular voices however, it’s perhaps most important to note that the events in this week’s episode aren’t so much to be viewed in terms of their significance within the series’ story itself, but in regards to the real-life commentary—which includes but isn’t limited to:

Needless to say, one could spend all day discussing the potential ramifications and symbolism here, and it’s important to at least note that it exists here. Watanabe’s clearly packing Zankyou with more than just terror, and one does begin to wonder at what point does his message cease to become just that—that is, how much of the message is related to the story versus how much of it is his own view on it all?

Going back to the actual events this week though, I have to say that it manages to maintain quite a bit of the intensity and raw emotion from the previous week. Considering episode nine (clearly, this isn’t a coincidence) was my favorite episode of the series so far, that’s definitely a good thing, and I’ll say I was on the edge of my seat as I watched most of the events develop—especially when Shibazaki finally meets Mamiya face to face. Sadly, the return and inclusion of Five doesn’t do any favors toward what was otherwise a spectacular episode, and I honestly don’t know what to say about what she does with her “confession” and “dramatic send-off”. I can see where it could’ve been a great watch given the proper development and presentation of her in prior episodes, but I sure didn’t feel any of the impact the moment was meant to give.

And so move on we shall. The atomic bomb is now on the move above the skies of Japan, and the question as always remains what happens from here. Nine’s “good-bye Japan” could be interpreted as either a threat or a farewell from his end, and I think it’s clear that there’s no real intent to cause casualties on his part. I’m anticipating that his whole announcement and launch of the atomic bomb is just meant to show that such a device exists, but at the same time I can’t help but wonder. This has all the hallmarks of a high altitude nuclear explosion for the purpose of sending out an EMP that’ll fry everything electronic around the nation, and it’d be a perfect fit in with his intent. It won’t kill anyone directly, it’ll prove an atomic bomb exists, it’d blow the lid on the program, and it’d also demonstrate the clear issues inherent with building such a device in the first place. Guess we’ll see. It’s just too bad things couldn’t have been made so that the series ends on episode twelve. ONWARD TO THE FINALE.

「Let it OUT! Let it GO!」

You remember that, last week, the Investigation Team was in deep trouble. This week: they’re not! Hurray!

Frankly, I wasn’t actually sure what happened this episode. Before, I was of the opinion that P4GA was actually doing rather well with pacing, that while they skipped a lot of material or had filler here and there in general it seemed like the staff knew what they were doing. For this episode? Not so sure. The mood whiplash was so violent that I think it left a mark. Bear with me a bit while we go through the episode and try to iron out what exactly went on in it.

Somebody who has played Golden will need to clear it up for me, because I’m not actually sure what the conflict of our overarching plot is anymore. Last week, we had Yu struggling against curse-god Marie and, surprisingly, losing. This week, it turns out…he didn’t? We have some bus metaphor (I think it’s a metaphor) and after that Yu is actually completely fine thanks in part to the magic of Margaret-ex-machina. What did the Persona-erasing trick of Marie’s do last week? Seemed pretty handy, but we’ll never know its secrets because we never see it again. Another thing I wasn’t sure of: the angel-feather symbolism. Aren’t we embroiled in Shinto mythology here? What does it mean? I have no idea.

It was in this state of general confusion that I suddenly realised that our conflict was gone. Not resolved, just gone. Like it had given us the slip while nobody was looking. Last week Marie was full on, ‘I want to die!’ and this week she’s quickly ‘no I didn’t!’ because she lost the stubbornness contest against Yu. Self-sacrifice is a noble idea and all, but there’s no dignity in it if she relents so easily and devolves immediately into just a damsel in distress. What was the point of the entire hike? Or all the exposition about the fog inside you? Apparently nothing, and the Investigation Team knows it. They all get their shiny Persona upgrades (even Yu busts out Izanami-no-Okami) not because they resolve their central internal conflict but because…Marie. Yeah, something like that. In fact, the only real conflict we had left, really, was Yu vs bamboo. Poor bamboo! It wasn’t even in his way!

Everything after Yu puts down the shrubbery like a boss, though, was quite a mood-shift. I actually liked the musical number we had as the dungeon disintegrated (because beating the boss always triggers the self-destruct). Shame. It was a nice dungeon, too. While we’re talking about shames, I hope nobody owned that cabin. All these meddling kids have been messing around in it and they broke the antique TV. Bah. And their snowball fights on your lawn, just to bully Yosuke. Heads up, Investigation Team: it’s not friendship if the relationship is based on abuse. I guess it was a good opportunity for Marie to show off the god powers she has outside the TV too, like snow-based telekinesis, Railgun impressions, and not feeling cold in that outfit. Also the last minute fan-service. See how much we had to do here? And that’s not even including the Valentines Day event, where I suppose Marie wins by default. Actually, wait—she loses to Nanako who stole a march on her. But everybody loses to Nanako. It’s not a real fight. Just like the first half of this episode.

Reading the cards
Normally in the penultimate episode I’d made a big deal about making predictions for the finale, calibrating our expectations, and generally doing something holistic in preparations. For P4GA, I think I’ll give that a pass. On one hand, we already know what’s going to go down. That big showdown with the real Big Bad, right? We saw that in the first season, or we played the game. I would have been fully prepared for it last week. After Episode 11, I’m not so sure. Episode 11s are supposed to ramp up to the climax. Start to pull all the subplots together into the main plot for that big cathartic resolution. We didn’t get that here. In fact, I’m sort of deflated now. I’m not sure what to expect anymore, sure, but I don’t find myself caring as much as I hoped I would. Would it be better if I didn’t know beforehand about Izanami? Or would the confusion make is worse? Feel free to give me our opinions in the comments.

What we do know is that Marie story is now largely resolved. The OP is back to blue instead of grey now and is sung by the HanaKana herself (squeal?). So Izanami, Big and Bad though she is, is more of a bonus round. Well, Marie’s still going to be intimately involved there. How will that change things? My guess: insignificantly in the grand scheme. Your guess may very reasonably be different. What we should agree on is that it better be pretty damn epic. P4GA needs to pull out the big guns next week to recoup the ground lost this week. Let’s hope that’s what happens.

Full-length images: 17.

ED2.11 Sequence

ED2.11: 「Dazzling Smile」 by 花澤香菜 (Hanazawa Kana)

Preview

「ナンジョウ・レイカ」 (Nanjou Reika)
“Nanjou Reika”

While it was easy to tell what emotional response the writers were going for in this flashback episode, I unfortunately can’t say that it worked that well on me. Even with the addition time from skipping the opening and ending sequences, I just couldn’t really get a sense of how profound Samonji’s relationship with Reika was. There were definitely glimpses of it, which started off with Samonji’s uneasiness around Reika, escalated to him threatening a superior officer, and finally ended with him holding Reika’s body in his arms, but something was just missing in all of that. What should’ve come off as tragic came off as inevitable instead. And what should’ve come off as a death of a lover came off as a death of a high school crush.

Despite the statements that came from both Samonji and Reika that were effectively marriage proposals in the anime world, their screen time together was so brief that it was difficult to tell if there was even any actual romantic chemistry between them. In fact, I got more of a sense of that from the brief sunflower field flashback in episode eight than I did here. As such, I’m left with the memory that Reika willingly put herself on a path of self-destruction—something that Samonji himself identified early on—and crashed and burned at the end. No surprises there. I can’t even fault Samonji for any of it, since his job was just to guard Reika and the test facility. Suzushiro and Quasimodo on the other hand were just witnesses to it all, being members of Samonji’s squad. In other words, this flashback played out as a girl with fleeting idealistic dreams that could never be truly realized and she wound up dying in pursuit of them. Cue death flag scene.

Regardless of whether I felt the tragedy behind Reika’s death, the takeaway for the overall story is definitely that her death had a life-changing impact on Samonji. It affects how he perceives the world, how he tries to command a squad where no one dies, and how he lives with constant regret for not putting a stop to the experiment that claimed Reika’s life. For Tokimune, the end result from this revelation is the second of two possible outcomes that I had in mind—he makes amends with Samonji and pushes on to win the war. The question now is whether Samonji feels “responsible” for Tokimune given what happened to Reika. The experimental Trial Krieger relied on the use of brain waves to remotely control other units, which isn’t too dissimilar from Argevollen’s neuro-link system. If Tokimune and Argevollen went out of control, would Samonji stake his life to at least save the younger brother of the girl that he didn’t? The scene at the end where he looks up at Argevollen suggests that he won’t stand around idly twice, so I’m sort of leaning that way. Plus with Cayenne still around and scheming like he did back then, odds are that Samonji will face additional hardships in the future. On the plus side, it looks like they’ll be getting some new Trial Krigers next episode.

Note: I’ll be away next week so my coverage of Argevollen will likely slip to the following Monday at the earliest. If needed, I may just double-post episodes 13 and 14.

Full-length images: 05.

Preview

「喰種」 (グール)
“Ghoul”

(So a funny thing happened on the way to posting this… Once everything was done and formatted, news came through that the official Chinese website for the Tokyo Ghoul manga announced a second season for January. I suppose it could be bogus and it seems very odd that you wouldn’t announce that at the end of the episode but wait a measly 18 hours, but this is the official Chinese site – and apparently the mangaka had hinted at this earlier on Twitter. So rather than edit the post itself I’ll leave it as is, because I think it’s more interesting that way – just remember, this was all written before any announcement came down…)

As endings to manga adaptations go, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anything quite like that one.

It’s been a crazy week in the world of Tokyo Ghoul. Not only was the anime ending in a blaze of hyper-pacing with rumors of a possible continuation (at this stage based on no hard evidence) flying, but mangaka Ishida Sui unexpectedly announced that the manga was ending at Chapter 143, with almost no notice. But he’d also titled Chapter 72 “Halfway”, so there’s overwhelming speculation that this is a long-planned stunt – an ending for the first “part” of the manga, with a sequel due to follow. Guesswork is rampant – hard facts are in short supply.

I most certainly have no idea what’s going to happen either with the manga or anime, though I’d be shocked if the manga doesn’t continue (probably under a slightly changed title). There’s certainly valid reason to think a second season of the anime is possible: the anime has been a huge boon to the manga’s sales, so the publisher has strong incentive to see it continue. The anime seems on-track for decent sales, though not outstanding. There’s an anime event scheduled for next month, and such occasions are sometimes used for sequel announcements. But all I could to is guess, the same as anyone else.

Thing is, if anyone was looking to the season finale for a clue (never mind an announcement, a la Sidonia) it wasn’t any help. I was quite surprised by the way it wrapped up, frankly – after the antepenultimate episode introduced a half-dozen potential plot arcs and the penultimate was an exhausting “Blackwater”-styled action epic, the finale never left one room. Apart, that is, from the flights of hallucination (or were they?) in the mind of Kaneki Ken. It was as grim and interior as it’s possible for an episode to be – it effectively took place mostly in Ken’s mind, over the course of what was probably not more than an hour.

On the positive side, I like this approach way better than attempting the impossible task of trying to tie up all those loose ends in one episode, which would inevitably have left all of them unsatisfactorily closed out. On the other, this was pretty much full-on torture porn here – those who love such things will no doubt complain about the black bars (like with all kinds of porn, this is used as incentive to sell discs), but it was plenty grisly enough for my tastes. As I mentioned last week I tend to feel that the normal charges against these sort of episodes – namely that they’re mostly about titillation – don’t apply as strongly here. As gruesome as all this is it is here for a point – the viewer has to be shown how Ken got from the guy he was to the white-haired being we see in the OP. But allowing for personal tastes, this isn’t the sort of material I enjoy very much. As torture scenes go, I thought it was quite harrowing, and both Hanae Natsuki and Nishi Rintarou deliver outstanding performances.

When push comes to shove, Yakumo is here for this purpose – he’s a device, a catalyst to start the reaction that will give birth to the new Ken. He’s a darn good one – a truly evil and genuinely scary SOB. But the main point here is what’s going on inside Ken’s head while Jason is continually lopping off his extremities, forcing him to count backwards from 1000 by sevens in order to keep from breaking mentally. I’m still not quite sure how literally we’re supposed to take Rize’s presence, but it’s certainly clear that she and Ken were indeed fused in some meaningful way (and quite intentionally, though to what end is still murky), and she makes a very useful symbol of the ghoul side of Ken, trying to assert itself.

There’s a lot of philosophy tied up in Ken’s fevered visions, as he recalls his late mother (Takahashi Rieko). Whether it’s Ken using her as a way of questioning his own beliefs or literally her, Rize certainly uses the mother’s life to create a straw man out of Ken’s personal philosophy – “It’s better to be hurt than to hurt others”. Ken’s mother was kind, but easily taken advantage of – despite being a widow raising a young son she constantly gave money to her deadbeat sister, forcing her to work non-stop to survive and provide. It’s not the simple matter that Rize mockingly makes of it, but I don’t think most people would disagree that there’s such a thing as being too nice. And it certainly makes sense that Ken would have been harboring a good deal of resentment over this, given that it was from overwork that his mother caused her own illness and eventual death, leaving him alone (apart from Hide, seemingly).

Truthfully I’m not quite sure where Ishida comes down on all this, but there’s a definite sense that he’s judging Ken pretty harshly for the choices he’s made. Or lack of choices as the case may be, pointedly demonstrated when Yakumo makes an example of the couple who’d treated Ken kindly during his ordeal. In the end Ken seems to insist that he’s going to try and have it both ways – turn into the killer and devourer he’s refused to become until now, but retain the essence of who he is rather than turn into Rize. It’s the world that’s wrong, not him – and while that may be a useful lifeline to cling to, there’s no denying that Ken seems to have embarked on a path from which there’s no turning back.

That’s certainly a milestone, but I wouldn’t say it feels much like an ending – and I suppose one could optimistically say it’s yet more circumstantial evidence that a second season may be in the offing. It’s quite shocking, but none of the plot threads and none of the major characters introduced in Episodes 9-11 were addressed here, and apart from brief cameos in Ken’s mind none even appeared. This is either a teaser for a second season or a commercial for the manga, but it’s certainly not a conclusion. And again, I prefer that to an ill-advised to do far too much in far too little time, which almost always leads to disaster. One-cour adaptations of long, ongoing anime always require hard choices, and rarely are any of the options good ones.

So what of Tokyo Ghoul as a whole, then? It can only be judged as if this is all the anime we’re going to get because, as far as we know, it is. And for me, that’s a flawed but sometimes brilliant series – a victim of the schedule, certainly, but one which managed to introduce an awful lot of interesting stuff in that short window of time. I can see why the manga’s sales have skyrocketed, because the anime is very good at expressing just what a well-crafted story this is, and how full of interesting characters and ideas – even if it’s not always as good at bringing out all of their potential. That’s frustrating on its own terms of course, but as advertisement for the manga it’s a recipe for success.

「花火（再び）」 (Hanabi (Futatabi))
“Fireworks (Again)”

I had a witty one-liner about flashbacks all ready to go until the second half of the episode took that idea and tossed it straight into the trash.

Divergent Timelines?

I really wish I had some kind of idea about what the writers at P.A. Works are trying to do, but I really don’t. We’ve dabbled in romance, a little bit of sci-fi, and now it seems we’re about to tackle the fickle problems alternate dimensions tend to bring with them.

At first, I was really excited when the episode started. I thought maybe, just maybe all the crazy things we’ve seen up to this point may have been some kind of illusion that Touko was having and her arrival by train was the actual “starting” point of the series. Something along the lines of maybe it was a case of everything we know being backwards and she was the one who had the sudden unexpected bouts of disappearance and Kakeru was some kind of “fragment” that was a reflection of the feelings and thoughts she harbored inside of her. But see, that’s the beautiful thing — what happened during the first half of the episode could be interpreted in thousands of ways. Something that I thought would have been really unique and freaking cool.

That is, until we hit the fireworks and really discovered what was going on. While it nearly isn’t as fluffy as my guess, Touko being able to experience firsthand something that completely differs from reality was quite the spectacle. Somehow being able to create her own dimension full of her own positive and negative ideas wasn’t what I expected but nonetheless enjoyed watching as she slowly figured out just what the hell what was going on. While we still don’t have a concrete idea of what it all means, I’m hoping an explanation is coming soon.

Takaii’s Attempt at Analysis

Seeing how the world we saw this week was actually the one that Touko was seeing whenever something triggered her powers, I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to believe it might be a literal personification of the fears she has about growing up and apart from everyone around her. In a world where she’s the outsider and has no place of her own, it’s not hard to see just how lonely it would be to lose everything she’s built up with Yuki, Yanagi, Sacchan, and Hiro. And seeing how everything seems to be moving in that direction, maybe its a self-defense mechanism to prepare herself?

LAST EPISODE INCOMING!

After a batch of episodes that genuinely got me a little annoyed with the show, the past two episodes have done a great job of re-piquing my interests to the point where I’m dying to find out how everything adds up. The fragments of the future, Kakeru and his clones, and everyone’s attempt at finding love — I need to know what happens! While I doubt a single episode will be enough to sufficiently answer all these questions, I’m sure P.A. Works has something devised to at least give us a sense of closure. I hope you’re all ready for next week and whatever it brings — because I know I’m not. See you next week!

Preview

We have a pretty light chapter this week as Pepe’s fight finally winds up after he’s devoured by Liltotto. Up in the Royal Palace, the Zero Squad are struggling to defend against Yhwach, who seems to be impossible to attack as every strike simply misses him. He pretends he’s some kind of god, but in reality it’s just another gimmick from one of his Sternritter, Nianzol Weizol “the Wind”. Like some of the other quincies, he’s a strange and creepy character, slinking in the shadows with his two tongues and distorting incoming attacks. Senjumaru summons a squad of masked minions (that actually slightly resemble Ichigo in his hollow form), but their “swords of the soul king” are likewise unable to find their mark. Clearly they did not do enough research on the invaders, and are now caught off guard.

I’m sure the Zero Squad will put on an impressive fight, but compared to Sternritter, they are woefully unprepared, and I doubt Yhwach will lose to them. Haschwald and Nianzol may fall at some point, but the emperor and Ishida will almost certainly make it all the way to the Soul King himself. Although the Zero Squad have been hyped to be incredibly powerful, Yhwach’s power level appears to be in an entirely different category, much like Aizen was. He even brought his own oddball sidekick with special powers, just like Aizen did, and may also have a potential traitor/wildcard in his ranks (Askin Nakk le Vaar?), just like Gin was. Everything is shaping up to be a pretty bad situation for the five royal guards, regardless of their strength. Besides, Ichigo is currently on his way back to the Palace via cannonball, and knowing Kubo, he won’t be arriving to an already-won battle. Expect to see him flying in at the moment of the shinigamis’ greatest despair.