I do apologize for my inconsistent responses to comments over the last week or so—I’m in the middle of a fairly serious job application process, so that’s consuming a lot of the time and mental energy I’d otherwise be directing at blogging. Don’t worry, I haven’t lost my job or anything! I’m just pursuing a great opportunity. I’ll keep you guys updated as things happen. Onwards to the week!
Noragami Aragoto, Episode 4: Why turn up the heart 5 degrees when you could turn it up 75? Hello, yes, this is Noragami Aragoto and that’s exactly what we did this week. It’s kind of unfortunate that the anime-original arc in Norgami‘s first season made use of the “kidnapping Hiyori” bit, as it’s hampering this season’s ability to really make that particular plot element hum. But you know what still works? Yato and Yukine wanting to get Hiyori back. And Kofuku turning her back on Bishamon for the sake of Yato. And pretty much everything about the way this episode was built—from visuals to storytelling structure. The real nature of Yato and Bishamon’s rivalry has been telegraphed for a while now, but none of those hints helped ease the weight of actually seeing Yato near Bishamon out of the house of despair she’d built for herself. Now, Bishamon’s back at it again, but this time I doubt Yato will be so inclined to help her. And all that’s without even touching the cliffhanger…no no no no no no…
K: Return of Kings, Episode 4: As far as episode of K go, this one was a real winner. K generally succeeds best when it’s wrapped up in its own crazy plotting, but this week’s episode was all about emotional resonance—and man, was it resonant. The genuine affection I feel for most of the characters in this show has kind of crept up on me, but I’ve been sort of aware of that for a while now. Despite that, Shiro and Neko and Kuroh’s reunion on the bridge was one of the most affecting moments of the season for me, a scene beautiful in a way only a scene fueled by wonderfully articulated character relationships can. There was a simplicity to Neko’s overbearing joyfulness and Kuroh’s stubborn refusal to be emotional and Shiro’s obvious pleasure at seeing both of them that just made the whole scene click. I don’t know exactly when this trio became such a powerhouse of goodness, but it’s here in force now and I couldn’t be happier.
Concrete Revolutio, Episode 4: I swear, this show continues to improve in ways I never expected and I am so. darn. happy. Becoming disillusioned with the world isn’t exactly a pet theme of mine or anything, but I do like watching characters with ideals, whether they’re living them out to the fullest or having theme challenged. As an idealistic person myself, I’ve seen both side of that coin—and Jiro, sadly, seems to be on the harder end of things. This boy wants badly to trust in the things he thinks he knows, to believe in the goodness of people and the simplicity of the world…and it just won’t let him. As much as he struggles, the tragedy of being who he is and living in the world he’s in is, as I see it, inevitable. Yet he continues to struggle, whether out of stubbornness or out of ignorance. And I can’t help love that, and love the way the people around him do their best to be there with him. That’s Emi and that’s Kikko and that’s even the rest of the Superhuman Bureau. I look forward to seeing how this tragedy plays out, and what solace Concrete Revolutio has to offer.
Gundam Tekketsu, Episode 4: The most solid and consistent show of the season (in my opinion, Concrete Revolutio‘s highs have been far higher) so far—and what the heck, it’s the Mari Okada show! Tekketsu returned this week with an episode that felt even more Turn A to me than some of the prior ones have, returning to the land and to a grounded experience of the world away from political grandstanding and battles for survival. At least, it did so until Okada teased us with Cookie and Cracker’s close shave with the Gjallarhorn car and Mika losing his temper on Gaelio in an almost fatal fashion. The whole scene with the Gjallarhorn members was tense, anxious, and eerie in a way that seems to portend dire things in the future. Of course, the plot’s been pointing that way all along, but seeing the future conflicts spelled out in such a subtle fashion (at least as subtle as a scene where one character almost chokes another to death can be) was like seeing Okada stretch out and go, “You know what I’m going to do, but I’m not going to do it. Yet.”
Comet Lucifer, Episode 4: This week’s edition of Veggie Tales—excuse me, Comet Lucifer was…well, it was sure something. While no show seems to be able to compete with Comet Lucifer‘s general cuteness competency, it seems few shows are going to be able to keep up with how unexpectedly random it has become. I mean, sure, we’ve got our standard serious anime plot going on in the background—kidnapping cat lolis is rote—but we’ve also got dancing vegetables and rich boy robots that tote cows around with them and a rock snake mascot with a cute voice that unsuccessfully tries to babysit the aforementioned cat loli and a party and a typhoon and stories of an older man’s youthful love adventures…I mean…what is going on in this show? Somehow, miraculously, Comet Lucifer seems to have absolutely no idea what kind of show it wants to be—and that’s apparently just fine. It may not be what everyone wanted it to be, but I’m continuing to really enjoy it.
Short Takes~
- The Perfect Insider, Episode 3: Still one of the stronger shows of the season, but I just can’t get excited about it when it’s all about the mystery. Give me more characters, please.
- Miss Monochrome S3, Episode 4: A blatant Star Wars reference in an episode about building a mascot character out of cardboard boxes. Whatever, it’s Miss Monochrome.
- Haikyuu!! S2, Episode 4: A relatively calm week for this show, but you can already feel the tension from next week’s episode coming…
- One Punch Man, Episode 4: I think this one is creeping towards drop territory for me, but I have a strange affinity for test episodes, so I’m sticking around.
- Heavy Object, Episode 4: This week’s tired, headache-inspired livetweet session. I should have charged way more money for this.
Mage in a Barrel 
Noragami is great. I’m liking how they’re blazing fast and furious (with great style and momentum) through Bishamonten’s arc. In contrast, for K…I’m just not seeing it. I want to like it but little things like shot-snail pacing, a ton of unnecessary dialogue, heavy use of flashbacking (how many times have we seen Shiro jump out of the damn sky?) keep ruining it for me, as much as I like the character designs and stylish animation.
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Yeah, Noragami‘s moving better now that it did even in the best parts of the first season.
K‘s definitely at a place where it’s a milking a certain kind of fanservice—not the sexual kind, but just the “these characters are doing stuff” kind. I’ll admit this episode plodded a little bit for me in between its best moments, but its best moments were soooo good for me.
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COMBINED episodes of the week / Top 20 / Added OVAS SPECIALS as there were a few !
Sorry that you dont like H.O. that much / I have my issues too ! But the SFX scared me in one scene that gets points for me !
I will add notes if not EOW ( Episodes of the week )
RWBY quite a nice debut at # 4
[b] EPISODE(S) of the WEEK 3 / 4 [/b]
The Perfect Insider Episode 3 / “Red Magic”
Just the title leaves open so many avenues.
A real mystery and tech that maybe more than first glance! Then the flashback to the Ferris wheel ! It is it bad or not! Moe seems to be enjoying the mystery ! Then the all the trick PC software !
They are cutoff fron the outside since no one can use island comms / or the helio to get “Line of Sight ” to use the Radio ? You have to be airborne I looked it up ! I was a big scanner person for awhile ! I had some good Bearcats( before thev 800 frequency blocks ) and hot antennas! The author didnt overlook that important detail ! Remember the author is a radio control modeler and like RC planes
Seraph of the Endless / Owaranai Seraph Speciaks 5-7
Shinoa is very much the trouble maker ! From a wicked portion that has too many side effects and the anti-dote that is more like a love portion ! Then the Humvee keeps gettin lost and never ends up in Shinjuku! Then Shinoa and Mitsuba basically just abuse Yuichiro in training !
Umaru-chan OVA
Just a good collection of short segments where Umaru actually is some what less devious!
FRIDAYS are such good shows
Kagewani EP 4 / “Double Bow”
This anime keeps getting better and better and this episode kept me on the edge of my seat !
Quite current with the use of the drone !
The ensemble is also getting more air time!
K 2nd Season / K Return of Kings EP 4 / “Knot”
First the animation to me is just stunning !
The fight scene of Yata-Red Clan / Fushimi-Blue Clan against Gojou-Green Clan was amazing but stops short when Shiro’s-Silver King Sword of Damocles appears in the Sky and Gojou may be needed there!
Shiro or Yashiro comes to rescue Kuroh / Neko in their fight against Yukari-Green clan but after a brief dialouge with Douhan Hirasaka-Green Clan King the Green cLan withdraws!
Knowing they need help the Silver King, Shiro asks the Red King Anna and Blue King
Reisi Munakata for a conference for an alliance between three clans in the fight against The Jungle/ Green Clan
This takes place at Kuroh / Neko residence Also attending beside the Kings Red Clan Yata / Izumo Blue Clan Fushimi / Seri.
Yata-Red Clan / Fushimi-Blue are beiing agnostic toward each other but Seri and Izumo tell to truce for now as their fight is against the Green ! All 3 Kings agrre to a pact to fight green!
After Shiro and Reisi have a discussion who should ascend to 2nd King after Gold’s Death but Reisi claims Shiro ran away ! But that is not really true!
Heavy Object EP 4 / “Tom Thumb Races Through the Oil Field / Battle to Blockade the Gibraltar I”
The anime has settled in nicely ! The references to Tom Thumb and Gibraltar are quite nice !
The animation can be quite interesting like wothe helicopter vibrating / Ironic with that Isis compund raid to day!
The theme of oil is also intersting not so much the the general dependence but the maintenance bases !
But Qwenthur / Havia along with Frolaytia are on their way to Object sea maintenance platforms !
Milinda is on a land base getting an interesting physical while “Baby Magnum” gets sea floats !
Qwenthur / Havia are tasked with slowing down “Tri Code ” Object if it breaks thru the sea net at Gibraltar which of course it does and starts blowing up the platforms before Milandia gets there !
BTW I wasnt expecting that first explosion that was good placement
Our trio just barely escapes and they get on the Tri Core which is huge ! BTW the Tri Core is driiling oil illegally and selling it ti terrosists ! Tri-Core has a built in maintenance shop also with a garrision of soliders that discovers them. Our duo is placing explosives all over! Milandia arrives and Qwenthur wants her to switch to laser attack but she dont get wholew msg and usees the anti-personal attack ! The duo jumps off and then trigger huge explosions but Tri Core emerges !
Supernatural 2 / Noragami Aragato EP 4 / “Wish”
Another good EP
Hiyori / Kazuma are locked up and in another scene we see Hiyori’s human half slipping away ! these two are helpnees to do anything ! Yato knows he dont have much time and convinces Yukine to save her life !
Kazuma explains to Hiyori why Bishamon hates Yato so much ! It was to save her after her regalia became infected and asked for Yayo’s help!
Meanwhile Aiha infection is becoming worse and Kugaha mow seems indiifferent to her !
Yato needs to be transported to and asks Tenjin for that But Tenjin makes Yato to promise something? ( Sever ties with Hiyori )
So Yato arrives at Bishamon and a fierce battle commences ! But Kugaha has reduced her powers bur manages to Yukine sword after she binds him in a shield !
Seraph of the End 2 “Battle in Nagoya” EP 15 / Ambition in the Demon Army
The calm before the storm ,well somewhat ! HIGHLIGHTS
Guren meets with Kureto and the disscussion very tense ! I dont think ithu the other but Kureto plans are made known ! He wants to send Guren and a squad to Nagoya to kill the vampires / and nobels! Ten Kureto’s plan to kill non Moon Demon humans is revealed and take over the world !
Guren then gives orders to Shinoa !Shinoa / Yu have a moment !
Yu tells Shinoa / Kimizuki / Mitsuba / Yoichi they are his new family and asks for help with Mikaela
On the Vamp side Mikaela needs blood and attacks Krul ! Krul then tells him to keep Yu and himself rom both humans and vamps! She also teels him the secret of the Seraphs !
A squad of vamps are getting ready to go fight at Nagoya !
Haikyuu!! Second Season EP 4 / Center Ace
Not as compelling as some of Haikyuu!! other EOW,s but stiil interesting !
Hinata and Kageyama fail an Exam and must pass on the day the ream is in Toyko already ! Tanaka’s older sister Saeko takes them to Toyko more like Intial D type of ride ! But Saeko tells Hinata about the Little Giant as they were classmates and w had a crush on him!
Karasuno w/o their duo lose every match but when Hinata and Kageyama arrive things get turned around ! They actually impressed some of the Top schools!
A new player from Nekoma High Lev has raw skills but is kinda of a ball hog ! Hinata and him meet in the hall and there is chat but challenge !
Concrete Revolutio EP / ” KAIJU / Japan Beast History Part1 ‘
Great EP on lots of levels ! The flashbacks to monsters and the similiarties to Tyhpoons / earthquakes-volcanos / yes war ! The concept of the Superhuman Bureau is better defined !
Two big themes is somebody is making monsters and the Superhumans have to battle them
The gov’t prohibits any mention of them in the media !
Jiro wants to help but the Superhuman Bureau is not allowed ! Jiro hatred of the KAIJU is explained but Hiroyuki with his baby kaiju named GaGon befriends the Bureau ! It is found out that a person wanting to seel radios that broadcast the fights is the one making the Beasts fron Gargon’s DNA ! Jiro confronts him and is alomost killed by a supesized Ga-Gom but usses a unlock sequence that gives him a flaming weapon that just destroys the bldg and Emi has to push back springs / locks in his arm to defuse the power!
RWBY Volume 3 EP 1 / “Round One”
The Best tribute to Monty is to continue the story !
It starts out by Ruby visiting her mother’s grave ! Interesting comments as it adds connections ! Also an apperamce by her father!
Team RWBY faces off with Team ABNR from Haven ! They win and get to send two members (Weiss / Yang ) to the next match! Weiss gets a Msg from her father ( which she doesnt read) and finds out her funds are cut-off at the Ramen stand ! Enerald puts on a charade with Ruby sating they are freinds but is undercover to destroy Team RWBY ! Team JNPR is up next in the tourney
Great action scenes
The New OP song “When it Falls” by Jeff and Casey Williams just sets the tone as always !
TIER 1 TOP FAVORITES
WEEK 3 / 4 Some Big Tweaks ( EOW see Episode.s of the Week Above )
1 Haikyuu!! Second Season EOW
2 Noragami Supernatural 2 / Noragami Aragato EOW
3 Seraph of the End 2 “Battle in Nagoya” EOW
4 RWBY Volume 3 EOW
5 Heavy Object EOW
6 K 2nd Season / K Return of Kings EOW
7 Concrete Revoltio / Choujin Gensou EOW
8 One Punch Man Dropped a few spots / just replace bad guys each week
9 The Perfect Insider / Subete ga F ni Naru EOW
10 Beautiful Bones Sakurako’s Investigation Still a strong placement
11 World Trigger / (Fugitives From Another World) Nuch better than expected
12 Hidan no Aria AA Has potential to move up again / was a big shuufle in the top 10
13 Shomin Sample A funny anime but with life lessons
14 Comet Lucifer [red]CR[/red] I had such high hopes for this but doesnt blend together well
15 GARO CRIMSON MOON / Garo -Guren no Tsuki Another much better than expected
16 Young Black Jack The Doc keeps this anime in the Top 20
17 MISS Monochrome 3 Continues to please !
18 Hacka Doll the Animation Just a guilty pleasure but it is fuuny like Excel Saga
19 Lance N’ Masques Another anime with action / moe and life lessons
20 Tantei Team KZ Jiken Note If there ever was an anime for a new young viewer this would be it Clean / fun detective work / life lessons
[red]OVA / ONA / Special[/red]
Blood Blockade Battlefront EP 12 / “Hello, World!”
Fate/kaleid liner Prisma☆Illya 2wei Herz! Specials (CAT GIRLS )
The Eden of Grisaia Specials 1 / 2
Yozakura Quartet Yoza-Quar! / Yozakura Quartet: Hana no Uta Specials 1 / 2 / 3
Robot Girls Z Plus EP 6 FINAL
Seraph Of the Endless / Owaranai Seraph Speciaks 1-4 / 5-7
Umaru-chan OVA
Sound! Euphonium Special 5 / ” Lots of Problems Everyday , Yo ”
Wakaba*Girl: Onsen Tsukaritai
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Kagewani’s good stuff, glad there’s somebody else enjoying it.
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Yeah, Heavy Object just isn’t my kind of fun, except for when I’m making fun of it—and even that gets boring after a while.
I was also glad to see RWBY return! There are plenty of people who don’t really like it, but I appreciate what it’s trying to be and it’s not like it’s terrible or anything (although the action this week admittedly was far less awesome than it’s been in past seasons). Hopefully they can keep things up!
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On the contrary, I can’t be more excited about the mystery in Perfect Insider, although I’m a long time fan of the genre after all. Love puzzles, and in terms of construction and staging it’s a damn fine one we’ve got here. I also think there’s enough psychological meat to chew on even if one couldn’t really care about the nuts and bolts of the central mystery. This, along with Osomatsu-san, have pretty much nailed a place in my top ten of this year assuming they maintained their current form.
Best of luck for the job applying~
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Yeah, I’ll admit that Perfect Insider is definitely well-constructed, but without more character work to ground it the mystery stuff just floats for me. There was some interesting psychological meat happening (at least, it was interesting to me) between Moe and Magata and with Magata’s past, but the present day timeline really just doesn’t do anything for me…
I’m hoping to eventually get back to Osomatsu; keep hearing good things about it.
And thanks! 🙂
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Beautiful Bones has been the much more character-oriented of the two major mystery shows this season. So far the main focus of BB hasn’t been on figuring out the facts of each mystery itself, which are usually resolved pretty quickly. The real meat of the show (along with Sakurako & Shoutarou’s budding partnership, of course) has been piecing together the human stories of the people involved in each mystery and how and why they ended up in those circumstances, and along the way it’s touching on topics like drug addiction and end-of-life caregiving that you don’t see in anime all that often. This week’s episode wasn’t quite as good as the last two, but it was only “part 1” of the story arc and the setup is intriguing.
I nearly dropped Hackadoll (again) just from reading the episode description on CR, but I’m glad I didn’t because ep 4 turned out to be the best and funniest episode of the series so far, skewering eroge games and the people who play them.
After three solid if unspectacular action-comedy episodes, Lance n Masques put its characters in school this week, and I could actually feel my interest level in the show drop immediately when it happened. Fortunately they didn’t spend too much time there, and I really hope it stays that way.
No drops this week. Gundam, OPM, and Perfect Insider continue to be my top three shows. Comet Lucifer’s slipping out of the top tier, and Beautiful Bones may actually have risen to my #4 show at this point.
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I think I would have been more inclined to stick with Beautiful Bones if the writing in the first episode hadn’t struck me as so clunky and had the central relationship felt more authentic to me. I am hearing that it’s starting to pick up a little bit lately, but I think episode one might have done enough damage that I don’t want to go back. 😦
Despite my flailing over dancing vegetables, I’m also feeling slightly wearied by Comet Lucifer. I’d like to see it just as a cute show with a cat loli. That’d be cool and fun.
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