OMG 40 weeks. If my computer hadn't crapped out earlier in the summer, I would probably be at 43 by now, but eh. Celebration~
A whopping three UNMEI KAIHEN posts btw: Ep7 of Bakemonogatari, eps 4-6 of Genshiken and Vision of Escaflowne.
Anime discussed: Aoi Hana, Axis Powers Hetalia, Bakemonogatari, Canaan, Cross Game, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Genshiken, Golgo 13, Hayate no Gotoku!!, Kanamemo, Kare Kano, Kemono no Souja Erin, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya 2, Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny, Phantom ~Requiem for the Phantom~, Shugo Chara! Doki, Spice and Wolf II, Tokyo Magnitude 8.0, Umineko no Naku Koro ni, Vision of Escaflowne
-- Aoi Hana ep5: Man, am I glad to finally watch another episode of this series! Sugimoto is still giving me mixed signals. From the earlier episodes you can intuit that she still has a thing for her old drama teacher, but at the same time you can see that she genuinely likes being with Yumi. At least it seems that way. But Sugimoto is a lead actress for a reason -- no reason to assume she isn't masking something. If she is putting on an act with Yumi, she is really, really good at it, though, haha. On a related note, I have to say I love the physical cues in this series. For instance, Sugimoto playing with Fumi's pigtails feels like something real and not just something there to look cute (though it does look quite cute!). I just love looking at everything in this series lol. The style is so beautiful in a quiet sort of way and really great to sit and watch everything happen. Getting back to Sugimoto a bit ... I kind of feel sorry for Ikumi in her interactions with Sugimoto. She tells Sugimoto to treat her like any other person, but it's like Sugimoto goes out of her way to emphasize her flirting when Ikumi is around. And then Ikumi has to try to ignore that and not let it get to her. Seems like a cold way to act around someone you know likes you a lot.
-- Axis Powers Hetalia ep31: Again, totally weird to see a Christmas-themed episode near the tail end of August. (Especially since it is 100 degrees where I live as I write this!) England kind of confused me in this episode. I think he is hiding from the Axis trio so that he doesn't have to answer questions about how he celebrates Christmas, but then I also thought he might be kind of sad because nobody approached him about it until the end of the episode. Hm. France's answer is the best. Drunk Santa + gorgeous and romantic celebration = win.
-- Bakemonogatari ep7: I love Kanbaru not so subtly trying to turn herself into Senjougahara to get Araragi away from her. He is definitely flustered by her crazy dialogue (including the topics of Kanbaru being the uke to Araragi's seme, and how Kanbaru's bicycle pants function as underwear), but ultimately he does not bite, because he says one person cannot replace another -- nobody can be anyone but themselves. Wonder if that little nugget will help nudge Kanbaru on the right path? I'm also curious as to how much Oshino can help Kanbaru. He says this "rainy devil" grants wishes in exchange for one's soul. Is the entire soul taken away once all the wishes are granted, or are parts whisked away with each wish? Concerning the soul, I think acting upon the desire to physically harm another person in order to selfishly becoming closer with someone else is pretty soul-damaging work. I'm really curious as to how all that will work, because if there is one thing I know, it's that it definitely will not be straightforward at all, haha.
-- Canaan ep8: Is it bad that the series is nearly 2/3 of the way finished, and I still have no friggin' clue what the hell Alphard is going for? Haha. She's wrapping the U.S. vice president around her finger and saying she wants to keep arms dealing going strong, but then she is also like, "lol gonna destroy capitalism kthx" And she also has her grudge against Canaan in there for good measure. I like Alphard's scenes, but they almost all leave me very confused once I am finished viewing them. Some other interesting things -- Santana admits to destroying the village (and being responsible for the virus outbreak?), and Hakko is yet another person who has some sort of grudge against Canaan. Wonder what sort of role Canaan had in the whole thing? I guess she had some sort of mindwipe like Maria, which really is not that surprising. That would just give them one more thing to have in common, because, really, they are like one level short of being full on girlfriends at this point, haha.
-- Genshiken eps 4-6: Ohno. <3 Man, she's the best. Ohno is a lot stronger than she appears to be -- she's certainly the most open and honest about her passion (cosplay) than anyone in Genshiken aside from Kohsaka, and unlike him, she is actually connected to reality, haha. Ep5 is the strongest episode this week, though. It's where Saki really starts coming into her own, and where she starts relying upon Ohno as a friend, confidant and second-in-command. Saki going to war for Genshiken, when more than anything she would love to see the club go down in flames, is awesome. Her sense of injustice, and the overall pathetic nature of the guys, just gets to her, I guess, haha. Love the student council vice chairman, too. I forget if she appears in more episodes. The more opportunities for strong, crazy women to face off against each other, the better, I think. Great capper when the boys appear at the end and tell Saki and Ohno that they have decided to fight for the existence of the club, and Saki is all, "LOL BITCH YOU DON'T NEED TO FIGHT, WE DID THAT SHIT FOR YOU."
-- Golgo 13 ep23: I'm happy to see Golgo 13 episodes come out a bit quicker! This one is pretty simple -- Golgo happens to be on a hijacked plane and is hired by the British government to solve that little problem. Nothing super exciting or intense, or anything, but Golgo being a badass is enough to carry it through. The best part is Golgo taking advantage of the split second in which the one hijacker dude didn't want to watch him take a wizz. Wham!
-- Kemono no Souja Erin ep30: lol recap episode. But it's not all recap -- there's a 2-3 year time skip confirmed at the end, and now Erin is a college student, and Lilan is a nearly fullgrown beast-lord. Erin looks a lot like her mother now, haha. Not exactly, but it's really close.
-- The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya 2 ep11: lol, the commercial filming is funny, but I want more of the actual movie filming. That is by far the best part of The Sighs of Haruhi Suzumiya (which, not gonna lie, is my least favorite of the Haruhi light novels). I feel so bad for poor Mikuru after Haruhi puts the colored contact lens in her eye. It looks so uncomfortable lol. The fight scene between Mikuru and Yuki is also pathetic, haha. Yuki's stoicism really shines there. "It's fine. Shoot." <3 Watching this makes me want to see the finished product again ...
-- Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny eps 13-23: If you put aside the fact that this series really is completely unnecessary, it actually is building much better than SEED does. It probably helps that there is a lot of stuff already established, and that the series is working with characters everyone is already familiar with, but there is also a clearer sense of purpose to the first half of SEED Destiny than there is with SEED. That isn't to say there is nothing dumb in this series. For one, I still do not at all understand Meer's role in the show. Right now she's a rallying point and weird comic relief, and, uh, that's about it. She does not interest me at all beyond that. Kira is also kind of lame -- he is basically a god incarnate in his Gundam now, except he isn't a cool kind of all-powerful fighter like Setsuna from 00. Everyone else on that ship is next to useless, except for Waltfeld, who is still cool.
However, I do like that that SEED Destiny is making the characters question things a bit. Is Chairman Durandal on the up and up, or does he have something a bit more sinister planned? (I don't think he is that sinister from what we have seen -- at most he appears to be the benevolent dictator type. But there is probably a lot we have not seen. Plus, the whole "fake Lacus" thing starts off as semi-innocent peace propaganda, but ...) Can Athrun really trust in his comrades at ZAFT? For that matter, are Kira and the Archangel crew actually fighting the good fight? They are convinced something bad is up, seeing as Lacus is nearly assassinated by a Coordinator armed forces group, but was it really on orders from ZAFT? (Knowing Durandal's true intentions would answer a lot of this, obviously. :P) And what the hell is Zechs La Flaga Neo's group trying to do? Is it just to eliminate Coordinators, or do they have other plans? As has been pointed out, that they use drugs to artificially boost the powers of soldiers, while at the same time denouncing the genetically enhanced Coordinators, is quite hypocritical. The Earth Federation side seems quite a-hole-ish, and ZAFT initially appears good but is now murky ... and Kira's crew is just trying to figure things out.
eps 24-33: I like that right after I wonder about how sinister Durandal is, he immediately becomes a thousand times more sinister. He also has his own chess set. How wonderfully subtle! Durandal also has an apparent past with Le Creuset, he's going after the Archangel, encouraging Shinn's craziness and his big, "peaceful" speech encourages ZAFT citizens to take up arms, in a very disturbing image at the end of ep33. Uh, I guess that is one way to end the war quickly. The whole "Stella comes aboard the Minerva" storyline is just eh. Shinn's love affair with her is very stupid to me. She is as close to dumb puppy dog moe as you can get, without her being, like, legitimately retarded. I could see him sympathizing with how rough her life is on the other side, but the whole love story is really forced, culminating with the cliché death confession. Blah. That, combined with Durandal coddling Shinn, has turned him into a totally arrogant jerkass who's going to pulverize the enemies with even more reckless abandon than before. Wonderful.
The Zechs La Flaga Neo Roanoke stuff is coming to a head, also, now that he has been unmasked and determined to be 100 percent physically identical to Mu La Flaga. There is always the chance he could be a Mu clone, but I don't think that is the direction in which the series will move. Just a gut feeling. Something really good had better come out of this, though, because this storyline really shouldn't even exist, since Mu kind of, you know, sacrificed himself at the end of SEED. If there is one thing I generally do not like about Gundam series, it's that characters come back from the brink of certain death way too often. I don't even know how Mu could have survived the blast from which he shielded the Archangel. He also appears to have amnesia, although Mu/Neo's behavior is explained by Kira as it is like he has a different memory rather than him forgetting his previous memories. Makes me wonder if Mu/Neo underwent the same procedure the Extended go through when the Earth Federation wants them to conveniently forget things.
-- Phantom ~Requiem for the Phantom~ ep19: lol recap episode. It has a few new Cal scenes, though: We see Cal helping her ol' dead friend, Judy, home; Cal mentioning she ran away from her father (I think this is new information, anyway); and, at the very end, the aftermath of the apartment explosion, with Cal coming home from renting a few movies, only to find everything has gone down. And, later, as she is crying alone, Scythe Master shows up and flicks his silver tongue. What a freaking creeper. I hope she puts up a fight, because it would be weird if she just immediately believed everything he said about Reiji. Speaking of him, he is fleeing to Mexico with Elen. Olé!
-- Shugo Chara! Doki ep46: lol, I feel dumb for not guessing Tadase and Tsukasa are related. They've had a decently close relationship since the start of the series, and they even have the same hairstyle. D'oh. We get some light shed upon Tadase and Ikuto's past, although it still leaves many questions, namely why Ikuto ran away in the first place (Tsukasa says Ikuto was on the run from Easter but leaves it at that), and how he ended up back in Easter's hands. Whatever he is doing, I think Ikuto is doing it to protect Utau and Tadase. I don't believe Ikuto is the type of person who would hear Tadase pledge his full trust in him and then a few years later stab Tadase in the back. And the dog thing is obviously a misunderstanding; Tadase even admits that he has no idea if Ikuto did it. So I think Amu is correct when she says she believes Ikuto is deliberately pushing people away to protect them, which she has proposed prior in the series. Ikuto's stated purpose is to get the Embryo, so I suppose the Humpty Lock and the Dumpty Key are the keys (lol) to snagging the Embryo. Then again, Ikuto hasn't tried to snatch it from Amu in a while lol.
What's also interesting is Tsukasa's connection to the head of Easter -- they know each other, and I am eager to see how they are related. And I really hope Temari appearing in the next episode is not some cruel tease. I want Temari back in the show. Also, the Yaya x Nagihiko tease is completely out of nowhere and made me laugh, haha.
-- Spice and Wolf II ep7: Not a bad episode -- mostly serves to introduce some mystery for the next arc, and Horo and Lawrence bridge the gap by flirting like crazy. Whatever works! For some reason, I get a big kick out of seeing Lawrence either brush off Horo's lovin' cues, or miss them entirely. There is no in-between with Lawrence. He's lucky he knows exactly when to be suave (such as when he kisses Horo's hand), or else he would have been out on his ass long ago, haha. Especially when he's throwing out lame metaphors as weak comebacks to dudes dissing Horo's tail. You can't let them get away with insulting your lady, man! Speaking of ladies, I am definitely wondering what is up with that one woman who keeps following Lawrence around town. Strange things are afoot here. (Also, like Lawrence, I totally thought that woman was a dude at first. It took Horo's keen senses to set us straight. :P)
-- Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 ep7: I welcome the return of the rescue robots from the first episode! And also the appearance of a robot otaku, Kento Nonomiya, who pretty much has to be little Yuuki's hero now, haha. Besides being a cool kid, his backstory and actions in this episode serve to highlight Mirai's growth as a person during this tragedy. Kento's comment that he used to be annoyed by his family before the robots saved them during a car accident really hits home for Mirai. She spent so much of the early part of the series as an "OMG THE WORLD SUCKS AND I HATE IT" typical pre-teen, and now she is coddling Yuuki and encouraging his fascination with robots (even though she is at first skeptical of Kento's robot geekery). Just as tragedy taught Kento to appreciate his family, the earthquake taught Mirai to appreciate what she has. Hell, she's even planning a surprise birthday party for her mom after all this is finished! (I'm still dreading Mirai and Yuuki's family being dead. Don't think they are, but the dread is there.) Kento's misadventures also show that, despite inherent maturity or achieved growth, they're all still kids. Kento does a dumb thing and tries to rescue a rescue robot (poor guy loves robots too much for his own good), and Mirai bravely -- and stupidly -- throws herself into a dangerous situation to save Kento's life. There were probably people already on the way when Kento was rescuing the robot, so Mirai probably did not need to be so reckless.
I have to say this, too: If Yuuki dies, I will be a wreck. That kid is too awesome to die now. :(
And as a random thing, something that interested me is the frog motif throughout the episode: The frog robots, the frog statues inside and outside the old man's house, and so on. Never read the story myself, but I'm thinking they may be sly references to "Super-Frog Saves Tokyo", which is a short story in Haruki Murakami's after the quake collection. He's more than popular enough to be referenced in anime, haha.
-- Umineko no Naku Koro ni ep9: Interesting that Meta Battler does not seem to be fully aware of everything that is happening in the scenario. He is not entirely sure if Kanon is dead (although Beatrice confirms it with the Red Truth), and he is also confused about where the corpse is (Beatrice says she whisked it away using magic, but there's no Red Truth with that statement, so Battler can doubt the veracity of that :P). Also, basically everywhere I go, people are posting that the Red Truth is the only stuff we should take at face value. At this point, I really have to agree with that, because I see no way the current situation can be solved using logic rather than a mystical explanation. I mean, can we really not be suspicious about events involving Beatrice or her cronies? Of course not. If the show is sticking to Battler's premise that the killings happened without magic, and that none of the family or servants killed anyone, then it has to be assumed that the narrative -- outside of the Red Truths -- is inherently unreliable. I've seen the idea thrown around that all the scenes are how Beatrice would explain the murders. That makes sense to me. I really don't know how the "NO MAGIC AND MY FAMILY AIN'T KILLERS!!!!!!!" argument can last, haha. I'm enjoying these mind games, but damn, I can't wrap my mind around anything right now lol. Glad I chose not to blog this on UNMEI KAIHEN. I'd spend friggin' hours on each post.
Also want to say that zombie!Kanon made me lol. It could not have been more obvious from the moment he appeared that it was not Kanon. haha
-- Valkyria Chronicles ep12: Not a bad episode at all. Wish there were a bit more of the heroes working together with the Empire, though, if only because it would mean more slinky dress!Selvaria. <3 Ah well. I'll live. The ending of this episode kind of confused me, though. Doesn't everyone know that the one douchebag advisor to the Princess is two-timing her? I mean, the reporter heard a pretty damning conversation. Didn't she say anything? I'm not really understanding why they had to keep quiet about the whole thing. I guess I get that the Princess doesn't want the people to be like, "OMG WHAT" but still. That dude isn't going to stop with one plot. Also lol shipping drama at the end. No way anything but Welkin x Alicia happens. Sorry, Faldio.
-- Vision of Escaflowne eps 25-26: Taken on its own, I don't think Escaflowne's ending is too bad -- it's not really a total train wreck, at least not nearly as much as certain other episodes. The action isn't bad (not the best in the series, but not bad), the plot wraps up about as well as could be expected and even though I am not really into Hitomi x Van, the ending is actually kind of nice on that front. (I'm just glad there is relatively little Hitomi x Allen drama!) There are some things I don't like: Dilandau getting owned so quickly (:(), Folken's kind of weird death (wtf @ the tip of his sword flying off and striking him in the ribs) and the series trying to have its cake and eat it too with Dornkirk (I call bullshit on his whole, "Hm, maybe love can affect fate in a positive way! I have seen the light!" bullcrap, since he is such an irredeemable asshole for so much of the series, even though he says he is going for peace the whole time). But the final two episodes hit all the notes the series has been going for the entire time, and there isn't anything too ludicrously insane in them. (At least not to the level of fucking Fortune Blood, or anything like that. Really, Dilandau being a chick is kind of low on the "WTF SRSLY" scale compared to that.)
Overall, I like Escaflowne -- I mean, how could I hate something that gave me Dilandau?? -- but it's kind of a mixed bag since everything goes haywire a bit past the halfway point, and the stretch from around ep15-21 is just ... not good at all, with ep19 being the undisputed low point of the series. Nothing comes close at all. Never really could get into any of the romance at all either, though I warmed up on Van x Hitomi very slightly by the end and generally enjoyed Dryden x Millerna. Allen x anyone is utter fucking shit, however. Really, I guess I am saying I hate Allen butting in on the story in any way. Miss A has completely converted me to the Allen hating cause! And what a wonderful cause it is. I'm still desperately trying to declare discontinuity on anything involving Allen x Hitomi ...
Anyway! It recovers a bit near the end, and at least makes me glad that I finally watched the series. Enjoyed the action, enjoyed completely failing at piecing together the story and enjoyed watching it with everyone in Anime Club!
