Nisemonogatari 3, Moretsu Pirates 3, and another visit to the baths.
Nisemonogatari 3, the show with subsumed plot and brilliant conversations moves on. This time there might actually be a crisis.
It turns out what has led us to this point is all play. That is, all the girls play with Araragi-kun, and he plays back. They’re happy, he moves on. This time the play continues with Kanbaru, the sexual assault we saw last week is completely ignored or forgotten, or maybe some form of verbal play brought to the viewer through visuals. Because now they’re just sitting there, happy. The books seem to have been moved to help decorate the traditional gardens outside. They play a card game (competitive Kabaru is upset because she loses, moreso because Araragi doesn’t care) and this after playing Life and Twister with Sengoku, not counting the verbal play that is almost a constant in this series. This time the banter about who Araragi will marry and who will be his mistresses. Araragi gives his straight-man responses and eventually moves on.
And finally, there’s a palpable threat. A mysterious man named Kaiki is hanging outside Kanbaru’s house. He mutters things about truths, chats up Araragi a little, and saunters off. Everything about him is threatening. The blood-red colors and grumpy cellos have a lot to do it. It’s the first time all series that I began to worry about Araragi, especially when he decides to follow. What he discovers we don’t know. The next thing we know he’s running into Senjougaraha.
Araragi-kun wins an argument, for once.
At first it’s the usual. She insults him, he takes it and scores the occasional point by correcting a reference or error of logic, which satisfies her. Again, more simple wordplay. She repeats again her old line about killing him and any girl he’s been unfaithful to her with, but we’ve heard it before. So has Araragi. We’re waiting for the next thing, mentioning Kaiki. Wham! Now we know who Senjougahara is protecting him from. But again, right now it’s all play. Araragi gets this answer out of her but now he’s at a loss. It isn’t until the real crisis happens that the show makes a shift. Something important to Araragi is in danger. He breaks out of the handcuffs easily. He could have the entire time. He didn’t because of his basic kindness and consideration, the thing he’s been showing to the girls since episode one. They wanted to play with him using their rules, for whatever reason. He was happy to play along. Turns out that he was using this same consideration the entire time he was chained up. Senjougahara hates and fears Kaiki and didn’t want Araragi involved. In her strange mind, that meant kidnapping him. He understood this and played along. But play time is over now. Interesting that Senjougahara tries a few verbal tricks to hold him back, and when she sees that it’s useless, she looks at him with love and admiration. In spite of circumstances in this show, it’s what you do and not how you talk that is the most important. Maybe that’s why all those fast-talking girls like Araragi. Now, if someone could tell me what that phone call at the end was all about …
SPACE!!
I’m still looking for something bodacious in Moretsu Pirates and failing. In fact, every time something big is going to happen, someone says “Okay, not yet,” and the crisis goes away. This time the electronic warfare cliffhanger (hack attempt) goes away once the ship decides to fight back, though there was something about a button Marika pushed somewhere. As for the various orgainizations interested in abducting or killing Marika, they’re holding off until she becomes a pirate, so she can have a hand in the next privateer license negotiation, or something like that. Marika doesn’t understand it either, so it’s okay. After that there’s a nice scene with her dull friend about being dull, and then everything waits until she finishes her exams (there’s an entire scene for that). FINALLY the yacht club gets to go into space, where hair comes down in zero gravity, and the big crisis, where a mast deploys too early and gets tangled up with another. Kane and a half-dozen girls spacewalk (complete rookies, untethered, but the ship seems to have its own little gravity well, since they can stand on it) and fix it. Ta-dah! End of episode! Oh, we get hints from Kane and Misa about being watched and probably pursued, but chances are, the way this show is going, they will go away too.
Relax, it's just a naked Roman from the past.
In Thermae Romae … heh.. well, our hero Lucius invents a small indoor bath for a geezer, and discovers the concept of shower hats, all from the flat-faced people, ad all for the glory of Rome! Episode 4 is more amusing, as he is called on by Hadrian to build a relaxing bath and the miracle of modern-day Japanese toilets. I wonder what he would have done if he had pressed the bidet button instead? Once again the crude animation makes the whole thing even sillier. Next week it’s the grand finale! Will he become Hadrian’s new lover? What will happen to Lucius?!?!?!
