More catching up: Blood-C

Blood-C 3 and 4 have the same split personality of the first two. Half the episode was happy school life. Saya cooked breakfast for her dad! She ate more grimauves! At school they talked about how boring everything is. She took her friends to Grimauve! What a nice day it is!

Then the sun goes down and, you know the rest.

The repeated things in every episode are simple. At one point during the day Saya will space out. The music stops and all we hear are crickets. The same lack of music happens before each battle, too. But in these two episodes we get a change. The Bairns are attacking other people. In ep3 Saya just watches, as if she needed some proof that this weird train that just consumed a zombified human was something supernatural before she could act. Meanwhile, the innocent man dies. Perhaps it’s done to emphasize the change in her character from schoolgirl to demon hunter. It just seems cruel to me. In ep4 it’s three men who need defending. This time she actually tries to get them away safely—and fails. She shows a little regret.

But maybe changes are on the way. The monsters are beginning to talk to her. Some of it is the usual “We are what we are” and “You are the same as us” bullshit, but they also tell her to “honor the covenant.” Her father is concerned but keeps his mouth shut. Indeed, the trouble is, for Saya and especially for us, no one is telling her anything of any value. Is she going to learn everything from the bad guys? And the more this goes on, the more suspicious it makes everyone else in the show seem. Okay, Tokizane has a secret which the show will get to (I suspect the cat/dog). But her silly friends? The teacher who makes subtle advances to her in the chem room? Fumito? What are they hiding, and when is anyone going to tell us anything? Right now it’s happy songs in the sunshine for half the show and a bloody battle in the second half. Okay, the battles are well done. But still …

Try the second half of the episode.

Sorting through episode twos

Episode twos roll by, and it becomes a little easier to decide what and what not to watch. For instance, that show that left such an impact on me that when episode 2 came up I couldn’t remember what had happened before, and I can’t remember the title. … you know, that show with rabbits in the title that isn’t Usagi Drop. Girl vampire. The guy loses his head. Whatever it is, ep2 was so bad that I dropped it. Though it did have a nice exchange between the bad guy and his flunky. “You look like the bad guy.” “I’m a genius.”

As for the other bunny show, Usagi Drop 2 was just fine. Same with Croisée and Natsume.

As for Twin Angel 2, alas, the less said the better.

I can’t say I’m going for this concept of a dystopian world that Shion in No.6 lives in. First of all, I can’t believe he would be so stupid as to suggest the city was hiding information out loud to a coworker in a public building, in a city where just about everything is filmed, recorded and tagged. Shion doesn’t have the first clue how to survive in a place like that when everybody there should. Plus, this particular dystopia is nothing new, and the story of a model citizen who discovers The Truth is as old as it gets. Still, I’m watching it. It’s certainly not bad enough to drop.

Himawari and Sakurako show their affection for one another.

Sadly, Yuruyuri 2 forgets about the concept of dropping the main character and continues in its pointless way. I guess the characters we met last week aren’t interesting either, for the episode veers off and pays attention to two more, who, alas, are also not very interesting. But they fight a lot.

A rather bleak thing for an information specialist to say.

Kamisama no Memo-chou seems to want to give us good mysteries with lots going on, but there was so much going on in ep2 that I totally lost track of things and wondered what that cell phone was doing hidden in the bag. Alice isn’t much help. When not snarking at Narumi every word she says seems to have two meanings to it. Well, if it was easier to follow maybe it would be a stupider show. Or maybe it’s just not telling the story well.

Blood-C's greatest mystery: is this a dog or a cat?

Blood-C 2 is pretty much the same as 1. It’s either in happy normal life mode or desperate bloody battle mode. I suppose a lot of people won’t like this show because it wastes time on the former, and likes to outright stop at times, I mean, how long did that cat, er, dog scene go? But I don’t mind it.

So which shows will I actually write about? Unlike before, I’m not going to write about every episode. I don’t have that kind of time anymore. Besides, as I said, I’m still sorting through the episode twos.

And more ones: Kamisama Dolls, Blood-C, Mayo Chiki

I’m not terribly impressed by Kamisama Dolls, but there’s nothing truly bad about it.

A tad reserved, considering they've just discovered a pile of bloody corpses.

After some threatening words on the screen and an unpleasant flashback involving children and two robots (called kakashi) duking it out, and a bright, samba-fied EP, we lurch to the present, where Kyouhei, our average, dull male protagonist, attends college in Tokyo and is currently working on getting sick at a party. Until he and old friend Shiba encounter a bunch of bloody bodies. More stuff happens: Youhei’s sister Utao shows up with a big kakashi which we learn is a god and is alled Kukuri. Aki, the bad guy, shows up and there’s a fight. Aki is recaptured—or IS he?

Oohh, my big friend is going to hit you so hard!

There’s stuff to chew over. Youhei used to be the kakashi’s “seki” or handler, but now Utao has that honor (and she’s still learning. She gets adorably mad when Kukuri messes up). Youhei isn’t happy that his past has followed him to Tokyo. Shiba, though she comes from the same village, doesn’t know any of this, yet isn’t all that flustered when she sees all the bodies. Aki tells Youhei that the village is insane, but since he preceded that with “I’m not insane” when he clearly is, I don’t know how much truth there is to it. This is all interesting. But the telling felt wooden. This happens, then that happens. Oh, it set up the story adequately enough, but there was nothing fresh or inventive to it.

I’m not sure I’m going to follow Blood-C. It’s apparently part of a larger franchise I know nothing about, but ep1 suggests that this is a standalone story. And though it has some problems, it’s not bad.

Saya runs to greet her dad.

Saya is a teenage shrine maiden with some contradictions. By day she’s a clumsy, well-meaning girl who’s often late for school because of cute puppies or stray trash. By night (well, in this episode at least), she’s a dangerous swordswoman who guards her father’s shrine from nasty things. So for half the episode we get the girl at school doing high school things, and in the second half she’s getting knocked around by a bairn.

Saya at her other job.

Episode 1 is uncluttered. It presents us one thing at a time, and takes its time doing it. Sometimes it works, like when we meet her friends, but some moments are stretched too long, such as her little happy song as she walks to school. It was a nice moment, but did they have to start up a second verse? The walk back is overly long as well, but there at least we get a foreboding moment to break things up. On the other hand, though the bairn battle is long, starting from the first confrontation, it’s executed well. Straightforward, both sides getting an edge then losing it. I’m in for a second episode. But I have to ask: what’s up with Saya’s glasses? They NEVER fall off, not even when she’s tumbling across the water for thirty feet.

In a show like Mayo Chiki!, interested in little else but gags and fanservice, you look for little things that might keep you watching. Maybe the gags are actually good. Maybe the fanservice is … well, I don’t really care either way. What other things are there to like about a show where our hero Jirou learns the secret of Konoe the butler?

Jirou is nothing much, the usual harem lead, getting beaten up by his sister every morning and afraid to be touched by women because he gets nosebleeds (interesting take on the nosebleed trope, actually). Konoe’s master, Kanade, is nothing much. Her cruel teasing of both Jirou and Konoe comes off as annoying, not sinister or sexy. There’s a blonde, tanned girl with cat ears, but the episode pays little attention to her. The only interesting thing turns out to be Konoe. I liked the way that her voice would go from girlish to mannish (with dangerous intent) at the drop of a hat. I liked her serious demeanor when we she tried to kill Jirou. Also, like Jirou, she’s a victim. (Or maybe I just like blond crossdressing girls. Charlotte was my favorite character in IS, after all. Forget I said that.) Anyway, I’ll watch another episode or two, but I don’t think Komoe alone can carry this series.