Kanojo X 7, Hyouka 5, Moretsu 20, Kimi to Boku 8

Nazo no Kanojo X 7 has Urabe at her most mysterious, and at the same time at her most “normal,” and childish. Early on, taking a cue from Ako, she visits the flu-ridden Tsubaki, and after drool has been exchanged, leaves, not even showing him the swimsuit she had on underneath her coat, because she was shy. It’s like she goes through the motions of social behavior but doesn’t always understand the reason. Then at the end she almost grows angry at Tsubaki for suggesting she join the track club. We know why he’s doing it, because he didn’t want to hold her back from something she might enjoy. She determines through saliva that he wants her for himself, well, the legs, anyway. Apparently the idea that he wants to sacrifice his enjoyment of their walks together for her sake because he cares about her is too complex for spit to convey. For someone who can share feelings and emotions like Urabe can, she can be awfully insensitive.

The rest of the episode is confusing. Why did Tsubaki recover so quickly when Urabe’s spit wasn’t supposed to work? They switched sensations? Then why didn’t Urabe come down with the flu? On the other hand Ako keeps me entertained not only with the sophisticated and erotic ways that he handles Ueno (she can do better than him, really), but her ability to shake up Urabe and slyly come on to her. What’s her mother been teaching her?

Hyouka 5 surprised me by actually polishing off the story arc. I thought it was one that could go on and on if it wanted to. And the final answers Chitanda was looking for came to her. The only thing that seemed like a stretch was the “lame pun” in English that gave the club journal (and, perhaps significantly, that of the show) its name. Houtarou pulled that one out of thin air. The entire mystery was mundane, as most mysteries are after you solve them, yet the episode itself was vivid and powerful. Nothing new there. With this show I’m getting used to people sitting and talking calmly taking on great significance through imaginative visuals.

And this time there was the added weight of Itoigawa remembering a painful time of her life, to say nothing of Chitanda discovering the what her uncle had said that had made her cry. And when she cried this time (the arc would not be complete until she did), it was, as befitting the atmosphere, done calmly, a few tears and a smile. I kind of wish the club would next investigate what happened to Jun in India, but I suspect that would be too much for the club and this show that does just fine with small mysteries.

Ai will not be outdone! Not when she wears that hat!

Moretsu Pirates 20 patiently unfolds the new story arc. There are things they’re not telling us, just sowing seeds, like the new organization who’s trying to horn in on space, and apparently Marika might get involved. It’s odd to see shady, nasty looking people in black suits snickering about things while their goal is to actually protect the heroine, not do away with her. And we got the fact that someone’s trying to sabotage the annual dinghy race. Why they want to do such an EVIL thing as mess with people in dinghies they don’t tell us. Perhaps the answer lies in Marika’s high school being banned from the thing for interference five years ago. A lot of tasty mysteries. Then we get the mundane silliness of Kane training the girls through some extreme measures, simulations in the Red Spot, windsurfing while the Bentenmaru fires on them, and wearing a tiny Speedo. And, far away from intrigue, little Ai gets lots of chances to show off her navigation skills and radiate sheer joy while doing so. It’s a lovely contrast.

Kimi to Boku 2 8 is one of its sweetest and sneakiest episodes, even though it has a boy who asks too much from a girl and gets it. One irony is that the boy, Shun’s younger brother, Fuyuki, asks to touch Mamiya’s chest at a moment when mother-hen Shun has ceased to worry about him doing ecchi things with her. Another irony is that it’s possible none of the main characters have gotten as far with a girl as Fuyuki has, in spite of their advanced age. The actual moment, and the aftermath, is handled gently, with even the karoake noises stilled. The aftermath has bad vibes but turns comical, and we see that what we’ve got here is just two kids who are trying to figure out their urges. Plus an older brother who worries too much and his friends, along for the ride as usual.

Hyouka 4, Kimi to Boku 7, Moretsu 19, Nyaruko I forget …

Hyouka 4′s mystery, or continuation of a mystery, doesn’t quite live up to the others so far, but its patient telling and production levels carry it along.

Chitanda can’t wait to hear Houtarou’s theory.

Chitanda agrees, after some prodding by Houtarou so he won’t have to do all the work, to let the other lit club members into her story. They research and meet at Chitanda’s enormous house to present their findings and present theories, except Houtarou, who forgot the theory bit. You’d expect the reverse from him–doing the thinking but not the legwork. Interesting theories are brought up by the other three and promptly shot down, Houtarou goes to the bathroom to think, and comes back with a satisfactory conclusion. The mystery isn’t as interesting because I at least could not connect to what was happening in Japan 45 years ago. I didn’t know that the student unrest went down to the high school level. The kids are working with written records of the time that may have been biased. Apart from Jun being expelled there is nothing concrete. Last week we picked up the clues as Houtarou noticed them. Also, though Houtarou’s thoughts make a plausible theory, it is just that–a theory. Chitanda later has second thoughts about it, and, judging from the previews, Houtarou will have his own next week.

One of many theories, each with its own visual style.

What makes this dull meeting, full of theories and history, interesting are the games KyoAni plays. Apart from the usual detailed animation of the show’s reality, each of the kids’ theories are presented using a different style, texts with letters that grow, twist or fall to the ground, bits that look like they came from revolutionary posters, cartoonish characters, it seems endless. This seems to be KyoAni’s strategy. The show spends a lot of time with people sitting around talking. No matter what they’re talking about, it’s still visually static. Since what they’re talking about is the important thing, they have decided to concentrate on illuminating that as vividly as they can. Which begs the question: how would other studios treat this material? SHAFT? The mind boggles.

Mary’s reaction to being confessed to.

Kimi to Boku 7 brings us a better-than-average Valentine episode. The usual scenes where people react to how many/few chocolates someone else got are quickly finished and we get to the main deal, Mary trying to bring herself to give her beloved Shun her gift. The episode avoids doing a Sawako and throws us a curveball, a completely unknown girl from another school shows up with HER chocolate for Shun, naturally Mary’s there to see it. So now we not only get Mary’s frustration, coupled with Chizuru’s concern for her, but also Shun’s complete bewilderment to play with. The other boys toss in asides but basically stay out of the way. Chizuru, for once, is not annoying, and takes a major step forward. Mary is her usual bundle of insecurities. Shun manages to deal with his situation with his usual gentle courtesy. Good episode.

Marika seems to be enjoying her filler episode.

Moretsu Pirates 19, just filler, really. They set up a small crisis when weary Marika loses her captain ring and the Bentonmaru’s crew can’t get the ship to work, but it’s really just a way to get the yacht club girls to meet the actual pirates and do things like exchange hardware and stuffed animals. In other words, they set up a potentially dangerous situation (and don’t forget Marika forgetting to lock the ship… tsk) and make it hardly worth mentioning. I expect that now and I still watch the show.

Finally, Haiyore! Nyaruko-san finished up the kidnapped mom story in a typically inane way. The evil woman, Luhy, wanted Yorika’s help building her company’s next gaming console. The climax (the console will never work because there are no games for it) is followed by another climax (the parent company pulls the plug) which it didn’t need, because of the first climax. Well, Nyaruko has a few good moments, and Cthugha works well with her. And because they couldn’t stretch the story to the end we get a combination beach/hot springs story, with the predicted jokes, to pad out the episode.

Apollon and Girlfriend X 5, Kimi to Boku 6

Yeah, this episode’s full of them.

It’s hard to tell where Sakamichi no Apollon 5 is going at first. We get a few scenes where the coincidences distract from their purpose. Kaoru just happens to be playing telephone-on-a-string with Sachiko, bringing up the fact that Ritsuko now hates him, when she passes by and takes the can from Sachiko. Sentarou just happens to be passing by while she talks to Kaoru about the boy she likes. Oh, and Ritsuko just happens to meet Yurika in the cake shop. All these scenes do something, it’s just a clumsy way to go about it. Other moments make up for it, like Sentarou coming to Sentarou’s bedroom via tree, and that brief bit between Yurika and Jun, with the odd reaction to the name on the bakery bag. Then the story takes us to a place we didn’t expect.

Kaoru’s father is home, and brings a letter from a former housekeeper which contains his estranged mother’s address in Tokyo. Kaoru goes. Sentarou invites himself along, for no other that I can see plot-wise than forcing him to go through with it, oh, and to provide a scene where they get drunk with two of Jun’s buddies. Kaoru’s mother had never really entered the picture, she’s barely talked about and Kaoru has few memories of her, but to my surprise they hit it off immediately. When she hits the nail on the head that he’s had his heart broken, he can only be upset for a second before he’s laughing along with her. For once Kaoru allows something powerful and possibly painful to come into his life, and the result is something he desperately needed. It all feels like a side trip for the story, but it was a good one.

Nazo no Kanojo 5 brought up something I had never thought about anime beach episodes. I didn’t really enjoy the scenes very much, or the episode, and I think one of the reasons was there were only the two of them. You knew what the scenes would cover, more or less: Tsubaki would see Urabe in a swimsuit and get excited. They threw in a scissors tan line (in a close-up) to heighten the effect. But apart from Tsubaki ogling her, nothing happens. Normally these scenes have a whole group of people and that adds exponentially to the potential interactions. Boy would ogle girl, another girl would be pissed off about it, while other characters provide counterpoint by flailing away at watermelons or playing volleyball. Maybe it’s a sign that the series at this point is at an empasse. Our weird lovebirds are in a holding pattern; unless something in their relationship changes or they make more use of Ueno and Oka, the series will stagnate. Next episode promises to do just that.

Not much to say about Kimi to Boku 2 6. An sad but amusing situation Yuuki finds himself in: the lunchlady he’s in love with is leaving. Their one connection is collectable stickers. He doesn’t go to the cafeteria and see her on her last week because he’s eating convenience store food to collect the stickers to give her a goodbye gift. Other than that it’s another hopeless unrequited love story. Sweet, but the usual.

And I have nothing to say about Nyaruko-San, except this episode, part of a story arc, isn’t up to its usual standards.

Hyouka 2, Space Bros 5, Kimi to Boku 5, Acchi 4

If Hyouka stays the same as it was in episode 2 I see viewers getting bored with it quickly. I can’t blame them, but I’m not one of them.

This was one of the laziest episodes of anything I’ve seen in a while. Not lazy like slice-of-life shows Kimi to Boku or Acchi Kocchi, where part of the goal is to slow down and smell whatever’s around. This is a show where they solve mysteries. Mysteries take work. They must be presented, clues given and discovered, insights made, and finally, the detective solves the case. Yes, all that happens in this episode. But it was a tiny little mystery with no danger or maliciousness behind it. I couldn’t possibly have solved it because I didn’t know enough about how the school runs, a serious problem if they’re trying to present a mystery to the viewer, but not if the mystery is secondary to something else they want to do.

And it didn’t take long to solve. They spend a lot more time being lazy. Houtarou is naturally lazy, and since he’s the main character we get a lot of moments where he doesn’t want to do something and is made to do it. The portions of the episode not spent on solving the mystery or watching Houtarou sit there is taken up by bickering. We get a new character, Mayaka, who hates Houtarou and is constantly peeved at whats-his-name. And whats-his-name and Houtarou usually find some time to argue. Put that all together and you get an episode filled with … nothing much. Oh, Chitanda has something mysterious to say at the end, but that’s for next week. Maybe it will be a story arc.

Houtarou is again defeated by Chitanda's indefatigable cuteness.

Yet this episode wasn’t bad in the slightest. It is deliberately lazy. KyoAni wants you to watch the characters in various stages of inaction, whether it be in the clubroom (and I can’t be the only one who gets a serious SOS-Brigade vibe from that room–wait, wasn’t Haruhi’s clubroom the former literature club?), standing around the librarian’s desk or wherever. And that’s fine, because our two main characters are interesting. Houtarou, in spite of his complacency, has something wrong with him. It could be a natural aversion to too much activity or something more. We see two odd and disturbing fantasies or hallucinations he has. And Chitanda has such a dogged persistence about whatever’s on her mind that she’s absolutely adorable. Last week it was that arm-pump when she had something exciting to say. This week it as the near pounce she made on Houtarou with the book. Both moments were cute and extremely funny. Well, I thought so. So if the show wants to take things slowly and feed us little things for awhile I don’t mind in the least.

About time the dog showed up.

I’m going to write off Mutta’s behavior in Space Brothers 5 as jet lag. Or something that cause him to go from astronaut candidate to lazy, self-doubting doofus the moment he arrives in Houston, or maybe it was the chase that Apo the pug (finally!) gave him. The episode basically sees him think through all the things we’ve seen him think through since the beginning. His younger brother has left him behind, etc. The difference this time is that Hibito is actually there to frown at him. Actually, the entire reunion feels awkward, as both brothers perhaps size the other up for the first time in months. And they see disappointment and regret. No excitement at being at NASA or anything! C’mon, Mutta! This isn’t the way you acted before. Where the hell did your confidence go? It takes some not very interesting conversations and self-reflection before Mutta returns to something close to normal … and then they try to throw in a whammy which doesn’t really work, because we were sort of expecting it, at the last second.

Tired of annoying Kanade or each other, the boys of Kimi to Boku II 5 go out of their way to annoy a total stranger, when they discover his lost bike key and accidentally toss it into the shrine’s offering box, leading you to wonder why the hell they couldn’t just talk to someone at the shrine. But that would prevent an episode where he makes them drag his bike around, pissing him off further and further (actually it’s mainly Chizuru. The twins usually don’t go after people they don’t know and Kanade wisely makes himself scarce early on). The reason for his anger is third-year stress, so the episode has us believe. But if this crap happened to me my reaction would make this guy seem like Shun. In the end he’s a little happier, but not because of anything the boys did. I wonder who they’ll piss off next week?

Hide-and-seek.

Acchi Kocchi 4 … not bad. I preferred the hide-and-seek part. Most of the jokes in the school radio bit didn’t work for me, though it helped that Sakaki has a bit of a psychotic streak.

Threes and one four: Sankarea, Kanojo X, Kimi to Boku, Nyaruko

Usually when I forget about a show it’s a sign that I should perhaps give up on it, that it obviously hasn’t made an impression and that I watch too many shows anyway. Thus I have dropped Zetman and, er, that show with the girl in the countryside and the guys sworn to protect her. So those two are gone. But this is a dangerous way to cull my viewing list. I almost forgot about Sankarea but I like this show. Even though in some ways this wasn’t its best episode.

Two major things happened last week. Rea is spotted sneaking back into the house, is confronted by her father, confined to the house and takes poison. Also, Furuya resurrects Babu. We start with Rea, who wakes up. The poison didn’t kill her. There’s a breakfast scene with her father and stepmother in a brightly-lit dining room, yet the scene could not feel more oppressive. Rea goes into submissive mode, perhaps for self-preservation, the father says fatherly things that make you want to stab him, and the stepmother walks out in a huff. The stepmom, Aria, could be an interesting character. She hates Rea, or pretends to, yet watches her escape with a smile, maybe because she’s also a lush. Anyway, Dan’Ichiro, known for forcibly and cruelly getting rid of things which distracts Rea from him, is overheard announcing that he will castrate Furuya. He means it.

This scene's a bit of a mood swing.

Cut to a scene that could not be more different: Furuya is trying to lure Babu the zombie cat down from a tree, and soon he and Wanko are chasing him around town. It’s a ridiculous situation, especially when Babu makes little zombie-cat noises, and all the while you’re aware that there are people who want to cut Furuya’s balls off. Still, the scenes stumble. We didn’t need such a lengthy crawl-through-the-pipe scene–it was only there to give us a shot of Wanko’s panties. And then we have a dreadful one where Rea asks Furuya’s classmates where he is. The way the boy reacts to seeing Rea, you wonder if Dan’Ichiro doesn’t have a point.

But the climax works pretty well. I’m not sure why Rea, etc., are on that ledge, but it gives Rea no alternative but openly rebel against her father, or fall off and die. She does both. Since she had already taken the potion you can guess what happens next. The big question for next week is what her father is going to do about all this. Oh, yeah, we get a clue about the zombie business. Babu apparently was looking for hydrangea leaves to eat, just like Furuya’s weird grandfather … Interesting.

I don't think anyone's been turned down using quite those words.

And then I watched Nazo no Kanojo X, and another interesting girlfriend. Only it occurred to me recently that if you remove the drool-licking and the scissors, well, and a few other things, this is a pretty normal high school romance show. Boy meets girl. Boy tries to figure out girl. Boy wants to kiss girl but girl doesn’t want to–yet. So this week we are introduced to a common and hateful emotion often felt with love–jealousy. It turns out that Tsubaki isn’t the only boy in class who is attracted to odd girls. Actually, that’s high on my list too, but there’s no way I could get past the drool thing. Putting weirdness aside we get to see what Urabe does when another boy asks her out: she tells her boyfriend, i.e., no secrets. Even though she says she’ll wait a day to make her decision, which naturally makes Tsubaki lose a night of sleep. The next day she runs an interesting test and explains it to Tsubaki as just that, using the other boy as a “variable test subject,” and Tsubaki won. Still, the fact that she bothered to run this test at all would have bugged me if I was the boyfriend … Yep, this is a romance show, with drool, deadly scissors, and going commando.

Flashback: the new bunk bed.

Some shows I forget about, others I don’t, but wonder why while the latest episode bores me. In this episode of Kimi to Boku it’s Yuuta and Yuuki almost the entire time. The point of it is to show how close-knit they are, and some of it works. The serious argument they have is so low key that you can’t tell it from a regular conversation, except that they speak a little faster and the voices go up just a touch. The bunk bed bit was nice. They finally had to bring Kanade in to get someone to react to them. The thing with the broken plate was just silly, though I was amused by the thought that these kids don’t bury treasure, but things they’ve broken in order to hide them.

And there are some shows which I remember and look forward to, even if I’m embarrassed to admit it. Right now that’s Haiyore! Nyaruko-San, even though it’s got nothing going for it at all. Episode 3 brings on a new villain, who has killed most of the gods of dreamland but has a special grudge for Nyaruko. Hard to figure out how he can go around killing deities when such little things like local police and flying crowbars mess him up. Turns out he’s Nyaruko’s older brother. The rest of the episode is petty bickering between Mahiro and Nyaruko, Nyaruko and Cthugha, and that cute little dragon thing. And that’s about it. But like before I am enjoying Kana Asumi’s work as Nyaruko. Another blog said that she sounds like she’s having fun with the role, and they’re right. And apart from some ridiculous fanservice (and from where did she produce that chainsaw?) it’s a harmless enough show.

Amnesia 2, Kimi to Boku 3, Nyaruko 2

I meant to post this a few days ago. I must have pushed the wrong button.

Tasogare Otome x Amnesia 2 is a meet-and-greet in two parts.

Meeting cute amidst the conflicting art designs.

We don’t learn anything more about Yuuko’s death in either one, but we do get some information on what ghosts can and can’t do in this world, and how Teiichi got involved. But thinking back on it, we don’t really know why he was wandering around the old building in the first place. And how did Yuuko know his name from the start? Well, not telling us things makes it more mysterious, right, and frankly we need mysterious stuff when our ghost is such a goofball. This is meeting of the natural and supernatural is more of a meet-cute in a romance. But apart from that it’s all exposition. Yuuko doesn’t know how she died and isn’t particularly curious about it, though later she changes. Maybe she was waiting for Teiichi to help her out. More mysteries.

Driving out a ghost: (left) real view, (right) Momoe's view.

The second half introduces hapless Momoe, who played a hide-and-seek game and is now convinced a ghost, specifically Yuuko, is coming after her with evil intentions. You can imagine how Yuuko thinks about this. It works better than the first half because Momoe is a good “victim.” She cannot see Yuuko (why not?), so Yuuko plays little games at her expense and Teiichi tries to minimize the damage. Yuuko is becoming quite an entertaining character. While there’s sadness and loneliness in her because of her mysterious demise, she is also intelligent, playful, and flirtatious. She can set up a scary situation and undercut it for a gag any time she wants. The trouble is, it always works that way. Everything that’s threatening in this show so far has turned into a gag, like the discovery of her bones. It’s worked so far, but I wonder if it will get stale after a while. One more thing, visually this show is great to watch. They get to use all sorts of quick cuts and stylistic art, both scary and mundane, and get away with it.

Kimi to Boku 3 starts with Azuma-sensei attending a wedding and wondering if he’s grown up yet. This would be a change of pace for the show to not have it focus on the boys, but immediately after that we forget all about him and watch them watch a movie. Which leads to a trip to the mall for more, and it turns into a Christmas episode. The last thing I want in April is a Christmas episode, but it’s actually not bad. They only get into a little trouble, well, big trouble for knocking down a tree (trying to do a good deed), and so end up playing Santa to pay the debt. Little adventures follow. The bit with the reindeer was the best. We return to Azuma and his brother, who apparently has been around before but I can’t remember when, something about chocolate bananas, and an observation about being an adult as opposed to being a child. As for the boys, they seem to consider this Christmas a dud even though they had quite a good one that they’ll laugh about next year.

Wait until Nyarlathotep finds out what Cthugha REALLY has in store.

Haiyore! Nyaruko-San is another series that I can’t bring up the energy to hate in spite of all the chances it gives me. In this episode Nyarlathotep, the crawling chaos, visits R’lyeh and fights Cthugha. None of which is as insanity-inducing as it sounds. R’lyeh is a theme park. And while Cthugha is a deadly enemy, she’s more interested in something else. Nodens’ reason for abducting Mahiro isn’t what you think, either. Yeah, yeah, it’s pandering and loaded with bad jokes, but I’m sort of having fun running to Wikipedia every time a new character shows up to find out how much faster Lovecraft is now spinning in his grave. And Nyaruko manages that difficult feat of being energetic and brainless without getting on my nerves. I speak for myself only.

Episode twos which didn’t interest me, but I think I’m coming down with something

Don't be so hard on yourself ... oh, never mind.

Hiiro no Kakera 2 is a predictable and well-done episode. We learn a little more about the Onikirimaru seal, that it’s guarded by two other seals and amulets scattered around, and that a bunch of baddies are poking around, observing behind trees for now. We get the variations on the five guardians’ mantra, this time using a tool metaphor. But what does that make Tamaki, who opens a door, but another tool? I could carry that metaphor farther than the show would prefer, I think. We also learn that Tamaki’s power has to manifest before, something happens that I’ve forgotten. And that’s the problem for me. I’m having some problems keeping the show’s rules in order. I get the basics but when they toss off some new bit of information my eyes glaze over. Maybe it’s that these drops of info are usually presented as dull exposition, just like that transition a schoolmate makes. “You’re walking home with Takuma? The whole class is talking about it? By the way did you hear about the disappearances?” It’s not that the show is being obtuse, just dull in presentation. And while the guardians are entertaining when they bicker, they weren’t given any chances to deepen their characters this episode. Tamaki does, a little, showing some backbone by insisting she accompany them to check something out. This show is still borderline for me.

So is Kimi to Boku. The two Ys are still pissing everyone off, Kaname gets pissed off too easily, Chizuru blah blah, Shun blah blah (actually Shun is too inoffensive to bug me too much). I enjoyed this episode because Chizuru had plenty of opportunities to make an ass of himself, and Mary had plenty of screentime. Unfortunately Chizuru wound up being more sensitive than obnoxious, ruining the fun for me. At least Mary came through.

Watching these three shows in the same day, with more or less the same indifference, I wonder if I’m not actually coming down with something. Zetman 2 was packed with information and events that I tried but failed to connect with. It moved so fast I could barely keep up. Basically it’s a few years later, the kids are teenagers, Jin being raised by Akemi and helps keep the peace on the streets in his own way. Kouga has the same ideals but his desire to help others makes him act like a rich boy playing superhero (his lack of worldly experience rivals Jin’s last episode), and he has a streak of practicality that prevents him from being truly heroic. In short, he make himself very hard to admire or even like. Konoha watches everything with wonder and does little else. We get a few fights and confrontations, some intrigue as the baddies try to figure out who the Zet is, and finally Akemi is maybe dead again … Sorry. Too much. As I said, maybe I should just make some chicken soup and go to bed …

New shows: Lupin/Fujiko, Kimi to Boku II, Kuromajo-san

I wasn’t sure I wanted to watch Lupin III – Mine Fujiko to lu Onna. All I’ve seen of this iconic franchise is that one movie and that 1980s arcade game that stood there in a movie theatre I once worked at (showing you how old I am). I’d heard that the later versions of Lupin had been toned down and that this was supposedly a throwback to earlier, more risque years. They weren’t kidding.

Fujiko Mine as you've never seen her before!

This latest incarnation shows you precisely what you’re going to get with the introductory credits: a Fujiko monologue about theft and eroticism accompanied by eye-opening images–and not just for the nudity. Right from the start you know that this show will have a lot of visual style, and the fusion-jazz soundtrack isn’t something the older Lupins had, either. This week’s caper involves a cult which uses a drug on its followers. Fujiko is out to steal the secret of the drug and so “marries” the decrepit cult leader with some disgusting kissing, thus drugging him, and is ready to get at the source when a guy in a green jacket ambles in, messing up her plans, and they’re both captured.

They escape death (Fujiko has no qualms about killing if necessary) in their own ways, go after the drug again, one-up and double-cross each other, not out of any malice that I can see. Rather, they seem to be testing each other’s ability to not only overcome but top the other’s latest trick, to see if they’re worthy of affection, well, maybe that’s how Lupin looks at it. I’m not sure what’s in Fujiko’s mind. Everyone else who’s around, the followers, the goons with guns, are just tools for one to use on another.

Look who else shows up.

It ends up the way these things usually do. For all the extra sensuality and violence, not to mention the art style, this is still a Lupin III show. I wonder what the purists will think of it. Will they cry foul or embrace the new look? I’m not an expert, much less a purist, and certainly not a puritan, so I liked it, at least episode one.

Same as always.

I don’t know if I really want to watch another season of Kimi to Boku. The first season got pretty annoying, Yuuta and Yuuki’s dryness were funny at times but they spent too much time trying to piss people off, especially Kanade. Meanwhile, Chizuru was just annoying. The second season looks to be pretty much the same. The boys invite themselves over to Kanade’s house, look at constellations, and piss each other off about baths. Dunno. Masaki will appear next week, so maybe things will pick up a bit.

Kuromajo-san ga Tooru isn’t a bad way to kill seven miinutes. We got a girl named Chiyoko who’s interested in the occult and accidently conjures the black witch Gyubid while she tried to conjure Cupid when she had a head cold. Now she’s a witch-in-training whether she likes it or not. Unlike that other show where girls with magic might become witches, this one is lighthearted and silly. And it has an interesting premise: beings from the spirit world are actually manifestations of the living’s fears and anger. This will give Chiyoko opportunites to solve her friends’ problems. Episode one had a few too many infodump moments but mostly rolled cheerfully along.

Last Exile Fam 11?, Boku wa Tomodachi ends, Kimi to Boku 13

After watching Last Exile Fam 10 (or as the subber has it, 9.5) to catch up on the action (all the battles in one episode! Whee!) it’s time to settle in for some new material in episode 10 (or 11). The show wastes no time. In fact, it’s one of those episodes where so much happens you can’t quite figure out how they jammed it all in. We start with the ceremonies commemorating the treaty between Anatory and Turan, lots guns going off and drinking of non-alcoholic (so they say) beverages. Then, the show gives us its big whammy.

Someone got to Liliana

First, we’ve learned via a new character, Alvis(?), that Liliana is still alive! Hooray! Then she shows up–in a Ades warship. Oh, shit. She’s declaring peace, put down your weapons, everyone! The looks of shock and dismay on the main characters’ faces says it all. It’s one of those maneuvers that even if you’re on the other side, you still say “well played.” The Federation, by turning Liliana to their side, however they did it, has just royally screwed Turan. The troops will follow Liliana. Tatiana, Alzey, Millia, Fam etc., don’t know what hit them, but they have to make a move fast. If they can figure out what to do at all. Actually, it gets kind of depressing. No matter what the good guys do, Luscinia has already anticipated it. Soon there are Guild creeps all over the ship, and while Dio manages to engage one of them, the rest of them run amok, and soon the Silvius has lost all power and is crashing into the ocean.

Apart from the fact that they're fleeing for their lives it looks like a nice day.

Which is seen by Fam, Millia and Gisey, who have managed to escape, though their vanship is damaged and they’re tailed by three Ades ships. Cliffhanger ending, as it should be. Sounds pretty bleak, but there’s plenty of foreshadowing in this episode as well. Shy little Alvis can control the Anatory Exile, and apparently the oldest of Turan’s bloodline can as well, which right now means Liliana. Also, Fam and co. are headed toward Glacies territory, and we had a bit of dialogue about them earlier, and guess which Glacies pilot spots them? Last Exile likes to use Chess metaphors with its chapters, but this time I’m more reminded of playing an online dungeon crawler where you step into a new area and it all lights up for you. Time to bring Glacies into the game.

One of the reasons I'll miss Yozora.

Goodbye to Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai. Kodaka has just learned that Yozora was his childhood friend (and supposed boy) Sora. What will be the earth-shattering consequences?? Er, not much really. We get a series of flashbacks showing Yozora’s side of the story, but the only revelations we get from it was that she knew even earlier than she let on, and that she formed the club not to meet friends but as a place for she and Kodaka to be friends. All those other strange people getting in was a major inconvenience to her, but we sort of knew that already. There’s a half-hearted attempt at playing a blame-game for not showing up on that one day, but both sides really know that that’s not fair. The biggest question is whether Kodaka should start calling her Sora again, i.e., are they still the friends they were in grade school. The answer is a smart one. Just like in that first or second episode, the two main characters demonstrate that they are more intelligent and perceptive than the nature of the show let on, one of the things that first attracted me to it. That being settled, they proceed to the other thing that attracted me, a scene where all these weird people act weird together. For me, the Boku wa Tomodachi clubroom scenes were a highlight of my viewing week, and I’m going to miss them, and this show. It gave me my biggest laughs of the season, and there was a sadness lurking behind the quirks of each character that sometimes overbalanced the show, but not all the time. How about a sequel?

I don't know whether I should feel sorry for the children or the highschoolers.

Little to say about Kimi to Boku 13. The lads return to their old kindergarten as part of a work experience project, and nothing happens that you don’t expect. Yuuta (or Yuuki) is a hit with the girls. There’s one problem kid who they help out (the surprise is which of the gang is going to do the helping). The big thing is, of course, that Kaori, Kaname’s kindergarten love, still works there. I was curious about how she’d look now, and the creators did the right thing, making her an average-looking adult woman. Still, it all makes Kaname clench his fist a lot. Elsewhere, it was nice to see Yuuta play house with a smitten girl and play it straight. He knows who he should mess with and who to leave alone.

Chihayafuru 11, Kimi to Boku 12, goodbye to C3

Chihayafuru 11′s national Karuta prelim final match had the ups and downs you’d expect, but for some reason, for me, it didn’t have quite the energy and excitement that the previous episode did. Maybe because I had accidentally learned the outcome before. But it still should be exciting to see HOW they all succeed, right? I guess so.

Ways to succeed at Karuta include broad slaps ...

I think the main reason was the Chihaya-Sudo match. In spite of its wonderful and unexpected payoff at the end, I’ve lost track of what makes Chihaya tick as a karuta player. It’s her blinding speed, of course, and an instinct for the cards, but when she stumbles, as she does early on (it wouldn’t be dramatic otherwise), I wasn’t sure if was anything more than getting rattled by a trash-talking opponent who knows something about mind games. She gets some interior monologue about how she’s a part of the team, and we see all of them cheering each other on while working on their own matches, but I don’t really see that as the reason she snapped out of her funk. I suppose it helped, but then what was all that about Sudo’s hands, reminding her of you-know-who? I know there can be a series of reasons for regaining focus, but it all felt a little messy to me.

... Barrel rolls ...

The other struggles are covered by order of importance for the win. Porky, up against a kid he used to beat regularly but has now passed him in rankings, has some angst first about Arata beating him long ago (get over it), but more importantly, how it made him quit. You can have a nice discussion about how unimportant it is to stress winning to children, especially if a loss discourages them too much, but I won’t go any further with that. Porky’s internal struggle (and the kid’s another trash talker. I hate it when every member of the other team is a total asshole) is at least easier to understand, and so’s his response-to get pissed off and do a barrel roll taking a card, which, naturally, fires everyone up on his team. Taichi’s struggles are less worrisome. He seems to know that he only needs to concentrate in order to win, but he also feels pressure as the team leader–not that he needs to worry about that. He’s doing a good job of it, as his old mentor immediately notices, and when he doesn’t, he takes the responsibility. Kana and Desk-kun are there to get pump their side up when they actually manage to get a card, and in one entertaining scene, Desk-kun lobbies for a point he feels cheated out of. He goes down, but he goes down fighting. That’s all Porky needed to see to get his own game up.

... and flicks of the wrist.

Getting back to the main matchup, one more thing bugged me. Sudo was meant to be playing all these mind games with Chihaya, but near the end when Chihaya comes roaring back, we get the same sort of inner confusion stuff that we’ve seen before. Suddenly he’s thinking about his mentor, and how the game is fun (doesn’t look like much fun for him at that moment), and how he wants to take his team to the nationals. I can understand him losing his focus when Chihaya shows him what she’s capable of, but his particular internal monologue feels out of place, not natural from him from what we’ve seen before. Never mind. The good guys win. We’ll see Sudo again, I’m sure.Now I expect we’ll take a break from competitive matches for a bit and get Arata back in the show as more than a bystander.

Kimi to Boku 12 is one of the better episodes. Shun’s younger brother Fuyuki needs a notebook, so Shun and the gang go to his middle school, where, save Chizuru, they all used to go. Naturally Fuyuki is nothing like his older brother. Foul-mouthed, abrasive and sex-obsessed. You know, a middle schooler. His tough act is quickly undone by circumstance, because it seems to be a rule to this series that everyone is not exactly how they appear, well, that’s a rule about life, but this show likes to play with it. Soon Fuyuki’s secret girlfriend, Mamiya, gets involved, things get more complicated, there are upper-arm references, confiscated cell phones (Chizuru, at his most annoying, manages to get HIS confiscated as well, and he doesn’t even go to that school), injured ankles, and the smell of kendo armor. One moment of oddness: Chizuru has been knocked unconscious, and his life-force or soul or whatever comes out of his mouth, like you’ve seen in other series. We see Yuta stuffing it back in. This show doesn’t normally go for that sort of humor.

And finally we say goodbye to C3, next to Horizon, the most confusing show of the season, at least out of those I watched. In the final episode Alice uses her magic mirror to make copies of herself, and by then using a combination of attacks and guilt trips, almost has the good guys defeated, until …

C3's latest torture implement.

C3 love to stick something incredibly silly into the most serious of moments, but at least Shiraho and Sovereignty turn the tide, then leave, thank goodness. So the good guys win, in spite of the fact that the evil Alice truly loves them. Never could figure her out. She also gets some help from old characters (I assume, since I’ve forgotten them) and escapes, and then there’s the usual happy ending:

Back to normal.

But I never watched this show for the bondage gear, or the weird weapons that Fear would produce, or the concept of sins and forgiveness. No, I watched because it would do something at least every episode that was visually stunning. If often had little, if anything, to do with the story, and there are other shows more deserving of such images, but, hell, they got me to watch this inane series all the way through. Here’s one more from the final episode: