Twos: Phi Brain, Horizon, Working’!!

Phi Brain 2 polishes off the cliffhanger, gives us a new puzzle to solve, and throws exposition at us. A typical episode two. Nonetheless, it wasn’t bad. After the cliffhanger (well, Kaito had pretty much solved the puzzle at the end of last week’s episode, all he had to do was pull the rope) we learn that using the Armband of Orpheus to augment his own abilities drains him physically, and poor Nonoha gets to add “hero-carrier” to her sidekick duties. As for the exposition, it turns out all the great old ruins are actually puzzles you have to solve, and if you do you get to be god or something Godly. To which Kaito says:

That's what I'd do too if I heard such a silly backstory.

And we meet Gammon, a game-genius rival who isn’t involved in this big adventure, who’s duty it is to scream his own name, be a smart as Kaito, and bug him. You know he’s going to have a bad end because his goal for solving puzzles is money. Also he steals Kaito’s puzzle-tron and goes off to get the next treasure before Kaito can.

I must say, I’m not very impressed by the puzzles they’ve shown so far. The big one involving ropes and pulleys was too big to see on the screen, and this one involving cars in a parking lot sliding around (you’d think they’d have a more fitting use for a motorized vehicle) looks pretty easy. I’m not saying I could solve it in two minutes like they have to, but I could solve it in time. Well, until the puzzle creator got and changed the rules, condemning them to death until Kaito does the “glowing armband and eye turning red” thing and comes up with an innovation. I’m still not sure about this show. Kaito is just another grumpy genius. Nonoha, however, is a solid and unannoying sidekick. Next week they’re going to bring us a bratty child genius, which would bug me except they poke fun of the idea in the previews. Okay, this show has a sense of humor about it, too.

Kyoukai Senjou no Horizon 2 is like ep1 with its constant barrage of exposition, but ep1 had a entertaining chase in it. Ep2 does not.

Instead, it has this.

The closest thing we get to a decent conversation intended to convey backstory was early on when Tenshi (?) talks with a woman about her past and the woman tells her to try the “Path to Remorse.” It worked (or half-worked, because it still wasn’t much good) because the info we got was tied in with Tenshi’s personal problems and a decision she has to make. But, come to think of it, the Path to Remorse” is the only thing I remember about it. We then switch to a classroom scene where a character has to read out a history text (more backstory). Worse, she does it in a halting voice. When someone else takes over it doesn’t get any better. Worlds collapsing, or joining up, and wars and I guess their side lost. Or something. Meanwhile procedural rules concerning the school pass by and all of a sudden Toori (the main character, and the only character where I am certain of the name, because everyone says it a lot) gets punished for some reason.

'Oh yeah? Well I saw YOUR mama ...'

We’re back to Tenshi(?) again, talking to a robot. We get more of her backstory, her getting deported midway through her sex change, mother dead via virus, the usual, then a ship passes by. Why it’s there is explained in great detail. Never mind that normal people, or fictional characters in a better-written show, would talk that way. Then … err … I forget, but whatever it was it had a backstory. Then it’s back to Toori, who’s going to confess to horizon, who may not exist (more backstory), and gropes a girl’s boobs for practice. I think I may watch another episode of this just to see if I can figure it out. This show is harder than any puzzle Taiko’s faced yet.

So it’s a relief to watch Working’!!, a show with not much of a backstory and hardly any plot at all. And frankly, I don’t remember the first season being as good as it’s started out this time.

A show that's easy to understand.

As I mentioned, it still doesn’t have a plot, but that’s not a drawback if the scenes are funny, and in this episode they are. Let’s see … Yamada wants a family so she decides to learn more about Soma, so she decides to stalk him. Popura tells Takanashi to be nicer to Inami. Then Otoo shows up, to Yamada’s delight (a father figure!). Popura tries to get back at Sato for all the times he’s been mean to her. And Yamada wants Otoo to adopt her. But the characters are all weird enough that you get sparks no matter who’s paired with whom.

Also, unlike season one, the show isn’t weighed down by Inami constantly slugging Takanashi. She hits him just once, almost as a throwaway joke after a discussion with Popura about how she’d make a good mother. And because of the situation, and the timing, I burst out laughing. That’s the way it should be. Once an episode. I’m sure Takanashi would agree with me. If there is something that weighs down this episode, it’s Yamada’s plight. A young girl with no family who lives in the restaurant’s attic. Her greedy self-interest only barely manages to balance the sadness of her situation. In some other show they’d make a point about how the people around her are her family, but, happily, this show doesn’t need to explain the obvious. It would only get in the way of the jokes.

New: Phi Brain Kami no Puzzle, Kyoukai Senjou no Horizon, Tamayura – Hitotose, Chihayafuru, Kimi to Boku

Phi Brain Kami no Puzzle looks like a stock mystery/adventure show with puzzle-solving as its gimmick. The first episode is typical. The show’s world is one where puzzles are important things, judging from the TV coverage they give to one puzzle solver, who is of course a tool whose life is saved by the show’s grumpy high schooler hero, Kaito. A sempai entices him to solve a labyrinth, the same one that nearly killed the tool. Kaito doesn’t care about rewards, only puzzles, in other words he’s a grump but a pure-hearted one. A girl named Nonoha serves as his sidekick and fortunately for Kaito (and for us) she isn’t just a bimbo tagging along; she has a great memory and a keen eye. The show’s fatal flaw might be that we the audience aren’t (so far) allowed to try to figure out the puzzles along with Kaito; we watch while Kaito concentrates and mutters things.

Kyoukai Senjou no Horizon starts out maddingly dull, jumps to action-packed and somewhat funny, back to dull.

The beloved instructor.

We start with a training session at the Ariadust War Trainee School, where an instructor (didn’t get the name) explains, I think, that she’s about to go out and take out a Yakuza joint, and on their way they’re free to attack her. This is strange enough that I liked it, but the briefing devolves into talk about how they’re being suppressed by the world, and they’re flying on a big airship, and their futures, with some odd interjections to introduce characters, and where the hell is class rep Toori, anyway? It’s a bad sign when you get an infodump early in the first episode. But then the chase begins.

Just two of the weirdos chasing the beloved instructor.

The chase was much like the show the other day with battling students which made such an impression on me that I forget the name and can’t be bothered to look it up. Every character has a a chance to attack, and we learn about their skills and personalities as they do. What makes Horizon’s fight much more fun is that the trainees are such a mixed and weird lot. We got a ninja, witch-girls, a bouncing blob, a girl riding on the shoulders of a giant, a naked flying guy who teams with a guy flinging curry, each with weaponry just as bizarre as they are. One after another. It reduced me to slack-jawed amazement, which is a good thing. It’s a shame they reach their destination and Toori shows up and makes everyone there his straight man, and we get more exposition, which continues over the credits! If I do keep watching this series it’s going to be for the weirdness and not the convoluted history.

Off to many adventures, all of them quiet and peaceful.

With Tamayura – Hitotose we get our quiet, restful show of the season. It’s too early to tell whether this one will warm the cockles of my heart. It’s hard to feel an emotional attachment to characters right off. But the show does a pretty good job. It helps that there’s an undertone of tragedy from the start. Fuu’s father passed away, and she is just now getting around to not being sad about it to the point of getting out his old camera (which uses film!) and deciding to attend high school at the town they grew up in. These things don’t make her sad any more, and she wonders when that happened. The tears are reserved for her friend Chihiro, who cries to the point of annoyance (though her use of stuffed animals to convey her emotions was endearing). We don’t see much of the other regulars, only that they’re around. Oh, and there’s cute mystical creatures around too. The director apparently did Aria, which explains a lot. I want to like shows like these. I’m hoping for good things.

Chihaya rescues her pride.

We stay (mostly) in real life with Chihayafuru, and meet Chihaya, the most interesting character of the new season so far. She’s determined to start a karuta club at her school even though no one’s interested. But just when I was thinking this was going to be a school club series the show flashes back to how Chihaya became such a karuta nut. That wouldn’t be so surprising, either, except for the subtle work going on underneath. She befriends a quiet boy named Arata, who is an expert at the game. They play once (she manages one card) and she’s immediately hooked, but perhaps not by the game. She had “discovered Arata’s passion.” Earlier, Ayata had admonished her because her own dream was for her sister, not herself. And we have to wonder what happened in the intervening years. There’s obviously a love triangle at work between Chihaya, Arata, and a boy named Taichi, but Arata has vanished, to her chagrin. Meanwhile, Chihaya’s gone from being a plucky and blunt middle-schooler to being sort of … weird. In other words, the show appears to be about much more than becoming a karuta master. Even the tone is wrong for a competition-based show. The orchestral soundtrack during the match reminded me of Cross Game, though it’s wrong to take the comparison any further than that. Very interesting episode one.

High school boys.

So Kimi to Boku is apparently the reverse of those shows with high school girls hanging out and doing nothing. So I was watching as these four, slightly effeminate slackers (well, one is very effeminate) sit around insulting each other in bored tones, and I found myself giggling. And this happened more than once. In a plotless series like this the jokes had better be good. Interesting that what made me laugh had nothing to do with what I was seeing. It was done by the lines and pacing. Indeed, the animation could be described as minimalist. I can’t count the number of times the character talking was looking away so they didn’t have to animate the mouth. The animators must have blown their cash on the cherry blossoms. As for this week’s plot (get Yuki to join a club), it didn’t matter. More important to see how the characters react to the clubs, or react to the others’ reaction to it. If they can keep throwing in little bits that get me laughing, I’ll keep watching.