Index II, Yakumo, Letter Bee, all threes

If you ignore the cult-babble A Certain Magical Index 3 almost makes sense. I suppose it helps to know that the Amakusa Church wants Orsola Aquinas (for different reasons than we think), and so do the Roman Catholics, though why they dragged the Church of England into this I don’t know. But all you need to do is follow Touma, not a member of anything, as he tries to get to the bottom of this for his own reasons. Also Steryl and Index, of course, who have their own way of dealing with the bad guys when they arrive, by deserting Touma.

Yeah, keep it on a human level. There’s a nice but rather long scene between Touma and Orsola (every time she escapes she runs into him) where she wonders what his affiliation is and seems surprised that he doesn’t have one. He’s just helping her out because he wants to. What the connection is with the crucifix he gives her (which Steryl gave to him) we don’t know yet, but that’s normal for this show. As for the plot, it seems that the Amakusa Church wanted Orsola because it will cause their saint, Kanzaki, to … feel better, I suppose. Seiji, the Amakusa leader, is pretty vague. The Roman Catholic Church, he claims, wants to kill her.

A member of the Roman Catholic Church.

You don’t have to understand the stuff about the disciples that sister Angelene unleashes (“debt collector, eradicator of magicians and lowly servant”) or Index negating the spell by babbling letters which sister Luccia (the crazy-looking girl above) describes as a Spell Intercept. Basically, Orsola Knows Too Much, one side wants to kill her, the other to use her, while Touma just wants her safe. Oh, and Index bites Touma’s head again, while Steryl still looks down at everyone. That’s all you need to know.

Psychic Detective Yakumo remains on probation. A lot of things in episode 3 work well, but some do not, and I have to start cutting something.

The story mostly was fine. Since we aren’t really sure which ghost was the main character it kept us guessing. It came to an exciting conclusion with some nice character development for Yakumo. But many things didn’t add up. Why did Nakahara and Haruka go off in his car? Did he have a motive after seeing the picture on Yakumo’s wall? Not to mention the sheer coincidence of Nakahama visiting Yakumo in the first place.

Poor kid ...

The climax went to a place I didn’t expect and worked well. Yakumo may have certain abilities, but he’s still powerless, unable to rescue the ghost kid from the nasty things in the tunnel. For which he beats himself up. Sadly, this leads to scenes of other characters talking about how troubled he is. We had figured that out already. And Haruka still has no personality at all. And they STILL haven’t gotten to the obviously evil guys we see every episode …

Letter Bee Reverse 3 is a standalone, full of heartwarming moments and stupid plot devices.

Well, it starts out well, discounting the “what shall I write to Gauche?” stuff at the very beginning. Sickly Ray Atlee has been receiving hand-painted postcards from a mysterious someone which have bolstered her spirits. She wants Lag to find out who’s been sending them. Lag becomes a detective, checking out the watermark (the world famous Howling Axolotls brand) and the paints. Meanwhile we’ve seen enough of the story to figure out it’s the clumsy new maid, Kimidori. But it’s nice to see Lag come to this conclusion on his own.

Amberground's first wide-screen flat-panel HDTV.

Alas, from here on out we get the same old deux ex amber spirit. When another maid tries to take credit for the postcards (in return for a lot of land) Lag, who has been sworn to secrecy, whips out the gun and, sigh, once again everything is revealed. I’m very tired of this plot device. It looks like Letter Bee hasn’t changed. I should really drop it, but after watching so many episodes I’ve sort of grown attached. I’ll give it one more chance.

Still more Twos: Yakumo, Soredemo, Milky Holmes

Shinrei Tantei Yakumo 2 isn’t much better than the first.

Haruka begins to explain why she likes Yakumo.

We start with Yakumo waking up and insulting Haruka for whatever reason. Then we have to see his sympathetic side when he points out that ghosts used to be people, that they’re not monsters to be purified or exorcised. Alas, Haruka is just the sort of girl who goes for these quiet, rude types with hearts of gold. And we move on to the ghost of the week, who’s rather violently haunting a shrine that’s to be merged with another. And Haruka, naturally, has a visitation herself.

The ghost story turns mundane, an old man accepts the past and we learn more about Yakumo and his family and how troubled the guy is. Sigh. We also get some bad guys who stand around in the dark and make plans. We had them last week as well and I’m sorry we didn’t get to their story, because the one they gave us instead was completely forgettable.

After watching Soredemo Machi wa Mawatteiru 2 I’ve uncovered some of the things I like and ones that will annoy me the longer I watch it.

Hotori's usual courteous service.

Hotori is a little of both. She’s goofy and often fun to watch. On the other hand she’s willful and can be mean and uncaring when she wants to be. In episode 2 we see her mishandling her siblings, clobber a cop in the family jewels with a scooter without a trace of remorse and try and tear down the dentist’s sign next door. But she does this all so energetically that I find it hard to hate her. Her half-baked strategies for bringing in more customers shows some of her good side.

As for the show itself, I enjoy how it’s directed. Shots come from all angles and there’s a lot of energy. I sometimes like how the story goes off-tangent, I sometimes don’t. The side characters, well there’s not much to them yet. Granny is the biggest mystery of the group. I’m not in love with this show, but so far I don’t dread watching an episode.

I was hoping Tantei Opera Milky Holmes 2 would be a bad as episode one and I’d have an excuse to drop it from my backbreaking schedule, and it wasn’t very good. However, it was … odd. I have a weakness for oddity.

The bad guys take a moment to grin evilly.

The Milky Holmes team are at a low ebb, living Baka to Test style, the worst desks, the worst food, and they’re beginning to turn on each other. Cordelia is so worried that she becomes delusional. When they rescue a stray cat they begin to get along again, until Cordelia sees Fish Paste (the cat) stealing bread. When the girls are accused Cordelia takes the blame on herself in a bizarre moment of opera singing.

Here’s an example of the oddity. There are moments like this scattered throughout, and many of them worked. What follows is Milky Holmes trying to discover the real culprit, using the worst detective skills imaginable. They were once star detectives? But what really confuses me is when the truth comes out. Student Council President Henriette, who, remember, is actually the leader of the bad guys, forgives Cordelia and allows them to keep the cat. The baker who did the accusing (and is also a bad guy) is remorseful in his apology. And earlier another bad guy helped them light a fire. Don’t they WANT the girls expelled? Don’t they hate them? What’s going on? A point is made that without Milky Holmes around, stealing is way too easy. Maybe they secretly want Milky Holmes around to make their thievery more exciting … Weird weird weird. Or maybe just bad. Haven’t made up my mind. I’ll give it one more episode.

More premieres: Awakawa 2, Psychic Detective Yakumo, Shinryaku! Ika Musume

Awakawa Under the Bridge x Bridge starts on probation. I liked the first season well enough but by the time it was over I thought it had run its course. The sequel is certainly going to be the same—the citizens acting weird and Recruit reacting to them. That’s pretty much what I got from this episode.

Nino has a strange and perhaps prophetic dream and that somehow leads to Recruit asking her to move in. Nino doesn’t get it and Recruit ends up living at Nino’s place while she lives in his. Various characters appear, expecting Nino, and act wacky. Yeah, so far this episode is more of the same. So is the next section, where Recruit looks for a lost baseball and meets a threatening amazon. So now we have another eccentric character. Then there’s the annual marathon.

It’s more of the same, too. Everyone uses their eccentricities as strategy and then drop out. This was all entertaining enough but I’m still not sure I want to watch another season of it. However, Nino’s dream was cool. It makes you wonder if they’re going to get back to it.

Psychic Detective Yakumo looks to be routine. A guy (Yakumo) who can see dead souls and the girl (Haruka) who has a case for him and will probably become his Margo, or lover, or both.

Haruka has a case for him. She and classmates went into the “closed room” of an abandoned classroom building and since then have either committed suicide or gotten possessed. After the antithesis of a meet-cute scene Yakumo takes the case. The story is told straightforwardly and with little excitement except for certain plot twists. But there are a couple things about Yakumo which help the basic premise. First, he can see spirits, even talk to them, but he can’t exorcise them. Second, though this is a paranormal show this first story at least works more in the real world.

Well, ghosts sometimes give him a hand.

Yakumo is practical and goes for the logical conclusion rather than the supernatural one. For all the spirits that pop up from time to time the killer is flesh and blood, and any supernatural connections are deliberately exaggerated so that people will laugh at them. That’s nice, but apart from little bits of detective work the story itself was dull. The killer’s identity was obvious at the fifteen minute mark. As for the main duo, Yakumo is your typical mysterious laconic rebel-type while Haruko has no personality at all. This makes for some dull conversation. This show’s also on probation.

There’s nothing special about Shinryaku! Ika Musume either. Just a silly comedy about a squid girl who decides to take revenge for the damage humanity has done to the oceans. She decides to make a beach restaurant her home base.

The invasion isn't going as planned.

In spite of her genuinely dangerous tentacles Ika doesn’t do much to inspire shock and awe. The family running the restaurant take her in for no particular reason except her usefulness waiting tables. Ika goes from defiant to submissive in turns. It goes on like this while they introduce the other characters. We have the grouchy Eiko, young Takeru and Chizuru, the oldest sister. Each of them play off of Ika as she learns more about the surface world. Takeru is probably the most fun since no matter how threatening Ika gets he thinks she’s the coolest thing in the world. Chizuru is quiet and sweet and very dangerous. But it’s not all that entertaining. They perhaps underestimate their young audience by having to explain some of the jokes, so it drags. I was indifferent to the series until the last part.

One squid ink spaghetti, coming right up!

The fact that they went this far gives me hope. Since they can’t repeat the shock value of the first time, not much hope, but I’ll keep an eye on the series for now.