Penguindrum 13, iDOLM@STER 14, SKET Dance 27

After a few days of watching new shows go through their paces (and usually falling down), it’s a relief to get back to some shows good, or at least decent enough that I haven’t dropped them already.

Mawaru Penguindrum 13 has a few moments of plot but mainly has the characters sitting around thinking and talking.

The big plot point is, of course, Himari’s latest resurrection, this one at the hands of Sanetoshi. It wasn’t hard to figure out this would happen after his dramatic appearance at the end of last episode (besides, did you really think the show was going to do away with Himari?). This could have taken just a moment, but there are negotiations to undergo first (and probably more plot is inserted because we don’t know exactly what Sanetoshi’s price for saving Himari is, only that Kanba is willing to pay anything). Not to mention that we’ve already had a reprise of Shouma’s “I hate fate” speech. But the question of payment, the repercussions hinted at, will wait for another episode.

Instead, interjected with little plot points, like Sanetoshi’s call to Juri, we get a lot of flashbacks and discussions. Shouma goes on at length about what happened sixteen years ago. The events aren’t surprising, the kids are taken away and slowly learn what their parents had done. Neither are their reactions (well, Himari, the innocent little lamb, sleeps through much of it). What’s more interesting is Shouma’s belief in the present day: all this is happening to them because of their parents. They are cursed. It makes you wonder if the curse is part of fate as well. Sanetoshi, meanwhile, wonders if fate is actually set in stone. He tells us a story about a girl that I can’t fit into the show’s master plan yet, but which suggests that he is searching for someone, and that he is more than willing to test the validity of fate. And, in maybe the happiest moment of the show, Ringo and Teiju talk about everything. It appears she has gotten over her obsession, but, on the other hand, she is still a firm believer in fate, that everything happens for a reason. That will be no comfort to the boys. They claim that they will never amount to anything. Maybe that’s their fate, but that doesn’t mean they like it. And Kanba, at least, wants to fight it.

Back to iDOLM@STER. Last week felt like a finale, but since it isn’t, they have to add some lows, that is, after ten minutes of highs. Watching all the shots of the girls getting more successful I was just waiting for other shoe to drop. Unfortunately, it’s a rather contrived obstacle. The president of 961 Pro has declared war on 765 Pro (what is it with these numbers?) and had a pop magazine switch covers on them to promote their own group, some noir trio called Jupiter. Naturally, Jupiter is first shown as snotty and aloof, but in what will probably be the key to the story arc, they don’t really like their boss Kuroi’s tactics. As for the 765 girls, they do the adolescent moodswing thing, disappointed, then angry, then read their fan mail and get bubbly again. Nothing much to the episode, but the fruit costumes the girls wear for a shoot are pretty funny.

SKET Dance 27 isn’t bad. We get a new teacher who’s an adorable klutz, and then Switch shows off his failed inventions. None of them are particularly funny on their own, but when you start piling one on top of another there are some laughs involved. Especially the ramen-cooling head.

Some shows continue, others finish or restart, and two cross over

I thought that The iDOLM@STER 13 was the final episode, but apparently they’re just getting started. This episode does, however feel like a finale as the girls perform their first big show with some minor complications. Like the main act running late because of a typhoon, and then, just for fun, a flat tire, and then traffic. I was waiting for the plague of locusts.

Last-minute show changes.

This all resonates with me. Anyone who’s ever performed knows the feelings the girls go through: pre-show jitters, key performers running late and the scramble to cover, wardrobe malfunctions (offstage), all of which happens to them. Plus, it’s their first really big venue, an important concert if 765 Pro is going to keep getting bigger. How they overcome the big and little crises will come as no surprise, this is a predictable show, but iDOLM@STER is always a little better than its source material.

While each character gets a moment, some characters are more equal than others. Thus Miki gets a lot ot time. As she and Makoto (who, alas, isn’t as equal) are my favorites, I don’t mind a bit. Plus, she still has to make up for her antics of the past two weeks. And so, because they’re adding and mixing up their repetoire to give Ryuuguu Komachi time to get through the typhoon, flat tire, locusts, zombie attack, etc, she has the choice of doing several exhausting dance numbers back-to-back, to which she, of course, agrees. And though it’s not easy, she succeeds. She not only carries the team but she turns some heads in the audience.

Of course, no one fails. They struggle and have panic attacks, but in the end they turn an audience who are impatiently waiting for Ryuu Komachi into 765 Pro fans (Ryuu Komachi finally do show up but we don’t see them perform. It isn’t their episode). Utterly predictable. What gives the episode an extra bump is the collective energy of the girls (iDOLM@STER’s best weapon) and solid direction and animation (its other best weapons). The concert scenes combine the two、 The girls give their all while the camera whips around them and the audience energy feeds them. Nice stuff. Since it’s not the finale after all, I wonder what they’re going to do to top it?

SKET Dance 26 is pretty funny, especially after the two-part downer they broadcast before. I bet I’d find it even funnier if I watched Gintama.

As it was, I could only guess at some of the jokes. Happily, the episode makes things easier for me. SKET Dance loves to break the fourth wall, so it’s natural that the characters from both shows would recognize that this is a crossover episode, and I was able to learn something about Gintama just by watching the characters interact. They play with the fact that Gintama is an established hit and SKET Dance is new, “A poor man’s Gintama,” says Gin-san. Kagura is rude to just about everyone. Shinpachi, I guess, is the butt of a lot of jokes. And then there’s the staff to consider.

Two Tomokazu Sugita characters meet.

You get the idea. Everyone bickers about the other’s show of doing things, discuss their time-slots, and, because I suppose there should be a plot, race through back episodes (while the Gintama characters mock the blatant show padding) in search of Shinpachi, and then his glasses, since he’s fading away from “separation from his primary feature.” Oh, and since they’re using a time machine, Switch tosses in a “Too-do-doo!” just for fun. It’s that kind of episode.

Audience age differences.

The gimmick had the desired effect, too. I watched the Gintama side of the crossover. Lots of jokes about Gin-San and Bossun’s inadequacies as leaders, a direct ripoff of the Toriko/One Piece crossover. Good stuff. The creators obviously had a lot of fun doing both episodes.

Baka to Test to Shoukanjuu Ni finishes. I can’t say that the second season lived up to the first one. There were too many slow moments where they tried to push the romance buttons, even though the show depends on the characters never actually giving in to romance. Though it’s okay when there’s a misunderstanding that causes Yoshi some grief, if not broken bones. And there weren’t enough battles, not enough frantic manuvering and outlandish schemes. Yes, there were some inspired moments, but they were loosely scattered about. But if they want to take a stab at a season three to redeem themselves, I’ll happily watch it.

And finally, Squid Girl is back. I dropped the first season fairly early, but what the hell? There’s nothing else to watch right now.

Aww, look at the cute widdle vengeful invader!

… And I’ll probably drop it fairly early, again. It’s got a fun idea behind it, a being from the depths of the sea, hell-bent on revenge, who’s just so cute that you can’t take her seriously. Plus she’s got that cool hair, er, tentacles. But the side characters don’t have much to them, and many of the stories just don’t pan out well. It’s most fun when Ika’s in invasion mode, contrasted with the relaxed beach lifestyle she’s trying to destroy. I’d like to spend a day or two relaxing on that beach and watching Ika’s antics, but I don’t know if I want twelve episodes of it. We’ll see.

Steins;Gate finale, and other shows.

Not sure I like the ending of Steins;Gate. It makes perfect, logical sense, at least it seems to. I lost track of the endless returns in time to fix this thing or save that person long ago; it really boiled down to whether Okabe could rescue Kurisu, and in what messy way would his Master Plan (you have to use caps to describe much of Okabe’s actions) go wrong, because you knew it would. And it did, with a lightsaber he didn’t check beforehand (just like a mad scientist), leading to his brave sacrifice.

Go, Okabe, er, Hououin, go!

What made it so satisfying was that Okabe was able to be his mad scientist self all the way through the crisis, whipping his lab coat around, taunting Kurisu’s father, even though he knew what he would have to do next, or rather, have done to him. And while I wondered if he would live, I wondered if his death would be worth it. He went through hell to save his friends’ lives; how would they feel if he sacrificed his own. Even though they would not know what he did, they would dearly miss him, and would change the past themselves to save them if they had the ability.

A happy ending.

So I’m glad he’s still around. I’m less happy about the meeting with Kurisu at the end. I know they set up the idea that everyone has some deep-down memories of the lost timelines, but the two getting together at the end felt like a forced happy ending. And, perhaps more importantly, we never do find out who Daru managed to have a kid with. Oh, well, this was a splendid series. Time traveling, suspense, world conspiracies, mixed in with eccentric characters who were as much fun in the slow moments as they were when there was danger, perhaps more so. Okabe, especially, was fun to watch, whether he was speaking into a switched-off phone, making mad scientist speeches, or desperately running to save someone, always arriving too late.

And the finale gave us two “do-do-doos.” It wouldn’t have been complete otherwise.
Tiger and Bunny and Hanasaku Iroha are finishing soon, too. Three solid series that suggest the anime industry isn’t sinking after all. Speaking of which …

A not-so-happy ending, oh, there's an episode left.

Tiger and Bunny is a good-natured, but heavy-handed show. Not much subtlety. Either everything’s going well or they aren’t. Episode 24′s first half, everything is bad, and in the second, everything is good, well mostly. Sometimes it’s too much to bear. There’s so much angst and evil gloating in the first half that I almost jumped ahead. Only the necessary “We believe” speech, provided by Blue Rose, breaks things up. Meanwhile, why didn’t Kotetsu or Barnaby think of using the robot’s gun before? Why didn’t Kaede think of her escape attempt before? At least they explained Lunatic away, though it was through a flashback, as if the creators suddenly remembered they had to account for him. As for the ending, I think it’d be a hell of a thing if Kotetsu is actually dead, but I don’t believe it. Lovely dying conversation between the two heroes, tearful and silly at the same time.

SKET Dance 23 is even more frantic than usual. After introducing us to an anime called “Liberty Maji” in which Maji does a Mami-diamond-musket-barrage thing except with baseball bats, and we learn that the anime director “Watanabe” (think afro) and character designer “Kikukata Sadako” contributed (we see them running down the street, screaming, with storyboards before them), I’m thinking “How many references are going to slip past me THIS week?” Also “Well, it’s got to slow down at some point.” But it doesn’t, really. The girls all drink the youth-elixir and the usually quick dialogue gets even quicker, and louder. Everybody shouts at everything, and this time some of the shouts are little girl voices. I can imagine a lot of people hating this episode for that reason, but I ate it up. I won’t worry too much about the different artistic design this episode, or what the odd, stylistic bits were while they were chasing the cat who had stolen their seaweed (don’t ask).

No.6 10 gives us more absurd dystopia but mainly concerns itself with the action, that of getting Safu out of the correction facility, or whatever they call it. Sion and Rat see another side of this place–from the bottom, where they are dumped, and then climb up a mountain of corpses to get to the ventilator shaft, which is supposed to give a counterpoint to the nice, clean regular No.6 environment. It would have worked better if the corpses were decomposed. Instead, the thousands of them all look fresh. Meanwhile Dogkeeper and Rikiga have gotten into the facility rather easily using other people’s clothes and stolen IDs, where they are able to open automatic doors the moment Sion and Rat need them. No.6′s high-tech surveillance abilities aren’t up to snuff. Things get better when Safu/Elyurias infiltrate Sion’s brain and the tables are turned: Sion suddenly knows exactly where to go and what to do; Rat can only watch in awe. But this god-like force in his mind also turns the boy into a cold-hearted killer. Rat warned Sion that the facility would change him, but I don’t think this is what he had in mind. So while we chew over this moment of relative morality, another door magically opens for them and we’re ready for the finale. I hope it’s hopelessly silly. It’s the only thing that can redeem the series now.

Inami, as usual, ready to hit someone.

Like last time, we get an early look at Working!! season two. Hmm, not bad. They wanted to introduce the characters again so no one dominates the episode, that is to say, Inami only throws one punch. Takanashi’s little thing fetish seems bigger; he gets upset when the manager swats a bug. We still hardly see the new girl. Let’s hope they can keep a better balance this season.

Kyoko, after hitting her head.

Yuru Yuri has a story where the girls recollect a bully from their childhood, who was obviously Chitose. Not bad. Then a story where Kyoko hits her head and becomes normal, and everyone worries. Dull.

Episode dump: Croisee, Natsume, Tiger/Bunny, etc.

I should have posted this before my weekend from hell began and I got too busy (Labor Day Weekend? I wish. Weekends are my busiest time around here). Once again, while I write about these episodes, new ones appear.

Ikoku Meiro no Croisée 9, sorry, partie neuf, continues with the little tea party as the adults muse on the past and what separated Camille and Claude, as if we hadn’t figured it out. We see scenes of the kids having fun together, and then Camille begins to pull away, while Claude remains the boy he always was. She’s still a child at this point, so we can perhaps write off her standoffish behavior as a byproduct of her environment, but, taking into account that these are selected memories, it comes off as abrupt. Last week’s star, Alice, mostly stays out of sight after a humorous attempt at a Japanese tea ceremony with the ever-patient Yune. And at the end we get a cryptic conversation about why Camille wears corsets, i.e., why she allows herself to be constrained by her surroundings, what she gets in return, but while all fingers point to Claude, I’m having trouble making the connection.

Natsume Yuujinchou usually sums up each week’s episode at the end, as seen above, but I don’t know about the road it took. There’s a youkai that’s inhabiting a small rock, then various people, trying to get close to Natsume. When it does, it asks “What’s your secret?” Himoe (after kicking the damn thing out a window—nothing like a direct approach) says the thing had probably spent hundreds of years in a riverbed and is curious about things, and that it’s pretty nasty. Since the episode occurs during the school cultural festival, I thought it would look around and actually SEE what it’s been missing, but it still goes after Natsume. His secret is, of course, his abilities, which he could probably just tell the thing … Never mind. The episode is full of joyous little moments showing just how much Natsume has changed, from spooky kid to a nice one who sometimes acts a little weird and falls over a lot, sometimes off bridges into rivers, and has loads of friends who don’t care if he’s a little weird. The show is in danger of overdoing these moments, but for the time being I smile when the people (or youkai) he’s trying to protect try to protect him back.

I don't think the thumbs-up is going to work, Kotetsu.

I suspected for a couple episodes that Kaede would play a bigger role in Tiger and Bunny; you don’t give someone super powers and don’t let them use them, but I’m disappointed that she was used as a deus ex machina. I had rather hoped that Kotetsu would fix the heroes’ memories by himself. On the other hand, Kotetsu is such a great (but entertaining) doofus that it makes sense that he’d need help. And my disappointment was further assuaged by how she got those particular powers in the first place, a seemingly inconsequential scene (but scary at the time, since we couldn’t know if Maverick knew the girl at first.) from last episode. After that the episode fumbled around, trying to arrange for Kotetsu and Barnaby to get alone for their big showdown, and I had plenty of time to consider all the flaws in Maverick’s evil plan, again. All the people he missed, not taking care of Kotetsu’s family, or his former manager … sigh.

Thanks, Switch. I was actually curious about that.

Judging from the online places I look at, I think I am the only person watching SKET Dance. I wonder why that is. It’s not a bad show; it’s better than a lot of the stuff running now. Like too many comedies it can indulge in the maudlin and not easily climb out, but usually it’s fast and funny. It has quick dialogue, well-done by the voice actors, sly jokes about manga and anime, and likes to break the fourth wall (see above) if there’s a gag in it. Episode 21 was slightly different, more serious, as Switch and Reiko the occult girl go off to buy a laptop. They talk sense about their differences and appearances, and good-naturedly bicker. Reiko does get a makeover, but both agree that it’s not really “her.” There are just enough jokes (often supplied by the other team members, who are tailing them) to keep the episode from getting too normal.

Some good battle scenes, though.

No.6 continues to annoy. The episode itself was pretty interesting, what with Sion and Rat getting themselves captured to get into the correctional facility, Yoming ready to give a rebellion signal through the Internet, and Safu meeting Elyurias, but the setup’s flaws continue to distract. Yoning’s intended use of the Internet is just lazy thinking on the writers’ part, surely by that time the webs would have been superceded by something else, but then again, Yoming’s whole being is lazy, as is the idea that Karan can seemingly talk to anyone without worry of eavesdropping. Well, the whole city is a product of lazy thinking, too. How on Earth did it get that way? And is Elyurias going to be the Deux ex Machina? Hey! That’s it! I predict that Safu will prove to be one of the forest people, which is why she can meet Elyurias, and moreover, she’s Rat’s sister! Okay, maybe not, but it can’t be any worse than what the show has planned for its (I assume) final two episodes.

And finally, I can’t resist this romantic screenshot:

Nerd love.