Glasslip 3-4, Agame and Nozaki 3

I’m getting to like Glasslip, even while it defies my expectations with every episode.

We have Touko and Kakeru, two high school kids who can see little glimpses and fragments of the future under the right circumstances, and while they’re drawn together by this mystery, the show seems to have no desire to explain it or even play around with the concept. All we get are little moments where they hear a voice or an image which doesn’t tell them much of anything. And what they see or hear can be misconstrued, such as Touko’s image of Sachan in the hospital; she assumes frail Sachan overdid it at their day-camping excursion, but no, Sachan’s fine, it’s Yanagi who went to hospital, and it was a minor sprain. This DOES lead us to the expectation that Sachan will wind up there herself in the near future, but since in the image she was sitting on her bed, not, you know, dying, it’s hard to get much foreboding out of it.

No, you’re supposed to be screaming at each other!

Both Touko and Kakeru are interested in the phenomenon, like anyone would be, but Touko for one is more concerned with the lives of her friends. There’s a lot of drama going on here, but again, the show has decided to make the drama any bigger than it is. So far there have been on confrontations or tears, just awkward moments, like when Touko says “no” to Yukinara, and he gets pissed for a while, but shakes it off. Meanwhile Yanagi, interested in Yukinari, still refuses to show any bitterness toward them and quickly clears things up with Touko. Even late in episode 3 where Touko sees Kakeru and Yanagi in a misleading situation, she’s shocked but not too much. She hadn’t thought much about Kakeru romantically and has no claims to him, after all. I bet next episode it all will be explained to her, and the show will have missed another chance at creating overwrought, false drama.

The cute side-couple.

Everyone in this show is too reasonable and know each other too well for false drama. That’s one of the things I like about it. No matter how many snatches of conversation are misheard or half-heard through forced coincidences, the characters won’t take it seriously. It’s like the show is offering the characters a chance to really mess around with their lives, through the crushes or the mystical aspects, and they just don’t want to. And so the show moves on to the next possibly upsetting moment to give them another shot. The only romance that seems to be moving, or even exist, is Hiro’s earnest, clumsy wooing of Sachan, and everyone in the show is rooting for them. The show thus has an easygoing feel about it that appeals to me. Now, if they’d just lose those still frames they stick in at odd moments, I’d like it even more.

What’s her problem all of a sudden?

I decided to drop the number of shows to write about this season, and Akame ga Kill is right on the edge. It’s not bad, but it’s not holding up. I don’t mind the blood and violence shoved into what could be a shounen story, and in fact I like the questionable morality that the heroes have. After Mine’s typical background speech (amusingly set up by her and Tatsumi) about poverty and discrimination she talks happily about her goal of making money out of the revolution and living in luxury, about as honest a reason as you’re going to get in any revolution. And Tatsumi, though appalled by the Minister’s behavior, seems to have revenge for his friends as his primary motivation. But then they screw up something fundamental, like when that koujenji master attacks Mine and Tatsumi, and suddenly she’s unable to react, and I’m thrown out of my interest.

Meet Hori and Kashimo, who is displaying her usual tact.

I was also often thrown out of my zone in Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-Kun 3. They introduce two more side characters: Kashima, the “prince” of the school, who’s actually a girl, and sort of a dense one at that, and Hori, the drama club president who has to drag Kashima to rehearsal every day, usually by the scruff of her neck after abusing her a little. It’s confusing because after the show gives us some basic traits about the new guys, they immediately start bouncing off the traits of the old guys, and I’m still getting them sorted, too. Meanwhile, Chiyo and Nozaki continue to treat Mikoto as a shoujo heroine, adding to my confusion. Which doesn’t mean there aren’t the usual good, funny moments. Kashima’s sheer obliviousness (different from Seo’s) gets some laughs, while Hori’s frustrated straight-man act works well, especially combined with Chiyo’s (remember her?) own glaring reactions.