Abyss and Lycoris 12, Tensei Kenja finale

The cavalry! Ta ta-da!

For those of you waiting to watch Made In Abyss 11 and looking for more Faputa vs. Reg battling, or Faputa meeting Vueko, sorry to disappoint you. Faputa walks in with the unconscious Reg in her arms, how he got unconscious we don’t know, he looks asleep. Anyway, Faputa puts him aside and is preparing to attack again, this time Riko, whom she blames for Reg losing his memories (which she might be, if the theories of her reviving him with electricity are true). Other residents of the city distract her, but the real fun begins when Nanachi and Belaf show up, the giant, magnificent, bony … thing with soulful eyes, and the sarcastic bunny-thing to the rescue! Okay, so it’s actually an intended self-sacrifice for Belaf, who, as Faputa is tearing him apart releases the smell of her mother, and memories are triggered. Nanachi goes to tend to Reg, Riko and her village friends are standing there, as are Wazukyan and Vueko from their ledge … At this point this becomes Faputa’s episode.

It starts as a scene of realization and recognition. Faputa seems to gain Irumyuui’s memories and a history, and for the first time since Reg shows up she’s at a loss. All she knows is her destiny to destroy the village. At this point all of the terrible monsters that have been kept away by the barrier come streaming in and soon it’s another massacre happening. Faputa, to everyone’s surprise, attacks the intruders. “How dare you kill my prey?” is what she thinks, but I wonder if there’s more to it, obviously the loss of her beloved Gabu (protecting Riko for Faputa’s sake) is a reason, even as she starts losing–too many of them, and that huge horse thing that no one can beat. The thing about Faputa is that everyone watching her in the show, though dreading her abilities and blood-lust, likes her, and so the next few scenes where she’s getting slowly ripped to shreds, losing an eye, are hard to watch, worst of all not only because she’s immortal and will live forever in pain, has lost her meaning in life, her “value.”

The next scenes are just as grotesque, but also healing. The remaining villagers willingly cut off parts of their own body to feed and revive the broken Faputa. Value being given to her, I guess, maybe for saving them, or because she deserves it. In the end, Belaf’s dying words come true. Faputa rejects her initial goal, maybe she hasn’t entirely, but she has decided that she herself will determine her value. She’s seen that things are more complicated than she had thought, and perhaps it’s made her free of her old destiny and can act on her own. However, it doesn’t seem to have blunted her ability for violence, because at the end of the episode we see her facing down THREE giant horse-things, with a robot-like gleam in her eye. What’s that about? Gabu? Anyway, it was another intense episode with the usual splendid animation and music we’ve come to expect. One episode to go, a double-one, but we have to wait two weeks, argh …

Lycoris preparing to get ambushed.

Lycoris Recoil is busy juggling plot stuff around, as befitting an action show close to its end, but it means sometimes a ball is nearly dropped. First we have Walnut, who, through her ridiculous hacker abilities, figures out not only where the captive Yoshi is, but that he’s got an extra, improved heart with him. Well, that takes care of Chisato after all this is over. Second, we have the redshirts, I mean, Lyroris girls, off in the new tower to gnab Majima, though of course it’s a trap and most of them get blown up. You can’t even trust a roomba these days. But Takina has left already, even at the cost of her DA status, because she figures out that Chisato is off to the old tower, not sure how she knew. She couldn’t be tracking Chisato because she left her phone at the cafe. And we get another dull mad genius speech from Majima, broadcast on all channels again. He says to beware of the girls dressed like Lycorises dresses, so naturally one guy pulls out a gun and plugs one Lycoris for no apparent reason.

Takina’s heroic entrance.

Meanwhile, Chisato goes to the old tower and finds Yoshi, after some acrobatics on the outside struts, gotta love her devil-may-care attitude through it all. Majima turns out the lights and is winning when Katina bursts through, er, metal?, whatever–it was a good entrance, and we got a standoff between the good girls and the insane villain to round things off. So next week, the finale I’m assuming, they have a lot to do. First, subdue Majima and stop whatever mad plot he has going, oh, also get Robota. I’m sure Walnut will have a stake in that. There’s also the fallout of the Lycoris girls exposed, though I suspect that’ll blow over soon enough. Most importantly, get Chisato a new heart. Can they do it smoothly in one episode? … Oh, I just checked. This is thirteen episodes, so we’ll get more dramatics, and THEN Chisato will get her heart.

Didn’t realize so much time had passed. So I’ll do LR 12 now. It is, like most of the series, very silly but great fun to watch. We start with the Chisato/Takina fight with Majima, which goes quicker than expected, setting up the possibility, met at the end, that he’ll escape and we’ll get another big fight. Nice idea of Chisato’s to screw up his super-hearing by firing a gun next to his ear. Then comes the big scene, emotionally at least, with Yoshi. I guess I should have realized that they hadn’t talked directly about his goals for her, and they up the ante with Yoshi revealing that the new, improved heart is beating inside him, and the only way to get it, and prolong Chisato’s life, is to kill him. That matter, like Majima’s, is left unresolved for now.

Fuki and Chisato react to DA’s lame cover story.

Then there’s the question of the Lycoris, with the DA head boss, higher than Kusunoki even, deciding that now that their cover is blown they should kill all the Lycoris, so the male version, the Lilybells are rushed to the tower. We’ve heard of them before, but it still feels like an invented plot-device, a fresh army brought out of nowhere. But mostly what they do is fire a few shots and stand around while the Lycoris run for their lives. Another silly plot device is Walnut’s magical USB stick, which, when inserted in the new tower’s system, will fix everything. At least there’s a humorous scene where Chisato (arriving in nick of time and beating up goons with little “o-to!” noises like she’s playing Super Mario, one of her most endearing traits) tries to figure out where in this sophisticated system to plug it in. And once it’s in, everyone gets a story that the bloodshed seen on TV was all an act, Robota gets hacked and arrested, Radiata boots up … Wow, a little USB stick can carry a lot of Deus ex machina devices these days. That only leaves Chisato, about to go one-on-one with Majima, and that heart issue for the finale. Silly but fun.

Tensei Kenja no Isekai Life 11 has Yuji facing off against Walter, a boring name for a villain, and with some difficulty, because he keeps absorbing the magic from the goons around him. But it’s done, as Walter commits himself to his god and vanishes. But it turns out that he was just a sacrifice for the real guy to show up, didn’t catch his name, but he’s basically as powerful as Yuji. He’s here to cleanse the earth, says Steryl, maybe thankful that he wasn’t actually the one who was suppose to be sacrificed. But this new guy is bad enough. Some extra care with the animation this week. Yuji’s movements looked especially fluid and fun to watch. But this god who shows up is done in a completely different style, more like a drawing. I’m sure it was done to enhance his otherworldness, but it was a bit disconcerting. Anyway, next time Yuji will find another way to pull a victory out of his ass.

It don’t look good.

… And so he does. Episode 12 was one of the weaker finales I’ve seen. It’s Yuji vs the, er, Sage, I guess. They seem evenly matched but some curse has frenzied the monsters and Yuji has to take care of them indirectly, a distraction he doesn’t need, but it turns out the people of all the towns he’s visited go out and fight. “If Yuji can do it, so can we!” There are way too many scenes of the locals getting fired up, every town he’s visited. Great, so there’s only this Sage to take care of. We get a lot of “Hellfire of Destruction” chants by both men, and a lot of explosions. Finally Yuji thinks up a plan, encases the Sage in a black cube and stabs him with that knife, and it’s over. Oh, there are still Blue Moon Church plotters around, and a big machine that will blow up the continent, but that will have to wait until next season, if there is one.

Yuji views screencaps of the series.

If there is another season I’m not sure I want to watch it. This was a pretty lifeless series. Yuji was dull and unsmiling, and he doesn’t get any humanoid companions because he’s always traveling. The bits where he eats delicious food were enjoyable because he gets to actually show some pleasure for once. The slimes were always fun to watch, though they couldn’t do much more than fire blasts and talk cute. At least they smiled a lot. Proud Wolf was just there, sometimes helping. He got short shift. The art and characters were pedestrian, and there was usually one good, fluid action moment in every episode, which isn’t enough. Another uninteresting isekai show, quickly forgotten.

One more of the cute Dryad.

One more of the slimes, who were more fun than the main character.