Tsuritama – 05

Episode 05 –

Personally speaking, Haru’s high pitched super-energetic personality still bugs the crap out of me. Aside from his presence though, this episode was absolutely fantastic at showcasing the changes Yuki has gone through since the beginnings of this episode. We’re starting to see him genuinely enjoy the sport of fishing, and his level of enthusiasm is infectiously cheery. The level of pure joy we see in Yuki’s pursuit of fishing, as well as the hurdles he struggles to overcome to match up to this enthusiasm, makes for a innocently fun and captivating tale.

Yuki is without a doubt the main centerpiece to this show, with his struggles to overcome his shyness taking to center stage in this episode. It’s already been well established that Yuki is an extremely introverted and shy fellow, which makes this episode all the more important because it throws him into situations where he must overcome his shyness. The overall result is a gradual push towards him into being more talkative, outspoken, and perhaps most important to note, happy. His growing enthusiasm is coupled with his efforts to overcome his anxiety, and the resulting atmosphere blindingly joyful. I daresay that this series is a iyashikei “atmospheric” series, though this show does have  a bit more spunk than what you might expect from a healing anime.

Alongside Yuki’s blindingly bright optimism, though, there also seems to be some shadows brewing on the horizon. Ignoring Haru’s original goal of “saving the world”, the involvement of the Indian dude and the still unsolved issue with Natsuki’s parents still lingers in the shadows as unresolved issues. It seems that the Indian dude is starting to warm up a bit to the notion of “friends”, but it’s still quite obvious that he and the organization behind him have murky intentions based on their observation of Haru. This is just speculation on my part, but I believe that soon we’ll be seeing some extremely dark segments to the story; after all, there are sayings that go along the lines of “it is brightest before death”. Considering the saccharine tone to this episode, I wouldn’t be surprised if it takes a darker tone in the near future.

Overall Enjoyment: 3.8/5

Screenshots are later in the post.

Lupin III – Mine Fujiko to Iu Onna – 06

Episode 06 –

It seems that one of my guesses in my previous posts was incorrect, where I had assumed that all the introductions were pretty much over after the episode that featured Inspector Zenigata. Little did I anticipate that this series would have an introductory episode to every single member of the main cast, minor or not, which would explain this week’s focus on Zenigata’s side kick.

This was a fairly standard episode of Lupin for the most part, with plenty of sexual overtones alongside some personal insights into the featured character-of-the-week. I personally am not a huge fan of Zenigata’s side kick, which might explain why I don’t particularly care for this arc. The added Yuri and Yaoi was pretty much an unexpected twist as well, which added an interesting sense of risque to the atmosphere. Like I said, I personally was not a fan, but it wasn’t necessarily terrible.

My personal qualms aside, this episode did delve a bit into what makes Zenigata’s sidekick tick, as well as show a brief bit of insight into Fujiko’s past. Zenigata’s sidekick is a surprisingly emotional guy, emphasized via his extremely visible levels of jealousy and hatred for Fujiko due to her rather promiscuous relationship with Zenigata. Even with his excessive levels of femininity, the sidekick does prove to be a very ruthless and dangerous guy. His femininity was ironically what also lead to his defeat, with his obsession with Zenigata being the vital flaw to his character.

Aside from Zenigata’s sidekick taking to the spotlight here, the real highlight to this episode was probably the brief interlude featuring glimpses into Fujiko’s past, where it’s slowly becoming obvious that her past was much more twisted and cruel than one might think. The hints are still vague, but the sequences involving Fujiko’s past continue to be mesmerizing with a stylized, evocative atmosphere that perks my curiosity. Her seemingly tragic past obviously is a huge reason behind her current, bold personality, yet we’ve still only seen glimpses of her past. I’m still hoping for an arc that more directly addresses her history, especially now that these side stories are starting to get a bit repetitive and uninteresting.

In the end, this episode had rather mixed reactions from me; it covered a side character and his motivations quite well, yet was also a character that I didn’t care for due to his menial role in the series. The show continues to make a point that Fujiko is undoubtedly the titular character of this show, yet we continue to only see brief glimpses of Fujiko’s history. With the introductions now (hopefully) over, I personally am hoping for some more focus on Fujiko, and how her past experiences have shaped her into the current person she has become.

Overall Enjoyment: 2.9/5

Screenshots are later in the post.

Hyouka – 03

Episode 03 –

While Hyouka is continuing with it’s simple “mystery of the week” setup, at the same time it seems to be slowly tying the smaller mysteries in with a much larger-in-scale mystery. The show is slowly allowing details to trickle in with regards to the larger mystery that involves Eru’s uncle, and the resulting character interactions are actually rather enjoyable. Eru’s enthusiasm, in combination with the main protagonist’s grouchy laziness, makes for a surprisingly fun combo. The usage of some great classical music in the background, along with some top notch animation, has so far made Hyouka a rather enjoyable (albeit slow paced) anime.

The one trend that might become apparent is how everything might end up related to the larger mystery involving the Uncle, his disappearance in India, and a forgotten incident from over 40 years ago. The odd reaction from the librarian last week may have been the first, subtle, clue as to the magnitude of the mystery at hand, and I am now starting to suspect that Oreki’s sister is aware of the issue as well (which would explain why her letters conveniently help push the newfound Classics club in the right direction). Of course, this is all once again speculation on my part, but speculation is part of the experience when it comes to stories about mysteries and unknowns.

If there’s one aspect that I’m more mixed about with this show, it’s in the actual character development. The central focus to the story at hand is undoubtedly the overarching mystery regarding Eru’s uncle, and her own traumatic memory of her chat with him. The noticeable result here is how the characters interact in predictable ways, which is used to further push along the mysteries at hand. There’s Oreki’s acceptance of Chitanda’s mesmerizing stares, the energetic “best friend” character whom provides very little aside from comedic relief, and Oreki’s inevitable “solve the mystery”moment that reveals all.

On the upside though, this show continues to push forward Oreki’s rather complex characterization, ranging from his constant internal struggles with his own “gray” lifestyle with other’s “rose-colored” lifestyles. In the context of the Japanese language, “rose-colored” does have an inherently different definition than one might think. “Rose-colored” has the connotations of youth, happiness, and cheerfulness. Oreki’s constant comparison of himself with those around him (including the scene where he was reading of his sister’s arguably “rose-colored” adventures in the world) is a constant reminder of his desires for a “rose-colored life”, even if he might consciously reject such a notion. I’ll go out on a limb here and say that the transition from the heart-shaped pendulum to the regular pendulum is also indicative of this unconscious desire of his, as well as his brief daydream of a younger Eru frantically digging for answers.

Hyouka might seem a bit slow to those that find the minor mysteries rather boring, but I personally have found the level of detail and thought put into this series as quite impressive, especially with an impeccable pacing and the slow but steady buildup of the main mysteries. There are a ton of small little details that I haven’t mentioned in this post, but do a splendid job of crafting a more multifaceted, complex story than what initially meets the eye. 8thsin, by far, has done some of the best coverage of Hyouka as a mystery series, and I highly suggest you check out his posts here.

Overall Enjoyment: 3.6/5

Screenshots are later in the post.

Quick Impressions – Aquarion Evol – 19

Episode 19 –

Hrm, well it looks like Aquarion is providing some actual reasons for the supposed lack of women on Altair, with something that seems to be akin to a disease that ravages all females that pop up on Altair. The “pain” that Zessica and Yunoha have in their throats are obviously signs of such, where the implication is that they’ll eventually get deeper voices and “turn into males”. It’s a really surreal conflict, but it sure would explain Mix’s apparent gender swap from female to male. As to how such a transformation happens? I’m guessing it’s something better left off to the imagination 😉

Surprisingly enough, it does seem that Zessica will be playing a more important role in the story than previously anticipated. Up until this point, her presence has pretty much been a plot device used to further the relationship between Amata and Mikono. Her rather prominent role in more recent episodes seem to be pointing towards otherwise, though with Mikono out of the picture for now, I guess I can’t say this with the utmost confidence. We’ll have to see where the plot goes from here, but with the final few episodes of this show fast approaching, it seems we’re finally going to see some patching up of plot holes.

Screenshots are later in the post.

Delayed posts

If you guys haven’t already noticed, posts are going to be delayed. I’m extremely busy in real life at the moment. I will update this post as needed. Thanks in advance.

Fate/Zero – 18

Episode 18 –

After all the rather high-stake Holy Grail battles of the past 17 episodes, this flashback episode was a huge changeup. For one, it had a noticeably brighter color scheme, with aqua blues and pristine beaches providing a blindingly bright contrast to the darker tones of the series up until this point. There’s almost a sense of normality that pervades this episode, with simple little things like swimming at a beach, having a crush on a girl, and chatting over dinner, dominating much of the episode. This was a rather fascinating way to see the decay of Emiya Kiritsugu as a character, chronicling his decline from the innocent boy he was, to the cold-hearted man that he currently is.

What made this episode particularly jarring is how normal it felt (at first, at least). Up until this point in time, this series has followed the tales of epic heroes and ambitious mages out to further their own goals. It felt very cutthroat and ruthless, with devious scheming and fierce battles dominating the series. Considering how dominant the dark atmosphere has been in the series, this “normalcy” almost feels fake, which in my opinion is a fascinating detail worth noting. Perhaps you could say that this sense of “normalcy” is completely foreign to the now adult Emiya Kiritsugu, and the setting serves as a nice foil to his current bleak outlook on humanity.

This very bright, peaceful setting was obviously meant to emphasize that even Kiritsugu was once a child, and like many others, he too had a childish innocence during his youth. The setting’s decay into a living hell, on the other hand, was so sudden and disastrous that it was almost shocking. What was more shocking here was how quickly Kiritsugu became a pessimist. I can’t be sure as to how all this pushed him to kill off his own father, but the very fact that his personality changed so suddenly does have some implications. The implication here is that, even as a child, Kiritsugu had some dark uncertainties that he had hidden away, and that this maelstrom of shock and terror was the catalyst that pushed him over the edge. Shirley obviously played a big role in pushing him onto the path of destruction, but it almost seems as if he’s always had something brewing in his personality that exploded this episode. This is all mere speculation on my part, but I can’t quite justify Kiritsugu’s sudden change without some sort of reason.

It seems that this arc will continue to cover Kiritsugu’s past, and it’s quite obvious that the arc is set out to chronicle the decline of Kiritsugu Emiya into the cold but motivated man that he currently is. What could have pushed him so far as to pursue his ruthless “the ends justify the means” tactics in the Holy Grail war? This arc is bringing some critical, much needed backstory on Kiritsugu, and will probably have a huge impact on the remainder of the series. Now if only Kotomine Kirei had an episode like this too, it would certainly help clarify exactly what his problems are.

Overall Enjoyment: 3.8/5

P.S. Didn’t expect to see Alba, from Kara no Kyoukai, to make an appearance here. Neither did I expect the term “dead apostles”, from Tsukihime, to pop up. So yea, it seems this episode had factors that ties together the entire Nasuverse. I doubt they are canon though, considering how these three stories are supposedly in alternate worlds.

Screenshots are later in the post.

Mouretsu Pirates – 18

Episode 18 –

I’ve been mentioning in my Mouretsu Pirates posts on how Marika, our young pirate captain, is “too perfect” as a main character. She makes level headed decisions, always leads her crew to success, and has yet to really make any glaring mistakes or problems. The previous episode had the first sign of that setup changing up a bit, where Marika made a more emotional and rash decision in deciding to help out her upperclassman, Jenny. She was captaining a novice crew and was diving into a battle headfirst against a gargantuan, Goliath of an opponent. Her almost whimsical decision to not weigh the pros and cons, the potential dangers, and on top of that, not even having a proper strategy to engage the enemy, was an extremely brash move on Marika’s part. While this could have been a perfect chance to showcase and explore Marika’s flaws and shortcomings as a captain, unfortunately, Mouretsu Pirates seems to have this very nasty tendency where it doesn’t really stress the characters and try to provide any character development for them. Instead, this show loves to have happy, convenient conclusions that seem to work on the assumption that “everything will work out somehow”.

This is easily seen throughout the entirety of the episode, everything from the actual battles, to the “strategies” that Marika and her crew pursued in this dangerous conflict. In the battle, as expected of having a giant interstellar corporation as the opponent, Marika and her crew quickly realized that they would be no match against the opponent in terms of raw firepower. So what’s their strategy when they are under heavy siege? “Hey, let’s just have the pilot conveniently dodge everything they shoot at us while we go sip some tea and try to think up a strategy”. There is absolutely no sense of true “danger” to the situation, because it’s quite obvious that the characters aren’t in real danger if they can discuss strategy at a nice, slow pace. The strategy the girls thought up was admittingly sound, trying to make up for their lack of firepower with a more covert style of information warfare, but this was also based on the assumption that they would “somehow” get some interesting dirt/info to blackmail their opponents with. What would happen if they found nothing? Well, they would have been screwed.

And then there was the escape of the Bentenmaru when it was surrounded by enemy ships. The decoy idea, in theory, is a fantastic little trick to have up one’s sleeve. However, in practice the idea sounds absolutely ridiculous. According to the episode, the “decoys” were missiles launched from the Bentenmaru that emitted the same signal as the Bentenmaru. For one, if you were the corporation pursuing the Bentenmaru, why the heck would you rely purely on a signal that an enemy ship emits? Visual confirmation of targets would have made this method absolutely worthless, and not to mention, if ship IDs/signals were this easy to copy, there would be rampant identity theft in the interstellar world. The decoy idea here is essentially an extremely poorly thought out deus-ex-machina plot device, where it conveniently saved the Bentenmaru crew.

And then let’s not even talk about how Marika pulled off her “win” in this situation. When she decided to capture Jenny’s fiance, it just so happened that he was organizing a faux rebellion against the interstellar government. Talk about convenient. And then, on top of that, she just “happens” to get some info on her opponent’s dirty secrets, bribery, and whatever else could be used for blackmail. And thus, the conflict that Marika brazenly didn’t think through ended with a happy ending, where her novice crew conveniently won the matchup, Jenny gets to go to Space University, and all is good in the world. There were no real gunfights, nobody was injured, and there was never any real threat to Marika and her crew.

The critical message to get out of this arc seems to be that “ok, go ahead and make decisions without thinking of the potentially dangerous consequences, because yea, it will all work out somehow”. It’s a blatantly terrible setup that makes it extremely difficult to take much of any conflict out of this show seriously anymore. If there’s one positive that we’ve gotten out of this arc, it’s that Marika has come to a realization that she is far more reliant on her crew than she thought. Her genuine feelings of thanks towards her crew in that phone call in the closing moments of the episode were touching, if only for how much emotion she put into her heartfelt thank you. That was the only redeeming aspect to this entire arc, and aside from that one scene, it’s quite easy to see how disappointed I am with this outcome.

Overall Enjoyment: 2.0/5

Screenshots are later in the post.

Aniblog tourney, Round 2

First off I’d like to thank whoever voted for us in the 1st round of the supposed circle jerk of a competition called the Aniblog Tourney (or as Dark_Sage likes to call it, a sphere jerk). It’s been rather fun so far, and if there’s one thing I’ve gotten out of the tourney, it’s learning of the existence of fansub review blogs. I never did quite know that there were bloggers out there that critiqued fansub translations, a pleasant surprise considering how I often notice mistakes or mistranslations when I watch fansubbed anime.

Anyways, I’m kind of surprised that the EAC blog got past the 1st round, so much thanks to everybody who liked our blog. The second round is now upon us, and our blog is currently up for vote. Feel free to check out the competition, the Blog of the Hawk. Whoever designed that blog certainly has good taste in anime, Berserk being pretty awesome and all. Hopefully those Berserk movies that were announced do justice to the franchise.

Anyways, feel free to vote for whomever you feel deserves to win. You can check out the tourney and vote by clicking (here). If I had more time, I would’ve written some sort of random (and seemingly obligatory) “this is what our blog is about” that seems to be all the rage in this aniblog tourney, but real-life beckons. Maybe I’ll do it if we happen to make it to round 3. *wink wink* 😉

Accel World – 05

Episode 05 –

…Well, talk about a cheesy episode. This week’s installment of Accel World certainly wasn’t subtle with it’s messages, openly proclaiming the feelings of each character with respect to the source of this conflict: the childhood friendship between Chiyu, Takumu, and Haruyuki. The episode was very bombastic with it’s dialogue and character interactions, which certainly added to this episode having the subtlety of a brick being smashed into your forehead. With that being said, what I do appreciate about this episode is that it wasn’t intending on being subtle in the first place; it was straight-up aiming to be an emotional roller coaster with some dramatic overtones.

One rather noticeable aspect to this episode was the very post-apocalyptic, dreary color scheme. A vast majority of the scenes in this episode were in dreary colors reminiscent of more desolate landscapes, where the modern and pristine metallic avatars make a distinct contrast to the setting. The general setting and the color scheme feels like the polar opposite to the bright and sunny school setting we’ve seen up until now, and is perhaps a way of emphasizing that the digital world is fundamentally separate from reality. And it seems that this digital world reflects upon the radically different attitudes people can have underneath their regular persona, as seen in Takumu’s shockingly different attitude in the virtual world.

Watching the episode itself feels very much like watching something meant for theater; it was overdramatic, designed in a way to have the story fall into disarray, and finishing off in a grandiose fashion. This was evident in Takumu and Haruyuki’s emotional outbursts in their discussion, Haruyuki dramatically losing both his arm and leg, Haruyuki being pummeled by Cyan Pile’s special attack, and his subsequent miraculous recovery via spawning some beautiful wings and soaring above the clouds in the dreary Accelerated world.

And to wrap things up, this episode decided to go with a newly recovered Kuroyukihime boldly proclaiming to the world that she will once again try to claim the supremacy that she had given up on two years prior. The story to this episode was bold and very loud, with a lot of high-flying emotions and bold declarations designed to be over-the-top. This is seen in the riveting emotional outbursts amongst the childhood friends, Haru’s efforts to save Kuroyukihime, and Kuroyukihime’s bold resurgence into the power struggles of the Accelerated World. Could this show use some more subtlety? Oh heck yes. But this is still an entertaining show in it’s own right.

Overall Enjoyment: 2.8/5

Screenshots are later in the post.

Eureka Seven – Ao – 04

Episode 04 –

You know, this Spring season of anime has a strikingly noticeable amount of coming-of-age stories, ranging from Tsuritama to Sakamichi, and Eureka Seven Ao can definitely be added to that list. This show does have plenty of action and mecha battles (though as of now, a bit dull and uninspired). The more noticeable, and important, aspect to this series is how it focuses in on Ao as a central character, chronicling his emotional struggles with his friends, hometown, and family (in particular, his mother). Ao isn’t a guy that’s on some noble quest to save the world or rescue some damsel in distress; rather, he’s simply a lost boy trying to learn more about his mysterious mother, and like anybody who’s lost, he struggles and trudges forward in whatever ways he can.

Ao’s presence as the main character is rather different than your stereotypical “hero” protagonist you see in most anime. He has no real agenda with regards to the politics that pervade the atmosphere to this show, nor does he have any sort of noble aspirations like other protagonists. This series has emphasized how Ao is a mere child, a boy with little experience, but nonetheless tries his best to move forward and learn more about himself and his mother. This is evident in some obvious, as well as a few subtle, ways. What’s obvious here is that Ao is treated as a child by many of the members of the cast, where they see his efforts as clumsy but admirable. Ao is portrayed as a victim, and we see him coping with the situation as best as he can. The more subtle detail that emphasizes Ao’s struggles would be how there was a brief scene devoted to showing how Ao had absolutely no idea on how to operate Nirvash. It’s a detail that is evident upon how Ao tries to push forward with whatever he can do, even if it’s a clumsy effort.

With that being said, I’m really growing to appreciate the execution to the story. While the story does have it’s fair share of shounen elements with the action and heavy-handed politics, the show creates a intricate balance between Ao’s personal struggles, the political overtones to the setting, and the feelings of all the parties and factions that are involved. The setting does an astoundingly good job with emphasizing how Ao is confused and uncertain about life, but still wants to learn more of his mother, as well as the significance to his own existence. The politics serve to emphasize the polarized divisions amongst members of society, all of which is particularly noticeable in the protests against trapar farming, as well as the discrimination Ao faced up until now.

If there’s a caveat to this show, the one issue that is a bit uncomfortable to think of is the rather nationalistic overtones to this series. This show has members of society protesting the overbearing presence of the United States in the Okinawa region, something that is eerily reminiscent of the real-life Okinawan discontent with US military bases. The anti-foreigner sentiment is reflective of a highly insular mindset that is reminiscent of the “expel the foreigner” mindset we’ve seen in Japanese history for numerous generations. This show is very much reflective upon the history of modern day Japan, with Ao being a grey/ambiguous existence in this entire affair. This show feels hopelessly complex precisely because it has more grounding in real-life than other anime this season, and it’s quickly becoming more noticeable with each passing episode.

Overall Enjoyment: 3.7/5

P.S. This is a personal opinion, but I feel as if Eureka Seven Ao is pushing it’s own political message in today’s rather uncertain modern day times. Or at least, the creators to Eureka Seven certainly aren’t afraid to push forward their own viewpoints on the complex feelings involved in the Okinawan-US base conflict, as well as the human emotions that become embroiled in these types of conflicts.

Screenshots are later in the post.