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Post by Adrian Jordan on Oct 30, 2016 23:41:45 GMT
I've seen that mentioned as well. I think the original author and Anno both meant for it to be seen individually, rather than there be a singular truth. Most audiences in the "West"(pretty much anybody who isn't Japanese, hahaha) really hate that, but the Japanese are pretty cool with ambiguity. Sometimes things just happen, and sometimes there are no explanations and sometimes all the answers are wrong. That can be a bitter pill to swallow for folks who want to know.
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Post by Adrian Jordan on Oct 31, 2016 6:13:39 GMT
I watched another episode of Token Rambu. It was pretty funny in that they added a new warrior. This one is created from a Dotanuki sword. A sturdy, not at all glamorous near thug-like figure who looks at everything and tries to see if he can weaponize it, and always wants to train and fight. Rather than the colorful get up most of the other swords have, he just wears a plain, no nonsense track suit. I thought they caught the spirit well.
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Ifrit
Member
More edgy than a double edge sword
Posts: 3,284
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Post by Ifrit on Oct 31, 2016 15:46:17 GMT
What's that show about? My interest has been peaked haha
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Post by Adrian Jordan on Oct 31, 2016 19:39:21 GMT
It's about a force of warriors who were created using famous swords. They fight against an army that is trying to change history. Some have fancy or even girlish appearances, and some, like the Dotanuki, are simple and warlike. I wouldn't say it's a fantastic show, but I thought that part was really funny.
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Post by sadatoni on Oct 31, 2016 21:25:33 GMT
Well, it makes more sense now. Thanks.
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Post by Vincent Dolan on Nov 1, 2016 18:13:15 GMT
Had Matoi downloaded for a couple hours, but just now got around to it 'cause I got a little distracted with other stuff. Interesting episode, revealing first thing Yuma to have originally been possessed of two spirits that were sealed by her grandfather for being premature; after the OP, Matoi and Yuma are walking to school and Matoi mentions being pained by everyone's stares which, in an amusing subversion to what I expected, were not because everyone kinda figured out that Matoi is the infamous pink-haired magical girl, but because Clarus is walking behind them in her (I suppose) uniform, which is basically a fancy, baby blue coat over a white mini-dress. When Clarus inevitably gets mobbed, Matoi tries to sneak away (while smothering Yuma with her hand) and we find that quite a few of the guys in her school are masochists after Clarus rebuffs them quite forcefully. We then hear her boss' voice via a phone call with her partner and man is it a nostalgic voice; Masashi Ebara, voice of Captain Bravo from Busou Renkin. Kinda disappointed he didn't bust out a "BRAVO!!!" for old time's sake. As expected, he turns out to be a pretty reasonable boss.
Later, Matoi strong arms Clarus into staying the night (which she also informs Shingo of about the same time she informs Clarus), which leads to a rather humorous scene of Matoi being told her bras won't fit Clarus; naturally, this leads to the shopping trip hinted at in the preview last week that's meant to bring Clarus a little more down to Earth. Amusingly, Matoi once again strong arms her into going by simply not telling her where they're going, which makes it pretty funny when they turn up in Harajuku of all places. Given what I normally watch, it's a region that doesn't get a whole lot of attention, so it was kinda fresh. We get the expected outfit montage (really dug the sleeveless green sweater/brown jeans combo) followed by her chosen outfit, a rather classy light blue slim skirt and a sleeves royal blue top with a standing collar. The crowd's reactions were expected, though the guy with the melting ice cream cone was actually pretty funny.
Yuma gets Clarus to agree to test her ability to perform Divine Union, after which the seal her grandfather erected gets broken, releasing the two spirits, a chibi fox girl and tanuki boy. Hilariously, they look at her, recall her grandfather, and then run away. This leads to a chase, with Matoi and Clarus transforming and basically teleporting to various locations after them, which doesn't work too well, so Matoi has the bright idea of luring them out with some fried tofu (which, as she explains to Clarus, the foreigner, foxes love). Clarus dismisses the idea, figuring the spirits wouldn't be that easily fooled, so naturally, it works perfectly... Or it seems to, with their forms just being a bit of kitsune magic over stuffed animals. We then get the opening scene once more with clarity, with Yuma playing with the two spirits when her grandfather seals them, but rather than putting them to sleep or something, it basically bound them to Yuma while preventing them from interacting with her. They make up in the end, of course, but I can understand them wanting to run away.
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Post by Vincent Dolan on Nov 4, 2016 21:03:08 GMT
Drifters was fun and Yoichi is even more childish than Nobunaga; those poor elves. During the battle for the village, it was cool to see Nobunaga borrowing Hideyoshi's famous Sunomata and quite interesting to see that they actually explicitly used feces dipped arrowheads as a form of primitive biological warfare. They did the same with the pit traps later. That's something you rarely see in media despite how common it actually was because of how gross it is to contemplate. I also saw the ending coming from miles away, but it was still a bit surprising to see it laid out quite so graphically. I'm hoping we'll get the epic massacre next episode instead of just cutting to after it's over.
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Post by Vincent Dolan on Nov 5, 2016 21:53:00 GMT
Finally got to Izetta after taking the morning/early afternoon to watch X-Men Apocalypse with my mom. So, as expected, Jonas plays the fool and immediately mentions having learned Izetta's secret to the Germanian spy. Of course, we don't get to see the fallout of that right away, as it moves onto a more breather episode feel, with Izetta just casually helping with weeding the castle's gardens which, as we learn, is a bit of a regular thing, as she snuck into the kitchens and did the laundry before; apparently, she feels kinda uneasy if she's not working. It was also kinda funny to see that her short maid, Lotte, apparently carries a step-stool strapped to her back everywhere she goes. They then decide to teach Izetta how to act in high society, which naturally involves dancing lessons; Bianca, Fine's guard, is convinced to take the man's role when told she'll be able to dance with Fine as part of a demonstration. Just as naturally, Izetta proves a horrible dancer. Afterwards, we find there's a shortage of things like sugar when Fine mentions the tea they're drinking is the last of the imported stuff and it's best with pies and other baked goods. Hilariously, Fine learns that a chef famous for their pies is going to be making more instead of closing since they got some sugar... Which Fine herself distributed from the castle's own stores in celebration of her coronation and their victory in the battle last episode. She then starts working herself (and probably the viewers) into a drool as she lavishly describes the pies in her excitement.
Sieg, who is apparently Eylstadt's spymaster, is using an apparently shady man named Koontz to find out what kind of person Jonas is and (probably) how likely it is they'll need to silence him, which can be inferred from his conversation with the blonde reporter that's all too fond of Fine and Izetta's figures. Back in Germania, the pilot is now part of the unit that originally captured Izetta and is ecstatic upon being shown an experimental fighter plane. The special unit boss meanwhile enters what could best be called the occult/black ops division to find out what Izetta's possible weakness is, so either Jonas didn't actually tell the spy or the spy hasn't gotten the message out. Back to Fine's group, they're at the pie maker's in "disguise", enjoying their pie when the cook walks over and discreetly asks her, by name, if she's enjoying today's batch, too. Hilariously, her royal guard, the castle staff, and the shop owners all knew who she was and how she would sneak out to visit the shop; she then gets so embarrassed that she outs herself to the entire shop, with Izetta outing herself as well to save a piece of pie Fine accidentally knocked over in her embarrassment.
She then gives an encouraging speech to the people and Izetta receives flowers from the little girl who recognized her... And then they all get scolded by Sieg. But not too seriously, as he segues into asking permission to go to Britannia for a meeting of the powers allied against Germania. Fine, however, decides that it should be her and Izetta that go, as Izetta's power is obviously the topic of discussion that called the meeting; when Sieg gets a call from Koontz about there being a Germanian spy in Jonas' platoon, he readily agrees, provided they go by a very roundabout and secret route. Moving to Jonas, we actually find he hasn't spoken a word about Izetta's secret, though keeping it has caused him to be very spaced out. The spy isn't too happy about it and takes Jonas into the forest, where he shoots him in the leg in an effort to get him to talk; he refuses until he learns the man's comrades are beside his younger siblings, though how true that is remains to be seen. Sieg and Koontz appear before Jonas can spill the beans, driving the spy off, and it looks like he'll be saved and possibly made one of Sieg's subordinates... Until Sieg shoots him. Pretty somber ending, given how relatively lighthearted the rest of the episode was.
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Post by Vincent Dolan on Nov 6, 2016 16:36:05 GMT
Gundam opened somewhat unexpectedly, having had a 2 week timeskip between this episode and last, by which point the fighting has been ongoing the whole time; what's particularly surprising is, unlike most Gundam series, the fighting between Arbrau and the SAU didn't start because someone fired the first shot, but because of an accident. An SAU recon plane was brought down due to the interference from mobile suits' Ahab Wave Reactors, which shut down all other electronics in a certain radius. We saw the effects at the end of last season, so I'm surprised we're seeing them again in such a stark fashion. Beyond that, the fighting is revealed to be dragging on precisely because Galan and his boss, Rustal of the Arianrhod fleet, want it to in order to drain all of McGillis' authority and reputation since he was chosen to be the arbiter of the conflict. Most of Tekkadan is feeling the strain and wondering at the meaning of the fighting, especially when their comrades die to prevent the untrained Arbrau forces from getting everyone killed.
On the Mars end of things, they're becoming more and more frustrated by the lack of contact, though Shino on the Hotarubi manages to put a little spirit back in them, even if Mika immediately deflates him a bit by pointing out he's just imitating Orga; at least it gets a laugh out of Kudelia. Surprisingly, at least for the moment, most of Hush's hostility towards Mika seems to have disappeared. Meanwhile, Fuka is regularly visiting Chad in the hospital where we learn he's still unconscious, but more than that, we find something quite shocking: while Earth and Mars both use the same restorative bed-things, Earth's versions are actually worse than Mars'. Also surprising, Takaki gets caught in an SAU diversion and ends up facing off against mobile suits with a handful of mobile workers and the first person to race to his rescue is Galan, moving even faster than Aston. The Mars branch has finally arrived at the station above Earth, but is being refused landing permission by Arbrau despite being their military advisors, so there's something so fishy going on, the smell would gag a whaler. Naturally, though, it's not going to stop them for long.
Finally, McGillis gets tired of the stalemate and deploys himself, which gets everyone into final battle mode with even Takaki piloting a mobile suit instead of his usual mobile worker; the death flags he keeps raising can't be ignored for much longer, so unless they go full subversion, he's going to die probably right before Mika joins the battle.
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Post by Vincent Dolan on Nov 8, 2016 19:26:11 GMT
So, Matoi was fun. I didn't expect a fourth wall break, let alone in the first few minutes, but that's exactly how it started off, with Yuma blatantly destroying the fourth wall by directly addressing the viewers and echoing our thoughts spectacularly, what with the whole "the opening's a trick" in regards to showing Yuma as a magical girl; she even tries to change the title of the very show to "Yuma" (with "Yumachin" listed as writer and director) because of how unenthusiastic Matoi is about being a magical girl. Even better, she changes to the OP to feature her instead of Matoi, after which we learn she was filming it in front of a green screen and Matoi was watching, thinking she's getting carried away. Hilariously, Yuma set up a website of her own to match the one she made for Matoi and starts getting a bunch of requests for stuff that has nothing to do with exorcisms. Things are pretty slow to start, so we get a rather cute scene of Kuu and Kai, Yuma's spirits, playing on a see-saw... Only for it to be completely immobile since they're intangible. She gets a request (that was previously sent to the police) and decides to go for it, but neither Matoi nor Clarus want anything to do with it, so she goes by herself; however, Kai, the tanuki, is a bit cowardly and doesn't want to go either, so she has to carry him (while tossing an English "shut up" at Matoi & Clarus).
Once at the shopping mall the request came from, Clarus of all people gets distracted by a cute little spirit that then has Matoi and Yuma in fits, acting as if it's a tiny dog. After a moment, they figure out it's a Night, so Clarus gets permission from her handler... And transforms in front of about a half dozen or so people. Yuma then follows suit. Or tries to, but once again, Kai's having none of it, so when Clarus takes the Night to the other dimension (once more, in front of about a dozen people), she tags along. Clarus tells her to stay out of it and goes to exterminate the Night, but has trouble against its cuteness. When she does manage to attack it, she just pisses it off and it transforms into something Cthulhu-esque by spewing forth a ton of little creatures that merge into a giant blob that unleashes a pink river. Meanwhile, in the real world, Matoi is saying they should be fine, because it's not like that exact thing could happen... And then an eye looks through a crack in the dimension, staring her in the face before tearing its way back into the real world. Hilariously, she transforms to go help and almost immediately gets mobbed by fans.
Things start getting more serious from there as the Night starts destroying buildings in a mindless rampage and both Clarus and Matoi get trapped in some form of cube that they can't destroy or teleport out of it, so naturally it falls to Yuma to defeat it. Pretty predictable, but not unwelcome. That said, she doesn't defeat it completely; instead, we find out what's unique about her Divine Union: it's variable between Kai and Kuu. Kai, the tanuki, provides some impressive defense while dressing her like a Shouwa period youth, complete with hakama, kimono, boots, mantle, and hat, alongside a tanuki tail and vaguely tanuki styled hair. Kuu, on the other hand, gives her the outfit seen in the OP, which looks like an idol's version of a miko and giant fox paws that give her just as impressive offense that she uses to destroy the Night, causing it to split into hundreds of little Nights (which quickly reform) that is then left to Clarus to destroy. Afterwards, Matoi and Yuma get caught by Shingo, who briefly gets angry, before his relief that Matoi's alright wins out. I feel he might have a vague idea of what's going on, possibly from what happened with Shiori and he's scared whatever happened to her will happen to Matoi.
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Post by hochmeister on Nov 10, 2016 1:58:47 GMT
So I don't watch that much anime and I have nothing to contribute to the discussions regarding Gundam or Matoi, but a friend has recently undertaken the task of ensuring that I complete Kill La Kill. I am on episode 15 and I have to say...
It is madness.
Utter madness!
That is all.
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Post by Vincent Dolan on Nov 10, 2016 2:23:13 GMT
Sounds about right for Kill La Kill. Of course, that also sounds about right for most of Gainax's more recent high profile stuff; case in point: Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt.
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Post by randomnobody on Nov 10, 2016 10:39:58 GMT
I vastly prefer PSG to KLK.
Only thing going this season that has held any excitement for us is Keijo. Shuumatsu is okay, Udon is nice...I think we've dropped everything else? Stella no Mahou could have been good, but the subs it's getting are atrocious.
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Post by Vincent Dolan on Nov 10, 2016 13:12:58 GMT
Same here. I'm down to just four shows, myself, which is highly unusual.
Well, seeing as how this season is basically dead, how about an open ended question for the sake of discussion? What's an anime that really sticks out in your mind as one that could have been great, but ended up a huge disappointment for one reason or another? And how do you think it could have been improved?
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Post by randomnobody on Nov 10, 2016 14:35:26 GMT
Hmmm... There's so many. I'll have to do some pondering on that one.
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Post by Vincent Dolan on Nov 10, 2016 17:05:00 GMT
For me, the one that comes to mind the quickest (no doubt because of my recent Gundam binge) is Mobile Suit Gundam AGE. It had a pretty intriguing concept: a war of mutual extermination that spans generations, showing us the usual horrors of war that Gundam is famous for, but in a way that hits closer to home with how it affects families. In essence, it's combining the original Mobile Suit Gundam with its sequel, Zeta Gundam, and its sequel, ZZ Gundam, only instead of it all happening to a bunch of random characters with no connection to the previous protagonist, it focuses on a single family, beginning with Flit Asuno.
It's also one of the few Gundam series I can think of where a protagonist/former protagonist went down a truly dark path: At the end of the first generation, Flit Asuno's crush, Yurin L'Ciel, is kidnapped by the Vagan, the mysterious enemies from Mars that turn out to be humans. They want her because she's a powerful X-Rounder (AGE's version of Newtypes from the Universal Century timeline, only instead of being basically psychic, it's better described as something primal) and they stuff her in a mobile suit against her will and force her to fight Flit; because she's so powerful, she manages to break free just in time to save Flit from a lethal blow (Tomino-inspired Gundam series love killing off female pilots; hell, Victory had a dozen or so and maybe 2 survived to the end). Due to this, Flit swears vengeance and vows to annihilate the entire Vagan race.
He makes good on it, too, as in the second generation, he comes into military power and basically stages a coup that results in the execution of all Vagan sleeper agents and sympathizers in the military. However, when that fails to satisfactorily end the war, he ends up training his grandson to kill Vagans from a very young age by disguising it as a game. And, in true Gundam fashion, towards the end of the series, both sides are equally bad, basically just killing one another wholesale because that's really all they know how to do; the Vagan even plan what amounts to a planetary glassing/colony drop towards the end.
The series had some good music, decent animation, some genuinely interesting mobile suit designs (the AGE system for the titular AGE Gundam, which would receive combat data and the AGE Builder would then construct during combat was honestly pretty cool), some pretty okay characters, and the whole arms race concept the generational war brought to the series was quite cool to see in action; normally for something like that, you'd have to watch the entirety of MSG, Zeta, and ZZ, with Char's Counterattack thrown in.
HOWEVER, it had some major failings that can't be overlooked. What's worse is they'd have been pretty easy fixes; well, most of them, anyway, one not so easy.
1st Problem - They released the character designs for all three protagonists before the show even began airing. As a result, you could easily tell who the protagonists would end up with because their kid was basically a genderswapped clone of their mother.
2nd Problem - Directly continuing from the first problem, because they released the character designs so early, they apparently felt no reason to put any effort into the personalities of Emily Amonde (Flit's wife) or Romary Stone (Asemu's wife); Emily's entire personality is basically a younger, more innocent version of Orihime from Bleach, just swap "Kurosaki-kun" with "Flit". Romary had a bit more personality, but only so she could be the driving wedge between Asemu and Zeheart Galette, the rival and a Vagan spy.
3rd Problem - Again a direct consequence of the second, but because no effort was put into the love satellites (excuse me, "interests"), the protagonists had zero chemistry with them and those they did have chemistry with either got killed (Yurin for Flit) or just ignored (Arisa Gunhale for Asemu).
4th problem - You'll probably notice I've only mentioned 2 of the protagonists, minus that one bit about Kio in passing; this is because, he is, without a doubt, the worst of the three and considered by fans to be the worst protagonist in Gundam to date (though that doesn't factor in G-Reco, which everyone would be better off consigning to the burning void). He's a thirteen year old kid who fought in the war for a month or two, was kidnapped by Vagan and brought to their home near Mars, saw them suffering from, I sh*t you not, "Mars Ray", some mysterious nigh incurable disease that came from Mars... Despite them living in a giant ass space station orbiting Mars. Anyway, because of that, Kio develops a level of pacifism so extreme that even Kira Yamato would tell him to put on the brakes; worse, he doesn't have Kira's experiences, such as being literally a handspan too slow to save a shuttle full of refugees (including a little girl who had earlier thanked him for protecting them), being forced to kill a genuinely good guy just because they're on opposite sides, accidentally killing the friend of a friend (who was only trying to protect said mutual friend), having a friend of his casually killed in return and the subsequent viciously brutal duel to the death between him and his childhood friend that nearly cost them both their lives. No, Kio has none of that justification; instead, he goes from seeing the enemy as faceless goons to seeing their civilians and suddenly "everyone must stop fighting so I can preach about peace and understanding in the middle of battle and I will stop both sides from killing the other" is his modus operandi.
5th problem - This one's the biggest problem and the one that would, consequently, be hardest to fix: the series is too damn short. It's 49 episodes long, which is relatively standard length for a Gundam series, however those other series don't follow sequential protagonists (Wing, SEED, and 00 all had multiple protagonists, but they were all being developed simultaneously). Flit's arc is 15 episodes long, Asemu's is 13 episodes, and Kio's is 21 episodes long; technically, Kio's arc is only 11 episodes long, but since he remains the protagonist with the most screen time during the Three Generations Arc with all tree, I still count them.
The ways these could have been rectified would have been easy: release the protagonist's design a little before their arc is set to start; that way, you could write the show, see who had the most chemistry with who, and then pair them up, tailoring the new protagonist's appearance to match. That one little change would have fixed the first three problems with this series. The fourth problem, Kio, couldn't have been fixed by anything but better writing, though it still wold have been relatively easy. Instead of Kio becoming a super pacifist after just a month or two of fighting (if that), they could have had him still be kidnapped by the Vagan, see their plight, and then use that knowledge to try and bring the two parties to the table for negotiations and, when that failed because the Vagan want revenge for the Earth government abandoning their ancestors following the "Mars Ray" thing (they'd really need a better name for that, too) and Earth just wants complete revenge for the atrocities committed during the Hundred Year War, he starts to fight in earnest after realizing that, sometimes, peace just doesn't work.
It'd have been a hard lesson to slip into a kid's show (yes, that's what AGE was marketed as; I don't know what they were thinking either), but far better than trying to constantly shove "peace and understanding" down our throat. I was okay with it in SEED, because we saw Kira's journey to becoming the advocate for peace and pacifism he eventually became. I was also cool with it in 00, where the protagonists are all terrorists fighting to eradicate war because humanity's wars screwed them up (excluding Tieria, we have: a former child soldier, (ironically) victim of terrorism, a super soldier that was experimented on, a young man who's parents were killed for working on a rival space elevator, and a former tactical forecaster whose predictions ended up getting their S.O. killed through friendly fire; and that's not even touching the Trinities). You understood where they were coming from, especially Setsuna. It's nowhere near as believable with Kio, so not only does it fall flat, it's annoying as hell.
The last problem, the length, really would have been pretty hard to fix, though I think they could have managed with 49 episodes if they'd developed the actual characters some more. After all, look what some episodes can do with just 12-13 (Occult Academy and, surprisingly, Rakudai Kishi no Cavalry, come to mind). Real shame we got what we did, instead. Still, at least it's better than G-Reco.
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Post by Vincent Dolan on Nov 11, 2016 18:20:14 GMT
So Drifters continues to be fun. It was a bit funny, if not exactly surprising, to find out that the man who lead the formation of the Orte Empire that's oppressing all the demi-humans was Hitler; it was also kinda funny that, immediately after the birth of the Empire, he killed himself. Sadly, the epic massacre just turned into a firing line style execution, but I suppose that works out better for the elves, letting them avenge themselves instead of having Toyohisa do it all for them. Nobunaga stops Toyohisa from giving the order on the logic that it's his job to dirty his hands with stuff like that and Toyohisa should just be his straightforward self. Amusingly, they spared one who kept pleading that he hadn't done anything and hadn't even been there long, let along having slept with a woman, so Nobunaga suggests to Olmine (who he insists on calling "Olmi-boobs") that she let the guy fondle her. At Nobunaga's urging, the entire elf race rises up and rebels against the empire.
Moving to the Orte Empire leaders, we find their supply fleet has been sunk by a bunch of merchants/pirates on flying birds with bombs; said pirates then yell "Tora! Tora! Tora!" because their admiral taught them to do so after a successful surprise attack. Said admiral happens to be Yamaguchi Tamon, one of the ship captains that took part in Pearl Harbor. Apparently, when he was sent to this new world, his damaged ship, the Souryuu, was sent with him, still bearing the marks from her final battle. Back with Nobunaga and them, more elves are drifting in and Nobunaga is apparently developing a reputation as a man who really loves crap; Yoichi's training the new archers and just plain messing with them, particularly when one mentions he's too good looking to be a human, so he mentions he's the ugliest of his eleven brothers, for whom flowers grew in their wake, rivers parted, and gold fell from the sky. He even has them ending their sentences with "Genji Banzai", which becomes funnier when one of them calls him out on how fake his story sounds. Afterwards, it appears the Black King's forces have found them, led by Jeanne d'Arc and the confirmed-to-be Gilles de Rais.
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Post by Vincent Dolan on Nov 12, 2016 20:38:36 GMT
So Izetta was quite good. It's nice to see the leaders at the meeting were skeptical of Izetta's powers, but when presented with an undeniable demonstration, accepted it and immediately moved to pointing out her major weakness: there's only one of her. Fine acknowledges this and so wants to request troops, but recognizes the difficulties on such short notice and proposes having Izetta deal with the problem they were discussing before her arrival: a brand new aircraft carrier. As Fine mentions to Izetta in the privacy of their room, it's lucky the carrier's moored in a place lush with magical energy, though it also appears to be interwoven with dead spots. Amusingly, Izetta is having trouble focusing with Fine in just a nightgown, particularly with them sharing the same bed. Fine responds to this by tickling Izetta breathless.
They make a plan for Izetta to destroy the ship by following a narrow ravine that contemporary planes can't navigate, making it unlikely she'll be spotted, though really it's because it's heaviest in magic. Unfortunately, when Izetta gets there, we find the ship has already set sail and they knew she was coming the whole time, so Berkman, the Germanian spy master, clearly has an inside informant. Luckily, when they see her in such dire straights, the wing commander also assigned to the mission, Groman, doesn't think twice about heading in for the assist; meanwhile, however, those magical dead zones repeatedly come into play, causing Izetta to drop out of the sky quite often before she can restore her magic. On the plus side, this does manage to save her more than once by getting her out of the line of fire, but it's not exactly a welcome benefit with the way it makes her drop like a rock uncontrollably.
Izetta also proves adaptable by making use of her two remaining torpedoes by targeting the carrier's elevator to get at the ship's insides directly. She manages to destroy the carrier, but it came at a very high cost: Berkman, who was observing the battle, figured out her weakness after seeing her come across the dead zones. Curiously, it seems as though they may have another witch in storage to counter Izetta and they may believe the original White Witch might still be alive in the Eylstadt castle's basement; alternatively, due to the wording, they could simply be referring to the leyline map.
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Post by Vincent Dolan on Nov 13, 2016 21:01:22 GMT
Gundam was quite good, progressing much in the way I hoped, though not quite how I expected; I honestly expected Takaki to die early on with all the death flags he's been raising, especially when he started fighting McGillis head on. Surprisingly, he did fairly decently against him, but McGillis managed to steal his weapon and strike at his cockpit, at which point Aston shoved him out of the way, taking the blow; thanks to the weapons they're using, he didn't die immediately and was able to pin McGillis so Galan can finish him off. And that's when Mika drops in. Sadly, Galan does the smart thing and retreats, leaving us a heartwrenching moment between Takaki and Aston as the latter dies; the small bright side is that he at least dies with a smile on his face. Meanwhile, at the Earth branch HQ, Eugune and Akihiro confront Radice about the situation, which is where they are when Lafter calls with the news that Aston, whom Akihiro had adopted as a brother, died in the battle. Akihiro swears a vendetta against Galan with the added bonus that Radice's next.
Surprisingly, after Radice gives up Galan's possible location, they get the drop on him and start taking out his men without a word spoken save for Akihiro, who happens to be the one to find Galan; even then, the only thing he says is to ask if he's Galan Mossa, after which he goes at him with a ruthless efficiency. Meanwhile, Hush is in his first proper battle and learning just how scary it can be when his opponent pretty effortlessly disarms him and is about to kill him when Mika, amusingly, kicks him out of the way. The most surprising moment, however, comes when things return to Akihiro vs Galan: Galan spouts some cynical BS about the decent men dying first, which Akihiro immediately throws back in his face by calling him decent after he gets his pincer shield around Galan's cockpit. He begins slowly crushing Galan to death, but Galan activates his suit's self-destruct before he dies, probably hoping to take Akihiro with him... Except it doesn't even scratch the Gusion.
Back at HQ, Radice continues to try and defend his actions ever more futilely until Mika wonders why they're even talking to him when his betrayal is clear and pulls his gun. Takaki, however, shows some pretty startling character growth by asking to speak to Radice alone, going so far as to stare down Mika; while Lafter and Azee express their doubts, Mika, Akihiro, and Eugene express their solidarity since Takaki is the (temporary) head of the Earth branch and it's an Earth branch problem. After listening to Radice's lies, Takaki very calmly shoots him in the head, though it cuts away before the shot. He then follows with two more for good measure. Interestingly, Hush also shows some growth, having realized that the difference in strength between Mika and himself has nothing to do with the Alaya-Vijnana surgery, but his taciturn friend cheers him up by pointing out that being able to accurately judge one's own capabilities is the trait of a natural pilot. At the very end, Takaki returns to his sister and we have quite the surprising moment: he doesn't say anything, but Fuka is intelligent enough to figure out what happened just after glancing at his face. Normally in a situation like that, a character of her age would be depicted as dense enough to need it spelled out in neon lights, so it makes for a nice change of pace, even if the mood is rather somber.
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Post by Vincent Dolan on Nov 15, 2016 23:57:06 GMT
Finally got around to Matoi; the inevitable beach episode (and onsen episode) is finally here and got lampshaded to hell in the previews last week. Prior to the OP, we saw more of the Creeds who are, presumably, colleagues of Clarus. Afterwards, Matoi, Yuma, and Luciella are all headed to the beach, with Shingo and his subordinate Pochi following in their car and, interestingly, Shingo has apparently figured out that Matoi is the pink haired exorcist girl. At the beach, Yuma and Matoi have the whole "jump in the water before splashing each other" scene that gets interrupted by Pochi joining in with a super soaker and gets Yuma right in the face (I swear I didn't try to make that sound dirty); Kuu and Kai get invisible payback by dunking him rather forcefully. Hilariously, during a conversation between Luciella and Shingo, both asks the other if they invited Pochi, which neither did, leading to them both asking what he's doing there in unison.
Even funnier, Clarus and her handler are wondering how they can be so carefree when Yuma pops up and drags Clarus off to play, mentioning she packed a swimsuit for her since she figured she'd show up. Pochi proves he really deserves the name by acting like a dog in heat (and the swimming goggles around his neck make a pretty good leash), after which the plot shows its head a bit, but goes back into hiding when Matoi and Yuma introduce Clarus to the wonders of shaved ice. Things take a turn for the hilarious when they get to the shrine they're staying at when the priestess, Amane Yayoi, recognizes Shingo and leaps into his arms. Everyone's (save Clarus') reactions are so hilarious they really need to be screenshotted to be properly enjoyed; special mention goes to Luciella who looks like she's watching something scandalous. Turns out she was a junior to Matoi's mother Shiori, who was a priestess at that shrine, which Shingo was wondering how to bring up to Matoi.
Matoi learns a bit about her mother from Yayoi, but doesn't get to learn too much, as she thinks Matoi should ask Shingo about it; before she can, Yuma interrupts by dragging everyone off for a test of courage (which Clarus has to ask just what it is). Yuma has them draw lots for their group with Luciella getting C and Clarus getting B. Pochi naturally tries to get one of those two, but ends up getting A, which puts him in the group with Shingo. Unfortunately the plot rears its head once more by having a Night-possessed human show up in front of them; Shingo races back to Matoi to warn them and gets her to promise she won't follow him, with his dialogue later all but proving he's aware of her exorcist abilities. However, the Night proves resistant to both Clarus and Yuma's attacks, even brushing off Clarus' attempt to send it to a different dimension as it absorbs their attacks. Naturally, Yayoi prove to be the exorcist from before the OP and manages to defeat it quite quickly by exploiting an absorber's inherent weakness: she feeds it so much it explodes.
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