blog好き

Nov 01 2015

Categories: momentum
Tagged: gundam: iron blooded orphans, haikyuu, monogatari, noragami, one punch man, sakurako's lovely bones, the perfect insider

1 Comment »

Gimmick posts! Who doesn’t love long meandering gimmick posts?

Iron-Blooded Orphans

Mobile Suit Gundam – Iron-Blooded Orphans continues to be one of the highlights of a strong season. Episode five features Tekkadan doing what Tekkadan doing best: scraping by. I’m really enjoying how everyone is contributing to their success. Mikazuki is one cold, calculated, efficient killer. Orga is the brains. Biscuit is the calm one. Akihiro and Eugene even showed off their stuff. Everything in the show is clicking. The story is picking up, the battles are interesting and thoughtful and not just Barbatos pew-pewing everything (the melee elements with axes and maces give it a lot more weight than pew-pew lasers), and it feels a bit like No Game No Life right now with Orga/Biscuit/Mikazuki. I think the internet consensus opinion is that Biscuit will die. I’m going to go with Orga. Mari Okada does not fuck around with death.

(Todo totally reminds me of a 1980s anime villain. Okay, maybe the villains needs improving over Todo, Gjallarhorn master race, and Kudelia’s dad who may or may not also be the main villain of Gangsta.)

Space Harems

I liked how the first two people to greet Mikazuki were the princess and the cook. He has his pick! He can go for the busty blonde or the DFC younger sister type. Or both! I don’t think Atra would mind. She only gave up a safe and cushy job to potentially die in a spacecraft explosion. Seriously, though, Iron-Blooded Orphans will have to do something with the useless princess. I can’t think of an anime that has a useless princess turn into a non-useless princess without magic involved (looking at you, Corpse Princess). I hope the AnoHana team can work some character magic with Kudelia.

(Speaking of AnoHana team, their movie, Anthem of the Heart is premiering across the US this week. Go catch a showing if you can!)

One Punch

Unfortunately, fight of the week does not go to Tekkadan vs. Gjallarhorn. It goes to Saitama vs. Genos. Holy. Fucking. Shit. The animation is just incredible. And I loved the ending of Saitama waddling away as if he were Daffy Duck. The show has that knack that you know what is going to happen, yet it still entertains you when it happens. There’s just some happy charm with how Saitama and Genos handles each situation.

Mobile Phones

Come on, Genos is this highly advanced android, yet he has to carry around a flip phone? Dude doesn’t have a LTE radio integrated into his skull? He can’t neural net into Wikipedia and Instagram on will? The least believable part of One-Punch Man.

Closed Door Mysteries

Japan seems to love closed door mysteries. Since Haruhi Suzumiya, I have seen more closed door mysteries in anime that in all of Western media. Though I hope Star Wars The Force Awakens is nothing but a closed door mystery. The one for Owarimonogatari seemed a bit out of place as Sodachi’s arc seems to be just pointless puzzle after puzzle with a random mystery tossed in during a very, very long Sodachi monologue. Nisio Isin’s strength is definitely not showing plot. He really likes meandering conversations that are better suited for blogs than actual human dialogue.

I’m going to put in my guesses (people who have read the books, please don’t spoil it). For Owarimonogatari, Sodachi’s mom is dead in the room. I swear I saw an episode of Hoarders that had the exact same setup as Sodachi’s… which is why I no longer have cable.

For Everything Becomes F: The Perfect Insider, I’m going to guess Magata’s child is the killer. She was pregnant before going into the room and has secretly raised a child in there. I just saw a movie trailer with a similar plot. That’s why there’s Legos, stuffed animals, plus books that feature general knowledge but not Magata’s studies. I’ll also guess that the robot is there as a babysitter or baby defense mechanism. Also the whole concept of this show is fucked up. What kind of research institute locks up a 14 year old girl? What are they researching? What operating system can be written by one person, irregardless of how smart she might be? What kind of research institute doesn’t have internet access and requires its staff to live at the compound? Even Konami has internet access. Is this research institute actually a front for Scientology?

(The whole scene with “Her computer is running Red Magic version 6! The lab only runs version 4!” is hilarious. It’s as bad as any computer scene in CSI. My computer is running Windows 10! It’s light years better than my laptop running Windows 8! It’s 2 versions ahead! My other laptop is on version El Capitan… El Capitan is like a billion years old… so it’s version one billion!)

Magata’s Limbs

The genius cast of Everything Becomes F doesn’t understand where Magata’s limbs went? They obviously do not watch movies. Obviously, the killer could have chopped up the limbs and tossed it into the trash, but that would get blood everywhere. They could do an UV light test for blood. The limbs could also be in the fridge, frozen in time. Or, you know, the killer could have slowly fed the limbs to Magata as she slowly died. That’s the most efficient way to get rid of human flesh. Isn’t that right, Clarice?

Underwater Ray Romano

Man, Underwater Ray Romano has hit a rough spot. Episodes four and five just has Haku continuing to expand his harem, and it has been typical harem fluff. On the bright side, there’s been a lot of hot springs action. Show needs to pick up with storytelling again instead of randomly introducing characters. Both Tears to Tiara and the original Shadow Warrior Chronicles spaced out their harem introductions a bit better– plus Shadow Warrior Chronicles had a whole war thing going on the first few episodes. Another issue is that Haku is literally a handyman (and not the Gangsta type)… and suddenly he’s turning into a folk hero because he can fix roofs. Does the government really need to pay someone that well to fix drainage ditches, man takoyaki stands, and plant flowers? I really hope this work pays off Karate Kid-style where Haku remembers his roof fixing and that somehow gives him an idea to defeat an enemy like wax on wax off. Okay, probably not happening.

Demon Dog

Sakurako’s Lovely Bones is a bit heavy-handed at times, but I really enjoyed episode four’s demon dog. The episode felt almost like a religion vs. science battle with Sakurako stewing that people are believing in this curse bullshit. The only mystery of this show is how Utsumi is a detective. He hasn’t seen his friend since really middle school, suddenly gets involved in his curse business, and then his friend asks him to take care of his family even though the two haven’t seen each other since middle school? That is insane. “Hey, you know who is perfectly suited to take care of my wife and baby after I die? Some dude I haven’t met in twenty-five years.”

Again, please don’t spoil it if you have already read the book, but my guess is that the family has been running a life insurance scam. This is why everyone dies young, and why despite dying young the family is rich. Generally, if a male dies in his working prime in Japanese society, the family is pretty screwed financially, unless there is some serious life insurance taken out. Also isn’t the dog in the opening? Does Sakurako take the dog?

(One of my favorite things about this show is that Sakurako never wants to do anything as it disturbs her schedule. What is her schedule? I want to know what she does on a normal day. Does she go shopping? Does she read books on bones? Does she polish and dust all her bones? Does she just watch New Girl and Star Trek all day? Does she play Dota 2? What is her MMR? I like to imagine she has a huge Scrooge McDuck-like bank of bones, and she swims in it everyday.)

(I seem to be watching a lot of mystery shows… I hope mystery doesn’t oversaturate like magic high schools…)

Kazuma & Yukine

Loyal to the end.

Unfortunately, Yato vs. Bishamonten doesn’t make the top three fights of the week. To recap, one is Saitama vs. Genos. Two is Tekkadan vs. Gjallarhorn. Three is…

Crows on Crow Violence

… Hinata vs. Kageyama. Holy shit. I did not expect this coming. I did not expect them to fight. I was watching the episode thinking that they really cut back on the animation with a lot of scene re-use, but then they had a wonderfully animated throwdown betweemn Hinata and Kageyama. The two have been getting along great this season, and it’s nice to see them a bit more antagonistic. It always seems to bring out the best in both characters. It’s like the series is going back to its meat and potatoes after spending a few episodes on Hitoka.

(Poor Hitoka who must be traumatized watching the two.)