Zombie Land Saga
First up, we have episode 6 of Suddenly: Drama! Kotaro arranges a photo op between the girls and their burgeoning fanbase. But Junko, who comes from an era where the relationship between an idol and her fans was more impersonal, feels uncomfortable with the situation and runs out on the group. Ai confronts her about this and the two have a huge fight. The circumstances behind Junko and Ai's deaths are then revealed: Junko died in a plane crash on her way to a performance and Ai was struck by lightning in the middle of a concert. Junko even considers leaving Franchouchou due to the fight. But Kotaro surprises them all by announcing that they were invited to participate in the Saga Rock festival, where Ai's former group is also coming for a one time reunion concert.
Before this episode, I didn't like Ai and Junko at all. I thought that they were pointless as characters and that having two former idols was redundant and boring. After this episode, I am on board with the idea behind their inclusion. The drama between two fundamentally different approaches to building a career in show business and maintaining a relationship with your fans is genuinely fascinating to me, and since the two of them actually got to do something for once, I'm starting to actually understand who they are, what they are all about, and why I should care about them. Even better, the conflict between them still wasn't resolved by the end of the episode, promising a storyline that will evolve from episode to episode, which is something I feel that this show desperately needed. And Ai's death scene? Goddamn. That was almost as legendary as the LEGENDARY Yamada Tae herself.
But most importantly, as pictured above: THE METAL FANS CAME BACK!! HUZZAH!!
Hinomaru Sumo
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| I feel like I should be calling the police.... |
On episode six of Training Arc: The Animation, Hinomaru trains with the professionals at Shibakiyama Stable. At first, they dismiss him due to his small size, but he manages to impress them enough to hold his own with all but the very best of them. While he is there, he also meets Saki, the manager of a rival high school sumo club that is the current national champion.
This is a good training episode, but it feels like it shouldn't have been here. We've already had a training episode this season back when Kirihito worked with the Dachi High team. I understand that Hinomaru is on another level and needs extra attention from even more specialized instructors, but having a whole episode dedicated to that idea feels like the show is just wasting time. Which is weird considering how this show usually just jumps from plot point to plot point with no signs of slowing down. But, hey, at least we got to hype up a rival school without spending so much time revealing everything about their members this time. I can't wait to see them in a tournament. Which, again, I really hope happens soon, because as much fun as I'm having with this show, I feel like the pacing needs a lot of work. It's simultaneously too fast for any idea it presents to be properly developed, but not quick enough to just be a fun ride all the way through. I know that probably makes no sense and I'm just mindlessly hating on the show, but I do still enjoy my time with Hinomaru Sumo quite a lot. It's just hard to talk about the good stuff without just repeating every single thing that happened and saying "Yeah, that was cool." What you see is what you get, and that's great, but it also makes the flaws stand out that much more. Hinomaru Sumo is cheesy and goofy and, above all else, a lot of fun. I just wish it would stop taking itself so seriously and truly embrace that.
Skull-Face Bookseller Honda-san
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| Is that a Golden Kamuy reference? Best episode of the season (and that includes any episode of the actual Golden Kamuy)! |
Next up is episode five of "Wait, That's It?" Honda struggles to deal with the crowds drawn to the store by a book signing, gives directions to a lost Brazilian tourist, and muses on the nature of erotic manga and novels in a traditionalist nation like Japan.
I wish I could have made the episode sound interesting, but it really wasn't. There are still shout outs to a bunch of anime and manga that I appreciate -- especially the Golden Kamuy reference this week -- and I liked seeing Honda struggle to come up with a diplomatic answer to a caller asking about erotic manga being published under shonen labels, but this was still kind of a boring episode, and it's very disappointing after the excellent episode last week. If you're going to have a sketch about a book signing from a supposedly famous manga artist, why not go all the way and make a parody of Akira Toriyama or Eiichiro Oda or something? You got the French manga guy a few weeks ago, after all! I'd even settle for a hack like Reki Kawahara or Hiro Mashima (how many fans did I just trigger with that sentence?). I don't want to drop Honda-san, since it appeals so specifically to me as someone who loves manga and works in customer service, but I don't think I can take another bad episode just because it appeals to my weird taste. So, let it be known, Honda! You've had two strikes! One more and you're out! I'm being stupidly generous with you, so don't screw it up!
Run With the Wind
In episode six of I'm Not Mad, Just Disappointed, King continues to struggle with his job search, still choosing to ignore practice sessions as he does so. He starts to lose hope as he angrily stomps from one interview to another, occasionally gambling while he waits for a response, as he watches the others work to get community sponsors to help with the track club's budget. Eventually, though, Haiji and Shindo manage to convince him to keep running, without having to drop his job search altogether.
So, for the first time, I find myself disappointed in Run With the Wind. This wasn't a bad episode at all, but my expectations have just been set so high that even an episode that is just pretty good is still a bit of a disappointment. My main complaint is about this whole episode can also be applied to the series as a whole: Haiji acts like a manipulative jerk and just gets away with it. King still calls him out on trying to run his life, but Haiji never actually backs off and says, "You know what, go ahead and get a job. I was wrong." They just sort of silently agree to drop the issue. What I do appreciate, though, is Haiji and Shindo's argument to get King back into running. I've been in King's situation before, relatively recently in fact. Looking for a job sucks, especially when you get to the point where there's nothing else you can do except wait for a response from potential employers. Finding a healthy way to spend your time like running (or a modest amount of gaming in my case) can keep the stress from getting to you, which can actually cause physical illness if left unaddressed for too long. Should King be forced to run, though? No. But being convinced to do so by his friends in a non-confrontational way, to the point where he makes the decision to continue running on his own? I'm okay with that.
It's just too bad that for the first time, it didn't feel like there were a dozen smaller things going on in the background and that King's story was the only story worth looking at. Yuki had a cool moment of taking Haiji's side for once, but that was about it. But this still was a good episode, even if it was the weakest one so far, and next week is the track meet, so I'm expecting some juicy drama from that.
Bunny Girl
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| First Hinomaru, now you? What is with anime being so horny this week? |
In episode six of All You Need is Kill (points if you get the reference), Sakuta and Koga's fake relationship is coming to an end, but there's a complication: Koga is developing genuine feelings for Sakuta. Hoping to find a way to convince him to date her for real, Koga starts a brand new time loop and lies about being responsible for it. Eventually, Sakuta is able to convince her that this plan is unhealthy and impractical, and Koga undoes the entire history of their fake relationship, going back to the day where the whole fake relationship began and rejecting the upperclassman on her own, allowing Sakuta to regain his lost time with Mai. Sakuta and Mai run into a young girl named Shoko at the end of the episode, and since her first and last name is the same as the upperclassman who had helped him with his Adolescent Syndrome years ago, Sakuta is understandably surprised by this revelation.
All of my complaining about this arc is now null and void. This finale made up for all of it. Sakuta and Mai will probably always be my ship for this show, but the writers did such a good job endearing me to Koga that I was genuinely upset when I noticed that she was in love with Sakuta and couldn't let go of him. I do like that the circumstances behind this new time loop is left ambiguous at first, to the point where I was genuinely wondering if Sakuta was the one who had developed feelings for Koga and started his own time loop subconsciously. That might have been interesting to see, but the scene of Koga coming to terms with her own feelings was so good that I don't even want to see any other possible scenario. I don't know what's going on with Shoko and why she's suddenly younger -- time travel has been introduced already, so probably that -- but I can't wait for her to inevitably develop feelings for Sakuta and have supernatural mishaps occur because she dared get in the way of the one true pairing that is Sakuta and Mai.
SSSS.Gridman
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| And on that day, humanity received a grim reminder... |
Finally, we have episode six of The Animatrix. Akane orders Anti to find and kill Yuta, but Anti gets lost and bumps into Rikka instead, who gives him a proper meal and the first bath of his life. Akane tracks down Shou and tries to get information about Yuta from him, but Shou purposefully lies to her, thinking that he is protecting her from the war between Gridman and the kaiju. Meanwhile, a little girl reveals herself to be another intelligent kaiju to Yuta, and takes him out of the city. There, she reveals that the entire city is a simulation controlled by Akane, who's been destroying and remaking the city as a systems administrator. While she had been benign before, the recent string of killings is confirmed to be due to the influence of Alexis, who had originated independently of the situation. Anti finds and attacks Yuta upon his return to the city, but Max and Calibur drive him off and convince him that he and Gridman are not one and the same.
I am stunned by the sheer weight of all that we've learned this week. This was a masterful reveal that puts everything that has happened before into a new light. While I was suspicious about the resets before, I had assumed that they were being done by Gridman, similarly to how the good guys from Code Lyoko would rewind time after stopping the latest attack from XANA every episode. Regardless of who was the cause, I did find it curious that an entire city could be rebuilt and an entire populace's memories could be rewritten overnight. But if the entire city is artificial? That's just as simple as changing a few lines of code. But that just begs the question: Are any of the characters we've been following actually human? Or all they are programs? Is Akane the only one that's truly real? If so, what purpose does the simulation serve? Did she create it? Can she leave at any time? Where did Alexis come from? If he came from outside the system, then it would stand to reason that Gridman did as well. Are THEY human, or are they other programs that just came from outside the system?
My current theory is that the simulation was created by Akane as a way to escape responsibility and create a perfect fantasy world. Then Alexis remotely accessed her fantasy and began feeding into her childish impulses in order to exploit her brilliant mind for nefarious purposes. Being aware of this, Gridman created Yuta as an avatar to infiltrate the simulation and combat Alexis's influence. But there was an error in transferring Yuta's data into the simulation, which resulted in his amnesia. Am I even close to right? Probably not, but I'm writing this at 2:30 in the morning after a 9 hour shift while dealing with what is probably the beginnings of a fever, and it's the best I can come up with under these conditions.
So ends this week's roundup. Coming up on Thursday, a look back at one of my favorite anime of all time. Here's a quick hint as to what that is:
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