Weekly Roundup Fall 2018 Week 8

Okay, okay, I know I didn't put a new post up last Thursday. It was Thanksgiving here in the states, and I spent the entire day spending time with my family. I like to think that I earned the holiday, but the fact of the matter is, I should have let you know I was taking that day off ahead of time. I blame the new Pokemon game for being so distracting.

I mean, you can dress Eevee up in cute little outfits. How could I not get distracted?

But enough excuses! You're here for a weekly roundup, and I shall provide. Six shows have stood the test of time, and we actually managed to go the last two weeks without anything being cut. What will happen this week? Well, I'll tell you in a second, so just be patient, alright?

Zombie Land Saga

I said I would document their appearances every week, and I meant it, damn it!

First up this week, we have Dafuq?: The Animation. In episode 8, a strange large man takes an interest in Lily. He turns out to be her father, who was her manager when she was a child actress and alive. They had formed a strong bond watching tv together, but when Lily decided to become an actress to make her father smile through the tv, he became her manager and took things way too far. After Lily's death, his regret led him to giving up television and struggling with depression. Franchouchou decides to send him a coded message in a new song led by Lily, and her father is ready to face the world once again.

This was a really sweet episode, and I really liked it a lot. But why did it have to have such a weird reveal about Lily being transgender? I started getting Double Decker flashbacks when I saw Lily dying of a heart attack upon seeing the beginnings of a beard forming on her face, which apparently means that she is someone with male genitalia who identifies as female. And I mean, that's fine and all, but why was it treated as an absurdist punchline? It's in poor taste to treat trans people as a joke, after all. 

And so, I was ready to drop Zombie Land Saga like I did Double Decker with no regrets, but then something strange happened. Kotaro gave the girls, and the audience by proxy, a lecture for looking at Lily any differently and stubbornly stated that she was a member of Franchouchou no matter what. And the girls agreed. And it wasn't treated as a big deal in the slightest. No further attention is given to her identity after that scene. The show isn't patting itself on the back as some bastion of progressivism. The story is about Lily and her father reconnecting, and she just happens to transgender. And you know what? I respect that. I realize that as a cisgendered male, it's not my place to say what is and isn't appropriate representation, but I think it says a lot that the script treats Lily as a normal person, undead status notwithstanding, and that her friends accept her with very little hesitation after getting over their surprise. Good job, Zombie Land Saga!

Bunny Girl Senpai

Next, we have That Time I Made Peace with the Friendzone and Moved Forward with my Life. In episode 8, Futaba's lewd selfies started with a secret Instagram account she had made a year prior. Her conflicting feelings of enjoying the attention her body provides and feeling disgusted by the people giving her this attention, exacerbated by her feelings for Kunimi, caused her to split in two. When Ponytail Futaba gets threatening messages from a comment on her pictures, Sakuta scares him off by threatening to call the police and deletes the account. Sakuta convinces both versions of Futaba to go to a fireworks festival with him and Kunimi, and their mutual desire to exist and express their feelings for Kunimi allows them to merge back into one. At the festival, Futbaba confesses her feelings and accepts her rejection. Meanwhile, Mai's manager forces her to stop dating for a while, and the blonde from the opening finally appears, and she is really disturbed about...something.

Okay, I know this episode is about Futaba learning to be comfortable with her identity and risking her friendship for the sake of living honestly and junk, and it was really good for all of that, but my main takeaway this week is just how awesome Sakuta is as a protagonist. I know that I've been singing his praises all season, but the fact remains that he never once pressures Futaba into making a decision with how to deal with her situation, subverts the cliche "you'll learn to love yourself" speech and instead says "it's okay to feel the way you do," and puts his health on the line to ensure her safety, all without ever expecting anything from her in return. Even better, Futaba doesn't get any feelings for him because, let's face it, he's still a snarky asshat and only Mai is on his wavelength. 

Kunimi, for his part, would be a very easy character to hate in any other show, since he is indirectly responsible for suicidal thoughts in second best girl Futaba, but he's just a really good friend who has been sticking up for her and Sakuta all series long, regardless of what his horrible girlfriend (who he clearly likes a lot anyway) thinks about them. I mean, the guy drops everything and comes out in the middle of the night when Sakuta tells him that Futaba is in trouble, and upon realizing that it's an emotional situation and not a physical danger, he just spends time with her without once asking for details that he knows she isn't comfortable sharing with him yet. That's a lot of depth for someone stuck in the stock best friend role who doesn't get a lot of screen-time since he lacks both boobs and main character status. 

It does bother me that Mai and Sakuta are being split up by circumstances AGAIN to make room for more girls, but this show has been subverting every harem cliche so far, so I'm willing to see how it goes, and this episode is giving me nothing but good vibes anyway.

SSSS.Gridman

You know, I came here to have a nice time, and I'm honestly feeling a little attacked right now.

Up next, we have Mighty Morphing Gurren Lagann. In episode 8, the school festival is approaching, and Akane tells the Gridman Alliance that she will unleash a new kaiju when the fateful day comes. Rikka and Utsumi argue about how to approach the situation, with Rikka wanting to negotiate while Utsumi tries to come up with a strategy. Ultimately, Rikka's attempt to negotiate fails, and Akane claims to have molded Rikka's personality to be unable to fully turn against her. Desperate, Yuta deploys Gridman before Akane can move, prompting an evacuation, and his strategy of reducing Gridman's size allows all four of the Neon Genesis students to join the battle as well, combining to form Full Power Gridman and defeating the kaiju. As Rikka and Utsumi make up, Akane begins to lose confidence, and Anti just watches silently for the entire episode.

I might sound like a broken record at this point, but Gridman just continues to top itself week after week. Akane just casually bringing the kaiju model to school nearly made me scream, and considering the fact that I watch this show at like 2 in the morning every week, that would have been a very bad idea. The sheer audacity that she has adopted now is shocking, but it makes a lot of sense when you think about it. There's no point in trying to play innocent anymore, so now she can use the heroes' knowledge of her powers against them and keep them off balance. And I honestly thought it was going to work, too. Rikka and Utsumi were fighting, and Yuta saw merit in both of their arguments and was unable to pick a side, which would have left the group divided and distracted. Yuta's strategy to shrink Gridman was a major gamble as well, and I was convinced that Gridman would lose when the battle started. Then the opening started playing, and all doubt was erased and replaced with nigh uncontainable levels of hype. 

I'm not going to bother trying to speculate if Akane was telling the truth when she said that she molded Rikka's personality because honestly, both truth and lies are plausible in this situation, and I don't think it matters either way. The doubt has been sown in Rikka's mind, and that's all that will matter going forward. Probably. I mean, this show loves to prove me wrong, so who knows? At the very least, this new revelation puts the innocent looking ending credits -- a song about friendship starring Rikka and Akane being cute -- into a sinister new context. It almost makes me regret not putting it in the top ten ending songs this year.

Run With the Wind

In episode 8 of Kakeru Whines for 20 Minutes, Kakeru is furious with himself for losing to Fujioka and Manas, and he is taking his anger out on the rest of the team when they still keep a positive attitude. Even though Haiji has stepped up their training, even though Prince has actually taken practice seriously and had a treadmill installed in his room, even though Nico is literally starving himself and pushing himself to the point of exhaustion in a futile effort to match Kakeru's pace, it just isn't enough for him. So, when Haiji tells him he isn't going to the next meet and that he needs to step back and think about what's good for the team, Kakeru asks Prince to quit the team his time doesn't improve at the next meet. After all, he is the weakest runner, and it's for the good of the team...

There is a LOT to unpack this episode. We learned a bit about Nico's backstory: he used to be on a track team in high school, but had to drop out for health reasons. And now that Kakeru and Haiji's ambitions have reawakened his competitive spirit, it's causing him to self-destruct in a way that's really hard to watch but compelling nonetheless. It makes for a good B-plot to Kakeru's story, and the little details of Prince becoming more invested in his training, Yuki trying to look out for the health of his teammates, and King using the Hakone as a weapon in his job interviews really help push the story forward in a very natural-feeling way. And it makes the gut punch at the very end feel that much more powerful. Kakeru just spat in the faces of everyone on the team, Prince especially, and, for the first time in history, I'm siding with Haiji on this one. The others may have been hesitant before, but it's clear that they are now all in, and for Kakeru to refuse to even acknowledge their efforts is messed up. And unless I'm mistaken (and knowing me, I probably am), Haiji was once like Kakeru, and it nearly cost him his ability to run altogether. If that turns out to be the case, then I really appreciate the subtle clues I thought I saw today about Haiji's backstory.

Hinomaru Sumo

In episode 8 of Deja Vu: The Animation, Yuma steps forward to challenge Kanamori in the third bout of the preliminary finals. His renewed karate lessons seem to earn him the upper had, but he is ultimately defeated by his more experienced opponent, leaving Dachi High with two losses. Ozeki then faces off against Sanada, who has a similar history of dealing with delinquents trying to run the sumo club out of his school. Unlike Ozeki, however, Sanada chose to fight the delinquents off, defeating 30 opponents with little effort. But in the current bout, Ozeki's incredible endurance allows him to outlast Sanada, and though both fell out of the ring simultaneously, Sanada hits the ground first, tying the score once again and leaving the final bout between Hinomaru and Sada as the tiebreaker.

I'm going to start this off by saying that last week's episode was better only because it did the exact same thing as this week's episode: have two bouts showcase the character development of the contenders of the week, with the first ending in a loss and the second in a win. When the format is exactly the same as what just happened last episode, any sort of tension is lost. That sort of the thing is unfortunately par for the course in sports anime: the first official match always comes down to the wire, and there was no chance of the match ending before the protagonist stepped into the ring. Things probably would have been a little more effective if either the order of the matches were swapped or if Yuma won and Ozeki lost. Give the illusion of Dachi gaining momentum before Ishigami grinds it to a halt, you know?

Either way, these fights were great. Seeing Yuma freely admit to feeling remorse for the way he treated Ozeki and give his all trying to earn a win in order to redeem himself was a treat to watch, and everything about Ozeki's fight was hype as hell. With two incredibly strong episodes in a row, Hinomaru Sumo seems to have finally hit its stride and is ready to move from being a pretty good show to a potentially great one. It still has a ways to go before attaining that status, but damned if I'm not excited to see how far it can get.

Skull-face Bookseller Honda-san

And lastly, limping to the finish line, we have a dead horse. In episode 7, Honda goes to the movies with the rep from his wholesaler. Meanwhile, the real-life Honda goes to a mixer for various booksellers and the other attendees complain about his manga not accurately representing their experiences.

I think that it has been well established that I like this show a lot, even though it hasn't had the best track record. I gave it a lot more slack when it had bad episodes than I did for Goblin Slayer and That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime, which are both arguably better shows than this (that really hurt to admit). And the last time I gave it a pass, I made a vow that if there was another bad episode, I would be cutting it from the roundup. 

Well, my friends, we have reached that point. The first section was too long and had nothing interesting going on. And while the second section of actual booksellers saying that the manga was bad had potential to be really funny, they didn't really do anything with the idea. I'm still probably going to be watching this on my own time, since it does appeal to my weirdly specific tastes, but this will be the last time I cover it on the roundup. Last week's episode felt like it should have been the finale anyway.

And with that, week 8 of the weekly roundup has come to a close. We are officially two thirds of the way through the Fall 2018 season, and 5 shows have made it to the home stretch. Zombie Land Saga and Gridman each have four episodes left, Bunny Girl has five, and Run with the Wind and Hinomaru Sumo each will be continuing into the Winter 2019 season. Will they all survive? Will Sakura regain her memories? Will Mai and Sakuta ever change their relationship status from "It's Complicated"? Will Rikka betray the Gridman Alliance? Will Prince quit the track team? Will Hinomaru beat Sada? Will I actually post that Code Geass essay I hinted at two weeks ago? Find out all of this and more, here on the Weekly Weeablog's Roundup!