Weekly Roundup Winter 2019 Week 3

We are officially a quarter of the way into the winter 2019 season. Pastel Memories was eliminated last week, leaving us with 12 shows to talk about this week. And just like last week, I found another winter anime that I wish I included in the roundup instead of Pastel Memories! Yeah!

I'm just stunned that there exists a harem comedy that I actually unironically enjoy.

Hinomaru Sumo

First up on the roundup this week is Episode 15 of NEW OPENING HYPE!! The individual tournament at the national inter-high sumo championships has begun, and Hinomaru is matched up against Tennoji, the reigning high school yokozuna, very early on. Hinomaru has admired Tennoji for a long time, as he was also an undersized sumo wrestler when they were younger before having a growth spurt in middle school. Likewise, Tennoji feels genuine respect for Hinomaru for still being a force to be reckoned with despite his stature, and has studied his techniques extensively. Though Hinomaru manages to gain the upper hand in the match occasionally, it seems that Tennoji has a counter planned for every tactic he tries. Eventually, Hinomaru is defeated and loses his chance of winning the individual title and having a shot at the pro leagues. Hinomaru shrugs the loss off, choosing to focus on the team tournament, where a rematch against Tennoji may help give him another chance at making the pro circuit this year. However, the rest of the team refuses to let him participate in the first day's matches due to an injury, and promise to maintain their spot in the tournament until he is cleared to return to competition. 

So, this may take the record for being the shortest tournament in anime history. In only one episode, Hinomaru is out of the running for the individual title. Which, I admit, I did not see coming. Even when he was paired up against Tennoji so early, someone who had "final boss" written on his forehead in an all cap glitter font, I was half expecting Hinomaru to pull off an upset victory and kick off an arc about Tennoji realizing that he may have been underestimating his opponents. Even My Hero Academia and Pokemon, which have previously surprised audiences by having their audiences by having their protagonists lose the tournament fairly early, had taken multiple episodes and showed them getting a few wins before being eliminated. People talk about subverting expectations a lot these days, but I don't think anyone aside from manga readers could have expected this!

But does that make it a good twist? It's tough to say at this point. If this leads into interesting develoipments for Hinomaru and the story moving forward, then I will say yes. But I have a sinking feeling that this may have been a mistake, where the desire to surprise the audience runs the risk of leaving the story with nowhere interesting to go. After all, right after Hinomaru says that he has no choice but to wait until next year's tournament, Ozeki comes out and says that, conveniently, it is possible to have multiple high school yokozunas if they can get matched up against Tennoji in the team tournament. It's almost as if they wanted to have a moment to make you upset, but were worried about losing viewers by making a situation that seemed hopeless and chickened out at the last minute. That's not to say that the episode was bad -- far from it, this was the best bout yet -- but it has the potential to make future episodes worse. And that's...certainly interesting...

Girly Air Force

He's actually just watching Island.

Next up, we have Wait, That's It? In Episode 3, Gripen's test flight is right around the corner, and Yashirodoori has made an important discovery: Gripen's brainwaves are synchronizing with Kei's, providing her with additional mental stability. However, just moments after he learns that the Xi have destroyed his home town, Kei is told the truth: Gripen and the other Anima are made from retrofitted Xi technology. Angry and betrayed, Kei abandons Gripen, though he has a change of heart on the morning of her test flight. When a Xi aircraft attacks during the test flight, Gripen suddenly passes out and seems doomed -- that is, until a second Anima named Eagle comes to her rescue.

The frustrating thing about this show is that it's not bad enough to get cut at this point. The animation and sound design are competent, the actors are doing a passable job, and Gripen still manages to be adorable from time to time. Compared to some of the hot garbage we've had on this season's roundup, that isn't so bad to sit through. Unfortunately, it just leaves me with nothing to really say about this episode other than, well, it certainly exists. The big "twist"  that the Anima are made from Xi parts was something that I was expecting, if for no other reason than the fact that this show has a lot of surface level elements in common with Darling in the FRANXX (pink haired girl who has some sort of defect paired with a precocious boy who wants to pilot a military vehicle, girl kisses boy upon first meeting him in a military setting, mysterious scientist keeping tabs on the children, strange alien enemies, etc etc), which had a similarly predictable twist near the end of its run. The only difference between the two is that FRANXX was never this boring. And the last two episodes may not have been masterpieces either, but at least I wasn't bored watching them. The only time I had an emotional response in this show was Eagle's introduction, and even then, it was mostly nausea upon hearing her call Yashirodoori "Daddy". I mean, he built her, so it's techincally accurate, but still. Ew.

Boogiepop and Others

You know, just because you're a mystery show doesn't mean it's okay for you to say that!

Well, this week is off to a...less than ideal start. Let's break up that disappointment with something good, shall we? On episode 4 of the Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Confusing Nonsense, a girl named Suiko prepares to throw herself off the roof of the school when she is confronted by Boogiepop. After they trade, confusing dialogue, Boogiepop reveals Suiko to be possessed by a supernatural being called the Imaginator. The Imaginator throws herself off the roof, but then appears behind Boogiepop and challenges them to find her before she "hits the ground" and vanishes. The Imaginator reappears to visit Asukai, a guidance counselor who can see the hearts of everyone around him, realized as roses that are missing something, be it roots, thorns, or a bud. The Imaginator claims that she can see death, and shows Asukai a version of the future where he kills several people, shaking him to his core. At a chance encounter with a former student who is addicted to drugs and desperate for money, Asukai watches in horror as the Imaginator possesses the girl and slits her throat. As he cradles the girl's dying body, Asukai sees a complete rose for the first time. Fascinated, he decides to experiment with his new powers on some would be rapists, and his personality is suddenly much more sinister. Meanwhile, Boogiepop appears before one of Suiko's friends and talks her out of suicide in a misguided attempt to join her friend, though they also claim to have killed Suiko, calling her an "enemy of this world". 

I have no idea what the hell is going on. And the problem with mystery shows like this is that it's very difficult to determine if that's because it's an effective mystery or if it's just badly written until after everything is said and done. This show is fun to watch since it has good animation, a creepy atmosphere, and good voice acting, but it's so damn hard to talk about story-wise. All that's left to do is speculate. But before I do that, can I just mention that I hate that "snow falls in April" line? They repeat it like six times in this episode and I've got a feeling that it's just nonsense that only sounds profound but doesn't actually mean anything. 

Anyway, I think that after the staged encounter with his former student, the Imaginator has given Asukai the knowledge that he can give people closure and make them emotionally whole -- thus making their roses whole -- but only after they have suffered bodily harm and are at death's door. It's fleeting, but it's beautiful to him, and it makes him feel powerful. The only problem is that that doesn't really line up with his experiments battling the rapists since he claims that he hasn't hurt them. Does his ability to bring this closure and balance require him to drain their life force? That would mean that he doesn't technically physically hurt them, since they don't feel pain, but it would still line up with the vision of him killing everybody. I'm not sure if that is the case exactly, but I think I'm on the right track. Either way, this show is creepy good fun, and it never fails to keep me engaged with its pseudo-philosophy mumbo jumbo.

The Promised Neverland

I had a funny title in mind for this episode, I swear, but I forgot what it was when I looked at that face. Anyway, in Episode 3, Mama has recruited Sister Krone to help her determine who among the children knows the truth about Grace Field House. Or so it appears. Mama actually already knows her targets' identities, and she only needs Krone to keep them at the House until their scheduled shipment date, choosing not to report this so as not to ruin a very important shipment for a high ranking demon that she has a great deal of pressure to meet. Seeing an opportunity for advancement, Krone decides to investigate the leak herself so that she could report Mama's deception and take her job for herself. Meanwhile, as she and Gilda are helping take care of the babies, Emma realizes that the tracking devices were implanted in their earlobes during their physicals and vaccinations. However, Ray decides that training the other children for life outside the House is more important than trying to remove the trackers at this time, and Emma has a suggestion: training without telling them what they're training for by playing tag. Realizing what they are up to, Krone decides to intimidate the children by joining in the game, but Ray and Norman manage to avoid her for the duration of the match, and Emma would have escaped as well if she didn't go back for her siblings. However, as neither Mama nor Krone has made a move in the days since, the trio realize that they have another problem: one of their siblings is reporting to the adults.

This is exactly what I was talking about last week. Emma is the one who comes up with the brilliant idea of using a game of tag to train the children in physical conditioning and strategic thinking simultaneously AND she is the one who figured out where to find the tracking device. Anyone who thinks she doesn't deserve those perfect scores hasn't been paying attention! Anyway, this is the best episode of Promised Neverland yet. Sister Krone is one of the best characters in the series in my opinion, and her actress is going above and beyond my expectations and bringing the calculating yet overdramatic psychopath to life. Not to mention that we got to learn a little bit  more about the world outside of Grace Field House: namely, there are several other production facilities that farm children for the demons, and most of them are falling behind in production. This detail does a good job of adding some worldbuilding to the series while also justifying Mama's decision to wait and just ship out the children like normal; she has a lot of pressure on her to deliver high quality merchandise. Also, I'm sure that if you're paying attention, the traitor seems obvious, but is it a fakeout? I mean, I did read the manga, but I don't even remember a traitor subplot in this first arc (I read it like 3 years ago), so I don't know. But I can't wait to find out!

Dimension High School

God, I wish that was me.

Whoa, there, we can't have too much positivity this early in the season. Time for something bad. In Episode 3 of Sudden Plot: The Animation: determined to rescue Tsuyoshi from the Sphinx Paramesos, Yurio begins a logic puzzle training montage. Spudio tells the 4 chosen heroes that Paramesos is from an alternate Earth (which was presumably also 3D) where Oedipus never defeated the Sphinx, so now humans are extinct. With its normal food source depleted, Paramesos traveled to the 2D world, where he defeated Spudio and ate the rest of its denizens as Spudio fled to the 3D world to find heroes to aid him (the process of which turned him into a rock). When Paramesos arrives to challenge the boys yet again, with the most complex puzzle yet, Yurio stuns them all by giving the correct answer with one second remaining on the clock. Paramesos disintegrates and Tsuyoshi is brought back to life. Yurio tearfully admits to Tsuyoshi that he sabotaged his motorcycle in order to create an incident for them to become friends (by pointing out that something was wrong before Tsuyoshi drove off. He didn't think his plan through.), but Tsuyoshi doesn't give it a thought and is just glad that they're friends again. As the episode ends, the narrator hints that the 3D world is still in danger.

I don't know what I was expecting from Dimension High School, but lore wasn't it. I mean, it wasn't really much of a backstory, but still, it was more than I expected. I honestly thought that the whole talking rock thing was just something that was going to go unexplained. If anything, I half expected the show to double down and reveal that all the inhabitants of the 2D world were talking rocks or Gorons or something. It just seemed weird enough for this show, you know? Anyway, this still isn't very good. It's not like it was magically going to be any better produced, but even the story isn't worth talking about this week. Disappointing lore aside, the big "reveal" that Yurio sabotaged Tsuyoshi's bike wasn't a surprise in the slightest. Hell, Ryusei actually suggested that that was the case last week! Did nobody proofread this script? The whole time I had dismissed the idea because it was too obvious, and I actually convinced myself that Yurio was acting weird because he had a crush on Tsuyoshi and thought he was straight. I mean, don't get me wrong, the two of them still act super gay, but it's all in that disappointingly gay anime way where nobody actually says anything and everyone pretends they're just really close friends and yaoi fans are crazy even though they are the only ones brave enough to admit the truth.

Wait, what was I talking about? I don't know, this show doesn't give me a lot to work with. It only survives thanks to the existence of something worse, it's probably going to die next week, let's just move on.

Run With the Wind

Alright, next up is I'm Not Crying, You're Crying! In Episode 14, with the summer training camp officially over, the Kansei University team sets their sights on the next step of their journey: getting official records for the qualifier for the remaining members of the team that have not done so yet. Nico and King manage to get their needed times relatively quickly, but Prince is still not quite there yet. Track meet after track meet passes by, yet even though his times are improving, he still has not met the minimum required time for the qualifying race. That is, until the very last official meet, where Prince, spurred on by the love and support of his teammates, just barely manages to get the time needed for his team to make it to the Hakone Qualifier.

Do you want to know how important all those seemingly insignificant little moments are that I focus on each week when we talk about this show? Those little moments are the building blocks that endear the audience to your characters and get you invested in their struggles, and if you pull those off well enough on a consistent basis, you get an episode like this one. The moment I saw Prince running in the middle of the pack, I had to pause the video so I could catch my breath and keep from hyperventilating in excitement. My heart was beating out of my chest, and when I saw the clock, I started to cry. And I could go on and on about how good the staging was for this moment, from the music to the camera angles to Prince's internal monologue, but that would be missing the real secret to that moment's success. Huge moments like this cannot work in any story unless the necessary time is taken to set you up to care about those moments.

This is why I love sports anime so much! I don't care about track and field in the slightest. If I watched a random person run a race, I would not lose any sleep over who the victor was. But because the characters care about the outcome of their races and the show has made me care about the characters through all those seemingly unimportant little stories I keep focusing on, the race is now the most important thing in the world to me at that moment. Any really good story can do that to an audience, no matter what the subject matter is, and it's such a shame to me that so many times these shows get dismissed out of hand because potential viewers don't have a personal interest in the subject matter. Stories are about more than the events that happen in them. They are about characters and atmosphere and emotion! If you aren't already watching Run With the Wind, then I urge you to watch it just so that you can experience this moment like I did!

Rising of the Shield Hero

The Wave of Catastrophe kinda looks like a peacock, huh?

Next up we have Episode 3 of Incel Vindication: the Animation. The first Wave of Catastrophe is nigh, and Naofumi and the other Heroes have assembled to face it. Motoyasu taunts Naofumi over his fall from grace, which piques Raphtalia's curiosity, but she refuses to pursue it after Naofumi tells her to drop it. When the Wave actually arrives, the other three Heroes charge to face the boss monster, but Naofumi and Raphtalia notice that a nearby village is being targeted by the minions of the boss, which the other Heroes have ignored in favor of the faster but more risky strategy of just killing the boss and ending the Wave sooner. Naofumi lures the monsters away from the villagers alone as Raphtalia evacuates the civilians, and is soon aided by the male villagers and Raphtalia when they refuse to leave their home without a fight. When the royal knights finally arrive to provide clean up for the Heroes, their indiscriminate magic bombings nearly kill Naofumi and Raphtalia, prompting a confrontation between Raphtalia and the knights' commander. When Naofumi deescalates the situation by pointing out that there are still monsters to defeat, the knights abandon them to go support the other Heroes, save for one small squad that chooses to help Naofumi protect the villagers. As the dust settles after the battle, the other Heroes question why Naofumi didn't show up to help while the villagers thank the Shield Hero for actually thinking about them.

You know, for a cataclysmic event that was being hyped up for the whole series up to this point, the first Wave of Catastrophe was kinda boring. This might have been effective as a light novel where you can imagine everything happening in your mind, but I've never seen an army of deadly monsters stand still for so long and get mowed down so easily since I last played Hyrule Warriors. It doesn't take a lot to keep me interested in a fight scene, but I was honestly pretty bored here. Very disappointing.

That's not to say that the episode was all bad, though. As much as you're supposed to dislike them, I do actually like seeing the other Heroes again. I mean, I'd prefer to have seen them do something other than antagonize Naofumi, but I like their designs, they add an interesting wrinkle to the typical isekai setup, and I want to see more of them (especially the Bow Hero Itsuki). The fact that they're living the typical wish fulfillment isekai life while Naofumi is struggling to survive thanks to being framed for a crime he didn't commit is a cool element of this story, and I think it would be more effective if I could see more of them. So far, only Motoyasu has a defined personality to latch onto, and though he's a bit of a jerk now, I remember him being more likable in episode 1. I wonder if Myne's manipulation and his perception of Naofumi as a rapist changed his attitude? And I suppose that it's gratifying that Naofumi is getting supporters among the common people even when the crown and the other Heroes despise him, but I can't help but shake the feeling that something is off. Even before he was framed, nobody aside from the shopkeeper wanted to help Naofumi, even though he is supposedly just as vital to protecting the world as the other Heroes. And now, the Royal Knights just bomb the area indiscriminately, not even caring that the Shield Hero is in the blast radius and then subtly threatening to kill him if he doesn't stay out of their way? Even if you hate him because you think he's a sexual predator, that doesn't make sense when the king explicitly said he was keeping him alive because they needed him to fight the Waves. Either the author didn't think this plot through, or something else is happening behind the scenes that will be revealed later. Hopefully, it's the latter.

Magical Girl Asuka

Can you please make this real, LIDENFILMS? That would be great.

In Episode 3 of Boobies and Blood, in Tijuana, the magical girl Mia leads a raid on a drug cartel only to find evidence of something more sinister going on. Back in Japan, despite Kurumi and the commander's persistent requests, Asuka continues to refuse the invitation to join the new magical combat squad. Nozomi notices that Sayako is still struggling with her trauma, and suggests that the girls have a day out at the pool to help her take her mind off of things. As the girls play, Nozomi's father learns the name of the organization backing the terrorists: Babel Brigade, a group that seems to be dedicated to eliminating all magical girls. Threatened by the progress of his investigation, Babel Brigade makes their move and kidnaps Nozomi on her way home from the pool, and Asuka is none the wiser...

This was, mostly, a bit of a slower paced episode than the last two, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. Seeing Asuka and Kurumi just hanging out at school and being happy like normal kids is just the sort of wholesome thing I love to see (not to mention the ship teases), even though I know that the whole thing is just a scheme to get me invested in the well-being of the characters so as to make the later action scenes that much more impactful and tense. See, when you start looking at stories in an analytical way, sometimes you run the risk of losing the chance to have moments actually mean something to you as you start thinking about how the staff is trying to get its audience to feel a certain way. It's almost like a cynical defense mechanism against feeling manipulated. Luckily, as we've established several times in the past, I'm a total pushover for mushy stuff done well, so I'm all in for more high school shenanigans with Asuka and her friends. Not to mention that the juxtaposition of these light-hearted scenes with the more serious scenes with Mia or Nozomi's father creates a feeling of unease and tension in the back of your mind. You know that things aren't all okay and you become an anxious mess wondering if the girls will be safe when everything goes wrong. And, as this episode delights in reminding us, the answer is no. They are not safe. And I just want it to be next week already so I know that Nozomi is okay!

Dororo

I have no joke here, this is just a nice shot.

We're almost done! Next up we have Episode 3 of Durarara. Jukai was once an executioner for the wicked Lord Shiba, but upon seeing his lord murder an innocent civilian in addition to his political enemies, he became fed up with the whole thing, and threw himself into the sea. However, he was rescued by a foreign ship, and his rescuers taught him the art of medicine and prosthetics. Having returned to Japan to try to do something good for a change, Jukai opens a practice and provides prosthetics to anyone who asks, free of charge. But when his past as a servant of Lord Shiba is revealed, his assistant walks out on him and his patients stop coming. Resigned to dying alone and reflecting on his sins, Jukai is given another chance to do something good when he finds the boat carrying baby Hyakkimaru washed up near his home. Jukai gives Hyakkimaru his prosthetics, raises him, and teaches him to defend himself. After watching Hyakkimaru leave his home to hunt down the demons that stole his body parts, Jukai wanders the land, giving prosthetics to the dead in order to prepare them for the afterlife and wondering if he did the right thing by teaching an innocent boy how to kill.

Does anyone else feel like this should have been episode 2? I understand why it was placed here, as the scene near the end with Dororo implies that he is learning the broad strokes of Hyakkimaru's past with the audience, but it just feels weird to introduce a character with a mysterious past, ignore it for one week, and then suddenly bring it back like it's no big deal. Ultimately it doesn't matter though, since this episode was great. While the animation was a bit on the minimalistic side this episode, the actual artwork was breathtaking, and hearing the pops and clicks of Hyakkimaru's body was incredible. Jukai himself is an excellent tragic character, one who feels true remorse for his actions and wants to repent, yet still is rejected time and again by society, even when we the audience know that he is a changed man and is truly doing good work now. I never really expected to get a full backstory episode for Hyakkimaru since it was already implied that Jukai was the one to rescue him and give him prosthetics back in episode 1, but I'm happy with the story this episode told and I'm ready to see what comes next.

Domestic Girlfriend

I feel like this is how I look when I talk about anime.

In Episode 3 of Cheaters: the Animation, despite Hina's request that he stays out of her affairs, Natsuo can't shake the worry he feels about her relationship with her boyfriend. As he vents to his friend and confidant Fumiya, they end up seeing her on a date, and it turns out that she is dating a married man! Natsuo confronts Hina about it at home, tempers run high, and he ends up kissing her on impulse. Hina pushes him down on her bed and then comments on Natsuo's very natural feelings of panic and nervousness and says that this is proof that he's just a dumb kid who doesn't understand her grown-up problems. Unsurprisingly, these condescending comments and dismissal of someone who was mostly just trying to help her leave Natsuo feeling angry, jealous, and frustrated, so he runs away from home and camps out at Fumiya's apartment. Rui later runs away in solidarity, having found out about the affair earlier -- in fact, Hina gave her the same condescending answer when she confronted her about it, which prompted her to have sex with Natsuo in the first place -- and the two of them later return home with a plan to break up Hina and her boyfriend.

Do you want to know one of the best signs of a good show? It's when every episode builds upon what has come before, providing context for characters' prior actions and showing them responding to previous events in a way that either best fits what we know about their character or that shows us something new about their character that doesn't contradict with what we have already seen. That sort of writing leads to each episode being better than the previous one, especially in the early episodes when things are still being set up. I mean, when I came into this show, I was expecting a wish-fulfillment harem comedy with a milquetoast protagonist who I was going to hate. I wasn't expecting a family drama where I genuinely care about all parties involved and just want everyone to be happy and go on picnics together. I mean, thank God Natsuo is just acting like a scared little boy just trying to figure out the best way to help his sister. Yeah, he kisses her, but I get it. They've only actually been related for like two weeks at this point and he's still adjusting to thinking of her as family and not as a crush. Hopefully, he grows out of that mindset later.

Anyway, the only other thing I need to say is that even though Fumiya was in episode 1, this is our first real introduction to him as a character, and he might be my favorite. Every other line he says is comedy gold, and the scene where he and Natsuo improvise dialogue between Hina and her boyfriend on a date at the cafe where he works (albeit before Natsuo knew they were talking about Hina) had me laughing harder than anything else this week. What a great episode!

The Price of Smiles

Uh, Crunchyroll? Your subtitles are broken again.

Next up is Episode 3 of Moe Code Geass. One month has passed since the battle of Grad. Imperial soldier Stella and the rest of her squad have a new commander: Ensign Gale Owens. Owens and Stella are sent on a reconnaissance mission at a border fortress in Soleil that was seemingly abandoned by the Royal Army. While there, the two of them befriend a group of war orphans, and learn that a group of knights are up to something mysterious in another base. Owens soon discovers that the Royal Army is using the experimental new power source, known as chrars, for their mechs to create an underground greenhouse that will allow their army to outlast the Empire in a war of attrition. When the squad is ordered to steal the chrars and destroy the base, Owens breaks protocol in order to evacuate the orphans. But when one of the older children realizes that he is an Imperial officer, he refuses to go with them and keeps the younger children back. The standoff is ended when Stella forces the children to evacuate with them at gunpoint, and the children curse the names of the soldiers who are saving their lives.

So, let's recap. Episode 1 of Price of Smiles? Not very good. Episode 2? Better, but still only just okay overall. Episode 3? Hot damn, this was actually good! The Imperial soldiers are immediately more likable than the Knights of Soleil (Yuki and Joshua notwithstanding), and the tense on-foot infiltration and systematic murder of all the guards was much more fun to watch than last week's mech battle. And seeing Stella point her gun at the little girl she just had a bonding moment with mere hours ago? A chill went down my spine. I had already found Stella interesting by that point -- declaring that you would murder an innocent child princess for the good of your nation with a smile on your face would do that  -- but she just instantly became my favorite character so far. Especially since the show is not afraid to show us that she isn't proud of what she did in the slightest. She clearly hates killing and war, but she feels like she still has no other choice, so she might as well hide her pain and stay positive. That is why she is the Smiling Soldier.  It's not healthy to think like that, but it's understandable and endears me to her. 

If my love of Code Geass didn't make it clear, some of my favorite stories are war stories with sympathetic and likable characters on both sides, preferably where nobody has the moral high ground. And Price of Smiles is clearly aiming for that tone. The Empire is an invading nation, murdering thousands upon thousands of people, but the dialogue in this episode (and in episode 1, actually) suggests that they do so out of desperation; Soleil is wealthy and prosperous while the Empire is poor and starving. I'm expecting a revelation where Yuki's parents had some horrible foreign policy that led to the Empire's current predicament, thus creating a cycle of violence. Either way, this is very interesting stuff and I'm glad I decided to give this show a chance to improve.

W'Z

Hey, me too!

Last, and certainly least, we have Why Patrick Should Not Be Allowed to Pick the Lineup for the Roundup. In Episode 3, fearful of the unwanted attention he has gained from his little publicity stunt, Yukiya deletes the video he filmed in Ziggurat, but he forgot the cardinal rule of the internet: once something is uploaded, you can never take it back. Sure enough, the video of W'Z has been shared the world over, and Yukiya's adopted father Rei angrily crashes a meeting of his fellow former Handshakers to demand why they manipulated his son into this position. These characters who we have never seen before and probably don't matter since almost none of them are featured in the opening argue back and forth for over half the episode's runtime, without a single scene change or transition to break up the episode. Lots of supposedly important information about Yukiya and the missing Handshakers is discussed, but none of it makes any sense and the constantly swinging camera makes me too nauseous to actually process what's going on beyond the fact that characters from the original Handshakers are dominating an episode in a series that is supposed to be about the next generation.

I'm sure that at this point you're all sick of me complaining about the nonsensical story, the camera that moves around so much I swear it was mounted on a roomba, the poorly used soundtrack, and the overall pretentious tone of the whole dang production. Thankfully, I've found new things to complain about with this episode, and I'm not talking about how boring it was to have almost an entire episode dedicated to a conversation in a coffee shop either. Though, seriously, that is stupid.

This show's art style is disgusting. The photo-realistic backgrounds aren't terrible on their own, but when you add the characters to the mix, it looks like a professional photography exhibit being used as the background for a puppet show, only the puppets are popsicle sticks with googly eyes and pieces of felt meant to simulate clothing glued on haphazardly. No matter what emotion the actor is trying to convey, every single character's eyes are cold and lifeless. And there's this weird shiny effect on their skin when they're out in the sun that makes me want to vomit. Also, and this is a very petty and subjective point, but I don't like this show's fashion sense. The characters seem to be going for this casual punk look, and it's not the worst look in the world, but it makes them stick out from the background even more and they all look like the character designer got his inspiration from Tetsuya Nomura's trash bin. 

Why was Yukiya's hair green instead of white in one shot? Why are these adults so amused when one of their own (albeit one who hasn't physically aged in ten years) starts flirting with a child that they just swore to protect? Why was there a scene where one character's mouth was moving when it wasn't even his line yet? Why do I already have two contenders for worst anime of the year when January isn't even over yet? We may never know the answers to these questions, but we do know this: W'Z is getting dropped from this point on. As if anyone was surprised by that.

He just realized that his show might be next.

And that wraps up another episode of the Weekly Roundup? What will happen next week? Will Asuka save Nozomi? Will the Imaginator be stopped? Will Hyakkimaru get his vocal chords back and actually contribute to the conversation? Will Soleil launch a counterattack against the Empire? Will the Kansei University team succeed in the Qualifier? Will the Dachi High team hold out until Hinomaru recovers from his injury? Will Naofumi and Raphtalia find another party member? Will Gripen ever fly on her own? Will Emma and the others find the traitor in time? Will Hina break up with her boyfriend? Will Ryusei actually live up to his reputation as the smart one and solve a puzzle on his own for once? The world may never know, but you will if you tune in next week! I'm Patrick, and I watch anime in an ineffectual attempt to make up for my lack of a social life!