December begins, and two pieces of news here on Otaku Theater. The first being that this will be the final week of my coverage of The Eminence in Shadow. The current arc ends with this week’s episode, and so I figured that now is the better time to cease writing about it, instead of leaving a just-started story open. Maybe a little contradictory considering how I’m dropping the show though. The second piece of news is what my next out-of-season show will be. The poll results came in, and we have a result. More on that at the end of this week’s post though. In the meantime…
Raven of the Inner Palace Episode 10
The supernatural elements that frequent this show are getting more and more noticeable, and while this episode serves more of a filler than anything else, it still shows us that both Shouxue and Gaojin have much ahead of them. It’s obvious to see that she likes having him around, despite her not admitting it. However we see this week that both of them are doing unorthodox things…or rather, things that they are not expected to do.
As the Raven Consort, Shouxue is not meant to have eunuchs or ladies-in-waiting; she is meant to live a life of solitude. Even befriending the emperor is something that her predecessor would never do, and yet she still indulges in him. Meanwhile, Gaojin’s visits to her are starting to irritate more people around him. His most trusted eunuch has been against it from the very start, his other consorts are beginning to get annoyed that they aren’t receiving the attention they are there for, and even other officials around him are questioning his motives. They have heard of the rumors and legends of the Raven Consort, and how she allegedly curses people around her.
We still have a few more episodes to go, and the pacing is starting to get quicker now. We still have no idea on who this mystery man Feng Xiao Yue is, and why he wants the Raven Consort dead. We are left with a mini-cliffhanger at the end of this week, which I’m sure will be the main topic of next week. I hope that, in the few episodes that remain, we won’t be getting any unfinished plot points. I’ve enjoyed this show too much to see it end in that way.
Bocchi the Rock! Episode 9
Following up last week’s outstanding episode would be tough, so I’m glad to see that Cloverworks just decided to head back to normal for this week…or what you could call normal in this show. This was a filler episode though; the ‘summer break’ episode. Although how can you do a summer day out with three introverts? I have to say that an episode like this is where we really see how much Kita stands out from the others. Here she is running across town, egging the others on to check out the sights of Enoshima and posting stuff on her Instagram, while Hitori, Nijika and Ryo all just want to find some shade.
The episode begins with Nijika, Ryo and Kita suddenly feeling the shame that they haven’t actually invited Bocchi for a day out, and during summer break of all times. Of course they know that Bocchi is too introverted for an exciting day out, but that isn’t the point really. Socializing outside of school and work requires more effort and work than some people might think. Nijika has to maintain Starry with her sister, Kita has her schedule filled with trendy and extroverted things with her trendy and extroverted friends, while Ryo is too much of a cheapskate to do anything big. For this day out in Enoshima, the episode doesn’t really touch on anything they haven’t done before in past episodes, but that’s just fine. These four girls have had a lot of excitement over the last few weeks, and so they are allowed this one time where doing nothing is perfectly fine.
One thing I will say is that pairings are beginning to form online, yet I can’t really see anything very solid; a lot is pretty up in the air. Saying that though, now that Hitori has been outed as guitarhero, a lot of people in the show have grown even more interested in her. Kita still fawns over Ryo-senpai and her coolness, but Hitori has become the glue of the band even if she likes it or not. Everyone in the show has formed a positive opinion of her, and it is no longer a case of ‘pity the poor introvert’.
We’ve had some hard-hitting and exciting episodes of Bocchi the Rock!, and with this being a wind-down episode, we have next week to come. That will be the back-to-school episode, and we are teased with something that will be what will end the show, and something that may catapult Kessoku Band into stardom…sort of??
The Eminence in Shadow Episode 9
Okay I’m going to be completely honest here. I actually had to look through last week’s post to remind myself of what happened. That is how invested I am in this show. Or rather…was. This episode marks the climax of this attack on the academy arc, and so I figure that as I will not be continuing the show into the Winter season, I might as well stop the coverage at a point where a story ends. Heck, for all I know, next week’s episode will end up being some kind of recap one…because I can easily picture a show like this having at least one of those.
Sherry is able to complete the ritual she needs to reactivate the artifact she has so the magic barrier surrounding the academy can be shut down, leaving the real Shadow Garden to come in and deal with the impostors. But as we find out, this was the leader’s plan all along. By letting the real Shadow Garden arrive, he proceeds to torch the entire school and pin the blame on the kidnapping, murder, and arson on them. I’ll admit that it’s a compelling enough story idea, if I weren’t so frustrated with you-know-who.
To no-one’s surprise, the leader turns out to be Sherry’s adoptive father Barnett, and even with the Eye of Avarice’s power, he is no match for Cid. I would otherwise get invested in this story if it weren’t for the fact that this overpowered individual dominates the entire show. However, I did think it was noteworthy how Cid goes into a monologue of how he shuts himself off of morals, and shows us how self-centered he really is. So does he care about anything in this world? Well he is at the very least grateful to have Alpha and the Seven Shadows help him play along; I’m sure without them, his grand status as Lord Shadow would be nothing. Also, as he murders Barnett in the same manner that he himself murdered Sherry’s mother, he (as Lord Shadow) is willing to take the blame, as he feels somehow that it is the right thing that Sherry doesn’t know the real truth about Barnett.
I apologize to the people who genuinely have been enjoying the show. A lot of things led to my decision to stop coverage of this, and I think I’ve gone through most of them as weeks have gone by. While I thought that The Eminence in Shadow was an interesting satire of the isekai genre, it personally gave me little to like. It started off with a strong episode before our MC is hit by Truck-kun, but as his story continues in this new world, I found myself caring infinitely more about the people and places around him, which isn’t really what an isekai show is meant to be about. Also, I couldn’t really see much in the way of threatening antagonists either, or what their end goals were. This Cult of Diablos weren’t villainous enough that we could boo at them; they were more like cartoony villains than anything else. Even the girls in Shadow Garden aren’t given that much in the way of screentime; the amount of screentime that all the cool-looking trailers promised, at least. Our MC is so overpowered that literally everything else feels like it’s on the backseat. We are not really given room to see what the real conflict in the show is, aside from Cid wanting to be the edgelord he is desperate to be. So if we don’t see or care about the conflict in the show, then we don’t care about the characters that go through it. And if we don’t care about the characters, then are we really supposed to feel for the story?
I may just be overreacting here; like I said, I know people out there are really liking this show, and are finding a lot to enjoy in it. I don’t like dropping shows here on Otaku Theater, and only do them in exceptional circumstances. The last one I did was To Your Eternity, but that was for a completely different reason altogether. I’m looking forward to what I have in line for the next season, and I hope that this will be another lesson for me; research hard before picking shows in the future.
Odd Taxi Episode 10
Odd Taxi began with several sub-plots that felt separate from one another, but now they are beginning to form into one. It’s here in episode 10 where Yano’s plan to take Imai’s money begins to form, along with Dobu’s plan to take the money for himself. Odokawa is still pulling his own strings; so many in fact that I have to admit that I’m struggling to keep up.
Even when Imai posts a fake lottery ticket online to try and throw off the yakuza, Yano sees straight through it and is able to track him down to his new home. Yamamoto is starting to get more and more desperate to keep Mystery Kiss safe, and ultimately decides to play along with Odokawa’s own plan, even if it means him being arrested too. I’d like to see how all of this plays out, but Tanaka is still something that is troubling Odokawa. We now know the reason why his taxi was bugged; so that Tanaka would be able to track his movements. On top of this, Goriki is still investigating into whether Odokawa is sick or not. Just as we think stories are wrapping up, a whole load of other mysteries begin to appear.
I’m sure that Odd Taxi would have definitely made my top 5 had I watched it when it originally aired; outside circumstances meant that I missed out on it however. As for this year’s top 5, well I think I have a solid list on that. And so with the year almost over and with shows slowly starting to wrap up, I have my 4 shows for the Winter season firmly locked in. What my seasonal ones are will be something I’ll say another time, but my out-of-season show has been chosen, as always, by you folk. And you have chosen Dorohedoro.
I hear so much praise about this show and yet I know very little about it. One of my good friends is a diehard fan and is begging everyone they know to check it out, so now that you guys have picked this for me, I have no excuse to avoid it any longer. We’ll be having more posts towards the end of the month to finish off this current season, to kick off the next season, and also to round up how this year in general turned out to be. I can use that post to talk about how askew my show picks were this time, perhaps…