This week, Shokugeki no Soma has its mojo back, Love Live! Sunshine!! has its mojo back, Danganronpa has always had its mojo (sort of), but Rewrite has almost lost the plot completely, thanks to the fact that it nearly mirrors Charlotte. Call this show Charlotte, except it has lots of trees and a better school uniform. With the newspaper girl missing, the club really ought to be doing something, right?
Kotarou has something to say about this……
…Except no-one (including us) really cares about him anymore. This happens a lot with Key shows though, like in Kanon, Air, and Charlotte. Clannad and Little Busters! were big exceptions though, as Tomoya and Nao had major roles in their respective shows. Much like Key games, the male MC in Rewrite is near invisible and becomes almost irrelevant once all the girls in the show emerge.
Anyway, the group has now split in two, which I think is cool. Call it discarding the two boring people from the club by finding out that they’ve worked for the enemy the whole time. Akane has been a total bitch throughout the show, and Chihaya has been almost as invisible as Kotarou, leaving the eye-patch girl and the goth loli girl, the two most interesting ones. I still felt a little empty at the end though, like I had missed something completely in the show…
But I’m not missing anything in Orange. Okay sure, it’s getting soppier by each episode, but this week the show’s turned much more serious than watching these 6 populars doing popular things. Kakeru is being more open about the one regret that he lived with to the others. Also something I’m noticing is that as each episode progresses (and gets more serious), the background music becomes quieter; even the sound of silence turns more apt in some scenes. Well, with Naho confessing and him crying happy tears, we’d think it’s mission accomplished…well of course it won’t be as simple as that…
On a cheerier note though this week, there’s Love Live! Sunshine!! Country yokels going to Tokyo to check out the competition (who are way more smug and cocky than A-RISE could ever be), a totally-not-straight scene with Dia and Mari, and us learning more about the girls’ individual obsessions. I thought You’s obsession with uniforms was especially cute; hey, I guess I’m biased on that one.
But after this Tokyo trip, perhaps the third-years can whip these very naive girls into shape, and cope with their mean-looking competition. Yeah…they can stop with the totally-not-straight scenes, and join them: Dia can join for her sister, Kanan can join for Chika and You’s sake, and Mari can join because she’s just…I don’t know…bored, perhaps.
Also, something a friend of mine who watches the show brought up, that is very apt: no men feature in this show whatsoever, except for potentially mean ones. She thinks it’s something to do with character development. This tactic sort of worked for Yuru Yuri, only that had a different reason: it was a yuri show through and through, and men would have been considered an anomaly. K-on! nearly had it too; only Ritsu’s brother Satoshi (who was just as moe as the rest of them) featured every now and then. Character development is one thing, but I believe that it’s more of the fact that the otaku prefer to watch a female protagonist considerably more.
*sigh* Illya is being emo Illya…yet again. This happens at least once in every season of Prisma Illya; whenever she has a fight with Miyu, or when things don’t go her way, or when she doesn’t get her way, she goes beyond depressed. This is now a world with a near-indestructible enemy, so how the hell is she going to face that? I really hope Kuro does what she does best, and shakes her out of it. Yes, these girls (I’d say Illya is like 12 or something) have just hit puberty so perhaps I’ll let that slide, but Miyu has seemingly accepted her fate and returned home now. I still hate how dark this show has become. I really miss the comedy and ecchi this show is famous for. I actually chose this show to parody said comedy and ecchi, but instead I’m watching mediocre dark fantasy (mediocre even for the Fate franchise) and I’m criticizing emo Illya, which kind of sucks.
Alright, so I was a little mistaken in Shokugeki no Soma. A part of me really thought that the Autumn Elections were going to end like next week, meaning Erina would get even more pouty that Soma won, and thus challenge him to a Shokugeki. Hey, this may all still happen, but the Autumn Elections are still firmly part of the plot, and will be, as we are given the news that neither Akira or Ryo won their match, and thus they, along with Soma, are in an all-or-nothing three-way fight. I love this already, especially as we’re given a ‘days-to-go’ plot-line. And the theme being saury too, something that all three of them specialize in: Akira in terms of fragrance, Ryo in terms of seafood, and Soma in terms of it being a regular ‘common people’ dish…a little insulting, but food is food, and the fact that Soma is showing up all of these stuck-up gourmands with the food any regular Japanese diner can make.
I already want a Season 3. And with this show now gaining huge ground in the West, it’ll probably get it too.
Truth be told, I’m starting to pay attention to a lot of other shows a lot this season: New Game! and Sweetness & Lightning, especially. They’re both slice-of-life through and through, which blatantly shows that I can never ever escape the genre. Do I wish I chose them for the column? Well I would have had more shows to concentrate on here, so yes…and no.