Prisma Illya is not amusing me in any way now. I’m well aware of Emo Illya cropping up in episodes, but this is seriously emo on a new level. I mean, watching her act like this and being pushed around like this is just not funny anymore. She’s like, what, 10 or 11 or something? The Puella Magi might go through all of this but at least they’re older and wiser.

This is probably my cold heart talking here; I mean last week was supposed to be the “comedy” episode, I think. Watching Illya’s bizarre antics as she has now suddenly been kidnapped and turned into a stuffed animal, and Rin and Luvia appearing as maids. The show has about 3 episodes left (I think), and at this rate, if Emo Illya seriously doesn’t do something, I’m prepared to throw my TV across the room. And even if she finds Miyu, there’s no guarantee she’ll even want to go, now she’s made herself at home. I’m already picturing some kind of scene where Illya turns into some 12-year-old Sayaka Miki and loses her mind completely, and would have no qualms or hesitation in actually causing some serious harm to people around her. Perhaps Urobuchi is an un-credited producer or writer in this show…

Well this week wasn’t that much different; Illya going through more torture, Miyu doubting the meaning of life, and the Ainsworth family going even more psychotic. Please let this all end! Maybe the show could do us all a favor and just let Illya, Kuro and the others go back to their own world and leave Miyu there. I mean we’ve had 3 seasons of non-stop ecchi, mediocre comedy and action. What’s the harm of just writing Miyu out completely?

Yeah, this is definitely my cold heart talking, and this will be the last time I ever watch a Prisma Illya season. But stuffed animal Illya has found Sapphire at least, who can help her transform.

Orange meanwhile reveals the one thing we already knew: everyone got a letter. I mean sure, the watercolor animation is pretty enough, but this show is built for the popular kids. I initially chose this show thinking that it would be something similar to Kokoro Connect (in that bizarre circumstances bring a group of people incredibly close), but instead we’re treated/forced to a story that’s a little dime-a-dozen. Pretty much every episode so far gone under the one formula:

  • Before the OP, Naho blushes while Kakeru bromances with Suwa.
  • 10 or 15 minutes of Naho and/or Suwa panicking on whether they’ve done things right.
  • The final 5 minutes are dedicated to the one event that dominated the episode (school festival, soccer game, etc.), Kakeru wins, Naho is happy her boyfriend won, Suwa is happier his boyfriend won and credits.

Then again, now we know they all got a letter, they’ll all put some extra effort to saving Kakeru’s behind…but in the meantime, Orange has become too saccharine for my tastes. I no longer care if Kakeru doesn’t make it. If this ultimately turns into a duplicate of Ano Hana, I am going to scream.

Alright, so that’s two shows that blew this week.

I think now that the characters have shown their true colors and their true affiliations, Rewrite is slowly getting better…although that doesn’t mean we care any more about Kotarou. So who was the mystery ghost girl with the red ribbons? Turns out she wasn’t a ghost after all; she’s instead a girl named Kagari, a familiar…Earth’s familiar, and bears no ill will towards Kotarou at all. Throughout these episodes, she only wanted to know how he tasted. I ended up cheating and looking up whether she was genuinely real or a ghost or whatever, and I seriously regret doing that, as I now know pretty much everything that will happen in these remaining episodes…and trust me, it’s not pretty. Think Charlotte but just darker and even more bizarre. This won’t be some garbled mess of X-Men fakes fighting The Man, like what Charlotte was…instead it will go all magical and spiritual where everything somehow is some kind of metaphor, and one of the main characters will die, and the city will likely end up being as pretty and full of trees as when we saw it in the beginning. I can at least laugh at this fantasy, unlike Prisma Illya where all we see are poor girls suffering.

Before all I saw was pessimism in this show, but I think I have to look outside of the box on this one. But Rewrite will still be the last Key show I watch.

And now we have to talk about Saint Snow (those A-RISE wannabes in Love Live! Sunshine!!); hell they even look impossibly smug performing live. A-RISE would have shown them the door if they were judges to any contest they were in. Saying that though, at least their song was good and damn catchy too, plus they were properly animated when they performed; all Aqours have is CG. But I’m still incredibly conflicted, at two things. Firstly, this whole story of saving the school. Clearly Dia, Kanan and Mari formed their group with the same goal; perhaps that plot point has to do with the reasons why each of them have different reasons about Aqours at the moment. Dia doesn’t want her sister hurt, and Kanan only wants to do the right thing and not let others get hurt (perhaps she’ll actually get some lines next week…), and it’s only Mari who sees optimism, and thinks Aqours can do the job she couldn’t.

The other is Chika, and her drive to almost copy μ’s; she sees their story and when she learns the school is to close, her very first thought is on how this scenario is exactly what happened to μ’s. The sooner she realizes Aqours is not μ’s, the better; hopefully the third-years (especially closet fan-girl Dia) will help her realize that.

No Danganronpa this week, sadly. The Remnants of Despair get to have their fun next time 🙂 I still think it was a massive mistake bringing in the Future Arc; just making the show be the Despair Arc (sequel to Trigger Happy Havoc, and prequel to Goodbye Despair) would have made this more accessible and possibly more likable…even if Funimation were the ones who picked it up.

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I will be away for Dragoncon in Atlanta over the next two weeks, so my next post won’t be until September 16th. It would be September 9th, but jet-lag is a serious pain, plus I always seem to get sick on the flight home (being around over 75,000 people at a con does that). So I’ll be wrapping up a lot of shows; Prisma Illya, for instance, will likely have ended by the time I come home. Plus there’s the massive build-up for Shokugeki no Soma plus Danganronpa will be back (god I hate Funimation so much for snapping that show up!)