Time really has gone so quickly this season. Come to think of it, it feels like this entire year is flying past…just like 2020 did. Perhaps it’s because of the pandemic, and every day has pretty much been the same as the other. I do think it’s great that the pandemic hasn’t hit the anime industry that hard, and titles are coming out regularly, with only a handful of things having to be delayed. We’re long past the halfway point of the summer season, and I’ve had to go and make a decision on what to watch for the Fall. A little more on that later though.
Remake Our Life! Episode 8
As episodes of Remake Our Life! have gone by, it’s as if the show has drifted further and further away from how it began, with the hour-long opener of when Kyouya jumped back ten years into the past and enrolled in art school. This was meant to be a science-fiction show after all, right? Well it seems like this science-fiction has gone and hit Kyouya (and us viewers) like a wrecking ball. It’s something I didn’t see coming at all, and yet at the same time, when I finished the episode, it all seemed to make absolute sense. I mean, we’ve had a good bunch of episodes of Kyouya being the awesome leader of this awesome VN game, and everyone praising him lots, and both Nanako and Shinoaki desperate to win his heart, but all of this just goes and turns on him, in the most unexpected of ways.
I’ve seen some people online getting really tired of Kyouya being some kind of Mary Sue character in the show, and so I really loved that we are reminded how he ended up here in the first place. Just in case you forgot, he’s actually 28 years old, and not the freshman in art school that the others all think he is…
…but enough of that. This week’s episode is the gang finally finishing the game, so they can all finally get some sleep and pat each other in the backs. We were never really shown what the game was about, or the story of it, or anything at all regarding it, but to be fair it didn’t really matter. What mattered was that the game wasn’t the massive failure that Kyouya was fearing it would be. He has been working them all hard, and so we as the viewer are relieved to see that everything related to their game worked out in the end.
I do understand peoples’ frustrations with this game-making arc of Remake Our Life! though. It was something that plodded along instead of progressing forward. There would be moments where we’d just wish that they would hurry up and finish the game so that they’d move on to their next adventure. I guess I too was sold on the idea that Kyouya would stick around here and pick someone in the harem to be with forever. But as we see, it isn’t as easy as that.
It sucks that that’s all I can say about this week’s episode without revealing too much, since that plot point ends up dominating it. We’ve reached the final part of the show now, and after the cliffhanger in this week’s episode, I really really want to know how it ends. At least I’ll be allowed to talk some science next week, and explain my thoughts on how Kyouya’s time skip happened, and so on.
The Aquatope on White Sand Episode 8
Over on The Aquatope on White Sand, we had the show’s beach episode last week, so we’re back to the regular fillers now, with the gang setting up a travelling aquarium at the pediatrics unit of a hospital. I shouldn’t be too hard on the fillers here though, as with each one we get a little more information on all of the main characters, and even more of Kukuru looking pouty. The main part here isn’t quite the head nurse’s morbid fear of crabs, but instead of trying to get Kukuru to face up to reality.
I really wish that I had more to say about this week’s The Aquatope on White Sand, outside from this ongoing arc about Gama Gama closing and Kukuru’s refusal to accept it. Don’t get me wrong, I genuinely am enjoying the show; I just wish that something more substantial would happen, especially now that we’re approaching the end of the first cour. We discover that Karin has, in fact, been pushing for more travelling aquarium events to take place. This implies that she accepts Gama Gama’s eventual closure more, and still wants people to enjoy the marine life experiences they have to offer.
Last week, while we had the beach episode, Kukuru was given the label of ‘crappy boss’ by the other main characters, since she insisted that she bring up work stuff while they are meant to be having a day off. After watching the interactions between her and Karin this week, I really do believe that this naivete of hers will bite her on the behind. She’s extremely passionate about keeping the aquarium open, and refuses to accept that there’s even more of a chance that it will close. As well as this, this passion is slowly making the others distance themselves away from her. Even Fuuka knows she will have to return home when August is over, and has acknowledged the strong possibility of Gama Gama closing. Of course, the staff don’t want it to close, but accepting reality is the real thing here…and is something Kukuru needs to understand sooner or later.
The show is trying to play on the idea of visitors seeing visions at the aquarium, but as I said before, something like that isn’t exactly going to win over possible investors. I remember the end of the first cour of A Lull In The Sea, and how I didn’t see that coming at all. And knowing P.A Works’ back catalog, here’s hoping that The Aquatope on White Sand will pull off some shock event or miracle when the Fall season comes around.
Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid S Episode 8
On the other hand, this week’s episode of Dragon Maid was really great. Each episode is kind of split into three ‘sections’ or separate stories; something that season one did as well. While the first one went on with Shouta making his father something for Father’s Day, the other two this week were so much better in comparison.
Kobayashi ends up catching a cold, and needs to take off work, and this puts Tohru in an odd position. Despite being her maid, she has never had to deal with a sick Kobayashi before, and as she is unable to catch any illnesses as a dragon, she struggles on what to do and how to help her. And her trip from making plain edible food to finding medicine really is touching, as it shows how determined she is to protect the one person she cares for the most, despite not knowing what exactly to do.
I really loved all the touching moments back in season one, and they are just as strong as effective here in season two. Especially with the introduction of Ilulu, and where we are given a very heartbreaking backstory of how she used to love playing with humans, but was forced to stay away from them.
The most touching section of this episode was the final one, where Ilulu finds an abandoned doll at her candy store. With this side story, we get to see her own feelings when it comes to treasured items like dolls. We see her reminisce of when she was gifted a doll by human children; a doll of herself in fact. Through this, we realize that how much baggage Ilulu carried with her when she came to the human realm. Opening episodes where she was introduced showed us how she grew to resent humans, and it ended up being someone like Kobayashi to help her find empathy again. Ilulu realizes that no-one would carelessly abandon such a well-crafted doll as that, and thus becomes determined to find its original owner.
It’s wonderful that there hasn’t really been a single weak episode in Dragon Maid season two. I know sequel seasons worry some followers as we think they might be inferior to the first one, and possibly make the franchise bad. This hasn’t been the case with Dragon Maid at all. I’m sure that Kyoto Animation didn’t want what had originally become an overnight success go to waste with an inferior second season. They treated season 2 with a lot of care, and made sure it was perfect. And so far, it has paid off.
Girlish Number Episode 8
Episode 8 is the second time that Chitose takes a step back, and lets Kazuha and Momoko take front and center stage. The circumstances of it all, however, are all about what happened in the episode previous. When on the phone with Kazuha’s father, Kuzu-P ended up making some very inappropriate comments about her – the kind of comments that a loving and traditional father should not hear about their daughter. And so this has meant that three of the men (Kuzu, Kazuha’s manager, and poor Towada) have to go and visit him and make a formal apology, with Momoko deciding to tag along too. There is a reason why she decided to come though.
As I mentioned last week, we notice more how detached Momoko is starting to feel from her own family, all of whom are extremely successful in their own way, and have little time to spend with their high-school-aged daughter. Momoko tags along because she feels envious of Kazuha. Despite all of these circumstances that the highly inept and clueless Kuzu has got them into, she wishes that her parents could be more like Kazuha’s; a mother and father that look out for their child and dote on them, even if it borders on the line of nosiness.
On top of this, because Momoko didn’t tell her agency where she was, she has made her mother go out of her way to find out where she is; a tactic that ends up working. She wanted her mom to go and find her, to show that she cares for her daughter as her child, and not just another professional voice actress.
I’ve been enjoying this summer season, and I’m glad that the Summer Curse™ hasn’t hit me for a change. As for the fall season, I have the second cour of The Aquatope on White Sand for one thing. I have my eye on a couple of others, so it’s just a matter of narrowing them down to two. But one other show I’ll be watching is the out-of-season one that has been picked for me: this year’s Super Cub. I missed out on it when it came out, and I’ve heard a lot of great things about it too, so I’m really hyped to watch it.
I get to talk about what really happened in Remake Our Life! in next week’s Otaku Theater, so a great weight will be lifted off my shoulders there, and I won’t have to spoil anything anymore. Also, I’ve got some review posts coming soon here on TheOASG, so check them out as well.