What will the Fall season give me? That’s a question I’ve been asking myself a lot right now. It will be entirely dominated by big franchises and their sequel shows; all franchises that have loyal and dedicated fanbases that I am not a part of. Admittedly, it has also made me think about the ‘disappointment’ moments that I’ve had in this anime year. For The Demon Girl Next Door, I was hoping that I’d see the same magic I saw in season 1, but I just couldn’t. And the less we talk about my watch of World’s End Harem, the better. Here in this Summer season, everyone and their grandmother has been talking about Lycoris Recoil, a show I did not expect to do as well as it did. And for the fall, we will have the most hyped show in all of existence; you know what it is. I’ve begun to think that if this adaptation of Chainsaw Man turns out to be absolute garbage, the masses of fans it will have will still defend it to the end of the earth.
My Fall picks will, I think, be ones that people might sleep on, purely because the big shows will overwhelm them. Bt before thinking about Fall, I still have my Summer picks to finish off.
Yurei Deco Episode 10
The r/anime subreddit seems to love Yurei Deco, so what is it that they see that I can’t? We get the aftermath of last week’s cliffhanger where the Detective Club begin their plan to fix the local waste problem that is making the people sick, only for the neighborhood to discover that their plan will mean their Love Score being set back to zero. It was a good representation of how fake internet points seem to mean so much to people that they are happy and willing to risk their own health to keep their scores. Finn’s douchebag of an older brother still has an axe to grind, and to him, his double digit score means more than anything.
That’s the least of Berry and co.’s problems right now. The neighborhood have convinced themselves that they are in fact Phantom Zero, and the gossip spreads too fast for even the Customer Center to catch up with and ‘approve/reject’. So now not only are the Detective Club living off-the-grid, but are now wanted people. It’s here though where Berry’s parents finally realize that their daughter is actually still alive, and that reports of her death were falsified by their own employers.
They continue their investigation into who or what Phantom Zero is nevertheless, and after what felt like forever, all paths now point to Mark Twain. Not a person, but a place. The floating island with an invisibility cloak that is above Tom Sawyer Island. But have they really thought this plan through? I mean, they find Phantom Zero, sure, but what then? There’s no way they are just going to call them very naughty and tell them to stop. Ugh, maybe I’m just thinking too hard in this show.
The Detective Club are now rushing from safehouse to safehouse to clear their names. But is my general annoyance with the show getting in the way of enjoying this week? I say this because even as we are approaching the end, I still do not care about any of the characters or what their end goal is. So much feels rushed in this episode that it was rather hard to keep up. There are only two more episodes left, so them finding the real Phantom Zero is more than a certainty. Will the show’s finale blow me away though? Will all of these metaphors that the show has given us about social media, controlled populations and fake news make me feel even less confused? Maybe those people on r/anime are right about Yurei Deco, and I’m the stupid one…
When Will Ayumu Make His Move? Episode 9
Well for this week, it hasn’t just been Yurei Deco; we had some very interesting episodes for both Ayumu and Call of the Night. I’ll begin with Ayumu, and where Urushi was panicking over what could have been another date-not date with Tanaka, it turned out to be a club get together party, similar to the one we had at the end of last week. Funny how she gets disappointed inside in how it turns out not to be a date, and yet she still treats it like one. She is getting easier and easier to read as each episode goes by.
Rin is still the cute first-year of the club, and is still calling her former senpai Tanaka-san, since she is capable of completely destroying him in shogi. I’m not really one for ongoing gags that seem to last forever; I’m glad that Sakurako’s hypnotizing coin joke died before it got dull. Here though, the ongoing gag of Rin being capable to beating Tanaka in so many things (here at games in the arcade as one of many examples) is something I can actually tolerate. Why? Well because I think it’s something he kind of deserves, and makes him less of an emotionless block of wood.
The star moment though was with Takeru and Sakurako, and it’s at this point where their relationship is too obvious for everyone.
Luck really was on his side at this get-together. He was able to find a four-leaf clover. He managed to bag a cute koala, and got up close and personal with Sakurako, making her accept her feelings for him…leading to a totally not lewd indirect kiss. So now she’s reached the point of acceptance on that school crush ladder, what is going to happen next? Takeru may be going here and there when they are together, but he is still yet to say anything. There have been so many points in the whole of Ayumu so far that the Takeru x Sakurako couple has really outshined and upstaged the main one. While it’s been cute to watch third-year Urushi lose herself in her uncontrollable emotions, Takeru and Sakurako’s pairing feels far more authentic to me. The fact that they have had a lot of screen time may have something to do with how I feel too. Well, I do want to know the end of this story, and whether Takeru will do the deed or not.
Call of the Night Episode 9
Episode 9 marks the first episode in a long time that doesn’t have either Nazuna or Yamori front and center. It’s Seri’s turn this week. And I did not expect her to have this much baggage.
Seri is a popular girl, with many boys constantly texting her and wanting to hang out with her, all of them not realizing she is a vampire looking to make them offspring. And if they refuse, she can just kill them. For her it’s as simple as that. So when she sees Nazuna and Yamori act so casual with each other and have a vampire-human relationship that is otherwise seen as kind of forbidden, she gets jealous and angry. They have been doing stuff she desperately wants to do herself. She may be a vampire, but at the same time does not want to live with the loneliness of it all. Go out drinking, catching late night movies at the cinema, karaoke…she just imagine that stuff as possible for her precisely because she is not human.
Right now, one guy called Akiyama has started following her around town, trying to catch her attention. What is he to her? Well just another guy in her long list to make offspring, of course. But having seen Nazuna and Yamori together now, has it really become as simple as that? What makes her happier, offspring or a genuine friend to talk to?
I like that Yamori got involved and intervened in this; his one of many good deeds right now. He knows that he is a little out of his depth considering that any one of these vampires he has come across can kill him in a heartbeat, so maybe interacting with them has made them feel more human? Feels odd, especially on their end considering they have long since accepted that human traits like attachment, emotions and romance are no longer their concern. This was a really great episode, and brings another secondary character to the front stage. We had Akira come in long ago, and now Seri (who isn’t quite among the vampire cabal we saw last week) is here, it is no longer the Nazuna and Yamori show. Instead it is far more.
I also chuckled at how Yamori knew old-school city pop songs far better than current pop songs only because he no longer pays attention to media. Kind of interesting how city pop seems to be the ‘in thing’ right now; even The Weeknd decided to sample a Tomoko Aran song (‘Midnight Pretenders‘) in one of his own (‘Out of Time‘). The more representation city pop gets the better, I say…
Akebi’s Sailor Uniform Episode 10
I’ve been following Akebi’s Sailor Uniform for this long, and have been enjoying it so much, and it’s been here where something I hadn’t really seen before has come to light: how her hyperactive positivity can affect the others in the school a little…too much. Tougeguchi makes an excellent point at how it takes very little to get Akebi incredibly excited. Shijou also makes a point at how unnaturally slender Akebi is; I’ll get to her in a moment though, as she is a whole other story in this episode. And towards the end, the Drama Club president notices how many adverbs she is able to squeeze in every single sentence. From the outset, some viewers might see Akebi’s upbeat attitude as a little silly and unrealistic in a middle school environment. Well I think it’s far better to see her as a girl who refuses to give up, no matter what obstacles are ahead of her.
For episode 10, the summer uniforms come out, and the athletics festival is not so far now. This means every sports club has to be practicing hard, which also means the school’s cheer club has to come out in force. And unsurprisingly, Akebi elects herself to join them, as her Drama Club activities will mean she will otherwise have nothing to do.
Episode 10 tells two separate stories, which I thought was interesting. The second one put Riona Shijou front and center. She is a tennis devotee and is part of the Tennis Club alongside Erika Kizaki, but has fallen behind on her practicing because of personal insecurities and her putting on weight as a result of lack of practice. It’s good to see a genuine teenage worry in a show that is otherwise very positive and upbeat. Shijou is treated as a authentic human in this episode; someone with authentic human problems and worries. I can totally understand why she feels a little dismayed in how Akebi literally grabs her by the arm and makes her practice with pom-poms. This side story makes a good contrast and pairs well with Akebi jumping around and on a mission to make everyone at school happy.
The athletics festival will be the final arc of the show obviously, and the buildup to it has been great to watch. I would not normally expect an episode with a trip to the mall to buy supplies, and I would not expect a side-story like Shijou’s to be a dominant part of a buildup episode either. I’m curious of what the final episodes will show me.
I stand by what I said at the beginning of this week’s post, yet I have still been able to find some shows to cover here. Perhaps you folks can see these Fall season posts as some kind of ‘relief’ from what other sites will be talking about.