So out of all the sequel seasons coming in the Fall, which ones will you end up watching? Or did the long list throw you off from watching new shows, leaving you to catch up on old ones? I put out the silly idea last week that I should just let you guys have total control on what I should watch for each season. I haven’t put that pitch in to Justin yet, although I’m more than certain what his response will be.
I think I put out a wild idea like that because I never really know how to properly judge how an anime year has been at this point. Has it had more decent shows than bad ones? Has it been dominated by 2 or 3 leaving the rest in the dust? People still keep talking about Lycoris Recoil this season, which a good friend of mine (who doesn’t normally follow that kind of anime) has dubbed ‘Anime John Wick‘. Not sure if I agree with him on that though.
When Will Ayumu Make His Move? Episode 8
I’ve covered a good few of shows that have taken many episodes for me to warm to, but it really has taken me a very long time to like Ayumu. I think now that more characters are put in the spotlights more, along with new character Rin coming in, I can see the story for what it is: nothing complicated.
With Rin as the fourth member, it is now technically a school club. And this week we see her competitive spirit in full force as he completely destroys Tanaka in her first shogi game in the club. Rather funny how once he was called Tanaka-senpai, he is relegated to -san now that she has beaten him. But Rin is a central part to this week’s episode. It isn’t so much that she is annoyed with her senpai’s sudden switch from kendo to shogi anymore though. Here she senses that Tanaka has a crush on Urushi, but instead of getting jealous or petty, she turns her frustration on Tanaka, for not making his move on something which is so blatantly obvious – for not taking the initiative on this crush he has.
Even though little Rin has made her mark on the show, and a good mark, these are all dorks that I have next to no close connection with. I still say that Sakurako is the best girl, but that’s only because of her unique character design (compared to the others). Also considering the number of shogi games we actually had in this episode, this would have been an awesome chance for the show to present us with some fun shogi rules and facts…but that’s only my own opinion there. Maybe it will in the future, because I feel that they are missing a great opportunity here – a way to get our focus and attention when we grow tired of the atypical character traits we have seen in the show so far.
Yurei Deco Episode 9
After what we had at the end of last week’s Yurei Deco, we get a very different kind of episode this week. It begins with a little backstory for Finn, and how he grew up in a found family of his own. He has Deco sickness, and can’t use conventional Decos like everyone else can. Meanwhile, he sees how many more people around him are getting sick because the Customer Center’s Waste Management Program aren’t doing anything to fix the local area’s trash problem. When he finds a solution, the Customer Center shuts his outcries down and strip the neighborhood of their Love Score. The way the locals saw it, if he had just kept his nose out, they wouldn’t have had to deal with them knocking on their door. And thus explains his antagonistic and isolationist behavior of late.
The trash problem remains in the neighborhood though and is getting worse, but as we see, the locals seem to care more about their tiny Love Scores (literally single-digit amounts) than having the waste management fixed. They seem to be fine with breathing in toxic fumes that are killing them as their fake internet points are far more important.
The Yurei Detective Club finally have a solid motivation to fix this place, and if it means wiping the neighborhood of their Love Score once again…well that is something that they have to decide. Is a Love Score that important to these people, even if it’s only single digits to some of them? All of this acts as a fantastic reflection of what a dystopian society turns to, but despite it being a good plot device, I feel it’s come too late in the show. So far it has gone from Berry suddenly having to live off-the-grid, to some filler episodes, to this. The show is ending pretty soon, and this plot point feels too good to just rush through, and I really get the impression that that is what Science SARU might end up doing with this.
On top of this, the connection I have with the motley crew is still not there. I don’t actually care if these guys get hated by the neighborhood forever for doing what is the right thing. And by the way this week’s episode ends, I would actually cheer Phantom Zero on for taking the Love Score away from these idiots living in this neighborhood. Or maybe I am just missing something here within the metaphors that the story is trying to tell…
Call of the Night Episode 8
Nazuna found some diamonds in her PS1 game. And in other news, Yamori has been told by Nico that he doesn’t have ‘as long as it takes’ to fall in love with Nazuna, because the time limit is in fact one year. And because he already knows too much about the vampire lifestyle in the city, the other five will have an excuse to kill him. Although it was pretty funny that Nazuna just so happened to forget this important detail; very much like her.
We see the return of Akira and the introduction of Yamori’s other human friend Mahiru for this episode, but this acts as more of an epilogue to the events of last week. A lot of information was thrown at us then, and this acts as a bit of a comedown to all of that. Although he still very much enjoys the time he spends with Nazuna, Yamori still doesn’t really understand what a date is meant to be. He’s still a pure and sweet and innocent 14-year-old with raging hormones, and doesn’t know how to respond to them maturely. And Seri putting corny date ideas into his head doesn’t help at all, especially as this is Nazuna we’re talking about here.
The other vampires were keen to stress this to him last week, but Nazuna stands out even among them. She is a reclusive shut-in, behaves childish and rude, and drinks too much. Unlike the others who have made some kind of life for themselves in their vampire forms. Also, I can’t help but think that the others also want to sink their teeth into him (no pun intended); why else would Seri tease him like this? They say they don’t fully trust her, and to be fair, they don’t really care what happens to Yamori or not; he is just another human to them.
This episode was also a good point to bring in the other people Yamori knows; the two friends he’s known the longest. Akira is still kind of pissed that he won’t come back to school, even if she’s okay with his relationship with Nazuna. Now the ‘practically perfect role model’ Mahiru comes into the picture. Like Yamori, he has good grades and is someone who normally works hard at school, and yet he has begun to spend more time out at night too. I’m an anime-only person here, so I don’t know what ends up happening to him, but I can’t help but think about the opening scene of the 1998 movie Blade. In that, a vampire girl takes a naïve and horny human guy to an illegal rave, only to discover it’s a place where vampires lures humans in to turn them…and then Blade arrives, and some of you may know the rest…
Anyway, by the manner this week’s episode ends, I’m fairly certain that Mahiru will find out about vampires in his own way. A scene where the girl at the end takes poor Mahiru off to a blood rave (with Creepy Nuts DJing maybe) would just make me laugh.
Akira is the smartest one in the whole show I think. She had to be the one to tell Yamori that he might die if he doesn’t fall in love with Nazuna in a year, because he was too dim to realize it. She continues to be the one to knock some sense into him, and so when 12 months go by, what kind of friend will she keep on being to him? I mean, what exactly can Akira do? She has accepted his decision, but wants him to use his only brain cell to make some more rational and logical choices.
Akebi’s Sailor Uniform Episode 9
Akebi’s Sailor Uniform is approaching its end arc, the Athletics Festival, and it remains going from strength-to-strength. For episode 9, we leave the classroom and head for the local mall, where Akebi, Kizaki, Usagihara and Kojou are assigned to buy some supplies for the festival. This was Kojou’s episode more than anything else though, as we’ve never really seen much of her in the show since all the way back in episodes 2 and 3.
She is a massive bookworm, and takes real pleasure in absorbing herself in books; a no-brainer for her to be a part of the literature club then. While we watch the girls get distracted by all sorts of things at the mall, the focus of the story is on how Kojou accidentally loses her pressed flower bookmark, something she has has ever since she was a young girl. I liked how this especially ended up being the ‘conflict’ in this episode; something that seems so small has so much meaning for someone that losing it forever would crush them. I know we’ve had similar kinds of ‘conflicts’ in many other shows, but this bookmark one was handled very well I think. Knowing that it was something made by her mother, and that it is something that Kojou has treasured since a little girl makes it all the more important for the four of them to find in the massive mall.
The sixteen girls in Akebi’s class have all developed a real closeness that one would likely never ever see in other middle-school classrooms. Where we would expect cattiness and backtalk, we don’t get any; given the fact that most of them live in the nearby dorms, maybe we would expect that much more. Heck, in some other schools, Akebi would be cast out for being the only one in the school wearing a sailor uniform while everyone else wears the new blazer uniform. This show began with some alarm bells going off, and I was worried that the studio would go in a fetishistic direction, but it has since shifted into something far more wholesome. And not saccharine to the point of cringeworthy either.
It’s been wonderful how while Akebi is firmly the main character, the other girls have all had their moments, and good ones at that. In all the time Kizaki has appeared, it never really occurred to me how much of a sheltered ojou-sama she is, as she tells the others in this episode that not only has she never been to a mall before, but has never had fast food either. Though I think it would take me a second watch of the show to fully absorb all the other girls and their character designs, mostly because there are so many of them and that they are all shown almost equally, save for a couple of them.
The poll ended not so long ago, and it seemed a lot of you wanted me to watch one show in particular. Now I know next to nothing about Odd Taxi, so I’m going to be going in pretty much blind here. My Fall shows are decided though, and not a single one of them is a sequel show. And I’m very curious on all three of them…although I do say that all the time, don’t I? I just hope that none of them will head to Disney+, otherwise I probably would have to pick a sequel show. What I will say though is that if Chainsaw Man, the most-hyped show in all of existence right now, turns out to be terrible, I will just laugh.