Gaaaay

Eh, can’t say I enjoyed this episode much, which is probably an extension of the fact that I hate Black Star. He’s been given the title of Naruto-lite and anything that’s associated with Naruto is fail by default. On that note, I’m surprised Kishimoto hasn’t just given up and renamed “Naruto” to “Sasuke”, or alternatively “The Uchiha Chronicles”, or better yet, he could just put us out of our misery and stop writing altogether.

Anyways, I digress, I can bash Sasuke at a later date, back to Soul Eater.

After meticulously checking his house infinity times over, Kid sets out to his first day at Shibusen…three hours late. Meanwhile, in class, everyone is groaning as they’re about to be subjected to yet another lesson based on dissection, this time of a rare and endangered bird. Out front, Soul and Black Star are skipping school, having heard the rumors that the Meister who beat Anubis has enrolled in Shibusen, who also happens to be Shinigami-sama’s son.

When Kid finally shows up and asks the two if they’re here to give him a guided tour, Soul scoffs at him, essentially calling him a spoiled brat through the use of some saying that employs the number 7, upon which Kid breaks down and begs him to use the more symmetrical number 8 instead. Not far off, Black Star is rambling atop Shibusen when he cracks off a piece of the structure, provoking the fight that he and Soul were waiting for in the first place.

Kid overpowers them at distance and in close quarters as the school slowly gravitates towards the window to watch the showdown. Dr Stein unfortunately has to put off his dissection of his rare specimen and bear witness to the fight, as required by school rules, taking along Maka and Tsubaki.

Outside, Maka uses her soul seeing abilities, noting that the syncing of Kid’s wavelengths with the Thompson sisters is remarkable, despite having to do it between the three of them. She also finds that Liz and Patty have a respect and admiration of Kid, which Dr Stein explains as being a result of him taking them off the street and their rough childhood.

The fight can barely even be called such, as Kid dominates the two of them with graceful ease, overpowering even Black Star in melee combat, his specialty. It doesn’t help that the souls of the two don’t match up with each other at all, leaving Black Star without a weapon.

However, by some fluke they do manage to pull off a decent combo attack on Kid, which finally makes him take the fight seriously, unleashing a Soul Resonance attack, taking the two out in one shot. However, in Soul and Black Stars combo attack, they manage to take a chunk off of Kid’s bangs, making him feel unbalanced, causing him to pass out, which is taken as a pseudo victory by the Black Star-Soul team.

Add in some random gay scenes, some gag jokes and a bit of character bonding at the end, and that’s about all that happened this episode.

Thoughts

Pretty lame episode, nothing much happening to further the plot, and not much in terms of pure entertainment value either. There was a fight scene, but the complete lack of urgency and the fact it was treated as a huge slapstick comedy routine didn’t make for an interesting match. I guess the only purpose of this episode was to drive home the fact that Kid is on a completely different level than everyone else at Shibusen, including Maka and Black Star.

It was neat seeing Kid show a glimpse of his true power though, using a Soul Resonance attack to finish things off, albeit that it was probably heavily toned down, the real one would have ripped his opponents into shreds. We also got to see Kid’s soul, which covers the entirety of his body, akin to Dr Stein, which means his strength, or at least the potential for it, is massive.

There was also a bit on the history of the Thompson sisters, who were raised on the streets, Liz looking like a badass biker chick and Patty looking like she’s about to tear your face off and wear it like a mask. A drastic contrast to what they’re like now…well, maybe not so much for Patty, she still seems like she could go batshit any minute.

Speaking of the whole weapons thing, I’m still curious as to what determines whether you become a weapon or a Meister. Are you born as such, or do you choose your respective paths upon enrolling into Shibusen? It doesn’t seem like there’s any social differences between weapons and Meisters, both are treated equally. Also, becoming a weapon doesn’t seem to stop you from living a normal life either, as we know from Deathscythe, who had Maka with Kami, his Meister at the time.

Finally, we also get to see Shinigami-sama’s soul, so large that it covers the entire of Shibusen. I’m curious as to what kind of final boss character could rival a soul like that, and also, if he’s that strong why doesn’t he just go around with Deathscythe and bring down everyone else himself? The answer to which is likely that he has some sort of curse or seal on him that prevents him from going outside of Shibusen, a common way to account for otherwise hax characters in series like this. (Ie. Evangeline being trapped at Mahora in Negima)

And so, with what I can only hope is the entire cast gathered, here’s praying that Soul Eater decides to give some direction to its plot sometime soon.

~ Shirukii ~

Oh god Maka rape, fapfapfap

When faced with insurmountable odds in an anime, there are only a limited amount of options to be had. Victory can be wrought with sheer courage, will power or an exploitable weakness in the enemy, survival for another day can be assured by running the hell away or if your enemy is feeling merciful. Or you can go the route Soul Eater did and reveal that the enemy isn’t really an enemy at all, he’s an ally and this was nothing but LOL TRAINING, right about the time Black Star took a Thunderbolt (TM24) to the head made it clear that this was the case, or perhaps even earlier, when Deathscythe was reminiscing.

But nevertheless, the episode was alright, I’ve already established Soul Eater as fairly generic shounen, so I can’t go faulting it for following common convention. I do wish the animation had been a bit more inspired though.

Kid points out to Shinigami-sama the obvious outcome of this bout, given the story of Stein and his reputation as the greatest weapon Meister ever to graduate from Shibusen, Maka and co. are going to die.

However, first impression paint a different story, Stein falling on his ass within seconds of his appearance makes him out to be quite a clutz. However, it soon becomes clear that this is all an act, without so much as an exchange of words, Stein analyzes the wavelengths of the team’s souls, their personalities as well as compatibility with their partners. Furthermore, opening attacks on Stein from both Black Star and Maka prove the difference in levels of melee combat.

Meanwhile, Deathscythe is hitting up the cabaret, as usual, where Blair seems to have found herself a daytime job. She doesn’t seem very good at cheering her customers up though, as Deathscythe starts to wail over his ex-wife and Maka. But, on a tangent, he also speaks of the time he spent with Stein, the sadist who for five years used to sneak into his room while sleeping and experiment on his body, leaving him with scars of unknown origin, experiments which may well have continued had his ex-wife not put a stop to them.

Back at Stein’s, Maka tries another head on charge, only to get shot down again, this time with a soul based attack, not just a physical one. Shinigami-sama explains that even without a weapon, a Meister can still attack using his or her soul, it’s just not as powerful, but in Stein’s case, it certainly seems sufficient, a fearful preview of what would be if he had a weapon. But it’s not the first time we’ve seen this, Black Star’s Big Wave does the same, however, when he tries to use it on Stein, another trick is revealed, Stein can match up the wavelength of his soul with his opponent and cancel out any soul based attacks they throw at him.

With everyone in a state of shock, Stein takes the opportunity to counterattack, frying Black Star’s brain and rendering him unconscious. It’s around this time that Kid decides enough is enough, and goes to help Maka and Black Star. Shinigami-sama tells him that this is not his fight, he’s not even a student of Shibusen, Kid asks to be enrolled if that’s what is necessary, and heads out. However, he’s stopped in his tracks by his OCD, unsure of whether he folded his toilet paper before using it.

Back to Stein’s. In the aftermath of his attack, Maka’s sense finally kicks in and she’s able to see Stein’s soul. However, this doesn’t prove advantageous in the slightest, quite the opposite in fact, as the mere sight of it puts a sort of fear of God in Maka, as the difference in power is overwhelming. Soul brings her spirit back up, saying that what she saw was simply his soul, not the future, not a premonition of defeat. Putting all their eggs into the metaphorical basket, the two try for another Soul Resonance Witchhunter, and surprisingly manage to pull it off and control it quite well.

However, Stein’s strength is beyond even that, and he shatters their attack with relative ease. As he walks over to seemingly deliver the final blow, a sudden mood change ensues as he pats Soul on the head and gives them a passing grade. Apparently, this whole ordeal was just a training mission set up by Shinigami-sama, Sid and Stein being affiliates of Shibusen all along.

As if that weren’t surprising, the next day, worn out from the fight; Maka, Soul, Black Star and Tsubaki have to deal with none other than Stein himself showing up to their classroom at Shibusen, the permanent replacement teacher for Sid-sensei.

Thoughts

HURR. DURR. I can’t believe I didn’t see this coming from last week. In retrospect it seems so obvious, although, hindsight is always 20/20. But truthfully, I would have rather Stein be a final boss character, it would be a very fitting role. He has that type of personality that is sure of his skills and as such would leave our heroes alive, encounter after encounter, even in defeat, just so he can fight them again for more data. That’s cliche in its own way, but Stein would be the perfect character for such a role. Instead I’m sure we’re going to get more monster of the week sort of stuff for a while, if a final boss is even revealed at all.

All the talk about soul wavelengths and resonance and such made the engineer/physicist in me squee with happiness. However, after the initial excitement cooled down, I realized that there’s really not much to it. I had planned on explaining the respective phenomenons and their parallels to real wave theory, but so far it doesn’t go past constructive/destructive interference and resonance, so there’s not much to say. I hope they take this analogy further though, as it has potential for delicious physics wankery.

Anyways, I suppose that’s all I can really say about this week’s episode. Next week looks like it’ll be a little more interesting, as the three teams will finally be all united at Shibusen, Kid having enrolled after falling for his dad’s trick himself. From the preview, it looks like Kid is going to take on Maka and Black Star two on one, which cements the already blatant theory that Kid is the strongest of the three. No doubt we’ll also get some more hilarity out of his OCD symmetrygasms.

Bonus rant:

Look, Japan. I know that Gibson and Fender are the most renowned guitar companies in the world, but what the hell, give us some variety. Without fail, every single guitar I’ve seen portrayed in an anime has been from one of the two companies, and I’ll go as far as saying that they boil that down even further to include only: Fender Stratocasters and Telecasters or Gibson SGs and LPs. Furthermore, I’m pretty sure every single bass guitar in the history of anime is a Fender Jazz. I -THINK- Beck had a Fender Jaguar in it as well, not sure.

Point is, there are plenty of arguably better guitar companies out there. You’d think with Japan’s pride in their own merchandise they’d at least model some of them after their Ibanez brand.

/guitarfag rant

~ Shirukii ~

Where’s your symbolism now, NGE religion theorists?

Right, so loose Evangelion reference aside, this episode was pretty good and pretty much exactly what I’ve come to expect of Soul Eater. That is, an above average action filled shounen that doesn’t take itself seriously and has plot continuity and rationale that emphasizes that point. I’m beginning to run out of things to say about it actually and end up reiterating myself every week like a corrupt mp3 file, not that I didn’t foresee this problem when I started blogging this, but I’ll give it my best to keep things at least mildly entertaining.

It’s another cool morning with Soul and Maka, Soul wakes up from a dream where he and his Meister take out the demon soul egg Rasputin, only to find Blair rubbing her breasts all over him. Maka walks in on the two and the scene unfolds like something you’d expect out of a love comedy, Soul Eater even pokes at the fourth wall and labels it as such.

At school, Maka continues to berate Soul for always playing around with Blair. Soul gets serious for a second and tells Maka of a rumor he heard, that their previous teacher Sid, who had reportedly been killed, is rumored to have turned into a zombie and is terrorizing former students of his of late, Maka gives him a whack over the head and tells him to stop believing baseless rumors. However, the fact of the matter is that Sid-sensei did in fact die and Maka’s father Deathscythe takes over their class temporarily. After making fun of Soul and trying to woo his daughter, he sends them off to report to Shinigami-sama.

On the way there, the two run into Black Star and Tsubaki, who have also been called to see Shinigami-sama. The reason is rather jarring to everyone except Black Star, Shinigami-sama assigns them a “Maintenance” job, jobs usually given to the retards of the school. Confirming Soul’s earlier rumor, he tells them that the former teacher Sid has been turned into a zombie and is attacking people and assigns them the task of taking him down, with the punishment of expulsion waiting them if they should fail.

As they reach the cemetery where Sid-sensei was buried, the threat of expulsion causes Soul to go recklessly insane, reduces Maka to a state of depression and has absolutely no effect on Black Star’s ego. Their moods sharpen into battle mode soon though, as Sid shows up to greet his former students, followed by a declaration of intent to kill.

Sid attacks first, hitting Black Star with a move he coins “Living End” and results in the NGE Angel-esque cross beam depicted above. Black Star retaliates with a kick to the solar plexus and Maka dodges a Living End, countering with a dropkick, but it’s clear that Sid is on a completely different level and it’s going to take more than petty attack to bring him down. So Maka and Soul try a Soul Resonance, which involves synchronizing the wavelengths of their souls for a nice power up. The manage to pull it off, Soul morphing from a huge regular scythe to a gigantic scythe brimming with energy. However, when Maka tries to fire off the finishing blow, she trips and ends up sending it in the opposite direction, almost slicing Black Star and Tsubaki in two.

Realizing he’s screwed if he doesn’t step up his game, Sid uses Dig (TM28) to try and catch Maka by surprise. Thankfully, Black Star’s knowledge as an assassin isn’t completely self-indulgent and he thinks of a counter pretty quickly. Using Tsubaki, he sets up a trap for Sid and calming his breathing down to silence, he anticipates Sid’s next attack and manages to bind him.

With that done with, the next part of the mission is to find the person responsible for turning Sid. Shinigami-sama explains to his son, Death the Kid, who was watching Maka and Black Star’s mission, that his current best weapon, Deathscythe, was forged by Maka’s mother. However, she was Deathscythe’s second master, the first was the most powerful weapons Meister to ever graduate from Shibusen, Dr. Franken Stein (har har).

Thoughts

So the most glaringly obvious problem with this week’s episode is the explanation Shinigami-sama offered Black Star and Maka for sending them on this mission. An assignment that pits student one star weapon Meisters against an experienced three star Meister, whom they happen to have a sort of emotional attachment to isn’t exactly what I would call elementary, as the misleading “Maintenance” title would suggest. And let alone the threat of expulsion in the case of failure, death seems to be the more pressing matter at hand.

But again, it’s hard for me to nitpick about logical plot progression in a series whose main attraction is being more or less devoid of such and instead concentrating on mind blowing action. But it’s still fun, so I’ll continue to do so.

The fighting was certainly to par this week, much better than episode three where Death the Kid beam spammed his opponent into oblivion. I’m curious as to why BONES thought it would be funny to rip off Evangelion’s crucifix beam, unless it was present in the manga as well, at which point I redirect the questioning to the mangaka. It was very much so a “WTF?” moment in the episode, but hey, I ran with it.

Maka and Soul’s unison thing was pretty neat, it brought to mind Shaman King, although I haven’t actually watched the entire thing. I like the explanation they offered for it, my inner physics nerd jumping in joy when I thought about souls as wave functions and Soul Resonance as aligning constructive wave patterns to increase amplitude, but I’m pretty sure all the physics connotations behind it are purely accidental.

Something I find perplexing about Soul Eater is its approach to fanservice. Sometimes they’re quite blatant with it, boiling down to pretty much any scene involving Blair and its near 100% probability of involving either a bathtub or rubbing her boobs against Soul. Yet at other times, as pictured above, they go through incredible lengths to snatch it away when it would actually make sense, Maka clearly being more concerned about covering her panties than putting up a guard against her flesh eating zombie teacher.

Also, I heard that there was supposed to be a “torture” scene in this episode, as per the manga, where a tied up Sid is subjected to panty flashes from Tsubaki and Maka in an attempt to get him to spill the info on Franken Stein’s whereabouts. There’s always the night “uncut” version to look forward to, but past experiences have told me that the chances of it adding more than an extended preview are slim.

Speaking of the comically named former Shibusen student now psychopathic mad scientist, it’s yet more evidence that Shinigami-sama was bsing when he called this mission “Maintenance”. Who sends remedial students against the strongest weapons Meister graduate their school has ever seen?

Though I can only presume that Franken Stein will only be of average, mini boss, strength, since it is only episode four. Alternatively, he’s a final boss and will sends hoards and hoards of midbosses at the three Meister teams before the final climactic showdown.

At this point I would like to remind the manga readers of the convenient spoiler tag feature. Not so much for me, I find spoilers in Soul Eater rather inconsequential, but there are bound to be other readers who want to savor what little suspense and excitement the story line has to offer.

Cat, fine too, etc.

~ Shirukii ~

Wat.

By some admittedly arbitrarily chosen, yet fairly effective standard, prologues usually last in the range of half an episode to one full episode before jumping into the main bit. Yet Soul Eater’s prologue extended a full three episodes without even telling us it was a prologue…nice. Many series would have been a quarter way done by now. Although, granted it is slated for 51 episodes and by the same token you could argue that Bleach took a good 70 episodes worth of “prologue” to get into the main story which now consists of powerlevel bs on an equivalent level of DBZ. But I digress, enough with the Bleach comparisons, Soul Eater is more along the lines of Shaman King anyways.

This episode introduces yet another team of Shinigami Meister + Weapon combo to add on to the Black Star-Tsubaki and Maka-Soul pairs. This time it’s Death the Kid and his twin pistols, sisters Liz and Patty. Death the Kid is a Meister of incredible talent, most likely a byproduct of being Shinigami-sama’s own flesh and blood son. He does have one downfall though, his obsessive compulsive disorder dictating that everything must be in perfect symmetry, causing great frustration when they’re not, as is the case with Liz and Patty’s human forms.

In search of a big job, Death the Kid is assigned to the Anubis pyramid assignment where a necromancer is reviving ancient mummies at an exponential (2^n, if anyone cares) rate. Arriving at the pyramid, Death the Kid is in absolute marvel at its perfect symmetry, a true wonder of architecture, whose roots often find themselves based in symmetrical design. However, as they delve into the depths of the pyramid, a horrible thought strikes Death the Kid, he believes the portrait in his hallway is misaligned slightly to the right. The idea festers in his mind until he abandons Liz and Patty to go check, leaving them to fend for themselves against a horde of mummies.

Meanwhile, back at school, Soul and Black Star catch wind of the Anubis job and scramble around to find out who it is, robbing them of the respective coolness and bigness. Imagine their shock when they find out it was Shinigami-sama’s own son who is out on the job. Meanwhile, the OCD perfectionist is just finishing up confirming the alignment on his portrait.

When he gets back to Anubis he’s in for a little surprise, the Pharaoh the Necromancer awakens turns on her for abusing the souls of his people. Liz and Patty stir the big guy up and end up bondage tied by his life sucking appendages. Death the Kid sets them free, but is unable to attack the Pharaoh, the reason soon becomes clear, his sarcophagus is perfectly symmetrical, a work of art that Death the Kid can’t bring himself to blemish. However, he springs back into life when the Pharaoh himself comes out of his coffin, hardly the poster boy for symmetry, and is thusly blown to bits. Death the Kid overdoes it a bit though, blowing a nice sized hole in the pyramid, causing it to collapse soon after their departure. As punishment, the souls they collected on the mission are seized by Shinigami-sama.

Thoughts

So in our character repertoire we have an incarnation of a scythe whose sole purpose in life is to look cool, an egotistical self proclaimed assassin who couldn’t ninja his way out of a paper bag and an obsessive compulsive perfectionist who would rather die than wreck symmetry, all accompanied by mellow counterparts. Awesome.

Although I’ve been nothing but praise with Soul Eater so far, it remains to be seen how long they’ll be able to retain my interest. If the prologue is anything to go by, there’s tons of potential, but it also shows signs of being a disaster in the making.

Largely, Soul Eater has followed a “monster of the week” format so far, which history has shown to lead to utter garbage if left to its own devices, however, the quirkyness of the characters and the anime’s refusal to take itself seriously has kept it an entertaining experience. Should these two things ever die off or the unique combination of action and comedy fall out of balance, Soul Eater will crash and burn fast. Which is why, in my opinion, they should have opted for the 24-26 episode length, but meh.

But enough with that, have some boobs. I heard this scene had more skin in the manga, I’m rather disappointed, yet at the same time, excited to see if the night version will compensate.

Liz and Patty are my favourite weapons so far in Soul Eater, while Maka remains my favourite overall, for reasons I’m not exactly sure of myself. Patty’s voice and general demeanor is humorous, acting, and sort of looking, like a 5 year old child most of the time. Liz offers the most maturity of the trio, and has the best facial expressions in the show thus far.

The trading off scene between the two was very well done, and actually fulfilled one of my “Hey, wouldn’t it be cool if they…” fantasies from when I first saw them. Sentient weapons using their sentient weapon siblings as weapons? Do want.

But that brings me to a not so happy point, animation. I don’t usually put animation high on my priorities list, in lieu of things like good story and character development, but when the latter two are little more than comedy gags, there’s nowhere else to turn to, ESPECIALLY after such an amazing first episode. But alas, nothing has matched Maka’s opening fight yet, from then we had the Black Star fight and this week’s Death the Kid match up, a steady regression in quality, this episode essentially resorting to IM’A FIRIN MY PEWPEW LAZORS.

Hopefully we get to see a proper fight from him next week, which promises to be a soul stealing experience.

They put the sights on top for a reason, idiot.

~ Shirukii ~

The hellish experience of final exams has reached its halfway point and from here on in they’re spread far enough that I don’t have to put blogging on hold to study, so it’s time to play catch up on the stuff I missed.

Additionally, narrowly beating out Vampire Knight (seriously?!) in the poll, Soul Eater will be the fourth show I will cover this spring. Not a bad choice I suppose, for the record, I voted Itazura na Kiss.

Soul Eater 02

Despite its extremely generic feel, I’m liking Soul Eater quite a bit, perhaps it’s the fact that it doesn’t even try to take itself seriously and offers a nice mix of in your face action and fanservice. The second episode introduces Black Star and Tsubaki, another team of meister and weapon of the Shinigami Technical School for Weapon Meisters, trying to create a Death Scythe fit for Shinigami-sama.

Even more eccentric than the Maka-Soul pair, Black Star proclaims himself as a stealthy assassin, but his egotistical rock star attitude makes him anything but. Because of this, his numerous attempts to defeat Al Capone and his subordinates, effectively gaining the 99 demon souls required in one fell swoop, has been met with nothing but failure.

Shinigami-sama then tells Black Star something interesting, Al Capone plans to hunt a witch named Angela and acquire her powers. With the possibility of all 99 demon souls and 1 witch soul needed for Tsubaki to become a death scythe all lumped up in one place, Black Star races to the scene. However, when he gets there, all that’s left is the graveyard of souls of Al Capone and his gang, defeated by Angela’s bodyguard Mifune. The two fight and despite Black Star goofing around at the outset, he eventually gets serious and manages to land a crushing blow on Mifune. But imagine his surprise when Angela, who turns out to be a weakling toddler of a witch shows up begging him to leave Mifune alone. Echoing Mifune’s words on killing children and how hard it makes it to sleep at night, Black Star passes up the free upg to Death Scythe and spares the two, even giving the souls of the Al Capone gang to Shinigami-sama since they weren’t his kills anyways.

Thoughts

The animation in Soul Eater took a bit of a dip compared to its debut episode, but for a series that will run for a planned 51 episodes, that’s to be expected, and even then it was far from what you would call bad. The fight between Mifune and Black Star lacked that fluidity we saw in the opener in Maka’s fight against Jack the Ripper, but it was still an interesting fight, even if it did pull the whole “SPEED LINES, AAAAARGH!” thing.

Also, I breathed a huge sigh of relief when focus was shifted from Maka and Soul onto the new pair, and from the looks of things, another team will be introduced next week. I love the Maka-Soul pair, I think the dynamic between them is great and with Blair added into the mix, they’re fun to watch. But that being said, I’m sure somewhere along the 51 episode run, that would run dry, so it was relieving to see that there’ll be at least two other story lines running in parallel.

On that note, I’m hearing a lot of criticism against Maka’s seiyuu, many saying she lacks the experience to properly convey the emotion necessary for her character. While I can see where they’re coming from, indeed some of Maka’s lines weren’t the greatest, not every single line needs to be delivered with over dramatic expressiveness, some of the more monotonous lines that she delivered I found quite fitting. It’s also a refreshing break from hearing the same old casts recycled, I’m a huge fan of Noto, Kugimiya Rie, Teh Rie, Kawasumi Ayako, Hocchan, etc. but you do tend to tire a bit after hearing them so many times.

I hope Soul Eater keeps the feel it has now and continues to deliver the mindless fun, I’d hate to see this end up train wrecking, especially since I’ve already boarded it.

Kure-nai 02

Kure-nai still has me in the dark, besides Murasaki being dropped off at Shintaro’s house and Benika telling him to protect her, we’re still not given much info as to what this series will be about, so not much can be said summary wise.

But that doesn’t stop it from being an enjoyable show, far from it, Murasaki is a riot to watch, seeing her struggle to adapt to a commoner life, having to step down from the pedestal she’s been standing on all her life thus far.

The only slight hints towards a plot that were revealed this episode was a bit more of Shintaro’s traumatic past, seems like his parents died right before his eyes, rather gruesomely too. We also see him at work as a “dispute mediator”, which amounts to nothing more than “we’ll beat the crap out of whoever you pay us to”. It was a bit disturbing seeing him pound away at that guy’s face with absolutely no emotion showing. Incorporated into all that is a fantasy element, Shintaro’s body clearly not being that of a normal human.

If I had to guess, Kure-nai will probably continue in its current direction of Shintaro teaching Murasaki how life outside the bubble of the Kuhouin family is like, revealing small plot elements here and there, only to have Murasaki abruptly snatched away and brought back to the Inner Sanctuary. Rescue arc, etc etc, you know how it goes. Given Kure-nai is only slated for 13 episodes, I think it’s likely it’ll follow that well beaten path.

Macross Frontier 02

Oh God it’s like she’s staring into my soul

From where we left off first episode, the Macross Frontier colony is being attacked by biomechanical weapons called Vajra and Alto, an amateur pilot is caught in the midst of it. Having watched Gilliam, a member of the civilian military organization SMS die in front of his eyes, he hops into his VF-25 variable fighter and tries to fend off the Vajra in an attempt to protect Ranka, a girl he met earlier that day, both heading to the Sheryl concert.

Ranka’s brother Ozma then shows up, also a member of the SMS, a fact not known to Ranka, and covers Alto while he tries to escape with Ranka. With the help of some cover fire from the SMS, the two make it to safety and the Vajra retreat, seemingly in response to Ranka’s voice, which is a product of her being 1/4 Zentran (not that I have any idea what that means).

In the aftermath of the attack Alto runs away from Ranka as the adrenaline runs out and he realizes what he’s just been through. The following day Ranka asks Ozma, who she believes to be a human resource worker, to track Alto down. Luckily he doesn’t have to search too far, Alto ends up at the same hospital as Ranka, both going for a checkup after encountering the Vajra, in addition, the military tries to recruit Alto after seeing his piloting skills. Ozma eavesdroppes and snatches him away before that happens though, using the VF-25 Alto totaled as leverage.

Afterwards, he takes him to SMS’s headquarters where everyone gathers around, wanting to hear how Gilliam died, first hand from Alto, who was there in his final moments. But before he has a chance to tell the tale, the Vajra spring back into action and another code Victor sortie order is issued. Alto asks to be of help, wanting to pilot one of their valkyries, but Ozma just shoves him aside and has him tossed out for saying something so irresponsible.

Meanwhile, Sheryl is in a panic, seems like she lost something during the concert and suspects Alto might have it. Outside, she meets Ranka, who doesn’t recognize her idol despite her crappy disguise. The two wander around and its only when Sheryl joins in when Ranka starts singing one of her songs is her cover blown, Ranka’s shock goes up threefold when at that exact moment the SMS launch to continue the fight against the Vajra and Alto runs in to her and Sheryl.

Thoughts

I have this feeling that I’m missing out on a lot of subtle references and throwbacks to previous Macross series as I go through Macross F. Let alone the obvious things like not knowing what a Zentran is (I’m guessing a race renowned for their majestic voices, or something like that) I bet I’m missing a ton of other less glaringly apparent things. I do plan on going through the rest of Macross when finals are completely over and done with though, so hopefully that won’t be a problem for long.

Aside from that, Macross F is definitely one of my favourites of the season thus far, the story isn’t anything ground breakingly different, but it’s interesting enough that I’m slowly being drawn in by it. The animation and character designs are holding up great so far, God knows where the budget is coming from, but that scene where Ranka and Alto were on the verge of flying out of the colony’s dome was great. The miscellaneous fight scenes are fairly well done too, hopefully they’ve budgeted it so it stays like this throughout its duration.

Also, Ranka > *. To hell with Sheryl!

Bonus: Mnemosyne 03

On the off chance that there are readers out there viewing this in a particularly strict work environment, I’ll throw this in spoiler tags, since it could be NSFW.

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OH GOD KUGIMIYA RIE MOANING. FAP FAP FAP.

I love Mnemosyne, the story is a complete throw away, the entire series is just an excuse for the nudity and lesbian sex scenes involving Kugimiya Rie and Mamiko Noto. And you know what? It works.

It is going downhill a bit though, subsequent episodes after the first proving not to be as good. Rin doesn’t even try anymore, she can barely go two minutes on screen without dying, that scene where she just ran into the line of gunfire was pretty sad. But hey, when dying slows you down no more than tripping and spraining an ankle would your normal person, why not?

I’m a little saddened by the time skip though. Where are my PCs running 40 MHz CPUs and 128 MB of RAM. WHERE ARE THE PAGERS?! ;_;

Anyways, I guess that’ll do for today. Normal episodic blogging will resume…whenever the next episode of whatever I’m blogging comes out. Until then, time to get some much needed sleep.

Aside: Oh yeah, I guess I should remind you that nominations for the Anime Blog Awards are nearing a close, April 22nd, I think, is the last day. See this post for details.

~ Shirukii ~