YOU SON OF A BITCH

It seems that every post I do on Code Geass R2 progresses something along the lines of “It was good, but…” followed by a vitriolic Suzaku rant. And this one will be no different, so for you Suzaku fans…yea, all three of you, fair warning has been given.

Stuck between the metaphorical rock and a hard place, Lulu gets bailed out of his phone conversation with Nunnally by Rolo, who uses his geass to freeze Suzaku while Lulu tells Nunnally to play along, pretending not to know each other. Suzaku takes it as a temporary sign that Lulu’s memories haven’t returned and apologizes to Nunnally for the misunderstanding.

Meanwhile, the preparations for Nunnally’s transportation to Area 11 and inauguration as its governor are underway. Some half wit politician is overseeing the operation and refuses to accept Guilford’s escort in fear of him stealing the glory, despite knowing full well what Zero is capable of.

Elsewhere, the Order of the Black Knights are preparing their interception mission, Kaguya leaves China to join Zero and the Black Knights clear out of the Chinese Embassy just as the Knights of Round show up to check on their status.

With that, the battle begins, the Black Knights taking an odd approach by engaging the aerial based fleet by dropping land based knightmare frames on the ships. The attack has two very difficult conditions to clear, firstly, Nunnally must be captured unharmed, and secondly, Lulu must tread carefully so as not to reveal his identity as Zero to her.

All is going well, until Guilford shows up with reinforcements, a squad of mass production Lancelot units backed up by Anya, Gino and Suzaku, rightfully guessing that the convoy would be attacked in transit. The Black Knight’s ground units, even under the command of Toudou, are picked off with relative ease. To make things worse, a sudden time limit is imposed when the half wit politician blows a hole in his own flotation engine, sending the ship into a slow crash course descent.

The only one able to put up a fight against the mass production lancelot units and the Knights of Round is Kallen, but even she gets shot down when Suzaku enters the fight. However, thanks to the brilliance of Lakshata, Gurren is upgraded with aerial gliders and an upgraded armor piercing hadron cannon. Making quick work of things, she takes down Guilford’s squad of lancelots and immobilizes Gino and Anya, who find themselves rather impressed at the Black Knight pilot whose skills rival those of the Rounds. Even Suzaku is bewildered when Lancelot, with its upgraded Yggdrasil drive, is unable to overpower Kallen’s Gurren.

While all this commotion is going on outside, Lulu sneaks onto the ship and tries to reason with Nunnally, telling her that she is simply being used by Britannia, nothing more than a political tool. However, Nunnally doesn’t think so, in fact, she reveals that she volunteered for this position and intends to carry on the will of her sister Euphie in establishing the Special Administrative Region of Japan, leaving Lulu speechless when she extends her hand asking for his support.

However, their conversation is cut short when the ship’s descent approaches sea level and by extension, the fight between Kallen and Suzaku reaching its time limit, both breaking off in lieu of their rescue mission. And so Lulu is forced to watch as Nunnally cries out for Suzaku’s help and the subsequent scene of his beloved sister being carried to safety by his traitorous “friend” while awaiting rescue from Kallen.

Thoughts

The reason behind my relentless hate of Suzaku is beginning to shift somewhat. Before, I ragged on him for being a hypocritical moralfag, who thought he could bring change to the Britannian empire from within, went on and on about justice and honor, only to completely abandon those principles and become a ruthless power hungry bastard. But as time passed, I came not so much to accept that side of him, but became so used to it that I wasn’t really fazed by it.

But now my hate is fueled by a completely different reason, he seems to be personally screwing Lulu over every chance he gets. We saw a glimpse of this last season when he was constantly showing up in Lancelot, ruining his battle plans, but this time it’s a lot more personal, going to great lengths to mindfuck him by bringing Nunnally in, and snatching her away as a knight in shining armor right before his eyes. I miss “JUST AS PLANNED!” Lulu, instead we’ve seen his plans fall apart at the hands of Suzaku these past two episodes. As if going against an entire empire wasn’t bad enough, he has to deal with his treacherous ex-best friend constantly wrecking his shit.

Anyways, moving on. Not much plot revelation in this episode, only this one extremely WTF moment when VV calls Emperor Charles his brother. Taking this literally, that means that the Britannian royal family is part witch. I sincerely hope that’s not the case though, since huge revelations like this should be alluded to before being dropped into the viewer’s lap, anything otherwise suggests that they’re just making stuff up as they go along. Not to mention the huge shift that it would cause to the story, having to explain such a twist would throw the supernatural element of Code Geass center stage, leaving it to clumsily dance around while the entire political and warfare structure takes a supporting role, leaving long time viewers scared and confused, dislodged from their comfortable familiarity of pseudo mecha.

Speaking of pseudo mecha, even that is beginning to endanger itself. The rapid evolution of Knightmare technology is showing Gundam-esque improvements of late. In this scene the Black Knight’s prog knife thing hits Anya’s torso square on, and it doesn’t even flinch, not even a paint scratch! While I don’t mind Knightmares running around toting hadron cannons and super speed, they shouldn’t be completely impervious to damage. Because at that point it ceases to be about battle tactics and strategy and becomes a battle of technology and piloting, leaving everyone else as mere cannon fodder. I fear the worst though, given that Kallen’s Gurren just got a hefty upgrade, and I’m guessing Suzaku’s Lancelot will follow suit not too far from now.

I do love Anya though, with her fat Knightmare with the appearance and weaponry to rival Virtue Gundam. But more than that, I love her deadpan attitude and calm demeanor regardless of the situation. Loli stature doesn’t hurt either.

Speaking of lolis, FUCK YEAH KAGUYA! Although…it looks like she’s matured a bit in this past year. But she’ll always be Kaguya-sama, queen of lolis to me.

And finally, probably my last rant on Rolo’s geass. (You didn’t really think you were getting away without one more of these, did you?) So despite my thinking that it couldn’t have possibly been this simple, the weakness behind Rolo’s geass is indeed a time limit. Fairly short too, looks like it was around 10 seconds. I’m not going to bother bringing up the inconsistencies that I pointed out in past entries all over again, at this point (barring an explanation in the anime) I’m just going to overlook them as Sunrise having screwed up their continuity.

And we close with Lloyd, because Lloyd is moeeee <3

~ Shirukii ~

Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t putting a personal charm inside one’s cockpit the equivalent of attaching a gigantic neon sign that reads “SHOOT ME” to the back of one’s plane? Or are main characters exempt from this rule?

In either case, I can’t say I’d be displeased about Alto-hime being marked for death at the moment, I found his behaviour this episode far from admirable.

Following Ranka’s performance at the Zentradi mall, an independent music producer scouts her and goes to Ozma for the go ahead to launch her career. Ozma has voiced his opinion on this subject quite clearly before, however, after seeing what lengths Ranka is willing to go to to achieve her dream, it would be selfish of him to stand in her way, so he hands over his cute imouto, fists clenched in frustrated reluctance.

Meanwhile, Sheryl is going over her routine for her farewell performance, Grace and the stage crew noting her enthusiasm as she meticulously combs over the performance. Unfortunately, what was supposed to be Sheryl’s final performance before going back to her home colony, Galaxy, is met with bad news as word reaches Grace that Galaxy has been attacked by Vajra, news which she passes on with a heavy heart to Sheryl.

Meanwhile, at school, Alto-hime is called out by Mikhail on his date with Sheryl, profusely denying any romantic connotation to the outing. Mikhail congratulates him nonetheless, but wonders what will become of his relationship with Ranka, which Alto also denies having that sort of relationship with. Before Mikhail has a chance to probe any further, Nanase barges in with some urgent news concerning Ranka.

Despite Nanase’s panicked state, the news is good, Ranka revealing that she got scouted by a company called Vector Promotion. Everyone congratulates Ranka and claim their rankings in the newly formed fanclub, but Alto seems rather indifferent to the news, taking an “I don’t see the big deal” attitude. Ranka is a depressed by this, and when she finally gets over it to talk to Alto, apologizing because she wanted to tell him first, Alto tells her that he was at the Zentradi mall for her performance, so he saw first hand. But when she asks Alto whether he was there alone or with someone else, he lies and tells her he was flying solo that day. Alto then, rather nonchalantly, hands her a ticket to Sheryl’s farewell concert. Poor Ranka ;_;

The celebrations are interrupted when Howard Glass, leader of the Frontier Colony, delivers an address to the people informing them of the nature of the Vajra attacks and the fate of their sister colony, Galaxy. Alto, Luca and Mikhail are called back to SMS HQ, whose members are now under the enforcement of Exemption Article B, which states that in the event of a state of emergency that they are to be treated as military personnel.

This leaves Ranka to wallow in a state of melancholy as the man she loves is falling for an idol she can’t hope to compete with and now is being sent off to fight a war alongside her beloved brother, whose attempts to reassure her that he will bring back everyone alive don’t seem to cheer her up much.

Elsewhere, Sheryl is dealing with some issues herself. With the Galaxy Colony known to be her homeland, she’s swamped by questions about the Vajra attack, which basically boil down to whether or not she thinks it’s fair that Frontier has to come to their rescue, to which she asks if it would be any better hiding in fear waiting for the Vajra to come to them instead. She also extinguishes the rumor that her farewell concert planned for that night will be canceled, affirming her will to perform and the desire to return home peacefully.

Meanwhile, the military has been put into action, scouts sent ahead of the attack force to gauge the current situation at Galaxy, only to run into Galaxy’s military fleet Kaitos, swarming with Vajra. Over at SMS headquarters, Cathy has arrived on orders from the military to aid in their operations.

Remembering his promise to Sheryl, Alto pays her a visit just before her concert to return the earring that she lost, only to be told to keep it as a token of good luck. In return, she makes Alto sit through some of her life’s story, telling him how much she hated living in Galaxy with no family or friends.

Rushing back to SMS headquarters, Alto goes on launch standby, Sheryl’s earring dangling on the side of his cockpit (upon rereading that sentence, lol). And the rest of the episode is a combined scene showing the SMS launching to assist the Galaxy fleet accompanied by Sheryl’s farewell concert, both of which Ranka witness, closing in from a distance.

Thoughts

S-s-stupid Ranka, it’s not like I’m inviting you or anything, I just happened to have an extra ticket, that’s all.

As I said before, I thought Alto was a bit of an ass this episode. For someone who is the pillar of Ranka’s emotional support in her quest to become an accomplished singer so she can share her voice with the world, that was a pretty lame reaction to her first breakthrough. Let alone his failure to claim the #1 spot of her fanclub, he seemed reluctant to join at all and had nothing positive to say about her scouting in general, going as far as questioning the legitimacy of the company that signed her. What the hell Alto-hime, show some support.

Not to mention he lied about being alone at the Zentradi mall, which shows that Alto doesn’t confide in Ranka as much as she does in him, and also prodded at the seed of suspicion that is no doubt growing in Ranka’s head about his relationship with Sheryl. If she does believe that the two are more than just friends, she most likely won’t be able to bring herself to even compete, for one, she’ll probably think that Alto already made his choice despite being more or less oblivious to both their feelings at this point, and furthermore, it’s intimidating to have to compete against an intergalactic idol like Sheryl.

To his credit, Alto seems to be falling for Sheryl and never truly showed any signs of romantic interest in Ranka, probably thinking her of a imouto more than anything at this point. But he must be blind to see that she’s interested in him, and to lie about his date with Sheryl, ESPECIALLY when Mikhail knows about it anyways, was a pretty lame move.

It’ll be interesting to see how Ranka copes with all the emotional turmoil in her life. Let alone her brother being sent out to what is almost certainly his inevitable death, taking her love interest as a wingman, she has to deal with a disenchantment of sorts concerning Sheryl. She is Ranka’s idol, her goal in life is centered around emulating her, and yet now the two find themselves at odds because of Alto. It’s tough when someone you put on a pedestal comes crashing down on top of you, Ranka must be pretty conflicted at the moment. But I’m sure she’ll bounce back to the green haired genki we all know and love.

As for Sheryl, she continues to impress me, making it really hard for me not to turn in my Ranka fanclub card in lieu of a Sheryl one. It was admirable the way she stood her ground when confronted with reporters asking her about Galaxy. although, I argue that it’s pretty stupid to be asking a pop idol about politics in the first place, that’s like asking Paris Hilton what she thinks about the ongoing recession fueled by the subprime crisis. Nevertheless, it was nice to see her take a stance and firmly hold her place. Even more so when she decided not to cancel her concert, reminding everyone that she’s capable of shining brightly even in the darkest of times.

Next episode looks like it’ll be filled to the brim with plenty of PEW PEW I’MA FIRIN MY LAZOR type stuff, which is nice, it’s why I got drawn into the Macross Series in the first place. Hopefully they shed some light on who’s behind the Vajra and the reasoning behind their creation. It looks like we’ll also get to see a confrontation between our two songstresses, Ranka and Sheryl. Given Sheryl’s personality, she’s likely to instantly pick up on what’s bugging Ranka and set her straight, declaring her as a rival in both love and their careers as idols.

Finally, a note on animation. It sucked. God I hope they’re saving up for later episodes, Ranka got hit by the QUALITY stick so many times this episode, it was horrifying.

Ah, travel by means of folding the third dimension through the fourth, I hope they delve further into this. What Macross has in terms of romance drama and dogfight combat is unfortunately balanced out by the lack of an established physics system and political drama.

~ Shirukii ~

I’m just a little happy…

…and more than a little overwhelmed. The ending of ARIA the ORIGINATION and with it, the ARIA series as a whole, has left me fumbling for words. The words to describe what I felt about the last few episodes, the ending and the series as a whole, have been elusive. However, I’ll try my best to do justice to this amazing work.

I stopped doing episodic posts on ARIA after episode nine because subs fell incredibly far behind, which is okay, subbing slowly is preferred here, etc. But given the time that has passed since the series finished airing, plot summaries at this point feel like an endeavor in wasted effort. But if you require them, head over to Subculture instead: 10, 11, 12, 13.

Episode 10

As lolikit asserted in notdotq, this was a comparatively weak episode, especially when you have to stack it up to its immediate predecessor. Given the powerful scene that was Alice’s promotion, the aftermath was rather tame. Sure we saw Alice coping with the nervousness that came with suddenly becoming a prima, but it was only a fraction of what we knew lay below her emotional instability at the time.

Having been suddenly promoted to prima, not only did Alice have to deal with unassisted guides and the like, but she also had to come to terms that she was now on her own path. A path separate separate from the great water faeries and more importantly, a path separate from Aika and Akari, who she has practiced on an almost daily basis with for over a year now.

Instead we got a rather tangential interlude on the relationship between Aika and Al. In hindsight, this contributed to her overall confidence in the episodes to follow, however at the time felt out of place. The pacing just didn’t match up to the events of late. It’s like the script writers realized that they would have to kick the plot development into overdrive, but before doing so, gave a quick tap on the brakes, the result was rather jarring.

However, it was nice to see Al and Aika finally reconcile their love for each other after two seasons of loose allusions to it.

Episode 11

The true follow up to episode nine, this episode concentrated on the aforementioned feeling of separation that Alice felt when she got promoted ahead Aika and Akari. Alice describes her personality best herself, saying that she’s the type to worry when given the time to think. With her title as Orange Princess and established reputation of the ace of Orange Planet, Alice’s schedule has no shortage of bookings, finding that working late into the night is becoming commonplace.

Accompanying the exhaustion of work comes the realization that she hasn’t been spending much time with Aika and Akari, who just a while ago she used to spend every single day with. Often wanting to go see the two, Alice opts not to do so, either because she believes it’s too late at night to disturb them or not being able to think of a reason to drop by. So imagine her surprise when she returns to her room one day to find them stuffing their faces with food. As it becomes apparent that even though they may be walking different paths, the time they spend together remains unaffected, Alice accidentally voices her concerns about not having the time nor a reason for doing so aloud.

Her worries are quelled by Akari, who tells her that she doesn’t need a reason, Alice herself is enough of a reason for them to get together. Once again, Akari proves her unrivaled ability to phrase things in a wonderfully poetic manner that can warm the heart of even the more hardened cynic.

Along with Alice’s predicament, this episode featured Akira’s challenge to Aika, her prima qualification examination.

Episode 12

I felt this episode suffered a little because Aika’s qualification exam wasn’t shown in full, but rather as a flashback of sorts, an unfortunate consequence of episode ten’s tangent. However, that being said, Akari’s exam compensated, and then some. It was amazing how well they captured Akari’s essence, her very nature, throughout the course of her exam. As she guided Alicia on her modified Neo Venezia tour, she is showered with support on all fronts, from her peers Aika and Alice to her seniors Athena and Akira and all the random passerbys in between. It was a perfect exposition of Akari’s character, her propensity to make friends and the direction that she will guide ARIA Company towards in the future.

Out of the three examinations, I’d argue that Akari had the toughest. Alice’s was a simple guided tour and some overlap with the singles qualification exam, and we can only assume that Aika’s was a simulated tour as well, in addition to that, Alicia put Akari through an incredibly tight canal passage that demanded precision gondola control. Which was a little weird actually, since I always thought that Alice was the prodigy when it came to maneuverability.

Episode 13

I’ll make no excuses here, this episode reduced me to tears three times. First, when Akari runs into a snag with book keeping, turns to ask Alicia for help and finds she’s not there. Second, when Alicia passed on her oar to Akari and bowed farewell. And finally, when Akari opened the shutters without Alicia, moving on from the past towards her own ARIA Company.

In particular, Akari’s breakdown in front of Alicia was very moving. Coming from Akari, a character who has continuously proven that she is beyond things like jealousy and is a generally selfless person, it was hard to see her lose herself in her desire for the days she spends with Alicia by her side to never end. It was equally hard to hear Alicia, who has been portrayed as the pinnacle of perfection, admit to Akari that she too was putting off this day as long as she could, even though she knew that Akari had the skills to be a prima long ago.

But of course, Akari is quick to bounce back, take a step back and look at the larger picture. Her monologue about everyone’s paths diverging despite looking like they were all heading in the same direction was an excellent tie up. The split was an inevitable one and was alluded to many times before through reminiscence of the time the three great water faeries were singles, and Akari’s elegant reflection on the past and present as well as her hopes for the future was flawless.

The “Where are they now” type epilogue which jumps ahead into the future and telling us what everyone has been up to isn’t something I usually like, but it worked well this time around. Athena becoming an opera singer was a bit of a surprise, but oddly fitting. I lol’d at Akira claiming the top spot as her two main competitors dropped out or divided their attention, hilariously appropriate given her competitive nature. Alicia taking an administrative position was a little out of place, but we get to see her in megane mode as a result, so all is well. Of course, her sudden engagement was shocking, to say the least, but since we’re actually never shown her soon to be husband, we’re free to imagine whatever we want of him (ie. she married ronery anonymous).

And finally, we come full circle with Akari taking on Ai-chan as her apprentice in the dying moments of the finale, a parallel drawn to her own first days on Aqua, reinforcing the idea that this is by no means an end, but merely the beginning of a new age.

A bit of an aside here, the final scene with Ai-chan becoming Akari’s apprentice is interesting in that Ai-chan is an anime exclusive character for the most part. In the manga, she did come to Aqua to become Akari’s apprentice, but was previously unmentioned. This is a rare case of me liking the anime approach over the manga’s. Seeing as we had prior knowledge of Ai-chan in that she is the recipient of Akari’s frequent letters as well as having stage presence in the form of visits to Aqua, when she comes over to become an undine, the connection to her character is pre-established and heightens the effect. Would Akari’s echoing of Alicia’s words have carried the same weight had Ai-chan been a seemingly random last minute insert character? I can’t help but think not.

Final Impressions

The ARIA series has been an amazing ride, especially if you consider that it was a rather scenic journey. ARIA was a series devoid of any noticeable plot, in the first couple episodes of ANIMATION, the cast and the world of Aqua is introduced, and in the final few episodes, a new age dawns as the next generation of prima are unleashed.

So what’s in between? What fills the gap between introduction and conclusion? Short answer: nothing. Long answer: the slow unraveling of the world of Neo Venezia, the subtleties in beauty and tranquility that defined ARIA as a “healing” anime. There were no distinct power level jumps amongst the cast, the ranks they had at the beginning remained until the end when they were promoted. Instead we were shown their slow, progressive growth, not through countless training episodes and gondola physics, but rather by the day to day experiences that touched upon themes of love, life, the universe and everything.

It’s difficult to explain ARIA to someone I’m trying to recommend it to, ask this blog’s second author, Soda, I’ve been pushing him to watch it for months. I’m often left telling them that: “It’s a calming experience unlike anything you’ve ever seen before. But be warned, it’s boring, but in a good way.” And that’s a pretty lame explanation “boring, but in a good way”? What does that even mean? The defining example of the point I’m trying to get across here is the time I fell asleep while watching an episode of ARIA, woke up sometime later, refreshed and relaxed, and proceeded to watch the episode again. That is the effect that ARIA can have.

However, with this comes a warning. ARIA is not a series that is meant to be marathoned, that is, watched all at once. The way you’ll get the most out of your ARIA experience is to watch it gradually, an episode or two a day after a stressful day at the office or to wind down from a tiring day at school. The slow pacing of the show needs to be matched by a slow pacing of its viewing.

Furthermore, while they’re not really pertinent to a series like ARIA, I feel like I have to touch upon its technical aspects, just for habit’s sake. The animation in ARIA varies, there are some episodes which pay great attention to scenic detail, others that emphasize the beauty and grace of the undines through subtle fluidity in their movements, and others still that fail in both regards and rely far too heavily on chibi animation. However, as a whole, the style fits extremely well, especially when it comes to character designs, each having their own distinct characteristics.

The ARIA soundtrack is absolutely amazing, an aspect of anime which usually gets a resounding “meh” from me, so understand how great it must be for me to have actually gone out of my way to acquire the soundtracks.

No, thank -YOU- ARIA. Thank you for bringing that warm and fuzzy feeling to my heart for 20 minute installations at a time.

With absolute confidence, I crown ARIA as my favourite anime of all time. It may not boast adrenaline fueled action, complex story elements or a touching love story, but ARIA’s atmosphere sucked me into the world of Aqua. Fleshing out its settings and its characters, ARIA evoked emotions I thought my heart was no longer capable of feeling, as corny as that may sound.

The only remotely negative thing I can say about ARIA on the whole is that I’m sad that it’s over. It’s difficult accepting that no matter how good it is, no matter how much money the DVD sales bring in, we will likely never see anymore ARIA ;_;

So with no hesitation, I recommend the ARIA series as compulsory viewing to any self respecting anime fan. The series is in fact so good that I’m going to break my usual pirate ways, I’m going to buy the ARIA DVDs. Even though I’ve seen the entire thing and I have all the episodes archived on my HDD, it doesn’t matter, a series like this is a rarity and it deserves every cent of support that it will squeeze from my wallet.

~ 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 ~

Like a flock of bleating lambs, SURPRISE BUTTSECKS

I need to get this off my chest first. I cannot believe Sunrise pulled the stupid cat chase thing again. I gave fair warning, so prepare yourself Sunrise, 2-44-10 Kami-igusa, Suginami-ku. Tokyo, Japan. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, perhaps not even in this life time, but one day, I’ll get you guys…

Other than that, it was a fairly good episode. It was largely filler and contained far too much Suzaku for my liking, but the final moments descended so far into sheer mindfuckery that you really couldn’t help but like it.

Picking up from last week, Lulu has successfully liberated the captured members of the Order of the Black Knights and the Chinese Embassy has a bit of a housing problem to deal with now. Lulu speaks privately to Kallen and C.C. about the Knightmare that defended him in the battle, he tells them that the pilot can be considered an ally of sorts, but refuses to reveal his identity. A more pressing matter is at hand though, Lulu exits to address his comrades, initially they demand an explanation and apology for having been abandoned, but with the support of Toudou and Ougi, realize that Zero always acts with victory in mind and if he kept his movements secret, there must have been a reason. With the two of them supporting him, the crowd erupts, cheering Zero’s name.

A surprise awaits Lelouch at school the following day, Kururugi Suzaku has been readmitted into Ashford and rejoins schooling alongside Lulu. Despite being mortal enemies, with Lulu’s memories of Zero and Nunnally having supposedly being erased, the two put up a masquerade of their former friendship. Later, Suzaku gets debriefed by the surveillance team, Villetta confirming along with Rolo’s support that Lulu has yet to recover his memories. However, Suzaku is not so keen to accept that just yet. Calling in Gino and Anya, fellow Knights of the Round, he plans to get to the bottom of this, and to do so he’ll exploit the welcome party that Milly plans to throw for him.

As most of the school events end up, Milly’s planned welcome back party takes on a life of its own and escalates into another school festival. The last school festival was interrupted anyways, so it feels like a justified second try.

Lulu continues to put up his act with Rolo, trying to fool Suzaku into thinking that nothing is out of the ordinary, yet he remains wary. Furthermore, Rolo reveals to his “brother” that his geass has a weakness…which we viewers apparently aren’t allowed to know yet, as they cut away before it’s revealed.

Lelouch is going about his usual task of ordering around the Black Knights in preparation for their next operation when things start to get out of hand. C.C. of all people has shown up to the school festival wanting to get a piece of the “world’s largest pizza” that last year ended up a huge failure. Lulu grabs her aside and reminds her of the position she’s in, especially with Suzaku wandering around, showing up to the festival was suicide. However, he takes the opportunity to talk to her anyways, getting information about the other witch, the one who gave the Emperor and Rolo their geass as well as telling Suzaku about its existence, V.V.

Their conversation is cut short by Shirley. Without a moment’s hesitation, Lulu knocks C.C. into the nearby van of tomatoes and shuts the roof. As the two exchange pleasantries, another surprising guest shows up, Kallen, looking for C.C. to bring back to the embassy, disguised in a mascot suit. At the same time, Suzaku is elsewhere talking with Milly about what’s going on with Area 11 as well as her fiance, Lloyd, when all of a sudden, Arthur (the cat) jumps up and grabs Suzaku’s quill, which was given to him by Euphie.

The result? A mad dash with Suzaku chasing Arthur, Milly chasing Suzaku, Shirley chasing Kallen, and Lulu chasing C.C. in the tomato truck carried by Gino. Someone needs to dub Yakety Sax onto the scene, I’ve never seen something more fitting.

Lulu, quick to think. Geasses one of the student council members to set off the fire extinguishing foam, which ruins the pizza, but conceals Kallen and C.C. long enough for them to get away. In the aftermath of the ordeal, Lulu calls Li to escort them back to the embassy, but not before getting some interesting information about Villetta and Ougi getting friendly back in the day.

Not one to waste deliciously exploitable information like that, Lulu puts Rolo to use, holding Villetta at gunpoint while nonchalantly telling her that he never figured her as the treacherous type, throwing Ougi’s name in her face before she can retort, closing with an extended hand, offering her a place in his alliance.

As the festival winds down and Lulu ties up the loose ends of the day, he’s approached by Suzaku, who tells him that he plans on becoming Knight of the One, the most powerful knight in the Britannian Empire, a perk of the position being choice rule over any one area. He plans to claim Area 11, Japan, to ensure that such losses like his important friends and the woman he loved never repeat themselves. Furthermore, he tells Lelouch that the new governor of the Area is arriving next week and offers him the chance to speak to her. Lulu is, to put it mildly, surprised to hear the voice of his sister, Nunnally, over the phone.

Thoughts

*insert another vitriolic rant about the cat*

I can’t wait to see how Lulu gets out of this one. He usually responds with lightening quick reflexes to whatever situation he finds himself in, however this time is completely different. This is Nunnally we’re talking about, the very reason he’s waged this war. The mere thought of Suzaku by her side must be tearing at his insides right now, it’s going to take all the willpower in the world for him not to turn around and smash his smug face inside out.

Faaaaaaaaag

But that aside, what the hell? Since when did Suzaku possess the foresight and mindfuck abilities to one up Lelouch. It’s Lelouch! Zero! The mastermind in Code Geass whose “Just as Planned” abilities rival Yagami Light from the Death Note universe. This is unacceptable, Suzaku already possesses the power to scale walls dodging impossible gunturret bullet patterns, span five meters in the air landing a roundhouse kick while dodging pistol fire, DAMNIT SUNRISE, STOP THIS SHIT. I really hate this guy…

Moving on, I was pleasantly surprised at how Lulu handled the opening scene with the members of the Order of the Black Knights. He essentially stood there in silence and the crowd melted in his hands. It’s understandable why he couldn’t apologize to the crowd, he’s their leader, and as such, he needs to have their complete trust and respect. They need to believe in his orders with absolute certainty, apologizing for his mistake would display fallibility, which would fester into the questioning of his orders down the road. It was brilliant of him to wait for supporters in the form of Toudou and Ougi to rile the crowd behind him.

Speaking of Ougi, I was amazed at how quick Lulu was to extort his relationship with Villetta to draw her to his side. It was incredibly bastardish moment of his, which, while sound from a battle perspective (the more allies the better) was a morally devoid decision. For Ougi to have hidden it from him, it must have been a deeply sentimental relationship, Lulu would have deduced this quickly, especially when he saw Villetta’s reaction to it. To tear that apart and use it to his tactical advantage was pretty low. Smart, but low.

I guess the only other plot point to bring up is Rolo’s geass and the aforementioned weakness thereof. I can’t really wager a guess as to what it is. Unless the whole thing about being able to maintain it only for a limited amount of time or expand it only to a limited radius. However, given the tone in Rolo’s voice when he mentioned it, the weakness is far more fatal than such simple mechanisms.

Speaking of geass. I lol’d so hard when Lulu passed by the wall with all the markings. If you’ll recall back to CG R1, Lulu geassed a girl into marking this wall every day to guage how long the effect lasts. Can you imagine how badly he must have ruined the her life? The image that came to my warped mind is the poor girl sitting in a plane heading to a vacation when she suddenly remembers she has to mark that damn wall and has to parachute out to get back to Ashford.

Aside from that, this episode was made of massive amounts of fanservice. On the Kallen side of things we have this wonderful shot with a clear shot of her butt, as well as the more subtle underboob.

And in a rare moment of direct C.C. fanservice, we get a pantsu shot. Despite her reputation as pizzabutt and all, we rarely get much C.C. fanservice in this form. Usually it consists of her being devilishly witty or casting off sarcastic remarks, fanservice showcasing her personality as opposed to her physique. So sad that she missed out on the pizza for the second year in a row ;_; It’s been five episodes Sunrise! Just give her some pizza already.

Anyways, next episode looks like a return to action. Three Knights of the Round, Suzaku, Anya and Gino are shown in action, so Lelouch is going to have to come up with one hell of a plan to turn the tide of battle to his favor.

Wow, even Milly beat him. In a dress no less.

~ Shirukii ~

:3

I had to start with a Ranka cap because the ratio of Ranka:Sheryl in this episode was criminally low.

However! That being said, this episode took what little dislike for Sheryl I had left, tossed it out the window and then tried to brainwash me into leaving the Ranka camp. I’m sitting on the metaphorical fence right now, with Ranka’s cute smile and dog-like ears perked up on one side and Sheryl’s all natural alluring body and confident grin on the other.

The inevitable happens and Ozma finds out about Ranka participating in the Miss Macross Frontier competition, and what’s more, she even gets suspended because of it. Ranka can deal with Ozma getting mad over her getting suspended and participating in the contest behind his back, but when he tells her that she’s too shy a person to become a singer, Ranka gets about as angry as she can and runs out of the house. Ozma panics and orders the members of the SMS to track her down and bring her home, Ranka messaging Alto soon after telling him about her suspension and the fight with her brother and asking him for advice, but when Alto calls her, he can’t get through.

Alto has bigger problems to worry about anyways, he gets a surprise visit from Sheryl, still on her quest to find her missing earring. However, when they can’t find it at Alto’s school and SMS hq is closed, she seems all to happy to discard the search and drag Alto on a date instead. The two wander around Frontier while being chased down by Sheryl’s fans, Sheryl revealing the very reason that she’s so interested in Alto is because he doesn’t treat her like she’s the superstar Sheryl, but rather just like any other person.

Alto takes Sheryl to the Zentradi sector of Frontier, since she’s never seen Zentradi in their macro forms, only microned. The novelty of seeing everything supersized amuses Sheryl greatly, but she suddenly goes into SERIOUS BUSINESS mode when inspiration for some lyrics hits. Pulling down the nearest pair of Zentradi pantsu to use as paper, she begins writing furiously, a macronized Klein passing by stops to take a look.

Meanwhile, throughout all this, Mikhail has found Ranka and has been spending the entire day trying to convince her to go home since Ozma is worried about her. Ranka counters that if her brother gets to be selfish and hide the fact that he was piloting all this time, she has every right to do the same. Mikhail then calls her singing into question, wondering if she really can sing in front of a crowd, not just a crowd like the one at the Miss Macross Frontier contest, but any random crowd, offering her a microphone and telling her to sing in front of the people before her. Nervous at first, Ranka once again turns to Alto for confidence, seeing one of his paper airplanes fly by.

Her solo singing quickly escalates into a mini concert as the crowd gathers around her, Sheryl and Alto within an earshot as well, Sheryl amazed that Ranka finally came out of her shell, now singing because it’s what she’s meant to do, similar to Alto flying because that’s what he was meant to do. After the mini live is over, Mikhail gives in and submits himself to Ranka’s talent, the two then notice Sheryl and Alto off in the distance, just as Sheryl gives Alto a goodbye kiss and a promise to invite him to her farewell concert. Poor Ranka ;_;

Elsewhere, the Vajra plot is being fleshed out as well, Ozma having been summoned by Leon, who is gathering everyone with knowledge about the Vajra for a special presentation. The Vajra that the SMS shot down in the first attack was captured and preserved by the Frontier Government Special Security Council for dissection. They found out that its shell is made of a similar material to their own Valkyries, it automaticall generates firearms and most importantly, it lacks what you would call a brain. This has the very crucial implication that Vajra do not act of their own will, that they are being controlled by someone.

As the presentation continues, the Vajra goes berserk and tries to break out of its containment cell in response to Ranka’s concert in the Zentradi sector, forcing Leon to hit the failsafe, vaporizing the Vajra. However, with no idea that Ranka was performing, they can’t draw the link and remain clueless to the reason behind the provocation.

The episode ends with a Valkyrie from the Galaxy colony, bringing word that they have been attacked by Vajra and require assistance. The Galaxy colony, conveniently enough, also happens to be Sheryl’s homeworld of sorts.

Thoughts

Really, this isn’t fair, they threw a bunch of character archetypes into Sheryl, so much so that it’s one of those “there’s something for everyone” packages that you can’t really say no to. In addition to the whole superstar diva thing she has going with the voluptuous body, soft, supple curves, hair that runs down her slender shoulder to…shit, where was I going with this again?

Oh right! Given how bitchy and self-centered she was portrayed at the beginning, it’s unfair that Sheryl pulls a 180 and shows a very down to earth side of her that is almost as endearing as Ranka’s latent cuteness. Not to mention she had that tsundere moment, tsundere is like…the kryptonite of anime fans, most of us fall to its whims.

Yet I wouldn’t call her perfect, she’s still got that inherently selfish attitude and “the world revolves around me” mindset, although in this case it’s quite justified since everyone and their baby sister this side of the universe knows and reveres her like a goddess. Yet it’s perhaps that imperfection that makes her so lovable, to know that you have a serious, career driven woman who can also display a sort of childlike persona, as depicted above, where Sheryl is trying to catch a butterfly, a moment which made me let out a great big “D’AWWWWW”.

On the other vertex of this triangle, Ranka’s brattyness this episode brought her down a notch in my books, I felt bad for Mikhail having to deal with her stubbornness. One particular aspect of Ranka which I’m not too fond of is her reliance on Alto. She continually says that she has the confidence to sing on her own accord, but really it’s the backing of Alto that lets her get over her nerves and come through. Relationships are meant to be supportive, not dependent, Alto’s love of flying is certainly enhanced by knowing that Ranka is behind him, but he doesn’t fly for her sake alone. While the same may be true for Ranka, that is that she signs for her own reasons, it’s clear she has some trouble doing so when Alto isn’t holding her hand so to speak.

Then again, she managed fine in the Miss Macross Frontier competition when Alto wasn’t there, so maybe I’m being a little too hard on her. I’d say she still has a slight edge up on Sheryl, for being my original favourite. Also, looks like she’s about to be scouted or something, by that pedophile looking guy who was instantly captivated by the ‘deculture’. What is deculture anyways? Seems like Sheryl is a bit intimidated by the competition as well, scowling a little when she saw Ranka’s ability to draw a crowd.

As far as plot goes, we now know that the Vajra are only cannon fodder and that there’s someone behind the scenes controlling them. Perhaps it has something to do with the newly introduced character, shrouded in mystery and heavy shadow, Mr. Bilrer.

Also, with the Galaxy colony having been attacked, next episode’s title “Bye Bye Sheryl” may be a bit misleading, as she may not have a home to return to. Plus, how is she going to duke it out with Ranka if she leaves Macross?

On a closing note, I’ve left this alone for far too long. That thing creeps me out. Cell phone designers in the Macross universe have some weird design sense, Ranka’s being the weirdest by far. Is it alive? Is it sentient? At the very least it seems to be somewhat organic, changing colors in response to being squished and often showing distinct signs of life when Ranka is dialing.

Speaking of cell phones, glad to see the vibrate function has kept its uses throughout the times. Sheryl sure is sensitive.

~ Shirukii ~

Post Script: Microned Klein > Macroned Klein. An infallible statement made of truth, win and loli.

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 ~

I am the bone of my sword…

Whoo, finally we get some back story to all this randomness. This episode used some flashback exposition to show how exactly Shinkurou became connected with Benika, Yuuno and Ginko. Also, the mystery behind Shinkurou’s breakdowns into writhing agony while clutching his arm is partially explained, seems like he has the anime equivalent of adamantium for bone.

Picking up from the Yayoi -> Murasaki -> Shinkurou stalking trail we had going at the end of the previous episode, Shinkurou arrives at the location of his next job with Murasaki right behind him, managing to slip into the building, Yayoi not so fortunate. Shinkurou approaches the boss of the gang about his proposed dispute mediation, he presents evidence that he is trying to attain the land rights to a kindergarten school and sell it for profit. In return for disposing of the evidence, Shinkurou asks that he cease all ties with the school.

Suddenly, one of the boss’s lackeys knocks on the door and walks in with Murasaki, putting Shinkurou in an awkward position. While trying to calm down Murasaki, he keeps going with his negotiation, but the upper hand he had seconds ago is most apparently gone. The boss shoos Shinkurou away, saying he agrees to the deal, Murasaki calls him on the obvious lie, but there’s not much Shinkurou can do about it, so he apologizes and leaves.

As the elevator door opens Shinkurou is attacked by another one of the boss’s subordinates, at first Shinkurou avoids fighting and tells Murasaki to run, but when she’s held at knifepoint, Shinkurou’s violent side takes over and he starts laying the beat down on everyone in sight. And for the first time, he uses the power he’s been trying to suppress in all his other fights, a protruding bone from his shoulder forming itself into a spike which he uses to both attack and defend, strong enough to deflect bullets. Hearing the gunshots, Yayoi arrives on scene to shield Murasaki while Shinkurou goes wild.

Benika shows up in the aftermath of the shootout to drive Murasaki and Shinkurou home, Yayoi lecturing him about the danger he put Murasaki into as a result of his reckless actions. After dropping them home, Yayoi argues with Benika that Shinkurou isn’t fit for this job, but Benika maintains that she chose her on her instincts, instincts that have led her through this business until now.

The next morning, Murasaki assures Shinkurou she’s not hurt and goes as far as to apologize for getting in his way the day before, she tells him to take it easy while she tends to breakfast.

At school, Shinkurou reports to Ginko that the job is done and that the kindergarten school is most likely safe for now. Ginko accidentally bumps into Shinkurou’s arm causing him to wince in pain, correctly guessing afterwards that he must have gotten into a fight. What’s more, Yuuno doesn’t even need a sign to see that Shinkurou got hurt, she somehow picks up on it and tells him she’ll bring by medicine her grandfather made for inexperienced users of “the horn”, and advises him not to take any jobs in the future that rely on such a power.

Meanwhile, Murasaki has spent the whole day cleaning the room to make it up for the previous day. Shinkurou comes home to find the futons airing out and when he makes it to the room, finds Murasaki has tidied things up quite a bit. But she points out that there’s still something that’s dirty, pointing straight at Shinkurou himself. The two find themselves in the bath house again, this time Murasaki managing to get through half of the hair washing process before she blinds herself, and trying her best to stay in the hot bath for as long as Shinkurou does.

When they get home, Murasaki asks to hear about Shinkurou’s past, combining with Benika getting the same request from Yayoi sends us into flashback mode. When he was a child, Shinkurou lost his parents in an airport bombing and hostage situation. While being held, the hostage takers decided to pick on him, holding him at gunpoint threatening to kill him while a young Ginko pleaded they stop. He was rather apathetic about living at that point, given that he had just lost his parents, when suddenly, Benika and her mediation team stormed into the room and took out all the hostage takers in mere seconds. From then on, he began to follow Benika, he was taken under the care of Yuuno for a while and spent eight years learning Houzuki-ryuu, giving him the strength to do what he does today.

Continuing with stories from the past, Benika goes on to tell Yayoi about the request Murasaki’s mother made to her, to one day get Murasaki out of the Inner Sanctuary. Benika knows that acting as her bodyguard is a lot of responsibility and perhaps even a bit overwhelming, but in the end he will benefit from the experience. Yayoi accepts her decision, but can’t help but continue worrying, so she heads back to resume her post sitting outside his apartment.

Thoughts

First off, I want to comment on the balance of Kure-nai. I’ve seen scattered complaints saying that watching Kurenai is like “going through 15 minutes of Lucky Star for 5 minutes of Darker than Black” and suggests the ratio be reversed. First of all, I’m sure there’s a law against comparing series of this caliber to Lucky Star, so don’t. Secondly, I don’t think the current slice of life : action balance should be reversed, but perhaps a 50:50 split would be more appropriate.

Of course, I stand by my words in saying that even if Kure-nai was nothing but the day to day lives of Murasaki and Shinkurou, I’d still watch it. Murasaki is one of the most endearing loli characters ever, her often naive innocence and well intentioned outbursts amidst a society she knows very little about is incredibly entertaining to watch. Also, the way she’s portrayed is something I find myself perplexed over, while it’s undeniable that there’s some measure of “fanservice” regarding Murasaki, it’s not really having the effect you would think. Despite seeing her naked quite a bit and the inclusion of an unmistakably tsun tsun element in her personality, I don’t find myself drawn to her as I am other lolis. While in many other cases it’s a poor attempt at justifying loli urges, this time it really is cute, not pedo.

Aside from Murasaki, my favourite character continues to be Ginko for pretty much no apparent reason. There’s just something about her I like, I can’t put it into words. Perhaps it’s because it’s like looking into a mirror, her stoic, recluse shut-in, emotionally distant and inability to express her true feelings ringing a little too close to home.

The mystery behind Shinkurou and Yuuno’s relationship is also revealed this episode, it’s no wonder they’re close, they lived together. It also explains the whole deal behind Yuuno knowing the Murasaki family, no doubt that the Houziki school of martial arts has some standing within their inner circle.

All that makes me wonder about Shikurou’s bone/horn thing though. Is it something that one is born with, or is it possible you can train your body to drag it out. In either case, it might be that Yuuno can use it too, which would be awesome, I’d love to see her kick some ass at some point.

Speaking of kicking ass, we catch a glimpse of Benika’s former combat glory, one hell of a roundhouse kick. Nothing compared to Spinzaku and his 720 degree aerial ending in a roundhouse kick and spanning about 5 meters in horizontal length, but there aren’t many that can boast that much hax. I hope we get to see more Benika action as the series progresses.

Actually, on that note, I just want to see more fights that involve more than Shinkurou with a dead pan look wailing on a bunch of weakling subordinates.

And…having just watched the preview, looks like my wish is going to be granted, as it features a scene with Yuuno and Shinkurou going at it in a dojo. Ten bucks on Yuuno.

Man, I haven’t touched my DS in ages. I should load up Tsukihime on it for plot with porn on the go!

~ Shirukii ~

First of all, sorry for reposting this, but over the downtime the post got mangled beyond recognition. I did manage to salvage the comments though.

So, voting has begun in the Anime Blog Awards and AniAri has been nominated for Best Episodic Blog, so what are you waiting for, head on over to the People’s Choice and if it applies to you, Blogger’s Choice, and cast your vote for us!

As for reasons why you should vote us over the other nominees, it’s a very difficult task to give a definite answer to that. Episodic blogs, by nature, are all fairly similar in that they usually consist of a summary of the episode and a “Thoughts” section, AniAri is no pioneer on breaking the norm in that respect. Where we really differ is writing style, how we convey our thoughts and personal opinions on the episodes at hand in posts and comments alike is where the soul of an episodic blog lies.

So, if you enjoy my long winded “tl;dr” posts (which by the way average around 1300 words per post, equivalent to writing a freaking term paper every week) fueled by my analytic nature which usually leads me to theories that are more often than not, completely wrong, cast your vote.

Another reason I can give is the length I go to get involved in the discussions I spur. Throwing up a post and watching the comments fly by is one thing, I prefer to step down from my author command post and get in on the commenting brawl, especially when my opinions get called into question :3. Interactivity between commenters and the author is a huge part of any blog, and it’s the major reason I don’t comment on a certain goliath of an episode summary blog, because I know my measly words will just get swallowed up in the torrent of other comments.

My final and perhaps most poignant reason why you should vote for AniAri is the reason behind the titular “Or else…” of this post. Because if you don’t vote for me…

~ Shirukii ~

Guilford, please deposit your pride and penis at the door, your manhood license is hereby revoked

Now…I want to praise this episode, because the development was rather good, seeing as they managed to take the more difficult road of making Lelouch absolutely mindfuck Rolo instead of going for the infinitely easier “LOL, gun is empty” route.

But that golden sticker is immediately revoked by another glaring problem we’re facing. Sunrise, it was cool that you decided to mirror the episode of CG R1 in episode one, I didn’t even mind when you did it again in episode two, but please stop. Pulling this kinda of thing once is neat, twice is gimmicky, any more than that and it’s evidence of uncreative writing.

The episode starts with some background on Rolo and his traumatic, neglected childhood. His geass is a flawless tool for assassination, but little else beyond that. So with neither family nor friends to call his own, Rolo becomes nothing but an emotionless attack dog for the Britannians. When presented with the task of following Lulu and killing him should Zero ever reawaken, he was reluctant at first, due to his inexperience with anything you could call a family, but eventually accepts it as just another mission.

Afterwards, we’re back to the confrontation between Rolo and Lulu. Without skipping a beat, Lulu brain gets to work once Rolo reappears and he deduces that Rolo’s ability is not to stop time, but to stop others’ perception of time. Despite knowing that, it won’t allow him to beat Rolo, but that’s okay, beating him isn’t necessary. Lulu goes on to explain that Rolo won’t kill him, he can’t, for he won’t be able to achieve his greater goal of capturing C.C. and the new sense of life he might gain after doing so. Assuring him that C.C.’s life isn’t more important than his own, Lulu promises to deliver her to Rolo.

Having gained some time to think, Lulu begins to devise a plan to avoid his pact with Rolo and rescue the members of the Order of the Black Knights being held by Guilford. Meanwhile, some unexpected events are unfolding at the Chinese Embassy, Li has turned on the ambassador, and with the permission of C.C., kills him, using the Black Knights as a cover up.

Elsewhere, the surveillance team is beginning to question Rolo’s position in the team, having killed so many of their own for seemingly trivial reasons. Rolo overhears them and reminds them that the team is of little importance, the completion of their mission is to be put above all else.

All the while, Guilford hounds over the Black Knight prisoners with a watchful eye, revealing that his reason for taking over command of this mission is more personal than political. Whether Zero shows up to his challenge or not is of little consequence, if he doesn’t, they’ll be killed and the public’s faith in Zero will extinguish, if he does, he’ll die in combat with him. But more importantly than that, he seeks revenge for Cornelia, his princess who has been missing for over a year now.

As zero hour on Guilford’s challenge comes, Zero shows up to the showering praise of the local elevens, but of course he comes prepared with a plan, as does Rolo, who has snuck his way onto the scene to ensure Lulu keeps his promise, or dies trying to weasel out of it.

Zero’s approach to the scene is telecasted and is caught by Lakshata, Kaguya and Diethard, who I’m surprised didn’t cream his pants. Lulu nonchalantly asks if Guilford wouldn’t prefer to settle this in person, but is turned down, Guilford wanting to settle this in Knightmares. Lulu sets some rules for the fight, one on one, one weapon each. Guilford chooses his spear while Lulu makes an odd choice, a riot shield being held by a mob suppression officer nearby.