I said last week that this point in an anime season when plot points start to get juicy. I still believe that, but now I say this is when I find the shows I really want to get absorbed in. I guess that’s a good thing, right? No shows to call my Summer Curse™…
I certainly wouldn’t call Lord El-Melloi II’s Case Files a show I’m absorbed in, though. Instead I’d call it a show I’m deeply disappointed in, for all sorts of reasons. I could complain that the show is becoming style over substance, and that some of the character designs just aren’t very interesting. A hardcore Fate fan can argue with me over all of this though, and is welcome to change my mind.
Gray has started to get curious about El-Melloi’s involvement in the Holy Grail War, and asks Reines if she knows anything. Somehow the two of them, along with Luvia (who makes her show debut this week) end up in an alternate dimension. Having seen the whole of this episode, I’ve put together a theory on why the three of them were put there: it seems this elusive Rail Zeppelin has an interest in all of them, including El-Melloi. Now I don’t know if it’s some secret society or secret location or anything along those lines, but I hope it doesn’t go overboard with style and ruin the entire show.
I’ll admit that I worry a little about how the show is representing the city it’s set in: my very own capital city of London. Early on in the episode, Reines takes Gray to a famous department store in London called Carnac…only in real life, it’s not called Carnac. It’s called Harrods. And while she’s right in that the store is steeped in tradition, Harrods is like a national institution for us, and a bit of a tourist attraction for overseas tourists now, just as Big Ben (oh sorry…The Clocktower) is too. I will give it to Studio Troyca for getting these parts of central London accurate though, without resorting to too many stereotypes. Heck, this is the Harrods building accurate right to the very last brick; they even made the mistake of leaving the Harrods logo on the green canopies.
Lemme just say something though: I’m not a critic of stylish anime, but I like them with some real substance behind them, and that’s something I’m not totally getting from El-Melloi, sadly. Just as I’m not really getting anything from Dumbbell Nan Kilo Moteru? either, except that instead of lack of substance, there’s just an excess amount of skin. Maybe the show should just be renamed to How Much Skin Can The Viewer Handle?
The purpose of this week’s episode is to introduce the next character, Russian arm-wrestling enthusiast Zina. After coming over from Moscow to participate in the gym’s arm-wrestling tournament, she decides to stick around and make Hibiki her eternal rival. Rather amusing how the show already knows all the stereotypes of a battle manga and puts them all to use here, making Zina some mysterious beauty with an icy smile whose only purpose is to defeat Hibiki. It’s given to us all in good humor, mind, as we eventually see how much of an idiot Zina really is.
Hey, I’m trying to mention fan-service as little as possible when it comes to Dumbbell Nan Kilo Moteru? but with so much visible skin, what can I do? I mean, it’s not terrible enough for me to just drop. Maybe putting up with all this visible skin in one show is meant to replace my Summer Curse™. I should just carry on getting absorbed in a show like O Maidens In Your Savage Season, and just talk about that every week.
The school festival is approaching, and the Literature Club reluctantly takes the job of writing a piece about a romantic urban legend that happens at school festivals, and it is up to them to make one up, which leads to them all (including Milo-sensei) going on a field trip to an inn.
Emotions are still running high though. Rika’s new boyfriend Amagi clearly wants to show some affection, but Rika still seems too embarrassed to open up to anyone about it, and still slightly shocked she said ‘yes’ in the first place. I’m finding Hitoha’s end much more difficult to put to words, unfortunately, as I’m still not 100% sure on what she wants, or how she wants to handle these erotic feelings that have now swept over her too. In between her new ‘relationship’ with Milo-sensei and her novels (now her editor wants her to write isekai light novels, which I find very amusing considering how swamped we are with isekai shows this season), Hitoha is still a real mystery to me, and so I hope something major happens at this inn – hopefully something that’ll answer the questions I have about her.
I can finally see what Niina is trying to do though, but I’m really not sure if it’s the best idea. After interacting with Izumi, she knows that they both have feelings for each other but are just too shy to say anything. As she wants the best for Kazusa, she is trying to poke her into coming out of whatever shell she has put herself in…admit to herself that she likes Izumi, and not keep it bottled up anymore. But it seems this is proving more difficult than originally thought.
Kazusa’s shyness is a tough nut to crack, and as she learns more about what Niina and Izumi talked about, the more convinced she is that Izumi will pick Niina instead. And why wouldn’t Kazusa think that? She sees her as smarter, prettier, more graceful and just…better at everything. Kazusa sees herself as a talentless nobody who no boy would pick, let alone Izumi…but doesn’t seem to want to do anything about it. It is this lack of self-confidence and defeatist attitude that Niina finds so frustrating, but there is something else that bothers her, as she says this week. She confesses to Momoko in this episode that she has lived her school life with other girls accusing her of stealing boys away, boys she has zero interest in. And Niina believes that Kazusa thinks that way of her too, and she isn’t wrong there.
Reviewing O Maidens In Your Savage Season really does feel like reviewing 5 different shows, as each story so much detail in them to write about, they each feel like they could be their own show. I’ve had to cut a lot from my O Maidens bit of this week’s column, as I know I could easily write an entire post covering this week’s episode…and any other week’s episode of the show for that matter.
Just as I could easily write an entire post about each week’s episode of Astra Lost in Space, as that’s another show I’ve really become absorbed in. This week’s episode was just as stellar as the previous week’s one, too.
*okay so stellar was perhaps the wrong word to use, but you know what I mean*
In what is an immediate follow-up to last week’s cliffhanger, a lot is revealed in this episode. Who Ulgar really is, what motivated him to be the edgelord of the crew, who Luca really is, and why his parents aren’t too concerned with him being rescued. I won’t spoil it for any of you fellow anime-only people, but it definitely has made the show much more of an interesting watch. While I’m not getting any more Lost vibes from this, the whole ‘trapped in space’ plot certainly thickens, as the list of crew members we know nothing about gets shorter and shorter.
I say I’m not getting any more Lost vibes as I’ve only just started a rewatch of the show, or rather, where I left off from season 4. Now I don’t think there’s any secretive Dharma Initiative or Smoke Monster in Astra Lost in Space, so I guess it was all of these flashbacks mixed with the ‘stranded from civilization’ that got me thinking that way. These are atypical anime kids on this ship after all, and these plucky teenagers need to stop themselves from going too tsundere or kuudere or anything along those lines. Then again, I suppose that wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing…
Okay, finally onto Symphogear episode 6, and Tsubasa’s able to leave hospital now and return home. More importantly, she has made peace with Hibiki. I think she finally understands that Hibiki was just in the wrong place at the wrong time; if she wasn’t at that Zwei Wing concert, then she wouldn’t have that piece of armor stuck in her chest, thus she wouldn’t be here today, acting like a dork…and maybe she’d be back home, spending more time with her wife Miki, who has grown seriously annoyed by the fact that she keeps on coming home late, and disappearing off without a word.
Well it’s official now. I finally understand why the fans are so crazy over Hibiki and her one-hit punches and her airheadedness and her dorkiness; she is the perfect protagonist for this kind of show. I mean, why else do we love Usagi from Sailor Moon? Because she’s an idiot and a dork and isn’t typical fighting magical girl material like her colleagues Rei, Makoto and Minako are, but through time and practice, she becomes a beacon of hope – precisely what I believe Hibiki is becoming. I’ve moaned and complained about the poor animation direction and bad Engrish in this show (as in season 1), but I’m beginning to see them as mad little quirks now. And so I think this Symphogear Challenge (yeah, that’s what we’ve decided to call this little project) is going to show me why I was an idiot for not getting into this franchise earlier.
So my coverage of Symphogear will be shifting elsewhere, and moving to its own section here on The OASG. Umm, yay? Heck, I should be excited; I mean, I finally get to catch up with everyone else, and that’s a good thing, yeah?
In the meantime, what about all of you? Has anything big happened in the shows you’re watching? Do you think there’s anything I’m missing in the shows I’m watching? Feel free to hit that like button and air your opinions in the comments below. Oh, and don’t miss my crazy new Symphogear coverage coming up.