Christmas already? Well, not quite. But December means that the awful Christmas movies arrive on TV, and that every store will play the same three Christmas songs over and over again. This Fall season will see the end of what has been a very odd year for me, anime-wise. I’m hoping that, when 2023 comes, I will have much better judgement in the shows I pick to cover here. Don’t get me wrong, I do want to expand my horizons and not just pick the same kind of shows time and time again. I think it’s just that when it comes to sub-genres I’m unfamiliar with, I should pick more carefully instead. I am not having another World’s End Harem; I would probably quit anime altogether if something like that happened.
Raven of the Inner Palace Episode 9
I will say though that I think I nailed it when it came to choosing Raven of the Inner Palace. This has been a pretty cool watch, and I haven’t regretted picking. This looks to be the final arc of the story, and we are introduced to someone who looks to be another main antagonist. We are not really told much about who Feng Xiao Yue is or why he wants Shouxue dead, but it certainly is troubling to see that she seems to know him, or rather she sees him in her dreams.
One thing we are told though is that Shouxue is being tortured more and more by the bird monster Niao Lian that is buried deep inside her. When a new moon comes, she appears in her nightmares, making Shouxue suffer with sleep paralysis and feeling like her body is being ripped apart. And what is more mysterious is that there isn’t anything she can do about it…for now at least. Everyone who is given the title of Raven Consort is doomed with this fate, to have Niao Lian torture them every new moon.
This plot point is left hanging though (no pun intended), as this week’s episode focuses on one former lady-in-waiting who comes to Shouxue asking for help. Her consort, the Magpie Consort, drowned herself in the lake of her palace, and wants Shouxue to send her soul back to the afterlife. But as we hear her tell her story, we find out that there is more to it than meets the eye. The Magpie Consort had fallen in love with a local bookseller who snuck into the palace to see her, and being mistaken for a thief, he was beheaded on the spot. From then on, she had kept a pouch of dirt stained with the bookseller’s blood on her, and when the lady-in-waiting got rid of it, the Consort decided she wanted to go see him again, in the afterlife.
It’s an extremely interesting story, and makes this week’s episode stand out, as we find out that Shouxue can’t solve every problem that lands on her doorstep. The Magpie Consort she may not have had to resort to drowning herself if it hadn’t been for the former lady-in-waiting, who was too fixated on her being the Emperor’s favorite consort instead of her own happiness. I probably won’t return to a show like this in the future, but I’m still glad I picked this. Stories like this have been really cool to watch.
The Eminence in Shadow Episode 8
I think that the fact that I care infinitely more about every other character in The Eminence in Shadow says everything you need to know about how I feel about this show. I care that this group that is calling itself Shadow Garden has placed a magic barrier around the academy and is planning on using a hidden artifact to destroy the school and every Dark Knight inside. I care about Sherry’s research and how she wants to use the knowledge she has to help the academy take down the Cult of Diablos. I care about Princesses Iris and Alexia, who want to lead the academy and be on the frontline when it comes to the final fight. I care about the real members of Shadow Garden, who don’t even get that much in the way of screentime anymore. So what am I not seeing in this show that everyone else is?
The dark humor has been the main draw here for viewers, and not really the story. Innocent students are being slaughtered in the academy, and all Cid cares about is playing the background character – a role that he is in fact failing at spectacularly. Shadow Garden’s antics in the city have made them dangerous vigilantes in the eyes of the authorities, hardly people hiding in the background. His attempts at taking hits to save who he sees as ‘main characters’ have ended up making girls swoon over him. The fatal blow he took last week was, in his eyes, by design; letting a ‘background character’ take the hit so that a ‘main character’ like Rose Oriana can continue. The boy is willing to risk his own life so that his little game can carry on, and even if he dies in the process, he will have considered it all worth it. It’s something that I find both endearing and annoying, and I think it’s that which is what is putting me off continuing this show into the Winter season.
But I ask again: what is it that other viewers can see in this show that I cannot? Is it this insane dream of his to come The Eminence in Shadow? Is it that people see this more of a parody of the isekai genre? Or is it more? Answers on a postcard, please…
Bocchi the Rock! Episode 8
Alright enough of that; time for what was the highlight episode for me this week.
That typhoon didn’t let up, so the girls were not expecting many people to show up to their first proper gig together. But good to see that they are trying to make the best of it. Nijika is just one ball of positivity to Kessoku Band; I’ll get to her in a moment though, as she plays a big part of this week’s episode. The two girls from Hitori’s street performance were happy to show up though; they have now become the band’s first roadies, it seems…or fans, at the very least. And of course, there was no way Drunk-onee-san couldn’t not show up too.
She’s identified this week though, and is no longer the nameless funny drunk girl we saw last week. Kikuri Hiroi, Seika’s junior in college, and a bass player of an actual band…although she says she lost her bass guitar at a party recently, and forgot which party it was. She may be introduced as some kind of comic relief to the show, but she’s already treating Hitori as her kohai now, and who better to learn about the ways of being in a rock band than from someone who has lived it? Of course this is a family show, and we can’t have these four precious girls learn about what some other rock bands actually get up to.
Their gig was very well presented. It had everything we expected animation-wise, and didn’t veer off into any of the surreal but fun-to-watch directions we’ve seen the show go into. It showed us that the worst kind of audience to have isn’t the kind who boos you on stage, but the kind who don’t even bother to pay attention. Around a dozen people showed up at Starry, and all of them were there to watch the main acts play after Kessoku Band. And we can see how inexperienced all of them are, despite having practiced and rehearsed for this day. For their opening song, Ryo and Nijika are out-of-sync and while Kita has got her guitar playing right, her lyrics come out slowly.
Hitori has been in her shell for so long throughout this show that even we as the viewer have kind of forgotten why she joined the band in the first place: to battle her social anxiety. So it’s pretty awesome to watch not Hitori Gotou save their gig, but the Youtuber guitarhero. Her show-saving solo is pretty epic to watch; so much in fact that I’ve done the rare thing here in Otaku Theater and found the clip for it:
This was easily the best episode of the show so far. Kessoku Band are an actual band now, and no longer four girls jamming and having fun. This first gig of theirs was a big step for them, in that they now know the kind of reactions they are expected to get as a tiny new band of high-school girls, and also a little about themselves. I don’t know if it’s just been me, but Nijika has been a bit of a two-dimensional character in the show so far, but now we find out some more about her, and what her drive was to start the band in the first place. She is orphaned, with older sister Seika being her guardian. And with Seika being a long-term person in the rock environment, it’s all Nijika has known; Starry was even started partly as a place for her to live and grow up in. I’m relieved that she’s not as two-dimensional as I originally saw her as. It kind of sucks that this is actually episode 8, and that the show will end at the end of December. This is the kind of show that people actually want a second season of, instead of other shows where second seasons aren’t asked for. Hey K-on!‘s second season turned out to be better than the first, but I’m thinking too far ahead here…
Odd Taxi Episode 9
Odd Taxi‘s conclusion is on the horizon, and some plot points are beginning to wrap up. And we’re all happy to see Kakihana get rescued too. Odokawa is maintaining his façade of helping Dobu and feeding Little Daimon enough evidence to arrest both him and Yano. But the two are able to find Yano’s hideout in the city docks only to find him gone.
Has Kakihana learned something from this badger game and kidnapping though? Well he’s able to escape with more than a few injuries to his name, and the engagement ring still. We had a rather touching moment towards the end of the episode where he throws the ring into the river; an act of symbolism that he will be moving on in life. Only he decides to head out and rescue the ring anyway. A sign that he does want to move on, but hey, that ring wasn’t cheap, right?
A lot of this episode was wrapping up Kabasawa’s story. He has found the internet fame he has desperately wanted since the beginning of the show, but as we see, this fame has turned him into a twisted narcissist. Through a tip to hunt down his ‘sworn enemy’ Dobu, he learns that that internet fame didn’t bring him the happiness he wanted – only emptiness. This actually makes me think of some real life streamers/Youtubers/content creators who end up learning the hard way that all the money, clicks, followers, subscribers and online clout won’t buy them true happiness. Ironic how his life advice ended up coming from Dobu himself.
But the one plot point I’m curious to see the end of is Tanaka’s. I’m fairly sure that his little stunt of stealing a van and shooting Dobu’s gun out in broad daylight will grab the attention of the police, but it’s not like that will stop him. He is growing more and more unhinged, and it seems like he won’t stop until Odokawa is dead. But of course even if that happens, he won’t be getting that expensive rare item back.
Approaching December, and getting that much closer to the end of the season. Sucks because I’ve really been enjoying what Raven of the Inner Palace has given me, and there hasn’t been a single weak episode of Bocchi the Rock! either. It is, however that time again; the time where you get to choose my next out-of-season show. I promise this time to try and pick some not-silly shows from now on; emphasis on the word ‘try’.
As I said, I will not be continuing The Eminence in Shadow as it carries on into the Winter season. Not just because I have found it not fun to watch, but because the Winter season has some shows I’m very very eager to check out and cover here on Otaku Theater. My coverage of it will continue until the end of December, which I believe will be episode 11 or 12, providing that they don’t do any recap episodes, which I honestly would not be surprised by if they do.