I’m not sure if it’s just me, but even now after we’ve hit the three-episode mark, there has not been one singular show in this season that has gotten absolutely everyone talking. This is different from what we had in the summer where everyone was talking about Lycoris Recoil, and in the fall where it was either Bocchi the Rock! or Chainsaw Man. Vinland Saga is back on Netflix and is staying there, and some of the other franchises with sequel seasons haven’t quite made the big splash that I was expecting them to. That’s not to say they are looking like terrible shows though. Maybe this litmus test needs to be longer for the anime lovers to make an opinion. Or maybe it’s just lots of shows in this season that are decent rather than having just a couple of shows that stand out and every other show that suck.
Nier: Automata Ver 1.1a Episode 3
It seems that there has been an outbreak of coronavirus in the studio responsible for NieR: Automata Ver 1.1a, which means that after this week’s episode, all future episodes will be postponed until further notice. Sad that this has had to happen, and I hope the team will be alright. Players had long hoped that NieR: Automata would become an anime, but now that it has, what are we supposed to think? Is this show really going to be the runaway hit that some are expecting it to be? Right now, it is sticking very close to the script of the game, with only a few small changes (eg. the resistance leader in the game is called Anemone, while here it is Lily).
In this week’s episode, 2B and 9S arrive at the resistance camp, much to the delight of its residents. Although staying there and defending them against any machine threats is not a part of their mission. Hope is something that they need right now though, so that part is a sort of ‘need to know’ thing. Instead they head out to the nearby desert area to investigate an unusual machine lifeform reading. This is also something that happens in the game, and the whole scene really is something to watch when it’s in animated form, and not in game form.
What we also see this week carries on from last week, in how the machine lifeforms that appear on screen are trying to imitate human life; copying their culture and everything, from dancing to copulation (yes, you heard me right…). To what purpose are they doing this though? Do they want to know more about the species that have abandoned this planet to the Moon? Or is it something far more sinister? Well I do think the fight we got at the end of the episode ought to have been longer – as long as the one we got in the game. Perhaps they are saving the two new androids we see for another story purpose later on in the show.
I just want to add something else though. The title of this week’s episode is ‘break ti[M]e’, and this just happens to coincide with a coronavirus outbreak in the studio meaning they have to postpone production. Reddit were very quick to pick up on this, and somehow have a wild theory that it is all Yoko Taro striking again.
Tomo-chan is a Girl! Episode 3
Last week’s bombshell turned out to be one massive dud in the end. In case you missed it or forgot, Jun slipped out that he and Misuzu had actually been dating back in middle school, and Tomo had no idea about it. Although the likely reason is because it only lasted a whole three days. From what we see in the little flashbacks, it seems like Misuzu was just as conniving as she is now, and had only agreed to date him because he was popular in middle school and wanted to show him off. It only took a long mountain bike date for her to get tired of him, but just as she was about to dump him, he ended up doing it first. I think that now this dirty laundry is out now, we get a better idea of who those characters are.
This week’s episode of Tomo-chan is a Girl! was good for two big reasons. One is that we see Jun is monopolizing Tomo without even realizing it. We discover this week that despite his very outgoing nature, he does not have any male friends. His fun time has been spent with Tomo and no one else really. This becomes more apparent as he meets Misaki for the first time, and his first instinct is to hit him, convinced that he is some kind of rival to Tomo’s affections when he very clearly isn’t. Some can see this as protecting Tomo somehow, but others can also see this as suffocating. I’m probably reading too deeply into this, so let’s just move on.
The second is how Misuzu and Carol convince Tomo that she should ask him out to have fun times over their school break, which he agrees to. Any time they go out is usually to do stuff like bowling or the batting center, but Misuzu and Carol want her to present more girly. I originally thought that this wasn’t going to end well, but as their day out went on, I saw how well the two gel together. It’s more than just them being interested in the same kind of things, and Tomo being the tomboyish type. Jun enjoys these activities because she finds them fun too. And that is something I see as a major milestone in the story.
Another takeaway we get from this week’s episode is that Rie Takahashi (Tomo’s VA) does an absolutely incredible job at doing a character who is hilariously bad at karaoke. Even a Japanese children’s song like ‘The Rolling Acorn/Donguri Korokoro‘ is too much for her. Jun films her performance and decides to keep it, and I think this is also rather telling – he wants to keep something of her just for himself. Reminds me of something Chika and You share in Love Live! Sunshine!!. You hides the fact that she needs glasses/contacts from the others in aqours, and only Chika (the girl who has known her the longest) knows.
These have been fun characters to watch, but Jun still isn’t really playing all of his cards quite yet, I think. Either that or he is purposely hiding his real feelings out of some kind of masculine pride. He’s known Tomo for this long as a friend, and so to think of her as something else feels perhaps different or too much for him. It’s good what we saw in that karaoke booth this week, but I still want to see some more from him.
In/Spectre Season 2 Episode 3
We are now firmly in the next arc of In/Spectre‘s story, and I have to say that it reminds me a lot of the book Gone Girl, even though circumstances are different. In that book, a disgruntled wife goes missing and makes out an elaborate plan that the husband killed her so he gets the death penalty, so she can run off with an old college boyfriend. It’s an uncomfortable read, and the movie is even more of an uncomfortable watch.
The police arrive at Masayuki’s door to tell him that his ex-wife has been found murdered, and current evidence points to him. One such piece of evidence is security footage of him and the Yuki-Onna walking around town; yes, she is almost a spitting image of her. As the police explain, we discover that his ex-wife had also planned to murder him at one point, but instead of handing him over to the police (attempted murder wouldn’t make a case, really), he divorced and gave her a part of his fortune. Bad luck seems to follow this guy wherever he goes. First a mountain climber, then his company going under, and now his ex-wife trying to murder him. His complete lack of trust in humanity is seen by these police officers as a motive to want some kind of revenge.
Finding the true culprit is to be Kotoko’s next case, and here she pushes both of them very cleverly. She already knows he is innocent, but wanted to see how committed and devoted Yuki-Onna really was to him…to perhaps get a better idea of what kind of person he is and what kind of yokai she is. If another yokai is behind this, then I honestly can’t think who or what it could be. There is no one who would want revenge on him, as not only is the ex-wife dead, but the mountain climber too (Truck-kun apparently hit him, so he’s in an isekai now). I would love to say Rikka behind this, but I don’t think she’ll be back just yet. I have been proven wrong though.
In/Spectre has always been known for its mystery story and not for any kind of action; that is its charm. Well, one of them; the other being the comedic relationship Kotoko and Kuro have. They will end up as proper boyfriend and girlfriend some day. So what will the next episodes have? A lot of talking, but that’s just what the show has always been about. But with no police officer helping Kotoko, how is she going to get the police off Masayuki’s back, so he isn’t arrested for something he didn’t do?
Dorohedoro Episode 3
Dorohedoro is developing its story now, with episode 3, hidden within a theme of a midnight event that takes place in the Hole every year: a zombie hunt. Both Caiman and Nikaido decide to take part as Nikaido is after one of the event’s prizes: a new meat grinder that she could use for the restaurant. But as we saw in episode 2, En’s enforcers/cleaners Shin and Noi have been dispatched to kill both of them, and have coincidentally picked this night to hunt them both down, with Fujita and the still-delirious Ebisu tagging along.
This episode was a pretty bloody one, and not just because of the zombie killing, so I’ve had to be careful with picking which screencaps to use. Saying that, some important plot points came out in this episode, and all of them have made me warm to the show at last. I know the 3-episode rule exists in pretty much every single show, and Dorohedoro has been no different for me. Not only do we find out that Nikaido is a Sorcerer, but that Caiman wasn’t unconscious when she found him. The real truth to that remains kind of a mystery, but he is beginning to experience hallucinations of the alleyway he was found in, and of another person cloaked in shadow.
I said last week that I wasn’t particularly rooting for anyone. I suppose I’d like to see Caiman have his human head back, if that is even a possibility now, but with the revelation of Nikaido being a Sorcerer, she has become a bit of an anomaly. Why did she leave the realm? Is there a reason why she kept her past hidden? As for the Sorcerers themselves, I see that the show is trying to humanize them somehow despite everything they have done to the Hole and its residents. I think what I can take from watching episode 3 is that this show isn’t going to be the beautiful mess that I initially thought it was going to be.
So there will not be any coverage of NieR: Automata Ver 1.1a until further notice, when A-1 Pictures say their staff are comfortable with working on the show again in a safe environment. It’s possible that that will be the single most memorable thing people will know about that adaptation, sadly. But other shows are passing their litmus tests or are about to pass them, so now viewers will get a better idea of what they want to carry on watching. Then maybe we’ll get that big show everyone is talking about, instead of several decent-to-okay ones.