Karen's Anime Blog

Because there's always time for more anime

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  • Dan Da Dan Episode 17

    Dan Da Dan Episode 17

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    Wow, this episode was really fun. It’s been non-stop action since the season premiered, and we finally get a chance to see our heroes relax and have a little R&R. Of course, since it’s Dan Da Dan there’s still plenty going on, but I felt healed on a spiritual level seeing the gang all get together for some hot pot.

    We begin with Seiko trying to exorcise the Evil Eye yokai that’s currently possessing Jiji, with the others backing her up. The Evil Eye may be more powerful than the type of spirts she usually deals with though, since it’s not working. Looks like the Evil Eye, held back inside the shell of Taro, the anatomical model, is here to stay. It’s actually really cool seeing Seiko in her element as a spiritualist, even if things aren’t going to plan.

    Pray, pray that evil yokai away.

    Dinner time! Everybody is over, including Aira, who we hadn’t seen yet this season. I missed her delusional little act. The Mantisian and his son Chiquititia are hanging around because the cow gifted to them doesn’t produce milk, so they need to stay on Earth so Chiqititia can have his milk. I uh…I don’t even know where to start with that. Aira plays with Chiquititia during this whole scene and it’s very adorable. Seiko and the priest confer about the exorcism and the problem with separating Jiji from Evil Eye is that Jiji’s spiritual power is so strong, it’s bound the two of them together stronger. Wouldn’t you think having more spiritual power would allow one to ward off yokai better? I guess that’s not how it works here.

    Taro, with Jiji inside him, eats part of the oden and then goes crazy; Jiji is back. After confirming that it’s really him, Seiko splashes him with cold water and Evil Eye reemerges; a splash with hot water and he’s back to being his goofy self. In case this scenario reminded you of another famous anime, Jiji starts actually singing the opening theme to Ranma 1/2. If I had just ripped off an idea from another series so blatantly, I don’t think I would call attention to it like that, but I guess there’s really no choice. Why did it work out this way though? We don’t get even a token explanation as to why the yokai responds to water.

    Jiji is staying put inside of Taro for now. Poor Taro, he’s really getting the short end of the stick here. He’s got his own life, he doesn’t need a pesky possessed teen inside of him.

    Meanwhile, Turbo Granny is helping herself to some hot pot while everyone’s distracted. How can she eat food, exactly? She’s inside a doll, she doesn’t have a digestive system! Yes I know it’s all fantasy and made up and everything but do we have any STANDARDS here?

    Then something surprising happens: Seiko apologizes to the kids. If she had known that Evil Eye was at Jiji’s house, she never would have let the trio go there without her. I thought Seiko was the kind of character to never admit fault, so I’m impressed that she is reasonable enough to take responsibility.

    Turbo Granny, ever a ray of sunshine, lets us know that Evil Eye will only get stronger, and eventually, Jiji will not be able to contain him. For the time being, everyone is going to carry thermoses of hot water at all times and hope for the best.

    Mantisian and Chiquititia go home on their UFO, and Okarun geeks out about seeing their spaceship. In an adorable gag, they blast off in the UFO only to reemerge only half a mile or so away, because they live locally. Hah, cute. I like the fact that we have such friendly aliens on hand, because I like to hope that if aliens really do exist, they’re kind.

    The next day, the team (minus Aira) heads to the hospital to visit Jiji’s parents. I find this rather surprising, because usually parents are ignored in anime unless they’re also badasses like Seiko. Momo and Okarun have a great moment where she plays with his hand while they go through a tunnel, and I think she’s going to be putting the pressure on to start dating soon– at least, I hope it’s soon. I want to see them get married and have a ton of spiritually-gifted babies. Or maybe wait on the babies, just get together for God’s sake.

    The most unironically romantic scene you will likely see in anime this season; I’m not kidding.

    Jiji talks tough about his parents, like he doesn’t care, but when he sees them in the hospital, he turns into a big old marshmallow and breaks down. We see news on a nearby TV about the volcano eruption, and I’m curious how that went down. Didn’t the authorities wonder why the nearby forest was all covered in what I will generously call “Nasty Demon Snot”? I guess everybody involved is just ignoring that part for their own sanity. We also see that the Kito family has been arrested for murder, and whoah, wait, slow down.

    It’s not like the Kitos don’t deserve it, but how could they be arrested? All the proof of their evil deeds was destroyed by lava. The priest could have reported on them, but it’s not like he could really say “They’ve been trapping and murdering people for 200 years,” so what do the police even know? I feel like some more information here would have been helpful, since the Kitos have been such a thorn in everyone’s side this season.

    Mom Kito is still on the lamb, and she rips off her face: she’s appears to be an alien. Well, I guess it was always a case of whether she was an alien or a yokai. She vows vengeance on Momo, and she’s threatening enough that I actually felt a rush of worry for Momo, even though she can take care of herself.

    Mom Kito’s true form. Honestly, it’s an improvement.

    The next morning, Momo catches up with Okarun on the way to school. Okarun is still kind of thrown from the hand-fondling incident, so he’s even more nervous around Momo than usual. Momo lets us know that they need to do a special kind of festival, a hayashi, to exorcise Evil Eye, but no one wants to do it. That’s tough, but I bet Seiko has ways of making people cooperate. Okarun is worried about having to face Evil Eye again, but I think he should buck up and have some pride here; like “I kicked his ass once, I can do it again.” I know, that’s not Okarun’s way.

    In school, Aira is being ignored by her class as a result of her shady behavior in the first season. Momo and Okarun catch up with her, and Momo spills that she wants the two of them to sleep over at her house in case Evil Eye awakens again. This is a shockingly practical idea, and the kind of thing that anime protagonists tend not to think of for some reason, so I’m really proud of Momo and Seiko for taking appropriate precautions.

    “Come, pink-haired one, your superpowers are of use to us.”

    Back at Seiko’s, the talismans on Taro have started to fail, so Seiko has Taro peel off of Jiji. Momo and her friends show up, and Aira’s outfit is just so adorable I needed to screencap it:

    “Time to dress like a 1940’s detective for no reason, that’s my vibe for today.”

    The crew has another meal, this time a type of Japanese savory pancake called okonomiyaki; this is one of the few dishes featured heavily in anime that I’ve never had a chance to try. It looks delectable. Everyone is chilling out and having a good time, when Okarun passes a bottle of soy sauce and gets the tiniest drop of cold sauce on Jiji’s hand. All of sudden, Evil Eye is back, and he blows up the house a bit. That didn’t take long.

    Wow, what an episode. I could post a picture of Evil Eye going ballistic, but instead, enjoy this real-life photo of okonomiyaki:

  • Clevatess Episode Five

    Clevatess Episode Five

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    Wow, this episode. I enjoyed it, but it features a pretty huge infodump, so please bear with me.

    Still in the Raven’s camp, Klen puts Alicia’s Stream Splitter Regalia into his Shadow Pocket, saying it draws too much attention; Alicia is crushed to have her precious binky taken away. Nelluru comes out with Luna and the two of them look incredibly adorable together. Nelluru is carrying some pretty clunky baggage but claims it’s not heavy, and I wonder: Did Klen use parts of the Troll to recreate Nelluru’s body? I saw some speculation about that online, but I didn’t think it necessarily happened. Now though, with Nelluru’s apparent super-strength, along with the fact that we find out later in this episode that Betty the Troll’s corpse happens to be missing a few limbs, it looks pretty definite.

    Give your wetnurse a cute Troll makeover, for everything she does for your little one.

    Alicia gets Klen’s permission to go to Vroko’s office in search of another sword, and she’s giddy when he agrees; the first moment of actual happiness we have seen from her in this series. She finds a sword and some “female armor,” which is, err, not the dumbest looking thing I’ve ever seen, but it’s still in the “bikini armor” category. I should have expected it because she wears it in the OP, but it’s pretty silly.

    I like how Alicia knows enough to question what Vroko was doing with this thing, but also knows enough not to give a damn what his horny dead ass was doing.

    Everything is going well for Alicia for once, then action: Klen gets slammed through the wall behind her. A cloaked figure begins fighting Alicia, and she can barely keep up with him. He uses some kind of wind attack to blast her through the roof of the building, and she falls down painfully. Outside, he offers to let her go if she’s willing to leave, but of course she’s not having that. She goes into killing mode and does a “Hidden Sword Rising Dragon” attack, but Klen commands her to stop at the last possible instant.

    Alicia may not have magical ability, but she clearly has some kind of heightened supernatural fighting ability. She’s such a cool heroine.

    Klen claims the stranger’s attack was due to a misunderstanding. The stranger relates that he was sent looking for “a small man and a troll” and he found the remains of the troll in the cavern, missing some limbs (aha!). He also notes that Nelluru reeks of troll (aha some more!). He thinks Klen is the “small man” he was sent to find, not knowing about Vroko. Eww, to think of being mistaken for Vroko! Klen reveals to Alicia that the stranger is a dark beast, under a powerful illusion that must have been cast by the Lord of the Dark Beasts to the West, Zavthier of Phantasms.

    This is interesting, because we’re used to Klen being pretty much invincible; even the magical mist that threw him off his game last episode was merely a minor inconvenience. But with Zavthier involved, now we’re dealing with a being that’s punching at his level. The stranger is named Gart, and reveals his true form, a predatory looking giant bird. Asked to reveal his own form, Klen lazily snaps a tentacle and then puts it back in Shadow Space. Since Zavthier is considering getting rid of the humans just like Clevatess is, Gart and the party are on the same side, for now.

    Klen wants to know why Zavthier has set her sights on humans: she’s worshipped by the Orggites of the West, who are humanoids, as a god. Why would she want to kill her own worshippers? Gart relates that dark beast younglings have been going missing, and it’s suspected that humanoids are behind the kidnappings. Thanks to talking to Carme last episode, Klen knows that human babies are being trafficked too.

    We get the full conversation between Klen and Carme from earlier where she reveals that Vroko was selling all the babies that came in to someone, possibly the same group that’s stealing the dark beast little ones. The men who came for the babies were talking about “talent,” presumably magical talent like Luna has. Then we find out something beyond awful; Nelluru’s stillborn births weren’t actually stillborn, Carne killed them. I understand that the women of the Ravens were killing the babies because they thought their lives, once sold, would likely be torture, but even so: how could you bring yourself to kill a baby? How could anyone do that? Klen, who I think is actually a little miffed on Nelluru’s behalf, points out that Carme didn’t even try to save the babies the way Nelluru’s mother clearly saved her. Wow. I’m still kind of reeling from that.

    Zavthier. Technically I should have a picture of Carme here, but I don’t want to look at her stupid baby-killing face again.

    Alicia offers some exposition about how in recent years, wizards have changed the face of warfare by using magical attacks on the battlefield. She thinks that hoarding babies with magical talent is something the wizards would do. I like the fact that magic is kind of new and exciting in Clevatess; usually, in most fantasy I’ve seen/read, the magical system is something that’s been around for ages. The first to bring wizards to the battlefield was General Drel, the Dragon Slayer. Drel, it just so happens, is the man who killed Alicia’s father– we don’t know why yet. Obviously, just talking about him is painful for Alicia.

    He’s been on screen for five seconds and I already want Alicia to do a Hidden Sword Rising Dragon to his face.

    Klen asks, quite reasonably, why Alicia came to kill him instead of going after the man that killed her father, and Alicia says it was her father’s last wish. I assume she means her father’s last wish was for her to follow her dream and become a hero, not “Go kill Clevatess, I hate that guy. Fuck that guy in particular.”

    We’re now following the clashing of the Boelate and Eslinn armies, with Drel commanding Boelate. On the Eslinn side, things look bleak: they have 6,000 soldiers to 50,000 advancing enemy forces. Their only hope is to get into the fortress Boelate is attacking, High Gate, and fight defensively from within. But that requires the cooperation of the Hiden kingdom, the leadership of which Clevatess just wiped out. Oops. If Boelate can snare the Hiden magical forge, they could conquer the whole continent.

    Then we switch back to Boelate and the main gate is…already opening for them? Wow, that was fast. I don’t think the Eslinn guys can get inside and hold them off now. Maybe they were talking about holding them off at a different location? I may be missing something here.

    Meynard, a creepy-looking wizard, informs Drel about Luna’s whereabouts, since he was in contact with the Ravens and knows they conveniently found a Hidenean baby. He also mentions that the Crown Princess is somewhere safe, so maybe there’s a chance Luna will be reunited with his mother; I have a feeling if that happens though, she’ll get to hold him for three seconds or so and then her head will get chopped off or something. It’s just that kind of show.

    Meynard. In this episode, they do this weird fisheye lens effect a few times and it really doesn’t work for me.

    Drel sends Meynard to go fetch Luna, and I have a feeling we’re going to get some quality Alicia Vs. Wizard action in the next episode. Wow, there sure is a lot of stuff going on in this anime.

    Next: “Insect Controlling Wizard.” Great, I hate bugs, can’t wait!

  • Reborn as a Vending Machine, I Now Wander the Dungeon S2 Episode Five

    Reborn as a Vending Machine, I Now Wander the Dungeon S2 Episode Five

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    Still in Origin Stratum, Boxxo reviews his options and realizes that for three million points, he can become a Level Three Vending Machine. What other possible abilities could Boxxo unlock that he doesn’t have already? The mind boggles.

    After the OP, our heroes start evacuating people out of the stratum, using the transport circle that Hulemy fixed. Boxxo thinks to ask how many strata their are total, so we learn that there are eight, including the last one that “hasn’t been conquered yet.” Huh. Oh right, that’s the stratum where beating it grants wishes, right? Anyway, Boxxo becomes a balloon vending machine to distribute funny animal balloons to the evacuating children and its cute.

    Do they even know what balloons are?

    There’s a problem with the transport circle though; if they just leave it behind, monsters will use it and cause trouble. Kerioyl offers to take the Menagerie of Fools and the Band of Gluttons to hunt down the Netherworld commander who’s controlling the monsters on Origin Stratum, and Director Origin offers to compensate the hunters for their services. You know Lammis and Boxxo are going to get in on that.

    We quickly move on to the team mowing down monsters. Hevee claims he has no offensive magic, so he sits on the sidelines in battles. However, not two minutes later, he confuses three monsters with light magic and then takes them out with a giant pair of spike hammers, backed up by his Might Blessing. Wow, Hevee is kind of overpowered. I really hate the whole shoe business, but it looks like he’s staying around for a while; oh well.

    “I stand back in combat,” says the absolute brute who duel-wields giant clubs and pummels enemies to death.

    The group splits at a fork in the road, and Lammis and Boxxo’s group encounters a nice lake. Everyone takes a dip, with Boxxo guarding Shui and Lammis’ footwear from Hevee. The group reforms and stops for lunch. Boxxo reveals a new form: a convenience-store themed vending machine that sells rice balls and other dishes usually sold in Japanese convenience stores. I would kill to have one of the these in my neighborhood…wait, that sounds bad. I mean, I would kill someone, but only if they were very, very bad and dangerous person who deserved to die anyway, for a crack at that vending machine. I would not kill a nice person for rice balls, probably.

    Everyone freaks the hell out over the convenience store vending machine, as they should.

    Finally, our heroes have reached the deepest part of Origin Stratum and it’s time for a real fight. Mishuel senses a hundred or so monsters coming, so Boxxo becomes a Pachinko vending machine and fills the floor of the strata with Pachinko balls to slow down the monsters. He sprays an immense amount of balls on the floor, so I’m guessing the Pachinko balls are pretty cheap in points.

    How many points did this cost? Boxxo, you’re doing too much.

    Kerioyl and Mishuel bust up a bunch of enemies, and Lammis laments that she wishes she were as skilled as the two of them; then she effortlessly knocks away a monster and sends it careening, where it takes out more of its brethren. A more skilled Lammis would be a scary thing indeed. Boxxo contributes with his mint-and-cola bombs, and man, I am so tired of that particular battle hack. It was cute the first time because it was creative, but at this point it just feels like a waste of good cola. Boxxo later switches it up to cola bottles filled with Pachinko balls; still a waste of bubbly, delicious cola, but at least that seems like a more dangerous aerial weapon.

    Gee, can you tell it’s been a long time since I’ve allowed myself to have a Coke?

    Anyway, Boxxo wants to try to get a feel for where the monster’s commander is, so he asks Lammis to toss him over into the center of the monsters. Lammis refuses, stating that she cares too much about Boxxo to use him like a tool. I think her amount of regard for Boxxo is actually becoming dangerous, since he’s pretty durable and not using him to his best advantage could be putting the group in danger, but that’s not a problem in this episode; despite all the combat, it’s a pretty chill episode in general. Lammis does a huge attack with Boxxo in toe, and Boxxo contributes more Pachinko balls with some kind of green liquid to make the monsters slip; I have no idea what that is. Nickelodeon Slime? I’m dating myself again.

    They find the commander, a woman this time, and Lammis destroys the ring she was using to control the monsters. That was surprisingly easy. Kerioyl picks the unconscious commander and pats her on the butt, which annoys Filmina. I agree with her on principle that Kerioyl should not be touching an unconscious woman’s butt, but this is a Netherworld commander who was using monsters to kill people; my sympathy is not exactly overwhelming here.

    “Not so fast, Handsy Mc. Groperpants!”

    We learn from Hevee that Filmina is half vamp fiend and um…I did not see that coming. That’s hella random. The twins (Ako and Shiro) flip out a little at the idea of doing “it” with a vamp fiend, but Lammis is supportive of mixed-race relationships; I mean, she wants to do it with a vending machine, those who live in glass houses and all that.

    The talk turns to wishes, and Lammis of course wants to use her wish, should she earn one, to turn Boxxo back into a human; Shui wants money that she can give to the orphanage, primarily to buy food; the twins want to be a hit with the ladies (yeah, good luck with that) and Hevee wants a palace made of shoes. We don’t get to find out what Kerioyl and Filmina want, however. We actually know very little about them, so I couldn’t even begin to guess.

    Our heroes return to the Origin village and it’s time for a major feast, catered by Boxxo of course. Boxxo gets creative and uses a rice machine ability to get materials to cook a dish. He actually becomes a gas stove, which is again stretching the definition of what “vending machine” means, but I guess there’s probably a vending machine somewhere that offers a cooking-fire option. Using the gas, he can actually cook food for the party, which is perhaps the most human-like thing he’s been able to do since he reincarnated. This is an ability I could see him using a lot of; maybe if I’m lucky he’ll start using it half as often as the mints-and-cola strat.

    I’m not going to lie, this is the kind of cooking I do a lot of the time. Veggies and protein +rice= Dinner. Hey, it’s nutritious at least.

    All in all, kind of a middling episode so everyone can finish up business stemming from the monster attack and move on to the next hotness. Now that they have a Netherlord commander to interrogate, I hope next episode will bring us more information about the Demon Lord.

  • Turkey! Time to Strike Episode Four (Dropped)

    Turkey! Time to Strike Episode Four (Dropped)

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    Sometimes, a show really just clicks with you, for no obvious reason. There are shows that I really don’t think are very good in any sort of objective sense that I enjoyed immensely, and I don’t know why. With Turkey!, I seem to have the opposite scenario going on; everything it does pisses me off, and I can’t even explain it.

    …well, I can explain a little. I don’t like the tonal whiplash the show features: desperately silly one minute, serious the next. Like in this episode, Mai manages to get a functional bowling alley built in a matter of hours, during a time when they don’t even have any machines to help with the labor. Even in modern times, it would take you a lot longer to build a functional bowling alley with gutters and ball returns, and that’s assuming you actually knew the dimensions; Mai is just pulling the details out of her memory and somehow communicating this information to workers who have never seen a bowling alley before, without even using any sort of written plans. It’s ridiculous.

    “How handy that you guys just had all this perfectly-straight lumber on hand! Go Sengoku-era forestry!”

    Now this would be fine if the whole show was just a check-your-brain-at-the-door-and-have-fun sort of affair– I mean, when I’m watching Looney Tunes, it doesn’t bother me that characters can pull a mallet out of their back pocket, even when they’re not wearing pants. But Turkey! loves to get serious and then plays it’s overbaked character drama so completely straight– none of the whimsy the other elements rely on is on display for a solid two thirds of the show.

    And the character drama is just so stale. I’ve complained about Rina’s attitude before, and in this episode we learn what makes Rina tick, and it’s the most cliche backstory imaginable: her parents got divorced and she’s afraid everybody is going to leave her. Yes, this is a real thing that happens, but it’s a really boring explanation for why Rina has been so insufferable for the first quarter of the show. Then of course, when the girls manage to trigger the conditions necessary for time travel (and the less said about how that works, the better), everything is set up perfectly to play into Rina’s abandonment issues. Some viewers might consider that good writing, but for me it’s too on the nose.

    “We’re missing Rina!”

    “You’re saying that like it’s a BAD thing!”

    The episode ends with the girls refusing to go back to the future without Rina, so they’re all stuck in the Sengoku era for a while longer. But you know what would have been cool? If the other four girls had gone and just left Rina there. It would have been totally unexpected, and then we’d see Rina dealing with her abandonment issues in a more interesting way, because her feelings about everyone abandoning her would actually be justified. What if Mai and the others couldn’t get back to the Sengoku era until ten years had passed, and Rina had become a grown woman? Would she be able to reintegrate into modern society– and would she even want to anymore?

    But alas, that is not the show we got. Next episode, it’s going to be back to the girls whipping out their smartphones every ten seconds while promising to keep a low profile, bickering all the while. If I keep on covering this show it’s probably just going to degenerate into hate-watching, so I think I’ll drop it now and leave it for the people who are actually enjoying it.

  • The Fragrant Flower Blooms With Dignity Episode Four

    The Fragrant Flower Blooms With Dignity Episode Four

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    Last time, Rintarou and Kaoruko scheduled a study date for Saturday in the hopes of helping Rintarou pass his midterm exams. Saturday morning, Rintarou wakes up early and takes the train. People on the train are scared of him two separate times in this episode, and it really shows how tiring it must be for Rintarou for everyone around him to constantly assume that he’s a dangerous thug based on appearances alone. As a relatively small woman, everyone assumes I’m harmless, so that’s what I’m used to; I can only imagine what it’s like to be constantly calibrating how you appear in public just to try to garner less attention. It sounds exhausting. You can see why it immediately meant so much to Rintarou when Kaoruko said she had never been afraid of him.

    Lunch Check! Looks like Rintarou got an omurice and Kaoruko got shrimp and broccoli in some kind of luscious sauce. I approve of this lunch selection.

    Kaoruko is early too, and the two of them eat lunch in a nice little cafe. This is a minor point, but it appears the pair eat lunch and then stay at the restaurant for several hours studying. Here in the US, you can do that at a Starbucks or another coffee shop, but if you tried to do that at most sit-down restaurants, you’d get dirty looks from the staff for sure; I wonder if Japanese restaurants are more student-friendly. Anyway, Rintarou tries to focus on the math that Kaoruko is teaching him, but he’s so excited being this close to his crush that he’s having trouble focusing. He’s such an adorable doofus.

    They get to talking about their friends, and Kaoruko mentions that she was pleased that Rintarou had not judged Subaru too harshly, since she had been very rude to him. She also explains that Subaru had “trouble with boys” and doesn’t deal with them well. We find out the truth behind this in about ten minutes of screen time, if that, so it’s a little strange they bother to tease it here.

    After a productive session, Kaoruko makes a detailed study guide for Rintarou to follow from that day until the day of the test. When did she get the time to do that? Was she actually compiling that the whole time they were working together? She is quick with the pencil, that one.

    “I can tutor you in math and make detailed study guides at the same time: what I lack in stature, I make up for with excellent time management skills.”

    Rintarou is ready to call it a day when oh no, it’s Subaru! I really was not happy to see her again after what a piece of work she was in the last episode, but I have to admit: it’s a striking character design. Of course, she gets Rintarou’s attention by grabbing his bookbag from behind rather than calling out to him like a normal person would.

    The two sit down to coffee at a place called Tea Tea Cafe, and Subaru wants to know if Rintarou is dating Kaoruko. He says he isn’t, but then doesn’t know how to answer when Subaru asks what Kaoru is to him, exactly. Meanwhile, behind Rintarou on the wall is a chart featuring different espresso drink recipes and it’s totally distracting me from everything Subaru is saying, but that’s probably a problem unique to me. Anyway, Subaru wants Rintarou to stop seeing Kaoruko; it’s not even that she thinks he’s a bad person, but she’s worried about Kaoruko’s reputation at Kikyo Academy if people knew she was hanging out with a Chidori guy.

    I’m not sure Subaru is making much sense here. Kaoruko isn’t a pushover, and if the other girls gave her trouble for seeing Rintarou, she could put them in their place easily enough. And even if a group of them shunned her, that’s her choice to make. Subaru says that the problem might be more coming from the teachers than the students, which is sad but rings true– whatever ugliness you hear between the students, it’s got to be a horrible festering sore spot between the adults, all the worse for not being acknowledged openly. However, how would that confrontation with a teacher go? “Yes, I helped a Chidori student study. I’m a regular at his family’s cake shop and I wanted to help him pass an important exam.” Oh noooo, how scandalous. Maybe I’m being naive, but I don’t think anything would come out of this except stupid rumors, which Kaoruko is more than strong enough to withstand.

    “I love your hair, you look like a chibi shonen protagonist!”

    We learn that Subaru was bullied during childhood for her naturally silver hair, and Kaoruko was the one who protected her from the bullies and said her hair was beautiful. I understand why Subaru is so attached to Kaoruko and wants what’s best for her after that formative experience, but she seems to be missing the point that Kaoruko is the kind of person who stands up to bullies, and has always been that way; she doesn’t want Subaru to fight her battles for her.

    To his credit, Rintarou doesn’t entertain the idea of breaking things off with Kaoruko. I expected Subaru to blow up when he said that, but instead– in a really nicely animated moment– Subaru begins crying and confesses that he may be right. After Rintarou leaves, Subaru asks herself what she’s even doing. I think she’s so overprotective of Kaoruko that she’s just not thinking straight at all.

    There’s another scene of Rintarou being scary to girls on a train, but the important thing is Rintarou mulling over Subaru’s words. He doesn’t regret his decision to continue seeing Kaoruko, but he does realize he could end up hurting her, so Subaru did get through to him after all.

    Next, we see the results of the math midterms, and Rintarou passed. Nice! Except he got a score of 59, while Usami got a score of 30 and passed. What are these tests being graded out of? I’m so confused. Oh well, it doesn’t matter as long as they passed. The class has an outright celebration over the two low-scoring dudes passing, and there’s even confetti; it’s pretty adorable. I mean, kind of mean if you consider that everyone expected them to fail and passing is treated almost like a miracle, but let’s ignore that and just focus on the charming aspect.

    Rintarou is ecstatic and immediately wants to text Kaoruko but then thinks of Subaru’s warning and holds back. Meanwhile, someone knocks his bag over, revealing the study guide Kaoruko made for him, including a cute little Post-It with her name. The other student asks “Who’s Kaoruko?” and now Rintarou’s cover is real and truly blown.

    A solid episode, but I have some reservations for next time. I hope Rintarou’s friends finding out about his relationship with Kaoruko doesn’t become an annoying drama bomb, because I’d like to think his friends are better than that. It will be a bigger deal on the Kikyo side, but once again, I think our heroine can handle it.

    Man that scene in the coffee shop between Rintarou and Subaru made me want a good cappuccino so bad…I think I may have to make a little side-trip tomorrow.

  • My Dress-Up Darling Episode 16

    My Dress-Up Darling Episode 16

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    This week, it’s time to prepare for that school anime staple, the cultural festival. Gojo and Marin’s class decides to do “Russian Roulette Takoyaki” and err, I have some concerns. I’ve had takoyaki before and liked it, but would I really want to eat takoyaki when some percentage of the fish balls have a giant wad of wasabi or something in there? Oh well, to each their own. The kids in class are super-motivated to get top rank in the festival, and it’s nice to see. The kids in my school back then were always way too “cool for school,” quite literally, to lower themselves to caring about a school contest. Watching these school anime is kind of like experiencing a better version of that time than I actually lived, just a little bit.

    More relevant to our purposes though, there will be a beauty pageant. Since she’s a model, everyone wants Marin to be the contestant. There’s a twist though: it’s cross-dressing. Marin could not be any more psyched for this than if the winner got a year’s supply of free chocolate and snacks. What kind of school is this where cross-dressing is encouraged? A pretty damn cool school, I’ll say.

    “Yes I would love to dress as a man! I would like to dress as ALL THE MEN!!!!”

    Marin wants to dress as Rei from The Student Council President is the No. 1 Host, which brings us to what is rapidly becoming my favorite segment on this show: the anime-within-an-anime. PrezHost isn’t as in-depth as WitchWatch gave us with the fake shonen Uran Mirage earlier this season, but still, it’s pretty good.

    The two faces of Rei-sama, star of PrezHost.

    PrezHost is a charming otome-game type of setup, similar to Uta No Prince-Sama, where a young high school girl from a girls’ school is surrounded by a bunch of handsome hosts from a nightclub. The student council president, Rei Koyogi, moonlights as a host at the club, with the help of a trusty wig. The show plays it totally straight, and by the time this segment was done, I wanted to watch a real anime with this premise. They even reveal later that Rei’s patrons know she’s a woman, which surprised me. Everyone is very supportive of genderqueer performance in My Dress-Up Darling, even the fake characters.

    How is this not already an otome game?

    Back to Marin and Gojo, they have a strategy session to plan the Rei costume. What’s interesting about this is that Gojo is getting increasingly vocal about their artistic choices; he’s not just sewing the costume, he’s visualizing how to best play the character, including the props and the makeup. I guess he always had those kind of feelings regarding his work with his traditional dolls, but it’s great to see him so confident about something. Marin realizes that Gojo has all her measurements memorized and it makes her feel kind of vulnerable; if she got to continue that train of thought before being interrupted, I bet she would have concluded that Gojo is the kind of guy she doesn’t mind having that information.

    The trouble is, they’re pressed for time, so Marin declares she’s going to make the costume herself. Oh no, no Marin darling, that’s not a good idea. Gojo foolishly goes along with this, but then when he shows up to work on the cultural festival project with the other kids, they don’t understand why he isn’t working on Marin’s costume. Gojo assumed he had to do everything, never considering the fact that the other students might pick up the slack for him while he works on the costume. Gojo is learning that he doesn’t have to soldier on and take everything upon himself, which is good…but I wonder. Sometimes you really do have to do everything yourself and it sucks, but Gojo’s mistake was assuming that was the case without giving his classmates a chance to weigh in first.

    Gojo lets the class know that Marin is doing the shopping for the costume, and everyone freaks out: Marin cannot be trusted with shopping, she’ll just buy snacks! Cute, but I think they’re all underestimating Marin’s devotion to cosplay.

    Marin, goddess of snacks with zero nutritional value.

    Gojo catches up with Marin and they go to the fabric store, where they meet up with Usami, Handicrafts Manager, who is probably my favorite minor character this season. They pick out a nice, though expensive fabric for the Rei suit, and it looks like we’re ready for the Beauty Pageant next episode. I wonder what kind of performance Marin will do in her outfit?

    Usami is “Handicrafts Manager.” That’s so cool.

    Kind of an unusual episode since so much of it was dedicated to PrezHost, but the show is still tons of fun.

  • Rascal Does Not Dream of Santa Claus Episode Four

    Rascal Does Not Dream of Santa Claus Episode Four

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    Last time, Sakuta had just met up with the mysterious Touko Kirishima, the mysterious singer in a Santa suit. Touko reveals that she’s been giving out Puberty Syndrome as “presents,” so Sakuta naturally asks her to cut it out with that nonsense. Touko agrees, because she’s already done with it: she’s gifted Puberty Syndrome to ten million people already, and one of them just happens to be Ikumi Akagi, Sakuta’s classmate from middle school. Man, ten million cases of Puberty Syndrome? A few episodes back, Futaba was talking about the whole college having the condition, but it looks like that was a drop in the bucket. As the primary investigator of Puberty Syndrome, looks like Sakuta has great job security in the second (actually third) job that he doesn’t even want.

    Credits! The credits show Uzuki attending school, but we all know she dropped out of college. Stupid lying credits! Stay up to date.

    Obligatory screenshot of Kunimi’s delicious fried chicken. He even shares with his friends.

    Sakuta meets up with his high school friends Kunimi and Futaba and they all spend some time chatting. Kunimi mentions a junior of his on the basketball team, who is shown in the OP, so surely that character will be important later. Once Kunimi gets lost, Sakuta and Futaba do what they really want to do: chat about the latest developments in Puberty Syndrome. They compare notes on Touko Kirishima, and apparently she’s been uploading videos online for two years, presumably using her invisibility to keep her true identity a secret. Futaba makes the very obvious suggestion that Sakuta should get Touko’s contact info if he runs into her again, but Sakuta thinks he shouldn’t get another girl’s contact info while he’s dating Mai. Oh, Sakuta. You went on a full-fledged date with Uzuki in episode two, where do you get off being precious about your girlfriend?

    “So, ten million new Puberty Syndrome victims?”

    “Yeah, it’s not like I have anything better to do with my time, what with college and my superstar girlfriend and my two different jobs….”

    When they get to cram school, there’s a kerfuffle: a teacher has just been found having an inappropriate relationship with a female student. The teacher should have known better, but the way the girl reacts makes it seem like she was the manipulator here. Futaba tells Sakuta to make sure he doesn’t end up in a similar situation. I hope that’s not foreshadowing of something that’s going to screw up his relationship with Mai, but it probably is.

    Speaking of Mai, she’s driving Sakuta and Nodoka around again, so the two sisters get to chime in on the Touko Kirishima subject. Nodoka confirms that even when Uzuki covered one of Touko’s songs for the earphone commercial, she never got to meet the artist; no one has. Mai suggests that Sakuta have a conversation with Akagi, since she’s one person they know for sure got a “present” from Touko Santa Claus. Mai is also curious why Sakuta even cares so much about Akagi, since he was wondering about her even before meeting Touko, and I think the viewers have been wondering that too. Sakuta has the sense that she wanted to tell him something, but so far she’s held back. Now, he’s wondering what her particular case of Puberty Syndrome does. All he really knows about her is that she’s a nursing major and she participates in school events.

    Akagi, going out of her way to re-introduce herself to Sakuta at graduation, then not saying anything. What’s her game?

    At lunch, Sakuta runs into Mito again, and the two of them have some banter in a very particular style unique to the two of them. None of it seems particularly relevant to the plot, but I’m sure they’re developing this idea that Mito is like Sakuta’s female counterpart for a reason. Mito skates and then a classmate comes by and invites Sakuta to a matchmaking party. Seriously, what the hell is the point of inviting someone who’s already in a committed relationship to a matchmaking party? I get that it “evens out the numbers” or whatever, but it seems like a horrible idea to me. Especially with someone like Sakuta who has a famous girlfriend, so questions about Mai are probably going to come up and get in the way of all the other participants having decent conversations. Weird, but whatever. The girls at the party are all going to be nursing majors, so Sakuta has a chance of getting some information on Akagi, possibly from the woman herself. Since she’s the most understanding girlfriend in the world, Mai gives permission for Sakuta to go to the party, though he’s still not enthused.

    “What is that strange metal device that glows? I’m a bit behind on all these modern trends the kids are into.”

    Party Time! Well, it’s five people in a restaurant, so not much of a party, really. The girls start talking about a #Dreaming, and Sakuta is confused because he doesn’t know what a hashtag is. Okay, I call shenanigans here: It’s true Sakuta doesn’t have a smartphone, but he had one as recently as a few years ago, and hashtags have been a thing going back to 2008 or so. I find it hard to believe he wouldn’t know what a hashtag is. My complaints noted, the hashtag is where people used to talk about the dreams they had last night, but has now switched to dreams that predict the future, with uncanny accuracy. Things are starting to sound supernatural, so Sakuta perks up. One #Dreaming post talks about a jack-o-lantern falling on a girl in a Little Red Riding Hood costume; remember that for later.

    Then the date gets totally dragged off-topic by everyone wanting to know how Sakuta ended up dating a famous actress, and I feel vindicated. The last girl shows up, and she’s one of Sakuta’s classmates from high school, and Sakuta thinks “this is what Kunimi was talking about,” and I honestly have no idea what he’s referring to. If anyone wants to leave me a comment explaining this, I’m all ears.

    Sakuta leaves the party and walks through the crowd: it’s Halloween, and everybody’s in costume. He sees a running child version of Mai Sakurajima, the same version of Mai that was running the show in the Rascal Doesn’t Dream of A Knapsack Kid movie. I have no idea who this “Mai” really is, she seems to be some kind of supernatural time goddess or something, and her presence here has to be significant. Sakuta doesn’t get to follow “Mai” before running into Akagi, who is dressed as a blood-stained nurse. Akagi notices him but runs off. Just like in the #Dreaming post, a jack-o-lantern falls and nearly hits a little girl in costume, but Akagi manages to pull her out of the way just in time.

    The kid’s parents come over to get her and they seem WAY calmer than I would be if it was my kid that nearly got clocked in the head by a heavy object, let me tell you. Akagi runs off, and Sakuta loses track of her. Is Akagi trying to find all the bad #Dreaming posts and stop them before they can happen? Was the present she got from Touko Santa related to this? Furthermore, are all the crazy accurate dream predictions online the result of the Puberty Syndrome that Touko spread far and wide?

    So far, I’m enjoying this more than the Uzuki arc, even if it’s tons of long conversations that are kind of a pain to recap. Puberty Syndrome on such a large scale is a very different sort of problem, and I don’t think Sakuta is going to be able to solve it alone.

  • Takopi’s Original Sin Episode Five

    Takopi’s Original Sin Episode Five

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    I’m a little late getting to this episode; I wanted to sit on it for a few days and see if I could make more sense of my thoughts. But everything is still a jumble.

    Shizuka’s trip to Tokyo went almost exactly how I thought it would, except I did not expect the earlier parts of the trip to be so beautiful. That several hour period was probably the most happiness Shizuka had ever known in her short life, which made it all the more heartbreaking when her father pretended he didn’t know her. I know the competition for the Takopi Worst Parent Award is tough, but Shizuka’s dad is coming in hot!

    Hi Dad, don’t mind me while you parent your other daughters that you’ve replaced me with, I’ll wait.

    You might wonder why I’m not on Marina’s mom’s case for being a bad parent, considering the abuse she hurls at Marina in this episode, but that’s actually different: Marina’s mom is seriously mentally ill and should be hospitalized, for her own safety and that of everyone around her. It is a failing of her family, and even her entire community, that she’s left free to abuse Marina. What makes it especially bad is that, if you pause your screen when Marina is reading an email from her father, you can see that he knows that the mother is delusional, yet he expects Marina to “talk to her.” Yes, make the psychological well-being of the wife you drove insane the responsibility of the teenager you abandoned, great plan there scumbag.

    The never-ending cycle of violence. Mom hits Marina, Marina hits Takopi, Takopi hits his mom.

    I wonder how much cultural differences come into play here; after all, it’s hard enough for people to admit to the existence of mental health problems in themselves and their loved ones where I live in the US; is it much harder in Japan? While I’ve been a fan of different forms of Japanese fiction for decades now, I realize I don’t know that much about this topic.

    Getting back to Shizuka, once she’s rejected by her dad, she completely loses whatever tenuous link to sanity she had left and turns on Takopi. Once she klonks Takopi on the head, he gets his memories back and remembers that he was originally on Team Marina, and that was a twist I did not see coming. I made a mental note of the “To You in 2016” opening of the show, realizing it was probably an homage to Attack on Titan, but I never gave any serious thought to why the show took place in 2016; I should have. Now I’m left wondering if it was denseness on my part that I didn’t anticipate the 2022 “high school” plotline, or if it was genuinely a twist out of left field.

    Evil Shizuka, Queen of my Nightmares for the next week or so. Poor Takopi.

    So Takopi originally met Marina in 2022 and wanted to see her smile. We meet teenaged Azuma, who seems to have survived okay despite the pancakes torture, and he dates Marina for a little while, which leaves me with questions. The show implies that all the bullying of Marina to Shizuka still happened in the 2022 timeline, it’s just that Shizuka didn’t succeed in killing herself. So if everything went down mostly the same, up to the killing of Marina (which obviously didn’t happen in this timeline), how could Azuma date Marina knowing she was the one who viciously bullied Shizuka, who was the girl of his dreams even back in elementary school? I guess Naoki Azuma is just a very forgiving guy.

    Evil Shizuka Vol. 2, High School Homewrecker. You can tell she’s 16 years old now because her limbs are more than one inch wide.

    At the conclusion of episode 1, I hated Marina, like I was supposed to, and even wanted her dead at one point; that’s how visceral the memories of bullying are. What I didn’t want, even then, was to see her tortured, which is pretty much the theme of this episode. Marina is forced to be the parent in the relationship with her insane mother, thinks she’s moving on to something better when she gets her first boyfriend, then loses her boyfriend instantly to someone she has despised for her whole life– oh, and then she has to kill her mother in self-defense. I guess the message is to be understanding of everyone, because you never know what demons someone is battling, but I don’t know if I can fully accept that– I still hate the kids who bullied me in middle school. Intellectually I know those kids probably had their own problems, but when you’re a child and you’re getting hurt, it’s really hard to care about much else.

    Getting back to Takopi, we finally see his home planet, and it’s wonderfully whimsical and strange, but I’m not sure I fully understand what happened. Takopi gets home, tells his mom “I need to use the Happy Clock to go back in time to kill Shizuka Kuze,” then his mother tells him she’s going to erase his memory, because he’s broken “the most important rule of Planet Happy.” Logically, I think the fact that he wants to kill another being is the rule that he broke, but she also says “You came back alone,” and the way she says it implies that may be the rule he broke. Also, it doesn’t seem like she would erase his memory for wanting to kill because at the end of that sequence, she says she doesn’t know what “kill” means. Not for the first time this season, I’m wishing my Japanese language comprehension was better than it is, because it would be nice if I knew exactly what TakoMom said and wasn’t relying on (increasingly) questionable subtitles.

    Now Takopi knows his original mission was to kill Shizuka, but he’s killed Marina instead. He’s learned enough by this point, I hope, that he doesn’t think killing Shizuka is a good plan. But what can he do? He can’t turn back time to revive Marina, and Shizuka is someone he can no longer support. Back in town by the metal pipes where so much of the action takes place, Takopi is left questioning his future when Azuma shows up. Should Azuma really be walking free after admitting to having a part in killing Marina? I thought that maybe his brother Junja took his place and took the fall for him, but that seemed too horrible to contemplate. What can Azuma and Takopi possibly do at this point that would help anyone, even themselves?

    Yeah, so I feel kind of out of my depth here with this one. I’m really looking forward to seeing how this all wraps up next week, although I’m guessing a happy ending is not in the cards for anyone.

  • This Week in Anime: July 27, 2025

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    Watching television can be fun, but it sure does take time– time that you likely no longer have in the fast-paced world of today. Instead of laboriously tracking the output of the frighteningly prolific island nation known as Japan, we now provide this exquisitely-curated service to give you the main idea of everything remotely important that happened in the programs called “anime” this week. Now you can spend all that extra time eating KFC, playing ultimate frisbee, or reading something from one of the few sci-fi/fantasy authors that haven’t been cancelled yet.

    1. Mai Ouzuka heard a rumor that there hadn’t been enough sexual assault yet this season, so she got right on that. Not to be confused with Mai Sakurajima, who would never.

    2. Alicia outswam a giant sea monster, and when some bandits asked her if she could save them from said monster, she wasn’t feeling it. No more bandits!

    3. After surviving a vicious monster attack, the population of Clearflow Lake was dying for some ice cream, so their local vending machine made them a pool and shaved ice. Next, they went to a prison to visit a guy who has an unhealthy love for used footwear.

    4. On Prince Edward Island, Anne ignored the man who genuinely loves her in favor of some dark-haired ponce who doesn’t even exist. She’s 100 years ahead of all the other Twilight girls!

    5. The male cast of WitchWatch got stuck in a Death Game just like Necronomico and the Cosmic Horror Show, and just like on that show, the rules were arbitrary and made no sense whatsoever. Our heroes did not put up with this treatment.

    6. A group of teenaged bowlers who want to keep their identity as time-travelers secret AT ALL COSTS think nothing of whipping out their iPhones to take photos of their meals…in the 1400s. Way to fool ’em, gals!

    7. A volcano erupted and a yokai-possessed teen with cool earrings went ballistic and a bunch of other stuff happened, but the really salient point in all of this is that Grandma is hot as fuck.

    8. A high-schooler and a plus-size model took a break from their usual habit of getting lost in lots of scenery porn to sift some tiny rocks; when finished, they obtained more rocks to sift. Other high-schoolers are getting curious about all this rock-action.

    9. A smooth yakuza started hitting on a thirteen-year-old; the kid is okay with it, mostly because he’s getting free food out of the deal. But are we, AS A SOCIETY, okay with this?

    10. A student’s body produces too much ice-magic juice, so he became a giant popsicle, however, fortunately for him, the Student Council Treasurer was on hand for just such occasions. Also, people should really stop trying to commit fraud with Monica around, it just doesn’t go well for them.

    11. WitchWatch and My Dress-Up Darling are having a contest to see who can make the most “Totally Plausible Anime-Within-an-Anime.” Right now we are up to three fake anime and counting.

    12. Kai had a one night stand with a woman and then kicked her out of his apartment after forgetting she was there, and apparently the audience is supposed to think this is charming behavior.

    13. Shizuka goes to Tokyo to see her Dad, and her existence is inconvenient to him, so he pretends he doesn’t know who she is. Shockingly, he’s still not the worst parent on Takopi’s Original Sin.

    That’s all for this week’s anime! Come back next week for more special moments from the world of Japanimation.

  • Dan Da Dan Episode 16

    Dan Da Dan Episode 16

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    Last time, Momo killed the Great Mongolian Death Worm with a little help from the local fire department. Now, the volcano has erupted, and the Kitos are livid. Mom Kito is screaming at Momo that the Great Serpent Lord protected the village from the volcano, but Momo thinks otherwise: she thinks the fountain she saw at the hot spring was the protective “dragon” that the legend of the volcano referred to. The Kitos just got confused and started sacrificing people to a completely unrelated entity.

    I’m not entirely sure how Momo figures this out. She did go to the shrine before the haunted house hijinks and hear about the legend of the great dragon, but what made her realize the fountain was the subject of the legend? Then again, we did see some good logical thinking from her in season one, so I guess she’s just good at this sort of thing. She’s not good at storing large amounts of info in her brain like Okarun is, but she’s good under pressure.

    Then things get crazy: Momo uses her psychic powers to pick up the entire body of the worm and gives it a huge toss, throwing it down the mountain. The Kitos freak out that she’s now desecrating the corpse of their god, and I can’t really blame them for that. She puts the butt of the worm on top of the fountain, then uses the worm’s body as a giant firehouse to douse the lava. The water is still filled with the worm’s mucus, so that makes it extra sticky. This…really should not work. I did have a thought after last episode that maybe they would use the gunk from the worm to somehow stop the lava, but I did not foresee this.

    JENNIFER ANISTON SCORPION! (No, she doesn’t actually say that, but she should.)

    Mom Kito has had enough of Momo’s antics and plans to sacrifice her to the volcano. Momo points out that they seem to have changed gods rather easily, but I guess logical thinking is not Mom Kito’s strong suit. Things look bad for Momo, but then she’s rescued by the priest from the temple we met in episode 13. Apparently Seiko is his “master” and he was charged with protecting Momo’s group all this time. Better late than never, I guess.

    Momo goes back to doing her fire hose routine, but it’s not long before bursts of energy start slicing up the worm’s body; Evil Eye/Jiji is back. How the hell did he get back up from the bottom of the cavern? I guess he must be able to jump really high. Interestingly, Momo pulls Mom Kito out of Jiji’s reach, less to protect Mom Kito and more to keep Jiji from becoming a murderer. Under the circumstances, Momo and Mom Kito need to work together to fight off Jiji, which is not a team-up I expected to see. Some crazy action that I really can’t do justice to with description occurs. I’ve heard talk that Science Saru is struggling with the production of this anime, but even if that’s true, you would never know it from this episode. The fights are just so dynamic and downright cool.

    JULIA ROBERTS PLATYPUS!!!!

    Momo’s psychic powers start failing her, and that makes sense to me; she doesn’t have infinite MP, so to speak. She’s rescued from Jiji by an alien called Mantisian, and wow, I really did not remember this guy from the first season. In the next insane twist, a UFO delivering Seiko and the anatomical model mannequin shows up. I wish they hadn’t spoiled Seiko’s return in the next episode preview last week, because it would have been awesome for her to show up out of nowhere.

    Seiko begins fighting with Jiji, and at first I’m confused because I thought she said her psychic powers only work in the town she’s stationed in, but she actually isn’t using psychic powers; she’s just going to town with a baseball bat. I guess she must have a triple black belt in Grandma Bat Jutsu.

    When Seiko starts having trouble, Taro, the anatomical model, takes her place, only to be shattered into a hundred pieces by Jiji; joke’s on the Evil Eye though, because with the help of a talisman and some praying from the priest, the pieces of the model adhere to Jiji’s body and shut him down. I guess with the Evil Eye contained, Seiko can remove the yokai from Jiji when they get home and she has access to her spiritual abilities. In theory that should remove the yokai powers from Jiji too, but I have a sneaking suspicion that he’s keeping those.

    Dan Da Dan: The only show where “Grandma” and “Fanservice” go together.

    The UFO, piloted by the Mantisian’s kid, uses its tractor beam to resume spraying the lava with the Worm’s body. Momo is off looking for Okarun, and things look bad: the whole cavern is filled with lava. How could anyone have survived that? Momo freaks out and makes plans to submerge into the lava somehow; she’s grieving Okarun so hard, she can’t even think straight. The UFO lifts out a giant pod of the Worm’s mucus, and Okarun and Turbo Granny are inside. Okay, as cool as this episode is, I straight-up don’t believe this: I can’t believe that the Worm’s mucus was so powerful that even lava didn’t effect it. Well, who am I to say what an occult monster can do, I guess?

    Momo burns her hands opening the pod, and I have to think this is an homage to Gendo Ikari burning his hands to save Rei in Neon Genesis Evangelion. Turbo Granny drags Momo for not rescuing them earlier, then Okarun and Momo embrace. Awwww, I feel bad for doubting the manner of Okarun’s survival, I just want my little occult teen couple to be happy.

    What ever happened to Mom Kito? Ah, Momo and Okarun are hugging, who even cares about the Kitos and their stupid religious nonsense.

    Next time, it looks like we’ll be getting something of a breather episode, which I am definitely ready for after all of this craziness. This whole arc was amazing: well-animated and unpredictable, but with enough emotional beats that it never became a basic shonen punchfest. I may have to start reading the manga, which I pretty much never do with shonen series, but do I want to give up on being surprised by the anime? Tough call.