Karen's Anime Blog

Because there's always time for more anime

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  • Clevatess Episode Three

    Clevatess Episode Three

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    When we last saw our heroes, Alicia took a plunge and battered her body on the rocky coast. Thanks to her undead status, she’s alive, but in no condition to fight. An apparition of Clevatess appears from her blood, and we learn that it’s the dark ichor in Alicia’s blood that keeps her undead; if she loses too much blood, she could actually die. Of course, he can just shove the dark ichor back into her as long as he still needs her, so it hardly matters. Interesting, but Clevatess’ form here is like a little puppy, and it’s so freakin’ cute it’s hard to actually concentrate on anything he’s saying.

    “All of you, I command you: Purchase plushies of me. Available this fall at your local Build-A-Bear.”

    Clevatess has a question for Alicia: Why did Nell turn down his offer of employment? Aww, it’s almost like Clevatess’ feelings were hurt. Alicia explains that, among other reasons, Nell doesn’t think she’ll be able to escape from the bandits, so Clevatess should get rid of the bandits. I think Alicia thinks she’s finally caught a real break here: now, her annoying “Master” can take out her super-annoying enemies. Oh, how little she knows.

    We see some images of Nell here and her chest is very bouncy. To be fair to this show though, this is one of the only anime (or TV shows period) that actually deals with breasts being used for their intended purpose.

    Clevatess doesn’t want to take out the bandits because he doesn’t want anyone to know that he’s left Luna Mountain, so he deems it Alicia’s job to take out the bandits. Now, I see why the show does this: If Clevatess just kills all their enemies, there will be no need for Alicia to do anything, and it will be a very boring show. But I don’t know if it totally holds up logically. We learned last episode that Clen can kill the bandits very easily– if he were to kill all of them, why would anyone jump to the conclusion “Oh, it must be Clevatess, the Beast Lord”? Wouldn’t they just assume the bandits pissed someone off and got taken out by another gang of bandits or something? Even if he were to leave the prostitutes and/or serving girls alive, it’s not like they could spread information, because they don’t know anything.

    Alicia is less then pleased with being tasked with taking out 50 or so bandits by herself, but on the bright side, I guess it shows how much faith Clevatess has in her? Not much consolation I guess, especially when Clevatess puts the dark ichor back into her body and she starts to heal at a super-accelerated, painful rate. She outfights the first bandit who reaches her and takes his sword, and his eyepatch just as a bonus. She muses “I just have to kill all these bandits, right?” and submits her nomination reel for “Most Badass Female Character 2025.”

    We see Clen and Luna, and Clen assures the baby that though Alicia may not look it, she is “the first human to put a scratch on my horn,” so he trusts her to take out the bandits. He may have originally resurrected Alicia because he thought she could feed Luna, but conveniently, Alicia is the one he would have picked first anyway.

    Nell returns to the kitchen, and we get a long conversation between Nell and Carme, the head prostitute. This is an interesting relationship, because I think there is a genuine connection there: they’re in the trenches together, so to speak, and we saw last episode that Carme was one of the women who delivered at least one of Nell’s stillborn babies. However, Carme has a higher status than Nell and flaunts it, and I think she’s aware that if Nell wasn’t there, a lot of the abuse that Nell takes might fall onto her. Also, if they lose Nell as the designated wet nurse, Vroko might expect Carme to fill that role. So when Nell starts talking about the outside world, visions of freedom that Clen’s offer sparked, Carme loses it and hits Nell. She tries to guilt Nell into submission, citing their common bond as women in this dark situation, but it’s too late; Vroko is walking by and has heard everything.

    Vroko asks about “something special that came in today” and Carme immediately knows he means Luna. Vroko says they’ll “fatten it up” first. Don’t tell me that Vroko eats babies now, although I wouldn’t put it past him. He asks for Nell to come with him, and we can tell from Carme’s face that she knows this is Nell’s death sentence. Just like last episode when Vroko stupidly gave his men permission to attack Alicia, now he’s stupidly wasting his one wet nurse for no good reason. I know he doesn’t want Nell’s talk about the outside world to spread throughout the slaves, giving them hope that might lead to rebellion, but that calls for punishing her harshly to shut her up; killing her is just a waste. The show is telegraphing that Vroko is supposed to be smart, but I have my doubts.

    Clen and Luna show up soon after Vroko and Nell depart, and Carme tells them there’s no more wet nurse to give Luna milk; Clen requires clarification on this point.

    Vroko takes Nell down into an old aranacite mine, and lets go some interesting information: manipulating aranacite can achieve many goals, and doing so is called “magic.” So does that mean that more traditional portrayals of magic, which mana levels and all that, doesn’t exist in this world? It certainly seems that way. Interesting choice for a fantasy show. Why he’s telling Nell all this when he plans to kill her I don’t know, but I guess he just really likes hearing himself talk. He shuts off the lamp, and when he turns the light back on, Nell is standing in front of Betty, Vroko’s domesticated troll. Vroko reveals that his aranacite research concerned learning to control dark beasts, and that’s why he can control Betty. Betty has little pink bows in her hair, and the idea of Vroko painstakingly doing her hair is so funny to me, it kind of takes away from the gravity of the scene. In any case, Nell’s longing for the outside counts as betraying the Ravens, and now Nell must die.

    In the intervening few minutes, Clen and Luna have appeared, but Clen does not step in to save Nell, and she is eaten by the troll. Nell’s last thought is that she won’t be able to fill Luna’s belly again. Seeing someone he knows eaten makes Luna cry and damn, that kid is going to need a whole lot of therapy that doesn’t actually exist in his world.

    Clen explains to Luna that eat-or-be-eaten is just the way of the world, so there’s no need to be so upset that Nell was eaten. I guess he wasn’t going to tell him that dead people go to a wonderful place in the sky with fluffy clouds and angels singing. Vroko gives Betty permission to eat the duo, but Betty intuitively knows that Clen is the Beast Lord (or at least someone very powerful), so she does not comply. Instead she spits up the remains of Nell, who is somehow still alive, if barely. Clen sends Luna away with Nell so that Luna can comfort Nell “in her last moments”; I think it says something for how much Clen has already changed as a result of his relationships with Alicia and Luna that he actually gives a damn how a human feels in her last moments.

    Vroko monologues that his generation discovered the foundations of “magic,” and Clen has no idea what magic is. The bandit leader uses his magic to get Betty back under control, and Betty hits Clen. Clen curses Alicia for not telling him about this magic business, but somehow, I don’t believe Betty is a real threat to Clen; even if she destroys his child form, can’t he just make another one?

    Back to Alicia, who has in the intervening few minutes killed eight bandits. What kind of training do heroes go through in this world, or is Alicia just naturally that good? We see a flashback of Alicia’s dad teaching her how to use a sword, and I’m looking forward to getting the background on her dad; I don’t think he was just some regular peasant. Back in the present, one of the bandits manages to shatter Alicia’s sword, and she runs off. Even though she’s obviously better trained than all the bandits, she can’t take out all of them at once, and she’s getting tired. She realizes that, being immortal, if they catch her and start tormenting her, even death will be no escape. Being immortal really is not such hot stuff, when you think about it.

    Alicia comes up with a brilliant plan: lure all the bandits onto the scaffolding above the river with the Arvensiss monsters, then destroys the support so nearly all the bandits fall into the water. As the bandits are eaten by the monsters, Alicia descends in a barrel; I don’t know if the Arvensiss choose not to eat her because she’s already dead, or if they’re just distracted by the abundance of prey, but in any case, it works. Now Alicia is going for the real prize, the Regalia hidden at the bottom of the river: Khordhwar’s sword. Since suffocating won’t kill her, she plans to just deal with the pain until she finds it. Ouch.

    That was a helluva an episode. They’re trying to make it seem like Nell is dead, but I think she’s going to get resurrected in some form. There’s a picture of Nell in the ending credits in a more traditionally attractive form, and that wouldn’t be there for no reason. I think Clen might do something crazy like meld Nell and Carme together to get a functional wet nurse. Or maybe he’ll just resurrect Nell with dark ichor like he did Alicia, but can an undead wet nurse give milk? Clevatess, making us ask the big questions….

  • Reborn as a Vending Machine, I Now Wander the Dungeon S2 Episode 3

    Reborn as a Vending Machine, I Now Wander the Dungeon S2 Episode 3

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    We’re continuing with the siege of Clearflow Lake. Suori popped in at the very end to lend aid last week, and it turns out her aid is a whole lot of money. A group including Boxxo and Lammis goes to Suori’s mansion to get the gold coins out of her safe; the money will give Boxxo the points to stay in his giant vending machine form while everyone else repairs the hole in the village wall. Like everything else in town, Suori’s mansion is trashed, which leads her to cry like the little girl she really is. Awww, I don’t want to see Suori sad, she’s so much fun when she’s being an absolute bitch on wheels.

    “We can fix it: we have the technology.“

    Boxxo thanks Suori for her help, and then Lammis makes Boxxo say her name too, but the best he can do is “La-is” because he doesn’t have the “mi” sound. Suori rubs it in that Boxxo can say her name perfectly, and I’m happy she’s back to being the pettiest little hellcat on the block.

    Supposedly Suori gives Boxxo 110 coins; there’s way more than 110 here.

    Boxxo muses about how they say that adversity brings out a person’s true worth, and now we’re starting to see Suori’s. I’m actually not sure if I agree with that; yes, pressure creates diamonds, but sometimes, suffering just makes you suffer. It’s easy to justify mistreating people if you believe that the adversity will make them better people.

    When the group gets back, the people camping in the Hunter’s Association building go crazy; it’s hot as blazes, and they want Boxxo’s cold drinks and snacks. It’s clear all these people are not going to be able to tolerate these living conditions for much longer.

    Hunter meeting time. Director Bear and Hulemy concoct a plan to vanquish the monsters: they’ll wait until the monsters make their nightly attack on the Hunter’s Association, when monsters will be pulled away from the hole in the wall, then they’ll close the wall up while the monsters’ defenses are lowered. This will expose the defenders at the Association to a lot of danger, but they really have no choice at this point.

    If you imagine “Decisive Battle” from Evangelion playing, it makes this scene better.

    Time to head out. Director Bear tells the defenders staying at the Association that if the “Fix the Damn Wall” Task Force fails to return, they should hole up in the Association building using the month’s supply of food that Boxxo has provided; help from the other strata will arrive. Honestly, if the other strata were hit as hard as Clearflow Lake I wouldn’t be expecting reinforcements any time soon, but I guess that’s better than saying “If we don’t come back, enjoy the food until you run out of it and die.”

    At the wall, Lammis gives Boxxo a last pep talk before the fight. She says that her grandma said that no one likes girls that are too pushy, so she’s not going to try to stop Boxxo from fighting on his own. Lammis, I realize you loved your grandma, but that’s probably not the message you should be taking away here.

    Boxxo changes into his cardboard form and uses balloons to levitate himself over the hole in the wall, then changes into his giant ice machine form to plug the hole with his giant body. Next, he uses a new function and makes concrete platforms: ten of them, enough to plug the hole.

    Wait a minute. If he could do that and plug the hole in a manner of seconds, why did he even need all of Suori’s money? I thought the whole reason he needed more points was because he needed to stay in his giant ice machine form for a long time. The show that explains everything has not sufficiently explained this to me.

    Lammis and three earth mages help shore up the wall. Seems like they really didn’t need to bother when Boxxo already had giant slabs of concrete there, but it’s extra security I guess.

    Boxxo sees a human standing back near the monsters and pegs him as one of the Netherlord’s commanders. He floats over in his cardboard form and then traps the commander within his barrier. Then things get crazy: Boxxo nearly strangles the guy with a towel, then tortures him by making him drink a whole bottle of cola with fizzy candy in it. Okay, as torture goes it’s not that bad, but isn’t it a problem that once you start torturing people, the idea of doing worse and worse things becomes more palatable? But the people Boxxo loves really are in danger, and getting the info this guy has could be the key to saving them; it’s a conundrum. I’m anti-torture in general, but I can see Boxxo’s POV here.

    Faced with the possibility of having to drink cola with even more mints (and not knowing that cola isn’t poisonous), the commander gives up and releases his control over the monsters. It looks like we’re past all the drama until Lammis gets a good look at the commander and recognizes him as the guy who used monsters to destroy her village. Lammis loses her composure and starts punching Boxxo’s barrier; we know from Season One that a normal monster hit does 10 points of damage to Boxxo; Lammis hits are doing 600 each. She may be even stronger than we thought.

    I wonder, does Lammis know that hitting the barrier does direct damage to Boxxo? I don’t think she does, because even in her enraged state, I don’t think she would hit Boxxo; she loves him too much. Fortunately, Director Bear is on hand to talk Lammis down. Director Bear then advises the commander that he’d better answer all of their questions if he wants a quick death; I guess everybody has officially had it with this shit by this episode. I’ve had it with this little arc myself, honestly.

    Boxxo worries that even though he can now talk– sort of– he has nothing he can say that would help Lammis. Eventually he just blurts out that he’ll be with her forever, which she mistakes as a marriage proposal. Turns out she’s kidding, but she does let slip that her mother got married at 18 and she doesn’t want to get married before then, so…I guess that’s good? Honestly, I can’t wrap my mind around getting married in your teens. I got married at 30. She also mentions that she could get Hulemy to make them some children by making “little Boxxos,” and now I’m envisioning tiny vending machines and it’s adorable.

    That’s all for this episode. It’s fun to see how Boxxo navigates problems, but I’m getting a little tired of the giant ice vending machine and the mint-and-cola trick. I hope our favorite vending machine pulls out some new moves in episode four.

  • The Fragrant Flower Blooms With Dignity Episode Two

    The Fragrant Flower Blooms With Dignity Episode Two

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    This episode deals a lot with academic snobbery, and I’m actually really sensitive to that. I went to a really highly-ranked high school where a lot of the kids were overachievers who were planning to go on to Ivy League and Tier-1 schools. A lot of these kids thought they were destined to be the rulers of the universe because they could memorize information and regurgitate it back with great regularity. These kids knew everything, except the fact that they weren’t as smart as they thought they were, because NO ONE could possibly be as smart as they thought they were. Trauma? A little.

    Scene: Chidori High School, AKA “Dead End School.” Rintarou is still rocking from the revelation that Kaoruko attends Kikyo Girls School, AKA “Posh Girls School.” His friend Shohei is whining about how the Kikyo girls have been glaring at him again, but Rintarou isn’t really listening. Rintarou’s friend Saku notices the bandage on Rintarou’s face, which is the injury he got from protecting Kaoruko last episode; Rintarou isn’t telling anyone how he got it. The boys are also curious why Rintarou closed the curtain, blocking the view to the other school, but he’s not telling them why he did that either. Talk to your friends, Rintarou!

    “Where did you get that wound, Rintarou?”

    “I tripped over a cake.”

    Class starts, and I immediately feel sorry for the teacher. If the kids are saying things like Chidori is for “morons,” then the teachers have to deal with that bad reputation too. I’m sure a lot of the teachers at Chidori are perfectly fine teachers, they just likely don’t have the connections or luck to get into a better school. Based on the people I know who have taught high school in the US, it’s a pretty thankless job. Anyway, Rintarou muses that Kaoruko probably won’t come back to the the cake shop, and he figures it’s “for the best.” I think he is seriously underestimating how much Kaoruko likes cake.

    Rintarou and the boys are about to go to karaoke, but there’s a commotion at the gate: A Kikyo girl is waiting outside Chidori High School. Naturally, it’s Kaoruko, and Rintarou makes an adorable shocked face when he sees her. Shohei starts getting into her face and being a moron, but to be fair to him, he was picked on by Kikyo girls earlier in the day, so his patience for seeing little pink-uniformed girls has been burned already. Still, he’s acting like a twit. Rintarou obviously isn’t going to tolerate that kind of behavior.

    “Lay off this chick, she singlehandedly keeps the cake shop in business.”

    Shohei cries that he wishes he had a girl who would wait for him by the gate, then some of Kaoruko’s associates– I hesitate to call them “friends”– see her waiting over on the Chidori side of the street and drag her out of there. As the boys walk off to karaoke, it finally occurs to Rintarou that Kaoruko might have been waiting for him, but he rejects that possibility. Rintarou’s kind of adorable.

    At karaoke, Saku, who is more perceptive than Rintarou’s other friends, wants to know why Rintarou has been so out of it all day, and he knows that the bandage on Rintarou’s forehead didn’t come from “bumping into something.” Rintarou thinks long and hard and reasons that if he tells them about Kaoruko, they’ll all yell about how much Kikyo girls suck, and he doesn’t want to hear it. That’s probably the response he’d get from Shohei, but I think he’s underestimating his other two friends.

    Back at Plain, the lights are still on, even though it’s past closing time. Turns out Kaoruko has been waiting for him for some time. She bows and apologizes for the incident at the gate, which wasn’t her fault, but I guess she feels responsible for not reading the room, so to speak. Rintarou’s mom offers Kaoruko some leftover cake, which Kaoruko says she doesn’t want, but then her growling stomach betrays her. I like to think Kaoruko has already eaten enough real food today but her stomach growls mightily if she doesn’t get a piece of layer cake once every few hours. Anyway, the two sit down and have a heart-to-heart. I bet Rintarou gets leftover cake so often he doesn’t even enjoy it anymore, I’m so jealous.

    I’m going to take screenshots of all the delicious cake on this show. Totally gratuitous, unnecessary screenshots. It’s my blog, dammit.

    They have a very nervous conversation, with Rintarou spitting out that he was happy to see her at the gate and then trying to walk it back. He tells her that he wasn’t expecting her to come to the cake shop anymore after she found out he was a Chidori student, and she looks crushed. She’s so distraught, she leaves without even finishing her slice of cake– and it was chocolate!

    Rintarou’s mom is concerned about the miserable look on Rintarou’s face after Kaoruko leaves, and the two of them have some mother-son chat time. Rintarou says he doesn’t understand why Kaoruko wants to see him, and his mother literally thinks “Why is he so dumb? What did I do wrong?” Hah. I kind of wonder if this is what it would be like to be a parent to a boy.

    “You may be eight feet tall but never forget who gave birth to you, kiddo. I made you and I can take you out.”

    His mom points out that Rintarou is doing to Kaoruko exactly what everybody does to him: judging people by appearances. He’s assuming she must be snobby since she’s from Kikyo, even though she’s never acted that way with him. Rintarou, dense as he is, realizes that she’s right and punches himself in the face in penance. That’s some good parenting right there– well, not the punching part, but that’s not his mom’s fault.

    Morning, Kikyo Girls’ School. Rintarou is waiting for Kaoruko at the gate, early before the other students get there. The two of them then have a contest to see who can apologize the most; Rintarou wins. The two decide they’re not going to worry about the nonsense with their schools, and while they don’t outright say “we’re going to be friends now,” it’s clear that’s on the agenda. The last bit of the episode features the two of them texting from inside their respective schools. Rintarou opens the curtain to see Kaoruko in the building across the way, and Kaoruko jumps for joy when she sees him. I wonder how many episodes it’s going to take for Rintarou to realize that she really likes him, you know, THAT way? I hope it’s before episode 12. It’ll be boring if I keep having to write “Rintarou’s mom looks at him and facepalms, wondering again how she raised such a gigantic moron.”

    All he’s missing is the ring! Can’t wait for the wedding.

  • Turkey! Time To Strike Episode Two

    Turkey! Time To Strike Episode Two

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    It’s time for episode two of everyone’s favorite troll anime, Turkey! When we last left our heroines, they were transported back in time to the Sengoku era because an ancient bowling ball was excavated on a construction site; I’d like to say “it makes sense in context,” but it really doesn’t.

    We get the OP, which features young Mai sitting in a burning room and all the girls playing instruments like they’re part of the Light Music Club instead of the Bowling Club; they also play in the rain for some reason. Are we going to get a tragic backstory for Mai where her parents died in a fire or something? I hope not. Back to the show, a severed head from the battle raging below has just come flying at the girls. They realize it’s real and not a special effect, and start to freak out. The girls turn to Mai for leadership, like being the captain of the bowling team is really adequate qualification to be in charge during a time-traveling crisis. Fortunately Mai is at least with it enough that she realizes that they’re missing Rina.

    “I liked today better when it was just Rina yelling at us like an asshole.”

    They try to call Rina, only to realize that their phones have no service. Honestly, at this point they may as well just lay down and die. Modern teenagers without phones? How will they even live? Mai has a little break down about Rina, because she feels responsible for getting Rina involved: Rina was on the other side of the alley when Mai called out to her, after all.

    They manage to find Rina, using the patented “let’s pretend we’re bushes” strategy. Rina isn’t terribly happy about meeting up with the group, so at least she’s consistent. Then the group gets found by some soldiers, and unfortunately we’re going to have to see the “Every man in the past was a horny scumbag” trope. Did they really have to do this? Couldn’t they have just been found first by some normal soldiers who were like, “Who are you, you strangely dressed women? You shouldn’t be out here, it’s dangerous!” But no, we get some shifty looking dudes who talk about how “ripe” the girls look. Sigh.

    “Let’s have an orgy right in the middle of this huge battle that’s going on, seems like a practical choice.”

    Rina slaps one of the soldiers ogling her, so he backhands her hard enough to make her bleed. The soldier goes to cut her with his blade, but Mai stands in front of Rina to protect her. Well, I gotta hand it to her: she may not be a great bowling club president, but she’s brave. Fortunately Evil Sword Guy gets an arrow through his hand, and a handsome young samurai comes to rescue the girls.

    “You can tell that I’m a good guy, because unlike these punks, I’m ATTRACTIVE! Attractive people are always good!“

    Handsome Samurai begins fighting the evil louts and yells at the girls to run, which they do. When they stop in the forest to take a breath, Nanase (purple hair) gives us some interesting information: while they’ve traveled in time, they haven’t traveled in space. Using her phone (which can still be used as a camera even without service), a picture of the battleground superimposed over a picture of the bowling alley shows that the two take place in the same location. That’s the most interesting thing that’s happened in the entire episode so far.

    The girls see Handsome Samurai being led away by two of the louts; I’m guessing the third one was killed. Mai wants to rescue him, which the other girls veto. Rina gives Mai one of her patented “This is why I hate you to death” speeches. There is some talk about the danger of changing the past, to which Mai points out (surprisingly reasonably) that they’ve already changed the past by altering Handsome Samurai’s fate. She also says that if the samurai hadn’t rescued them, they’d all be “dead and buried.” Uh…no. Maybe Mai would have been dead, because the lout looked prepared to slice her up, but the others would have suffered a different fate. I’m not sure Mai is worldly enough to know what was happening there.

    She goes back to the bowling metaphor from last episode: they’ve thrown their first ball, but it’s the second ball that matters in bowling! Oy vey. The attempt to try to graft the bowling theme onto this time travel show is already wearing thin, and it’s episode two. Nozomi points out that the louts have weapons, to which Rina points out that the girls also have weapons. Oh…oh no. They’re not going to do it, are they? They’re not going to do the thing I’m thinking of, are they?

    Yes. Yes, they are fighting Sengoku-era swordsman with bowling balls. At first it’s not that ridiculous: they’re rolling the balls to create noise and motion, which I thought might be a way of tricking the louts into thinking that they’re surrounded. Nanase does something with a card to make smoke, and it may be a cultural thing but I have no idea what she’s doing. But then, we get what I was afraid of: Mai takes out the louts with a bowling ball. She rolls the ball, and it somehow manages to pop up and knock the two guys unconscious. What kind of spin did Mai use to make her ball fly? Does she have magic powers now? To be honest, I’d prefer the explanation “Oh, did we mention that Mai has telekinesis like Momo in Dandadan?” over being expected to take what just happened seriously.

    It’s time to bowl, bowl those pesky rapists away!

    And that’s the whole problem here, isn’t it? The show can’t decide if it wants to be taken seriously or not. If this was going to be the kind of show where a normally rolled bowling ball can fly to take out multiple bad guys, then the whole dark tone of the first two thirds of the show is a totally bizarre choice.

    The girls then get the hell out of there, with Sayuri full-body lifting Handsome Samurai onto her back. Uh, I know she’s bigger than the other girls, but is she really that strong? Maybe they should have established that she was on the weight-lifting club before joining the bowling team, although after what just happened, complaining about the realism doesn’t really make sense; they’ve given up on that.

    Handsome Samurai– oh alright, his name is Sugiri– confirms that the girls saved him first, since their looking for Rina distracted an enemy who had just found him. He also found Rina’s good luck charm from episode one, which I guess is meant to be kind of touching but I’m not feeling it. Mai almost lets it slip that the girls are from the future, but Nanase nixes that and Rina comes up with the excuse that they’re traveling performers. Sugiri invites them to his home, and I might be mistaken, but weren’t they in the middle of a massive battle half an hour ago? Can he really take his ball (in this case multiple balls) and just go home? Mai is about to turn him down, but Nozomi has already accepted and started flirting, so too late.

    He takes them to his home, and someone in a fox mask stares at Rina; Rina stares back. They find a pink-haired girl playing a proto-version of bowling, and that’s…that’s it. That’s where it ends. I feel like I should recap this show because I feel like it’s culturally relevant– I mean, people are going to be talking for a long time about the bowling show that trolled the audience and became a different show. I wish I was enjoying it more though. Does this count as hate-watching? I don’t hate it, I just literally have no idea what it’s trying to do and what routes it’s taking to get there.

  • My Dress-Up Darling Episode 14

    My Dress-Up Darling Episode 14

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    We return to the Halloween Karaoke party. Gojo has just spit out his drink after Nowa asks if he and Marin are dating, and unlike most instances of this trope, he actually did get soda all over himself. Gojo loudly denies that he and Marin are dating, and Marin pulls him out over to the bathroom. While Gojo thinks about how it would be “presumptuous” for him to claim to be dating Marin as he cleans up, Marin is outside the bathroom feeling depressed that Gojo denied it so vehemently.

    This is really interesting to me, because this is miscommunication that comes from their vastly different social experiences. Gojo thinks of himself as one of the lower-class, at least as far as social capital comes, so the idea of him dating someone pretty and popular like Marin seems like dreaming of something far beyond his station. For Marin, who is a popular model, she’s never had to even think about the idea of any kind of social caste system, and would probably think the whole idea of one is stupid. From her perspective, it seems like Gojo just repulsed at the idea of going out with her, which we know isn’t true. As well as they get along normally, this is one area where they really can’t understand each other.

    The next part is insane. Gojo gets out of the bathroom and sees two guys talking to Marin. He assumes they’re hitting on her and runs over to stop them, but instead of just stopping them, he offers himself in her place. Does he really think two dudes who were hitting on a super hot girl in a revealing bunny suit are really going to be satisfied with a guy as a substitute? I’m going to chalk this up to Gojo being so crazy with worry for Marin that he’s not thinking straight. Lucky for him, it turns out to be a false alarm.

    “Um, can I interest you fine gentlemen in my manly self? I have a craftsman’s hands.”

    Marin is touched that he was trying to protect her and gives him a little peck on the cheek. However, Gojo is in his bunny suit when she does it, so he couldn’t see or feel what she did. He just hears a “tch” sound and assumes she clicked her tongue and must be mad at him, and she’s too shy to own up to actually kissing him. Oh, these two crazy cosplay dorks. It just goes to show how much Marin’s feelings have grown that she kissed him like that, even if she’s embarrassed about it.

    Find a Bunny Girl who looks at you like this.

    Opening Credits: I desperately want to wipe that grease off of Marin’s face at the end when she eats the burger. I know I’m not alone here.

    Back in school. Marin is absent because she was running around on Halloween in stockings and in anime, being underdressed in the cold for more than one minute means you come down with a monster cold. Naturally Gojo is worried and when she doesn’t answer his text, he ditches school so he can come take care of her. I would say that’s overkill, except it turns out that Marin is really quite sick and can’t take care of herself, so his actions were actually justified. Marin is so relieved that he’s come to take care of her that she cries, and I just want to give them both a big hug. There’s a cute joke where Gojo is looking for something clean for Marin to wear and finds this:

    Only the finest Slippery Girls merch for Marin.

    All is going well until Marin’s friends show up with some ice cream and drinks for her, and Gojo knows that if they see him there, they’ll assume Gojo and Marin are dating again. He can’t have that, so he goes and hides on the balcony until her friends go home. Marin is of course frustrated that Gojo won’t just chill out about it. At some point, the two of them are going to have a rather uncomfortable conversation about social class, and I don’t know if this show is really going to show it the way I’m imagining it.

    Next, the pair are showing off Marin’s Slippery Girls cosplay at an aquarium. That’s so cool! I actually love aquariums. I spent my honeymoon “aquarium-hopping” with my husband; we only got to two aquariums, but dammit, I think that counts as aquarium-hopping. Marin runs off to see the penguins and the otters, displaying her A-tier taste in marine life. Soon, Marin runs into someone dressed as one of her favorite characters from the idol game Space Idols Cosmic Lovers. The cosplayer, Amane, reveals that they lost a hook from their skirt, so Marin and Gojo help them find it. Gojo offers to repair the skirt, but points out that he can’t go into the woman’s changing room. Amane helpfully offers that he’s a guy, so they can both go into the men’s changing room together. Gojo and Marin are both shocked, since Amane is so convincing as a girl.

    While Gojo fixes Amane’s costume, Marin runs into a photographer friend of hers. The photographer confesses that she’s played Slippery Girls based on Marin’s recommendation, and I’m wondering if we’re ever going to get a de-fictionalized Slippery Girls visual novel; I’d play it. Meanwhile, Gojo is just dying of curiosity why Amane is carrying liquid glue in his makeup bag, so Amane confesses that he uses it to stick chunks of his wig to his face to hide the more masculine contours of his face. The way he’s drawn doesn’t look masculine at all to me, but I guess that would be hard to portray in the animation without ruining the illusion of him being extremely feminine. I really like the fact that they introduced a cross-player– it just goes to show how big and inclusive the world of cosplay is.

    Subaruuuuuuuun~~~~

    Gojo and Marin look through Amane’s cosplay photos, and they’re all crossplay. In one photo he even has huge breasts, which leads Gojo to ask if the photo was retouched. I’m actually surprised Gojo was able to ask that question without dissolving into a puddle of embarrassment, but he manages somehow. Amane tells them that boobs can be equipped and asks the pair if they would “like to see some boobs.” Gojo’s brain is bluescreening, while Marin is all over that like white on rice. Marin really is the perfect otaku girlfriend.

    And that’s all! Come back next week when we learn about artificial boobs, it might be the highlight of the season.

  • First Look: The Summer Hikaru Died

    First Look: The Summer Hikaru Died

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    It’s getting a little late in the season for “First Look” posts, but I thought I would be remiss not to mention this one. It didn’t originally catch my eye for this season, but I kept seeing people rave about it on social media after the first episode, so I decided to jump in. It’s wonderfully spooky and atmospheric, plus it has a relationship between two boys– well, let’s just call Hikaru a boy for now– that has romantic potential.

    Story-wise, the set-up is simple: Yoshiki and Hikaru are two longtime friends who grew up together in a sleepy mountain town. One summer, Hikaru goes on a hike in the mountains and is missing for ten days. Everyone is relieved when Hikaru makes it back, but not long after, his friend Yoshiki begins to wonder: is it really Hikaru that came down the mountain?

    The thing about Hikaru that makes it hard to explain is that it’s just really well directed. I could talk about shots of insects devouring each other and long cuts of one person’s eye, but it doesn’t really sound like anything special until you see how it’s all put together. It’s horror-themed, but not in a juvenile jump-scare sort of way– although I do think there were one or two moments in the first two episodes that had that surprising quality. The relationship between Yoshiki and Hikaru is fascinating to watch, and even though it’s never outright sexual, there’s a pull between their two characters that you can feel.

    In addition to the two boys, there’s also a paranormal-investigator type person who is looking into the increasingly creepy happenings in town, and he kind of looks like Shizuo from Durarara!!, so that’s practically enough to hook me on the show right there…okay, maybe not, but it’s a nice bonus. I’m really curious to see how the investigator is going to interact with the high school duo, and I really wanna know if the hamster that keeps getting airtime is going to be relevant to the larger story. “Is the hamster a red herring?”, that’s the thought that will be keeping me up tonight.

    Unless you absolutely hate anything with a tinge of horror, you should probably check out The Summer Hikaru Died. It’s on Netflix, so it’s available without having to subscribe to an anime site like Crunchyroll or HIDIVE.

  • Clevatess Episode Two

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    Content Warning: Sexual Assault

    I was planning on covering Clevatess, then I saw how dark the second episode was and went “nope.” I felt bad that I went back on my word though, so I decided to do it: if I can handle Dan Da Dan, I can handle this– probably.

    Last time, our heroes (the term “hero” being used rather loosely in regard to Clen) were captured by some bandits. Alicia wants to know if the bandits are a threat to him in this form, and he confirms that they are not– he’s still the Beast Lord. My guess is they can do whatever they want to this mortal body he’s propping up but the “real” Clen is stored safely in the shadow realm somewhere and is basically invincible. Alicia wants to know why he doesn’t just dispose of all the bandits then, but Clen wants to have the experience they are about to undergo.

    There’s something darkly hilarious about this: Alicia is like a seasoned local who knows what parts of town to avoid after dark, and Clen is like the ignorant tourist who thinks it’s all “charming” and doesn’t want anything getting in the way of his authentic experience. Seriously, this is probably the most amusement Clen has had in eons– what does he even do in the dark lands with no one but beasts to talk to? It can’t be fun. Roleplaying as a human is probably his version of playing a new video game.

    A prisoner tries to escape, and a crazy knife wielding guy puts him down– remember Knife Guy for later. We learn that the bandits are called the Ravens– how spectacularly uncreative. They separate Alicia, and I’m afraid for her, but it turns out the bandits just want to talk to her…for now. Clen and Luna are beckoned over by a woman, who notices Luna and gathers Nell, the Ravens’ wet nurse. I hate to give them credit, but it actually speaks to the success of the Ravens as slave handlers that they need a dedicated wet nurse on hand for all the babies they process. Wow, I just felt really gross typing that. More on Nell in a moment.

    The Ravens’ leader, Vroko, is actually smarter than you would expect. He correctly deduces from her appearance and stoic demeanor that Alicia is the female hero who was rumored to have been on the expedition to defeat Clevatess. The fact that she was found carrying a giant bag of anthracite probably played a role. Now that the Beast Lord has taken out the Hiderite royalty, there’s no one left who can process the anthracite to make magical weapons (except for possibly Luna, but Vroko has no way of knowing that yet.) He reasons that the existing magical weapons are going to get more and more valuable now that the supply has been cut off, and he wants to get rich by selling them– and now, thanks to Alicia, he has access to someone who knows where the battle with Clevatess was fought and where all those weapons went. All 13 of them.

    He then gives the bandits permission to rape Alicia, as long as they don’t kill her. Wow, that’s dumb. Putting aside the fact that it’s inhumanly awful, if he has his guys get physical with Alicia, there’s a chance things might escalate– especially because she’s a hero and likely to fight back. There’s a very real chance she could end up seriously hurt or killed. If Vroko was as smart as he thinks he is, given the money he expects to make from Alicia’s knowledge, he would give Alicia a nice room with her own guard and demand that no one touch her upon pain of death. This would also motivate her to cooperate with him. I guess even a smart bandit is still pretty stupid, relatively speaking.

    Clen has been stationed serving food to the bandits while Nell nurses Luna. Of course, since it’s been one minute and nothing horrible has happened, two bandits take Nell outside to rape her, and beat her up just for funsies. Clen kills them both, and I’m feeling good about it. Then we get Nell’s story: born a slave, she’s been abused by the Ravens for her entire life and her only reason to live is that she likes being able to feed the babies, in the hope they’ll grow up and find the happiness that her own stillborn children were denied. I wrote about Nell a little already in my post about anime and sexual assault, but her story is hard to hear, in part because you know there are women out there who historically have had (and continue to have) similar experiences.

    Despite all that, I have a weird feeling of envy towards Nell, because I never got to breastfeed my own baby. I wanted to, but I had to go back into the hospital right after giving birth, and I was separated from her when the milk came in. So when I see Nell feeding Luna, I get this weird vibe like I’m jealous of her, which is incredibly weird and perverse. I guess I still have strong feelings about that, all these years later.

    Clen sees that Luna likes Nell and offers to take Nell away to serve as Luna’s wet nurse. As far as Nell knows, Clen is just a slave, so she doesn’t realize he can actually back up what he’s promising. She says no, but considering we see her with Luna in the OP, I think she’s coming along soon.

    Scene switch back to Alicia. The bandits have taken her to a bridge high over The Shaft of Elbe, an old mining shaft that was flooded and is now a lake. A slave tries to dive into the water to find something, but it soon gets eaten by a giant fish monster in a scene that really is gratuitously violent. Alicia realizes that this is where the hero Khordhwar died to the Arvensiss (fish monsters), and the slaves are diving trying to find his weapon. She notes that the bandits had no plan of letting the slaves leave alive even if they found it, but I don’t know why she expects anything different at this point.

    The bandits taunt Alicia, and it’s clear they intend to gang rape her. Knife Guy comes up and taunts Alicia, but that’s the last mistake he ever makes. Alicia notes that she’s thankful for Clen’s “curse,” dislocates her own arm, and uses the wooden block that’s being used to bind her arms to whack Knife Guy in the head and kill him. She then uses his knife and cuts the rope of the bridge and plummets to the rocks below. Both bodies splatter grotesquely on the rocks. See Vroko? This is exactly the kind of behavior I was warning you about.

    Apparently Alicia thinks that now that Clen has made her undead, she can’t really “die”– either that or she’s confident that he’ll resurrect her. Either way, she’d choose death over being used by the bandits to find the regalia, not to mention all the other horrors, so her choice makes sense. Still, it takes a helluva lot of guts to be able to carry that plan out. I guess you don’t become a hero in what appears to be an intensely misogynistic country without being made of absolute steel.

    That’s all for this installment, turn back for more violence and mayhem and Luna being inappropriately adorable.

    “Wah I want my wet nurse, she’s the best!”

    “Shhh, Daddy’s working on it!

  • Rascal Does Not Dream of Santa Claus Episode 2

    Rascal Does Not Dream of Santa Claus Episode 2

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    Last time, Idol Uzuki managed to read the room and Idol Nodoka was shocked, and this has somehow become Sakuta’s problem. We start off at college, and Mai is on campus for once. She’s rocking some glasses and an atypical (for her) hairstyle, and I think she’s trying to camouflage a little. Everybody at Yokohama City University probably knows that the famous Mai Sakurajima is attending their school, but by trying to blend a little bit she’ll get fewer people recognizing her and staring. Mai and Sakuta share lunch with Miori, the second member of the “I’m Too Cool to Have a Smartphone” club, and the topic turns to…clothes. Sakuta notices that Uzuki and a group of her friends are dressing alike, and he’s concerned this is related to the whole “Uzuki can now read the room” thing. Mai encourages Sakuta to talk to Futaba about the Uzuki thing (yay!), and off he goes to Benny’s. I love the fact that Mai and Sakuta’s relationship is secure enough that she knows he has other female friends and she’s fine with it.

    At Benny’s, Sakuta and Futaba have one of their little chats that are kind-of-sort-of about quantum physics but not really. Sakuta orders katsudon and I would kill to have a family restaurant nearby that served a good katsudon. Futaba first floats the possibility that maybe not everything is about Puberty Syndrome, but we’re not even going to entertain that silly notion. Futaba’s other theory is that Uzuki starting to blend into the school is a case of everyone else at school having Puberty Syndrome: There’s an unconscious idea of what a college student should be like, and Uzuki’s fame and success as an idol makes her an outlier, so the group consciousness is trying to cut her down to size. Sakuta smarts from the realization that the amount of people he needs to be concerned with has now gone up to “almost everyone you know and tons of people you don’t.”

    Sakuta heads to the back of the restaurant to pick up Kaede so they can go home together, and Kaede shares a video on her phone: it’s an earphones advertisement featuring Uzuki singing. I’m a little confused because the video title also says “Touko Kirishima,” so I guess Uzuki must be singing a Kirishima song. The video has gone viral, so maybe the “group consciousness” isn’t doing such a good job of squashing Uzuki down to size.

    BUY SANY EARPHONE

    Next morning, Sakuta is on the train only to run into a giant poster of Uzuki…and also the actual Uzuki. Huh, that’s certainly convenient. Sakuta teases her that with her current success, she’ll “head straight to Koshien” and I felt like one of the cool people for actually getting that joke. For those who don’t know, ahem, Sakuta is jokingly saying she’ll make it to the big annual high school baseball tournament, to which she responds “that’s baseball.” They discuss whether she’ll make it to Budokan, which is the site of actual music events- this will be important later. The pair see a lady handing out flyers who was also onscreen last episode: she’s handing out flyers for an organization that provides education to children that don’t go to school. This is relevant to Uzuki, since she didn’t like going to in-person high school and got her diploma from a correspondence school instead. It’s also relevant to Sakuta’s sister Kaede, who left school for a while due to bullying. I’m not sure how, but this woman and her organization are sure to be relevant later this season. Uzuki breaks down a bit and I’m not sure if it’s the reminder of her high school days or if going viral is just messing her up right now.

    “Have you heard the good news about correspondence school?”

    At cram school, one of Sakuta’s students asks if he *also* knows Uzuki Hirakawa. I guess from the kids’ perspective, Sakuta is just loaded with famous women. Solve supernatural mysteries that nearly erase you and/or your girlfriend from existence, and you too can be a hit with the chicks! Sakuta’s boss (or perhaps a fellow tutor) has on that quiz show featuring Sweet Bullet, and Uzuki is answering question after question right. I don’t get it. So to become like everyone else, Uzuki’s personality is changing and she’s becoming…not an airhead? I need Futaba to explain it again.

    We change gears for a moment and get to the most interesting scene of the episode. Sakuta meets up with Koga, the lower classman who literally kicked his butt in the first season (you had to be there). They see a street musician, and Sakuta asks Koga what she thinks of him. Koga says he’s a guy who’s doing what he wants, “and I think that’s amazing and so I pretend not to look at him.” What? Why wouldn’t you look at him, if you think he’s amazing? So much of the Rascal Does Not Dream series is about how your existence is tied to how you’re observed, with both Sakuta and Mai having disappearance storylines where they nearly became invisible and forgotten. To be honest, I’m not completely sure how this relates to Uzuki’s storyline. The obvious connection would be that the world is not looking at Uzuki because she’s too amazing, but that seems to be the opposite of what’s happening in regard to her career.

    I can’t wait for someone on reddit to explain this to me and tell me I’m stupid for not immediately getting it.

    “Why have none of you absolute schmucks put any money into my guitar case?”

    We meet Himeji, Koga’s kohai and a student at Sakuta’s cram school. I’m sure they’re introducing her so we’ll be prepared when she has her own Puberty Syndrome arc, probably because her tears are turning into indigo paint or something. Himeji wants Sakuta to tutor her in math, so that’s how she’ll probably appear next. She says she thinks she’s being a third wheel and leaves, which means she must be literally the only person in Japan who does not know that Sakuta is dating THE Mai Sakurajima.

    The next day, Nodoka is waiting for Sakuta when he comes out of his building, and I am beginning to hate the sight of Nodoka. The blonde idol tells Sakuta that Uzuki isn’t opening up to her, and she isn’t “understanding” Uzuki lately, so she wants Sakuta to help Uzuki. This is why Nodoka is starting to infuriate me: if you’re upset that Uzuki is shutting you out, TRY TALKING TO HER ABOUT IT. Like maybe saying something like “Please let me know what’s going on, you’re my friend and I want to be there for you.” No, instead she’s gonna rope in her sister’s boyfriend, who has school, a job, and a little sister to take care of. Sakuta says he will, because of course he does.

    Who just happens to be on a nearby train, visible through a window: Uzuki, of course! Man, the amount of coincidences in this episode is getting ridiculous. Sakuta catches up with her and she shares that she wants to do some self-discovery. That’s what college is for, Uzuki. This is where the episode gets weird because Sakuta basically takes Uzuki on a date: they have lunch together, then rent some bikes and take a ride. I know Mai is comfortable with Sakuta having female friends, but this is maybe pushing it. Just to bang on my last nerve, Uzuki asks “Did Nodoka talk to you?”

    Upon seeing proof of Uzuki’s superior flexibility, Sakuta began to reevaluate his girlfriend options.

    The two end their excursion at Budokan, which happens to be nearby. Maybe Uzuki unconsciously was aiming there when she picked which stop to get off on the train. Uzuki confides that Sweet Bullet can only fill venues of up to 2,000 people currently, while Budokan is 10,000. That’s…actually not that unreasonable to reach. I mean it’ll take effort certainly, but it’s not like a Taylor Swift situation and they need to be able to fill an arena of 70,000 people. Uzuki muses about her new reading-the-room abilities and asks Sakuta which version of her he prefers. He says that both are great, because he’s not an idiot. Uzuki then calls Nodoka (Yes! Yes! Talk to your damned friend!) but that’s just so she can give the phone over to Sakuta so he can ask for tickets to Sweet Bullet’s next gig. Maybe Sakuta will take Mai to the concert and you know, maybe go on a date with his actual girlfriend, what a concept. Sakuta and Uzuki’s banter here starts to sound a lot like his talks with Mai, and Sakuta might be wondering just how much Uzuki has really changed. Santa Claus Girl sightings in this episode: Zero.

    That’s it for this week. I’m really hoping next week’s episode takes place at the concert because it would be a nice change of pace from all the long conversations this week. I enjoy the conversations on this show, but they get tough to recap >__<. See you space cowboy.

  • This Week in Anime: July 13, 2025

    This Week in Anime: July 13, 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 that happened in the programs called “anime” this week. Now you can spend all that extra time mowing the grass, painting your Battletech figures, or bonding with the reincarnated, gender-swapped racing stallion of your choice.

    This Week in Anime:

    1. Some bowling fans got really, really pissed off.

    2. Someone had to put a blazing hot angel vagina soul cube back into a 180 meter tall blonde; it helped a lot. BITCH.

    3. Some bitches decided that it was a guy’s responsibility to solve all their problems for them for no apparent reason.

    4. This lady told a sad story, and every person who ever hurt her must absolutely DIE immediately in a FUCKING FIRE.

    5. Dennis and Atelier met a nice girl named Henrietta. Henrietta went to a dungeon and killed some monsters: it was chill, absolutely nothing happened, everything is fine, nothing to see here.

    6. An octopus from outer space bludgeoned a nine-year-old girl to death with a digital camera and then used alien technology to recreate her body, but the really pressing concern is that nobody got to eat these absolutely delectable looking pancakes.

    7. A giant worm monster sent out psychic waves that caused people to kill themselves, however a sad child ghost who also emitted psychic waves to make people kill themselves showed up, and the two of them canceled each other out because that’s the way physics works, obviously. Also, the psychic girl got covered in Tang.

    8. In 1910, these two are about to do it like bunnies.

    9. Deep in the mountains, a normal man is presented with a challenge: Spend the night with the most annoying woman who has ever lived while still remaining a perfect gentleman.

    10. Also in the mountains, there’s some nonsense going on with vampires who suck soul energy, but the important thing is that Nico finally gets out of those freakin’ grandma dresses she always wears.

    11. A master artisan in a bunny suit offers his body to a hairdresser in order to protect his bunny-suited girlfriend, but it’s a false alarm. Later on, they go to an aquarium and even the damned fish want them to just get married already.

    12. Finally, it was Lesbian Babysitting Day! One lucky lesbian was even initiated into a cult.

    I hope you’ve enjoyed these updates from the wonderful world of Japanimation. See you next week!

  • Dan Da Dan Episode 14

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    Where we left off: In the Old House Graveyard Pit our trio of heroes are stuck dealing with the sheer evil of the Mongolian Death Worm, a gargantuan man-eating…er…worm. Momo and Okarun started freaking out, with Jiji remaining sane (for the time being). As the episode starts, we find out what Momo and Okarun have been doing: trying to resist the urge to kill themselves; I don’t watch a lot of horror, so seeing Okarun try to rip his own face apart was a hard watch. Jiji flashes back and we learn what happened to his parents: they tried to hang themselves, only he cut them down before they could finish the job. His mother said “Please let me die,” which is what his two friends are now saying. So, just a normal Thursday in Da Da Dan land.

    Turbo Granny yells at Jiji to take some twine that just happens to be lying around and tie up Okarun and Momo. That spool of twine…just happened to be there? Wow, that’s convenient. I would make fun of that, but if it weren’t for that, our two leads would totally be dead right here, so I guess I’ll live with it. There’s a really neat little sequence where Momo tries to kill herself by picking up glass shards from the window with her telekinesis and impaling herself, which just goes to show what a dangerous power telekinesis is. Jiji takes takes the shards for her like the gentleman he is, then picks up Momo, Okarun and Turbo Granny and runs out of the house. I guess they’ve been drawing Jiji so buff so he would be prepared for this feat of strength.

    Jiji comes face-to-face with the worm, then another figure enters the picture and Momo and Okarun come back to themselves. The new entity is Evil Eye, who also makes people kill themselves. Apparently the worm and Evil Eye do the same thing, so their psychic waves are canceling each other out. That’s…convenient? There’s a lot of awesome animation in this episode, but I’m not sure I buy all the logic here.

    The Evil Eye does some kind of mind-meld with Jiji, and we learn that the Evil Eye was originally one of the children that the Kito family sacrificed to “The Great Serpent(Actually just a lame Mongolian Death Worm).” While he was being burned at the stake, the boy wished to kill everyone. When he awoke as a ghost, only children could see him; the parents wouldn’t, but they would commit suicide. The ghost actually didn’t want to commit the murders, but seemed powerless to stop them from happening. In one instance, Mom Kito (who is apparently immortal) said that they had to sacrifice a kid who had lost his parents and bury the house, so I guess that’s how all those houses got down into the pit. Again, not sure if that’s how it would work mechanically.

    Evil Eye temporarily forgets he’s evil and dances for the amusement of a small child. Moment of surprise cuteness.

    Jiji decides to excavate Evil Eye’s original body to set him free, so he goes spiraling down the “stairs” of the old houses and finds a room with a skeleton with snow-white hair. Turbo Granny warns that Evil Eye cannot be trusted, but Jiji has been entranced by Evil Eye’s sad tale and won’t listen to her. Then the Mongolian Death Worm starts vomiting some weird goo on top of the house where Momo and Jiji are standing, because apparently things just weren’t weird enough yet. I see orange goo and I immediately think of The End of Evangelion, which only makes it better, really.

    Jiji offers to play with the childlike apparition of Evil Eye, who always wanted to play with the other children but was not able to. Once Jiji says it, Evil Eye has his way in and possesses Jiji. Just then, the Mongolian Death Worm slips in to eat Momo, and “Jiji,” now super-powered, does awesome damage to the worm. Unfortunately, he attacks Momo right after, so he’s not on the good guys’ side anymore either. “Jiji” says he now wants to kill all the humans, which makes me wonder: how much of the scenario that the Evil Eye showed Jiji was true? Was it all true, but the spirit degraded over time and forgot that it originally didn’t want to kill?

    Momo is spared when the Evil Eye takes on the Mongolian Death Worm, using some soccer-like moves; I guess there is still some of Jiji’s personality in there, since Jiji is a soccer fan. That’s a cool way to make use of that particular character trivia. Turbo Granny points out that Jiji has great spiritual power, and she would like to have possessed him herself- high praise! Apparently our hint about this was the fact that during Season One, Seiko kept calling Jiji “a genius.” I remembered her saying that, but at the time it felt like she was just being sarcastic and calling him a moron. I can’t decide if that’s smart foreshadowing or just an annoying “gotcha.”

    Outmatched, the Mongolian Death Worm decides to burrow out of the cavern and live another day. The Evil Eye returns to his original goal of killing Momo, but is stopped by Okarun, who has been absent for half the episode– he was recovering after using his yokai powers against the Worm. Okarun isn’t about to let the Evil Eye murder his beloved Miss Ayase! Who will win in this battle of yokai-possessed dorks? Jiji doesn’t seem to have the limitations that Okarun has, but we probably don’t know what Okarun is truly capable of yet; something tells me protecting Momo might push him to level up.

    Well, that was certainly an episode. I feel like I’m doing a lot of “this happened, then this happened” with this show; ideally, I’d like to be doing less direct recapping and more commenting on what’s going on, but I’m finding it a challenge to do it with this show. That’s probably because I’m not that knowledgeable about the folklore of Japanese yokai, so I’m not the best person to be covering this. But this is a one-woman show, so I do what I can. But I gotta say, what an MVP that spool of twine turned out to be.