Karen's Gaming Blog

Because they made good RPGs in the '90s

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  • 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.

  • Takopi’s Original Sin Episode 3

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    Disclaimer: This show is very messed up. I am going to write about some very sad things here. If you can’t handle reading about bad things happening to kids (which I totally understand), you’ll probably want to give this post (and this show) a skip.

    Last time: Benevolent alien from outer space accidentally bludgeons a nine-year-old to death. Now, they’ve got to deal with her corpse. Azuma, the kind kid from school who’s worried about Shizuka, comes around because he’s afraid of what kind of bullying Shizuka might be facing. Azuma is understandably shocked to see that they’ve killed Marina, and surprisingly, he can now see Takopi. I wonder how that works? Is Takopi visible to everybody now that he’s completed his “sin?” Anyway, he starts off coldly stating that Shizuka should turn herself into the police, but is gradually persuaded to help Shizuka and Takopi cover up the murder. We learn that Azuma has a big crush on Shizuka, which is why he’s so easy to manipulate here.

    They bury Marina’s corpse inside one of Takopi’s happy gadgets, and it’s clear Takopi has not remotely processed what he’s done yet. He will come to understand by the end of the episode, and it’s heartbreaking.

    The group decides to have Takopi impersonate Marina, using that gadget of his that lets him copy peoples’ appearances. How long are they planning to keep this up? It would be pretty suspicious if “Marina” is getting ready for college and hasn’t grown an inch. I guess the answer is, they’re fourth-graders: they’re not thinking that far ahead.

    So “Marina” goes to school with Shizuka and Azuma, and there’s some dark humor in the fact that the other kids are flabbergasted to see the two girls getting along. The three form a power trio and start making plans to go to Tokyo to see Shizuka’s dad, who supposedly has Chappy living with him now. I’m 99% sure Chappy was put to sleep and Shizuka’s mom just said Chappy was “with Dad” to spare Shizuka’s feelings, so this trip is going to be a fiasco if it actually happens. It is really nice to see the three of them playing together, like normal kids (and one alien I guess), although the murder obviously casts a pall over the whole thing.

    We get to see more of Marina’s family dynamic. Her father is one of those men who thinks all the money he makes is “his” money, and all the labor her mother contributes through cooking and taking care of the house does not entitle her to use any of the household funds. I don’t understand why men who think this way get married, but they do. Being a waste of space, her father asks if Marina would like to abandon her Mom and live with “Papa.” Takopi interprets this as meaning Shizuka’s Papa– where Chappy supposedly is. Takopi would love to go to Shizuka’s dad’s house, so he’s enthusiastic about going to live with “Papa,” to the shock of both parents. This is when Marina’s mother starts to realize that something is wrong; she is at least enough of a parent to realize when her child is being impersonated by an alien from outer space, so she eventually breaks down and begs Takopi to bring the real Marina back. That’s when Takopi finally understands what he’s done.

    As a mother, this scene really got to me. Marina’s mom knows she’s not a great mother, but her love for her daughter is genuine, and I felt her loss.

    Gah, why is this show making me feel sorry for Marina and her family? I said I wasn’t really sad about her death because she was a psychopath, but then they hit me with this nonsense:

    Oh, that is not fair, show. They know that babies are my weakness! Why must you be so adorable, Baby Marina?

    But wait, there’s more misery! We also learn about Azuma’s family situation, which is naturally terrible in its own way. His mother likes to make him pancakes, then take them away if he gets less than 100 on a test. To make it even worse, she claims his older brother, Junya, always got a perfect score. This really is Terrible Parents: The Anime. This might be the most insidious form of emotional abuse on the show, because Azuma’s mother is not just hurting her son, she’s also driving a wedge between the two brothers, and their relationship will likely never recover. Having a sibling can be an amazing, lifelong source of support, and taking that away from someone– your own child, no less– is evil.

    This also hits harder for me because I happen to love pancakes. You know what I’m having for dinner tonight? Pancakes.

    Also, we start to see the dark side of Shizuka in this episode. We’ve been solidly in her corner so far, but when she’s free to act as herself and not just live in terror of being hit, she’s got a dark side the size of Kansas. And why shouldn’t she? It’s not like she’s getting any proper parenting to teach her morals. Now the audience’s sympathy has largely switched from Shizuka to Azuma, as we watch the latter slowly get corrupted by her influence.

    At the very end, a geological survey team has dug up the capsule with Marina’s body. Makes sense; that “Do Not Enter” sign that the kids ignored was there for a reason. I don’t know if the police will tie the murder to Shizuka (although talking to any of the kids in their class will send them in that direction), but if they do, it might not be such a bad thing honestly. Shizuka is basically raising herself, and might be better off at a juvenile facility that would actually make sure she eats and gets proper medical care, among other things.

    I’m really interested to see where this show goes now that we have a more emotionally mature character in Takopi. Will Takopi start working against Shizuka, now that he’s aware of right and wrong? Will he leave to go back to Happy Planet, after deciding that getting involved with Earth is bad news? If so, I can’t really blame him.

  • First Look: Bad Girl

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    It’s time to check out HIDIVE’s sole new show this season, Bad Girl. High schooler Yuu has a massive crush on her upperclassmen Atori, but can’t seem to get the older girl’s attention. She eventually decides that the problem is Atori’s role as the school’s Public Decency Officer: Good girls who follow the rules must all blend in for Atori, so Yuu must become the other kind of student…a delinquent, a bad girl. Meanwhile she’s too hung up on Atori to realize that her close friend Suzu has a crush on her too.

    The humor in Bad Girl mainly derives from the fact that Yuu is such a good person, her idea of what’s “bad” is ridiculous; she thinks having two-toned hair and earrings makes her look like a dangerous delinquent. She wouldn’t know how to be a “bad” kid if someone gave her a book on the subject. It’s a gag that I see possibly wearing thin as the season goes on, but it was effective in this episode.

    The plot moves faster than I anticipated; I thought it would take at least a couple of episodes for the love triangle to ramp up, but everything is set up in this one episode. I don’t think the jokes are the funniest or most original I’ve ever heard, but that’s kind of typical for a romcom; usually, it’s not that laugh-out-loud funny, but you get attached to the characters, and knowing their personalities inside out makes everything funnier. So far Yuu, Atori and Suzu all have strong personalities that clash against each other well, so the building blocks of a good genre piece are there.

    I don’t usually watch queer romcoms– not because I avoid them, but I don’t actively seek them out, and it’s not like there are that many. But I’m really glad this show is airing this summer, because with all the great romance this season, it’s nice that girls who love girls get their comfort show too. People who really want to watch boys loving boys this season will have to rewatch Free!, as God ordained.

  • First Look: Ruri Rocks

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    Ruri Rocks is a gorgeous looking anime. It’s a slice of life anime about two girls who enjoy hunting for minerals, but the outdoor environments are so beautiful, it feels like it’s a fantasy anime with an enchanted forest. Like at any moment, elves are going to come out dancing or something. I would recommend this one on the basis of the visuals alone.

    Our main girl Ruri is a bit of a bratty teenager, who initially gets into mineral hunting because she wants to find some crystals so she can make herself jewelry. She pouts and whines and it can be annoying, but she has such a childlike zest for life that you never really think too badly of her– at least, I didn’t. Her energy is perfectly balanced by grad student Nagi, who’s cool as a cucumber and knows more about rocks and minerals than you can shake a stick at. It’s easy to think that the louder Ruri is dominating their excursions, but though Nagi is calm, she’s not meek in the slightest and won’t let Ruri pull off anything that might damage her integrity as a scholar of minerals.

    In addition to the art being great, there’s some pretty nice animation too. Music seemed forgettable (it may grow on me with time), but this is a really impressive effort from Studio Bind.

    One thing I liked was the fact that Nagi is a full-figured woman. Her ample bosom and hips are the target of some extremely convenient camera angles, but you know what? To have a larger woman as a main character in an anime, I’ll take it. It’s a shame that people often think “big breasts=fanservice,” not thinking it through that there are plenty of real women who have large chests and they are not there to be anyone’s fanservice, that’s just their body type. I don’t think anime should change and start making people look more realistic– I don’t need anime to change to suit me in general– but it is nice to have some variety in character design once in a while.

    I’m happy to spend some of my summer watching these two ladies forage for rare minerals. Will I use up all my goodwill if I declare this the “hidden gem” of the season? Ah well, too late.

  • First Look: Solo Camping For Two

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    Arrgh, this show makes me so mad. Shizuku, the female lead, is one of the most annoying characters I’ve ever seen in anime. She books a spot at a campground with very little camping experience, doesn’t bring a tent, then crashes the male lead’s campsite. She then proceeds to act like everything the guy has is her property, and the fact that he just wants to be left alone is meaningless to her. He probably says some version of “I just want to be by myself” about twenty times in the show, and she just….keeps….talking. She even ropes him into helping her with a future camping trip, telling him he must help her or he’ll feel bad if she dies from her inexperience; that’s straight up emotional abuse.

    There’s a way to do this premise right. I could understand if Shizuku booked the site, didn’t realize she needed to bring her own tent, and found a fellow camper and said “Hi I really screwed up, would it be at all possible for me to share your campsite just for the night?” And then our guy Gen could step up and volunteer to help her with future trips, just a few so she could learn the ropes. Having her browbeat him into it just hits weirdly.

    There is one saving grace, and that is at least she doesn’t threaten to tell people he raped her– apparently, that’s what she did in the manga. At one point she does say “I’ll tell everyone you saw my panties,” which I assume is the anime’s milder adaptation of that line, but it’s her fault he saw her panties in the first place since she started undressing at his campsite. God, this woman….and to add insult to injury, she’s not nearly cute enough to pull any of this off.

    Yeah, I went there.

    Look, I love Laid-Back Camp, and I’m up for more camping anime in general. But I don’t want to watch poor Gen be forced to slowly warm up to Shizuku, and have the anime portray her quirks as charming, because she doesn’t deserve that. The sad thing is, I’ll probably give into the temptation to watch more of this just because it’s about camping and the scenery is pretty. But I’ll be annoyed the whole time. I guess that would count as hate watching? Wow, I don’t think I’ve done that since Valvrave!

  • Thoughts About Modern Anime and Sexual Assault

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    I realize this is not a pleasant topic, but since it keeps coming up, there’s a few things about it I want to get off my chest. I already started talking about it in my post about Dan Da Dan, explaining why I was still willing to watch it even with the repeated SA of Momo, but then two different episodes of other anime came out that dealt with gang rape as a subject.

    The first one was episode two of Welcome To The Outcast’s Restaurant! which I gave a kind of meh review of the first episode. In the second episode, we are introduced to Henrietta, a female knight in full plate armor who is looking for a new adventuring party. Our hero Dennis finds an all-male party for her to join, only to learn after he sets her up with them that there’s a party of men going around and gang raping female adventurers in dungeons. Putting two and two together, Dennis gets there just in the nick of time and overpowers the rapists, seeing to it that they get brought to justice.

    First, I question why they thought it was a good idea to include gang rape in what is ostensibly a cooking show. Anime that heavily feature cooking are usually meant to be soothing, “chill” sorts of shows, which this clearly is not. Of course, there’s no law that you can’t have graphic content on a restaurant-related show, but it does feel a bit like Outcast is trying to have its cake and eat it too. While there was dark content in episode one– with the implied mistreatment of Atelier in slavery and the fate that would have befallen her if an evil man had bought her– episode two took things to a much more visceral level. I don’t think the audience was prepared for this.

    Second, the attempted rape was dragged out for mysterious reasons that feel suspicious. We find out that the group of rapists is around, Dennis becomes aware of it, and then we spend a long time in the dungeon with Henrietta and the scumbags before he comes to rescue her. Long enough that she’s screaming, is pushed down on the floor, has her armor ripped off of her, and is rendered immobile by a status spell, just to put the icing on the cake. When we see her lacy pink underwear, it’s framed erotically, like this is supposed to be sexy. This is the wrong way to frame sexual assault in a piece of fiction; what is happening is a violent physical attack, not an act of intimacy.

    Sure, let’s just make the audience complicit in the gang rape of Henrietta, that sounds like I what I like in my cooking anime.

    So in short, this episode of the anime used sexual assault in an exploitative way, and I’d like to see less of that in my anime. And everything else, come to think of it.

    The other show that had a gang rape was Clevatess, but the story is very different. Clevatess is a dark show dealing with very dark themes, so people weren’t blindsided by the second episode dealing with rape. The show introduces Nell, a slave who serves a group of vicious bandits. Nell reveals that she has been beaten and raped by the bandits for years, and lives a truly wretched life. Nell isn’t attractive, because that’s not the point; she’s a woman born into an unfortunate circumstance and that’s why these things happen to her.

    Don’t worry Nell, Clen has got your back. He’s probably about to slaughter 40 people now, but he’s got your back. Notice her lack of teeth, because they’ve been knocked out.

    At one point two bandits take Nell outside and it’s strongly implied that they rape her, but they don’t show it. They do show the bandits beating Nell’s butt before letting her go, and even that I think was a mistake, but it looks grotesque rather than erotic, which was the point. The effect of Nell’s whole story is to make the viewer hungry for Clen to dispense his particular brand of justice on the bandits, which will be gruesome.

    In this case, the rape isn’t portrayed as an erotic thing: it’s a disgusting thing. Nell’s story informs our view of what a harsh world Clevatess takes place in, and does it without eroticizing physical violence. I don’t want to say that there’s only one correct way to portray sexual assault, because art is more complicated than that, but if your rape scene is titillating the audience, you’re probably doing it wrong.

    For the record, I’m not talking about hentai and things that are actually meant to be erotic– I don’t watch that stuff, but it advertises itself well enough that I never watch it by accident. I’m fine with it existing, in its own lane. Non-consensual encounters in porn is a slightly different topic, and one I frankly don’t know enough about porn to pontificate about. What I’m concerned about is SA in non-hentai anime– particularly fantasy anime– and how it’s often used poorly.

    The thing is, it’s effective as a storytelling device, up to a point– I was certainly rooting for Dennis to get in there and bust some heads when the rapists were just about to rape Henrietta. But there are so many other ways to get that reaction from the audience without making the audience feel complicit in the rape by the nature of the way it’s framed.

    You could boil my point down to “less rape in anime plz,” but honestly, that’s not even it. Rape and SA in general is a huge problem, and pretending it doesn’t exist by banning it from fiction isn’t going to help. But if anime is going to continue use SA as a plot device, I wish it would be done in a manner that is more respectful to the characters and to the audience.

  • Reborn as a Vending Machine, I Now Wander The Dungeon S2 Episode 2

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    When we last left our intrepid vending machine hero and his friends, they had just gotten bamboozled by the Demon Lord, who purposely baited them into sending their best warriors to fight him while his minions terrorized the villages. The group hurries back, but it’s too late; Clearview Lake Stratum’s main town has been all but destroyed. Fortunately for us, pretty much every named character survived and is hanging out at the Adventurer’s Guild headquarters. Fighters from the returning group run off to aid the hunters that are protecting the survivors; Lammis wants to go, but Director Bear orders her to aid Boxxo in handing out food and drinks to the haggard surviving villagers.

    This begins a huge pattern in this episode of Boxxo dispensing a huge amount of products, presumably for free. See, this worries me, because I’m always worried about Boxxo’s total points. If he runs out of points (which is basically the same as running out of money), he’ll deactivate, which is death for a vending machine. He can’t afford to just give everything away like this! Be a little more selfish, Boxxo. I know the anime is unlikely to have Boxxo run out of points, but I still don’t like it when he’s running low.

    Look, survivors of the deadly giant lizard attack. Selfish freeloaders, all of ’em.

    The hunters are making short work of the monsters, but there’s just too many of them. Shirley appears, and I’m trying to remember who she is; I think she’s the woman who requested that Boxxo start selling condoms in Season One. Now, she’s dressed like a dominatrix for some reason. I don’t hate it. (EDIT: Apparently she was the lady who was involved in the currency exchange, since there was a coin shortage. Just like real life, once finance is somehow involved, my brain bluescreens.)

    Shirley: “Hey Boxxo, you got some more of my special products?“

    Lammis: “Stop flirting with my boyfriend, please.”

    Lammis finally joins the fight, picks up one of the lizard monsters by the tail and uses it as a bludgeoning weapon. It’s pretty hilarious to see.

    Lammis is pushing herself really hard, and it’s clear she’s flashing back to the time her and Hulemy’s village was destroyed, when she couldn’t fight back. Boxxo is worried that she’s going to push herself too far, so he reveals a secret trick he’s been working on: talking by using chopped up syllables from his stock phrases. He says Lammis’ name (or something close to it) and she freaks out and faints soon after. Normally I’m not keen on the delicate girl fainting trope, but c’mon, Lammis just used a whole dinosaur like a pair of freakin’ nunchaku, I think she’s earned it.

    Boxxo breaks out one of his old moves: putting mints in cola bottles and using them as bombs. Now he can assemble the bombs with his telekinesis, so he’s moved pretty far beyond being a vending machine at this point. It’s cool, but I think I liked the series better when he couldn’t fight back directly– it was more interesting that way.

    Night falls. The hunters are still on guard, when they hear the sounds of something approaching. It’s the Band of Gluttons, the adorable Beastkin hunters that Boxxo befriended last season.

    “Good to see you! You guys want the good news or the bad– actually, never mind, it’s just bad news.”

    The little beasties report that there are no more survivors (ouch), tons of monsters are massing near the hole in the village wall, and they could see very large monsters off in the distance. Everyone nearly gives into despair, but Mishuel gives an inspiring pep talk that keeps everyone focused on the task at hand. Did Mishuel just gain +50 points in oratory in this episode? His whole schtick is that his social skills are terrible. I guess he’ll need a new schtick.

    Against Lammis’ advice, Boxxo goes crazy and shifts to his giant ice vending machine form. He sprays the whole area with ice, betting that the cold-blooded frog and lizard fiends won’t be able to handle the temperature. He even makes giant projectiles with ice and starts pelting the baddies, when he suddenly realizes he’s going through points like crazy and he really needs to stop. Well, better late than never for him to notice. He does share that Director Bear gave him a bunch of gold coins as advance payment for the Demon Lord mission– see? I told you Director Bear was the best.

    Lammis is PISSED that Boxxo went and engaged the enemy without her, and the two of them have their first lover’s quarrel. Aww. I hope they get together somehow and have adorable little gumball machine babies…wow, that’s disturbing. Anyway, the whole hunter team gets together and strategizes how they’re going to close up the wall while fending off the seemingly never-ending horde of monsters. The situation looks bleak, but then salvation comes from an unlikely source:

    “Miss me, bitches?”

    Suori’s back! I had totally forgot she existed. She’s got that smirk on her face, so you know she’s got a plan that will somehow be both tremendously useful and somehow self-aggrandizing. She’s filthy rich, so she could just pump Boxxo full of enough money that he can use all his “weapons” against the foes, but I’m hoping she’s got something more creative than that.

    And we’re done! Not the biggest cliffhanger ever, but I am seriously curious what Suori has up her frilly little sleeve.

  • First Look: Turkey! Time to Strike

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    I think there is value in reading someone’s impressions of a show before you devote time to it, but sometimes, it’s best just to go in blind. Turkey! is one of those times. Please stop reading and go watch the show if you haven’t already.

    …..Are you sure you don’t want to watch it? I’m about to spoil the whole thing, this is your last warning…..

    …Okay, this is ridiculous. The premise is a total lie– it’s not actually about bowling. The episode starts off being about Cute Girls Doing Cute Bowling and there’s the one girl who wants to take competitions more seriously while the other girls want to have fun, blah blah blah, typical sports anime drama. Then some kind of ancient bowling ball gets unearthed, the main character’s pink bowling ball starts to glow, and the whole team is pulled into some kind of a portal. The last scene of the episode shows the lead, Mai, on a battle field that looks like historical Japan– I’m not up enough on my Japanese history to be able to identify exactly what time period it is, but it’s several hundred years ago at least. So it’s a time-travel anime that was promoted as a bowling anime. I don’t understand this.

    I mean, it’s cool having something be so unexpected, but there are people who actually like bowling, who were happy they were finally getting a bowling anime, and now it’s…something else. This was incredibly brave on the part of the production staff, but I don’t know if its going to be worth the risk.

    I was all prepared to talk about what little I know about bowling, including how “lane conditions” are a thing if you are a serious bowler, but now it kind of seems irrelevant. I will definitely be watching to see what this show does over the course of the season. Maybe it’ll just switch genres again and become a romcom? Nothing is stopping it.

  • First Look: The Fragrant Flower Blooms With Dignity

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    This is the third Clover Works show this season, along with Rascal and My Dress-Up Darling. Netflix licensed it, but they’re not releasing it in the US until the fall. So I did what any good aniblogger would do: I hopped a flight to Japan, watched the first episode, ate some melon bread, then flew back immediately. I know, I know, my commitment to blogging is truly awe-inspiring.

    Our hero is Rintarou, a tall guy that people tend to find intimidating. He goes to a boys school for “idiots”, which happens to be located right next to a fine school for privileged young ladies; I like the fact that the girls’ school is even painted pink. As you might expect, the girls from Posh Girls Academy (not the actual name) think that the boys from Dead End School (not the actual name) are beneath them and won’t give them the time of day.

    Rintarou reminds me from Ryuji from Tora Dora; his face makes people think he’s a punk, but he’s actually a sweetheart.

    When not attending school, Rintarou works at his family’s cake shop– and this is where the show hooked me for good. I LOVE cake. Love the stuff. Even when I was a vegan for a few years, I made an exception for cake. The name of the bakery is “Plain” though, which leads me to believe that Rintarou’s family needs to work on their marketing skills.

    YES OH MY GOD YES

    SRSLY?

    One day, when the staff is shorthanded and Rintarou is working the front register, he notices a girl who’s packing away a significant amount of cake. He marvels at the sheer amount of cake she’s eating, and I feel represented in this anime right now. The girl blushes like mad and runs off, and we have our romance.

    The girl, Kaoruko, comes back the next day to apologize for her rude behavior. Apparently she’s not scared of Rintarou, she just blushed because she’s never had a guy look at her like that for so long. I have to think there’s also some amount of embarrassment being caught in the middle of a pig-out though. Or maybe Kaoruko is a divine creature who does not feel shame for indulging her passions. Anyway, because Kaoruko is short, Rintarou thinks she’s a middle school student.

    Kaoruko: “I just went up a dress size, but I am so, so happy. Worth it.”

    The two leave on good terms, only soon after, Rintarou’s mother (or maybe aunt?) finds the box of cake that Kaoruko just bought in the street outside the shop. It says something unflattering about me that, instead of worrying what might have happened to Kaoruko that made her drop the cake, I immediately thought “How can you waste cake by dropping it in the street!” Rintarou goes out to investigate, and finds Kaoruko being hassled in a dark corner by two dudes who were bothering his friends at the beginning of the episode. They start bashing Rintarou, saying he’s a dangerous thug and she should stay away from him, but Kaoruko is not having it; she knows that Rintarou is a nice person and won’t let anyone insult him. The dudes are rather offended by that, and then one goes to punch Kaouruko in the face– straight on. Closed fist.

    “Hey babe, wanna come party with us?”

    “Depends, will there be cake there?”

    “What?”

    “I asked you a question.”

    What the hell? I can buy that the dudes would hassle Kaoruko and try to get them to come with them, but escalating to punching her in the face seems a bit much. I hesitate to use the word “unrealistic” because it’s not like I watch anime for the gritty realism, but it kind of took me out of the moment a bit. Going to slap her would have been more believable. Anyway, Rintarou is not going to let this happen and jumps in front of Kaoruko, and the two losers run off rather than face his wrath. Kaoruko feels responsible for Rintarou bleeding and confides in him that she doesn’t think he’s scary at all.

    The next day, Rintarou gets to Dead End School early and looks out the window to Posh Girls Academy. Across the way, Kaoruko looks out the window and the two lock eyes. Oh no, Kaoruko isn’t a middle school student after all and goes to Posh Girls Academy, the mortal enemy of Dead End School! How will these two star-crossed lovers ever be together?

    So far, I like it. A romance based around a cake shop is right up my alley, and Rintarou and Kaoruko have enough personality to stand out and make me root for them. It has some of the educational caste system stuff that Baka and Test had, which was the most interesting part of that show for me. I think the show struggles with trying to be a little too dramatic for its own good, but there are worse sins. I think I’m going to be recapping all three of the Clover Works shows this season, because I don’t want to have any free time ever. I will also probably end up eating more cake, but doing all that blogging sort of burns calories, right?

  • My Dress-Up Darling Episode 13

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    I like the premise of My Dress-Up Darling: it combines the cultures of New and Old Japan in a clever way, and it’s a funny romcom on top of that. Gojo, traditional dollmaker turned cosplay creator, is one of the most lovable male leads in romance. How much of that is the writing, and how much is due to voice actor Shoya Ishige’s sympathetic performance, I could not tell you. Does it matter? It works.

    I have to say, Clover Works did a great job with this second season premiere. When I was going through and taking screenshots, it felt like I could pause the show anywhere and get a good shot, because it was so well storyboarded.

    The second season starts with an animated sequence that looks like something out of Studio Trigger; I actually thought I had somehow clicked on the second season of Panty and Stocking With Garterbelt by accident (which would have been impressive, since it’s not out yet). It’s actually “We’re the Tsukiyono Company!”, a show-within-a-show about a bunch of bumbling (but very hot) lady assassins. Marin has taken a liking to bunny girl Arisu, because “everyone loves bunnies.” Marin waxes poetic about about how the classics, like the bunny girl suit, never go out of style; Gojo interprets that as meaning there will always be a place for his traditional Japanese dolls. Awww.

    If I didn’t know better I’d think the presence of bunny girls was a reference to a certain other Clover Works series…..

    Gojo is psyched to work on Arisu’s costume, so Marin offers him a stick of Pocky– except, she sticks it in her mouth and invites him to bite the other side. He’s way too shy for that, so she just eats it herself. I’m not the biggest fan of Pocky– it’s good, but I’d rather have cookies most of the time– but I have to admit, they present a unique opportunity to mess with your crush.

    Next Saturday: Gojo has sent Marin a message to come over to his house, and she is flustered; is he inviting her over for a date? No, of course not- he just needs to show her the problem with the costume. Comically, the bust won’t stay up, it keeps flopping down. Marin suggests that they use clear straps to hold up the bust area, so it’s off to the fabric store they go.

    To make the Anti-Gravity Bosom, Gojo must transform into his final form: Gojo Prime.

    At the store, Gojo shows his drawing schematics of the bunny suit to a clerk. The clerk, an older guy, is confused and thinks that Gojo is planning to wear it himself. In a touching little moment, the clerk ponders how we are in a new age now and people can wear whatever they want, and gosh-darnit, he’s going to support that. Then Marin comes back from the bathroom and the guy realizes his mistake and apologizes to Gojo. Actually, I would have liked the scene better if he hadn’t apologized- what is there to feel bad about?

    Fabric Clerk imparts that they can use boning, like a corset, to keep the top from falling down. Marin hears this and is actually disappointed that she won’t have a wardrobe malfunction. I think she was thinking of losing her top in front of Gojo might be the only way to get him to address the elephant in the room. Anyway, Gojo has a moment of self-loathing for forgetting about the boning thing, and Fabric Clerk tells him to “Enjoy your mistakes.” Good life advice from My Dress-Up Darling.

    We skip ahead to the outfit being completed. Marin tries it on, but it’s so high-cut, her panties are sticking out. Gojo nearly loses his mind.

    This shot was totally necessary from a narrative perspective. Honest.

    The duo head out to a studio, Studio Macaron Night, and it’s got great casino-like backgrounds for their photo shoot. Marin has solved the jutting-out-panties problem: she’s wearing skin-colored tights under the costume, so her panty lines don’t show. For Gojo this is still showing too much skin and he loses his mind a little bit again.

    “By the way, isn’t it funny that we’re doing this and we’re both 15 years old? My Mom has no idea where I am now, hahah.“

    The shoot is a big success, and we move ahead to a Halloween party at a karaoke place with some cosplay buds. Marin asked Gojo to cosplay, so– hilariously– he’s just wearing a giant bunny suit. Well, they kind of match. Marin customizes her bunny girl outfit with fishnet tights, because I know you were waiting for a hosiery update. Gojo starts to doubt if he really belongs here with the cool kids, and I feel for him; he’s growing from his partnership with Marin, but self-doubt doesn’t go away that quickly.

    One of the guys present asks if Gojo does Marin’s make-up, which makes him flash back to a painful memory where a girl called him “creepy” for doing girly things. Fortunately, one of the dudes points out that there’s nothing wrong with men doing make-up, and crisis is averted. It’s amazing how a bad memory from grade school can mess with you your whole life; once, when I was in third-grade, a boy said I was fat, and it kicked off a lifetime of body image issues. The irony is, I wasn’t overweight at the time AT ALL.

    Who needs you, Mean Flashback Girl? How dare you call Gojo fat, I mean creepy.

    Gojo is processing that the insult that he’s spent his entire life trying to block out maybe wasn’t super accurate, when Marin’s friend Nowa asks Gojo if he and Marin are dating. Gojo loses his drink, and we are done with the season opener.

    I hope we continue to see Gojo questioning his assumptions about his role in society, and maybe he can even work up to dating Marin. She clearly wants to date him, but he needs to come out of his shell a bit more first. I’m hoping we at least get a date before the season finale. See you next Dress-Up time.