Author Archives: Josh

Working’!! – Episode 6

By | February 8, 2012 at 12:00 pm | No Comments

Poplar and Jun are sick, so Kyoko calls in a pair of her old gang buddies: the twins Yohei and Mitsuki, who both happen to always argue with each other. The next day, Souta complains to Kyoko that he’s not appreciated, so she relieves him of having to look after Mahiru and assigns the task to Yohei. Mahiru, unsure of how to react, says she doesn’t care who looks after her, and Souta goes off on her and starts ignoring her. Poplar finally gets Mahiru to explain that she thought if Yohei looked after her, she wouldn’t punch Souta any more, but she likes Souta looking after her, and the two finally make up.

This is probably the minimum that Souta deserves

This is probably the minimum that Souta deserves

I’m not sure if it’s the writer’s intentions to make Souta as unlikable as possible, but so far they’re doing a pretty good job of it. On top of having the weirdest “issue,” he’s easily the most self-centered, possibly even more than Kyoko, which is saying something. Unless something is “small” or “cute,” he basically sees it as trash that need not be paid attention to. Before some of that was just for comedic relief, but at this point he’s just being mean about it. I can have some sympathy for him due to being punched by Mahiru all the time, but at this point I’m thinking he probably deserves it more than needing sympathy over it.

Otherwise, I’m guessing we’ll be seeing the twin former-gang members again at some point. I have a feeling that their devotion to Kyoko, which easily matches Yachiyo’s, might cause problems between them, however.

Last Exile: Fam, the Silver Wing – Episode 5

By | February 7, 2012 at 5:00 pm | 1 comment

Fam, Giselle, and Millia meet the Silvius’ Chief of Maintenence, Olaf, who is impressed with Giselle’s ship and astronomic knowledge. Millia tells Fam that she doesn’t know how to repay her if they are able to reestablish Turan, so Fam says that she can hold another Great Race. Fam, Giselle, and Olaf then set out to capture the first Ades ship, tricking the ship’s crew to leave the ship in order to accomplish it. Meanwhile, Ades formally annexes Turan while Millia creates a government-in-exile on the Silvius.

Millia leads the glorious Maid Empire

Millia leads the glorious Maid Empire

I guess I’m not surprised that Fam’s first capture ended up pretty easy, though I somehow don’t expect it to be as easy from now on. One good thing is that, as she collects ships, she may be able to start capturing more than one at a time. For example, once she has 4 or 5 ships, she may be able to go after two that are together and get them to surrender.

We also confirm that Dio served on the Silvius before joining the pirates, so this series is probably more than 6 months ahead of the first series, but it’s still clearly not that far into the future. Meanwhile, in a short scene it looked like Dio was playing chess from the old engineer from the Silvania. Otherwise, not a lot happened in this episode. Giselle was able to show off her expertise, and the government-in-exile was created, but that’s about it.

Shakugan no Shana III – Episode 5

By | February 7, 2012 at 12:00 pm | No Comments

Shana finds herself trapped in a giant bedroom at the Palace of the Stars, without her sword or Alastor. Yuji, who now wears Alastor, arrives, and tries to be friendly with Shana, but she rebuffs his advances, to the confusion and disappointment of Yuji. We also learn that the Corpse Collector has joined Yuji in attempting to accomplish the Grand Order. The Bal Masqué is nearly ready to launch the 2nd phase of the Grand Order, which involves multiple independent attacks on Flame Haze positions. Meanwhile, Wilhelmina is preparing to set out to save Shana on her own, after being rebuffed in her requests for aid from the other Flame Hazes.

Hecate is almost ready for the real action to begin

Hecate is almost ready for the real action to begin

We still don’t really have any word about what the Flame Hazes are doing to prepare for imminent Bal Masqué attack, though it seems they keep asking for Wilhelmina to be a part of it, though she’s intent on trying to save Shana, which seems like it would be a suicide mission right now. Perhaps the one way it could work is if she attempted to rescue her while all the members of Bal Masqué were away as part of their 2nd state attack.

I still wonder what Yuji’s true intentions are. There are more rumblings, this time from Sydonay, about what Yuji is up to, though Bel Peol assures him that things are alright. One has to wonder if he is doing something behind the scenes to hurt the Bal Masqué’s plans or somehow has secret knowledge in that, even if the Bal Masqué succeeds in doing what they’re doing, the end result won’t be what they expected. Otherwise, why would Yuji allow Alastor to basically be in on some of the Bal Masqué’s meetings. Not that there is much Alastor can do about it right now, but still…

Tamayura: Hitotose – Episode 5

By | February 6, 2012 at 5:00 pm | No Comments

Fu’s old friend Chihiro comes to visit Takehara, but gets off at the wrong station, so Fu’s mother goes to pick her up. In the meantime, Fu meets some of her mother’s old biker friends in the cafe, who show Fu pictures of her mother. The next day, Fu takes Chihiro to meet her other friends, and the conversation soon turns to Fu’s different nicknames: “Potte” and “Fu-nyon,” and how she got those nicknames. Sayomi then show up and decides that they should all take an expedition up a big hill. In a neighboring town. By walking.

All of Fu's friends, together

All of Fu's friends, together

Once again, another excellent episode. I figured Chihiro would probably visit eventually, and the episode was as good as I was hoping it would be. So we learn that “Potte” is a name Sayomi gave Fu because she thought it described how she moved, and Chihiro calls her “Fu-nyon” because she accidentally called her that when they met, out of nervousness.

It was nice to see Chihiro finally warm up to all of Fu’s other friends, especially Maon, in this episode, and I hope she decides to come visit again later.

This episode was better paced than the last one, I think. It still kept the show’s relaxed feeling, but wasn’t so slow that it felt like the writers were just trying to fill time up. I think so far this probably rates as the 2nd best show I’m watching in my Fall group.

Working’!! – Episode 5

By | February 6, 2012 at 12:00 pm | No Comments

Souta has about had it with Kyoko not handling her manager duties, so Poplar tries to find some way to patch things up. However, she and the other employees (other than Yachiyo) struggle to find any redeeming traits. Souta, Jun, and Hiroomi then get together and decide that enough is enough. Hiroomi tells Kyoko that they didn’t order enough food, and if she eats anymore, they’ll be shut down and fired. Kyoko struggles to survive, but after she doesn’t eat a cake the workers give a lost girl, even after being offered, they relent and let her eat.

Satou: Heir apparent to Pedobear

Satou: Heir apparent to Pedobear

I dunno, maybe it’s cause I’ve actually worked with managers that didn’t do anything, but the episode still didn’t give me much sympathy for Kyoko, even if the other characters felt it and, of course, the episode itself undermined that sympathy intentionally at the end as well. I just wondered why it took so long for some of them to put their foot down about it.

Meanwhile, as much as Souta looks down on the other’s weirdness, he proves once again that he is probably the weirdest one of them all. I knew the moment he saw a small kid outside that nothing good was going to happen if Souta had anything to do with it. I’m almost surprised he did’t do anything worse.

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