ITEM World

Kind of a lull this week, so I’m only going to hit a few shows in this post, notably Oreimo, Railgun, Valvrave, and Majestic Prince. I may add on to this post tomorrow from Shingeki or Gargantia depending on the episode, but everything else wasn’t particularly much to bat home over, and I’m probably going to have to stretch MJP out a bit. Four is a good number, or some say. Some also say that when this blog hits eighty-eight miles per hour, it doesn’t, because blogs can’t do that.

 
 

Toaru Kagaku no Railgun 08
“Railgun 8 #TYBJC” –twitter.com/frustra_
Based JC STAFF indeed, in a surprise reversal of everything we once knew about Raildex and quiet humble OJOU-SAMA life, JC has been turning the tables and delivering a pretty high-end performance from Misaka and Co. in the anime adaptation of the manga adaptation of a small segment of the original Index LN. That’s a lot to hope for, and they’re delivering. This episode introduces us to ITEM, an organization led by Level 5 fourth-ranked Shizuri Mugin and her band of high-powered espers, contracted to whatever job fetches them a payday. Frenda steps up first to battle Mikoto in one of the facilities, as unknown to Mikoto, Shinobu casually enters the other facility and begins to sabotage it from the inside. The battle between the girls is fierce, but Mikoto barely prevails before Shizuri busts in, ending the episode.

Pretty much this, for nearly the entire episode, and by itself, you’d think “Well it’s just an action sequence”, but you have to understand us Raildex folks, JC spent most of the previous Index/Railgun shows just showing cute girls doing cute things. It works for their other shit, but this is goddamn Academy City, the Westeros of fucking anime. If we wanted to know about Misaka and Friends and their daily lives, we’d read the LN or write a fucking fanfic. So yeah, it’s a big deal that they aren’t backing down from a largely awesome-as-shit season so far of Railgun, and it really begs the question of when we’ll be getting more Index, cause we aren’t even up to MOTHER RUSSIA yet, or Misaka Worst.

Ore no Imouto 09
“I know everyone who watches this show wants the wincest to happen, but as an older brother, I fucking know better.” –twitter.com/tldranimu

One of the biggest problems I am having with the second season of Oreimo is that it’s all Kuroneko, all of the time. Compared to the first, which had a more balanced approach to everyone and kept it light, we’re getting this big complicated KEIKAKU of Kuroneko’s doing that involves her manipulating Kyosuke and Kirino to some end, as seen in the last episode. Then she up and leaves her home and school, prompting this early-episode begging of Kyosuke for Kirino to help him. What? Just when you thought this asshole could get off his ass and ditch the bitch, he runs back to her when the wind blows south. Then, after they find Kuroneko, she laughs and goes I DID IT FOR THE LULZ and dons a Guy Fawkes mask.

Oreimo is sort of a love-hate relationship for me. I like some of the characters and the overall feel of the show, but I dislike the rest and those are the things they want to show me every week. Fuck Kirino, fuck her style-friends, fuck this whole imouto relationship, it’s obvious that Kyosuke’s FINAL FORM is to form the harem against his sister’s wishes, so get all of them in there and get this gang-bang going already. I just hate the leaning towards wincest thing, I’m not into wincest or any kind of brother-sister relationship. Do I wish I had a cute little sister? Maybe. But my “little sister” isn’t little, and has given me enough headaches over the course of my life to know that the Japanese fascination with the notion is rubbish. I just can’t live the anime life, guys. However, Kuroneko remains the only reason for me to watch anymore, and this season delivers.

Kakumaki Valvrave 08
“L-Elf, the Yard Gnome”
I’m still pretty pissed off that they killed off Aina, not really because I liked her, since they gave her little screen time and forced her feelings for Haruto in the same episode that killed her (OBVIOUS DEATH FLAG), but just that, she was a standby-character who happened to be there when Haruto boarded the Valvrave and became a vampire, she was barely involved in anything else until she decided to be stupid and go out into a live fight. I know it was a plot device to get the students hopes up, that Dorassia would steamroll them, but Haruto and Co. prevailed again, this time thanks to L-Elf, Space Risk Champion. Again, this show is fucking nuts sometimes, and it irks me in so many ways how we’re accepting Sunrise’s obvious lack of trying by shoehorning in worn-out tropes and things from previous Gundam, like JJ fucking Abrams is directing this thing, but it’s still managing to be entertaining much in the way JJ fucking Abrams shit can be. Goddamn hipster.

Majestic Prince 09
“I just watch it for Tamaki’s bouncing tits. What do you watch it for? Robots?”
Seems our Jovian Lizards alien combatants have been partially revealed in this week’s MJP, or at least, the mystery girl from earlier in the show has been revealed as a turncloak who brought the technology their mobile suits use to Earth which became the basis for Team Rabbit’s ASHMB units. Now the five are the only people besides high-ranking officials who are aware their enemies are quasi-human, and not just aliens. A worn-out trope among mecha anime, but one easily used. Nothing else really develops though, the kids are still gloomy, Tamaki’s huge tracts of land vary from shot-to-shot, and Kei seems to have the hots for Izuru. Whelp, guess I gotta keep watching. The recent action was pretty good though.

---

More possibly later. 1:30AM? Shit son. Tired. Also hot. A/C in the bedroom? Yesplz.