Three-Star Surround Sound

Approaching the Christmas season, I have to deal with three major things each year:

• Clients’ last-minute requests for the most ludicrous of things before they disappear on vacation, often right after making said request.
• Four different holiday outings in four different places. Divorced-family first-world problems.
• Buying gifts.

Of course this means my time allocated towards chinese cartoons and other such tomfoolery will be limited, but I hope to ride out the end of this season’s shows with minimal fanfare. But I may release some reviews early before the show ends. Hell, I could release them right now really. I doubt there will be a TWIST.

Anyway, here are a few highlights of what I found relevant this week.

Aoki Hagane no Arpeggio
“WHAT IS LOVE?”
It seems we’re going to probably skip the U-Boat arc completely from the manga, after the anime has already altered every event post-Haruna. I’m a little saddened by this, because frankly, it’s some of the best chapters in the series and would have made a better first season, saving the major incursions with Kongo for a second season. Seems like that would be a better plan?

Given all of these changes, I am beginning to think a second season is probably out of the picture. I guess that would be a good idea, really, because as interesting at the show has been to watch, it’s still leagues below the manga.

But goddamn Hyuga. :3

Kakumaki Valvrave
“In space, no one can hear you sparkle”
SO LOL GUYZ, ARUS (ANUS LOL AMIRITE?) IS LIKE AMERICA HA HA THEY BETRAYED THEM WITH FALSE PROMISES ZING TEACHES THEM TO BE AMERIFATS!

Oh you guys, you’re so edgy and cool. Please leave your Twitter handles so I can block/unfollow you for being full retard.

Back to Gundam 00, if anyone thought this was a twist or some other kind of shocking development, you need to watch more mecha, and specifically, more Sunrise mecha. Now that we’ve graduated from Gundam SEED and Xenogears territory, now we’re heading into double-oh, where the Valvrave pilots are the bad guys because how dare they try to save the world from Ribbons and his Skittles Squad. Well played, Dorssia. Had Saki not been a colossal fuckup, how else were you planning to Operation Meteor?

httpss://twitter.com/TheRossenori/status/409183795737153536

Then there is Shouko. I actually was talking about the bitch who shot Haruto, but this statement covers Shouko just as well. I get it, being lied to despite being a stupid motherfucker and not learning the truth that has been under your tits the entire time is pretty shitty, but to then sell everyone out for some flimsy ARUS promise? I love shows where characters get fucked in the ass, and then they still believe the one who did it will repent magically. No, they’re going to fuck you again. How stupid can you be? If the Valvrave pilots haven’t gone “Oh shit man, you found us out, now we have to eat you all” and are actively defending your ship while you sit there waiting to launch, why would you betray them?

Congratulations, Shouko. Good luck getting yourself out of Space Fast and Furious and Space Benghazi on your next re-election. Assuming you don’t die next.

Golden Time
“Head Games. Instead of making love.”
Not much of an episode this week, but for a moment, we’re teased with the possibility that Banri gets his memories back, and then he clonks his head again and loses them. Tough break, kid. Sicky McSickerson spends the rest of the episode being tended to by Jane Nana, Linda, and Kouko, who bursts in and pretty much showboats instead of showing any real concern. Because, you know, love isn’t always on time.

Okay, enough hair band references.

Still Team Linda.

Kill la Kill
“Something about sand castles”
You know your show has suffered from bad pacing when you get to the tenth episode and realize “Well shit, we have two or three left, and we have Four Elite fighters, plus Big Bad, and we spent too much time earlier doing bullshit. TWO-FER!”

So Inumuta throws his fight so Jakuzure can step up and tell us about that time, at band camp. She assembles what might as well be a Dendrobium of speakers and proceeds to annoy the shit out of us for the next fifteen minutes or so, breaking to tell us the heartwarming story of meeting Kiryun in kindergarten.

Eh, I really have less bad things to say about Kill la Kill, it’s the senseless entertainment Gainax and TTGL fans wanted without either’s label. For what it’s worth, it ain’t half bad. Could be better, but the way this season is going, you count your gifts and consider it a mild success.

Kyoukai no Kanata
“Look here. Now over there. Now over here–NOW OVER THERE.”

httpss://twitter.com/tldranimu/status/409203112604614656

I nearly thought they were just going to go from LOL STABBED to LOL HE’S FINE, but you could tell it was a dream. It was too perfect. But now we know what brought her to the city, and what got her even talking to him in the first place.

So, is she a LEL DED, or will she re-appear or something?

Because man, this show’s ending is going to be so awesome. 3D glasses all around!

Infinite Stratos 2
“Saving Japan’s low birth rate one Ichika at a time!”

httpss://twitter.com/tldranimu/status/409363082587041792

I spend more time live-tweeting IS each week as almost of a MST3K-effect of it. It’s so much fun to pick apart and riff jokes off of, because it’s so bad at everything. IS is the jack-of-all-trades in animated entertainment, and the master of none. It has cute girls, mecha, harem, comedy, suspense, and bunch of other shit, and does nothing with them. It spends precious airtime doing something useless and inane that doesn’t contribute to the plot, or the non-plot, such as the girls’ measurements. At best, it’s like pulling a Family Guy moment and recycling the same “That darn Ichika!” joke every week, where he gets put in some situation where he has to touch girls, complains about it, and then the main girls show up and beat him up. Then we spend the rest of the episode on some inane quest for Ichika’s attention, then three minutes with ACTUAL PLOT, which is usually just some shadowy woman in an alley in a low voice reminding us NEXT TIME ICHIKA, NEXT TIME! Also a cat. Also claws. Maybe doctors.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, IS as a show is worthless. If you’re watching this for anything more than MAI WAIFU, EVERY GIRL IS THE BEST GIRL (except for Houki), limited FUCK YEAR MECHAGIRLS, or “Man I wish Orimura-sensei would swimsuit more often”, you’re watching the wrong show.