It’s been a busy weekend here at Fort TLDR, as Hurricane Tropical Storm Seen-Better-TStorms-Than-This Irene took a shot at us here in the northeast, and while it succeeded at dropping over 700k customers statewide, I wasn’t one of them. So between that and keeping up on Saimoe 2011 and other things, I managed to squeak in this week’s anime and am finally back to do a proper TLDR update. I will have this week’s chart updated probably tomorrow, but for now, in no particular order:
Steins;Gate 21 goes Linkin Park this week as Okarin searches for a way to somehow save both Mayuri and Kurisu on the same timeline, but is quickly finding out that it can only be one or the other, no matter what he does, he cannot save both. It was kinda heartwrenching to listen to Mayuri recount her “dreams” of dying in front of her grandmother’s grave as Okarin watched, knowing all too well how real that was to him. With three episodes remaining, and NO SPOILERS YOU VN FUCKS I will be very interested to see what he will do next, and if there is a way to save both.
We saw Minami do the impossible last week, she actually took the lead over Himeji, and in this week’s Baka Test 8 we’re treated to her back story, as a girl who lived in Germany coming back to Japan, and not having a firm grasp of the language, having trouble dealing with the troublemakers for the first time. Not only was Minami fucking adorable in this episode, and renewing my faith in her character, but the introductions of the other series regulars was also interesting from her perspective. It’s odd to see how they went from average class conditions to F Class conditions, my guess is this is before the system came online?
Close to the end of the series, Hanasaku Iroha 22 doesn’t shy away from delivering another pivotal moment for Princess Minko while giving Ohana another shot at Ko in the next episode. I’m still wrapping my head around the wedding, and what looks to be the possible end of the inn in its current iterations, perhaps her intention was to pass the inn, but not the name? I’m interested to see how this series ends, because there are several endings to consider, Ohana, Minko, Nako, and the others. This series really has had little downtime save for a few scenes in it’s run, so it’s hard to believe they would slow the pace down now in it’s final four episodes.
Memo-chou 8 finally closed out what they spent many episodes building to, the final piece of the puzzle that solves the differences between Soichirou and Renji, in a rather dramatic twist involving their old friend whom they thought was dead. I found this to be an excellent wrap-up to the arc, and especially how much Narumi mans up and takes charge, it’s always refreshing to have an ALPHA lead in a series, especially among NEETs. Moving into their final episodes though, it will be interesting to see what they do to wrap up. I kinda hope they do another season of this.
Ikoku Meiro 8 takes us further inside Alice’s world as the tale of her tale of encounters with a girl from the far east is told by Camille, who seems to have had a thing for Claude, but discarded it for unknown reasons at some point. Yune of course is a bit taken back by Camille’s straightforward sense, but you could tell she was also surprised by the way Yune carries herself. This series continues to refresh this season’s pallet with just balanced entertainment, something funny, something serious, and Yune is godddamn adorable.
Alright, I wanted to write a serious mid-season review of Kamisama Dolls but here is the thing, this series is all over the fucking place. It’s premise? Excellent. A bit cliche sometimes, but you have a whiny kid who doesn’t like his home village for a variety of valid reasons, living with a girl with huge fucking tits, whom he likes, along with her father, a former village native, and his little sister, who controls the God he controlled when he was younger. Add a crazy maniacal psychopath that looks like Accelerator, the little sister’s twin brother, another dude who looks like someone from Index I can’t think of, and a random assortment of other people, and you have a series that could be awesome, if you removed the whiny brat. Yeah. I said it. Kyouhei makes this series worth so much less because of his I-HATE-MY-DADDY-FOR-MAKING-ME-DO-THINGS mentality, and his complete and utter inattention to everything, focusing his misguided hate on Aki, who is also a douche. Cow Tits likes to think she is relevant, but in fact wants nothing to do with any of them, but can’t get away because she likes Kyouhei. In the end, Utao is the best fucking character in this show, and I love the OP music. So yeah. Kamisama Dolls is a love-hate relationship, but not in the Code Geass kind of way, Code Geass was actually good minus the noodle people.
Loli Jam 8 gets interesting as Subaru’s secret loli fetish is out and now to take back her man, admit it or not, Aoi challenges the girls to a game, but ends up pretty much throwing it just to prove a point to Airi, that with her height, she should be playing center. Way to be a jerk about it. Dunno what else they are going to do with this show, more loli basketball I guess.
Why do they keep featuring Rin’s mother often in Usagi Drop? She is a selfish whore, and disagree with me if you want, but even if you cannot, or will not take care of a child, the least you can do is maintain some presence in it’s life, even for a little bit. I dunno, I guess I have different values, but it just annoys me when they portray her as a self-serving manga artist who doesn’t want to be “inconvenienced” by a child, where Dai did so of his own volition just so Rin had a place to call home. So yeah, I mad bro, she is too goddamn cute in this show to have her worthless mother overshadowing it.
Dantalian no Shoka 7 switches back to Huey and Dalian as they investigate a perfume maker who tried to ruin Dalian’s heaven of a bun-time, to find she makes pretty potent perfumes that essentially gets her into some unwanted trouble. Fortunately, or unfortunately for her, Huey and Dalian step in to help, but are too late to do so. Another clue though is put down onto a possible central villain to the series, perhaps tied to the two from the previous episode. I’m hoping in the last half of this series, we see that central action spring up, the “book of the week” is getting boring.
This week’s Mayo Chiki 8 stays on the beach as Kinjirou continues to deal with Mistress Kanade and her twisted schemes, but in fact there turns out to be a reason for their coming here, as Konoe’s mother is buried nearby and it’s their annual visit to pay respects. Between a touching Konoe and Kin moment, comes the titty-monster Nakuru and her drunken strip fu, during a paintball match of all things. Combine some festival hijinks and more scenes with Konoe’s father and you get a above-average Mayo Chiki episode. I like the series premise, and it’s been good so far, just need a little extra… zest?
Last, but not least, Nichijou 22 delivers another above-average episode with some DOUBLE REACTION from Yuuko and Mio on dogs biting them, along with some usual hijinks of minor characters, who have been appearing more frequently the last couple episodes. They’ve really tightened their episodes in these last few, possibly to end the series on a high note. Overall, the expectation you should get from watching this is nothing on a technical merit, but on pure sweet fun. It’s a series I watch every week just to laugh at whatever stupid thing they do. It’s a much needed thing to have every season, it can’t always be serious business.
Yuru Yuri missed this review due to time, but I might amend it to here tomorrow after a proper view. Like Nichijou, I have been enjoying it for it’s humor and cute things. Overall, this season has been delivering above what I expected going in, and that’s all I need to make it a success. Next season has a lot of returning favorites, and in the course of this week, I will be putting together the preview chart for the season. No shows carry over to the next season, so we will be starting out fresh across the board. Saimoe 2011 continues into the fall as well, so expect the same action over there, followed on my other blog, links at the top of the main page here.
So assuming the world hasn’t come to a halt with work tomorrow, expect the chart out by midday and the new season lineup by end of the day or next day. Until then, stay frosty.
