The Dark Side of the Force

A pretty powerful week in the animes if you’re a Symphogear fan, as this week’s carries on from the cliffhanger last week, and it is most certainly not worth missing for fans of Berserk-Hibiki from last season. Elsewhere, a fairly standard week for everyone else involved with a few twists.

Also, don’t forget that Anime Saimoe Tournament 2013 is going on, with the first preliminary over yesterday. After the Comiket break, the second preliminary is on August 13th. The main tournament starts August 23rd. Check out my blog complete with bullshit, words, and pretty graphics at https://saimoe.tldranimu.net/

Senki Zesshou Symphogear S
“Hibiki being based like usual. Next week when?”-@fall3nbs
I actually hadn’t watched last week’s episode until early today, and I actually edged off my seat a little at that ending. Hibiki having her arm chomped off was a pretty big deal, the show often doesn’t tread into territory like that, it seems more reserved for Shingeki than not. But upon the opening of this week’s episode, not only does she regenerate her arm, but she goes into Berserker mode and destroys the monster, ripping its heart out. Sure enough, not to anyone’s real surprised, a medical exam later reveals that her Gungnir embedded in her has pretty much fused to most of her body, which besides likely allowing her regeneration, and her crazy powers, is also either going to kill her, or completely take over her body to the point of being non-human. Tsubasa takes this to heart and tries to bully Hibiki from fighting again. Right. In comes Dr. Ver, the show’s worst mid-boss, to start another fight holding the heart from the monster, except there is Hibiki, and she is pissed.

I know most folks don’t care for Symphogear, but it’s damn awesome, and especially this season, it’s a lot grittier than the first, and there has been less emphasis on the songs and more on the characters. Even still, it’s almost a shame it’s a half-season because I feel there could be more, but I don’t want it to overstay its welcome. Tricky.

Servant x Service
“Does Lucy have any other shirts to wear?”
Servant x Service is a great show, and I hate to bring up its relevance to Working! for the fifth time, but if you have not seen Working!, you should, it’s very much this same feeling, where what you’re watching is just that awesome, while not having any real substantial value outside of itself. Lucy is just the perfect character for this, and channeling the Poplar personality just suits her so well. The mecha-rabbit gag, while fairly humorous, could probably go away and things would be about the same. It’s sort of a drag on the show’s otherwise flawless execution really.

I’m pretty much bracing for the person who allowed Lucy’s outrageously long first name to either be the chief or Taishi.

Stella Jogakuin Koutouka C3-bu
“CULTURAL FESTIVAL TIEM!”
Nothing noteworthy in this week’s C3-bu, no real exploration into the Yura-Sona tweak from last week’s episode, which I imagine will come later. Instead, we see their cultural festival entry, a shooting booth and cafe, with some water sports and lobsters or something. Seems to be standard fare for the token school festival episode of an anime.

Kami no mizo Shiru Sekai Megami-Hen
“Let’s go after the girl we didn’t show before”
One of the problems with TWGOK, now that I’m over halfway through the manga, is the fact the show skipped parts of the manga. Now that we’re doing the Goddesses Arc, it seems silly that we’re going into Yui now where anime-only folks aren’t even aware of how Keima captured her. Not that it matters, I guess, but it makes the crossdressing aspect make sense if you know the circumstances around it. But I am not complaining, while the manga will always be that much better than the show, the show ain’t half bad. Course, much like Shingeki, reading ahead means I have little interest in watching the show.

Space Brothers
“>2026 >Still using NT-based operating systems”-@tldranimu
I haven’t forgotten about good ol’ Uuchu Kyoudai, and it looks like now that we’re out of the ASCAN arc and into the Mutta the Astronaut arc, we’re now coming closer to the Mutta in Space arc. But it looks like we have another eighteen month slot to fill with, and I’m not sure what that entails. I almost thought Deniel was going to keel over or something, much like I fear Sharon will die at some point in this series, but they continue to tick as does the rest of the show. I almost wonder how long this show is going to run for, I haven’t watched a show past fifty episodes since any Gundam series. It’s weird.

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I might have more to tack on this tomorrow, we’ll see, for now, take this.