Another week and another mostly positive round of reviews. No Fractale or Hourou Musuko this week, as twitterfriends inform me those studios took the week off. Without further mincing of words:
Dragon Crisis 05 wrapped up a mini-arc on the series’ third dragon introduction, Maruga the White Dragon. Honestly I am neutral over this series, story and plot wise it really isn’t doing anything particularly deep, but for what it’s worth, I am getting more interest in Studio DEEN’s other project this season, Kore wa Zombie. It could just be a sensory overload from everything else this season, but for some reason I want to see the potential that could come from this series towards the end, so I’m going to stick with it. Besides, I’m interested to see how the shy timid girl chasing after Ryuji clashes with Rose.
Shit flies in Kore wa Zombie 05 as Kyoko reveals herself to be a vampire-zombie-ninja-magicalgirl-hedgehog-whateverwhatshit or something taking on the crew before locking eyes with Yuu at the end of the episode, prompting me to rage somewhat because I hate suspense endings I have to wait a week for. I imagine she will join the Yuu Harem (and yes I said Yuu) after this fight, no doubt attached to someone in the group, Sera I believe. This series has been beating out IS and Madoka for me for a couple of weeks now, if it wasn’t for the events in Madoka this week, I’d have ranked it higher on the single week chart.
Also it’s a shame I can’t nominate non-girls into Saimoe, The Dyson Fan is more moe than K-ON!!
It’s not as if we all couldn’t see Charles = Charlotte in Infinite Stratos 06, I mean, come on, you can at least make a trap a little more convincing. At any rate, her ruse is quickly discovered in the class anime walk-into-the-shower sequence yet breaking tradition there was no grandstanding fight and involving everyone else, they keep it on the DL to everyone else for the time being. The episode then shifts and ends with Germany’s obsession with seeing Ichika beaten for getting kidnapped during the final fight Chifyuu had as an IS pilot and had to forfeit due to finding him. You’d think she’d be grateful considering she repaid the army by becoming a teacher there and I’m sure she was one of her students. Ahh, nothing like misguided female youth, full of misinterpretation of facts and teacher lust! Wait…
Yumekui Merry 06 continues to give me every reason to push it higher in the weekly ranking, it’s a terribly fantastic show, and I’m inclined to say Maximum Dere because frankly, Merry’s Tsun moment are few and far inbetween, she is too goddamn cute for her own good. Also, Yumeji is one of the few awesome male MCs in many shows, which makes for an excellent combo that can only be added upon by more characters (and catgirls) as this show continues.
GOSICK 06 opens up a new mini-arc over the identity and circumstances around Victorique’s mother, taking them to a village in the mountains. This coming after some events previously where Kujo managed to piss her off for awhile, which is terribly cute because she acts like a six year old who pouts when she is being made fun of. Having Avril come in means we’ll see a little more interaction for Kujo outside of Victorique, as evidenced by this episode.
Index 18 extends its break from SRSCHURCHBINS for another episode, this time focusing on Touma + Misaka/Misaka Imouto/Last Order and Accelerator and Index as they cross pathes without realizing it. We also get an opening scene of Kanzaki, Orsola, Agnese, Angelene, Lucia, and Sherry. Fanservice ho! As for the series, we’re ramping up for the next arc involving Vento of the Front and Terra of the Left. I just finished LN Volume 7 last night, which covers the first few episodes of Index II with Agnese and Orsola, so I have awhile to catch up on what’s going now.
One of the reasons MANLY TEARS is associated with Super Robot anime is because much like how soliders cry for their fallen brothers in battle, a fallen comrade is always honored in much the same way in these shows. So in Super Robot Wars OG: The Inspector 18 we find that Hagane Captain Daitetsu Minase was lost in the events at the end of 17, which was quite sad, because ever since his appearance in the first series you’ve been treated to the difference between him and Captain Lefina Enfield, the old wise man versus the young prodigy, a concept that was explored in Martian Successor Nadesico when Ruri queried Omoikane about battleship captains. Throughout the series you came to respect the man who made on-the-fly tactical decisions that got the ship, its crew, and the teams through each battle and victory. Ultimately even without playing the games you could make this deduction, as you could tell he was impressing his knowledge and wit onto Tetsuya so that he could lead if he were to be killed in battle. So it was a pretty powerful scene, especially when Kyosuke wakes up and runs onto the deck in his bandages to give his salute as the crew does.
Oh and fuck Shadow Mirror, what a bunch of fucks pulling that surprise attack.
Finally, I posted the screenshot above from Kore wa Zombie earlier this week on the big /w/ vector thread, and an awesome anon under the tripcode Fi served it up in the latest thread, found here. Get it while it is hot, I’ll post it to a permanent location for grabs when the thread expires. I should get back to learning vectoring, I had started awhile back with some trial runs, the Inkscape crashes a lot and I forgot about it.
