I Hate Shots

So finally after five years I bought myself a new LCD monitor to replace my seven year old Princeton 19″ Standard, and I must say watching Index 21 and GOSICK 9 on it is much nicer. It’s not my first 1080p monitor, I have one at work that I watch videos on when I am not taking calls, but I’m not used to having this much screen real estate on my home computer, having a pair of 19″ LCDs, one wide and one standard. It’s an Acer 23″ 1080p and I am quite impressed with both its inside and outside. Also got it on the cheap from the PC Richard & Son they opened up here awhile back that I haven’t been inside until today. Not used to buying my electronics often in stores, much less that old-style “salesman” approach. Won’t complain though, may buy another one at the end of the month.

Moving onto this week’s draw of fairly awesome episodes, in the order of this week’s WatchRanking:

I already detailed much of this week’s Madoka in my previous MADOKA THREAD, but speculation aside, I was pretty bummed to see Kyouko go out like this, although I was initially prepared for her to either mercy kill Sayaka, or Homerun-chan killing Sayaka. Once again Madoka avoids becoming a magical girl, but our best friend and troll Kyubey is kind enough to explain that he and others of his alien race are in fact the ones behind the MGs and Witches and tells Madoka she would be the most powerful MG, and consequently, the most powerful Witch. Oh, and if she ever “feels like dying for the universe, give him a call!” Wow, what a dick. So essentially, little girls are being used as batteries for aliens. GOOD MADOKA. YOU’RE LOOKING A LITTLE MATRIX.

This week’s Yumekui Merry turned up the heat a little by revealing a little more of who is behind the destroyer of dreams, and frankly, I should have seen this coming. If this was Criminal Minds you’d now hear Rossi or Reed tell you that he’s the perfect “unsub” because his position allows him complete access to the students and what they want to do in the future. However it seems the red-haired girl knows who he is, but cannot do anything about it at the moment it seems. Yumeji seems to be up on and ons though as he’s aware of the mark on Isana.

Infinite Stratos goes to the beach this week, but not before Houki walks in on Ichika and Laura, who is naked in his bed wrestling. Before that, Houki speaks with her sister, who helped develop the IS, about a personal machine, one which apparently pairs with Ichika’s IS. Her sister is nothing like we’d expect, being more like the eccentric scientist-type and less the stalwart Ichika’s sister is. Charlotte then ratchets up the jelly in the other girls by stealing Ichika away to change into a swimsuit for him in a changing room. Finally the beach happens and Laura unleashes her maximum dere powers at full, but not before Cecilia got him to rub tanning lotion on her. “It can’t be helped” indeed. Oh, and virtually no Houki in this episode until the end.

This week’s Fractale was probably the best of the series so far, really diving deep into the Fractale system and just what certain people aim to get out of it. Clain and Nessa get sucked in and almost turned over to the council when they figure out what was going on and try to escape. Nessa unleashes hot fury and nullifies the entire town of doppels, but not before a lone person uses a gun of some sort and shoots Clain. I feel this shit should have happened a lot sooner, like Ep. 3 or 4, I really didn’t care about the Lost Millennium shit, made it feel too much like a Matrix clone.

Kore wa Zombie shifted paces this week to highlight a group shopping and gaming trip with everyone, where random hijinks occurred. Towards the end though, it seems someone knows Yuu and comes out to meet her, signaling something possibly awesome in the next episode. Tomonori’s wife act is pretty humorous really, when you consider that it doesn’t get played off bigger than I recall other series doing it.

Hourou Musuko really is one of the best series this season in terms of story and characters. It’s not flashy and over-the-top like other series, but it combines a good cast of characters with a wide range of emotions and weaves a good story. You can’t help but feel a little sorry for Saori sometimes, like every time she says she doesn’t care or hates someone or something, you just want to give her a big hug just because. No? You don’t think that? Yeah it is a bit creepy.

The tricky part about GOSICK is what you’re watching it for. If you’re watching is for mysteries, or specifically Sherlock Holmes-style mysteries, I think you overestimated what you thought you were watching. The real mystery is when Victorique hits the wall and can’t solve the mystery. This week it seems we might get close to that, as Kujo goes off to town on his own to buy a gift for his sister who sent a kimono for Victorique, who loves it, but doesn’t seem to know how to put it on. She catches a cold and remains home, meanwhile our “Third son of an Imperial Soldier” goes and gets himself wrapped up in a child smuggling ring and winds up likely the next target as he disappears at the end. See, I watch GOSICK for Victorique. Everything else is a bonus. Haters gonna hate.

Sadly the quality of Dragon Crisis varies week to week, this week introduces a strange female scientist who conducts a test on Ryuji for his Breaker exam. Suffice to say, it was a group activity and not a very good one at that, ending in a giant robot fight similar to the one in Hayate the Combat Butler, except that one was much more amusing. I’m failing to see the point this series is trying to make with a handful of episodes remaining, but then I can only expect so much from Shana-clones these days.

Finally to cap off this week is (w)Index where aside from Accelerator squaring off against Kihara, it seems Hyouka Kazakiri, who if you recall from Season One was the imaginary person created from the AIM diffusion fields. It seems she serves a much larger purpose to Allester, who upon retrieving Last Orders, throws a system in motion that seems to be turning Hyouka into an Angel. This of course prompts TouMAN to rush to try to stop it, but Vento is also on scene to stop him. Meanwhile Misaka joins the fight by taking on some of the Hound Dog members around the area. A lot of fireworks flying, and I have been paging my way through the novels to find out what happens, cause this shit is real. Also, that orgasm face on Hyouka, lolwat?

I have yet to download and watch SRW:OG so I’ll omit that from this week. Instead I completed the first series for Super Dimensional Fortress Macross aka Robotech to those familiar with the localized version. I’ve always seen it in stores even way back when but never picked it up and I wonder why, it was an excellent show, and by the end I found I was one of those people practically shouting GODDAMIT HIKARU FOR THE LOVE OF GOD GO WITH MISA OR I WILL BREAK YOUR SHINS. I also watched the localized version off Netflix at work and the name changes made me laugh a little. I’m often glad they don’t do that shit anymore, because it just seems silly, especially since they only did it with a few. Grabbing the next part, Macross 7, movies, and eventually Frontier.