Winter 2019

In The Absence of A Reasonable Argument, Rely on Sophistry

Posted on March 20, 2019March 18, 2019 by Karandi

Grimms Notes Episode 10 Review

Well, the villains finally take the time to speak with Ex regarding their ambitions in Episode 10 of Grimms Notes. Curly asks Ex whether it is more important to protect Jeanne D’Arc’s life or her fate and Ex utterly fails to answer, mostly because despite 9 episodes of dashing into story zones and correcting fates, Ex has never really addressed the big question of whether or not his actions are right.

Just when you think he might be developing something resembling a reasonable character who at least contemplates his actions, he throws aside thinking it through or the consequences and just accepts that Jeanne is committed to her fate, as written in her book, and so he’ll trust in her feelings.

The problem with that argument is that we don’t know how much Jeanne is actually in control of those feelings. Her rising up and leading the French was written in her book of fate. As was her acceptance of their ultimate betrayal and her death. So trusting in the feelings of someone being controlled by fate as a justification for defending that fate is at best a flawed argument and is more likely a form of self-deception so that Ex doesn’t need to ask himself the big question of whether or not he’s actually the one doing more harm than good by assisting Reina in tuning story zones.

The ongoing avoidance by this story of looking at this big question is really starting to bug me because exploring it and having the characters really deconstructing their motives could have been a really interesting affair. Instead the good guys are good because they are and no matter how logical the villains seems they are the villains of the story. The nebulous story tellers have so far escaped being questioned for their questionable morality in creating characters who are clearly sentient but are then forced to live out lives that involve avoidable suffering.

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It all just seems like a strange premise if the story isn’t willing to actually address any of these issues.

But hey, another story tuned and back on track. Jeanne can lead that army, at least until she is killed.

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Karandi James

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Apparently They Do Grow On Trees

Posted on March 20, 2019March 18, 2019 by Karandi

Endro Episode 9 Review

Like me, you probably didn’t actually bother to think about where the Cartado the characters have been using in Endro have come from. I mean, it is hardly a critical plot point other than Mei’s obsessive fascination with everything to do with them. However, here’s an episode devoted entirely to the mystery of where they come from and how they are harvested.

That’s right, harvested. Because apparently these cards to grow on trees in a hidden village that the overly cute girls have just scored themselves an invitation to for a festival.

Arriving at the village takes a few little leaps but doesn’t eat much of the episode. It does, as normal, highlight the different personalities of the girls in the core group with Mei, the usually reserved one, being as determined as we’ve ever seen her to reach their destination.

Once there though the story just goes for full cute and weird with the girls seeing the trees laden with cards, changing outfits, and then participating in a competition to become the cartado king by harvesting the rarest ‘wild’ cartado. It’s all kind of good fun though I do like that the end result of becoming the king is a one off lap around the village and that’s all the pay-off, other than the bragging rights which I’m certain Mei is definitely holding onto even if the village location is a secret.

As usual for this series, we get a lot of fluff and silliness, a bit of heart, and some weird antics. It all works well and the episode plays nicely. Now I just wonder why they don’t grow those trees in more places.

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Endro Episode 10 Review

Episode 10 of Endro is a little bit weird. Okay, a lot weird but only a little bit by Endro standards. The girls are on what was meant to be an ‘easy’ quest apparently sent by Mao which makes me wonder if the Demon Lord is back to trying to off the hero or whether the snow-storm was a genuine mistake.

Anyway, while huddled in the tent, they start sharing their dreams for the future in the hopes of keeping each other awake. They kind of fail but it turns out a monster was helping them along by showing them what they were dreaming of. Needless to say, each of the girls is dreaming of what we know they want, heroics, food, cards, and boobs, but Seira is able to break free of the dream when she realises it isn’t real.

There’s not a lot more to this episode other than Seira breaking the others out of their dream with the rather direct approach of smashing their dreamworlds to pieces with a hammer before they eat the combined crystallisation of their dreams (yep, weird even by Endro standards).

Still, if you just want a bit of fun, this episode certainly hits the spot. It also plays on the whole time travel element with Yuusha’s dream most definitely being a throw back to the memory of fighting the demon lord way back in episode one.

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Karandi James

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Reminder to Vote in The Best of Winter Poll

Posted on March 19, 2019March 19, 2019 by Karandi

You still have time to get your vote in for the best of Winter 2019.

Remember you can pick up to three titles from the season.

Get your vote in before the 30th and be sure to tell your friends. The more votes the more representative the result will be of the community.

Thanks for reading
Karandi James

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The Morose Mononokean Season 2 Episode 11 With Irina and Karandi

Posted on March 19, 2019March 18, 2019 by Karandi

This week we are back on Irina’s blog so be sure to go check out our thoughts on this adorable little episode featuring the cutest yokai birds with ear wings. Granted, there isn’t a lot of competition for birds with ear wings but seriously this was adorable. Also some good plot development stuff and some great character moments.

Seriously though, for Irina and my complete thoughts on The Morose Mononokean Season 2 Episode 11 head over to Irina’s. If you’ve missed our previous posts they are linked to below and be sure next week to catch our review of episode 12 right here.

Thanks for reading
Karandi James

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Passing The Olive Branch

Posted on March 19, 2019March 17, 2019 by Karandi

Kaguya-Sama Love is War Episode 10 Review

Back to the three story format this week however the first two skits in episode 10 of Kaguya-Sama Love is War deal with the fallout from Shinomiya’s cold last week. Realistically though, I’m going to end up with Ishigami on this one. In the second story, Ishigami was forced to listen to Shirogane as he meandered his way through the story about the girl a friend of his had apparently offended. Ishigami just summed up the whole situation perfectly when he said it ‘pisses’ him off.

Kaguya-Sama Love is War Episode 10 Ishigami

Realistically, we once again have two socially inept characters who after a minor misunderstanding spend one third of the episode squabbling over who will eat a piece of cake and then find someone who will listen to them whine about how misunderstood they feel. I’m certain the comedy is meant to be in how exaggerated and overblown it all is, but mostly I just wanted to push the cake into their faces in story one and in story two I really wished Ishigami had spoken up sooner.

Then we slide into story three where Summer vacation is coming up again. I almost groaned aloud thinking we were going to have to endure a rehash of a previous fight, but mercifully the story went in a different direction. For the first time Fujiwara ended up on the losing side and once again we have Ishigami to thank for actually sounding like a human and pointing out that it wasn’t fair for her to go off travelling but to expect that they wouldn’t go to a festival just because she was away.

Kaguya-Sama Love is War Episode 10 Kaguya

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Needless to say, if I took on the role of the narrator for a moment, I’m awarding Ishigami as the episodes MVP and literally just want all the other characters to disappear or grow up at this point.

Now, so that it doesn’t sound like I’m just throwing rocks at it for the fun of it and ignoring all the good in this series, the visuals this week were up to their usual standard. Story one used colour particularly well to show the duelling personalities and story two kept cutting between Shinomiya and Shirogane as each one was telling their story and it was actually really nicely put together even if the subject matter was frustrating.

Kaguya-Sama Love is War Episode 10 blue vs red

So once again, this is a beautifully produced anime that is utterly missing the mark for me because I’m just not finding it particularly amusing. However, with two episodes to go I’m sticking through to the end of the season and hopefully next week I’ll find something to smile at.

Thanks for reading
Karandi James

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Natsuo, If You’re Going To Lie, Cover Your Tracks

Posted on March 18, 2019March 17, 2019 by Karandi

Domestic Girlfriend Episode 10 Review

Getting caught in a lie seems to be a theme this episode. First we have the literature club adviser away ‘sick’ for multiple days prompting his oh-so-concerned-students to go visit him at his home. Turns out he’s not sick. He’s actually an author, one that Natsuo is a fan of, and he’s just behind on his deadlines. He openly tells his students this while puffing on a cigarette and blatantly says he hasn’t told the school that he’s working on the side.

Um…

Domestic Girlfriend Episode 10 — Model Teacher

Are any of the teachers at this school actually going to have any kind of moral or ethical standard?

However, that isn’t really a drama. It is more just foreshadowing lies coming apart which Natsuo, being a wannabe writer, should have paid more attention to given he’s been lying to Rui about where he’s been going for dinner and it is going to bite him.

Domestic Girlfriend Episode 10 Natsuo fall down stairs

The next day at school he’s teasing the girl who like the literature teacher a little bit and she elbows him in the ribs, at the top of a staircase, sending him flying in a way that defies any kind of physics unless Natsuo actually launched himself backwards at the same time as she elbowed him, but let’s ignore that part of the story for now. After falling down the stairs he breaks his leg and so begins Rui in care-taker mode.

Do we even need to discuss how breaking a leg doesn’t prevent his hands or brain from working so why he really doesn’t need his step-sister to share a bath with him? This story has gone for a lot of contrivances in order to create drama and fairly uncomfortable situations like the one we get where Rui is reaching for the soap in the dark bathroom (yeah, you can see where they go with that already). While usually these aren’t too intrusive, the way they blow a broken leg out of proportion here is insane.

Domestic Girlfriend Episode 10 Rui — Pouting Rui is still pretty cute.

Yet, despite how many things he apparently can’t do on his own in this scene because of a broken leg, later on his father apparently has no issue with his son going out in the rain and one crutch to find a missing step-sister.

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Anyway, Rui ends up at the cafe and finds out that Natsuo hasn’t been going to his friend’s place and so calls Natsuo on it, and he lies again. Not only that, at the next opportunity he lies to Rui again saying he’s going to apologise to his friend and off he goes to Hina’s house, where Rui later finds him having confirmed he isn’t at his friends house.

So, drama.

Despite how idiotic the plot is here and how overblown everything is, I can’t say I actually dislike it. Outside of the bathroom scene, I actually quite enjoyed watching the train wreck that is Natsuo’s life right at the moment. Still, wondering how exactly this one will wrap up.

Domestic Girlfriend Episode 10 Anime Maids — Also, random maid montage at the beginning as part of the school festival because why not?

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Karandi James

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The Battle of the Magical Girls Begins

Posted on March 18, 2019March 17, 2019 by Karandi

Magical Girl Spec-Ops Asuka Post Title Image

Magical Girl Spec-Ops Asuka Episode 10 Review

With the invasion of the military base and the parallel invasion of Naha city occurring at the end of last episode it was clear that this week Magical Girl Spec-Ops Asuka would be focused on the battle at hand. What follows is a fairly scattered affair with the audience jumping from one scene of the battle to another and seeing Tamara and Mia in action at their respective locations as well as following the actions of various soldiers and Nozomi and Sayako in amongst the fight before we finally get down to business in the bunker with Rapture, War Nurse and the main villains of this fight.

Magical Girl Spec-Ops Asuka Episode 10 Disas

While it is a scattered affair frantically jumping from one point where the soldiers are being beaten back to another, interspersed with civilians fleeing and dying and ordinary police being incredibly heroic before dying, all of this cut with scenes of the military commanders glaring at their screens and musing about potential strategy, it works really well because the set up for this fight was put in place last episode. Even though the overall motives of the villains is still unclear, making that the weakest link in the whole series, the basic parameters for this sequence were clearly laid out and the target of the General in the basement was pretty straight-forward, even if it turns out they were after something the general had rather than the general herself.

Magical Girl Spec-Ops Asuka Nozomi and Sayako

Action sequences in this anime remain very entertaining to watch with a real sense of pace and movement about them. It makes getting screen caps kind of difficult because of the amount of motion blur at times but at the same time, watching the sequence it is very solid portrayal of a frantic fight sequence. It’s also fun watching the transition between the soldiers and their standard tactics compared to the Magical Girls who are almost a whole army on their own and have their own way of fighting.

Magical Girl Spec Ops Asuka Episode 10 Mia

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While characterisation gets put to the side for a large majority of the episode, Asuka still manages to deliver a decent effort at remembering that she was traumatised by the previous war and has yet to really accept that she’s back involved with the conflict. While many an anime hero would have committed to fighting and then never mentioned their trauma again, Asuka is wearing hers on her sleeve and it really is only Kurumi’s presence at her side while they wait that keeps her grounded and prevents her from breaking down entirely as they listen to the sounds of battle and dying over the radio.

Magical Girl Spec-Ops Asuka Episode 10 Kurumi and Asuka

Magical Girl Spec-Ops Asuka remains a fairly decent viewing experience and while it has at times pushed the violence a little further than some people would like, its been delivering a reasonably compelling story and it seems to be heading to a decent climax. Now whether or not we get a decent end point or are left hanging is really all that’s left to find out in the next two episodes and that could really change my overall opinion of the show.

Magical Girl Spec-Ops Asuka Episode 10 — Well, I’m scared.

Thanks for reading
Karandi James

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Grimms Notes Episode 10 Review

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Endro Episode 9 Review

Endro Episode 10 Review

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Kaguya-Sama Love is War Episode 10 Review

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Domestic Girlfriend Episode 10 Review

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Magical Girl Spec-Ops Asuka Episode 10 Review

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