Shingeki no Bahamut: Virgin Soul – 14

For the record, I am not on board with Nina x Charioce. Simply put, the show hasn’t made Charioce likable or sympathetic enough to overcome the significant evils he has committed against humans, gods, and demons alike.

It makes no further progress in convincing me this week…aside from showing that he won’t allow a Black Knight gut his barber after accidentally cutting his neck with a razor.

Another mark against him is that he has Kaisar imprisoned and seems to be having him tortured for information. Still, Kaisar is a lot tougher than his endless eyelashes suggest, so I’m sure he’ll be fine.

His spirits—and those of his visiting lieutenant, Dias—are also surely lifted by the news that Jeanne is free, and the men hold out hope the noble Orleans knights will rise again…one day.

Meanwhile, Nina and Jeanne arrive at Dragon Village, where Nina is swarmed and greeted warmly by her many siblings and friends, and the two ladies can have baths, haircuts, and a new change of clothes, as well as ask the village elder (a very old and tiny lady) how to reach the Land of the Gods.

Nina’s Charioce conundrum inevitably comes up, though obviously she doesn’t refer to him by name; otherwise Jeanne would surely drop the talk of “embracing contradictions” and tell Nina to get over that mass murdering, enslaving, poor-tipping despot.

Being around so many smiling, laughing, happy children also makes Jeanne wistful of the time she still had El; she seeks out Nina’s mother in the night, who is more than willing to provide an understanding ear and a shoulder to cry on.

I loved, well, the love evident in this scene; suffused with maternal instinct and affection. Nina’s mom even brings up her daughter’s tendency to transform and rampage when around “men like her father” as a coping mechanism.

The next morning the elder has agreed to show them the way to the Land of the Gods—her own back. She transforms from tiny old lady to massive, grizzled dragon, with a back more than broad enough for Bacchus’ entire carriage, complete with hippogriff.

I am pleased, at the very least, that the Charioce issue can at least be tabled, as the more pressing issue is reuniting a mother with her son—righting yet another wrong perpetrated by the prettyboy king who imprisoned her. I maintain that if the show wants me to feel anything other than contempt for the dude, it’ll have to make one hell of a pitch.

Jikan no Shihaisha (Chronos Ruler) – 01 (First Impressions)

Well, if nothing else, Chronos Ruler wastes no time demonstrating its semi-decent-looking action; if only its premise were a little easier to swallow and its characters a little more likable.

Koyuki, a high school girl who blames herself for losing her only family, her brother (killed in an auto accident—the leading cause of death for big brothers in anime).

One night while visiting his grave, Koyuki ends up in the middle of a battle between some kind of monster and two apparent brothers, Victor and Kiri, who rescue her and force it to retreat.

Victor lets perhaps a little too much of his and Kiri’s secret duty slip on  purpose, so Koyuki, following up on school rumors about turning back time at the clock tower at the midnight of a full moon, lures the “time demon” back to her.

One of Koyuki’s teachers, Ms. Emily, ceases to exist by aging in reverse, a somewhat unsettling example of what happens when one gets bitten by such a demon.

Victor knows simply telling Koyuki not to give up on bringing her brother back won’t work, but between Ms. Emily and his own condition (every day he becomes a day younger, losing his memories along with his age), there’s enough to get Koyuki to heed their warnings.

Victor uses the “oath of time” he and Kiri, “Chronos Rulers”, possess to defeat the demon using limited time manipulation, but it accelerates his “illness,” but Koyuki is safe, and content to live on with the memories of his bro.

Of course, it’s likely we’ll never see Koyuki again, as the pair will be off on their next mission next week. As for learning Victor isn’t Kiri’s brother but his father really only caused me to shrug.

I dig time magic; I just left this episode wishing more interesting people were wielding it against more interesting foes.

Shoukoku no Altair – 01 (First Impressions)

Take away the exotic setting and lush costumes, and Shoukoku no Altair is the very common story of an overachieving young man determined to move forward, be useful, and protect his country, after enduring tragedy earlier in life in which he wasn’t able to save his family.

Fortunately, Altair does have an exotic setting, lush costumes, and a very decent soundtrack to boot. And so we have ourselves a show that isn’t all that original in storytelling but is able to just sail by on competent, often stylish execution.

Newly-appointed Pasha Tughril Mahmut is the youngest Pasha ever, but never comes off as arrogant or petulant, even when a comrade accuses him of having a “tantrum.” Rather, I liken him to Tintin: young, courageous, resourceful, cunning…and yes, a bit dull. He has a strong sense of justice and is always ready to shut naysayers down…but has no idea what to do with women.

One of his mentors, Pasha Halil, sees a great future for Mahmut, so when the Balt-Rheim Empire accuses their homeland Turkyie of assassinating their prime minister, Halil chooses to be the sacrifice they demand.

War claimed many lives twelve years ago, as we see in a heart-wrenching, well-directed flashback in which a young Mahmut struggles in vain to save a woman I presume is his mother. From that point on, he swore always to do whatever he could, never standing still.

So Mahmut does what Tintin would do: investigate the incident and find the real truth, which is that the arrows used to kill the minister were of Balt-Rhein design. He joins up with with Halil, who believes the Empire as a whole does not want war, just an isolated element.

Thanks in part to a clever use of mutton stew and the local eagles, the pashas weather an attempted ambush, capture the conspirator’s men, and bring them and the false arrows before the Emperor himself.

War is staved off—for now, but the minister who conspired to start it was not tried or even named for his role, meaning this is only the beginning of Pasha Mahmut’s duty. With only THE REFLECTION left to air on my Summer list and my interest in Apocrypha fading fast, Altair is just interesting enough for another look or two.

Knight’s & Magic – 02

Last week’s K&M was conspicuous in its lack of serious mortal peril, but this week brought the danger from the beginning, as a “Division-Class” Demon Beast (called a “Behemoth” but really more of an Adamantoise) rampages on a fort protecting the capital and several knight runners end up squashed and/or smashed to death.

As that same beast nears the forest where the students are training, Sefania and Addy fight over Eru until the order to get the hell out of dodge is given…only Eru doesn’t leave with the others. Instead, he sees one of the runners protecting them running away. It’s Dietrich, a pilot who saw his comrade get hit by the Behemoth’s breath and simply lost his nerve and turned tail.

Eru helps himself to Dietrich’s cockpit, using his dual gunblades to customize the robot to his smaller frame in a nifty bit of MacGyver-like innovation rife with less-nifty technobabble. Bottom line, Eru is able to increase the robot’s speed, agility, and strength, and with the aid of reinforcements, is able to bring the beast down by sending a pulse of lightning through its eye, leading to a monster aneurysm and Game Over for Mr. Behemoth.

Dietrich’s comrades lament his death and sacrifice and curse themselves for thinking ill of him for running…until Eru emerges with an unconscious Dietrich. I’m sure Eru won’t tell them he’s the one who brought the robot back into the fight, while when the cards were down, Dietrich was a coward. But whatever comes out of it, word of a child outperforming all the other knight runners gets to the king, and he wishes to meet Eru ASAP.

This K&M was fun in its execution of the boss battle, but there was no getting around the fact it was a rehash of the first episode’s “Eru Is Good At Everything And Everybody Loves Him”, and it felt smaller and less sprawling than the first, which covered several years. Maybe Eru’s dealings with the kings and/or the knight runner elite will provide some challenge for him, but as he never struggled that mightily against a damn Behemoth, I’m not holding my breath!

Kakegurui – 02

Yumeko considers Ryouta a friend—even to the point of first-name terms—but he doesn’t seem like her romantic interest. At the moment, that seems to be gambling itself, with only the highest of risks giving her any kind of pleasure. But the OP strongly suggests a very close relationship to come with the yuki-onna-looking student council president, Momobari Kirari.

In a bit of necessary exposition, Ryouta tells Yumeko that ever since Mombari rose to power (winning her position from the predecessor with gambling, natch) the bullying of the “livestock”—the 100 or so students with the least luck and hence most debt—has intensified exponentially. Thanks to Yumeko’s gift, Ryouta is no longer a “Fido”, but after her defeat Mary is a “Lassie”, and doesn’t take to it well.

But Yumeko has little time to concern herself with those she’s already beaten; she seeks a stronger opponent, and this week they come to her: the youngest member of the council, first-year Sumeragi Itsuki, daughter of a multi-billion-yen toy company CEO.

Itsuki challenges Yumeko to a game of “Double Card Memory” involving two freshly-opened decks of cards provided by Itsuki and—as I figured—also manufactured by her dad’s company so that she can cheat people.

For the second straight week, it would appear that those at the top of the pile at Hyakkaou Academy aren’t there by playing by the rules or even being exceptionally lucky—it’s more a matter of creating a way to make your own luck.

In the case of Sumeragi Itsuki, she uses a tiny part of the back-of-card design to let her know which deck is which on the table. Once she beats Yumeko in the first match—winning the 20 million she fronted Yumeko—Yumeko tearfully begs her for a rematch, even agreeing to go along with what Itsuki wants Yumeko to front: her fingernails and toenails, which Itsuki obsessively collects and decorates. Ew!

Unfortunately for the freshman, Yumeko not only has exceptional memory, but saw through her trump, and never gives her an opportunity to flip a single card in the rematch. It’s only when Itsuka goes a bit mad that Yumeko gladly joins in the madness. And when she recommends Itsuka wager her nails, it reduces her opponent to big soppy tears.

Yumeko responds to the shameless display with disgust; after a second “gamblinggasm”, Yumeko has been made officially “bored” by the simpering Itsuka. On to the next victi-er, opponent.

President Momobari quickly hears of Sumeragi’s defeat and Yumeko’s quick rise, and instructs the rest of the (very eccentric) student council to start “meddling in her affairs,” clearly intrigued by this newcomer and eager to test the limits of her prowess—if they indeed exist!

Ryouta accompanies Yumeko to the after-hours games at the traditional culture research club, and come upon yet another pathetic scene: Saotome Mary digging her debt-hole over 49 million yen deeper. I wonder if this will be an ongoing thing with Mary losing more and more, or if Yumeko will find it in her heart to save her first victim the same way she saved Ryouta, who was only ever nice to her.

In any case, I’m enjoying the friendliness and politeness with which students challenge one another, a facade which gradually devolves into face-contorting madness, over-the-top posturing and yelling, and the aforementioned “gamblinggasms.” Kakegurui can be thick on the explaining, but is generally just flat-out fun.

Re:Creators – 14

With the nature of the operation to bring down Altair in place, Kikuchihara brings in dozens of creators to brief them on how things are going to work. The anime that will unite all of the Creations’ worlds and stories will be called Border World Coliseum, and it will be unveiled at the “Elimination Chamber Festival” at Nissan Stadium.

The goal is not to make the best anime ever, but to create an anime—and source material and spin-offs of the existing anime—that the public will “accept”, as in, win their approval and fandom. Only then do they have a chance against Altair, who has no one, set, official Creator.

As such, the Creators are the ones who take center stage, with the Creations in the background searching for the new arrival. It’s a hit-and-miss affair; watching a limp battle between a bunch of thinly-drawn characters’ personalities in a nondescript room doesn’t exactly set the heart aflame.

However, it does demonstrate the problems that arise from sudden unexpected alliances in the industry, combined with a need to collaborate with one another despite wildly-different styles, all with tight deadlines many Creators are used to blowing by without consequence.

When Suruga draws an awesome drawing really fast right in front of Marine, who takes longer to produce art and doesn’t have a lot of confidence, Marine storms out to have a little cry. When Souta goes out to reassure her, he tells him there’s nothing he can say to convince her she’s not “bad”; all she can do is the best she can and hope this whole thing works out.

The grind of doing so can be painful and make her feel useless, but as the episode title continues, “it’s fun nevertheless.” That gets (the very useless-feeling) Souta thinking: maybe he should contribute something creatively to the operation. We don’t hear any specifics of his idea, but Matsubara and Suruga seem to think he indeed has an important contribution to make.

As for the newcomer, or rather newcomers (there were two such phenomena detected, suggesting two of them), the first appears before Selesia and Kanoya while they’re simply walking around town. She’s a high school student in a green uniform with rose-colored hair—an echo of Mamika’s pink. 

The new OP (with a nice new theme) suggests she’s from a Romance while the new ED suggests she’ll be on Team Beat Altair. Either way, there’s nothing like a couple of new players appearing on the board to freshen up the game.

Fate / Apocrypha – 02

While still not quite exciting enough to fully recommend, the second episode of Fate/Apoc is nevertheless an improvement, as things move from the explanation of the mechanics of this new Grail War to all of its various players. There are many little scenes in which a master and servant introduce themselves.

That interaction ranges from Gordes yelling at his Black Saber, Siegfried, to Celenike licking her new “toy”, Black Rider AKA Astolfo, 12th Paladin of Charlemagne. The servants are represented not just from historical heroes, but a fictional monster like Frankenstein’s, or Jack the Ripper.

Kairi meets and gets to know Red Saber AKA Mordred, “son” of Arthur. Kairi gets off to the wrong start when he calls her a woman, but as long as she’s able to pull an Excalibur-like sword out of the stone and become King, she’s willing to work with the guy. Aside from Caules testing Black Berserker (Frankenstein)’s power, Red Saber and Kairi’s raid of the Yggdmillennia stronghold of Trifas is the only sustained action we get.

It’s a quick fight, only meant to test both sides of the conflict, and Red Saber and Kairi find a nice rhythm. I also liked Saber’s ability to add and shed armor according to the situation (she seems prefer wearing as little as possible)

We’ve got two Sabers, two Archers, two Assassins, two Berserkers…you get the idea. But there’s also a “watchdog” in Kotomine Shirou, who is planning to kill the fifteenth servant to make an appearance in this war: Ruler, who bookends this episode and is established as being Jeanne d’Arc (the second one I’m watching after Baha Soul) and being on her way to Trifas.

We’ve yet to met her master, but as he and she are listed as the two main characters (and displayed as such in the promo art) this is still very much another piece-introducing and arranging episode. Other than the deliberate pace, the animation still sticks out as lacking compared to ufotable works, but at the same time the characters seem to have a lot more “punch” to them, particularly the more fiery Red Saber.