Isekai Quartet – 03 – Status Report

IQ continues to explore various combinations between characters through casual interactions. Demiurge ends up doing what he usually does—explain to all what Lord Ains has already realized: they’re trapped in another world and forced to become students. Only as usual, he’s several steps ahead of his lord and Ains has to pretend otherwise.

A flyer for an upcoming student talent show is distributed, which should also provide a vehicle for the characters to get to know each other better. Ram is typically ruthless in her criticism of Subaru, declaring his talent to be “failing at life.”

Beatrice is called a “little girl” by two of Tanya’s underlings, but when she visits the lounge to talk to Roswaal, it’s one of Tanya’s superiors, who uses his hypnotic voice to convince her to return to class. In “Betty” he sees another potential “demon in a little girl’s skin”, causing Tanya to sneeze (and Aqua to bless her).

Aqua’s mention of gods/goddesses, words Tanya hates, reminds her of “Being X”, and back in class she decides to confront Lord Ains in the off-chance he may knows something. But when she asks Ains to meet her, Albedo becomes defensive, eventually befriending Rem, as they both agree that love has no set conditions nor a duration to take root.

Note…there’s not much to say here, as this is an inherently uneventful show—Avengers: Endgame it is not! It’s more just enjoying all these characters bounce off each other with zero stakes.

One Punch Man 2 – 03 – Icarus

The buildup to the inevitable clash with Saitama continues as Garo bags his first S-Class Hero, Tank Top Master. Tank gets a few choice shots in, but is stopped from finishing Garo when Mumen Rider intervenes on the grounds Garo is “merely” a human. Neither he nor Tank are apparently aware that this is the guy officially classified as a Monster by the HA.

Tank gets some licks in, but can’t deal with Garo’s martial arts tecnique. We also learn Garo is a former student of Bang, AKA Silverfang, through another student, Charanko.

Bang, who is going to deal with Garo himself (with help from his big bro) beat Charanko up in order to get him out of the line of fire, but Charanko ends up another one of Garo’s victims.

Who should visit all three in the hospital (with complementary bananas!) but Saitama, who is primarily there for Mumen, but ends up meeting Tank and Charanko as well. He wants to learn more about martial arts in order to take Garo on, and Charanko gives him a ticket to an upcoming tournament in which he can no longer participate due to injury.

Garo’s reign of terror continues as he borrows a unibrowed kid’s Hero Guide to learn not only who the local heroes are, but their styles and trump cards. When he challenges the slingshot-wielding Golden Ball to an alley brawl, Ball is initially confident, like Tank was, but he has to be bailed out by another Hero, the saber-wielding Spring Mustache, who gets a knuckle sandwich for his trouble.

When Ball tells Garo he “can’t keep this up forever,” as he’ll eventually encounter a hero he can’t beat, Garo scoffs. He’ll believe it when he sees it; meanwhile, he’ll continue doing what he wants—wasting heroes—until the day comes when someone can stop him.

That day comes far sooner than he expected, as after beating up a horny HA official, Garo has a chance encounter with our One Punch Man. Saitama says “I’ve been looking all over for you,” and Garo assumes he’s addressing him, and takes the first shot, a devastating chop to the shoulder that…does nothing at all to Saitama.

Saitama merely delivers the same blow to Garo, dropping him to the pavement, before continuing with what he was doing: seeking out a wig to buy so he can impersonate Charanko in the martial arts tournament.  And so, Garo ends up flying too close to the sun and gets burnt, big time. Thankfully for him, Saitama doesn’t know who he is, and lets him go free.