Golden Kamuy – 41 – Ainupocalypse Now

We’re back with the main gang in the present day, and with time to kill before Tsurumi meets up with them, Sugimoto and Asirpa hang out in the woods while she performs Ainu rituals and hopes a wolverine will come her way so she can taste its brains. They then encounter something completely new: a two-man film crew with a cinematograph.

When a wolverine pounces on the back of one of the men, Sugimoto and Asirpa spring into action with bow and rifle, and the cameraman captures it all. Asirpa gets to taste her wolvy brains (and watch Sugimoto taste them too), but they probably didn’t think much of the little wooden box with the crank until its owner takes it back into town.

There, he explains it’s a relatively new French invention to which he owns the Japanese rights. He then proceeds to play some of the footage of Aniu he’s taken, and everyone is unexpectedly amazed by the dancing pictures. Asirpa, who is of late extremely preoccupied with preserving her culture, decides to don a director’s cap, and Sugimoto reminds the filmmakers that she saved their asses.

Everyone chips in on the ensuing production, which starts with simple folk stories involving dicks and dick copycats (the copycat always dies in the end like the moron he is; Asirpa’s casting of Shiraishi as said moron is an inspired choice).

When she’s not satisfied with how the production is going she shifts from comedy to drama and a story of three brothers, one of whom turns into a bird kamuy. The seriousness is somewhat undone by a nearly-naked Tanigaki bursting out of the bird suit, but Asirpa is happy with the shoot.

Koito arranges for them to screen Asirpa’s masterpiece in a theater, and seeing themselves in the moving pictures is surely an invigorating experience. Then the filmmakers decide to surprise Asirpa with some footage they took ten years ago. In it, she gets to see her father Wilk before his face was lost, and also gets to see her mother for the very first time.

While I laughed during the goofy dick-filled filmmaking scenes earlier, I teared up when I saw Asirpa’s family, and especially her desperately beautiful and powerful mom, from whom she inherited so much without ever knowing her. Kiroranke also makes an appearance in the footage, but it’s her mom who seems to cast a spell on her and everyone in the theater.

But then, as was a not-so-uncommon occurrence in the early days of cinema, the projector light set the film on fire and burned it, not only destroying the all the footage Asirpa & Co. took that day, but also the only images of her mother to ever exist. The first time she saw her was also the last. Utterly dejected, Asirpa walks out into the cold night alone.

Sugimoto follows her to ensure she’s alright, but she’s not. Film, she says, is a wonderful invention, but it’s not nearly enough to keep her people’s culture alive. And she’s right. Literally seeing it through a lens is totally different from learning and living it from other Ainu. The footage was enlightening, but also cold, especially relative to her warm memories of her father telling her stories.

Asirpa is definitely putting far too much of a burden on her slender shoulders to save the Ainu from certain cultural oblivion, and yet she can’t stop. Sugimoto calls it a “curse”, for while much of it is her own will, she can’t deny that will was shaped in her formative years by the likes of Wilk and Kiroranke, who all but forced her to carry on their legacies.

Whatever she has to do to achieve her goals, Asirpa knows it will require gold, and lots of it. But Sugimoto knows that with gold comes blood. He admits to her that part of him wants to preserve the innocence he lost by protecting her, but he also knows that he already inhabits a kind of hell of his own making; a hell he assures Asirpa she won’t like. Nothing will change her more from what she should be than killing.

Leave it to Golden Kamuy to gradually build up our Sugisirpa withdrawl for three straight weeks and then pounce on our back like a wolverine with a gem of an episode that’s both bawdy and fun, and part heartbreaking and redemptive.

Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War – 04 – Piling Up the Ls

16 distinct invaders are identified by Squad 12, and within 7 minutes of their arrival, over a thousand shinigami are dead, most of them rank-and-file, but apparently also some as high-ranking as Lieutenant Kira. In order to stem the slaughter, the Captains get involved, meeting the challenge of their Quincy counterparts. Squad 2 Captain Soi Fon, Squad 6 Captain Kuchiki, Squad 7 Captain Komamura, and Squad 10 Captain Hitsugaya all take on the nearest Stern Ritter with their lieutenants standing by.

It quickly becomes clear that their conventional shikai attacks are useless against the Quincy, so one by one they summon their bankais, thereby falling right into the Quincies’ trap. Captain Kurotsuchi discovers too late that they don’t seal bankai, they steal bankai. And so just like that, four of the toughest motherfuckers in the Gotei 13 find themselves toothless against their foes. Hitsugaya even loses his composure in front of Matsumoto!

With Kurotsuchi racing to the front lines with his belated news, his underling Akon unilaterally makes the call to Ichigo via Urahara, who tells him Ichigo is busy with a Quincy opponent of his own. However, once Urahara learns how badly Soul Society is doing, he cuts the battle short by impaling Qulge Opie with a pillar of golden light and putting Ichigo on the phone.

Ichigo is, as expected, Soul Society (and Hueco Mundo’s) last hope against the Wandenreich, because reasons so far unknown even to Squad 12, his bankai alone can’t be stolen by the Quincy. So Urahara sends him off to Soul Society right away to spell the hurting Gotei 13.  Unfortunately, he was too confident his surprise attack killed Quilge, who launches a surprise attack of his own.

Rather than a direct attack, Quilge targets the Garganta in which Ichigo currently resides, using bonds of blue flame to close the opening and imprisoning Ichigo in what amounts to a giant hamster ball (or cat toy). Needless to say, this is not an optimal series of events. It’s now up to Orihime, Chad, and an injured Urahara—along with whoever else in Hueco Mundo can still hold a weapon—to take Quilge out, before the Quincy take out Soul Society.

To Your Eternity – S2 02 – Going to Town

With everyone else out cold, Tonari and Hisame have a little chat, but it quickly descends into violence as Hisame’s arm has a mind and will of its own (specifically Hayase’s). Once it gets its Nokker tendrils into Tonari’s hands, I knew it probably wasn’t going to go well for her. Her trusty owl Ligard knocks Hisame out with her poison talons, but the Nokker arm isn’t affected and drags Hisame into the night.

Tonari loses consciousness, and when Fushi comes to as an honored guest of the village elder, he finds her already on her death bed. There’s nothing her companion can do. All Tonari asks is that Fushi stay by her side until she “croaks”, and also show her all of the friends he’s made.

Fushi proceeds to transform into everyone from the original Boy to Tonari’s dead family, noting that his friends Tonari and Sander are still alive (he’d know if they weren’t). But what he doesn’t realize is that the two of them are right beside him, though Tonari soon dies and Sander says goodbye without revealing their identities.

It’s only when Fushi takes Tonari’s form and finds her journal behind her back that he realizes it was her all along, and that it’s always better to have many arrows than one. Now Tonari is part of his shapeshifting quiver. He soon runs into Hisame in the woods.

He wants to remove her Nokker arm, but she refuses, even when he transforms into Tonari. That night after wrapping her arm, she tells him that is her and her predecessor’s dream to have a child with him, which she hopes can happen if they “sleep together”. Both of them take this literally, which is obviously for the best!

The next day Fushi finds Hisame’s minders and returns her to them, and there’s a moment of levity as the Beholder tells Fushi that his reproductive organs work just fine, so he can “go to town” whenever. Again, Fushi takes this literally to go into town to make friends, and the Beholder doesn’t comment further, leaving Fushi to either figure out things in that arena to himself or not.

He travels from city to city, never staying longer than a couple of days lest the Nokkers have time to show up and take root. He has little luck making new friends, largely because whenever they seem friend-worthy he worries about watching them die, and breaks things off.

His only constant companions in the ensuing years are leaders of the Guardians, starting with Hisame’s Daughter (who was born many years after she and Fushi parted ways). Then her granddaughter, great-granddaughter, and so on for a few more generations show up, the latest being Kahaku, the first male successor. One would hope at this point in time that Hayase’s fye has mellowed a bit.

More than a married couple, but not lovers. – 04 – Shoulder to cry on

During P.E. class when Minami is playing basketball and generally looking like a higher form of life, both Akari and Jirou hear from their friend(s) that he and Shiori are considering staying with one another as a marriage practical couple despite making A-rank.

This news obviously puts a wrench in Akari and Jirou’s plan, leaving both feeling blue. Jirou, knowing how much Akari likes Minami, imagines he’s in a fantasy video game and Minami ends up beating the final boss and winning the hearts of both heroines.

When Jirou and Shiori cross paths, to Jirou’s credit he doesn’t pretend something isn’t bothering him, and Shiori’s known him long enough to know that something is. She says she’s not sure yet whether she and Minami are extending their time together, so Jirou starts to try to tell her he’ll work hard to attain A-rank so that they can be paired together.

Meanwhile, Akari gets cleanup duty for chatting during P.E., and ends up crossing paths with Minami. His sudden presence in the storage room startles her, and she bumps into a shelf, causing a box to start to fall. Minami rushes towards her and starts to fall, leaving them face-to-face.

Akari asks Minami what Jirou asked Shiori, and his answer is yes, he’ll stay by Shiori’s side “forever” if that’s what she wants. Throughout the whole exchange but unbeknownst to Minami, Akari’s heart is beating like a hummingbird, and when she hears what sounds like a rejection from his lips, she starts to cry. Then Minami puts his hand on her chin…

I say Jirou started to tell Shiori he wanted to pair with her, because he isn’t able to get the words out. I would have hoped Shiori would have gotten the gist but she apparently doesn’t when Jirou’s friend Kamo interrupts, having seen Akari and Minami in the storage room together.

But before Kamo can say anything, Minami and Akari exit the school, and Jirou senses a strange atmosphere. Minami and Shiori head home together chatting spiritedly about nothing in particular, while Akari acts awkward and distant towards Jirou and heads off on her own.

He later learns that Akari ditched class, and Kamo tells him he witnessed “kissing going on” between Minami and Akari. He shrugs it off as having nothing to do with him, but it’s clear that he has conflicting feelings about it, what with he and Akari getting along so well of late.

When he comes home, Akari is lying on the couch on her phone, looking morose. He sits down beside her, sarcastically apologizes for not being Minami, and she asks him upfront why he’d bring him up. That’s when, again, to his credit, Jirou doesn’t beat around the bush, but says what he heard: that she was kissing Minami after P.E.

Akari laughs it off, as in reality he was just checking her eye for dust; Kamo saw what he wanted to saw from the angle he had. Akari thinks it’s “hilarious” that Jirou thought a misunderstanding from “straight out of a manga” took place. But Jirou tells her he was ready to root for her, and it’s only fair to expect her to get some kind of return considering how hard she’s been working to get Minami to look her way.

At this, Akari’s mask of sarcasm drops, and bitter tears of frustration start to fall. Jirou is right in theory, but the reality is Minami doesn’t see her that way, and more and more seems to be content to be with Shiori, even beyond the marriage practical situation. When she realizes she’s crying in front of Jirou, she tells him to look away, and he does … kinda. He pulls her into an embrace so that his head is next to hers.

In this way, he’s technically “looking away”, but he’s also there for her, in a moment when she needs someone to be there. She needs to have a good cry without the pressure of having to hold it in to keep up appearances. At this point, Jirou knows who Watanabe Akari is more than anyone else at school, Minami included. And Akari, no doubt having that feeling of being safe and secure in Jirou’s arms, puts her arm around him and cries it out.

After this cathartic moment, Jirou feels self-conscious for overreaching, literally and figuratively, but he did the right thing, as evidenced by Akari’s mood after a cleansing shower. First, she borrows one of his t-shirts, resulting in the deceptively powerful boyfriend shirt scenario. Then she plops right down beside him, leans on him, and has some ice cream as she watches TV.

When he insists he’s no longer overwhelmed by situations like this, she puts her ear to his chest and calls him a liar, as his heart is racing. Of course, since she was worried Minami could hear her beating heart in the storage room, she can relate, which is why she’s so comfortable around Jirou now.

She also hastens to mention that she’s not so “easy” that she’d kiss Minami on a whim, and in any case, she says to him for the first time that her first kiss ever was with Jirou. Jirou sits there unresponsive as she shakes him and urges him to answer for that kiss, and as he does, he admits in his thoughts how happy he feels.

Perhaps for the first time, he’s not thinking about losing Shiori to Minami, or Akari preferring Minami to him. He and and Akari are simply sitting together on their couch, enjoying each other’s company; a cozy, caring family of two. It’s something I could honestly watch all day.

Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury – 05 – A Patch of Black Ice

For those girls (and guys) for whom the fiery Guel Jetark isn’t their cup of tea, they have the apparent opposite in Elan Ceres. They call him the “ice prince”, and long to melt his icy heart. If they only knew. Elan rarely duels, but he’s 7-0 after winning a 3-on-1 affair that was never close.

Elan is also working on behalf of Piel Technologies, but unlike Guel, he’s treated more employee than son to their four-woman leadership group. After winning, he surprises Suletta with a phone call … and asks her out on a date. Her Earth House girls go giddy (Chuchu excepted).

In another demonstration of how different she and Elan are, Suletta calls her mom, who is supportive of her daughter branching out and getting to know others better—the move forward, gain two ethos. But after getting off the phone with her daughter, Lady Prospera gets a report about Peil “making its move”—faster than anticipated.

Meanwhile, Elan hasn’t been talking to Suletta because she’s a friend; indeed, I do not believe he understands such a concept. He’s been pumping her for information and context on Aerial on behalf of the company he serves. We also see that he’s an “enhanced person” created for the sole purpose of piloting a Gundam.

This culminates in Suletta letting Elan into Aerial’s cockpit for a routine survey of the testing area (which is definitely an idea for a date). He observes how easily she pilots Aerial, and she says she’s never felt suffering doing so, but actually always feels at ease.

Elan then asks to pilot Aerial on his own—an astonishing ask but one Suletta happily grants because she thinks Elan’s a friend. Piloting it convinces him that Aerial is the key to “breaking the curse” of the suffering he feels every time he takes the controls of his mobile suits.

When he returns to Suletta, the kindly mask has dropped. Her usefulness to him and the faux friendship he fostered is no longer needed. Now he has the information he needs, and she’s just an annoyance, especially with her entitled belief that Aerial is “family.”

Seeing this honest side of Elan upsets Suletta, and his cold words cause her to cry. That’s just when Guel arrives, sees Suletta’s eyes, and demands to know what Elan is doing, with the answer determining whether they duel. That’s just fine with Elan. Whether he intended to use Suletta as bait or not, Guel’s timing works out perfectly.

While it’s good of Guel to stand up for Suletta, she hasn’t quite turned against the hope that Elan is a good person and a friend, so she objects to the duel, but it’s not her call: Shaddiq tells her if she doesn’t like current conditions, she’s welcome to change them in a subsequent duel.

The stakes are set: if Guel wins, Elan will stay away from Suletta from now on. If Elan wins—and I had a feeling he was going to win easily—he gets to duel Suletta. Guel’s red mobile suit is out of commission, he uses his brother Lauda’s Dilanza, even though their father forbade him from dueling.

That Guel is willing to incur more of his dear father’s wrath speaks to the genuine affection he’s gained for Suletta and his desire to keep others from making her cry. Underneath the bluster he’s an honorable guy.

But honor, like smiling, laughing, birthdays or family, is not something in Elan’s programming. Suletta’s been interacting with a doll designed to learn as much about her for his employers’ sake, as well as his own (lifting the aforementioned curse). Elan surprises all when he arrives at the duel in a new suit—the Pharact. It’s a menacing, bat-like suit with its own drone swarm system.

It looks every bit like the dark sibling of Suletta’s Aerial. Guel is mad as hell, and kicks up a lot of dust in the dueling ground. This unwittingly creates the conditions by which he is defeated: the dust, charged with static electricity, gets into the gaps and joints in Dilanza’s armor.

Elan’s drones create laser-like webs that in concert with the dust Guel himself kicked up, has the effect of an EMP, shutting down Dilanza’s systems and leaving him immobilized. Elan takes an easy win, and the Peil Group’s engineer (and Elan’s minder) confronts Lady Prospera, who concludes there was “another witch all along.” The Peil woman addresses her as senpai, suggesting she was part of the same research group that developed Aerial.

Elan again makes a prompt phone call to Suletta, to arrange another “date.” This time, it will take the form of an official school duel, and if he wins, he will claim Aerial for himself. And this, folks, is why Suletta should have probably listened to everyone telling her to stay away from people from the three branches—including Guel, someone from those branches.

Now, I can’t imagine Suletta will lose to Elan next week—especially if Miorine lends a hand, nor to I believe Aerial will fall into the hands of a rival company. The only question is whether Suletta, who is no doubt still confused and hurt by Elan’s treatment of her, can switch gears and do what needs to be done to defeat her most implacable enemy yet.

As for Elan? I’ll admit to hating him more than Guel now, but I also understand the kid has suffered his whole life, is looking for release, and the only thing in his way is a silly girl who calls a Gundam “family”, a word that’s meaningless to him since he never had one.

In Elan Ceres, Peil created an organic machine to pilot their metal one. But Suletta is, if nothing else, an ordinary human fueled her whole life by love and support. That should prove the edge in this duel.

Spy x Family – 17 – If You Have Love, You Can Fly (But Jets Work Too)

Anya’s initial attempt to impress Damian with news of her new dog failed, so she’s brought a new family portrait to “accidentally” drop when Damian is passing by, hoping he’ll see it and marvel at Bond’s grand floofiness.

Unfortunately it doesn’t go as planned, as Damian and his toadies ignore the photo. It flies off and is picked up by Becky, who is immediately smitten with the hot guy and asks Anya if he’s “seeing anyone”. A dismayed Anya responds “Papa is married to Mama!”

In a stroke of luck for Anya, she and Damian are paired off for and arts-and-crafts project: making an animal. Becky ends up making a model of Loid with a “battle suit” from her dad’s company, and when substitute teacher Mr. Henderson tells her the assignment was animals, she once again demonstrates her precociousness by stating “In the end, humans are animals too”, something our mustachioed paragon of elegance cannot dispute.

Anya doesn’t fair so well, as she’s as bad at arts and crafts as her Mama is (or at least was) at cooking. When she reads Damian’s mind to make a griffin, the heraldic beast of his family, she magnanimously offers to assist, but proves absolute rubbish, building legs with jet engines and uneven feathers. Damian is so pissed by her uselessness he makes her and another girl cry, inviting a scolding from Mr. Henderson, who exclaims “Not Elegant!”

Henderson understands Damian probably wants to impress his father, but he tells Damian there’s no need to rush; all he can do is what he can with the resources he has. The resulting “griffin”, with Anya’s interpretation of a griffin beside it, looks like a disaster, but it invokes patriotic fervor in one of the bigwig judges, and the pair end up winning first prize.

The griffin is proud-looking despite its sorry state, while what is interpreted as “the corpse of an innocent baby griffin” moved the judge to strong emotion. It’s a great bit of still art.

Unfortunately, Anya doen’t really make any progress in her friendship to Damian, nor does the prize include any Stella. But as big of a jerk as he often is to Anya, I couldn’t help but feel bad when he called home and had to settle with talking to the butler Jeeves, since his father is away in more ways than one, and generally disinterested in his second son.

The episode switches gears to do a brief profile of Sylvia Sherwood, AKA Handler, AKA Fullmetal Lady, so-called due to her flawless performance as a spymaster for Westalis. Varying cinematic shots of her walking down the street create a sense of paranoia, but her tail turns out to be a couple of easily-fooled guys who never considered she’d use the public pool locker rooms to change into a disguise and give them the slip.

We witness two separate meetings between Sylvia and Loid, with the episode underscoring that every meeting threatens both of their lives. So it’s amusing both that Loid makes sure not to tell the Fullmetal Lady that the tag on her dress is still on, and also that his “report” to her on Operation Strix involves Anya’s athletic progress.

The final post-credits skit, basically an omake, is a flashback to when Anya would cook dishes for Yuri to eat (all of which are pixelated and feature worryingly unnatural colors), and Yuri scarfs it down with a smile in between projectile vomiting. When he tells her she’ll make a great wife, she gets bashful and slaps him so hard he bounces off the floor and spins horizontally to the far end of the room.

This combination of being repeatedly poisoned and thrashed about due to his sister not knowing her strength is what makes Yuri the excellent operative he is today. He’s been toughened to such an extent that getting his by a truck is of absolutely no consequence. After all, Yor’s tougher than a truck.

Urusei Yatsura – 03 – In Flies Another Hassle

It’s just another day in Ataru’s class with Lum hanging off of him and Shinobu throwing chairs and desks at him in, but then the mega-rich transfer student Mendou Shuutarou leaps out of one of his family’s fleet of private helicopters and is hit by one of the desks Shinobu throws. Shinobu approaches him to apologize and is immediately smitten with Mendou … giving a concerned Ataru a foot to the face.

Ataru doesn’t have to worry … much, as the moment Mendou spots Lum floating around class, he loses all interest in Shinobu. Unfortunately for him, Lum only cares about her Darling, Ataru. Mendou arrives on the day of the election for class president, but worried his administration will be too punitive towards his fellow male students, the lads nominate Ataru to run against him.

When the two tie (Ataru getting all the boys’ votes, Mendou getting all the girls’), Mendou challenges Ataru to a traditional Mendou family duel: a William Tell routine, but with cannon instead of pistols. In order to commence the duel Mendou has to throw a glove at Ataru, but finds it impossible due to Ataru’s ninja-like elusiveness. He ends up hitting Lum with his duel glove instead, and she zaps him for his trouble.

Despite the principal insisting students aren’t allowed to parachute into school, Mendou arrives the same way as his first day, only this time Lum runs into him instead of a desk, and the two get tangled in his parachute. Lum was searching for her Darling, who slipped away to have a private chat with Shinobu.

To Ataru’s dismay, Shinobu plainly admits she has the hots for Mendou and sees no reason why it’s any of his lecherous, cheating-ass’s business. Just then, the parachute falls, and Mendou ends up on top of Shinobu, who is as elated by the experience as Ataru is mortified.

When the class goes on a team-building trip to the woods, we see Lum in human clothes for the first time, and it’s clear she’s got fine fashion sense. As usual, Ataru would prefer to be alone with Shinobu than her, so when Mendou asks Lum if she’ll accompany him to explore a nearby limestone cave, Ataru invites Shinobu.

All four know that a cave means the potential for scary darkness and clinging to the one you like. The only problem is, everyone likes someone who doesn’t like them: Lum wants Ataru, Ataru wants Shinobu, Shinobu wants Mendou, and Mendou wants Lum. It’s a perfect romantic Ouroboros!

As expected, Ataru never ends up with his preferred clingmate, despite conspiring with Mendou to turn out their flashlights simultaneously. He first ends up with Lum while Shinobu gets Mendou. The next time they try it, the two boys end up with each other.

That’s when Ataru learns that Mendou becomes terrified to the point of tears and raving when he’s in a confined dark space … but only when girls aren’t looking at him. As in, even if Lum and Shinobu are right there with him, he wails like a baby when Ataru covers the girls’ eyes.

If it wasn’t clear from our previous dealings with Mendou, he’s just as much a lady-obsessed chowderhead as Ataru, only richer. He’s also voiced by fellow comedy vet Miyano Mamoru, one of the few seiyuu of his generation who can go toe-to-toe with Kamiya Hiroshi.

When the flashlights crap out for real, Lum is fed up and uses her electrical powers to light the way. But by doing so, she activates some kind of alien spaceship that was embedded in the rock, causing it to launch and create a huge hole in the caverns.

Everyone’s safe and sound, with the boys and girls embracing one another this time, but the ship attains Earth orbit and its passenger looks poised to awaken at any time … let’s hope next week. The more zany characters the merrier!

Akiba Maid War – 04 – Full Metal Piglet

It’s a blessing that there are no previews for this show because I have no earthly idea what this show is going to throw at me from week to week. When the 9-second cold open consisted of a very confused Nagomi being thrown off a building, I was still stumped, but that was a hell of a start…pigs are flying!

The Oinky-Doink Café’s parent company Creatureland comes into focus this week as there’s the maid yakuza equivalent of a corporate summit. The leader brings three managers up, including Tenchou (the only non-maid in the room aside from Otakuza), and shoots someone skimming sweets money in the stomach.

The message is clear: clean it up. Oinky-Doink doesn’t skim, but despite having a capable star in Yumechi and two heavies in Ranko and Zoya, they’re not earning as much as Creatureland would like. So they send Drillmaster Sano to whip them into shape. Her first act is to kick Tenchou and Panda out of the café.

The multi-day boot camp starts at 5:00 AM with Ranko calmly slapping Nagomi awake. The five maids go through a number of grueling drills and are constantly verbally and physically abused by Sano. Anyone who’s watched any show or movie with boot camp can see the pattern here.

Sano’s goal as representative of Creatureland is to increase the Oinky-Doink’s revenue, which means breaking down what she perceives as a bunch of undisciplined slackers and building them back up into frilly money-making machines. We also know that Sano isn’t just being a sadist dick; her own life depends on her results.

That threat gives the conflict between the Oinky-Doink maids and the corporate stooge Sano more dimension, to the point Sano almost seems to panic when the maids collectively decide to boycott day two of boot camp. She only asks to speak with each of them alone on the roof before she leaves them.

When it’s Nagomi’s turn, we know she’s being thrown off the building. What we didn’t know is that Sano catches her before she falls to her death. While she has Nagomi suspended, Sano tells her their two arms that are keeping her alive represent the relationship between the group and its maids.

Sano also shows her how scraped up and bloody her arm got when she caught Nagomi, showing her the depths the group will go to protect its maids. Nagomi is a crying mess, but returns to the cafe a changed person. Shiipon is the last of the maids to get “thrown” off the roof but shrugs it off, but the others have already fallen in line, and decide that Sano can stay and teach them.

The montage that follows consists of the maids gradually being shaped into the obedient automatons Creatureland intends them to be. There’s no more hesitation in their responses to Sano, and now that they know what’s expected of all of them, they’re quick to point out one another’s flaws throughout the day, and just as quick to accept criticism from each other.

The exception is Shiipon, who doesn’t like what’s happening to her colleagues or her café. The last straw is when Sano demands she stop doing her ganguro makeup. One night she tries to sneak out, but Sano is lying in wait and sounds the alarm, and all the other girls chase after her with rope and handcuffs.

When Ranko corners her in the kitchen with a screwdriver, Shiipon thinks it’s all over, but to her surprise Ranko unscrews the exhaust fan to let her escape, “if that’s what she wants.” When Shiipon asks Ranko what she wants, it’s to protect the café. Shiipon looks out the opening, sees Tenchou and Panda scrounging for trash in the alley below, and decides to stay after all.

The next morning, Shiipon shocks everyone by showing up sans blond hair dye and gaudy makeup. She applies herself and becomes one of the worker bees, earning not only Sano’s trust, but her affection. Sano, whose life is on the line here, is clearly relieved that the one bad apple in this Oinky-Doink group has fallen in line.

On the day Sano leaves, she unleashes a torrent of critical vitriol at her grunts calling them the worst maids ever, but finishes it up by saying they’re also the best, and they all pass. Nagomi, Yumechi, and Zoya all burst into tears, Ranko is her usual stoic self, and while Shiipon puts her face in her hands, it’s clear she’s not as affected as the others.

The Oinky-Doink resumes normal operations, only now the maids are wound up so tight by Sano’s training there’s no fun or joy in their work. Nagomi looms in on her master trying to upsell him; Yumechi’s face is gaunt and her eyes baggy from overwork.

But then Tenchou returns, flanked by Panda…and Shiipon. Notably, Tenchou is brandishing a bazooka, and declares that she’s taking back her café. She and Panda are quickly taken down, and Ranko neutralize Zoya, but Shiipon takes the bazooka Tenchou drops and races to the roof where the giant wood “Creatureland” carving they worked on all week.

To her, that carved sign represents everything wrong that’s happened to the café, and blowing it up is the only way to bring back the joy and the fun of their work. When she blows it up real good Nagomi screams with agony, but the spell—or rather her indoctrination—is eventually broken.

Life returns to normal at Oinky-Doink, only with Nagomi having gained some useful skills during the boot camp. Shiipon is back to her normal hair color and makeup, and when Sano shows up to check on their progress and protests how everything is back to the way it was, Shiipon answers her with a devastating takedown punch.

While not all of what Sano instilled in the maids was bad—see Nagomi leveling up—she took things way too far. Being a maid is the only thing the noncommittal Shiipon has ever stuck with, and it became something worth fighting to preserve. Ranko played a key role as Shiipon’s silent ally, while Tenchou also established the limits to Creatureland’s oppression she’s willing to endure. Panda…was just kinda Panda.

Love Flops Dropped

The third and final episode of Love Flops I watched focused on Amelia Irving, who starts the episode under Asahi’s covers trying to put his toeprints on a wedding license. Why yes, she’s not wearing pants. Her obsessively hypercompetitive personality hits a snag when a kanji test looms. She starts to learn, but only the symbols she finds in pornographic literature. Asahi helps tutor her, and her test scores improve drastically.

While Amelia is the most interesting character by dint of having an episode centered around her, and I heart her seiyu Taketatsu Ayana always and forever (and appreciate that she needs to pay the bills), I’m content with just three episodes of this mostly dumb mess and calling it a day. If I need tutoring rom-com, I’ll wait for We Never Learn S3.

The Eminence in Shadow – 04 – World of Shadow

When Alexia awakens to find herself chained to a bed in a cell with a failed demon experiment sulking in the corner, she doesn’t panic. When a bone-stock mad scientist character comes in to draw blood, she doesn’t panic. Hanazawa Kana nails Alexia’s detached calm and faux sympathy for this lunatic.

Cid is also captive, since he’s the prime suspect in Alexia’s abduction. Internally, he’s not concerned about the physical torture he’s enduring, but doesn’t want his two interrogators to “out-unshine” him as Background Character A, so he responds as an NPC would: begging for his life.

Five days pass, and he says nothing, and under Zenon’s suggestion, Alexia’s sister Iris has him released, but followed. His tail is soon taken out by Alpha, and we learn from Cid that members of Shadow Garden have been paying him periodic visits to indulge him in the “game” he’s playing.

…Except it’s not a game for them. I couldn’t tell you why Alpha positions herself like she’s about to make out with Cid, but she announces that the Garden is planning a major op to rid the city of Diabolos.

Cid also spent all the money Alexia paid him to deck his place out like an Eminence Boss. When Beta’s face lights up at the sight of it and the sound of Cid doing his chunibyou voice, I have to admit, I lol’d!

But it’s not that Beta isn’t taking this seriously, just that she and her comrades are so powerful that she can afford to be more nonchalant, and revel in, say, quickly recording events as they unfold, like when Cid serves as the vanguard for the op and takes out the knights who tortured him.

Alpha, Beta, Delta, Gamma, and 110 other members of Shadow Garden are going all over the place raiding all the hideouts of the Fenrir Sect of the cult. When the Mad Scientist learns of these raids, he’s forced to accelerate his plans and inject his failed demon experiment with a prototype serum.

Alexia lazily warns him not to do that as she “has a bad feeling” about it, and sure enough, the massive berserk demon he creates kills him instantly. However, it doesn’t kill Alexia, it frees her. She grabs a sword and makes for the sewers to escape, but is stopped…by her sword instructor and betrothed, Zenon.

Like Alexia, I kinda knew there was something off about him; now we know, he’s a member of Diabolos. And while he has a little fun out-fencing her and punching her into the sewage, that fun doesn’t last long, as Cid emerges from the shadows in purest black, ready to hunt—and perhaps save his fake girlfriend as well.

To Your Eternity – S2 01 – Building Immunity

My first concern was that this second season of To Your Eternity wouldn’t feel quite right if the OP changed. Fortunately, the creators thought the same thing, and kept “Pink Blood”, just as House of the Dragon wisely kept the Game of Thrones theme for continuity’s sake.

When a village is suddenly attacked by Nokkers, there are those who come to protect the villagers, but Fushi isn’t one of them. He’s isolated himself on an island for forty years (two of them in the sea as various creatures), using his various forms to kill Nokkers as they come … and turning their dead cores into jerky.

Fushi thought the Nokkers were only interested in him, and so would only come to him, leaving the rest of the world safe from them. But one day the Beholder tells him that’s no longer the case. They’re attacking a village on another island, possibly to lure him out.

Fushi thought he was protecting humans by staying put, but now that he knows they’re still threatened, he doesn’t hesitate to make preparations to head there at once. But before he does, strangers arrive on his island, led by a nine-year-old girl with familiar eyes and hair.

She’s Hisame, the granddaughter of Hayase and a leader of the “Guardians”, a group that for the last forty years has been devoted to revering and one day supporting the Immortal One. While Hisame is a perfectly nice little girl, Fushi finds himself repelled from her, no doubt due to her connection to his former tormentor—not to mention the murderer of March and Parona.

Fushi keeps his distance, but one night when Hisame tries to sleep beside him, her grotesquely veiny arm reaches out as if outside her control. Turns out there’s a Nokker core within her arm, which was passed down to from her grandmother to her mother and now her. The Beholder explains that it contains the “fye”, or soul/spirit, of Hayase—and with it her will.

Fushi is weary, but he feels bad about regarding Hisame so suspiciously when it’s only that growth in her arm—a separate entity—that troubles him. He also can’t deny that he could use all the help he can get against the Nokkers. The Beholder suggests he get closer to Hisame little by little, building up an “immunity” to the negative feelings.

That night he builds boats for him, Hisame, and her party to take to the island where the village is being attacked by Nokkers. Hisame and the Guardians head into town first to get the lay of the place. While Fushi sits along from a high vantage point, he encounters two adult doctors who are there for the same reason he is: to help.

They also know Fushi the Immortal One well, as he’s become legendary throughout the land these last forty years. The female doctor closes in and warns him to stay weary of the so-called Guardians, who are only interested in one thing: possessing him, as Hayase did.

Hisame arrives in time to hear that and disputes it, and everyone heads into the village for dinner. There, Hisame insists the Guardians only want to help Fushi escape his “emotional prison” and aid him in defeating the Nokkers. She then asks her servants to serve everyone tea. The female doctor launches into a monologue about building up an immunity to the poisonous “silver bat”.

In the middle of her talking, both Fushi and her fellow doctor pass out, the result of poisoned tea. But she is still conscious, and even identifies the poison as morning glory. She asks for another cup of tea, which contains a different poison, but she’s immune to that too. Hisame calls for her comrades to seize her, but they’re all knocked out … by an owl.

Hisame then realizes who she’s dealing with: Tonari, who is now in her fifties and even tougher and more resourceful than her 14-year-old self when she first met Fushi on Jananda. She won’t let the reincarnation of Hayase and the Guardians have him so easily.

This second season had be excited for many reasons. First, Fushi can finally speak and act like a normal human due to all his past experiences and the benefit of time. He’s also a lot shrewder with his shapeshifting and better at hunting Nokkers.

I also like the big time jump. It makes sense that a forty years would hardly feel like anything to an immortal being, and I look forward to seeing how the world has changed since his absence, and who else besides Tonari may still be alive and well. And while the end theme did change, it’s very similar to, and just as trippy and weird as the previous one. I’ve missed you, TYE.

Chainsaw Man – 03 – Getting Attached

I was looking forward to an entire episode of Power, and I was not disappointed. This week is another combination of absurd action and gore and genuinely moving character drama. Turns out the devil Power slew belonged to a private hunter, which is a no-no and typically an arrestable offense.

But as Denji witnesses, Makima is like the mother who never yells or even raises her voice. She never has to. When Power insists Denji made her kill the devil and the two bicker, it only takes a couple softly spoken words from Makima to bring Power to nervous attention. She insists the two get along and work together from now on. No need for an “or else” either; that’s inferred.

When Denji mentions that even grabbing a drink from a vending machine is a dream come true for him, Power explains why she “fell into Makima’s clutches”: the possibility of rescuing her beloved cat, Meowy, from a demon. She’ll get along with Denji and even let him cop a feel if he helps her.

So Denji checks Power out for the day—she isn’t allowed to leave HQ on her own—and the two take a trolley and then bus out to where the demon who stole Meowy is located. Denji mentions that he had a pet devil he’s sad he can’t pet anymore, but who lives on in his heart.

Power tells him that’s nothing more than “miserable self-comfort”; she’s unaware that Pochita isn’t just in his heart, but is his heart. Meanwhile, their boss Makima goes before her bosses with a progress report. She mentions her new “pup” is “interesting” and they warn her not to get too attached to her hunting dogs.

Aki questions Denji’s utility relative to the amount of rope Makima is giving him, but Makima reminds Aki that the more powerful a devil’s name is, the more powerful the devil. A “coffee” devil isn’t that strong, but a chainsaw devil—especially one that can return to being a human—is most certainly interesting.

As soon as Denji and Power arrive at the outskirts of the city, I was already feeling apprehensive; such was the muted, incredibly bleak look of the place. But as Power closely followed Denji right up to the house and he asks if she should even be in sight considering the demon will use Meowy as a hostage, she pauses and then says she “misspoke”.

Denji draws his hatchet quickly, but still not fast enough to stop Power from summoning a sledge from her blood, with which she brains him. Meowy’s kidnapper is a giant bat devil, and Denji is the payment for getting Meowy back. The bat grabs Denji and squeezes him, as human blood will heal his wounded arm, but he tosses Denji aside when his blood tastes terrible.

I can’t really blame Power for making this deal, especially after getting a look at the adorable Meowy trapped in a birdcage, and after a flashback to a far wilder Power who saved a starving, shivering Meowy from a bear. Meowy became her constant companion, one of the only voices she heard that wasn’t screaming.

But just as she betrayed Denji, the bat devil goes back on his word, swallowing Meowy, cage and all. As he lets out a loud gulp, Power turns to the battered Denji and tells him now she understands how he feels, having lost her beloved pet. She’s so distraught, in fact, she doesn’t resist when the bat grabs her and tosses her down his gullet headfirst.

The healed bat devil then takes to the skies to have a multi-course meal of various kinds of humans in the city. But he notices Denji dangling from his leg, surprised he’s still alive as like Power he assumes he’s just a normal human. The terrible taste of Denji’s blood should have clued him in.

Denji recalls one night when he couldn’t find Pochita, and looked everywhere for him in a panic. He finally returned home to find him crying in the corner—just as scared and worried about their separation as he was—and he fell asleep with Pochita in his arms.

Just as Power had a moment of empathy for Denji before being swallowed, Denji considers how Power felt each and every night Meowy was in the devil’s clutches. He’s also frustrated by the lack of copping feels thus far, so he pulls his cord, transforms into Chainsaw Man, and tears the Bat a new one.

Landing in a school, Denji encounters the first of many innocent bystanders he must urge to run away (and not, ya know, reach out and touch them, which would tear them to shreds). While the show’s first big battle took place in a self-contained dark warehouse, it’s exhilarating to get a fight that takes place out in the open, first in the sky and then in the middle of a busy city.

Denji saves a driver from a car thrown his way by the bat devil, and then shoves the car right back in the bat’s face. The bat uses a supersonic attack that drives Denji several dozen feet back into a cloud of dust and rubble, but is again surprised when Denji emerges not harmed, but simply pissed off about not being able to cop any feels.

In a final bloody fluorish, Denji charges, one of his blades catches on the bat’s arm, and he cuts the arm clean in half, before delivering a spinning attack that sends the bat’s guts flying everywhere. Power, and hopefully an undigested Meowy, dwell within those guts, and maybe she won’t be so quick to betray Denji next time.

Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War – 03 – Special Threat

After crippling the Tres Bestia with ease, Quilge Opie seems happy to see Ichigo, and unlike Ichigo, he knows all about him. His king has designated him a “special threat” that he’s to neutralize with all due haste. When Ichigo demonstrates he can catch and deflect Quilge’s projectiles, he levels up to a stronger form.

Ichigo hangs in there while Inoue shields Chad, Loly, and Menoly, but Quilge blocks his Getsuga Tenshou. In the midst of gloating, he’s suddenly coldcocked by a giant fist: the Tres Bestia have come to, and each sacrificed their left arms to create Ayon, a massive berserking brute of an Arrancar. It pummels Qulge into the sand, arresting the degregation of Inoue’s shield.

In the living world, Ishida pores through the books in his father Ryuuen’s library, and is scolded for doing so. He then rifles through Ryuuen’s desk, and finds an old black Quincy tome with some manner of secrets that aren’t disclosed to us, but give Ishida great pause.

In Soul Society, the Gotei 13 prepare for war, not waiting the five days indicated by the initial Quincy invaders. The Sixth seat of the 13th Squad tells the two scrubs that while Shinigami are all about balancing souls, Quincy utterly destroy them, resulting in an imbalance that will eventually destroy both worlds.

How exactly this benefits the Quincy is unknown, at least to me. Do they dwell in some realm beyond both worlds, or do they have no intention of surviving those worlds’ annihilation as long as Soul Society pays for their genocide? Revenge at any cost?

Whatever the case, Captain Kurotsuchi blames Head Captain Yamamoto-Genryuusai for this whole mess, for failing to kill the Quincy King when he had the chance centuries ago. Kurotsuchi, by the way, is the one responsible for the deaths of 28,000 denizens of Soul Society, all in order to balance the scales of souls

The Tre Bestia stand over the fallen Quilge, but when a gloating Apacci approaches him, he runs her through with a sword of light, then uses his Quincy powers to absorb and merge with Ayon to become what he deems an unattractive but ultimately necessary monster. He’s ready to kill one and all of the assembled Arrancar and humans, but then Ichigo intervenes in his Bankai form, ready to rumble once more.

But ultimately, Ichigo has already fallen right into the Quincy King’s trap. While he’s busy fighting Quilge in Hueco Mundo, the King and the other Stern Ritter (the equivalent of Captains or Espada) arrive at Soul Society and waste no time slaughtering the hapless lower-level Shinigami.

Pillars of blue flame erupt from all over, resulting in looks of concern from all the Gotei 13 captains and lieutenants you’ll already know if you’ve watched a sufficient amount of Bleach like I have throughout the years. I’m overjoyed to report that among them is our girl Kuchiki Rukia, who finally makes an appearance. I just wish it was under happier circumstances.