Masamune-kun’s Revenge R – 02 – Mains moites

Gasou Kanetsugu is a real piece of work. He (I’ll use that pronoun while she presents as male) doesn’t threaten to go to Aki with the news that Yoshino is conspiring with Masamune. Instead, he snitches on her to her parents, knowing full well that when the families get involved, Yoshino’s station will be a millstone around her neck. While she’s initially defiant, Gasou seems to have neutralized her as a player here.

Speaking of playing, Aki and Masamune are forced (on pain of death by her brother’s hired goons) to role-play as a rom-com couple for Muriel Besson’s benefit. Masamune decides it’s unbecoming to seem flustered about something like this, so he takes Aki’s hand and leads her around the park. When she gets exhausted and hungry, he suggests they feed one another, but that proves too much for both of them.

Instead, Aki eats her own (legitimately delicious-looking) sandwich, then gets down to the business she originaly intended: to tell him how she met “Masamune” and why she can’t accept this Masamune’s feelings. We get her side of the story of how she needed a distraction and a friend as her warring parents fought for her affection. She found one in Masamune. I liked the elaborate prank she helped set up to set Masamune’s bullies straight.

While walking home from their victory, Aki admits to Lil’ Masamune that she “at least wants him” to be happy, since it’s “hopeless” for her now that her parents are separating. Unable to hold back her own tears, it’s Masamune’s turn to give her comfort and solace from her troubles.

But despite him saying he’ll stay by her side forever, Aki says that was the last time she ever saw Masamune, AKA Gasou Kanetsugu. Now the real Masamune knows that Aki believes Gasou was him. But he’s confused: this isn’t how things went down from his perspective—He didn’t abandon her!

While picking flowers to cheer Aki up (dawww) Masamune is ambushed by the bullies who now have an excuse to get back at him. Masamune runs to Aki’s mansion, but she comes to the window and tells him she’ll never have feelings for him, and calls him “Pig’s Foot”.

When Masamune confronts Aki about it in the present, she doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Both of them believe they’re the victim. Something’s missing here! But Masamune is unable to hide his anger and contempt for what he considers a twisting of history.

He’s nasty enough that Aki runs off on her own, never a good idea in a foreign country where you don’t quite know where you are and the vast majority of people don’t speak your language. She happens to run into Gasou, who opens his arms when he sees she’s upset, but she runs right past him. GOOD.

Yoshino, who apparently hasn’t budged from the bridge since Gasou checkmated her, reads a message from her parents telling her to shape up and that she’s grounded. To her surprise, Aki runs into her arms crying. She comforts her, and recalls having done it before when they were younger.

Was it because Aki’s parents broke up, or because lil’ Masamune, whom Aki had feelings for, suddenly vanished? Neither Aki nor Masamune have enough information to know the full picture.

Aki’s sharing only drove a wedge between them, because her story so perfectly contradicted the one he’d always held as justification for his Dead or Love plan. If something is going to give, someone other than these two needs to contribute a key piece of information…

Mushoku Tensei II – 01 – Far Apart, But Not Alone

A still heartbroken, depressed, and lonely Rudeus spends multiple days in a wagon headed into the Northlands without speaking, until a friendly woman named Suzanne asks him what his story is. When he mentions he’s searching for his mother, a victim of the Fittoa disaster, you can see the change in body language, but Suzanne’s companion Sara still doesn’t appreciate Rudy’s rudeness.

Suzanne gives Rudy some information about the Northlands, but the morning they arrive in a town, Rudy splits off from them, rents out a room at the inn for a month, closes the windows, and lies on the bed in the dark, clutching Eris’ lock of red hair. He forces himself to get up and go to the guild for a job, and he encounters Suzanne and Sara again.

They’re members of Counter Arrow, and Suzanne is willing to have Rudy come along on their next job: a simple bear hunt. Conceding to the fact that people are stronger in numbers, especially in the frigid north, Rudy agrees to meet up with them the next morning.

Rudy is warmly welcomed by everyone except for Sara, who is the one closest in age to him, and is also constantly reminding him of Eris. As the formerly newest member, Sara doesn’t even want Rudy around, and warns him not to put any of her party at risk.

Suzanne and the others are far less harsh, with the leader Timothy even apologizing on Sara’s behalf as she’s “getting a bit full of herself; this actually draws out a small smile from Rudy, since no one he knows is fuller of herself than Eris.

When they execute the bear hunt, everything appears to be going according to plan, but there are more white bears than they expected, along with far stronger black bears. Rudy is temporarily paralyzed, as he’s apparently lost the taste for fighting at precisely the wrong time.

Nevertheless, he watches Counter Arrow work like a well-oiled machine, circling him and using all their various complimentary skills to hold back the bears just enough. When Suzanne is too tired to get up, Sara holds out a hand to lift her up, but by then they’re totally surrounded by vicious bears.

That’s when Rudy walks towards the bears, and Sara watches with disbelief as he wordlessly summons a massive explosion that kills them all with one shot. It’s the moment we knew was coming because we know Rudy is OP as hell and many levels above these guys. But while it’s not a surprising climax, it is an exceedingly satisfying one.

Rudy’s ability was never in question, it was his will. Will he let a bear simply take his life, because his family was strewn to the ends of the earth and his heart was broken by the woman he loved? No! He sees the camaraderie of the party, and sees that they fight because they care about each other, and he decides he should care too.

In the aftermath of his complete victory, Rudy helps skin the bears of their valuable pelts, and feels a sense of accomplishment and fulfillment. While before he didn’t have the heart to even shake Suzanne’s hand when she offered it, now he offers his own burned hand, and she gladly shakes it. Even Sara thanks him and tells him she’s in her debt.

Back at the guild, Counter Arrow isn’t welcomed, but leered at and pelted with passive aggressive comments because they’re “newcomers”. But one nod from Suzanne to Timothy, and he’s buying a drink for the entire hall, instantly endearing themselves to everyone there.

Timothy also raises a glass to their newest member Rudeus Greyrat, and the crowd chants his name, Rudy is wearing the biggest smile he’s worn in a long, long time. Back in his room he re-opens the window shutter and starts a fire, grasps Roxy’s underwear for a bit, and then tosses Eris’ hair in the flames.

There’s no more time for moping. There’s things he needs to do, and now new friends to help him do them. Those he loves may be far away, but he knows he’s not alone.

Synduality: Noir – 01 (First Impressions) – Two to Tango

With Gundam Mercury over and Nier:Automata yet to resume, I need a sci-fi fix this Summer, and Synduality:Noir looks to scratch that itch. I’ll level with you: perfect it ain’t, but it makes up a lot for its shortcomings with some nice character moments and top-notch production values.

Bear with me: since this is a sci-fi show, there’s lots of jargon to absorb. In a post-apocalyptic world, Drifters are agents who go out into the unprotected lands to forage for resources and loot, while either avoiding or combating Enders, twisted monsters that have taken over much of the planet.

Kanata works for the cocky lone-wolf Drifter Tokio, and on one mission he happens upon an unconscious Magus—a kind of android. Rather than leave her there in a bed of roses, he decides to take her home, but not before they end up in a fight with Enders.

Once that fight is over, Kanata and Tokio head home, which is a futuristic city covered in protective domes. Upon arriving, their vehicle is subjected to decontamination. They then head to the auction to sell off Tokio’s bounty: a giant red crystal (very Final Fantasy touch) that’s a little bigger than his Drifter rival Michael, whose Team Aventure is much bigger.

Upon bringing the Magus home, Kanata presses a button on her back and her clothes disappear. Before he can correct this, his friend Ellie, who has a long standing crush on him, arrives at his pad with her friend and Magus, Ange.

The two young women are scandalized by what they see, and assume Kanata lost his virginity when the Magus wakes up and says she’ll “take him to paradise”. I enjoyed Ellie and Ange’s sisterly rapport throughout; there’s something about Ellie’s design and expression and voice that makes her very rootable, even if she probably doesn’t stand a chance against the “new girl”.

But while the Magus (delicately, precisely voiced by Koga Aoi) is awake, she doesn’t know who she is. When Kanata, a collector of items from the before times, tells her about his dream (apparently instilled in him by his late parents) to find the semi-legendary old city of Histoire, she’s more interested in his vintage washing machine.

While his boss Tokio and Michael continue to drink (and perhaps flirt), Kanata takes the Magus to Maria, Ellie’s older sister and Magus expert. Maria welcomes them with rocket fire, but once she actually meets the Magus, she’s as intrigued as Kanata: this is a model she’s never seen.

Before Maria can do any more research, there’s a massive attack by a swarm of Enders, some of whom break through the dome and threaten the residential zone. Tokio, Michael, and Aventure sortie to aid the city’s defenses (the leader is a tiny old woman in a mech suit).

When Ellie is cornered by Enders, Kanata comes to her rescue, much to her delight, but she’s a Drifter and he’s a civilian, so she tells him to scram. He does so, and switches out his carrier for a mech in the hangar. He boards it and takes off, asking the Magus to stay put.

When a boss-level Ender threatens Ellie, Kanata returns in his mech, but without a Magus aboard he’s pretty much out of control, like a driving school student on their first day at the wheel. At best, he’s a sitting duck for the Ender boss.

And here’s one of the show’s flaws: the Enders, while creepy-looking little snooters, are nevertheless mindless monsters and thus not very interesting. There’s also precious little mortal peril to be had; I expected Ellie or Tokio or someone to die in the battle to show the Enders are a serious threat.

Instead, even the boss kinda stands around, allowing the Magus girl to run up to Kanata’s mech, request and gain access to the rear compartment, and interface with the mech, forming the same Drifter-Magus symbiotic connection as Tokio and Mouton, or Ellie and Ange.

The HUDs inform Kanata that his Magus copilot’s name is Noir, and while she couldn’t even keep her jacket sleeves from sliding down her arms, in the cockpit of a mech she’s an artist, making quick work of the boss Ender with an acrobatic melee attack.

Once the battle is won, Ange eggs on Ellie by telling her to stay on her toes vis-a-vis Kanata, as she may just have a new rival. As for Noir herself, once Kanata says her name and she accepts it, her emotionless demeanor softens and she actually smiles.

Synduality is nothing groundbreaking either premise or visuals-wise, but it is a solidly executed sci-fi yarn made with care and attention to detail. There’s not a whole lot to Kanata personality-wise (no doubt in part because he’s an audience stand-in) he’s surrounded by a host of more colorful and dynamic characters.

The enemy is generic and the jargon is thick, but nevertheless this was a strong and entertaining enough opener to justify sticking with it—or to borrow the slogan from the promo art, stand by it.