Synduality: Noir – 04 – Drifter University

Kanata has the Coffin (i.e. mech) and the Magus (i.e. copilot), but is eager to gain Drifter experience, so he endures the japes from more seasoned drifters to ask Ma’am for a job. She has one to offer, and Kanata is determined to carry it out by himself.

He even insists Noir simply provide navigation support, not fight the battle for him. However, his first battle “on his own” doesn’t go so well, and avoids becoming a total disaster because the Mini-Enders he fights are so weak, and he’s bailed out by a new Drifter.

This Drifter and her pyrophilic Magus assumed Kanata was in real trouble and intervened, as is the Drifter’s Way. However, when he gets out to meet and thank the pilot, she puts him in a headlock and then teases him with her ample bosom.

Her name is Claudia, and her Magus, a Type Zero like Noir, is named Flamme. Flamme is your typical bubbly loli who nicknames everyone, but Claudia is a cool as she is hot, and she has a job for a newbie like Kanata if he wants to gain some Drifter XP.

The mission is simple: one Coffin will carefully mine a gigantic AO Crystal Claudia has isolated, while another will defend it from the Enders that are sure to be attracted to said crystal once the green shield is down. Kanata wants to be the defender, and is ready to risk his life, so Claudia agrees.

When asked why not just mine the whole area, Claudia says she wants to leave the beautiful, sprawling daisy field intact, for Flamme’s sake. Flamme runs into the field with Noir and makes her a crown of daisies, which symbolize purity and innocence.

When Flamme has a rare dark moment when she says she’ll never “get it back”—presumably referring to her innocence—she walks it back as a joke, saying she can always update her memory. Upon hearing this, Noir gets a flash from before her memory was purged, and the elderly tinkerer/Drifter who last interacted with her before Kanata found her.

I’m sure Noir will keep getting little flashes of her memories, and I wonder how that will affect both her personality (which remains extremely slight due to the amnesia) and her relationship to Kanata (who isn’t exactly Mr. Personality either).

That said, Kanata is good at fixing Coffins, and gets a peck on the cheek from Claudia for doing maintenance on her Coffin. She also warns him that Type Zero Maguses like Noir and Flamme cost a pretty penny to maintain, and there are unsavory types out there who would try to steal her—indeed this has already happened once.

Unlike his first battle, Kanata is able to stay calm and collected and take down one Mini-Ender at a time until he has six kills to his name. However there’s a seventh Mini plus one Intermediate that gives him problems. That’s when Tokio swoops in and rides the large, wheel-like Intermediate and blows it up from the inside.

Kanata is a little miffed he had to be rescued again, but failure is the greatest teacher, and he’ll need less help as he gets better with time. He also learns a valuable lesson about trusting strangers when Claudia and Flamme make off with the crystal—50-5o did seem overly generous split.

Kanata and Noir take the minor betrayal in stride as the lesson it was meant to be. He admires Claudia fighting solo out there in the wild, making the bank needed to keep Flamme running. If he wants to be a proper partner to Noir, he needs to get better, and Claudia and Flamme helped. The latter even gave their Coffin a name: Daisyogre.

The main things keeping Synduality from being great (rather than simply good) are Kanata, who is a pretty lame and generic MC, and the absolute anonymity and inanimateness of the Enders. The CGI wheels looked okay, but at the end of the day they’re just wheels.

Fortunately for Synd:Noir, the setting remains fun and compelling, the battle animation is decent, the soundtrack is varied and superb, and the colorful cast of supporting characters, including Claudia and Flamme, make up for Kanata and Noir’s blandness. I also appreciate the fact Kanata isn’t getting too good too fast. This is a two-cour series, after all—it’s a marathon, not a sprint.

Masamune-kun’s Revenge R – 05 – Il n’y pas de retour en arriere

Aki is stunned when Masamune tells her he’s the real Masamune, but she doesn’t disbelieve him. Gasou Kanetsugu isn’t ready to take his interference lying down, but his, or rather her further efforts to keep Aki in the dark fall to the wayside when, in the course of her struggle with Masamune, her shirt is pulled open, revealing her cleavage.

Kanetsugu makes a hasty retreat, leaving Aki and Masamune together for the first time ever with Aki knowing who he really is and Masamune knowing she wasn’t the one who called him Pig’s Foot and sent him away. She repeats all the insults Masamune threw at her, and then, to his shock, she accepts the request he made in the heat of the moment. She’ll go out wit him, the real Makabe Masamune.

When Kanetsugu visits his little sister, and in fact the moment Aki found out her gender, I didn’t just start being more empathetic with Kanetsugu, but also started to like her. She’s done shitty things, but her sister was never an excuse for those things. Her sister is everything to her, and clearly the opposite is also true.

That night, Chinatsu can’t get her brother’s attention, and she even startles him off the treadmill, he’s unresponsive to the point she’s worried he died. But no, he’d not dead, he’s just dating! And before they parted that night, Aki makes it clear he’s the one who asked her out. That gives her the upper hand.

The next morning, word has already spread to the entire school that Masamune and Aki have become a “supercouple.” That doesn’t stop a cute underclassman from asking to be his side piece and happily settling for his half-drunk sports drink. And while Masamune senses Neko is down, she doesn’t want to hear his official rejection. She’s still holding out for the possibility he ends up single again, and then she’ll strike.

Neko’s position isn’t entirely unreasonable when we watch Masamune’s first day as a kept man unfold. Her demands for him to go on the school store bread runs are immediate and insistent. And who should be working at the store but Kanetsugu, now presenting as a woman?

This caught me completely by surprised, but I loved every minute of their subsequent conversation in the hall. That’s something I don’t think I could have said even last week of these two characters. But as Kanetsugu says, she’s basically free now. She sold her family’s mansion to pay the debts, and she no longer has to try to get Aki to marry her.

No longer weighed down by that debt or her male disguise, she just looks and sounds like a happier person. By the same measure, she senses Masamune is genuinely concerned for her, because in his heart he’s still that sweet, wimpy fat boy Aki fell for. This is why when she jokes about him making her his wife, it only seems like half joking.

Despite the horror movie lighting of the athletic storage shed, once Masamune arrives with Aki’s food, and helps her with the stove, their unassailable chemistry reasserts itself. Even if they’re prickly with one another, you can tell a part of both of them is happy they’re finally at this point.

When Aki immediately tries to change her man by insisting he eat more junk and fatten up, it occurs to Masamune he only transformed his body into a slab of granite for revenge. But now that revenge is unnecessary. When she asks what she can do to reward him for getting her food, he draws in close—to kissing proximity—to tell her the sentiment is enough.

When Yoshino arrives with kerosene for the stove, she knows she’s interrupted something, no matter how innocent, and Masamune sheepishly takes his leave. But he does ask if his Master can meet with him again, because he wants to know how she’s doing.

Yoshino is doing fine, especially considering Masamune didn’t tell Aki about what she did eight years ago. His thinking is that it would serve no purpose; Yoshino already feels plenty of remorse for what she did. Instead, he asks her for help with Aki, because, as it happens, going out with someone is super hard!

Yoshino will only say that Aki’s birthday is Christmas Eve, and she’ll be very happy if Masamune shares it with her. Only five episodes into the season, it’s not outside the realm of possibility Masamune misses that date for some reason, and ends up back in Aki’s not-so-good graces.

But I don’t want to jump ahead or be pessimistic. It’s weird and awkward, but it’s far too early to say Aki x Masamune isn’t working. Even if it was corrupted by a couple of outside impostors, their feelings for each other are still there. Little does Masamune know that Yoshino has her own feelings for him, and that’s why she can’t meet with him or be his Master anymore.

Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead – 04 – Perfect Attendants

Akira and Kencho have a pretty sweet setup on their Shinjuku rooftop, gathering everything needed for stay-at-home camping, an item on Akira’s list. The episode begins with a harrowing FPS shooter picking off zombies, but it’s just Akira playing video games.

Since his list is well short of 100 (only 33), he decides to add one of his own bucket list items: becoming a stand-up comedian. He also wonders if Akira is being realistic with the “wine and dine a flight attendant”—maybe score a date with a woman first!

After the two look down at the available women in the area—all of them zombies and one of them quite flatulent—Akira sticks to a more readily achievable item: playing video games on a super-big-screen 8K TV. They head out on the motorcycle—the perfect vehicle for transporting giant TVs.

When the path to the Ikebukuro electronics store is blocked by wreckage on one side and another runaway zombie Truck-kun, this one a tanker, stars to bear down on them from the other, Akira remembers how Shizuku saved him from the konbini Truck-kun and decides to go for the gusto.

Revving his motorcycle, he races towards the oncoming tanker, using another upturned car as a ramp to leap over it, then escaping the resulting conflagration by motoring down into an underground mall. Unfortunately, they’re immediately in danger again, as a horde of zombies dwells in the mall.

They manage to race to a store and lower the shutter before the zombie mob can get to them, and before they know it someone is shining a flashlight on them: more survivors! Specifically, an older salaryman who is scared out of his mind (constantly muttering “It’s all over”) and three women.

When Akira and Kencho assure them they’re not infected, one of the women (Reika, voiced by Hikasa Yoko) breaks out the booze, while the other two (Maki and Yukari) gather snacks. Just like that, Akira and Tencho have stumbled into a post-apocalyptic…mixer?

But here’s the real kicker: Reika mentions that they had just got into Tokyo from LAX—the three of them are flight attendants, which means Akira’s item of “wining and dining” can technically apply. That said, Reika is a lush, and the other two don’t seem to be having much fun.

Akira, so inexperienced in things not related to his exploitative job, manages to ask Yukari if she has a boyfriend, which…not the best time dude! However, when he sees how well Kencho is getting along with Maki, Akira decides to try raising everyone’s spirits…by chugging a bottle of tequila.

I love how Reika, so surly up to this point, gets a kick out of this and joins in. Before long, everyone’s trashed, Akira is passed out, and Kencho is naked and doing his stand-up routine.

Akira eventually comes to and has to run for the bathroom to pray to the porcelain god. To his shock, Yukari, the victim of his boyfriend question, comes to check on him, and even pats his back while he boots so he’s more comfortable. Meanwhile, it’s revealed the salaryman in glasses is infected, and he turns just when Reika is alone with him, drunk out of her mind.

She initially thinks he’s trying to get with her when he jumps on her, but she is very soon disabused of that notion. Kencho and Maki, having hooked up in the mattress store (as you do), hear a faint scream, and while Kencho is curious about what’s up, Maki wants to go another round.

Unfortunately, when Kencho and Maki check back on Reika, she leaps on Maki like a lioness on a gazelle and rips her throat out. When Reika then turns on Kencho, he has no choice but to use lethal force, which fucks with him even though Reika had become a zombie.

While this carnage is happening, Akira is feeling better, and Yukari talks to him about how it’s her third year too, and the job is not the glamorous thing she dreamed of. Akira can only speak from experience, but he believes his production job was a “borrowed” dream, not one that came from his heart.

If Yukari truly dreamt of being a flight attendant, she shouldn’t let something like the odd irate passenger ruin that dream. In the middle of having this very pleasant, gentle chat about their lives, the salaryman pounces on her, and bites her in the neck.

Akira punches the zombie down the stairs, but the damage is done. Nevertheless, in the minutes Yukari is still Yukari, she gives Akira a hug and tells her she remembers now why rubbing his back felt so nostalgic. On her first flight as a kid, she was extremely airsick, but a flight attendant helped her feel better by rubbing her back.

From that point on, Yukari wanted to be like that cool lady. And so she’s confident it is her real dream: she’s a flight attendant. Peoples’ lives are in her hands on a daily basis, and that’s how she wants Akira to remember her as she pushes him out of the way and tells him to run while the salaryman prepares to jump her again.

Akira runs, and is, as you’d expect, incredibly messed up by having to do so, and having to say goodbye to someone as gentle and sweet and courageous as Yukari so damn soon. But in this new world where death is always around the corner, one can’t let oneself become consumed by despair.

Akira reunites with Kencho, who is now being chased by Maki and tells them they need to get out of there. But they won’t be leaving without a giant 8K TV, which he happened to pluck in the meantime. The fact that Kencho did this for him launches Akira into a bout of cry-laughter.

After the absurd image of the two carrying the very tall, wide, and thin TV on the motorcycle, the two best buds are back on their rooftop campsite before sunset. When Akira dies again in his video game, now writ large thanks to the 8K, he pauses and thinks of Yukari’s words to him, and decides to add another item to his list: Remember my childhood dream.