The Apothecary Diaries – 24 – Beautiful as Balsam

Having lost to Maomao, Lakan goes to Verdigris House to buy out a courtesan. As he waits for the Madame to show him her girls, Lakan thinks about his daughter Maomao. He had met her when he was wee, and always wanted her to be a larger part of his life, but he also understands why she’d hate him. He accepts she outwitted him this time, but he’ll try to connect again someday.

Lakan has his choice of whom to buy out, and money is essentially no object. When all of the courtesans are lined up before him, they all have white go pieces for heads. He’s prepared to choose Meimei, since he knows her and she’s been kind to him, but she defies the madame by opening the way to a courtesan she think will be a better match for him.

As soon as Lakan hears that familiar lullaby, he realizes the meaning of Maomao’s withered rose message, and races to the source of the singing. He’s overwhelmed with emotion upon entering the room to find Fengxian, still alive, if not so well.

After she finishes her song, he draws close to her, ignoring Madame’s warnings, places two go pieces in her bandaged hand, and asks if she’ll play go with him, and she agrees. To his eyes, she’s never looked more radiantm and like him and Meimei, I couldn’t hold back tears at their reunion.

Needless to say, Lakan buys her out, and would pay any price to do so. Hell it’s something he’s wanted to do going on two decades. Upon her return to Jinshi’s home, Maomao is given a hot meal, which she eats while telling Jinshi that her mother surely got pregnant and carried her to term because she wanted to.

Maomao also explains to Jinshi how her father cannot discern faces, except for her own and her adopted father’s (and, as we see, her mother’s as well). She admits that while she dislikes her birth father and is grateful Loumen adopted her, she doesn’t hate Lakan, and urges Jinshi not to make him an enemy.

Meimei sends a letter to Maomao informing her that her father did indeed buy out her mother, and also included a gorgeous sheer shawl. When Meimei is bought out, she wants Maomao to dance for her. Maomao decides to don her dancing outfit and the shawl and climb up to the wall to dance for her mother.

This is the long awaited dance previewed in the first cour’s OP, and it doesn’t disappoint, with a stirring insert song and a beautifully animated and hauntingly beautiful dance sequence. It is so gratifying to see this lovable goofball move so gracefully.

When Jinshi surprises her, she slips on her dress, falls backwards and nearly over the wall, but he catches her before she can. He got a report that “another weird woman” was climbing the wall, and the guard in question recognized Maomao, so Jinshi came to investigate personally.

Maomao explains the custom of courtesans dancing for one of their own when they’re bought out, but doesn’t tell Jinshi who Lakan bought out. And as gorgeous as Maomao looks both in motion and standing still now, she’s still Maomao, so she tells Jinshi that when you chop off the tip of a finger (like her mother did with her as a babe), it will grow back.

Maomao is also extremely nonchalant about the fact that her leg wound reopened again, a testament to her high pain tolerance. She’s ready to stitch it back up right there atop the wall, but Jinshi won’t let her. He gathers her into a princess carry and uses his own physical prowess to elegantly descend the wall and to his house to be treated.

While carrying her, Maomao’s face is quite close to Jinshi’s, something he’s all to aware of. She tells him she has “something very important to say”, really laying on the shoujo vibes thickly. When his eyes are trembling, sweat rolls down his cheeck, and her lips are almost meeting his, she tells him in her most seductive voice: “I’d like that ox bezoar, please.” For that, Jinshi headbutts her.

Once she’s all patched up, Jinshi again invites her to his office from her home in the Jade Pavilion, no doubt with some new palace case to investigate. In this way, we close the book on Jinshi and Maomao, but only for a little while, as the episode ends with the announcement that a second season is in production.

That makes me happier than any other second season announcement this Spring, because whatever incidents she gets mixed up in next, there’s no such thing as too much Maomao, perhaps with a little Jinshi on the side.

The Apothecary Diaries – 23 – The Undefeated Courtesan

Maomao, whose face Lakan can see clearly, has a plan to get her father to make things right. She challenges him to a best-of-five chess match, with the winner of each game choosing one of five cups containing “medicine” for the loser to drink in one gulp. Three of the cups contain a poison, and if all three are drunk by one person the poison becomes deadly.

As Jinshi, who promises not to interfere, watches, it becomes clear Maomao is no match for her father in chess, losing the first two games and drinking from two of the five cups. Lakan lets her win the third game, not willing to risk his daughter poisoning herself if the previous two cups she drank were poison.

Maomao doesn’t just use her dad’s paternal protectiveness against him, but his teetotalism as well. When he drinks one of the remaining three cups, he notes the awful taste, which Jinshi believes confirms that it contains poison, since Maomao said the poison affects the taste. But then Lakan turns red, then green, then passes out.

Turns out the “medicine” is very strong alcoholic spirits. Maomao can hold her liquor, but one drink is enough to knock out her father, who has abstained from alcohol as long as Jinshi has known him. And because she got him to agree that one player could not continue the match, he loses, and so rather than her moving in with him, he must buy out a certain aging Verdigris courtesan

We go back in time to Lakan’s circumstances. Turns out the guy doesn’t just “see” everyone as chess or go pieces because he’s a strategist with no other interest in them, but because he has literal clinical face blindness, which cost him his position as his father’s heir in his well-to-do family.

His uncle, who by the sound of his voice is Maomao’s adoptive father, taught Lakan how to discern people not by face, but by other qualities, and his interest in go and chess led to him seeing faces as those game pieces. The first person whose actual face he saw was that of Fengxian, the Verdigris courtesan renowned for her prowess in the games he loved.

Lakan would visit Fengxian to play as often as he could, which became less and less frequent as the price for her time kept rising due to demand from numerous wealthy customers. Fengxian was clearly frustrated she couldn’t see him more, and one day in the middle of a go game, her exquisitely manicured fingers reached out to meet his own.

Their hands clasp, and the next thing you know, they’re making love. Lakan makes clear that neither had sweet or honeyed words for one another, nor did they ask for or need them; it’s just the way the two of them were, as kindred spirits who were able to find pride, comfort, and love through the games they played together.

Then, suddenly, things took a turn. Lakan’s uncle was exiled from the palace and Lakan was sent abroad by his father. He and Fengxian exchanged letters for a time, but a couple of months turned into three years, and by the time he was allowed to return, everything had gone to shit.

Not only had her buyout agreement fallen through, but she had become forced to walk the streets plying her carnal trade, having lost all value to him making her pregnant (with Maomao). That far riskier line of work led to her contracting the wasting disease that has eaten away at both body and mind.

So it turns out Lakan did ruin Fengxian, but doing so was the last thing he wanted. If he hadn’t been so short-sighted about what making love to her meant, or had stood up to his bully of a father, he might’ve been able to avoid her cruel and terrible fate.

But what was done was done, and as he wakes up in Verdigris house, Fengxian’s former servant girl Meimei presents him with two “gifts” from Maomao. The first is an extremely bitter medicine, perhaps a hangover cure but also a message, as the flavor efficiently conveys her feelings towards him. The second is a dried rose, which despite withering and shrinking, still holds its shape.

I imagine this to be a symbol of Maomao’s mother Fengxian, and another message for Lakan to do what he couldn’t do in the past and buy her out. As Maomao holds a dried blue rose bloom of her own while riding in a carriage (presumably back to Jinshi’s), after defeating him in the chess and dictating what he must do following that defeat, I wouldn’t be shocked if she had nothing more to say to her biological father.

Also, while I’m glad we’re finally getting the complete picture of Maomao’s parentage, and I’m happy she was a love-child and not some kind of tactic to tank her mom’s value, with so little time left I’m hoping the focus returns to Maomao herself, along with the still very nebulous and under-defined (at least to her) relationship with Jinshi. He clearly cares about and has affection for her, so hopefully he can make those feelings clear, even if she’s not interested in romance him, or anyone.

Synduality: Noir – 22 – For the Not-So-Great Cause

Weisheit wants Mystere’s black box in the worst way, so he sends a huge assault group led by Macht. Macht is eager to step out of Tokio’s shadow and believes in his boss’ “great cause”, but throughout all of this Schnee has seemed worried about her lord going down this path. She’ll never voice her objections as she feels it wouldn’t be her place, but it’s all in her facial expressions, and MAO’s pained, almost mournful voice.

Weisheit also wants the assault team to destroy the spaceship the enemy has rebuilt. Wait, what spaceship? The dang space shuttle Maria rebuilt from materials scavanged from Carthage. There’s also a brand new linear catapult. This strained credulity for me for some reason. To be less generous, it’s dumb as hell.

Building and maintaining coffins and simple rockets is one thing, but a space shuttle and catapult? With Maria’s fly-by-night team? It should’ve taken months, if not years. Instead, boom, here they are, ready for a test launch with Kanata as the space monkey.

But hey, this is a show that heavily features gussied up rock-em-sock-em robot fighting, so it’s fine. We get a big dumb battle that’s oddly bloodless; Ideal looks like a highly-trained and conditioned military force. You only show up to Maria’s base if you’re ready to kill some people. On the other side, Kanata & Co. have experience killing monsters, but fellow humans and Magus?

Say they’re not killing anyone. It still seems highly unlikely you’d be able to get off enough perfect shots that all of the Ideal coffins and carriers are simply disabled. The utter lack of visceral danger even with all this heavy machinery and weaponry flying around makes the whole enterprise feel toothless. Then again, this is not Gundam.

For all of their gumption and Home Alone-style traps, Team Rock Town doesn’t have anything that’s a match for Weisheit’s coffin once he joins the battle. He’s so fast even Mouton’s “Overclock” Magus skill that lets him virtually stop time for himself can’t track him.

He swoops right down the catapult and into the hanger, and Maria is just chilling in there on her rig with a machine gun (the cutaway to her is woefully under-animated for some reason; her mouth doesn’t even move as she speaks for part of it). Obviously, her attempt to defend the shuttle is futile against Weisheit’s top-of-the-line rig.

Weisheit looks ready to kill her, but Mystere saves her by drawing attention to herself. Weisheit launches a bunch of robo-tentacles (because of course) that string her up in midair and cause a great deal of pain, before he shuts her down and brings her aboard. He later tells Kanata that her ego has been purged, so now she’ll be an obedient marionette.

Weisheit then hops into the cargo bay of the space shuttle, hacks into it, and launches it, which is pretty gutsy, considering it hadn’t even been tested yet and a lot of Maria’s past rockets went boom. But in launching up to Histoire in orbit, he abandons his entire Ideal team, and they don’t seem particularly happy about it.

Macht is ready to obey Weisheit’s final order to kill Macht, but Schnee stays his hand by deactivating his cockpit, embracing him from behind, and asking him if this is really what he wants to do. In doing so, Schnee has finally defied her Lord, for his own good, and her’s.

He admits to her that the day Licht asked him to join him in leaving Ideal, he considered leaving with Schnee. But even if he had, that probably wouldn’t have greatly altered Weisheit’s grand plan. Macht just seems like one more sucker like the rest of Ideal, that their boss stepped on so he could reach Histoire all by himself.

There’s also the whole matter of Weisheit’s plan to create a world without Magus, which even Macht didn’t know about and doesn’t seem to be much of a fan of it. All of the other Ideal pilots seem to have Magus partners, so I doubt they’d want that world either.

He seems to be the only one who seems to hate and dehumanize Magus, while most everyone else considers them valuable companions, even equals. Unfortunately, he’s also the only one on a shuttle headed to Histoire, and possibly gain the means to make his twisted, prejudiced world a reality.

Here’s hoping that second shuttle that was behind the first works, so Kanata, Noir & Co. can go rescue Mystere. Heck, maybe Mystere will even stop calling Noir a dud if they manage to save her.

Tales of Wedding Rings – 10 – An Unexpected Detour

After making camp for the night as they near the Dwarven capital of Idanokan, Satou ponders whether the Ring King is really needed to defeat the Abyss King and save the world. Al tells him that the world is a vast place full of different opinions on the matter.

But everything the Great Sage has learned and read points to the fact once resurrected, no one can stand against the Abyss King but the Ring King. Unfortunately, Satou is still short one crucial ring, and Idanokan is a gorgeous but totally abandoned ruin.

After a search of the ruins prove fruitless, the party braves the central palace, where an empty throne sits and an inactive automaton once controlled by magic by the dwarves lies on the ground. It comes back to life thanks to an Abyss Ring, and starts to bitterly rant how the Dwarves were the only one of the five Ring Kingdoms to perish in the last war.

A kiss from Hime gives Satou sufficient light power to defeat the automaton, but shortly thereafter all of the dark rings evaporate at once. That turns out not to be a good thing, because we see all five rings materialize on the Sauron-like Abyss King. That’s not good at all, because it means he beat Satou to five rings.

As soon as they arrived at Idanokan and there was no one on the surface, my first thought was that surely a measure of their kingdom, if not the whole damn thing, now resided underground—we’re talking about Dwarves here, they kinda prefer mines and tunnels, right?

Yet once Abyss monsters appear in the throne room, Al leads everyone outside rather than venturing further into the underground tunnels. Since they already searched out there and knew no one was there, this seems like a bad move. Then again, Al thought they had a path to escape. They don’t.

With the party surrounded by dozens of Abyss monsters that multiply faster than a winded Satou can defeat them, Al makes the call to open the gate back to our world and send Satou and the princesses back. At the very least, the Abyss King cannot follow them there, and thus cannot attain the rings. Marse stays by Al’s side, but things look pretty grim for both of them.

In an oddly edited post-credits scene, Satou wakes up in his bedroom, but then we flash back to him and the princesses having just exited the gate in a forest on the outskirts of town. As much as the situation sucks for him, at least he’s back in his own world.

He imagines things are much worse for the princesses who are now the outsiders. However, they seem to be more concerned with the lack of diversity in bra sizes in Hime’s wardrobe, perhaps unaware that their outfits would be lauded in some parts of this world as the highest-quality cosplay…

I’ll admit, I did not expect the show to throw us this kind of loop and send everyone back to Satou’s world with just one princess to go. However, that fifth princess is sure to exist and show up at some point, since she appears in both the OP and ED. Until then, we’ll see how long Satou and his wives remain in his world, and how much they’ll play up the fish-out-of-water factor.

Kaguya-sama: Love is War – The First Kiss That Never Ends – 03 – Dropping the Masks

Kaguya remains in Icy Mode, but her ice melts a little when she spots another one of Miyuki’s classic homemade bento boxes, a callback to the very first episode. Unlike that time, she’s determined to try a bite, and so loudly proclaims her hunger.

As she rejects Chika and Miko’s offers of food (and they both run off crying), Miyuki, who is sporting dark bags under his eyes from lack of sleep, insists that he “man up” and offer Miyuki a bite. But his octopus weiner slides off the toothpick, and a swooping Kaguya’s mouth closes on his finger instead.

When he tells her there’s ketchup on her face, she locks both his hands in hers and tells him to clean it off. Again Miyuki enters a “man up” spiral, and it eventually overwhelms him, causing him to faint and collapse. This is the reverse of what happened when Miyuki touched Kaguya’s cheek removing lint from her hair, which in hindsight should have been a hint of what (and who) was to come.

As for Ice Kaguya, she’s done, and wants to tag out with SD Idiot Kaguya, presented as her waking her up from a nap, the lump on her head from the gavel strike still fresh. Ice Kaguya tells her all she can do is hurt those close to her by being who she is, a personality forged in the crucible of a hard upbringing.

She’d known that her “true self” was harmful to others for quite a while. Her name and family brought people before her with ease, but all of them ran from her crying in the end. She resigned herself to solitude, enduring the loneliness because at least she wouldn’t hurt anyone.

Then she met Miyuki and fell in love with him. But now she’s hurt him too, with her aggresive, selfish, antagonistic, ugly self. so she wants to tag out and leave it to SD Idiot Kaguya, who can be kind to him. But Idiot Kaguya refuses.

She won’t let Icy Kaguya give up on her dream to kiss Miyuki. It goes without saying, but Kona Ali is so, so good throughout this scene, carrying on a conversation with herself.

When Icy says she doesn’t care, “Ribbon” Kaguya joins SD Kaguya in telling her that all of them (being Kaguya’s various personas) share the same dream, and all of them would die happy if the most high-maintenance, unpleasant of them achieved that dream.

The other two Kaguyas take Icy Kaguya’s hands in theirs, offering their support for her. When Kaguya leaves her mindspace, Miyuki is finally coming to, and that’s when Kaguya-sama legend (and unapologetic romantic) Doctor Tanuma Shouzou and his Nurse arrive to diagnose the problem.

As Ai comforts a thoroughly distraught Kaguya, saying all they can do right now is pray the President will be okay, Dr. Tanuma pretty quickly concludes that Miyuki, like Kaguya before, is suffering from heartsickness. At first, Miyuki doesn’t take this diagnosis seriously, but when told he can spill his guts to them without fear, he proceeds to do just that.

Like Kaguya, Miyuki has been hiding his true self. Also like Kaguya, he hates that true self. In her case, it’s a prickly, poisonous person who hurts anyone she tries to get close to. In his case, it’s a worthless failure. When Miyuki failed to get into a fancy kindergarten or elementary school, he could feel his mother losing interest in him. Then she left him and his dad and sister.

Miyuki admits that it was the hope his mother would return if he got his act together and started working his butt off. But then he encountered Kaguya, who was at the top of the class, embraced bravado as his StuCo senpais suggested, challenged her to a ranking duel, and won. It’s only natural for him to believe if he ever slipped up again, she’d leave him like his mom did.

Carrying on that social mask has caused a tremendous strain, and Dr. Tanuma asks if he could just lighten up and take it easy, but Miyuki rejects this. He believes to make Kaguya fall for him and stay in love with him, he has to “go far enough to collapse once or twice.”

This is where the Nurse steps in, much to Tanuma’s chagrin, and tells Miyuki what he needs to hear: that Kaguya was pale and worried as she sat by his bed. It always “gets to her” when she sees a gung-ho kid in a moment of weakness, and believes Kaguya feels the same.

Sure enough, it is, because Kaguya and Ai are eavesdropping on the session. Kaguya admits she loves the Miyuki who gives his all and achieves, but like the nurse she also doesn’t mind seeing him vulnerable. In any case, now she knows both of them are wearing masks, and being cowardly about exposing their true selves.

This is where Ai comes in and once again proves she’s the sneaky MVP of the whole series. Donning a paper Miyuki mask and armed with an open text line to a recovered Miyuki back home, she plays the role of Miyuki so Kaguya can practice being open and honest with him.

Ai texts Miyuki that Kaguya wants to be kinder to him, but her pride gets in the way. Kaguya then asks Ai questions she wants Miyuki to answer, and Miyuki starts to catch on. Even if he doesn’t know Kaguya is right next to Ai, Ai is close enough to know Kaguya better than anyone, so the text conversation feels genuine and stimulating.

When they kissed on the clock tower, Kaguya was heart-burstingly happy and thought it would last, but became devastated by the prospect of him never showing her all of him. That’s why she’s decided she’ll be the one to confess, and to tell him that she loves all of him, not just the overachieving President Shirogane.

Ai relays to Miyuki that Kaguya seeks a relationship in which neither she nor he hide their souls. But Miyuki is still convinced his “obsequious, cowardly, inept” true self simply won’t cut it, and he vows never to show it to Kaguya as long as he lives.

Instead, as the clock ticks to 12:00 midnight on Christmas Eve, he enters his room plastered with notes on how to win Kaguya’s heart, mans his desk, and prepares for another all-nighter of planning his romantic redemption. I just hope it doesn’t lead to a romantic impasse.

Summertime Render – 10 – A Leaf in the Forest

This week is a no-holds-barred Scooby-Doo adventure almost from start to finish. After watching what Ushio went through to warn Shinpei, there’s no way Sou isn’t going to tag along as they head to his family’s old abandoned clinic up in the mountains. Ushio also struts her Shadow Power stuff, able to transform into a shell necklace Shinpei wears, and explaining how her swimsuit is her armor.

Her abilities combined with Shinpei’s courage and Sou’s loyalty make them the perfect team to investigate a creepy haunted hospital. One great detail is a rare statue of the ancient Japanese deity Hiruko-sama, in the form of a limbless leach-like fertility idol. The fact that legend suggests it was heteromorphic creates an enticing connection to the clearly equally-ancient Shadows. Shinpei, Ushio and Sou end up in what seems to be a Shadow nursery.

Turns out there’s something even more terrifying than a Shadow … a baby Shadow, one that seems docile and harmless enough right up until Shinpei tries to shoot it with a nailgun. It dodges and rolls and bounds all over the place until Sou hits it with his baseball bat.

But then it wraps around the bat (again, Shadow) and very nearly kills him, only Shinpei has been practicing his nailgunning and gets three shots into the Shadow. Ushio finishes it off with her Shadow hair, and cue Victory Fanfare for the Scooby Gang. As much as I fear for their safety, it’s a hell of a lot of fun watching these three old friends get shit done.

At the end of the battle, Ushio gives Sou a playful shove forward as the three continue their investigation, but her arm starts bleeding, like the injury that occurred to a previous copy of the arm has returned. After her powers are essentially a cheat code for most of the episode, it’s good for the episode to self-level and demonstrate she’s far from all-powerful.

Shinpei knows this, and he also stands by his promise to always protect her (which made her blush earlier), and his foreknowledge of the nightmares to come even make a dark cave full of Shadow babies seem…not that bad? He knows firsthand it can always be worse! That said, considering how much effort it took to defeat one baby, the trio have their work cut out for them.

My Dress-Up Darling – 08 – Love at First Fries Thrown at Hawk

Wakana is impressed and Marin is in awe of how talented and mature Sajuna’s little sister Shinju is, and how adept and knowledgeable she is about photography. By the same measure, Shinju really comes out of her shell when bombarded with questions about something she loves to do.

Indeed, Shinju resembles a magical girl with her complex flowing locks when she brightens up about how much she loves her sister and the “Juju-sama” identity she created for her. Despite looking the part, Sajuna ironically has no interest in cosplaying herself at the moment, wanting to focus on taking photos of her sister.

Chatting with Sajuna gives Marin and Wakana a lot to think about going forward with their own cosplay photography venture. Wakana in particular really gets loud when he finds out how expensive cameras that don’t even come with lenses can cost, which in turn causes Marin to burst out laughing, since Wakana is so rarely so loud!

The four really hit it off, to the point Sajuna invites Marin and Wakana to join her and Shinju as they scout an abandoned hospital that resembles the place in the anime where Shion does some soul-searching. Marin and Shinju run ahead and have a lively conversation about lighting, but Wakana stays back as he notices Sajuna doesn’t do very well at all in dark, creepy places.

He offers to scout the place for her, worried she’s pushing too hard, but Sajuna tells him straight up she has to do this. She asks him what his dream is for the future, and Wakana has it locked and loaded: the guy who paints the faces of Hina dolls. Sajuna admits it’s a beautiful dream, then tells him hers: to be a magical girl. As she grew older she learned that magical girls were make-believe, but then one day in middle school she discovered one could cosplay as Shion.

She snatched up the pre-made dress in the store, locked herself in her room, and donned the ill-fitting costume with a sloppy wig and no makeup. As Sajuna recalls, it looked awful, but at the same time, she’d never felt happier. Her dream had come true! Then, much later, after she’d been established as a social media cosplay star (thanks to Shiju), she found those photos of Marin in the Shizuku-tan cosplay Wakana made…and she was jealous.

Sajuna surprised herself with this jealousy, but knew she had to find the person who made Marin’s outfit and have them make one for her. Sajuna struggles with the words to describe how she felt, but settles on “love at first sight,”, which not only resonates with Wakana, but takes him back to that very same pivotal moment when he first laid eyes on his gramps’ dolls.

He knew right then and there he wanted to follow in his footsteps. A weeping Wakana takes Sajuna’s hand to thank her, unaware that since she attends an all-girls school and has never held a boy’s hand! Combined with her lingering fear of the abandoned hospital they’re in, she promptly passes out!

I for one was charmed and moved by Sajuna’s story, and loved how it butted up against Wakana’s since both of them can track their passions back to their exact moment of origin. But as much as I’ve come to love the Inui sisters, I was also miffed by the relative lack of Marin-and-Wakana time. Thankfully, the remaining third of the episode is all them, as they go to the beach after school.

It takes a minute for Wakana to realize there’s no practical purpose for going there, nor any reason related to their cosplay venture. Marin just wanted to go to the beach…specifically with the man she wuvs (not that Wakana is aware of that yet).

The two deal with a hawk stealing Marin’s burger, then they share the second one (which technically counts as indirect kisses). Then Marin ditches her socks and wades in the cool water, and when Wakana joins her she learns he’s never been to the beach.

Wakana is happy he came, which is to say he’s happy Marin brought him, since it fulfills his gramps’ wish that he’d get out in the world and observe more to become a better dollmaker. Tickled pink by Wakana’s sentiments and how she helped him experience something for the first time, Marin blurts out that she wants to invite him everywhere this coming summer…just the two of them.

And while I’m not 100% sure Wakana fully understands that heartily agreeing and stating how happy it makes him essentially means he and Marin are going steady now, I’m sure he’ll find out before long. Even if Marin runs away to hide her red blushing face, shocked, surprised, and delighted that she managed to say what she said. We’ve got ourselves some solid forward momentum!

Attack on Titan – 79 – Days of Future Past

The Paths are a place where past, present, and future intersect, but Zeke is content to use a trip down memory lane to show his little brother how their father Grisha “brainwashed” him into becoming a Restorationist. But things don’t go how Zeke plans, as he ends up learning more about Grisha that complicates his long-standing feelings of resentment stemming from his dad abandoning him and starting a new family.

We learn that Grisha found the Reiss family’s underground chapel years earlier than we thought, but chose instead to delay his mission so Eren could have a normal childhood. It’s here, in Grisha’s basement, where Zeke learns his dad didn’t forget him, keeping a photo of him and his mother close by. It’s also where we learn Zeke and Eren aren’t merely invisible observers, as Grisha senses Zeke’s presence but assumes he’s only dreaming.

As Eren stands by patiently, Zeke learns that Eren was never actually brainwashed. When Eren saved Mikasa and killed the monsters in human skin, he was being the same Eren Yeager he always was: neither a weak nor convenient little brother Zeke could use to facilitate his plans or share his scars. Even so, Zeke is determined to “save” Eren (i.e. get him to come around to his thinking) before he saves the world, which he says he can do at any time.

The harrowing incident Eren experienced with Mikasa eventually led to him telling her he wanted to join the Scout Regiment, which Mikasa relays to their parents. Eren doesn’t just want to protect those he loves, but wants to know what lies beyond the walls. Carla pleads with Grisha to discourage their son from taking this path, but Grisha knows there’s no stopping “human curiosity.”

In a return to the truly creepy underground chapel, Zeke and Eren watch Grisha try to convince Frieda to let him use the power of the Founder to protect the people in the walls from the Titans beyond it. Grisha even tells Frieda something she doesn’t know: that the Attack Titan within him can see into the future by having access to the memories of its future inheritors. But when it’s time for Grisha to eat Frieda and kill her family, he can’t do it. At least not until Eren whispers into his ear, reminding him what he’s come to do … and why.

Zeke may have the Founder Titan, but like Frieda, he’s unable to see the future like Eren can. This is why Grisha, after he kills the Reisses and gains the Founder, warns Zeke that things are ultimately going to go Eren’s way, not Zeke’s. He knows this because he’s already seen Eren’s memories of that future. All he can offer Zeke is a hug, his tears, and the affirmation Zeke always sought deep down: that he was loved and not forgotten by Grisha.

Following that cathartic embrace, Eren and Zeke return to the uncanny land of the Paths, and while Eren is still chained to the ground, he doesn’t seem the least bit concerned. Why would he? He knows the future, and if Eren has anything to say about it, it won’t involve the euthanization of the Eldians.

The World’s Finest Assassin – 04 – Nice to Be Needed

Ansatsu Kizoku is by no means the best-looking or most original anime of the Fall, but it just might have the best structure, or rather most interesting structure to its narrative. I love the way it darts and weaves back and forth through time. Macro-wise, we’ve already seen Tarte in action, but this is the episode that truly introduces her as a character, not merely an ass-kicking machine.

We begin with Tarte in pretty much the most dire situation someone can be in. Winter is coming, so the family decided to cast her out so there’d be enough food (it’s implied their lord overtaxes, which caused families to make impossible choices). Starving and running out of strength, she’s set upon by a pack of wolves.

Here’s what immediately made Tarte interesting: she smiles moments before her death. She neither fears nor blames the hungry wolves; hell, she respects them. If this is how she goes, at least she’ll be put to good use keeping other living things alive. When her family abandoned her, she felt she had lost all reason to exist. Then our friend Lugh arrives, and uses the wolves to practice his killing skills while Tarte watches.

Mind you, Lugh doesn’t arrive to save her until after we get an extended scene of him at the harvest market, watching the townsfolk prepare for the winter by preserving and rationing. There’s even a brief little aside of comic relief when the Goddess checks in on another person like Lugh who isn’t faring so well. It’s when Lugh goes hunting so his family will have meat in the winter that he comes across Tarte.

Tarte happens to be backing a huge amount of mana—more than he’s seen in anyone in town—and the grizzled assassin in him knows it can’t be a coincidence; the Goddess must have sent her to him. The thing is, that seemingly throwaway gag of her watching The World’s Finest Special Ops Guy become a NEET over four decades proves she’s not always watching Lugh and making things happen. Sometimes…things just happen, like meeting Tarte.

Lugh’s initial interactions with Tarte are seemingly kind, if somewhat emotionally distant and logical. It’s only after he’s struck a deal for her to bind herself to him mind body and soul that he reveals he manipulated this font of mana into someone who would never betray him; someone who owes their existence to him and so exists only for him.

Two years pass, and Lugh has been training Tarte into the fellow assassin he’ll need to take on the Hero. He hasn’t told her why he’s training her, nor is she curious. When he performs the same examination of Tarte that his father performed on him, it’s super clinical, medical…professional. Lugh may have the body of a twelve-year-old, but he’s no Lewd Rudy.

When I think about how Lugh interacted with Tarte with such precision calculation, I remember what his father said: they are people, not tools. A tool would not have been able to get Tarte to trust him or devote herself to him so easily, but Lugh has been raised to be empathetic and curious, and so is a much better judge of character than your stock killing machine.

The same can be said of Tarte. Takada Yuki does such a fine job initially voicing the starving Tarte and then imbuing her voice with more strength and confidence once two years pass. Tarte may be really really good with a spear (collapsible or otherwise), but she’s also a good person…or as she once said of Lugh, a good person “as far as I’m concerned”.

How we treat others matters. Tarte witnessed Lugh slaughter the wolves with the deftness of a surgeon, and hears how he’s killed people and will go on killing people as part of his duties. But he’s still a good person to her, because he and he alone saved her when he didn’t have to.

Now that both Dia and Tarte have been properly introduced (and are both exceedingly charming, rootable characters to complement Lugh’s aloofness) I imagine the cool beauty Maha’s story is next up. I’m looking forward to more taut, confidently structured storytelling.

Mother of the Goddess’ Dormitory – 01 (First Impressions) – Undress of Grievances

Nagumo Koushi is a 12-year-old sixth grader who is abandoned by his father after their house burns down. He’s wandering the streets starving to death when a green-haired beauty takes pity on him and welcomes him into her college dorm, which is full of beauties, almost none of whom have any qualms about waltzing around with nothing or next to nothing on.

This is a notorious “problem dorm”, which means these college students are generally ostracized by their peers. I can’t really blame them, considering some of their conduct with a 12-year-old kid. I’ll never be too old for anime, but I believe I have gotten too old for this particular brand of nonsense.

It’s a shame, because a lot of the fanservice and voice work is pretty well done, and there are moments of actual emotional resonance…but yeah, I’m just not feeling this one.

Jujutsu Kaisen – 17 – Twinception

I think I’m in love. The opening act of this episode is all Zenin Maki, and at no point does she ever lack the upper hand in her duel with Miwa Kasumi. I like Kasumi just fine, but she got some bad advice from Mai about Maki’s limitations. “Grade Four” may be her official classification, but she’s a damn sight better than that, as Kasumi learns the hard way.

Overwhelmed by Maki’s superior strength and reach, Kasumi tries to draw her into her mini-domain in which she auto-attacks anything that comes within a just over two-meter radius. That plan fails when Maki snaps her polearm in two, throws the individual segments at her along with a hidden kunai Kasumi never saw. Maki ends up stealing Kasumi’s sword from right under her nose. All Kasumi can do is weakly ask if Maki will give it back (she won’t).

With that battle pretty much decided (seems someone kind and “normal” as Kasumi would take a sound defeat over having to kill anyone), we shift to Nobara vs. Momo AKA Ghibli Witch. While Kasumi kept things all business, Momo isn’t above trash talking Nobara for her lack of “cuteness”, a quality the Ghibli Witch believes is crucial for a female sorcerer.

Momo rants about the higher-ups demanding not strength from women, but perfection. Meanwhile, Momo can’t fight 100% against Nobara because a part of her is constantly distracted with using her cursed energy around her ears (to prevent a cursed speech ambush from Inumaki).

When Momo goes into Mai’s difficult upbringing, Nobara doesn’t want to hear it, because Maki—whom she comes right out and says she loves—suffered the same treatment. I love how there’s no love triangle between the two lead dudes and Nobara. Maki is light years better than either of them.

Nobara basically recites her mission statement as a person here: “I don’t give a damn about ‘men’ this and ‘women’ that! I love myself when I’m pretty and all dressed up, and I love myself when I’m being strong!” Realizing once she has her Straw Man Technique all lined up, she switches out her metal hammer for a plastic squeaky one and beats the stuffing out of her opponent, which is the kind of LOL/WTF absurdity I live for.

Were it just Nobara vs. Momo, the former might’ve claimed the win, but the subject of Momo’s sympathy Mai ends up retiring Nobara with a rubber bullet from maximum range. Since Maki is done with Kasumi, she hops into the treetops to face off against her twin, minutes-younger sister.

Through flashbacks we learn that Mai was a scaredy-cat around demons and would’ve been content to accept the Zenin family higher-ups’ estimate of the twins as ultimately good for nothing but servitude at the household. Among the two, only Maki fought against the menial destiny laid out for her and sought out her own, leaving Mai behind. Ultimately, Mai resented her sister not just for lying about remaining by her side, but forcing her to put i the effort to be a Jujutsu sorcerer—something she never wanted to be.

While I sympathize for the way both sisters were treated simply for being women, twins, and lacking the usual qualities of Jujutsu sorcerers, I maintain that Mai is being a whiny little brat. Once she’s fired all six bullets from her revolver, Maki thinks she’s won, but Mei uses her secret ability “construction” that turns her cursed energy into matter—in this case, a seventh bullet.

Just when it looks like Maki is about to get shot in the face, she reaches out and catches the bullet with her bare hands, revealing that she has a unique talent too. In what is essentially the opposite of Mechamaru’s situation, she was was bestowed with superhuman strength in exchange for having no cursed energy whatsoever.

Since Mai can only create one bullet per day, she loses…but doesn’t go quietly, ranting about what was so bad about being ordered around back home, and why Maki didn’t “stay at the bottom” with her. Maki doesn’t mince words: if she did that, they’d still be together, but she’d hate herself. Instead, they’re apart, and Mai hates her instead.

P.S. In this week’s Juju Stroll omake segment, Kasumi gets out of bed for a midnight snack, only to find Momo and Mai eating her edamame. Momo proposes an alternative snack in the form of a seafood ramen cup that’s given richness and an extra kick with milk and red chilies snipped in with scissors. It is indeed tasty…but perhaps a bit too heavy for a midnight snack!

Dororo – 19 – When Words Fail

After a very thematically and emotionally heavy multi-part episode, it felt right to get into some lighter fare. After his battle with Tahoumaru, Hyougou and Mutsu, Hyakkimaru’s arm-swords are ruined, and so with Dororo’s new cash, they set out to find the venerable swordmaker Munetsuna.

A passing peddler told them Munetsuna was the best, but when they arrive in his village, the first villager they meet tells them the hatchet he made for him is crap. Dororo tests it, it cuts perfectly. The guy also says Munetsuna’s daughter Okowa is ugly and has a bad personality, but when they finally meet her, she’s drop-dead gorgeous, warm, and sociable.

Okowa also takes an immediate liking to Hyakkimaru, calling him “Hyaku-sama” and “joking” that he’s come to marry her. Her dad can tell Hyakki’s swords have been used to kill demons, and so they head to a shrine to purify them. That’s where we meet the demon-of-the-week who seems able to manipulate people into saying the opposite of what they mean.

It’s a novel skill for a demon that makes for a delightful rom-com conceit, consisting of the triangle of Dororo, Hyakkimaru and Okowa. Before Dororo knows it, Okowa is proposing to Hyakki, who says he will abandon Dororo their adventures and stay with Okowa. Dororo can’t believe what he’s hearing.

But the next day, he can’t believe what he’s saying: everything that comes out of his mouth is in support of Hyakki and Okowa’s marriage, for which Okowa couldn’t be happier. I can’t place Okowa’s seiyu (I’ll post it when I learn it) but she does a wonderful job bringing the adorable and eminently likable guest star to life.

Even as I sympathized with Dororo after Hyakki’s apparent turn against him, their traveling and/or living with this woman wouldn’t be the end of the world. Still, before Dororo figures out all this opposite-talking is the work of a mischievous demon, he finds an outlet for his frustration and loneliness in Munetsuna.

Ultimately, Dororo figures out something is amiss, and decides he has to stay by Hyakki’s side like he promised, no matter what bro said to make him not want to.

The day of the wedding arrives, and despite saying he was all for it, “Hyaku-sama” has no intention of actually going through with marriage, as he’s not even sure what marriage is. This is all pretty humorous, and the episode makes sure we know it’s okay to find it humorous, as the Amanojaku is far from the killer sharks or lake creatures our duo has fought before. He’s more of a trickster; a nuisance.

Mind you, that nuisance nearly becomes deadly when he makes Hyakki choke Dororo, but Munetsuna bonks him in the head with a log while wearing the mask of Hyottoko, one of their protective deities, and the “spell” he put on both Hyakki and Dororo is lifted. Hyakki embraces Dororo apologetically, and Dororo is happy his bro is back to normal.

As for Okowa, she figures out that Hyakki was saying the opposite of what he meant all that time, which means he never wanted to marry her. Fortunately, with the capture of the Amanojaku, one of the villagers who previously had nothing but unkind words for her is finally able to properly tell her how he really feels, and proposes to her.

As Hyakkimaru tries out his sweet new swords, he demonstrates to Munetsuna and Okowa that it never would have worked out; Hyakkimaru is someone who has dedicated himself to a journey to make himself whole again. So, with a warning to him not to rub his head against anyone unbidden (like he did when he met her), Okowa sees Hyakkimaru off, wishing him and Dororo well on their continuing adventures.

While perhaps not an essential addition to that main journey, this was nonetheless an enjoyable, warm, and above all funny episode that had its “other girl steals Hyakkimaru” cake and ate it too. It reaffirmed both that Dororo need not always be all dark and dire, and that no matter what supernatural foe they face, there’s no breaking up Hyakki and Dororo.

Hanebado! – 13 (Fin) – The Other Side of the Net

Hanebado! seemed to take a bit of a nosedive in critical reception as it progressed, with most of the criticism centering on writing perceived as poor and character reactions and attitudes that were too often over-the-top or unrealistic.

Frankly, neither of these things ever bothered me, because the primary draw for me was always watching two players slap the shit out of a birdie (or shuttlecock, if you’re not into the whole brevity thing). Ayano and Nagisa close out their match, and the show, doing just that.

As such, the animation of the match and of the character’s reactions grows ever more dramatic and stylized throughout the roller coaster of an episode. Ayano crawls all the way back, and Nagisa and her knee seem poised to crumble before the might of her opponent’s honed talent.

Coach Tachibana looks ready to pounce at any moment should Nagisa desire to end the match to possibly preserve her career; to lose to live to fight another day. But she doesn’t give up, nor does she let her knee stop her from hanging in there against Ayano.

After several end-of-match deuces (ties), it gets to the point that even Ayano’s body starts to give out. Indeed, when Nagisa’s winning point is scored, securing the narrowest of victories, Ayano’s racket flies right out of her hand and hits one of the net posts.

Once Nagisa realizes she’s won, she bursts into tears right there on the court, while an exhausted Ayano is helped off by her senpais, and takes that opportunity to thank them for supporting her, something that catches them off guard, since she was such an unapologetic bitch to them not too long ago!

Even though Ayano lost, she doesn’t feel like she’s going to be abandoned, nor that it’s the end of the world. Rather, both she and Nagisa realized during the match that they both love and play badminton because it’s fun; and it’s never more fun than when you’re playing such a close match against someone on or around your level.

Ayano and Nagisa might just represent the two peaks of their respective corners (talent and hard work), though it’s also clear that Nagisa has plenty of talent (otherwise she wouldn’t have beaten Ayano, period), while Ayano works plenty hard (otherwise she wouldn’t have had the stamina to almost knock Nagisa off).

Ayano also confronts her mother and states that she hated her, past-tense, because she thought she was abandoned for not having any talent. Uchika repeats her offer to bring Ayano back with her to Denmark, but Ayano wishes to remain in Japan, where she intends to keep playing and keep getting better. Uchika is impressed and moved by her daughter’s words.

As friends Riko and Nagisa share a post-victory moment of friendship, Ayano also takes the time to thank her friend Erena for always standing by her side, as well as for persuading her to get back into badminton.

When Ayano and Nagisa next meet, the latter is being told to take things easy, what with her patellar tendinitis. But Ayano immediately challenges her to a match. She quickly switches back to “Evil Ayanon”, but not out of straight-up malice; her intention to inspire Nagisa, not provoke her.

It’s also a way of acknowledging Nagisa’s skill; trash talk aside, Ayano wouldn’t play someone she believed wasn’t worth playing. And so the two arrange to practice together more and more in preparation for the inter-high tournament. After all, the person on the other side of the net is a “reflection of themselves”. Beat that, and they can beat anyone.