Metallic Rouge – 13 (Fin) – All’s Well that…Ends

I was officially checked out of Metallic Rouge last week, and this finale didn’t offer a whole lot to change that position. Everyone basically stands around in a room for the entire episode while the Puppetmaster, revealed to be a Nean version of Roy Junghardt, explains how he always had a firm grip on the Immortal Nine’s strings.

Silvia tries to go against the “settings” he’d set for her, and pays the price. He inhabits Cyan’s body, but Naomi merges her consciousness within Rouge and fights Roy-in-Cyan’s body. Cyan also fights Roy and rejects him, enabling Rouge/Naomi to defeat him. Rouge then activates Code Eve, which I thought she didn’t want to do, and it triggers a Usurper trap.

A virus is sent to all Neans everywhere, making them pliable soldiers in an imminent Usurper war against humanity. But Gene, who is Noir’s human son somehow, predicted something like that would happen and uploaded an antivirus. Now Neans can push humans who push them, but aren’t automatically killbots, I guess.

The episode and the series end in abrupt and thoroughly unsatisfying fashion, with Rouge (with Naomi inside her) engaging a huge horde of Usurper killbots led by the clown girl Opera, who was never really a character. Naomi says “all’s well that ends well,” but I’m just glad this mess is over. Metallic Rouge started strong and had some fine moments, but it kinda completely fell apart at the end there.

 

Metallic Rouge – 12 – Live for Love

…Could we maybe not?

Here we are, back to having to hear the Puppetmaster drone on in his insufferably avuncular tone about puppets and plays and performances. I’m at the end of my tether with this stuff, frankly, and my worry is that if Code Eve can’t be extracted from Rouge, it will be extracted from the captive Cyan.

Rouge and Naomi run around the maze-like facility some more, encountering a Gene who’s a bit too energetic to be the real one. The two ladies calling Giallon out was one of the more chuckle-worthy moments of the episode, but then he has to start going on about how the proverbial play is boring and he wants the two of them to make things more interesting.

While he says he’ll take them to the real Gene, he instead takes them to Silvia, who offers Rouge one last chance to surrender her id willingly and sacrifice herself for the good of all Neans. Rouge declines the offer and a duel ensues, but Silvia can regenerate her lopped-off limbs, and stabs an open Rouge through the chest, extracting the id she needs to create her world.

At first Naomi leaves the id-less, fading Rouge on the floor and rushes to fulfill her duty as First. If Rouge lost, which she did, she has to initiate the self-destruct of the entire facility to prevent Code Eve from getting out. But as she’s going over the protocols, she has a change of heart, runs back to her friend, and lends her her own id to have another go at Silvia.

~dun dun dunnnnnn~

Meanwhile, Gene and Ash have convinced Aes/Alice to help them, and Eden has killed Grauphon, leaving Silvia with fewer and fewer allies. That said, she’s so certain that her cause is right she doesn’t seem to care. They all meet where the Puppetmaster likely intended them to meet, and he finally removes his mask to reveal that he’s Dr. Roy Junghardt himself.

I hate that it’s come to this, but like a Nean without an id, my energy and enthusiasm for this show has simply cratered. I’ll stick around for the finale to see if Rouge, Naomi, Cyan, and I guess Ash make it out of this, but I honestly don’t give a hoot about anyone else.

Metallic Rouge – 11 – Strings Attached

The Alters are all in attendance for the curtain to go up on the New World Silvia intends to lead. With the help of the Puppetmaster and Opera, the ship carrying Rouge and the others is being made to crash land at the Venus complex, ensuring they have no reliable way back home. But as Noir is also with them, Silvia asks Grauphon to give him back his id, and with it a second chance to join his bretheren.

Opera also sees to it that Rouge and Naomi are separated from Noir, Cyan, and Ash. Naomi knows the way, while Rouge busts up any guardbots that get in their way. But while they do a lot of running and bot-busting, you get the distinct feeling that they’re like rats in maze, their movements being largely controlled by the strings of their hosts.

Cyan is determined to meet back up with her sister, and make her own choice should she hear the voice again, but when the Clair de Lune plays in her head once more, she’s unable to fight it, and falls into a trance. She heads towards the Puppetmaster, her “masked father”, as Ash follows, while Grauphon gives Noir back his id, and prepare to fight.

Once Cyan arrives at the spot where the Puppetmaster summoned her, he knocks her unconscious, removes his mask, and places it on her before snatching her up and heading off we know not where. Ash might have managed to catch a glimpse of the Puppetmaster’s face. Is it Jung, whose death was faked? Or someone else?

While Aes takes Gene to his room where he’ll stay for the time being, Silvia orders Giallon to intercept Rouge and kill Naomi, but doesn’t specify how. He disguises himself as Gene in hopes of lowering Rouge’s guard. It’s a simple trick, but that may be all he needs against someone as pure and simple as Rouge.

I’m not feeling too great about Naomi’s life expectancy, to be honest.Just about everything this week goes Silvia’s and the Puppetmaster’s way. We even see that there’s a factory churning out both new Neans and the Nectar to fuel them, which means Silvia doesn’t have to convince all extant Neans to follow her; she has a pliable army waiting in the wings.

We’ll see if Gene can make any headway with Aes/Alice, or if Naomi can stay alive long enough to keep Rouge and Code Eve out of the Alter’s hands. If she can’t, the Solar System will likely be Usurper territory within a year.

Metallic Rouge – 10 – Rocket to Venus

Rouge has decided that she wants to protect both humans and Neans. On the trip to Venus, Naomi is eager to unveil a secret weapon that will help their cause, but in the crate is a stowaway: Cyan. Unlike the one who was hellbent on killing Rouge, this Cyan is a lot more affable and childlike than when we last saw her, insisting Rouge is her big sister and that she only wants to “play” with her.

Meanwhile, Gene arrives on Venus with Silvia and the other Immortal Nine. They are welcomed by the Puppetmaster, who assures Gene that the Usurpers are merely his “sponsors.” They all sit down for a meal (of chocolate bars, of course) and reminisce on memories Gene doesn’t quite recall of all of them being together as a family.

Despite looking like a young woman, Cyan acts like a little kid, drawing crude pictures of her ideal life with her beloved big sister. That said, she’s perceptive enough to notice that Naomi and Rouge share a bond. When she refuses to bathe, it’s Ash, who is a father, who manages to convince her with the promise of ice cream.

While strategizing for when they arrive at Venus, Cyan takes exception to Naomi, even going so far as to tell her she hate her and starting to transform into her gladiator mode. Rouge stops her and calms her down, saying she can’t just hurt people, and she should also question the voice in her head when it pops in to tell her to kill. She should make her own choices.

Cyan tells Rouge she’s a bit jealous of her and Naomi, and asks what Naomi is to her. As Naomi overhears in the hall, Rouge tells her Naomi is the “best stranger”, someone who is irritating at times, but overall someone she doesn’t mind spending time with. This is heartening for Naomi, who as the First Nean has probably always felt pretty lonely.

I can’t say what awaits them on Venus—likely more robo-fighting—but this was a pleasant enough calm-before-the-storm episode that takes stock of the connections between the characters and the roles they’re to play on the final stage.

Metallic Rouge – 09 – Making Up In Space

Turns out Aes isn’t on Rouge’s side, but Silvia’s. Grauphon knocks Gene out and offers him to Rouge in exchange for her id. Eden sacrifices his id to save Rouge. Giallon arrives in a Usurper landing ship to pick up Silvia, Graupon, Aes, and the unconscious Gene. Rouge prepares to chase after them, but is kicked by her counterpart Cyan, who is itching for a fight.

She gets one, and she and Rouge soon learn they’re equally matched in Gladiator mode. Naomi reaches out to Rouge and tells her to trust her and invert her output phase, deforming as if she were in human form. Rouge puts her faith in Naomi once more, and it works: she and Cyan cancel each other’s power out and revert to human form, with Cyan passing out.

Rouge and Naomi agree that they need to talk, and Naomi chooses a rather extraordinary location to do so: the orbiting space station of the Visitors, the first aliens to make contact with humans. After docking and walking through a corridor devoid of air, Naomi suddenly takes her helmet of, shocking a still-very-mad Rouge. Turns out Naomi is a Nean too, one created by the Visitors to serve as a go-between with humans.

Naomi takes Rouge to meet three of the X Noah—the Visitors—who look like a possible design for the spice-transfigured Navigators in Dune, but Rouge first mistakes for merfolk, which is cute. They call Naomi “First”, since she’s the first Nean ever created. She’s brought her here because it’s the safest place to be, both for her, the humans, and the Visitors.

Within her id is the key to decoding Code Eve, which will free all of the Neans from the Asimov Code. However, the Usurpers, the evil aliens who started a war, are trying to start a new one, using the Immortal Nine with their mutual enemy as their vanguard. If Code Eve were executed, all the freed Neans would end up assisting the Usurpers in their conquest of Earth.

With all that in mind, this space station is the safest place for Rouge to be. But it is not the only logical place for her to be. After Rouge learns that the Nine and Gene are now on Venus, she wants to go there to fight them and get her brother back, and Naomi manages to convince the Visitors that Rouge’s wish to go is logical, because she trusts Rouge’s potential to defeat the enemy with her own power.

After Naomi kinda-sorta apologizes for putting Rouge through so much and making her think she betrayed her when she was only doing what she thought would keep her safest, Rouge insists on punching Naomi once. After that, the Visitors allow Rouge to head to Venus to try to resolve things, but order Naomi to stay put. In response, Naomi asks for her first-ever PTO day for self-care, which the Visitors grant.

When they reach the airlock to their ship, they encounter Ash and Eden, who flew up to orbit after learning Earth is on DEFCON-1 due to simultaneous Usurper attacks on and around Venus and Jupiter. Shit is starting to go down, and I couldn’t be happier Rouge and Naomi are back together to save the day, and then hopefully go to a nice beach somewhere and relax.

Metallic Rouge – 02 – The Stairs to Adulthood

Metallic Rouge swaps the Blade Runner aesthetic for the sparser, dustier Mad Max as Naomi and Rouge book a commercial transport across the Martian wastes to Welltown. Among the other passengers is a wealthy couple with a Nean servant, a journalist named Jill with an optical camera, and a granny with two bickering young siblings.

Naomi kills two cyberbirds with one stone, providing exposition for us while entertaining the kids with knowledge about the hulking spaceships half-buried in the sands they pass by, which were part of a war between humanity and evil “Usurper” aliens, which are different from friendly “Visitor” aliens.

Apparently neither Naomi nor Rouge believed anyone would be hunting them after their hijinks last week, otherwise they would have traveled alone. Instead, when three mercenary tanks attack and board the truck, Rouge climbs out of her hiding spot to dispatch them before they hurt any innocent people.

No matter the situation, Naomi and Rouge have an MCU-like playful bonhomie about their banter. Rouge negotiates Naomi’s unrealistic estimate for taking care of the baddies down to 90 seconds, but does it in 120. Meanwhile, the kids’ granny shows off her skills as a retired driver.

They manage to lose the mercs in a forest, making for a sudden change of environment, atmosphere, and palette. While Naomi heads to a military site with the driver to find parts to repair the truck, Rouge stays behind with the others.

Seeing that the little sister Emily is told by her brother she’s too little to take good pics, Rouge helps her find something neat to photograph. Unfortunately in the process Emily accidentally activates a “Cylinderhead” giant alien killbot from the war. Whoops!

When the mercs show up and fire at the killbot, their shot bounces off its shields, and it returns fire with a hell-beam that cleaves their tanks in two. The bot apparently has a taste for blood, so it doesn’t stop its rampage once all of the mercs are destroyed. Instead, it targets the truck full of civilians.

Knowing she’s the only one who can save the passengers, Rouge transforms into her battle mode (a very cool sequence, btw) and engages the bot, which soon becomes more than one bot. No matter, she picks one up and throws it at the other, blowing them both up.

While the truck looks awfully close to the gigantic blast, it doesn’t seem to suffer any damage. I really dug the pulsing choral and breakbeat-studded music that accompanied this confidently storyboarded and animated battle. Also notable is that Rogue’s battle mode is not CGI but traditionally animated. The effort and artistry is appreciated.

All’s well that ends well, with Rouge independently choosing to save the day (no orders from Naomi), and even giving some of her precious chocolate to Emily as a reward for snapping some cool photos. It’s on to Wellstown, unless next week’s episode picks up somewhere else entirely, and Rouge (at least in her red battle mode) is still being pursued by an investigator named Ash. Whatever trouble she and Naomi end up in, I’m sure they’ll try to keep things light and breezy.

NieR: Automata Ver 1.1a – 03 – This Cannot Continue

Lily brings 2B and 9S to their ad hoc base, and does not get into why she shoots so many intent looks in 2B’s direction. Could Lily have known a former version of this 2B? Did she know 2A, since she recognized her as “Number Two”? We also meet Jackass, who really wants to take the YoRHa androids apart to “collect data”, but is content to drive them to their recon site.

The truck ride, and really all establishing shots in NieR succeed in creating a vast sense of both scale and desolation, especially when we see the half-buried ruins of our familiar civilization (Saturday is apparently post-apocalypse day for me—not that I’m complaining). The grandeur is enhanced with the score, with themes perfectly suited to the base, desert, and the orbiting YoRHa base.

When they encounter Machine Lifeforms wearing tribal masks and markings, 2B and 9S get to work trashing them. But when 9S hacks the biggest bot, he gets a lot more than he bargained for. These MLs are among those that have absorbed knowledge from the library of humanity of yore, and he ends up in the middle of a Mesopotamian-style  ritual.

With this group of bots defeated, 2B, 9S and Jackass trudge on into the ruined city, where all communications to YoRHa HQ are being jammed by an unknown power source. They keep exploring, and locate a group of android corpses, including the missing YoRHa liaison. That the corpses aren’t totally destroyed but in various states of dismantlement bodes ill for our two androids.

2B and 9S fall though quicksand and into a yawning undergeround complex. They come upon a circle of yellow-eyed, non-hostile MLs both reciting and emulating various human emotions and activities, including copulation and childrearing. All of this makes 9S particularly uneasy, since this is not the way the enemy should be acting. But then things get even weirder when one comment from a red-eyed ML—“this cannot continue”—sends the yellows into a frenzy.

The MLs climb columns made of the fossilized bodies of their dead, and huddle together in to the super-brain thingy teased last week. The mass opens and out pours an approximation of an android that quickly grows skin and stands up, part Terminator, part Sephiroth. 2B and 9S’ first instinct is to kill it ASAP, even though he is not immediately hostile to them.

While they successfully break his energy shield and impale him with their blades, a second, unharmed ML android emerges from the lifeless body, good as new, and this one is a lot more aggressive. 9S is just able to grab 2B and leap out of the way of the android’s devastating main weapon. The resulting cave-in apparently crushes the android, but as we saw that’s not going to be enough to do it in.

We learn from Commander White up in space that she didn’t send 2B and 9S to assist the resistance, but to use the resistance as a shield and decoy in order to facilitate their real mission, which has now borne fruit. Not only do they know what became of the liaison, but they’ve uncovered a potentially game-changing development in their once-primitive foe.

NieR: Automata Ver 1.1a – 02 – Blood and Lilies

In episode two, perspective shifts from the YoRHa in their pristine orbital headquarters to a battered but still operational Machine Lifeform (ML). Curiously, despite having apparently been created by “Aliens”, they have a very similar bootup and heads-up display as the humans’ androids.

This single ML unit starts to walk, creating a sense of scale and grandeur to the ruined landscape. Upon returning to a base, it finds a book, and in that book, a bookmark with the image of a white lily. Scenes of ML are interspersed with a childlike narrator telling the story of the MLs with colored paper compositions.

This particular ML develops an “emotional matrix”, deemed a critical error, and its red eyes turn yellow, denoting neutrality. It ;earns how to garden, and devotes its existence to growing flowers, gathering “followers” in the form of other yellow-eyed MLs.

The comparisons to WALL-E are obvious from the serene, gorgeous empty vistas ML inhabits to the way the storytelling takes place without dialogue (narration segments aside). But hey, if you’re going to borrow, borrow from the best.

Not far from ML’s growing garden is an embedded group of human resistance fighters led by…Lily. I immediately wondered if, like the stiff redheaded twin maintenance units assigned to the unit, she was an android in disguise. Regardless, she’s bitter about the “Council of Humanity” on the Moon ignoring all requests for badly-needed reinforcements.

Every encounter with the red-eyed MLs means at least one of her unit will be injured or killed, with no one to replace them. They’re ambushed when trying to gather resources to keep fighting, and have to abandon those resources when the MLs send in kamikaze units.

Little does Lily know that up in orbit, she’s about to get a helping hand, in the form of 2B and 9S. When 2B wakes up she tells 9S she finds the sound of his voice comforting, only to cooly head to the control room without him.

They may have just come back from a brutal battle that claimed 9S’s memories, but Commander White sends them back down to perform recon on the resistance unit. They had an android embedded with the unit, but there’s been a breakdown in communication.

2B and 9S can’t come soon enough, as a huge mass of red-eyed MLs trample and destroy the yellow-eyed peaceful bots and their garden on their march to kill the humans. Lily demonstrates that she’s a capable leader despite her youth, quick and decisive and maximizing the limited resources she has.

When they mine a bridge and lure the red-eyed bots across, the detonators fail to work. It’s here where Lily’s underlings spot the yellow-eyed ML we know and have grown fond of. He stands in front of the hundreds of red-eyes, seemingly to try to talk them out of further fighting.

But before he can turn any red eyes to yellow, the entire bridge is lit up by missiles from 2B and 9S’ flying mechas. 2B makes a characteristically stylish entrance, and Lily not only knows her as “Number Two” but is very shocked to see her, or indeed any Council reinforcements. That said, Lily’s bloody shoulder seems to confirm she’s a flesh-and-blood human, not a “tin man”.

As for our yellow-eyed friend, he didn’t die in vain, nor is he alone. Hundreds if not thousands of his kind are soaking up knowledge from the library of the civilization they toppled, and seem to be combining their amassed knowledge and brains into a single mega-brain.

While I’m not sure what this is quite about, from a visual standpoint I can at least guess that yellow eyes and books are, at least now, less of a threat than red eyes, kamikaze bots, and slaughter. The narrator also describes the yellow-eyed bot anomalies as “treasures”. Were they meant to evolve in this way, or was it just random happenstance?

Whatever the answers are, and even if they’re never revealed, I remain thoroughly intrigued, and the setting lends the show a welcome splash of color and life from last week’s largely monotone, industrial battles. The post-ED omake featuring a cloth puppet 2B and 9S answering fan mail provides humor and whimsy.

NieR: Automata Ver 1.1a – 01 (First Impressions) – Glory…to Mankind

Nier:Automata Ver 1.1a is an anime adaptation of a video game sequel to a spin-off of another video game series dating back to 2003, but for me it might as well be anime-original. With this adaptation, A-1 Pictures gives us a polished sci-fi action flick set in a bleak and gritty world decimated by alien invasion. The aliens use “machine lifeforms” (retro-looking robots) to fight sleeker (read: sexier) androids developed by humanity.

Our protagonist is YoRHa B-Gata H-Kei 2-gou B-gata, AKA 2B, which is super easy name to remember. Sporting a silver bob, eye mask, dark maid/knight outfit, katana, and slick-as-shit mecha, 2B is voiced by Ishikawa Yui, channeling Mikasa with an appropriately stiff, mechanical vocal performance. I also thought of early Vivy.

2B has the baroque look of a late-stage Final Fantasy character, which contrasts nicely with the more bare-bolts industrial setting. At times I wondered if Yuuri and Chito from Girls’ Last Tour might come running through the mist. She’s supported by a float “Pod” companion that keeps her informed about her surroundings and conditions.

2B has a mission, and despite being the only one of her squad to make it to the factory where her Goliath-type target is located, she is determined to carry out the mission or die (or rather be destroyed) trying. She’s aided by a far more “human”-acting intelligence android, 9S, voiced by Hanae Natsuki as if he were an affable high school character.

9S hasn’t spoken to anyone in a while, and is happy to be teamed up with someone, being a typically solo unit. 2B is less enthused, especially with 9S’ loquaciousness (she tells him not to call her “miss” and cuts his exposition short). But he also saves the “brute-force-first” 2B’s ass. As for the Goliath, it appears as a massive oil platform-on-tracks, with a face resembling the boss from StarFox.

This Goliath is a tough customer, but 9S has it handled: diving into its computer brain in a trippy hacking sequence that’s a nice change of pace from the external twisted metal and rust, and smoke. His hacking ends up being incomplete and he’s ejected from his mecha and seriously maimed, and Goliath is able to reboot and regain part of its autonomy.

9S urges a suddenly very human-like 2B not to worry about him and complete the mission. She runs up the appendages of the Goliath and punctures its core with her katana. The good guys have seemingly prevailed and defeated the big level boss. But then it wakes back up, and four other Goliaths awaken and rise, surrounding them.

It looks like it’s going to be Game Over, Man for both 2B and 9S, so after she thanks him for saving her, the two take out their Black Boxes. When these boxes touch, they self-destruct in a massive explosion that consumes all of the Goliaths. Even with 9S by her side, this was always going to be a suicide mission as soon as 2B arrived without any of her fellow squad units.

But while that’s the end of her body, her mind, memories, and data are all transferred back up to the massive orbital human stronghold called the Bunker, and she wakes up in a new android body. It’s the first time we see her eyes, and because of that the sight of them really packs a punch.

When she reunites with a revived 9S, he confirms that the mission was complete, but that he must have only had time to transfer her data back to the Bunker. The 9S before him has no memories of their joint mission down on the surface. When this new 9S dutifully utters their motto—Glory to Mankind—2B clenches a fist and repeats the words …but grudgingly.

We don’t see a single human being or alien in this episode, only their tools. If we never see either, I probably won’t mind. Their absence contributes to quite a compelling atmosphere of loneliness, isolation, and even a tinge of resentment and brooding in the androids. They were built and programmed to say that motto and fight and sacrifice their bodies and minds, and while emotions are forbidden, they are also definitely there.

2B wonders if her unending cycle of life and death is a curse or punishment from the gods who created her. None of this is groundbreaking stuff, but it is admirably executed, and looks and sounds awesome (Aimer sings the OP and the score is boss), which is why I’ll be continuing to watch.

Urusei Yatsura – 01 (First Impressions) – The Winner Takes It All

In this reboot of a sci-fi/rom-com anime from 1981 (41 years ago) we’re introduced to Moroboshi Ataru (Kamiya Hiroshi), an unrepentant horndog in a Waldo shirt who ogles a comely jogger mere seconds after reaffirming his love for his long-suffering girlfriend, Miyake Shinobu (Uchida Maaya). That status quo is suddenly shattered by an alien invasion of earth by a race called the Oni.

But these aliens are the sporting type, so they give humanity a chance to avoid subjugation: if a randomly selected human can catch the Oni’s leader’s daughter Lum (Uesaka Sumire) by the horns in a game of tag, the invasion will be cancelled. The human they randomly select is Ataru, of course. And Lum? She’s a total babe.

The game of tag is internationally televised and held at a soccer stadium packed to capacity. Unfortunately for Ataru (who is preternaturally unlucky having been born on Friday the 13th), Lum can fly, and proves extremely hard to catch.

He only has ten days to tag her, and those days go by utterly devoid of success. On the evening before the last day before humanity is doomed, Shinobu decides to give Ataru some extra motivation: if he succeeds, she’ll marry him. Ataru genuinely cares for Shinobu, so the next day he’s all vim and vinegar.

Upon finally catching Lum by the leg, he learns she has another power: electricity. But that doesn’t faze him. As his bride-to-be watches and he repeatedly shouts “Marriage!” he intensifies his pursuit of Lum, eventually grabbing her into an embrace and relieving her of her tiger-print bikini top.

Using the top as a lure, for the first time Ataru brings Lum to him, and uses said top as a distraction as he allows her to reclaim it while he reorients himself and grabs her by the horns, thereby winning the game of tag and saving earth from invasion.

Ataru is instantly a global hero, and he’s ready to marry Shinobu right then and there … but there’s one problem: all those times he shouted “Marriage!” while chasing Lum? Lum thought that meant he intended to marry her. And having lost the game fair and square, she agrees.

Neiher Ataru nor Shinobu (especially Shinobu) like this, but Lum is absolutely intent on being Ataru’s wife. When he declares that he only loves Shinobu, he makes Lum cry, and when she calls Shinobu on the phone (this series is very much lodged in the 80s, tech-wise) both girls accuse him of two-timing.

That said, Shinobu is on board with Ataru’s plan to simply ignore Lum when she uses her alien ship’s jamming tech to intrude on their phone calls.When Ataru and Shinobu threaten meet in person, Lum creates massive electrical storms, but the lovebirds still manage to unite, which is when she takes her ship into the atmosphere to intercept them.

Normally, saving the world would afford the saver a life of leisure and ease; not so for the ever-unlucky Ataru. While he loves Shinobu, he also cannot deny his attraction to Lum, even though she has a tendency to electrocute him when she perceives him to be cheating.

It is here where I admit that the premise and the character dynamics are very much stuck in the 20th century, and perhaps that’s for the best. Compare this to the reboot of the even older Dororo, which respected its source while also bringing it into modernity.

Urusei Yatsura isn’t just retro in look (albeit with a 21st century glow-up), but also retro in sensibility. The show is loud, boisterous, and a a bit backwater. But it’s also fantastic-looking, brimming with infectious energy and charm, and is mostly just a big ol’ heap of fun!

Takt Op. Destiny – 01 (First Impressions) – Settling the Score

It’s 2047, and music is banned. If it’s ever played, fearsome alien monsters called D2 arrive and fuck shit up. So when young man sits at a lovely upright piano and bangs out some Beethoven, a D2 comes running…right in the middle of an unassuming town full of unassuming people. The D2 looks like it’s about to obliterate the pianist for sure…but he’s saved by a ridiculously strong young woman.

She is Colette, AKA Destiny, a Musicart, and he is Takt, her Conductor. Transforming into a Musical Magical Girl, Destiny easily defeats the mid-level D2. The brief but wonderfully precussive battle set to a more symphonic arrangement of Symphony No. 5 IV. Allegro is a feast for eye and ear. This is what happens when Madhouse and Mappa join forces.

Takt and Destiny were just passing by the town while on a long and interminable road trip to New York City, where their self-appointed leader Anna hopes they can have Destiny “tuned” to be more efficient in her fighting, as she always ends up exhausting Takt. Destiny loves eating, but also has to due to her extremely fast metabolism. Takt should train, but all he cares about is music.

Destiny is feeling particularly brash, and Takt is sufficiently beat and confident in her skills, that she goes off on her own while he and Anna wait in a remote highway diner (one wall of which Destiny destroys as she exits). She ultimately fails to eliminate the D2 in the area due to their boss being a particularly tough customer, as she regales to them with cute Panty & Stocking-style visuals.

Her mistake was going off without Takt, or rather Takt not accompanying her (neither of them listen to Anna’s directives, a fun running gag). But then Destiny rushes back to town with her super speed, picks up the piano with her super strength, and rushes it back to the abandoned factory where the boss lurks. There, her Conductor starts to play Moonlight Sonata, and it’s off to the races with a sakuga-fest of a boss battle that ends in a victory.

As a weapon, Destiny comes off like a piano: capable of great bluntness and great precision; capable of being extremely quiet or loud. More than anything, she’s only as good as the person making use of her. Takt is a brilliant musician, but has a lot to learn about Conducting. If they’re ever going to get to New York—much less save the world from the D2—they’re both going to have to step up their games.

Takt Op. Destiny is a crisp, bright disco ball of luscious anime goodness. Will every episode look this good? Who knows, but if you want to hook an audience right from the get-go, this is how you do it! Play it again, Takt.

Zombieland Saga: Revenge – 12 (Fin) – Not Leaving It Up to God

ZSR’s totally epic saga of a finale starts out very stodgily, at the Saga Prefectural Office’s Special Task Force HQ. There’s a wonky procedural flavor to the proceedings reminiscent of the underrated Shin Godzilla, in that it mirrors the real life Japanese collective spirit of 1.) This Is The Problem; 2.) This Is What We Do About It; and 3.) We’ve All Got Matching Jumpsuits. Honestly I think it’s ultra badass that in dire times, even the government officials start dressing like a bike gang. Or is it t’other way ’round?

It is into this disaster CIC that Tatsumi Koutarou insinuates himself, and despite being held back by police, makes sure Saga’s governor hears his pleas to prioritize restoring the infrastructure around the Tosu area—where EFS happens to be located. Koutarou knows what Saga needs is a pure, uncut injeciton of reassurance into the hearts of every Saga resident. Something to unify them so they can all defeat this horrible disaster together.

That something is, obviously Franchouchou, who are enjoying a well-deserved bath prior to the biggest show of their lives that they’re still not even sure will happen due to the ongoing calamity.

While they rest up and make sure they’re prepared come what may, Koutarou is risking imprisonment to plead his case to the people who decide what happens in Saga, while Ookoba uses all of his media connections not for Koutarou’s sake, but for those girls who give everything their all, no matter how dead they are.

Sakura may get the day of the week wrong—and there were a good eight to ten months during Covid when I lost track too!—fate smiles on the group over at Saga FM, which is not only operational and on the air, but in dire need of personalities to fill that air time. Saki then proceeds to give a vulnerable and impassioned pep talk—one of the best monologues of the whole show—and Tano Asami absolutely nails it.

The next morning, Franchouchou, the Legendary Seven, strike out from the mall shelter they’ve called home the past few days and make the trek to EFS on foot. This offers them and us an opportunity to view both the devastation and the enduring beauty of their home.

When they arrive at EFS, it again seems to mock them with its cavernous emptiness. But instead of oppressive, I saw the venue as brimming with potential. Sure enough, people who love Franchouchou and whose lives they’ve touched start to trickle in, starting with their two first and most loyal fans, the metalheads.

Maria and the delinquents past and present file in, followed by Maimai and her classmates, Iron Frill and their followers, Oozora Light and his encourage, Hisanaka Pharmaceuticals, NHBK Fukuoka news chopper who has followed the group’s story since discovering them at the mall shelter, White Ryuu and a contingent of American troops, possibly from Yokozuka. Even the Dancing Chicken Man shows up!

It’s a beautiful and heartwarming reunion of everyone from Zombieland Saga, and their numerous powerful allies and fans combined with the might of both print, TV, and social media, ensure that this time—even in the midst of what could possibly be Saga’s worst disaster in its history—a packed and positively rocking Ekimae Fudosan Stadium.

The governor’s chief of staff reminds Koutarou that all they did was “choose to prioritize the most effective strategy, after logical consideration”, which is politicspeak for “the people need this right now and we’re going to do everything in our power to see that they get it”—”it” being nothing less than the biggest and best Franchouchou show yet.

No, the zombie idols aren’t coursing with electricity and crazy laser lightshows. Their outfits aren’t over-the-top, but call to mind seven angelic figures dedicated with every fiber of their undead being to make the people of Saga not simply forget their troubles, but to give them the courage to face and defeat them through surpassingly catchy song and dance.

This is not an episode satisfied with one climactic song. It opens with a big-league build-up to the energetic first song, then some call-and-response with the Legendary Yamada Tae (whose gibberish eventually coalesces into a franchouchou chant), which transitions into a slower and more contemplative piece.

Sakura, Saki, Ai, Junko, Yuugiri, Lily, and Tae are all at the top of their games, and the crowd—no doubt still traumatized by current events—are well and truly into it. And while not as important as the revitalizing impact they have on the people of Saga, the group gets their revenge and then some.

Not only is every seat and the entire field packed this time, but while the piddling crowd of their first disastrous EFS show didn’t call for any encores because they thought it would be just too cruel, this time there’s nothing that can stop Franchouchou from heading back out onto the stage after a quick breather.

Before they do, Koutarou prostrates himself before them and despite being a “grown-ass man” starts tearing up at the sheer restorative power of the zombie idols. Silly, Koutarou, being open with your emotions is what makes men grown-ass! As they head back out to hit the crowd with their collective soul, Koutarou tries to scrub out his blood from the floor; a truly ill omen.

Franchouchou’s final song is interspersed with scenes of Saga rebuilding and people overcoming adversity together, echoing their own personal struggles as well as their struggles as a group. Let it be said that both Franchouchou and Zombieland Saga as a series left absolutely everything on the stage in its finale.

In fact, if Saga were to, say, be destroyed utterly by an alien warship reminiscent of the City Destroyers from the 1997 blockbuster Independence Day, immediately after the concert wrapped, I don’t think a single person on or off EFS’s stage who’d deny that they went out on a good note.

That’s a good thing, because immediately after the concert wraps, Saga is in fact apparently destroyed utterly by an alien warship reminiscent of the City Destroyers from the 1997 blockbuster Independence Day. It’s kind of a downer, but it’s also the kind of irreverence and absurdity I’ve come to know and love from Zombieland Saga, and why I will miss it and each and every member of Franchouchou so damn much. What a frikkin’ ending!

RABUJOI WORLD HERITAGE LIST

Head over to Crow’s World of Anime for the latest discussion on our beloved zombie idols with Irina from I Drink and Watch Anime. Always a great read!

Star Trek: Lower Decks – 03 – Buffer Time

While in the turbolift trying to make small talk with the captain, Boimler ends up letting slip two words no senior officer should ever hear: buffer time. Once she learns the lower decks are over-inflating work time estimates (the way even Scotty used to do) in order to secure more free time, the captain puts an immediate stop to it.

And I do mean immediate: suddenly everyone is equipped with a PADD that issues a ticking clock for every task they perform—like an Amazon fulfillment center technician. Free time is eliminated, which means stress and anxiety build up with no time for release…or adequate sleep! And as the TNG episode “Night Terrors” thoroughly demonstrated, Starfleet officers need REM sleep.

As a result of heightened anxiety and increased fatigue among the crew, mistakes are bound to be made. Mistakes like, say, when someone brings along not only the wrong cultural artifact for a diplomatic mission, but one that enrages the aliens to such an extent that they decide to launch an invasion of the Cerritos—the crew of which is in no condition to repel boarders.

Character-wise, Rutherford and Tendi are so slammed by work they come pretty close to taking it out on each other. Boimler, who was already operating on zero buffer time, is happy as a clam even as the rest of the crew crumbles, and Mariner ends up on the ill-fated away mission with the first officer, Commander Ransom, a Starfleet officer in the Kirk/Riker mold.

When the aliens do board the Cerritos, each member of the crew is so lost in their own personal hell of ticking clocks and trying to make up time that will never be made up, there’s barely any time to notice there are intruders aboard ship, let alone do anything about it.

As such, the intruders initially run wild, spraying graffiti all over the exterior and corridors of the ship, despite only being armed with spears, which as Boimler points out are no match against even one hand phaser. Soon he learns the senior officers and captain have also shifted to the new work schedules, resulting in the captain having to virtually run the bridge all by herself.

Down on the planet, the aliens (who are a pretty standard Star Trek alien race of the week) decide that if Ransom or Mariner can defeat their hulking champion, they’ll let them and the other officers go free. Mariner shows Ransom all of the scars that show she’s best suited to participate in the gladitorial match.

Even so, Ransom refuses to let his subordinate fight for him; indeed, he’d rather—and does—stab Mariner through the goddamn foot so that she has no choice but to stand down. While Trak makes clear part of command is being able to send junior officers to their probable deaths for the good of the ship, this is not one of those instances, and Ransom is personally eager to test his mettle—not to mention his honed physique, which Mariner can’t help but notice.

While Mariner and Ransom ultimately bond over their shared near-death experience (and Ransom’s righteous beat-down of the so-called champion, who turns out to be a lot more interested in reading books than fighting) Boimler snaps the captain out of her devotion to the scheduling system that could lead to the loss of the ship.

Realizing perhaps to late to be credible that eliminating down time is a bad idea, the captain makes a shipwide announcement to all crew to bend or break every regulation necessary to secure the ship. The crew then proceeds to use the very PADDs that had been oppressing them to beat the alien intruders back to their ships.

The ship is saved largely due to Boimler urging his captian to essentially backtrack on a system he believed would have ensured maximum crew efficiency. But realistically, that would only happen if everyone was a workaholic like Boimler: the real world is different. And so it is that Boimler’s name is affixed to an edict essentially calling for laziness where indicated, contrary to his hallowed values.

When Tendi assures him no one will ever remember “the Boimler Effect”, we jump forward to the distant future in which it’s being taught in school—and they built a statue of him. That said, he’s not as important a historical figure as Chief Miles O’Brien…obviously!

Stray Observations:

• The entire main premise of the Cerritos-based plotline is an homage to officers like Scotty and LaForge being lauded as “miracle workers” for getting work done far quicker than estimated, when in reality they just know how to manage expectations.
• Ransom’s duel with the huge alien champion is akin to Kirk’s battle with the Gorn in “Arena”, as well as other bouts that usually caused his uniform to tear or even fall off.
• I appreciated Mariner’s mixed feelings about Ransom’s fight, both being outraged that he’d fight in her place and kind of turned on once it’s clear Ransom’s got this.
• Interesting how Mariner and her Captain/Mom have barely interacted so far. One assumes Boimler/Tendi/Rutherford will learn about that connection at some point…
• The gold plaque Boimler receives is similar to the dedication plaques that hang in some corner of the bridge of every Starfleet ship.
• The future teacher describes the eagle on Statue Boimler’s arm as “The Great Bird of the Galaxy”—which was the nickname of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry.
• Chief O’Brien probably needs no introduction. His illustrious career spanned from the first episode of TNG and the last episode of DS9 and beyond. He also devised Scotch-flavored chewing gum, bless him.