BokuBen – 05 – An Eventful Two Days in the Mountains

Ah, the mountains, where the weather can change on a dime…and compromising situations can come just as quickly! The whole class has arrived at a mountain retreat for two days of intensive study, but the thing Rizu seems to be studying more intensively than anything is Nariyuki’s face.

Rizu has probably never been in love, so isn’t sure what to do with the strange mix of emotions she feels whenever she looks at Nariyuki , and in the process of trying to figure them out, she just keeps starting.

In this high-stakes environment, even lending Nariyuki an eraser is an intense competition, with Fumino beating a hesitating Rizu, Nariyuki fumbling, and Uruka passing it to him under the desk—where her legs aren’t crossed. None of this is intentional, but that doesn’t change the fact it’s happening to Nariyuki .

Increasingly embarrassed over her reactions to his presence, Rizu lashes out and runs out for some air, breaking the rules. Once she’s calmed down, she starts collecting mountain udo as an apology, but is so into it she gets lost in the woods as a mountain rainstorm commences. When Sekijo Sawako asks Nariyuki where the hell Rizu is, he realizes she could still be out there.

Using flash cards she surreptitiously dropped, he manages to find her, just as she’s visualizing the mathematically highly unlikely possibility of him doing just that. The problem is, she’s on higher ground and has to come down. That results in her slipping and falling. As she falls, Nariyuki positions himself to catch her, and the their lips end up meeting. As his rice bowl cracks back home, Nariyuki wonders: was that his first kiss?

He gets neither clarity nor assurance from Rizu, who continues to avoid his face as they carry out their punishment for leaving school grounds: cleaning the girl’s bath. Unfortunately, Rizu neglected to hang the “cleaning in progress sign” on the door, so all the girls, including Fumino, Uruka, and Sawako, strip down and rush in before Rizu can stop them.

Rizu confidently declares she’ll take care of it, but immediately fails, is stripped down herself, and forced into a battle of endurance in the very sauna where Nariyuki went to hide. Uruka (surprisingly) is the first to give up, but Fumino’s in it for the long run. Meanwhile Nariyuki is past his limit…

He’s saved by an unlikely heroine: Sawako, who put together the fact that he and Rizu were cleaning the bath and he got caught in a situation not of his making. In exchange being in her debt, Sawako distracts the others so he can slip out.

But as he opens the door to complete his escape, Uruka is there, and the force of the door opening whips her towel clean off, revealing every bit of her non-tanned body. Fortunately for Nariyuki, Uruka is still so woozy from the sauna she assumes she was hallucinating the guy she’s into!

Rizu apologizes properly for putting Nariyuki in so much danger—to be caught peeping in the girls’ bath would probably torpedo his chances of VIP consideration—and they finally address the accidental kiss they both agree was not a real kiss, but an accident. When Rizu tries to ask if Nariyuki “saw anything” in the bath, he assures her his glasses were foggy, something another glasses-wearer might understand.

Back at school, Nariyuki is brought before Kirisu-sensei, Rizu and Fumino’s former tutor who the later described as “very…cold.” Indeed, Kirisu treats their meeting more like an FBI interrogation, and after he tells her he’s doing his best to improve their grades, she immediately brings up the incident of him accidentally kissing Rizu in the forest, something only he and Rizu should know about, but somehow she knows too!

Whether her motives involve ensuring Nariyuki fails to do what she failed to do with her cold methodology, are couched in some kind of repressed feelings for him (this is a harem rom-com), or she just wants Rizu and Fumino to give up on subjects contrary to their talents, Kurisu is poised to emerge as the single greatest threat to everyone else’s success and happiness.

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Sword Art Online: Alicization – 18 – The Sword That Cut Through Time

Bercouli Synthesis One isn’t like the other Integrity Knights have Eugeo and Kirito have faced to this point. He’s not in a rush to fight; he agrees not to kill since they didn’t kill his apprentice Fanatio; he calls Eugeo “shounen” rather than “boy-o”; he doesn’t look down on Eugeo or question his existence, or curse his sinfulness.

Yes, Bercouli is a “friendly opponent”, the guy who, inadvertently or not, seems to lull less focused opponents into a false sense of security with his casual, charming manner. But there’s no doubting the guy can bring it, thanks to his Time-Splitting Sword that was once the hand of an earlier Cathedral’s clock.

He’s also more than happy to explain how his move works…but not until he’s already used it and Eugeo has fallen victim to it. Eugeo sees that he can’t make this a close-range fight, but also knows Bercouli wants him to think long-range for his next attack.

Eugeo does indeed go long range—there’s no alternative—but when Bercouli stops and shatters his ice, Eugeo uses the shards to obscure the fact he’s tossed his sword away and made a false one, which also shatters. In Bercouli’s moment of wondering what’s going on, Eugeo releases his real sword from the ceiling, catches it, and stabs Bercouli with it in a smooth sequence of moves.

Kirito would be proud: it’s an Aincrad combo if ever there was one, not only making full use of the surroundings and anything else to gain an advantage, even if the opponent thinks it’s unfair or underhanded. For his part, Bercouli is amused and even impressed by the sheer audacity of someone throwing their sword away in the middle of a fight.

He’s in good spirits because the Eternal Ice didn’t finish him, and he starts to break out of his frigid binds, but Eugeo summons the second memory of his divine object: The Rose, which slowly drains both of their lives. The reason this isn’t suicide for Eugeo is that being a character near the peak of his maximum life, he’s confident that his life will outlast that of Bercouli, who was turned into an integrity knight much later in life.

Bercouli wonders what he’s talking about, miffed that Eugeo presumes to know anything about his past. That response in turn angers Eugeo, who hates how all of these Integrity Knights believe they’re divine beings summoned from the heavens by the Pontifex, when they’re really human beings; their mothers gave birth to them; they lived their own lives.

Even if most of the people in those lives don’t remember the knights, Bercouli is different because the heroic deeds of his life are immortalized in the oral tradition of Rulid Village. It’s as if, in his case, Administrator overlooked the potential means of her first knight recovering his lost memories and thus regaining his humanity.

This is all very good stuff, so it’s a little jarring for a new party to arrive on the scene quite suddenly, especially when that party is of the “goofy carnival clown/jester-class” disposition. Before The Rose fully takes Bercouli’s life, this asshole, one “Prime Senator Chudelkin”, rolls in like a ball, then scolds Bercouli for his “treasonous” act of not going all-out against Eugeo.

Bercouli bristles at this and asks Chudelkin to stay out of the affairs of swordsmen, to no avail. Chuddy puts Bercouli in a Deep Freeze—far deeper than even The Rose—after informing him that both he and Fanatio will be “reprocessed” by the Administrator in due time, and that they’ve found a new pawn to replace him…in Eugeo, calling for Kirito’s help before he freezes over.

That would have been a perfectly respectable, even boss way to end the episode, but SAO:A wasn’t done. We check in with Kirito and Alice resting on a ledge, waiting for more light to keep climbing. Kirito complains about being hungry, assuming Integrity Knights don’t, but he’s shown to be mistaken when Alice’s stomach grumbles.

At that point, he produces the buns Cardinal had given him, and prepares to toast them with a fire spell. Alice snatches them away, and uses a much more appropriate combination of water and air to properly steam the buns right there in her hand. She even jokes about eating them both before handing one to Kirito.

This may seem overly sweet and lightweight after such a comparatively heavy and serious end to Eugeo (which worked despite Chuddy’s horrid design) but I for one enjoyed it, since it’s likely next week won’t have any time for such moments. Kirito, impressed with Alice’s cooking skills, recalls that her little sister Selka is also so skilled, and Alice grabs him like he’d just delivered a grave insult.

She wants to know what he’s on about, and depending on how honest she judges his story, she might kill him on the spot. I had assumed they’d get right back to fighting as enemies once they reached the open floor, but with Eugeo now incapacitated and only Chuddy and Administrator herself left to face, that might not be the case.

It’s possible Alice believes Kirito’s story about her, the memory block is ejected from her head, and the two fight side by side to safe Eugeo and defeat Administrator. But hey, that’s just one possible route; I don’t possess a blade that cuts through time to the show’s future…AKA the LN.

Sword Art Online: Alicization – 17 – The Ascent

Considering the Rising Arc has consisted of “climb a few levels, fight a boss, repeat” structure, SAOA has managed to mix things up by demonstrating both the variety of integrity knights and varied ways in which they fight and think, and the variety of ornate settings in which they fight within the cathedral.

Things get shaken up even more when Kirito and Alice end up outside the Cathedral’s quickly-autohealed walls. All of a sudden things get a lot more simple and minimalist, both in where they are—Dangling from Kirito’s sword, with death beneath them—and who they are to each other: enemies who must work together to survive.

Interestingly, Alice inititally wants Kirito to let her plummet to her death, for she wouldn’t be able to live with the shame of being saved by “such a sinner.” Kirito actually has to remind her that as a knight, her life is not her own, but belongs to the church, and to her Pontifex. Whether she has to bear shame or not, it is her duty to live on and protect humanity from the incursion of the Dark Territory.

He even makes the case that his and Eugeo’s “invasion” of the cathedral is the will of the gods and of Stacia, since Alice herself cites that their will is revealed through the actions of her servants. So Alice holds on, lets Kirito raise her up so she can put her sword in the wall just as his slips out, and then she returns the favor and lifts him up.

A Truce it is, then: they will work together to climb to the open-air Morning Star Lookout on the ninetieth-fifth-floor, at which time the truce will terminate and Alice promises to slay him. Kirito soon learns he’ll be doing most of the work on this climb, as apparently Integrity Knights are a pretty specialized sort, and Alice neither has the athleticism (not to mention outfit) to do the gymnastics necessary to climb.

As Kirito climbs in the virtual Underworld, Asuna and Rinko are having lunch when they a Japanese escort ship on the horizon changing course in a maneuver that catches one of Ocean Turtle’s officials off-guard. In a neat little transition from Asuna piercing her salad tomato to Kirito piercing the wall of the cathedral, we return to the climb. I’m not sure what else to say about the brief trip to the real world, except that it’s possible the easy peace Asuna and Rinko of enjoyed may not last.

With the sun setting, Kirito is finding it harder to generate wedge objects, so Alice makes one of her own (gold and fancy-looking, of course), revealing she was letting him make them this whole time even though she could have chipped in earlier.

Eventually they can see a ledge above them where some kind of statues sit, but they begin to transform into dark territory minions, which start to attack the two. And just like that, what had been a tough enough job of climbing the sheer wall is made that much more perilous with these flying beasts.

Since dealing with the minions isn’t going to work of Kirito has to hold Alice up, he decides to hoist her up to the ledge above, in a move that catches her entirely by surprise, but does add some stability to their situation. Once she’s on solid ground, she hoists him up in the same way, though he hits the wall back-first and upside-down.

Detaching the chain so they can both move freely, Alice dispatches two of the three beasts with one slash, then waits for Kirito to take care of the third, asking if he needs any help. He doesn’t, and once he finishes his foe off, she likens his weird Aincrad style to a kind of dance that would be performed on stage at the summer solstice festival.

That’s an odd thing to note, because when Alice thinks about it more, her head starts to hurt. She’s never actually been to the festival, as she initially said, but heard about it from monks…apparently. Or maybe the Alice buried in the Synthesis is starting to claw its way back to consciousness, due to all of her interaction with her old friend Kirito.

Regardless, throughout the climb Alice’s opinion of Kirito seems to soften more and more, until she even offers her handkerchief to the “criminal” to wipe minion blood off his face. Perhaps she doesn’t want him at any externally-forced disadvantage for their 95th-floor duel. But even as an integrity knight Alice doesn’t like the fact their were minions in such a sacred place…it means someone in the church wanted them there.

Cut to Eugeo, who is without Kirito by his side for the first time in quite a while. He continues climbing, and makes it to a hall on the ninetieth floor, which appears to be a bathhouse. There he encounters a man bathing there, covered in muscles and scars: not just any Integrity Knight, but Commander Bercouli Synthesis One. He asks for Eugeo to give him a little time to relax, as he just arrived from a long dragon ride.

Will Eugeo be able to defeat or at least get past Bercouli without help from Kirito? Will Kirito manage to defat Alice, or possibly turn her to their side once and for all before they face Administrator? Either way, their epic climb is almost at an end.

Netsuzou TRap – 03

Another five minutes of Hotaru fooling with Yume using “practice” as an excuse. Even Yume is starting to have her doubts, and while Takeda is totally unaware, Fujiwara has now caught the two kissing on the slopes.

Rather than elucidate Takeda on the situation, he decides to take Hotaru to his room for the night, leaving Yume little choice but to invite Takeda into hers, or leave him out in the cold. Not exactly forcing a choice, but certainly limiting them.

For the record, Fujiwara and Hotaru are (separately) in agreement that Yume has the power to stop this…but she has to want to. At least she knows Hotaru has the tendency to throw her off balance.

But at some point she’ll have to decide which way to tip the scales: first boyfriend, or best friend who seems to want more…or maybe she’ll continue to be in this state of limbo for the whole run of the show! Either way, if it’s all the same to ya’ll I think I’ll be stepping back from this.

Eromanga-sensei – 09

I don’t know if I’m in the minority among Eromanga-sensei viewers, but I’m not the biggest fan of the Masamune-Sagiri relationship, which is rife with inevitably icky undertones, whether or not their love is purely familial or not. So when the show gets away from that relationship and focuses on the more standard unrelated boy-girl variety, I’m all eyes and ears.

We certainly get an eye-full in this week’sbeach episode, but it’s not just empty skin calories. I couldn’t be happier with the fact that we’re out of Masamune’s stuffy house and focused on Elf, whose plans are right there in the subtitle in the cold open.

Shidou and Muramasa also attend the “data collection trip” approved by Sagiri in various off-camera negotiations, but aside from Muramasa appearing in a far smaller swimsuit than she planned, Masamune and Elf have the beach to themselves.

Elf tries to take advantage, passing off legitimate activities lovers undertake on the beach—applying the lotion, playfully splashing, walking arm-in-arm—for role-playing and research. But whatever the context, the fact remains they’e doing these things alone, together, and enjoying it.

At least, Masamune tries to enjoy it, but finds it a bit awkward whenever Elf’s big bro and editor Chris appears. That awkwardness follows Masamune to the men’s bath where Chris joins him and asks him about Elf, including whether he’d marry her.

Masamune insists they’re not actually dating, despite Elf telling Chris so; but Chris manages to get Masamune to say an awful lot of complimentary things about Elf—which Elf herself can hear from the women’s bath.

Really, it doesn’t take much coaxing; Masamune exhibits some much-needed awareness of what he has in Elf, even taking exception to Chris saying his sister’s flaws can overshadow her charms; for Masamune, it’s the opposite, and believes Elf would make a good wife. His wife? Well…

Because Elf overheard everything, she visits Masamune’s room that night and takes him to the same firefly-bejeweled “elven forest” that inspired her novels, as well as the place where her dad proposed to her mom. We know immediately where this is headed: she tells Masamune that she considers him a candidate for marriage, which is a roundabout way of saying she likes him. She even tells him her true name: Emily.

This is Yamada Elf at her most vulnerable, earnest, and endearing. She’s come such a long way since her first appearance, where she was introduced as a generic arrogant loli pest. The little tidbits about her family and upbringing that come to light only serve to deepen my emotional investment in Emily and her happiness.

A-1 Pictures’s pretty character design, sutble animation, and seiyu Takahashi Minami are all working in concert to brine Emily to vivid life. And to his credit, Masamune doesn’t come right out and reject her the way he did Muramasa two eps back. He’d have been a fool if he had.

Emily realizes he might not be in love with her enough to propose marriage, but she’s going to work to make sure that he is one day. Considering all she’s managed to accomplish so far in life, I’m not betting against her, even if the show ends up going in a different direction at her expense.

Akagami no Shirayuki-hime – 21

I find it somewhat amusing that all three of the shows I’m watching this Winter peaked and wrapped up big arcs with four episodes to spare. ERASED, Grimgar, and Shirayuki have nothing left to prove to me. As such, I feel like I’m in bonus time, and thus more forgiving of pleasant but less-than-crucial episodes like this little number, which explores the bonds this group of young people have forged after so many adventures together.

And I’ll admit, it’s nice to see everyone back together after some time apart during the pirate stuff, and the Tanbarun stuff before that. Mitsu and Kiki continue their subtle dance, while Obi continues to be bewitched by Shirayuki, even with Zen standing rather firmly between them. It’s not your typical triangle, not only because Obi isn’t expecting anything to happen, but because he actually likes Zen too.

The outsider-of-the-week is Trow, a pretty but very capable young lass from his past, who just happens to be staying at the same inn by chance. At first they pretend not to know each other, but later Trow greets him by testing his skills, then asking him to join her on a job to retrieve a runaway heir squatting in an abandoned mansion (what is with all these abandoned mansions just lying around in anime?).

It’s a good thing Obi agreed to tag along, because while demonstrating her devastating bicycle kick on one of the whelp’s hapless guards, she slips and nearly falls to her death, but Obi catches her. Trow is somewhat bemused that Obi now has a master—it’s implied they were part of a crew that were their own bosses and did what they wanted. She wouldn’t mind teaming back up with Obi, though she doesn’t beg or insist; it’s more of a “would be nice” request.

When a worried Zen, Mitsu, Kiki and Shirayuki come to the conspicuous mansion to retrieve Obi, Trow understands better what her old friend has now, and why he won’t leave the life he’s made with them. Sure, Shirayuki & Co. may be on the overly nice and worrying side, but Trow gets it, and they part ways.

Obi seems content to forget about his past with Trow and move on, though more because he likes what he has now than due to any hardship or trauma. He likes who he is better now than then, and doesn’t need to rehash his past. Of course, that doesn’t stop Shirayuki from being curious about Trow because, let’s face it, Trow is a pretty cool gal!

Shokugeki no Souma – 10

Somewhat predictably based on how we’ve seen her act around Souma before, Erina is not particularly prepared to bump into Souma in the hallway after taking her bath. To whit: she denies she was humming the ED (she was, like Souma) and claims she’s not interested in playing cards later (which she is, as Hisako procured cards from the front desk). Still, it was nice to see a slightly more vulnerable side of her, even if she tried her darnedest to keep up a hostile front.

Souma, who is perfectly comfortable expressing his happiness at being through the day’s trials, maintains his “whatever” attitude, and is surprised to find Doujima Gin already in the bath, stretching and making manly noises. While Gin oozes super-manliness, Souma isn’t intimidated, and the two actually bond, with Gin telling him more about Erina and her “God Tongue.”

Souma, not the sharpest tack with non-cooking-related things, realizes Erina beat him to the baths. He also learns Isshiki was the first back last year. He’s among greatness everywhere he looks, and fulfilling his wish to graduate at the top of his class will be no small feat.

Thankfully, Souma’s whole dorm of first-years are able to survive the first day, and while many of them are all gung-ho about enjoying their fancy digs and playing through the night, those same people fall asleep quickly. Megumi doesn’t, though: fighting alongside Souma and rising to the occasion both with the first challenge and with dinner, she’s so full of confidence, she’s wide awake even though she’s exhausted.

So naturally, the second day consists of a challenge that immediately puts that newfound confidence to the test by taking away her security blanket (Souma) in an every-person-for-themselves battle to prepare the best nine vegetable terrine for one Shinomiya Koujirou, who washed out 30 students in the first day.

Megumi initially freezes up at the sight of the bedlam before her, but clenches her fists and joins the fray, grabbing all the vegetables she needs…save one: the only cauliflower left when she gets to them are discolored due to oxidation. And in a dish where looks are as important as flavor, discolored cauli will sink her.

I liked how Shinomiya gave Souma’s dish one bite, pondered it, and said “Pass.” No foodgasm, no elaborate fantasy; this guy is all business, and you don’t get any extra fanfare or praise for doing your job. Even Souma seems surprised by the lack of reaction.

But this isn’t Souma’s show this week; it’s Megumi’s. The A-part ended with a portentious scene of Megumi’s dish failing and Shinomiya expelling her, and that’s exactly what happens here. Yet even though we were fairly warned it would happen, when he brings the hammer down my heart sinks right along with Megumi’s.

The kicker: Shinomiya, while a dick, has a pretty ironclad reason for washing her out: she changed the chef’s recipe without his leave. Sure, the resulting dish was a success, but the point of the exercise was to show whether one was quick and tough enough to secure the freshest ingredients the fastest, and in this Megumi failed.

But again, Shinomiya IS a dick, because there was no reason to include unfresh vegetables other than to increase the number of students who failed. Had she gotten a good cauli, she would have surely passed. Basically, Shinomiya’s logic is flawed, because in a restaurant situation, with a hungry customer waiting for a terrine, you’d probably do what Megumi did…though not necessarily in haute cuisine

At the end of the day, I’m siding with Megumi because I like her and don’t want her to go away, even if it’s unrealistic to expect everyone Souma knows to make it past the training camp, let alone graduate. It’s a bullshit reason to expel someone, and I’m glad Souma is standing up for her, even though the last thing she wants is for someone else to get expelled on her behalf—by challenging Shinomiya to a shokugeki. 

Shinomiya is by far the toughest foe he’s ever gone up against, so it should be a hell of a fight.