Classroom of the Elite – S3 10 – Out of the Darkness

Yukimura wants to try recruiting 1-A’s Katsuragi as an informant, offering him a transfer to their class once they reach Class A. Suzune turns the idea down as unrealistic considering the vast amount of points needed (2o million). Ayanokouji agrees to at least accompany Yukimura. Katsuragi doesn’t agree to their terms, but he still wants Sakayanagi to lose, so he gives them some broad strokes and best guesses as to Class A’s exam subjects.

In the time they’ve known each other, Ayanokouji has gotten much better at avoiding Suzune’s bad side, at least when he’s not trying to access it. His reward this week is getting a classy home-cooked meal from her as she discusses class analytics. He’s content to leave everything in her clearly capable hands, but does request that she participate in the chess competition. He’ll be her coach.

Two days before the exam, Suzune tries to get Yousuke to at least commit to giving the bare minimum effort if group activities when the day arrives, but he ignores her. Mei once again tries to get him to talk to her, but she shoves her down. Kouenji witnesses the violence and swoops in as her shining white knight, his way of rattling Yousuke’s cage and get him to understand how his pathetic uselessness is hurting those around him.

Ayanokouji observes this exchange, and determines the time is right to truly bring the hammer down on this “broken” Yousuke. He approaches him and asks him simply to tell him why he is being the way he is. When Yousuke asks him what purpose that would serve, Ayanokouji says him he’ll have told him, which can be a purpose in and of itself.

Yousuke acquiesces, and we learn how his inaction in a class bullying regime almost led to the suicide of a classmate. He vowed never to let something like that happen again, and decided to rule the class with an iron grip, meting out punishment to anyone who fell out of line. The result was a broken class, in which everyone acted like cowed automatons. He thought he’d learned his lesson, only for this latest situation with Yamauchi to unfold.

Ayanokouji doesn’t mince words with Yousuke: Yamauchi’s expulsion wasn’t Suzune’s fault, nor was it his; it is solely Yousuke. While he wanted to save everyone, he didn’t do everything possible to make it happen, the way Hounami did in Class B. His belief was nothing more than a fantasy.

If he truly did everything he could, and still failed, it’s incumbent upon him to take all of the blame, and keep walking forward. If he’s struggling, he can ask those same classmates for help. He’ll get out what he puts in. By showing he’s doing everything he can for the class, they’ll do everything they can for him. They can walk forward together.

As Ayanokouji calculated, this cage-rattling did the trick, snapping Yousuke out of his personal pity party. The next morning he’s cleaned himself up, apologizes profusely to Mei and the entire class, and promises going forward he’ll help the class succeed in the coming exam. And while he doesn’t regret opposing Suzune’s methods in the previous exam, he acknowledges she wasn’t wrong, and offers a hand of friendship, which Suzune takes with a smile.

With the return of amity and cohesiveness to Class C, they’re in as good a position as any for this final exam. The day before it begins, Suzune plays 54 online games against Ayanokouji losing all but three, but he assures her she’s made extraordinary progress.

The next morning, Class D’s Captain Kaneda doesn’t show, and Ryuuen arrives in his place to take on Honami and Class B. They head one way, while Ayanokouji and Sakayanagi head another, to finally have their big season-ending showdown.

The Apothecary Diaries – 07 – A Hairpin Away from Home

Unlike most teenagers, Maomao is not accustomed to sleeping in until noon, but when she does, she dreams of home; specifically, while on a walk with her elderly father. Gyokuyou and the other ladies-in-waiting insisted she take some time off after being poisoned, not understanding that it was an honor, not an ordeal, due to her poison kink.

When she insists on working, Gyokuyou has her meet with Gaoshun, who’d been loitering around waiting to speak to her. He’s brought the silver bowl of poison soup, which he makes clear Maomao is not to eat. Rather, he wants her to provide more insight about what happened. Enter Detective Maomao.

She dusts the bowl for fingerprints and discerns four separate sets, one of which was an outsider and thus the person who poisoned the soup. She also reveals, albeit through conjecture, to Gaoshun a system of sustained bullying of Lady Lishu by her own ladies-in-waiting.

Even if her taster hadn’t swapped bowls, the fact they all wore white and let Lishu wear a color that clashed with Gyokuyou made their feelings for her loud and clear. Yet Maomao still protected the taster, because she knows that taster didn’t understand what she was doing weighed against the value of her life.

Gaoshun thanks Maomao for her investigations and takes his report to a sleepless Jinshi who hasn’t even changed or removed a particularly important hairpin since the garden party. We see his “natural self” here, someone who’d rather laze about and whine than get shit done. Gaoshun knows this version of Jinshi well, since he’s been his attendant their whole lives.

Meanwhile, during her usual lunch with Xiaolan, Maomao learns that the four hairpins she received are no mere trinkets of favor: they are a form of currency that can be used to leave the Rear Palace, albeit temporarily, and with an escort. Surveying her hairpins, Maomao decides to reach out to the military officer Lihaku first.

When he gets a message from the Jade Pavilion lady-in-waiting, he immediately recalls she was the one making all the amorous faces while tasting poisoned soup. The hairpin was only meant to be obligation (like chocolate on Valentine’s Day); but he still decides to hear her out, even if he fully intends to turn her down.

The girl who meets with Lihaku doesn’t resemble the lady-in-waiting at the party at all; he makes two observations she’s heart many times before: that makeup completely changes her (though not in the way he thinks, as she uses it to hide her natural beauty) and she’s extremely bold for a young serving girl.

Maomao gets down to brass tacks: she wants to visit home, and Lihaku’s hairpin is her ticket out. That said, she offers something extremely valuable in exchange: not one or two but three letters of introduction from the Three Princesses of the Verdigris House—a brothel could claim a man of Lihaku’s rank’s yearly pay in a single night.

Lihaku thinks she’s having him on, so Maomao puts the screws to him, revealing she has other hairpins she can use to make the same offer to other men. Faced with this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, Lihaku concedes defeat and agrees to escort her out of the palace.

The gift of hairpins is typically for courtship purposes, so Maomao’s fellow ladies and Gyokuyou think she’s being too naïve and blasé. Gyokuyou also uses the homecoming trip as a means of messing with Jinshi and amusing herself, as Maomao is already gone by the time Jinshi cleans himself up to visit her. Ladies gotta take small wins where they can in this world.

Lihaku dons his very best and hires a carriage for what is only a short trip to the red light district that could have been made on foot from the palace. While I knew Maomao lived in the imperial capital, I don’t think I realized just how damn close her home and father were, and yet how far away due to her status as an indentured servant.

That said, in ten months she was able to win passage out, and that’s pretty damn impressive for someone entirely devoid of ambition beyond finding new and exotic ways to poison herself. Upon arriving at the Verdigris House, she gets a punch to the gut from the old madame, as punishment for disappearing without a trace for so long.

That said, she did receive Maomao’s letter, and after a quick look at the young, muscular Lihaku, the madame has a servant whisk him away to meet with Pairain. We learn that Maomao is paying for a mere introduction, but with Lihaku’s physique and Pairan being Pairan, it might end up being more than that, so Madam will put the extra money on Maomao’s tab.

But having money doesn’t mean anything to Maomao. She’ll gladly give every penny to whoever if it means being able to walk through the door of her home and see her father again. He doesn’t seem the worse for wear, working the apothecary’s mortar and pestle as always.

There’s no melodrama to this reunion, just a ‘welcome home’ and a ‘glad you’re well’. That said, you can still feel the warmth and love and quintessential home-ness of this place. Maomao tells her father everything that’s happened in the last ten months, then hits they hay, planning to borrow a bath at the Verdigris tomorrow.

As she sleeps, her father considers her ending up at the palace to be a “twist of fate.” Between that, the fact he’s very old to be her biological father, there’s never been any mention of a mother, her hidden beauty, and that very evocative OP with a flower representing Maomao standing prominent among the others, it’s clear there are things Maomao doesn’t know about her lineage or destiny.

My theory? She was actually born in the inner palace, which made her kidnapping a return to her birthplace. She may even be of noble blood, but as she was a daughter born in a world where sons are preferred, she must’ve been cast out as a babe and then adopted. I find this all highly intriguing, even if she’s the last person to care about such things.

I’m in Love with the Villainess – 01 (First Impressions) – The Thrill of a Girl with Drill Curls in an Ill New World

Oohashi Rei, who like Akira in ZOM 100 worked for an exploitative company, would unwind after work with Revolution, her favorite otome (dating sim) game. But one night the TV screen gets all glitchy, and the next thing she knows, she’s being dressed down by none other than her favorite character in the game, who is not of the designated hot guys, but the villainess Claire Francois. And Rei couldn’t be happier.

Rei, now “Rae Taylor”, has somehow been transported into the world of the game. Now occupying the same three dimensional space as her digital crush, she wastes no time taking her hands in hers and declaring her love for her. Claire…doesn’t know what to do with this, but one thing’s for sure,it throws her off! She’s supposed to be an effective bully, but none of her bullying works on Rae. It only makes Rae love her more.

Honestly I was surprised how up my alley this show turned out to be. Serizawa Yuu is a hoot as Rae, who is unabashedly head-over-heels for Claire, and while I’m not too familiar with Claire’s seiyu Nanami Karin, she knocks it out of the park with a suitably haughty performance, complete with enough robust ojou-sama laughs to give anyone using them for a drinking game serious alcohol poisoning!

I also love how Rae, when she was Rei, didn’t give a shit about the prescribed dating routes in the game, but interacted as much as possible with Claire. She does the same when thrust into their world, only remembering the three hot princes existed when they show up in the middle of Claire trying and failing to psychologically abuse her. Rae even gets Claire to neg the sensitive second priest she actually likes, a tremendous self-own!

This show may only work if you like both Rae and Claire, and get why Rae loves her. Claire may be a rich bitch and a bully, but Rae points out how Claire never goes too far in her bullying, and she’s also cute as hell when she’s flustered, which is constantly in Rae’s presence. But like a bug to a bug light, she just can’t resist trying to put a commoner in her place.

To that end, she challenges Rae to a duel involving their upcoming exam scores. If Claire wins, Rae will leave the school. If Rae wins, Claire has to do something, anything she wants. And while Rae isn’t that confident in her table etiquette, she’s extremely confident in the written exam since she did exhaustive research on the setting of the game when she wrote a doujinshi in her world. She’s also above-average to exceptional in magical abilities.

On the morning the exam scores are posted, Claire thinks Rae has bags under her eyes because she’s nervous about the results, but she’s wrong. Rae simply stayed up all night thinking of what she’d ask Claire to do for her after she won. And win she does, scoring higher than Claire in two of the three exams. Only two of the three princes scored higher than Rae in the written exam, while Rae takes the top spot with her “unmeasurable” magical power.

I’m in Love with the Villainess has a simple, fun premise that’s a great twist on your standard otome isekai story. Where past villainess shows I’ve watched make the villainess a tragic or sympathetic character, Claire is portrayed as advertised: she’s a real piece of work with drill curls. But love comes in all forms, and not only does Rae love her, but it’s totally understandable why she does. We’ll see if Claire ever comes around to accepting those feelings.

Horimiya: Piece – 07 – Weird Is Wonderful

This episode once again reinforces how deep a bench of lovable wierdos Horimiya has at its disposal. We get more Sakura, which is never a bad thing, and she loves to unwind from studying with a manga, and is specifically addicted to Skull Ninja Konoha.

She’s so excited for the next issue that she can’t help but sing a little Konoha song on her way to the bookstore, only to be crestfallen when it’s already sold out. Fortunately, Yanagi Akane is there, having bought the last copy, and like an angel (or Kaoru-san from the manga) is willing to give it to her.

While Tooru is her primary crush throughout the first season, it can be said that Yanagi is pretty much everyone’s secondary crush. He’s a friend to all, and extremely popular due to his delicate good looks, to the point that girls Yanagi and Sakura pass by think they look like a couple.

When Sakura increases the gap between them, Yanagi is hurt and asks why. Sakura says it’s because he’s big with the ladies since he’s so cool…but Yanagi recalls all the times Sakura has supported her friends and tells her, with brutal honesty, that he’s sure she’s way cooler.

When Yuki is reading a popular Your Name. style LN about body swapping, she imagines pairs of her friends swapping personalities, which makes for some fun little moments and opportunities for the voice actors to have fun as well.

Later, while alone in the library (or at least she thought she was), Yuki slams her hands on a desk, startling Yanagi and making him drop his books. As she helps him pick them up, the backs of their hands touch and she notices how cold her hands are.

She decides to check out Tooru’s hands too, and finds that while they’re also initially cold, once he’s with her, they warm up like hers. It’s just one more sign that she and Tooru have such an effortless rapport and closeness with one another—and Yuki both does and doesn’t want to get closer still.

Kyouko only has a couple of lines this week, but what Izumi we do get is him being both a good protective senpai and someone who understands what his kohai is going through. Two of Sawada Honoka’s classmates through her scarf out the window, he asks her if she’s being bullied, and she nonverbally confirms it. This leads Izumi to glare up at the two girls and mouth “Die, uggos”

Contrary to what Sawada thinks of Izumi, he does know what it’s like to not have friends and feel alone. And he didn’t go around begging his friends to be his friends; it happened naturally over time as he met Kyouko and found things to talk about and laugh about with the others. He believes she’ll be fine too. The friends will come, or they’ll be missing out.

Sawada gets further support from Remi and Yuki, who admit that Sawada is a little weird, but as Remi puts it, “weird is wonderful”, and both she and Yuki say in unison that the other is weirder than Sawada. Sawada also simply has a better rapport with third-years than her own year, but that changes when she overhears the art club members not getting enough recruits.

Sawada takes it upon herself to move the poster to a more visible and high-traffic area. Turns out her classmates were mistaken about this bulletin board being just for third years, as President Sengoku even gives her a ride on his shoulders so she can move it. The art club girls hear from another classmate what Sawada did, and they thank her for it. Thus, a conversation is started, and Sawada finally forms a connection with her classmates.

It’s all very warm and cozy and sweet, and the episode is given the perfect capper: the ED for the anime adaptation of the in-universe manga Skull Ninja Konoha. Even better, the catchy ending theme is sung by none other than Sakura and Yanagi’s seiyuu, Kondou Reina and Fukuyama Jun! That’s a really nice touch.

Reign of the Seven Spellblades – 04 – Comrades In Arms

Thanks to her new senpai Vera, Katie is able to interact with the troll from the parade, and even work to gain its trust. But Vera can’t shield Katie from the barbs and snide comments from other students. Oliver and Nanao are preparing for an inevitable duel against Richard Andrews, but the bullying of Katie by their classmates becomes so bad that Oliver rises to their provocations and starts a fight. Nanao and Guy have his back.

Unfortunately we don’t get to see the bullies get their just desserts, but Oliver, Nanao, and Guy end up in detention cells. When Katie blames herself for not standing up to the bullies, Oliver rejects that; he started the fight, so this is his fault, not hers. She did nothing wrong.

Nevertheless, Chela notes that their little circle of friends is on an island now, with the rest of the first-years (mostly hoity-toity, anti-demi conservatives) hating their guts. This is confirmed when they’re led to the site of the duel with Andrews, and it’s a coliseum packed with hostile students.

Before their official duel begins, an “exhibition fight” commences, with Andrews demonstrating his prowess in the sword arts by slaughtering some kobolds (werewolf-like creatures). While our friends are disgusted by the spectacle, especially when handlers force a scared kobold to return to the arena, Nanao gives them a piece of her mind, calling the whole crowd scum. For this, she gets pelted by glass bottles.

When a Garuda, a high-level beast that Andrews didn’t at all expect to appear, appears, students are battered and bloodied in quick succession, to Andrews’ horror and panic. But it’s Nanao who finally stands up to the monster and crosses blades with it. She had no interest in fighting a rigged “duel” with Andrews, but this is a battle more her speed: one in which she must put her life on the line.

She does a decent job keeping up with the Garuda, the fact remains she alone is outmatched, so Oliver joins the battle…and quickly gets slashed across the midsection. When he retreats to heal himself, a cowering Andrews asks him how he and Nanao can fight the Garuda without fear. ‘

Oliver tells him he is scared, because he’s an ordinary person, but Nanao, a warrior, probably isn’t scared at all, so he needs to keep her from going too far and getting killed. As he gets up and returns to the arena, he tells Andrews that Nanao wanted to see how he fought too.

Back in action, Oliver tells Nanao he’ll give her an opening to make the kill, but things go a little pear-shaped. Oliver has to end up getting between Nanao and the Garuda, and very nearly meets his end, were it not for Richard Andrews, using his high-level wind magic to blast the Garuda away. It’s a triumphant moment, and I hope his new understanding of Oliver and Nanao will trickle down to the other privileged students.

This creates the opening Nanao needs, and she spares no voracity in beheading the Garuda. Once it finally falls defeated, Oliver is the first one to thank Richard, who admits that while he was scared of the Garuda, he was more scared of being seen as an embarrassment to his clan. Both Nanao and Oliver acknowledge the courage he showed by standing his ground, and when Oliver lends him a hand up, Andrews takes it.

From that point on, Richard is no longer Nanao and Oliver’s enemy, but they are all of them comrades-in-arms. Of course, Nanao was pretty badly slashed in her fight with the Garuda, so she needs to be patched up. But as Richard takes his leave, Chela also thanks her childhood friend, addressing him as Rick, and notes how long it’s been since she’s seen “how wonderful he can be”.

All’s well that ends well. I’m glad this wasn’t just as simple as the good guys beating the bad guys in a duel, but things going out of control and the good and bad guys working together to end the threat, resulting in a welcome face turn for Andrews.

As for the mysterious student who is loitering around the coliseum after everyone has left, I presume they’re the same person who sent Katie flying towards the troll, and perhaps the next significant threat to Oliver and his friends. The silver hair has me suspecting it’s Vera, which would certainly be a blow to Katie.

Loving Yamada at Lv999 – 10 – So Cold It’s Hot

When Tsubaki first approached Yamada, it was because she suspected him of cheating in a game she watched him play online. He lets her watch him play, and she does—for hours. He didn’t cheat, he’s just that good. In the present, neither she nor Okamoto can get ahold of Yamada.

Okamoto tells her if she doesn’t make a move, Yamada will end up with some rando. Tsubaki’s mask falls and she tears up, and Okamoto rightfully feels bad for pressuring her, as she’s already quite aware of her situation.

Turns out Tsubaki wasn’t the younger girl with whom Yamada couldn’t promise to be together forever. Rather, she hears from Yamada why he doesn’t have a type, never had a crush, and is generally uncomfortable with women. It all comes down to that girl, who was mercilessly bullied for liking Yamada until she stopped coming to school.

Their teacher sent him to the girls to give her handouts, keeping a connection between the two. The girl kept liking him, and then asked him to make a promise he couldn’t make. He says he only did what he did because the teacher told him to, but often wonders what would have been the right thing to say instead of what he did say.

From the day Tsubaki learned that about Yamada to the present, she feared ever falling for a guy as kind and cruel as him, lest she get hurt someday. And that day seems to have arriving—or will do so soon.

As Okamoto and Tsubakai wander the streets and presumably head to their respective homes, Yamada spends the night at Akane’s, but not for romantic purposes. His role is purely to observe and protect. Akane is in a terribly bad way, to the point he wisely takes her to a late-night clinic where she gets an IV.

Akane is somewhat aware of these events, but her fever is so bad it all feels like a fuzzy dream, up to and including when she comes to and finds Yamada dozing beside her bed, her “getting over heartbreak” book loosely in his hands.

When she realizes all of the things Yamada did for her when she was well and truly much out of it, Akane bursts into tears of gratitude, feeling like “someone like her” wouldn’t normally deserve such kindness (which is of course untrue).

When the heartbreak book comes up, Akane tells him how it’s really gotten her out of her funk, he tells her he’s not the good guy she thinks he is, and she recognizes his expression. It’s the same one Takuma had when he broke up with her.

Akane tells Yamada she’s glad Takuma put an end to things that way rather than lie to her. It’s her hope that should he look back on the memory of her, it’s of her smiling, not crying and wailing, making him think “she was a great girl” and “I shouldn’t have let her go.”

Just as Yamada’s face reminded her of Takuma’s, Akane’s bright toothy grin reminded him of the girl he essentially broke up with without knowing it at the time. He even remembers something he forgot: the last time he saw her face—and the first time we see it—she’s smiling at him through tears, thanking him for being there for her.

As the night wears on and Tsubaki logs off the game with no one else around, Akane’s fever drops and she’s able to eat some yogurt. As she eats, she can’t help but notice how safe and secure Yamada’s presence makes her feel. But when she tries to reach out to him, she suddenly feels horrible.

It’s a leg cramp, and it’s agony. But as she shouts and thrashes, Yamada calmly takes hold of her foot and leg and stretches it out. Her other foot flies wildly around his head and face, sometimes hitting only air, and sometimes hitting face. But after a minute or so, the pain subsides.

Yamada thanks him for saving her yet again, and Yamada comments that she’s “so dramatic.” But when he looks over at her as she says her leg was killing her, she’s scarcely looked more beautiful. The two have an extended moment where something might happen, but it passes, and the night proceeds without incident.

The next morning Yamada heads off to school without sleep, something he assures Yamada he’s done before. She’s fine for him to go, but hopes he’ll take care and let her know if he feels sick. No doubt she’ll want to be the one to nurse him should he fall ill; such is her transactional way of showing affection and demonstrating her worth.

But more than ever before, Akane is acutely aware of her body being naturally drawn towards Yamada without her having to think. That’s the product of how safe and secure she feels around him. He’s about to leave when she grabs a corner of his jacket, only to tell him she’s fine and to go ahead and go. But when he’s gone, she can’t help but sigh, and her blushing isn’t just from her cold.

This episode was another triumph of shoujo romance shot composition and direction, full of beautiful cross-fades and dissolves reflecting the characters’ states of mind. Minase Inori and Uchiyama Kouki’s layered performances also add to the intimate atmosphere of an episode that takes place almost entirely in Akane’s bedroom.

Vinland Saga S2 – 02 – The Wheatgrass Is Always Greener

Ketil introduces Einar to his new best friend Thorfinn. He’s given them a forest to clear and eventually sow wheat, which he’ll buy at a fair price when harvested. Ketil estimates that if the two men work hard, they’ll have made enough money to buy their freedom. This sounds like a sweet deal, except that the forest they have to cut down is enormous, the labor is ruinous, and the retainers eat most of their paltry lunch.

The best-case-scenario of three years seeming unlikely with this caloric intake, Einar is furious by the bullying from the freemen, but Thorfinn takes it all in stride, clearly playing a long game. When Ketil rides past them at the end of his first day, Einar is ready to report the retainers’ stealing their food, but he’s distracted by a gorgeous woman with piercing blue eyes—presumably Ketil’s daughter.

The next day Einar watches Ketil pitching in for harvest work, which is odd because Einar didn’t think the rich dirtied their hands with manual labor. But it’s clear Ketil is proud of this place, and intends pass it along to his son Olmar. Unfortunately, Olmar is a lazy, spoiled brat with dreams of going to England and being a badass warrior.

We actually get a fair amount of Olmar screen time that softens his character’s plight, but only so far. He has a hissyfit when he realizes the tenant farmers’ daughter is only sleeping with him in hopes of gaining some of his father’s favor and fortune (she may genuinely like him, her parents are clearly using her).

The bottom line is that Einar is wrong about rich people not having any cares, and Olmar is taking his victimization way too far. I mean, all he needs to do is look around the farm to see people far worse off than him. And yet the fact he’s not on a battlefield covering himself in guts an glory like he wants means he doesn’t consider himself any more free than the slaves or retainers.

That night, Einar condemns Olmar’s desire to go to war when he has no idea what awaits him. Einar tells Thorfinn how the English armies pillaged his village and killed his father, then the Danes came, pillaged again, and killed the rest of his family. He condemns soldiers as nothing but beasts in human skin, unaware that his new best friend used to be one.

Thorfinn’s role this week is passive to the point of background character. That’s fine, but to what end? Do the fires burning in his memory mean he yearns to return to the battlefield? Or has he given up on any kind of glorious future and is content to wile away the last of his youth chopping wood and sowing seeds? If he is playing some kind of long game to get back into the thick of things, he’s keeping mum so far.

Akiba Maid War – 09 – Raiders of the Lost Oink

Leave it to Akiba Maid War to infuse some alternate history into its alternate timeline, as it introduces Omoe, the first maid from the Meiji era, who inspired the Lady Omoe Climb, which to the present day remains the crowning event of the annual Akiba Maid Festival.

Now that Maidalien is no more, it’s a very special festival for Creatureland, the only game in town. Nagi wants everything to be perfect, which for her means the café she manages, Dazzlion, will win the climb. Her otaku errand boy assures her everything will be arranged.

Nagomi is pumped up for the festivities, but Yumechi and Shiipon tell her not to bother. For Oinky Doink, the festival is all about knowing their place, keeping their heads down, and simply getting through it.

The seriousness of working within the highly structured confines of the “ecosystem” Nagi has set out means the Pigs occupy the very bottom of the creature pecking order, even below the newbie Axolotls. The Otaku distributes the guidelines, which are in extremely small print, warning Tenchou that Oinky Doink will be disowned entirely if they deviate.

Meanwhile, Nagi’s head lion maid sits in her throne like a queen while other lion maid give her a mani-pedi. She assures the Otaku that they won’t need any help climbing to the top of Lady Omoe, where the king of beasts belongs.

None of these elites imagined that their carefully controlled narrative would be completely usurped by the end of the festival by one of the bottom-feeding pigs, namely Nagomi. She stays up all night to make their stall (which is next to the bathrooms) look nice.

As for the guidelines, since they were thrown out with the trash Tenchou never relays them to the others, and spends the entire episode apart from them, fishing and wondering if she’s even really needed (a fish tells her no). Ranko has a steamy little interaction with one of her regular (and age-appropriate) masters, while their other regulars sample pigs’ feet (the only fare they’re allowed to sell) for the first time.

But sales are slow, because everything has been done to make Oinky Doink fail and keep them at the bottom. Nagomi ain’t about that, and in keeping with her commitment to her late sister to be the best damn maid she can be, she decides to walk about the festival grounds, taking the pigs feet to the people. For this, the higher-ranked Cow, Cat, and Bear maids punish her and the others.

After prostrating themselves in deference to their bullying “betters”, Ranko asks why things are this way, when in her experience they’re all top-notch maids. Nagomi wonders the same thing, and believes that this is their chance to leave the truffles alone and climb higher.

The last straw comes when the starting gun fires for the Lady Omoe Climb, and because the Pigs are at the very end of the line they’re not even able to move. Zoya picks up Nagomi’s baton of rebellion and dashes into the street where she and her fellow pigs have a clear path to the front of the race. Are they butting in line? Yes. Do they not care? Also yes.

The Pigs employ teamwork, with Zoya clearing the way at the bottom while Yumechi, Shiipon, and Nagomi start their ascents. the latter two get all tangled up in fights of their own. Nagomi manages to evade the pouncing lions and ends up near the top with their boss, and everything we need to know about her we learned when she slapped the shit out of one of her own maids for no reason.

Nagomi tries to hold her own but is no match for her, but Ranko gives her a clutch assist, grabbing the lioness and leaping off the megamaid to enable Nagomi to grasp the victory she worked so hard to attain. She plants the pig “flag” in Lady Omoe’s head, and just like that Oinky Doink has prevailed.

At the victory ceremony, Nagi plays it cool rather than disemboweling Nagomi right on stage in front of thousands of citizens. She tells New Lady Omoe Nagomi that she has “plenty of promise”, but says only time will tell if she’s truly worthy of the honor. Interestingly, Ranko is way off to the side, and she and her former colleague don’t interact at all.

Nagi takes out her frustration over Dazzlion’s defeat in the shadows, by having Otaku guy killed. I’d say RIP, but this lackey has been nothing but a menace to our Oinky Doink girls, so to him I say good riddance to him and his stupid backpack. Unfortunately, I highly doubt Nagi will stop there.

Classroom of the Elite – S2 11 – Stone Cold

God, Kiyotaka sucks so much. Can’t even say “Good Morning” back to Kei. Even so, I had no idea just how deep and harmful his sudden, impulsive cutting off of communications would end up being by episode’s end. With no new tests being announced, Ryuuen strolls into Class D on a fishing expedition.

He and his crew end up following and confronting Koenji. Ryuuen’s goal is to determine if the blonde bombshell is the Class D Mastermind. You have to admit, he looks the part, and his seeming indifference and passivity to everything is the perfect cover. Of course, we know he’s way off base, but it’s still a ton of fun watching him verbally spar with Kouenji, perhaps the only student more self-involved than he is.

But hold on, here comes Arisu and her crew, who stick their noses into the confrontation. When she uses Ryuuen’s least favorite nickname “Dragon Boy” twice, he rushes her and prepares to dropkick her. It’s a testament to Arisu’s toughness and confidence in her underlings that she doesn’t flinch an inch, but lets one of those underlings block the kick.

Ryuuen may not have bagged the Mastermind, but he takes solace in knowing one less possibility is off the board. He tells Mio that he’s having a shitload of fun. His next move is to prepare bait for the Mastermind in the form of Kei, whom he knows the Mastermind protected thanks to Manabe.

Ibuki, your standard monstrous collaborator who does nothing to stop evil, instead takes part in it, sticking around as Kei is lured into a refrigerated space with no security cameras. There, Ryuuen threatens to expose her bullied past to the whole school if she doesn’t give him the name of the Mastermind.

Never has Ryuuen been more cruel and menacing than in this scene, underscored by the dramatic, theatrical lighting and intensely cold atmosphere. Like Arisu, and as we know, Kei is tougher than she looks, and refuses to give up the name, even when bound and threatened.

So Ryuuen has his underling slowly pour a bottle of water over her, and then another, then covers her head with a cloth and pours another one on. It’s essentially waterboarding, only with the added threat of hypothermia. It’s here where I throw up two big middle fingers at the show for continuing to put Kei through the ringer. This is truly sickening, to the point I needed a nice hot shower after watching this.

Worse still, we see Kiyotaka agree to hang out with his new friendly friend group to celebrate the end of their term with some karaoke. His promise to protect Kei is rendered toothless by the fact she can no longer contact him via phone. Even if somehow Kiyotaka senses something’s up, it’s way too late for him to come to her rescue, isn’t it? The damage is done, with Ryuuen dragging her deeper into the cold darkness, making a promise of his own: to utterly destroy her.

Isekai Ojisan – 04 – A Pinch Is a Chance

In one of Takafumi’s memories from grade school, he’s bullied by some boys for reading an innocent fantasy LN, only to be bailed out by Fujimiya, who may still looks like a demon to lil’ Takafumi’s eyes, but he’s genuinely moved by her support. Present-day Fujimiya remains mortified that this is how Takafumi viewed her, especially as she became more girly in middle school.

But that was then and this is now, and Fujimiya has high hopes for her newly-rekindled relationship with Takafumi. When she learns he got cash from Ojisan for his birthday which he spent on a coffee grinder and some fancy beans, she decides to send him a “gift” of her own.

This comes in the form of a photo of her in a swimsuit from middle school, which while cute, even she realizes in hindsight might’ve been a questionable choice. But hey, watching your crush’s childhood memories in which you’re a loathsome devil spawn does weird things to the mind!

That said, Takafumi couldn’t be more tactless when his first instinct is to ask Siri how to delete the photo from SM, and then he gets an alert about a sale on coffee beans and once again leaves Fujimiya with his uncle. When he almost spills his coffee, he casts an ice spell that freezes her, then melts her with flame.

The result of all this is that Fujimiya is soaked and needs to take a shower to warm up. Ojisan leaves the apartment to give her her privacy, but Takafumi enters when she’s wearing one of his shirts and nothing else. Again, after watching a younger Takafumi portray her as a monster, seeing him react to seeing her inspires her to uses this “pinch” as a “chance”, in Ojisan’s words.

Unfortunately, Takafumi proves as dense about Fujimiya’s feelings and intentions as Ojisan is about Elf. He considers it shameful that he should feel this way about looking at a “good friend”, and when Ojisan arrives on full battle alert (due to Takafumi using the wrong flag signal) Takafumi asks him to delete his memories of seeing Fujimiya. Of course, Fujimiya stops the spell, and warns Takafumi she’ll dress like this again if he wipes his memory.

When Fujimiya turns twenty, she and Takafumi and Ojisan have a modest but warm celebration drinking their preferred choice of canned alcoholic beverages and watching more of Ojisan’s misromantic adventures with Elf. Elf is astonished he was able to restore the city barrier, and also recalls when Ojisan (or “Orc Face” as she calls him) saved her from a venom dragon.

After a bit more of their usual repartee, Uncle suddenly takes her by the hand and draws her to his side as they walk through the town market. Elf is shocked by this sudden bout of lovey-dovey behavior, but she can’t hide her enjoyment of it either. When it looks like he’s ready to take her up to his room, it isn’t until he gets his door open that it’s revealed he only needed someone to lean on.

He slams the door in her face, locks said door, and falls immediately asleep. The next morning Elf shows signs she cried herself to sleep. In short, Ojisan’s an unintentional villain, and Fujimiya must do everything in her power to keep Takafumi from turning out the same way.

In the present, Ojisan demonstrates how he can in no way hold his liquor, and then offers to take Fujimiya home via flight. Ojisan, Fujimiya, and Takafumi end up flying through the air upside down, with Ojisan merging the fantasy of the game he was playing with reality, and his nephew and his friend are simply along for the ride.

The end credits are cut short by an extra segment in which Ojisan once again gives Elf the wrong idea by sucking out poison that turns out to have aphrodisiac effects on Elf. When his doting closeness gets to be too much for her, she merely socks him in the face with a swift kick. Fujimiya asks Ojisan if he still has some of that poison so she might be able to use it on Takafumi…because a pinch is a chance!

Isekai Ojisan – 03 – The Things We Do for Views

Takafumi returns home to find Fujimiya and what looks like Elf from the other world where his Uncle lived. It’s definitely an effective hook, and then the episode rewinds an hour and change to a stark reality of YouTubers in February 2018: if you didn’t meet a certain subscriber and view quota, you’d be cut off from what had been a nice little revenue stream.

Takafumi discovers that one reason their channel is struggling is Ojisan’s tendency to type elaborate but ultimately awful replies to each and every commenter, many of whom are then put off and unsubscribe. This current dilemma reminds Ojisan of when the barrier of the Sealed City fell and 1,000 beasts arrived at the walls.

Naturally, his nephew wants to see and hear about this, so Ojisan switches on the ol’ memory recorder and plays back the events of those days. Notable is how pretty much everything Elf says to him could come across as verbal harassment (rather than the tsundere flirting it is).

When Ojisan nonchalantly shatters the barrier and the beasts arrive, Elf is resolved to fight them all herself while he runs—she likes him that much. But after a serously badass weapon unsheathing sequence and blasting herself towards the walls like a missile, she ends up splatting on the newly-formed barrier, the result of Ojisan asking the spirits to repair it.

No matter; Elf doesn’t tell any of the townsfolk that he dropped the barrier to begin with, and in exchange simply asks him to buy her dinner. But Ojisan, who always interprets her words and body language the wrong way, instead leaves the city without her.

Takafumi hugs himself in despair, and this is what Fujimiya sees when she arrives, trying to make a habit of being around her old friend. The thing is, Takafumi remains disturbingly oblivious to her affections, and even leaves her alone in his apartment to take care of some random errand.

Ojisan may not have much real-world romantic experience, but he can tell Fujimiya’s a good girl and she wants to be closer to his nephew. Unfortunately, Fujimiya does not want to talk to some frumpy uncle about this, so Ojisan borrows Elf’s appearance and voice and insists he’s Takafumi’s “aunt” so they can engage in girl talk. That brings us back to the cold open.

In order to get to the bottom of why Takafumi stubbornly only thinks of Fujimiya as a friend, he taps into his memories and then visualizes them. in them, a cretinous child mercilessly beats upon a helpless young Takafumi. Fujimiya asks where she is…and then it dawns on her: she’s the cretin. Form her perspective back then they enjoyed a “bittersweet” relationship, but just like Ojisan with Elf, Takafumi saw it more as bullying and abuse.

Elf!Ojisan marvels at how his nephew even managed to recognize a grown-up Fujimiya on the street, but Takafumi says he’d never forget her, and holds up a fist for her to bump while blushing profusely. Takafumi then decides that he and Ojisan should record a video of “her” playing Guardian Heroes.

Ojisan is naturally psyched…until he sees the final product: the video doesn’t show any of the actual gameplay—just Ojisan in the form of a sexy elf girl in a long hoodie playing off-screen video games. Ojisan is shocked and appalled, but the video goes viral, with 200,000 views and counting. Takafumi celebrates the great success of his hunch, while Ojisan reverts to his normal appearance before a terrified Fujimiya. I could honestly watch this offbeat, eccentric dynamic packed with amazing reaction faces all day!

Classroom of the Elite – S2 03 – Slap in the Face

When Yukimura simply can’t watch anymore, he steps out from his hiding spot to put a stop to Shiho and her cohorts’ abuse of Kei. But if he’s expecting gratitude from Kei, he doesn’t get it, and Kiyotaka probably assumed that would be the result of getting involved. When Venus group’s test concludes early, Kiyotaka deduces that Class C is the favorite to win, and starts making some moves.

Those moves involve arranging so both Kei and Chiho’s gang meet in the bowels of the ship, and this time Chiho brings Rika, the girl she demands Kei apologize to. The girls rough Kei up some more, culminating in Chiho realizing that Kei has been traumatized by bullying, and even gets Rika to start slapping Kei silly. All of this is to get Kei to “rock bottom” so he can recruit her for his purposes.

After Chiho leaves, Kiyotaka approaches Kei, who is an absolute wreck, and twists the knife like the true piece of work he is. He tells her he knows what she truly is, and that she and Hirata were never actually dating, and she assumes he’s blackmailing her for her body or something to that extent.

Of course, we know that’s not Kiyotaka’s style, but it’s still a dark and unsettling scene between the two. Kiyotaka would argue, however, that it is all necessary to send Kei to the absolute brink so she’ll take him seriously as an ally. He shows her video of Shiho’s crimes, and offers to protect her from now on in a way the previous guys couldn’t. Because for all the wounds Kei bears—emotional and physical—he still believes she and not Suzune is the best chance of Class D uniting and rising.

Before the final discussion on the last day of the test, Kiyotaka finds Ichinose dozing on the couch, and the two talk about their mutual desire to graduate in Class A (and how she knows he knows how many points she has, but she’s not going to say anything more about that). When the discussion begins, Hamaguchi proposes that everyone should show the rest of the group their phones to reach a better outcome.

Kiyotaka knows that while Hamaguchi presents this option, Ichinose is behind it, and it fits the gambit he already prepared. One by one, Mars Group is convinced to reveal their phones until the VIP is exposed: Yukimura. We then cut to a flashback of Kiyotaka and Yukimura switching phones. Even so, Ichinose calls Kiyotaka and exposes Kiyotaka and Yukimura’s scheme.

But that’s fine, because Kiyotaka isn’t the VIP either…Kei is, and always was. Not only did he switch phones with her before switching with Yukimura, but he also used his personal points to buy the means to switch out the SIM cards, so if someone called his phone, her phone (in Yukimura’s hands) would ring. It’s a great double-switcheroo trap that Mars Group falls for…except for Ichinose, who figured it out, but didn’t stop it because of her rapport with Kiyotaka.

So Class D is the victor, right? Wrong. Class A loses the most points while Class B breaks even, but in a gut punch of an ending Class C is revealed as the ultimate winner. Ryuuen, of whom I am getting thoroughly tired, was able to learn from a Class D student that Kikyou was a VIP. He once again confronts Suzune to gloat and continue to act like a skeevy prick around her. Kiyotaka shows no emotion, but can tell that as this cruise test ends, it’s not going to be smooth sailing for Class D.

Classroom of the Elite – S2 02 – Kei the Lamprey

Unsurprisingly, Koenji makes the biggest splash of the test by apparently discovering the true VIP, resulting in Jupiter Group’s test concluding. Hirata gets a rumor that Kushida is a VIP. Horikita and Ayanokouji meet in an area of the ship heavy with lovey-dovey couples. Ryuuen proposes the other three classes ally against A, but Horikita isn’t having it.

They determine that uniting Class D is the best move they’ve got, using Kei and her “powerful sense of presence”. Kei is still recovering from her shower breakdown, calling herself a “parasite”, while Ayanokouji gets unexpectedly hugged by Kushida, who is feelingly lonely due to all being around all of the couples.

As the teachers drink in a private bar, Hoshinomiya-sensei asks Chabashira-sensei how Ayanokouji ended up the leader at the end of the Island test, but Chibashira is tight-lipped. Ayanokouji happens to be in the vicinity when Karuizawa meets with Hirata, who tells her that there are limits to what he can do to help her.

This angers Karuizawa, but Hirata tells her this is the way it’s always been since they started fake-dating. Karuizawa got a boost in popularity and a degree of protection, but Hirata won’t help her settle grudges, even as he later tells Ayanokouji he sympathizes with the perennially bullied Karuizawa.

Mars Group’s third and fourth discussions come and go without much of any progress being made, with Karuizawa hanging out with the first-years and flirting with Machida. After the fourth discussion, Karuizawa  is followed out by Shiho and her two cronies, who corner her in a hallway. Yukimura and Ayanokouji follow just in case.

When Shiho & Co. start getting nasty with a Kei who is increasingly breaking down, Ayanokouji tells Yukimura not to intervene too soon; he wants to gather as much research as he can on Kei before “tainting the experiment”, so to speak.

Two episodes in, and I must admit I’m respecting CoE more than I’m actually enjoying it. There’s definitely something clever in the works, but I can’t deny that there are some pretty dull stretches—even those possibly containing key clues. It doesn’t help that the show simply doesn’t look that good, though the soundtrack makes up for that a bit.