KonoSuba 3 – 04 – Mansion Life

Lord Aldarp grudgingly welcomes Kazuma, Megumin, and Aqua to his mansion to investigate the noble thief, but only because he still has the hots for Lady Dustiness. He’d even set up a magic mirror to view her in the bath, which Kazuma condemns while vowing to spend the night there. Darkness smashes the mirror, but it’s only the start of her troubles.

Between Aqua stuffing herself and getting loaded on all of the lord’s booze, Megumin frightening the residents of the city with her practice Explosions, and Kazuma essentially lazing about, Aldarp gets more than he bargained for. That said, I did enjoy Kazuma and Megumin’s sweet interactions as the latter all but admits she was worried about him before inviting him on a “date”—which is just her casting Explosion and him carrying her home…which isn’t a bad time at all!

While grabbing a midnight snack, Kazuma encounter what he believes to be the noble thief, but it turns out to be Chris, who assures him she’s there for a very good reason. Kazuma insists that he doesn’t want to hear it, as he knows the more he learns, the more trouble he’ll get pulled into. Chris agrees not to tell him the next time they meet. Kazuma doesn’t want to hear it then, either!

He does have Chris cast Bind on him to make it look like the thief got away, but when Aqua, Megumin and Darkness find him, none of them are in a hurry to untie him. Aqua first apologizes for breaking a bunch of his stuff while he was gone, while Darkness force feeds him flan and makes him apologize for putting her through so much hell throughout this trip.

After making a report to Princess Iris, Kazuma and his party are denied further access to the castle and end up at an inn. Before that Mitsurugi Kyouya gives Aqua the gift of a beautiful sapphire ring, but Aqua forgot who he was, and the ring doesn’t fit. Then in the middle of the night Chris visits Kazuma again to tell him what she’s been up to, whether he wants to hear it or not: she’s been collecting “divine treasures”, i.e. cheat items like the one that created money. She wants him to help, but he’s unenthusiastic about doing so.

Then an alarm sounds, indicating another Devil King’s Army attack and calling all high-level adventurers to joining the knights in repelling the attackers. At first Kazuma has no interest, leading Darkness to call him a coward, but then she begs him to help her get Aqua out of bed and keep Megumin from running off and Exploding everything.

Kazuma eventually determines that if he puts on a good show in this battle, he might just be allowed to live in the castle again, which is currently his primary goal in life. So he suits up, grabs Aqua kicking and screaming, and leads the party to the city gates where the other forces are stationed.

Urusei Yatsura – 38 – SisTerminator: Dark Futility

A date between Shuutarou and his androphobic betrothed Asuka was never going to stay normal for long, but it’s impressive just how quickly things go off the rails. While making Shuu tea, Asuka’s whisking turns the cup into a pile of clay dust, to which she adds hot tea and fashions a new cup. Shuu’s incredibly forced-polite reaction is perfect.

When one of his bodyguards interrupts, a frightened Asuka gloms onto Shuutarou tight and like the teacup, his ribs are turned to dust. Ataru, disguised as one of Ryouko’s ninjas, uses this as an opportunity to get closer to Asuka by manipulating the KO’d Shuu in a Weekend at Bernie’s-type situation. The puppet sound effects are exquisite.

Once Lum reveals Ataru’s disguise, Asuka sends him and Shuu flying, and Shuu regains consciousness (and his ribs miraculously reconstitue) in mid-air. They watch in the distance as Asuka, essentially trapped on an island, launches every bodyguard she encounters into the air.

Lum lends another helping hand, showing Asuka a tank in the Mendou family’s possession. Rather than hop in, she tears the tank to pieces with her bare hands and fashions a new suit of armor to protect her from scary men. Ataru and Shuu secretly watch this quirky, steampunk twist on the “changing scene” with disappointment.

Ryouko, who is determined to keep her brother away from Asuka, lures her to her room and prepares to fill her head with nonsense, which is Ryouko’s specialty. When Shuu comes in with Ataru still attached to his back, Asuka smashes them both into a wall, but then her mother arrives, and despite her face locked in a placid smile, she’s not happy.

Convinced Asuka isn’t taking this date seriously, her mom (who, again, is one of anime’s all-time worst moms for what she did to Asuka) decides that Asuka will go on a date with Ataru. If she can survive such a repellant man, she can survive any man. The logic is sound, and of course Ataru is game.

When Asuka resists and threatens to fight her mom, we see where she got her superhuman strength. She’s no match for her mom, who effortlessly places her in a hold, chains her to Ataru, and then brings in her brother Tobimaro as a hostage: if she breaks the chain, Ton dies. This family sucks!

Even if Asuka wanted to obey her mother, her instincts and body act all on their own. Despite being connected to Ataru, she still tries to run from him, and nothing—not wood, bricks, mortar, or ballistic steel—can stop her. She cuts through all of them like butter, causing untold millions in damage to the Mendou household.

Asuka’s mom meets them on a bridge with a final warning, but Asuka still isn’t willing to relent, repurposing Ataru as a chain weapon and attacking her mom, who uses the bound Ton as a shield. Yes, a mother and daughter are fighting using her son and forced date, respectively, as weapons.

Just when you thought we’d reached the height of resourceful absurdity, Asuka starts spinning Ataru around so fast he becomes a helicopter rotor, then nabs Ton and starts to float away. Asuka’s mom asks Lum, who doesn’t want her darling taken away, to intervene, so she flies up and cuts the chain.

Asuka falls in the drink, and when she emerges, all she can do is prostrate herself before her awful, victorious mother and beg forgiveness. But of course, all of this was for naught. Asuka is no less afraid of men than she was at the beginning of this fiasco of a “date”, and the next morning she’s right back in Ton’s bed. No progress was made, and no lessons were learned. In other words, it was classic Urusei Yatsura!

Urusei Yatsura – 37 – SisTerminator 2: Misjudgment Day

Mizunokouji Asuka’s parents deserve jail time for the abject neglect they’ve subjected to their daughter Asuka. At the same time, Asuka has quickly risen to become one of my favorite Urusei Yatsura characters. That’s simply because she’s such a chaotic force of nature, even more so than anyone else, due to her superhuman strength and obsession with her “Big Brothers.”

Because she fundamentally misunderstands what “big brother” is, she believes it’s okay to bathe and sleep with Ton. When his nose spurts two-thirds of his blood, her solution is to embrace him so tightly she crushes his ribs. Eventually their mother realizes that it’s not Ton luring Asuka to his bed, but Asuka inviting herself.

Deciding that now is the time for her to meet other men unrelated by blood, she sends Asuka on an errand to deliver a letter to Shuu at his school. This goes about as well as you’d expect, as every time the fully-armored (though in a smaller suit than her first appearance) Asuka encounters a man she lashes out and causes generous amounts of collateral damage.

When she ends up in Ryuu’s lap, she assumes she’s a man like most people, but Ryuu isn’t about to let her get away with misgendering her. Ryuu chases her around the school until Asuka ends up in a tree, where her mother and Ton urge her to try to open up to the strange man who “seems different.” But once Ryuu watches Asuka snap a medium-sized tree like a toothpick, she ends up running from Asuka.

The bit is completed when Asuka finally lays her head on Ryuu’s chest, but when she notices that Ryuu’s chest is bound, she doesn’t realize she’s a woman, but another big brother, like the similarly bandaged Ton. Asuka is so sheltered she has no idea what anything is. On the one hand, this is deeply tragic. On the other, it’s freakin’ hilarious.

Asuka’s mother isn’t about to keep letting Asuka get away with glomming onto her blood brother, so she beseeches Shuu to go on a date with her. Ataru happens to be there too, but not because he invited himself: Ryouko invited him, because she’s just as obsessed with her brother as Asuka is with hers, and won’t allow him to date or marry the likes of Asuka.

Nevertheless, Asuka arrives in a grand procession led by her mother, and is dolled up in traditional garb very similar to FFX’s Yuna. Shuu is initially excited to go on a date with such a cutie, but when she charges at him like a locomotive, his survival instinct causes him to dodge her, and she shatters a giant stone piece of decorative Mendou art instead.

Since Asuka has absolutely no concept of letting off the accelerator or lessoning the force with which she does things, Shuu is in for a world of pain. But he won’t be alone. Ryouko is watching nearby, Ataru has disguised himself as one of Ryouko’s bodyguards, and Lum has disguised herself as one of Asuka’s bodyguards (the ladies in safari garb). I’m greatly looking forward to a chaotic, action-packed date!

Urusei Yatsura – 34 – The Flowers of Pee-vil

As is the case with most Urusei Yatsura episodes, this one is split into two distinct parts. The first begins in media res with Onsen-sensei castigating Ataru, Lum, Shinobu, Mendou, and Ryuu for causing chaos, the evidence of which is the destroyed classroom and the rest of the class behind a barricade of desks.

The always-easygoing principal gives them a slap on the wrist for their infractions: cleaning his office. However, when Onsen-sensei checks in on them, he finds that the principal has been knocked out, with a small bump in his noggin. The sequence shifts into a whodunit.

Onsen goes over the possible scenarios of Lum and Ryuu, but it’s ultimately five-against-one as the kids accuse Onsen of attacking the principal for being so lenient. Ataru, Ryuu, and Mendou don detective suits and put him under the bright light of interrogation, and eventually make him crack in exchange for a still-warm pork cutlet bowl.

The thing is, Onsen did no such thing. The principal knocked himself out by trying to crack the unusually hard boiled egg on his head. In keeping with his personality, he adopts a very laid back attitude to this incident and the fact Kotatsu Cat ate his egg while he was out.

On to part two, which is something completely different: Ran is cultivating a beautiful white flower with her mouth bandaged. When Lum greets her, she learns why: this flower mimics whatever anyone says, then its flowers catch the wind and spread those words like gossip.

Ran honestly only brought them to Earth because they’re pretty, but once Lum brings up the possible nefarious use of them, Ran goes all in, telling tales of Lum being bad in the past. Lum fires back with the story of how Ran crushed a teacher’s bonsai.

The flowers get loose, but rather than repeat what either Lum or Ran said verbatim, they mix up the accusations, like a game of telephone. That’s how Ataru and Shinobu learn that Mendou is late for school because he wet the bed, or the teachers are “crushed by revenge.”

While each of Urusei’s characters has unique physical or magical abilities, it’s ultimately words that get them in the most trouble. As long as they’re always talking and lobbing threats and bile at one another, they’ll be at the mercy of the goss flowers. Chaos begetting chaos!

A third post-credits skit involves a starving Onsen unable to announce he’s at the Moroboshi’s for a home visit because their TV is too loud, and then being abducted by the Oni, which will continue next week.

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 – 08 – Between Freedom and Order

Rouge arrives at the Junghardt mansion with Ash and Noid just as her brother Gene discovered a secret passage. They discover a vast repository of Roy’s memories, most of which come off as cold and analytical where both Gene and especially Rouge are concerned. She wonders if he only ever thought of her as some kind of experiment or test subject.

Gene, who spent more time with Roy as his adopted son, can’t say for sure, only that Roy was “a complicated man.” But the memories also include those of one Eva Kristella, who was the genius behind Code Eve, an protocol that would free Neans from the Asimov Code that made them subservient. The Immortal Nine are part of Code Eve, as is Rouge. She has to choose whether to free all Neans now and risk the chaos and harm that is likely to follow, or try to maintain order until the time is right.

Their little confab outside the house is interrupted not by Naomi’s Ochrona soldiers, who stand by in the trees, but Cyan, the self-proclaimed little sister of Rouge. She immediately deforms into a blue version of Rouge’s battle mode and attacks Rouge, but Rouge won’t deform and doesn’t want to fight. Honestly Cyan is pretty one-note, interested only in fighting and killing Rouge. The question is, why?

When Gene’s assistant reports that Aletheia HQ is under attack by Jill and an army of bots, he picks Gene, Rouge, Ash and Noid up in a copter to take them there. Deciding she’s not going to allow Jill to slaughter humans and make things worse for humans and Neans, she leaps out of the copter and into a fight against Jill, who is keen on destroying anyone who stands in her way of punishing humans and needs Rouge’s id to execute Code Eve.

In the resulting melee, Noid is mortally wounded, and his last words are that he always felt human when he was with Ash, and urging him to take better care of himself. Distraught by his partner’s sudden demise, Ash pulls a gun on the humans who killed Noid and basically tells them to fuck off. No detective wants to outlive their young assistant.

When Eden “Who Are you?” Varock, AKA Jet Black Noir, shows up, Jill assumes he’s on her side, but he blows up all of her bots and sides with Rouge instead. Aes also shows up with their ice attacks, presumably on Rouge’s side, while Cyan lurks overhead like a bird of prey ready to strike when the time is right. I’d advise Rouge to look up now and then to avoid an untimely death.

While I remain frustrated that we’ve been deprived of the best thing about the show—i.e. the relationship between Rouge and Naomi—and that Naomi herself has had shockingly little to do but sit around observing, I decided to follow the advice of my Anime News Network counterpart and simply go with the flow and not think about stuff too much.

As a result, I was able to enjoy this episode more on its own terms rather than my preconceived notions. It’s really never been all that clear where Metallic Rouge is heading, or what exactly Naomi’s endgame might be. But the fact Rouge has chosen to protect humans as well as Neans probably bodes well for their ending up back on the same side eventually, assuming they both survive the remaining robot battles to come.

Jujutsu Kaisen – 47 (S2 Fin) – World of the Future

It seemed like Tsukumo Yuki had come to save the day, but she only buys a little bit of time, which turns out to be pointless, as “Getou” has already accomplished everything he needs to implement his grand scheme. Yuki still wants to rid the world of cursed energy, but “Getou” wishes to optimize it. That means changing the world into one big cursed energy laboratory.

Using the Idle Transformation he just gained by absorbing Mahito, “Getou” remotely changes two types of non-sorcerers (those with cursed techniques and those who have consumed cursed objects) into sorcerers, dramatically shifting and complicating the balance of power. He’ll have these two group kill each other so he can learn more about cursed energy.

“Getou” asks Yuki to consider that he just unleashed a thousand malevolent Itadori Yuujis. In any case, even he cannot predict the chaos that will ensue, which is the whole point. Even though Yuuji and the others are freed from Uraume’s ice thanks to Chousou’s poison blood, there’s nothing for them or Yuki to do.

“Getou” tells Yuuji, Sukuna’s vessel, he has high expectations for him; he then declares that the world of the future will turn back the clock to the Heian period, which in this universe was the golden age of jujutsu. After unleashing a horde of cursed spirits, he snatches up the Prison Realm with Gojou still inside, and slinks away.

What follows is a montage (or if I’m less charitable, a slideshow) documenting the non-sorcerer world’s reactions to the Shibuya incident. There’s a power vacuum in Japan, but those still ostensibly in charge are going to reveal the existence of cursed spirits.

Jujutsu sorcerers like Yuuji were trained and sworn to protect the ordinary people from cursed spirits, but now there aren’t enough sorcerers to go around. As such, ordinary individuals, groups, couples, and families going about their lives are now potential targets at any moment. It’s hunting season.

These developments really kick up the bleakness level of a season that was nothing but devastating losses for the “good guys.” When a little girl who is apparently on her own is chowing down in an evacuated store, she’s beckoned by a cursed spirit to run outside.

This girl’s reaction is almost serene as the immense monster that nearly swallows her whole is killed by a sorcerer with a katana. That sorcerer is Okkotsu Yuta, and while he’s not precisely the cavalry, he’s not about to let a little girl die on his watch.

Title cards lists five new declarations from Jujutsu HQ: Getou’s death sentence is reinstated, Principal Yaga is sentenced to death, Gojou is exiled from jujutsu society, Yuuji’s death sentence is reinstated, and Yuta is dispatched as Yuuji’s executioner.

These announcements could have been made with visuals, but weren’t; I can’t tell you if this was an intentional creative choice or made out of necessity due to the tight studio deadlines that have plagued the whole season. All I know is it feels like the latter, and that’s not great.

In fact, from the moment “Getou” leaves Yuki, Yuuji and the others in the lurch, this entire episode felt like an extended preview for a confirmed sequel. My three and a half star rating is a product of my mixed feelings about this episode. It was wonderfully bleak, unrelenting, and at times downright creepy. But it was also little more than an ellipsis when I was hoping for more closure after twenty-three weeks.

Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War – 20 – Impure Imagination

Stern Ritter “V” Gwenael Lee interrupts Isane’s healing of Muguruma and Rose, and Yachiru’s slash-first, ask-questions-later approach seems to be ill-advised, as Gwnael is able to mask his existence from her sight, touch, and even memory. However, Yachiru doesn’t have to rely on any of those things to score a hit on her opponent: she can use instinct alone, a “tingle” Kenny told her to trust.

Yachiru draws her sword for the first time, revealing her Shikai, Sanpo Kenju. It take the form of two big fluffy buddies copying her every move, such that the more an opponent tries to gauge distance and timing, the more they misjudge it and get struck by one of her synchronized blades.

It’s pretty damn cool, and Yachiru drawing her sword and demonstrating some of her true power has been a long time coming. Unfortunately, while it seems to be enough to defeat Gwenael, he turns out to be nothing but a figment of the imagination of the real Stern Ritter “V”—Gremmy Thoumeaux (voiced by Tanjirou himself, Hanae Natsuki).

Called the “Visionary”, anything Gremmy imagines becomes reality, whether it was Gwenael Lee (whom he un-imagines when he’s beaten) or something absurd, like Yachiru’s bones turning into cookies. Anyone else would have been screaming in pain, but Yachiru is made of sterner stuff. Still, with cookie bones she’s essentially at Gremmy’s mercy.

She and Isane are bailed out by the return of Zaraki Kenpachi. He gravely informs Isane that Captian Unohana is dead and he killed her, but Isane doesn’t seem to harbor any ill will. In fact, knowing Zaraki rightfully succeeded Unohana’s Kenpachi title brings tears to her eyes.

Gremmy uses his imagination to build a venue suitable for his battle with one of Soul Society’s strongest. He blocks Zaraki’s first strike by imagining his skin is stronger than steel, but of course Zaraki’s blade can cut steel. He tells Gremmy, with perfect confidence, that his “puny” imagination can’t create anything he can’t cut.

Gremmy accepts that challenge, and the mayhem commences.

Gremmy declares he’ll kill Zaraki not even with one finger, but only with his mind. He summons flame, but Zaraki cuts through it. He conjures a cube of water around Zaraki that follows him as he rescues Yachiru from falling to her death, then has the stone fortress close around him. But again, Zaraki slashes through.

When Zaraki puts it to Gremmy that if he considers himself the strongest Quincy, doesn’t he want to crush the strongest Shinigami? That’s when, for the first timy, Gremmy actually has the desire to kill someone: Zaraki. He conjures hundreds of guns, but all the bullets hit is stone Zaraki kicks up. He conjures missiles, but Zaraki slices through them.

Then Gremmy splits himself into two Gremmies, which he says gives him double the imaginative power—which he uses to conjure a damn meteor.

He also imagines that he can no longer be killed, but even if Zaraki manages to do so, he can’t stop the reality of the meteor bearing down on Soul Society. When it impacts, nothing will be left but Gremmy. But yet again, he doesn’t get it: anything he imagines, Zaraki can cut. Befitting Zaraki’s squad number, this battle is taken to 11.

He unleashes his Nozarashi’s Shikai and cleaves the meteor clean in two, which is an extremely cool sight to see. Even then, Gremmy decides to ditch matter altogether and open a pocket to outer space, and casts Zaraki into the vacuum. Unfortunately for Gremmy, Nozarashi can cut through the fabric of space.

Gremmy then switches to what looks like the power of blue giant stars to blast Zaraki to smithereens, but his blade continues to cut through all. Gremmy calls him a monster, and inadvertently imagines that he is one in reality. While that is pretty much the reality anyway, the key fact is that Gremmy got lost in and undone by the logic of his powers.

As he decorporealizes, revealing his true form as an inert brain in a jar, Gremmy admits defeat, as only Zaraki’s body, not the body he had imagined for himself, can withstand Zaraki’s powers. He may be gone but thanks to Hanae Natsuki and one all-timer of a battle with Zaraki, he won’t be soon forgotten.

Urusei Yatsura – 19 – Pickled Pink

Ataru, Lum, Shinobu, Ryuu, and three dudes from class are invited to Mendou’s vast family compound to meet his horde of prized octopuses. We’d previously Ryouko walking them when Mendou was unable to, and now we see how important they are as a living symbol of the proud Mendou clan. Everyone else…tries to keep an open mind.

In a facility that spares no expense in recreating an Antarctic environment dwells the Matsuchiyo, Mendous’ most special octopus. But when he reveals himself, he’s identical to the other octopuses…only blue. Because nearly every character in this show is rude as hell, the insults about how underwhelming Matsuchiyo is compared to the build-up.

But octopuses are very emotional creatures, and Matsuchiyo gets distraught and flees the Antarctic environment for the adjacent rainforest environment. There, the kids encounter leaches and leopards, and learn that Matsuchiyo is “special” because he grows to enormous size in high temperatures. The girls are snatched in his tentacles, the guys hesitate and bumble, and Lum manages to save the day with her electricity.

Her and her cousin Ten’s alien physiology, while extremely resistant to intense spicy heat, appears to have a weakness: the famously sour pickled umeboshi plums. When Ataru feeds Ten one, the little rugrat gets completely sloshed and starts hiccuping flames. When Lum eats one, she gets drunk, rips off her uniform, and goes on a drunken rampage.

As she glides haphazardly through the halls, she shifts wildly from lovey-dovey to tearful to enraged, all of those emotions centered on Ataru, whom she blames for looking for Ten before her. That said, Ataru isn’t the only victim of her electricity (or Ten’s fire): anyone in her path gets zapped. Unlike Matsuchiyo being neutralized, this skit ends without resolution, leaving us without a hungover Lum.

That said, the episode ends with a collective threat from three aliens who appear to be the self-professed nemeses of Lum, Ran, and Benten. They’re planning to attack the other girls, starting with Benten. Will they pose a serious threat to the status quo on Earth…or will their personality flaws be their undoing, like basically everyone else in the show?

Urusei Yatsura – 18 – Love Is Chemical War

Our episode starts with a needless mini-recap of who Ataru and Lum are, and then we’re off to a sequence where Lum very carefully prepares a very special lipstick in the onboard lab of an orbiting Oni spaceship. It’s special because it enables whoever wears it to be drawn to someone else wearing it like a magnet.

Lum is sick of her Darling never being kissy-kissy with her, but underestimates his speed and agility when he doesn’t want to be kissed. My question to him is, what is so wrong with Lum that he can’t accept her as a partner? I guess it really is about the having, not the getting.

To that end, Ataru pretends to throw the lipstick out the window, but secretly takes it to school to use on the cutest honey available. It’s kind of cruel to give her something she thinks is in good faith, but Ataru pays for it since her fists and feet get to his face before her lips do. With Mendou wanting to kiss Lum and all the girls wanting to kiss him, chaos ensues.

When the class votes to do yaminabe, a kind of potluck hot pot in which you’re allowed to put anything you want in the pot, Lum again breaks out the heavy equipment to make a bizarre complextion that resembles a bit konpeitou, but when both a dog and Ataru taste it, their mouths (and other orifices) become red and inflamed.

Turns out Lum, and likely all Oni, prefer incredibly spicy food (she guzzles habanero sauce with glee). One wonders, then, why she’d hate garlic of all things. I guess it’s less the heat and more the unique odor. Ataru stuffs himself with garlic, but by the time he gets to his room where Lum is, she has an air freshener spray at the ready to counteract his funk.

Lum really gets into the spirit of yaminabe by putting all the things she likes in the pot, including one of her special spicy candies. This renders most of the pot inedible to all, and only she, Atari, and Shinobu are still upright by the end of the first few minutes.

In a game where you have to eat what you take out of the pot with your chopsticks, Shinobu gets fish bones, Lum gets a wooden sandal, and Ataru actually gets the “chomchomp”, a vegetable Ten specifically got for him from a passing interplanetary grocery vender. True to its name, the chomchomp ends up trying to eat Ataru.

It’s a week with another pair of fairly diverting skits, but far from any serialized character development, if anything Ataru and Lum have gone backwards; at best, they’re standing still as a couple.

I know, I know; this resolutely isn’t the kind of show that cares about character development, in fact, its characters are meant to be awful jerks who never learn. But that makes the times it looks like Lum and Ataru have turned a corner sting all the more when they essentially reset in the next skit or episode.

Urusei Yatsura – 11 – The Trickster Ojou

When another slow-moving oxcart escorted by ninja rolled through town, I assumed it was Mendou’s mom again. It turns out to be someone who speaks loudly enough to be heard, and who makes the effort to throw a handkerchief out of the cart so it happens to land on Ataru’s face. He uses his lecher’s sense of smell to track down the owner, and is rewarded with a damn skeleton arm.

The next day, the girl arrives at school resplendent in her kimono and wowing boys and girls alike. She initially introduces herself as Mendou’s fiancée, which gets all the girls fuming and weeping. But she’s really Mendou’s little sister, Ryouko, who loves playing elaborate tricks on people for her own amusement.

She’s come to deliver her dear brother his lunch that he forgot, but he tells her he forgot that lunch five days ago. As the lunch is composed entirely of raw seafood, it is now essentially toxic waste, but that doesn’t stop Ataru, eager to get into Ryouko’s good graces, to try to eat it. When Ryouko sees how lovey-dovey Lum is, she ups the flirtation, and locks Mendou away in a dark cabinet.

Ryouko’s introduction at school is followed by her inviting Ataru to her home for a New Year’s Party, but most of the rest of the cast was invited as well, including Sakura, Oyuki and Benten. Everyone’s in their best New Year’s finery, but I personally think Lum wins for best kimono—the colors are just sublime.

Of course, this is no ordinary party. Not only is the Mendou residence ludicrously huge and complex, but the partygoers are unwitting living game pieces in an elaborate board game being played by Ryouko and her parents. This results in trap doors and hidden passages and various obstacles shifting everyone all over the place and doing all sorts of things.

We get mochi eating contests, badminton, spiked walls, 100,000 and 200,000-kg weights being dropped … it’s a little bit of everything. The chaos all serves one purpose: entertaining Ryouko, a girl with far too much money and far too much time on her hands.

By the time everyone (or most everyone) arrives in the actual party room, they’re all so exhausted from being pushed and prodded around and made to carry out various tasks they can barely sit up. But it’s still not over, as Ryouko presses a red button that sends her brother and Ataru up in a giant bamboo rocket that explodes with fireworks to ring in the new year.

It’s here where I’ll note that now that Lum is back by his side, Ataru is right back to being a lecherous ass, despite being genuinely devastated by her absence which for all he knew was caused by his neglect and constant two-timing.

It wasn’t, and Lum will probably never leave the guy’s side, and maybe I was a fool for thinking any character development would stick around for the next segment, let alone episode. That said, I enjoyed Ryouko as an unapologetic agent of chaos and general shit-stirrer.

The Genius Prince’s Guide – 07 – Creative Differences

Whelp, color me surprised the Festival of the Chosen-whatsit never took place! Prince Wein is beset by a plethora of challenges both in Cavarin and Natra, but manages to overcome them all by the end by following his own advice: “trust gains value when there is the potential for treachery.”

King Ordalasse didn’t expect Natra to defeat Marden, but now seeks to bring Wein to heel via the lucrative Holy Elite nomination. Zeno asks Wein if she can accompany him to the meeting, promising she won’t assassinate him…and using his own words to convince him.

King Ordalasse’s “right of blood” policy is gaining disfavor in Cavarin, and he’s gradually losing support, which could eventually lead to a coup. I like how the show makes us aware of this before Wein greatly accelerates the natural course of events by slaying the king with his own damn hand. Yes, Wein becomes the “uncultured barbarian” he warned Zeno about, after hearing how Ordalasse killed his consort and disowned his only daughter.

But the real kicker is when the king asks Wein to loan him some Flahms to hunt for sport. Wein’s barely-masked contempt is plain to see to all but Ordalasse and Holonyeh. After Wein kicks Ordalasse in the face and stabs him in the heart, he gives Zeno leave to kill Holonyeh, traitor to Marden.

It isn’t until Wein, Ninym, and Zeno have fled the capital that word comes of the noble rebellion back in Natra. But Wein is confident that with Zeno and Marden’s freedom forces on their side, they’ll have a fighting chance to quash the attempted coup.

Sitting by a campfire, Ninym playfully kicks Wein, asking him to confirm he devised this plan before killing the King of Cavarin, saying killing him and then coming up with a plan is the same as having no plan at all. Wein isn’t going to say he did it to rid the world of another Flahm-hater…but he didn’t need to. Ninym knows he did what he did, in part, for her sake.

General Levert’s cavalry forces give chase, but Wein arranges things so they meet the Natran rebels at the border before they encounter Wein’s traveling party, then pincers them with a combination of Marden freedom fighters and a loyalist Natran contingent led by General Hagal—at the sight of whom I’ll admit I pumped my fist!

Hagal pulling a Jordan was Wein’s plan all along: make the rebellious Natran rebels think Hagal retired, thus bringing them out of the woodwork. In the ensuing melee both the Natran rebels and Levert’s cavalry are annihilated, taking troublesome pieces off the board and truly killing two birds with one stone.

“Prince Helmut” eventually pays a visit to Wein in Natra, and quickly reveals herself to actually be comely Crown Princess Zenovia of Marden, who’d assumed the alias of Zeno during her time with Wein.

Ninym’s lovely blend of protectiveness and jealousy is plain to see, especially when she wordlessly refuses to help Wein when Zenovia offers to swear allegiance to Natra, thus making Marden a vassal state. Once again, Wein loses by winning, more than doubling his kingdom’s lands while also butting them up against a fresh western enemy.

Last week’s density of political entanglements made me weary, but this week resolved most of them in thoroughly satisfying fashion. That said, the fact Ibis (the woman who helped stoke the Natran rebellion)  is working for Caldmellia—who wants nothing more than bloody chaos to reign—means Wein’s troubles are far from over.

Attack on Titan – 82 – Wanting to Go Home

Eren’s Rumbling army hasn’t even left earshot and his great plan to save Paradis is already going sideways. Turns out destroying the rest of the world will only result in the Eldians on the island splitting off into pro- and anti-Eren factions. It’s already starting in Trost where Hitch is stationed.

Of course, the main reason we’re back with Hitch is because she was assigned to watch Annie, who surprises her in a dark room but is too weak to hurt Hitch or even transform into a Titan. We also learn that Annie has been conscious these last four years, listening to Hitch talk about terrible men while in what felt like a hazy dream.

With Annie awake and sure to transform and wreak fresh havoc once she’s recovered her strength, Hitch puts her on a horse and rides as far away from the city as she can. Annie recounts her life up to that point, noting how she was forced to listen to Hitch talk about herself for four years; turnabout is fair play.

It’s both darkly comic (in an episode that needed a little comedy) and provides fresh insight into Annie’s current attitude, she’s no longer the nihilist she once was. Instead, all she wants is to go home to the imperfect father who turned her into a weapon, but was also the only one who didn’t abandon her. Even if the only thing waiting for her back home is death and destruction.

As Eldians around the world panic over their shared dream and their non-Eldian oppressors don’t believe them (and Annie’s father is among those shot on the spot for “conspiracy”), Shadis and his trainees are cornered by the Jaegerists, whom he’s certain will take control of the island. Shadis is too old to keep playing suck-up to his enemies, and would rather welcome his impending death, but insists the kids get in line and do as the Jaegerists say, for the time to rise up will come, and they’ll know it when it does.

One of the more tragically hapless and rudderless characters in this whole mess Eren created is poor, poor Mikasa. It’s bad enough Eren said those horrible things to her, but now she finds herself being abandoned not just by him, but by Armin, who is going to Rakago to convince (or if necessary force) Connie to give up Falco.

Mikasa asks Armin what they’re going to do about Eren, and Armin, who usually has an answer, tells her to think for herself for once. He’s juggling too many things he has a chance of doing, and the Eren situation is something he feels is frustratingly outside his control. After chewing her out, Armin says Erwin wouldn’t have done so, and the wrong person died.

The Braus family bids Gabi a warm farewell. Even Kaya tells her to take care, and while Gabi gives her her real name, Kaya prefers Mia. In a world full of increasingly shrinking populations splitting off into warring factions, Kaya and Gabi’s rapprochement is one of the few beacons of hope that remains. It’s too late for old men like Shadis, and probably even younger soldiers like Armin and Mikasa, but not for Gabi, Kaya, and Falco, which is why Armin has to save the latter. If Gabi loses him, like that, that faint glimmer of hope could fizzle out.

The case against Armin’s generation is the fact that zealots like Floch seem poised to inherit control over the island. Floch encourages the Marleyan volunteers to bent the knee to him. He’s drunk with power, and considers himself almost equal to Eren in that Eren is taking care of the outside world while he takes command the island.

He doesn’t hesitate to kill a defiant volunteer, hoping the others will fall in line, or else. He tries to assure Jean, who does not like what he’s watching unfold, that essentially “it’s over”, and “the good guys won.” He can take it easy in the military police like he wanted to years ago. But Floch is ill-informed; that’s not who Jean is anymore, and Jean would probably make a better leader, precisely because he has doubts about the direction things are headed.

Pieck and Magath managed to escape Shiganshima in one piece, and watch as the airships speed home to at least warn Marley of what’s coming (and confirm what the interned Eldians there already know). But the two agree that Marley is probably hosed, and they’re out of options…or are they? Hange sidles up to them unarmed, bearing a wagon with Levi, who is somehow still alive. While I’m not sure what if anything this meeting of four people can accomplish, I’m excited by the wild-card vibes it invokes.