The Eminence in Shadow – 21 (S2 01) – Black and White and Red All Over

Our boy Shadow, sitting in his throne room, hears reports of stirrings in the Lawless City from the Seven Shadows. It’s your typical serious, brooding, self-important exposition scene…suddenly hilariously undercut by Shadow getting everyone to freak out about whether they have B.O.

Turns out it’s the red moon he smells, and rather than a bad omen, he sees the moon as no big deal, and intends to investigate the Lawless City himself. With that, Eminence is Shadow’s second season heads to a new place with lots of new and familiar faces.

It just so happens that coming off her Bushin Festival win (of course she won), Claire is also headed there to hunt vampires. Because she has a brother complex, she ensures they’re in constant contact by dragging him by the back of his collar through the city.

On the way they encounter Goldy and Quentin, having been defeated and now on sale as pets, but only Cid vaguely recognizes them. He then somehow ends up separated from Claire, has his pocket picked, and proceeds to use his slime to pick the pickpockets’ pockets. He’s already starting to like this den of villainy.

He likes it even more when another night under the red moon comes, and with it a sudden outbreak of ghouls (i.e. vampire thralls). He’s ready to go toe-to-toe but a badass-looking red-haired woman spots him, assumes he’s about to die, and “saves” him.

Introducing herself as Mary, an eminent vampire hunter, she then spews a series of cliches about a frenzy starting, the moon is red, their time is running out, and if he wants to live he’d better run. This whole scenario is like catnip to Cid. Meanwhile, Claire begins searching for him, killing ghouls as she goes.

From there we meet Marie, a bruised sex worker trying to wallow in despair when she hears commotion outside: the ghouls are biting people and turning them into more ghouls. When they invade the brothel, Shadow is right on time to behead them and save Marie. But she doesn’t just get saved in the immediate mortal sense.

Shadow parrots the exact same sequence of clichés he just heard from Mary, and they inspire Marie to get up and leave her life of turning tricks, quite assured despite her friend that Shadow can’t possibly be a bad guy. Perhaps she’ll end up in Shadow Garden like Rose, who unfortunately doesn’t appear…yet.

Claire’s search leads her to finding the remains of someone who vaguely resembles Cid, but on closer—heck, just on regular inspection, the head she’s holding had blue eyes, thus ending her grieving session. This needle scratch of a fact is pointed out to her by Mary, and the two decide to team up as they’re headed to the same place: the Crimson Tower.

A young, glasses-wearing student council-type dark knight and her few comrades who didn’t flee are about to be overrun by ghouls, but Shadow once again does the exact same thing he did with Marie: rescue the knights and say his borrowed spiel, only he adds a little extra.

Sadly, we don’t get to see him do it a third or fourth time, which would no doubt lead to a game of telephone-esque devolution of the phrases into something completely different and possibly cornier. But we do learn that the outbreak of ghouls was no accident.

Lord Crimson, one of the three de facto leaders of the Lawless City, intends to use the red moon and the blood of the city to resurrect the Blood Queen Elizabeth, who has slumbered for 1,000 years. He’s opposed by the other two lords: the stylish Yukime who rules the White Tower, and the musclebound Juggernaut.

As those latter two bicker and fight with one another (no enemy-of-my-enemy-is-my-friend compromise to be found here), Cid decides it’s the perfect time for Shadow of the Shadows to enter the fray. The moon is red, and a frenzy has begun, but fortunately we’ve got plenty of time to enjoy more Eminence, which is back and as solid as ever.

Jujutsu Kaisen – 33 – Thirteen Orphans

Not gonna lie, while it was fun to watch Gojou have a little squash match—literally squashing Hanami into a thin paste on the wall—it was also a little unnerving.

For much of the battle, Gojou is sporting a giddy smirk usually worn by villains when they’re doing villainous shit. He’s enjoying this a little too much. And he’s also operating under the assumption that his enemies are underestimating him.

But as was mentioned last week, the reason they’re even there fighting him is because Getou is properly estimating Gojou and his power. He discusses the length of time and the amount of space within which Jougo & Co. have to keep him confined. Jougo thinks it’s crazy to think they can do that.

But Getou has this all figured out. While Hanami is lost, Jougo and Choso are able to keep their distance until a train finally arrives, from which Mahito and roughly a thousand transfigured humans alight. The crowds of people are slaughtered wholesale; those who fought to get to the front of the door first are killed first.

Mahito then destroys Hanami’s confining roots to allow another mass of people to fall to the level below, and Mahito and Choso combine abilities to tear them to shreds. There’s a method to this massacre: to further back Gojou into a corner where he can no longer logically calculate “acceptable losses”.

Once Gojou reaches that state, he unleashes his Infinite Void, instinctively only using it for two tenths of a second. For those two tenths, each and every man and woman around him will be in the hospital for two months…but they won’t die. It only takes Gojou 299 seconds to eliminate all of the roughly 1,000 transfigured humans. It’s Gojou going full Neo.

When he’s done, he’s out of breath and looking pretty haggard, and that’s when Getou gets him, revealing the proverbial “Thirteen Orphans” (his hand in the Mahjong game): the Prison Doman. The conditions are met, and Getou is in deep doo-doo. There’s just one problem: while the man before Gojou certainly looks and sounds like Getou Suguru, Gojou can tell it’s not really him.

Sure enough, “Getou” removes the crown of his head to reveal a brain with teeth; Getou’s body is only a host for that brain, and the person it belongs to. So that’s something. Even so, the brain’s owner is able to use all of Getou’s abilities, which is why he was able to checkmate Gojou here.

While still with Mei Mei and Ui Ui, Yuuji hears from a little Mechamaru earpiece that Gojou has been sealed. And since Gojou is the strongest of the sorcerers, it likely falls to Yuuji and his impressive potential to defeat the strongest alliance of enemies he’s ever faced. We’ll see if he and all the others can really make up for the loss of Gojou.

The Eminence in Shadow – 20 (Fin) – Just Getting Started

Before she knew it, Princess Iris, who not only believed she was the strongest fighter in her kingdom, but needed to believe it, was beaten. Mundane Mann’s sword lingered at her throat. He could have taken her life ay any moment, and she knew it. Not taking her life, showing mercy, isn’t what enrages Iris.

It’s when Mann lowers his sword, without even asking if she yields, because something else has gotten his attention. He thinks so little of her as his opponent he can not only turn away, but leave the battlefield. Of course, it’s so Cid can stop Rose from getting herself killed, then face off against an even stronger opponent in Beatrix.

Cid and Beatrix cross blades so quickly as they guide through the rainy sky, they almost look like fireworks. But soon the two-person dance gains a third partner. Iris isn’t done with Shadow; not by a long shot. Unfortunately for her and Beatrix, he is simply in another league when it comes to speed, strength, and precision. He even fights them with his beloved crowbars!

Meanwhile, Rose is free, but asks herself in a dark alley, what now? Alpha appears to give her two options: try to save her kingdom by going it alone, which will almost surely end in failure and death…or join Shadow Garden and prove both she and Oriana are worth saving.

Of all the women Cid has dueled with, Annerose definitely gets off the easiest; she’s a picture of tranquility as Iris and Beatrix throw everything they have at Shadow in the background. Bon Voyage, Annerose!

It takes some sustained futility for Iris and Beatrix to finally agree to work together, which consists of Iris using one of her flashier fire attacks with her enchanted mithril sword—the use of which she earlier agreed is underhanded, but she has no choice.

She aims to stop Shadow even if it costs her her life, but even her best attack doesn’t even hit, nor does Beatrix’s, which she executes after charging up with a cool display of whirling geometric shapes. Iris ends up face down on the ground, and Beatrix soon joins her, Shadow stomping them both into submission.

When Iris tells Shadow that their attack has only been stalling for time, the entire Knight’s Order has mustered, and there’s nowhere for him to run, Cid breaks out his loudest, most drawn-out, supervillainous (excuse me: supereminancious) laugh yet. Run? Run where? Why?

No, Shadow is staying right where he is, because playtime is over. Cid really chews into the clichés here, and just generally has an absolute blast—literally, as he covers the capital in an eerie purple dome, then unleashes I AM ATOMIC as the ultimate battle-ending coup-de-grace.

But—and this is key—this I AM ATOMIC is totally benign; just a glorified puff of smoke that allows him to withdraw of his own accord. When Beatrix and Iris come to, the rain is gone, the sky is clear and blue, and a rainbow arches over them. Beatrix is her usual stoic self, but Iris starts blubbering like a child. I’ll say this for Shadow, he brings out a side of Iris no one else can!

Speaking of women he negatively affected, remember Sherry Barnett? I do! And she makes a quick cameo in the ending minutes of the episode that serve as an epilogue. She’s itching to fight and kill him, while Asshat get scolded by his Cult superior, trying to frame his failure as a positive since it resulted in the destabilization of Oriana.

As for Cid Kagenou, he continues to not be killed by his sister, and is back on the train to the temporary buildings where dark knight academy classes take place until Gamma’s conglomerate rebuilds the academy. The Seven Shades are hard at work both in the shadows and in broad daylight, doing what must be done.

Rose wisely decides to join Shadow Garden, but learns that it won’t be a picnic. After walking dozens of miles, she and Alpha reach the Garden’s secluded headquarters, ancient city of Alexandria, which gives off some serious Nazarick vibes.

There, Alpha hands Rose of to Lambda, who tells her her life and identity up to that point are over and meaningless. With one swipe, Rose’s clothes—and more distressingly, her beloved burger wrapper—are torn to shreds. But before long, “Number 666”, as she has been re-named, will likely have a sleek slime suit of her own—and renewed purpose.

The Eminence in Shadow appropriately and perfectly concludes with its namesake character, once again playing Moonlight Sonata in a dark, dramaticaly lit room filled with drifting feathers. It is only the latest of many carefully-orchestrated “set pieces” Cid is not only fond of, but lives for.

With his army and background influence growing and his enemies sharpening their swords, there’s a ton that could be done in a theoretical second season. If and when that season becomes a reality, I’ll be right there, parked in my comfy Ikea chair, ready to watch Cid act like a endearing goofball and a breathless badass simultaneously. But for now, Eminence goes out on the highest of notes.

Kaguya-sama: Love Is War – Ultra Romantic – 10 – He Carries All Our Hopes With Him

BINAURAL ASMR – 👻 Horror House Experience 👻 (Wear Headphones)

Before Yuu and Tsubame head to the Horror House, we get to experience it along with Kaguya, Maki, Nagisa and Tsubasa, and also found out how both Yuu and Miko contributed to making it the unique and terrifying success it clearly is.

Mind you in Miko’s case that success wasn’t intentional, but her classmate and president of Tabletop Game Club Makihara Kozue has a sadistic streak and pretty much tortures Miko with scissors, feathers, and even dang ear nibbling in order to record (with binaural mics in Miko’s ears) the perfect immersive experience for the house.

It looks like the perfect venue for Yuu and Tsubame to get a little closer; heck, even Kaguya and Maki hold hands for support in there! But when Miko finds Nagisa and Tsubasa making out in their locker, she decides visitors to the horror house shall forthwith be segregated by gender.

This, of course, ruins the whole purpose of Yuu taking Tsubame to a haunted house, since they won’t get to, ya know, experience it together. While a setback, it’s not a terminal one, and more importantly isn’t due to anything Yuu said or did.

Hell Is About to Start Now

Moving on, it’s always been clear Chika has no particular romantic designs or even prospects; I imagine her “type” is a man so beautiful and perfect that he might not exist, at least not at Shuchiin. He might be somewhere in Lichtenstein. Her lil’ sis Moeha, on the other hand? She has a crush on President Shirogane, specifically thanks to being friends with his sister Kei, and accurately interpreting her tsundere barbs towards him as the praise and admiration it actually is.

Chika tries to warn Moeha that Miyuki is not who she thinks he is, then proceeds to list off all the things he’s bad at. Of course, she has to include the disclaimers that Miyuki worked his ass off until he got the hang of those things, which endears him to Miyuki even more. Chika believes the only way to “cure” her sister of this curse is to allow her to witness Miyuki juggling.

Like a host of other skills requiring either talent or hard work, Chika assumes Miyuki will be terrible at it and turn Moeha off him like a cat on a hot tin roof. She assumed wrong; Miyuki is quite good at juggling, thanks to her grandma. He’s also good at cup-and-ball, top-spinning, and yo-yo. Chika breaks down in a floor kicking-and-pounding tantrum, while Moeha is as enamored of him as ever.

Of course, the real reason Chika should give for why Moeha shouldn’t be pursuing the President is because of the Vice President, i.e. Kaguya, who appears behind Moeha like a glowing specter in an unsettling jump cut. Moeha then proceeds to list all of the legitimate reasons she likes Miyuki, which are the same reasons Kaguya loves him, and the two bond over their shared subject of affection. Kaguya just loves that she can talk about Miyuki with someone who understands!

If He Goes Down, We Go Down

Back to Yuu and Tsubame, as Tsubame invites Yuu to her class presentation, a kind of festival games set-up. Yuu can feel the momentum in his favor, and while he’d shrink, hesitate, or turn tail in the past, here he rides that momentum like a wave.

He wins a giant heart-shaped cookie, then offers it to Tsubame in the middle of a crowded classroom where 90% of them know what that means. He then makes it clear to those who don’t: the gift is an expression of how he feels about her.

It is indeed a 100% Public Confession, and while Tsubame has a good reaction and does not summarily reject him, she does suddenly run off asking for “time to think about it”, leaving Yuu in an uncomfortable limbo.

As Yuu’s success hangs in the balance, Miyuki contemplates the cost of failure: blanket Self-Imposed Restraint on Romance. Like a stone in a pond, Tsubame’s rejection of Yuu will have ripple effects for all the other would-be couples in the blast radius. Miyuki and Kaguya would have to put their romantic plans on hold to comfort Yuu. A confession in such an atmosphere would be romantic suicide!

Miyuki (and Kaguya) are invested in Yuu’s success, because if he goes down, they go down, and with no time left before he heads to Stanford. He asks Chika if Yuu has a chance, but her answer is biased against both Yuu and Miyuki, whom she’s long thought of as garbage men (not sanitation engineers, mind you). 

Still, even Chika can admit that over time she’s come to find both guys as “pretty decent men”; high praise for someone with her standards. If Tsubame takes the “point-addition approach” with Yuu, the kid has a chance. The most and best they can do is watch over him.

Of course, the stakes are much higher for Miyuki. Will he be able to keep his hands off the scenario and let the cards fall where they may? Will a Yuu defeat really spell as much doom for him and Kaguya as he assumes? We’re close approaching the endgame here, folks. You can tell from the surging notes of some of the absolute best musical scoring in the business.

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – Entertainment District Arc – 07 – Tantrums and Lullabies

While Tanjirou is unconscious, the transformed and leveled-up Nezuko goes to absolute town on Daki, to the point where, again, I kinda felt sorry for the poor demoness. When Daki tries to counter by slicing her opponent to bits, Nezzy’s blood not only coagulates, keeping all her parts together, but burns Daki everywhere it splattered, reminding her of her human death in flames long ago.

The problem, is, Nezzy has no limiter but Tanjirou, and by the time he comes to she’s already inadvertently wounded some human bystanders (not to mention scared the absolute shit out of them). When she smells the humans’ blood, she can’t help but charge towards them. Thankfully, Tanjirou is there to stop her from killing anyone. But he calm his sister down and protect the bystanders from Daki, who is partially healed and pissed.

Things look bad for Tanjirou, but Uzui shows up just when he should, cutting all of Daki’s attacking belts in the blink of an eye. And nobody, not even Daki, realizes that he also beheaded her with that same arriving attack. Uzui doesn’t consider her an Upper Rank, as how could someone of such rank be holding their head in their hands like she is now?

Just as I love how Daki is someone with whome you can occasionally sympathize, I also love how nonchalant and casual Uzui goes about his business. When he sees a hulked-up Nezuko trying to break free from her undersized brother, he basically tells Tanjirou to get it together put Nezuko to sleep already. The problem is, Nezzy doesn’t seem to be listening to him.

That’s when Tanjirou takes Uzui’s offhand advice to “sing her a lullaby”, which he does while she struggles. Suddenly she’s transported back to better days when she was walking with her mom, who was singing a lullaby to her baby brother. Big Nezzy bursts into tears, then shrinks and falls right asleep, ending one of the many threats facing the Demon Slayers.

The next problem is that despite being beheaded, Daki’s body isn’t disintegrating. Daki doesn’t think much of this, as perhaps it will just take a while, until Daki starts having a full on tantrum about how mean everyone’s been to her. Then she calls out to her “brother”, and Uzui instinctively goes in for the kill…only for his strike to miss. A second demon sprouts out of Daki’s back and moves her to safety.

The second demon is her brother, Gyuutarou, as grotesque a demon as she is beautiful. He heals her and calms her down in much the same way we’ve seen Tanjirou calm his demon sister. What with Nezzy being almost ever-present in her box, you could say both pairs of siblings are attached by, well, not the hip, but certainly the back.

Uzui didn’t consider Daki an Upper Rank because she was so easy to behead, but beheading didn’t kill her, and now we learn that she’s not only not a single demon, but the brother within her is the demon Uzui has been searching for all along. It made me wonder if you somehow managed to separate Gyuutarou whether Daki could be redeemed, as he’s the brains behind their symbiotic existence, controlling her from within.

For now, she’s very much one-half of the latest boss, and powerful enough that even Uzui will have to break a sweat. With Inousuke and Zenitsu finally catching up and Tanjirou ready to rejoin the fray once he stashes Nezuko away (which…rats), this arc is ratcheting up at precisely the right time.

SSSS.Dynazenon – 02 – What Are We Now?

The first of many wonderful decisions made in this exquisitely directed and impeccably detailed second episode is that we catch a second look at the end of last week’s kaiju battle from Yomogi’s POV. It’s great to see this confused ordinary kid simply along for the ride as Dynazenon leaps, flies, and takes its opponent down.

After that, the dino-mecha vanishes, or rather reverts to its resting form of four toys distributed among the three new co-pilots by Gauma. When Yomogi says he didn’t even do anything, Gauma says it’s possibly Dynazenon recognized his innate aptitude.

Then immediately goes back to what he was doing before the attack: castigating Yume for standing Yomogi up, leading Yomogi to ask for calm. Gauma goes on to say a group called the Kaiju Eugenicists controlled the kaiju, and they’ll be back, so the group has to train. Everyone agrees to meet up tomorrow…even Yume.

The next day at school and in Koyomi’s room, everything seemingly reverts back to normal, except for the compression of classes due to the kaiju attack. Yomogi’s friends want him to hang, but he has work. Chise points out to Koyomi that if he’s a robot co-pilot then that means he’s technically employed.

After school Yume gets a piggyback ride from her best friend Mei on a grassy hill near the flood gate. We’ve never seen her so outwardly joyful, laughing until she’s out of breath before heading to training session, this time keeping her word. Mei, a photog, notices this sudden change in Yume’s attitude and snaps some gorgeous candid shots of her as she parts.

Yomogi, who’d classically be the one most “into” this new kaiju-punching mecha scenario, has to work instead, missing the first training session. When his manager what happened on his date, he says “way too much” happened, though none of it “erotically”. He then goes home for a soak and is shocked when Gauma comes in to join him in a far-too-cramped tub.

There’s a lovely juxtaposition between Yomogi and Gauma’s bath and Yume’s. Yomogi was thinking about what having “aptitude” for Dynazenon means, while Yume is thinking about apologizing to Yomogi. Her parents are arguing on the other side of Yume’s bathroom door, one instance of many of Dynazenon’s elite sound design.

From the tinny sound of voices on radio or TV, voices muffled through walls, far away, close up, outside and on the train, we hear voices in Dynazenon just like we do in real life. Also adding to the immersive realism are the extremely lived-in interiors. Like Gauma, we feel like an honored guest in the cozy, realistically cluttered home Yomogi shares with his mom and aging granny.

It’s also clear from this scene why Yomogi is working so much he’s missing all of Gauma’s training sessions: with no siblings or father, now that he’s old enough to work he wants to help support his family as much as he can. As odd as Gauma is, he still seems to get this, and isn’t hard on Yomogi’s choice to skip training for work.

But as we’re introduced to four suspicious figures near a wrecked station, he won’t be able to ignore his Dyna-duties for long. Yume tracks him down and decides to give him a one-on-one lesson on how to access his Dyna-vehicle. She starts by accessing hers: the aerial Dyna Wing, and he accesses Dyna Soldier. Then she merges with him, giving his robot the ability to fly and giving her robot arms and legs with which to fight.

The two combine quickly and without any fanfare, but it still feels like an intimate act, and it was foreshadowed by Yume piggyback riding on Mei’s back. Now she’s piggybacking on Yomogi, and their maiden flight together results in a very sweet and simple conciliatory talk from 40,000 feet travelling at mach 0.8.

Yume is sorry, and Yomogi isn’t mad. Yomogi asked “What are we now?”, referring to their combined Wing/Soldier form. But you could just as easily answer that “what they are now” … is friends. They were able to bridge the distance between them and start fresh…all thanks to robots.

In a very slick transition, their combined “Dyna Wing Soldier” flies behind a building as the camera pans down, and once we’re at ground level we see Yume and Yomogi walking together. They visit the collateral damage the kaiju battle caused, which distresses Yomogi, but Yume assures him it would have been far worse had they not fought and defeated the kaiju. In light of the mess they made, Yomogi wonders if they should hand off their Dyna duties to someone else—perhaps someone older or more experience.

Yume’s response is instructive: If you always go by the book, there are things you can’t protect. On the train home, Yume opens up to him about how her sister died, in an accident, at the flood gate where she spends so much time. It’s another momentous moment presented with sublime mundaneness. Kudos again to the sound design, as you can hear her voice bouncing off the metal walls of the train.

Just like that, smash cut to the kaiju of the week – initially so unassuming, taking up a tiny portion of the frame as it lurks under an overpass. Then Yuuga, one of the four too-cool-for-school “Bad Guy” kaiju users in marching band uniforms (a Trigger trademark) is chosen by the others to take command, and the kaiju grows to immense size.

The psychedelic kaiju starts leveling city blocks when Dynazenon arrives, just as Yuuga & Co. predicted. Only as expected, this second kaiju is a lot trickier than the first. One can’t just punch it, because it can freakin’ teleport. Yuuga uses this ability to great effect by kicking the shit out of the comparatively sluggish Dynazenon while dodging all it’s counterattacks.

Gauma decides to audible “Disperse!”, and the four Dyna parts split, giving their opponent four targets. The only problem is, without any training Yomogi has no idea how to move his Soldier Dyna on its own, and as he wrestles with the controls his sitting duck Dyna’s arms flail around comically. If that wasn’t enough, his manager calls him from work, a fun instance of his normal life interrupting his new kaiju-bustin’ one.

When the enemy kaiju accelerates its destructo-beams and buildings start to crumble, Yomogi spots a bus full of innocent people in harm’s way, and realizes that whether he’s confident in his abilities or not, he wants to protect them. Yume suggests they do what they did before and piggyback into Dyna Soldier, and with Yume’s added agility is able to destroy the fragile wings the kaiju was using to teleport.

After that, he and Yume launch the kaiju high into the sky, where Gauma is able to finish it off with his Dyna Launcher Burst Missile. Team Dynazenon is now 2-for-2, with Dyna-teamwork making the Dyna-dream work. As they exit their robots and bask in their latest victory, Yomogi asks if Yume was close to her sister. She says they didn’t get along well, but admits that now she’s not so sure anymore.

Just as their regular lives are portrayed so simply and realistically with both sights and sounds, there’s a similar realism to the feelings Yume and Yomogi expressed here. There’s nothing over-the-top or melodramatic about their exchanges. Instead, they’re becoming closer little by little, at their own pace.

Unfortunately the pace of battles is likely to heat up, as the enemy kaiju users Gauma identifies as the “Kaiju Eugenicists” are steaming over their latest defeat. Our ragtag gang of good-hearted souls want to keep protecting what they can, they’ll need to step up their Dyna-battle game, ’cause these drum majors look serious, and the gloves are coming off.

Inuyashiki – 10

Turns out the woman, father, and baby we met last week weren’t the ones in the plane that crashed. Hiro has taken control of dozens, many of which find targets on the ground below, but Ichirou is finally able to take action,  commandeering and soft-landing ten planes in the bay – including the one with the woman, father and baby.

But Hiro has already caused much carnage, and hundreds if not thousands of casualties. And perhaps more pressing to Ichirou, Mari calls him to say she’s trapped atop city hall in the observation deck, where there’s a fire raging and where oxygen is running out.

Ichirou could probably save Mari and the others in City Hall in two shakes of a lamb’s tail, but there’s a problem: Hiro has found him. In their first encounter, he bolted as soon as Ichirou got up from Hiro’s bang; here, he wants answers, and isn’t satisfied with the ones he gets.

Hiro is upset that he’s the villain, while the old man is the hero, and so lashes out like a child would, first by grappling with Ichirou, then by bang-bang-banging him mercilessly. Finally, Ichirou counters with a bang of his own, but Hiro is only momentarily stunned.

As previewed in the show’s OP, a no-hold-barred battle between Hiro and Ichirou, nobody wins or loses except the city crumbling around and below them. When they’ve finally beaten and blasted each other unconscious, their “fail-safe”/”autopilot” systems kick in.

It’s here where it’s indicated that for all of the carnage and mayhem Hiro has caused, Ichirou’s system may be the superior of the two, and not necessarily due to any mechanical differences. Rather, because the original human that was copied by the mysterious aliens was older and more experienced.

This enables Autopilot Ichirou to destroy the hapless $100 billion space station in orbit and use the falling debris as cover for a sneak attack. He essentially scalps and literally “dis-arms” Hiro, and both fall back to earth with a crash and a splash.

At this point, I didn’t have very high hopes for Mari’s survival, and indeed she looks to have succumbed to smoke inhalation and asphyxia by the time Ichirou finally arrives. We watch him quickly descend into a new sub-level of despair as Mari’s life flashes before his eyes, but after much perseverance he manages to revive her.

Mari reacts to learning her father came when she needed him most with a big hug and a lot of tears. There’s no time fo Ichirou to explain or try to hide what he is; he must save the rest of the sightseers atop the building, including Nao, and after sending Mari home, he’s all over the city, saving as many as he can as those around him call him “god”.

Meanwhile, Hiro’s in a bad way, but he’s obviously not dead. Two good Samaritans encounter find him in an alley, and when he manages to mutter “water”, they give him some juice from the nearby vending machine, unwittingly helping a potential country-destroyer get back in the game.

I hope Ichirou realizes it isn’t ovr between him and Hiro, and that he isn’t so caught up in helping strangers that he neglects his family’s safety.

One Punch Man – 07

This week’s threat to the annihilation of City Z and its neighbors isn’t a villain or monster, but a meteor. Just…a meteor. Nothing fancy or ironic about it, except that it shifted course to land right in Saitama’s backyard (so to speak). This initially feels like this threat lacks the imagination of previous foes, but it offers the opportunity to see what happens when Saitama saves the city and is actually recognized for it.

Only Genos and other Class S heroes are summoned to Z in a last-ditch effort, and only three Class S’s actually show up: Bang, Bofoi, and Genos. Third-ranked Fang’s martial arts are of no help; seventh-ranked Bofoi only sends a drone to perform a weapons test. Genos takes Fang’s advice to go all out and not worry about failure or repercussions, but he also comes up short. It falls to Saitama, who shows up randomly and blasts the meteor to bits.

Now, Saitama has destroyed cities before, most notably in the first episode when the colossus he knocks out falls on one. But now his name is out there as the one who stopped the meteor and saved millions of lives but also the one who devastated City Z. The HA also assumes he had help from the Class S’s, so he only rises within his own Class C, albeit a healthy jump from 342nd to fifth.

Rankings aside, when heroes near and far hear of a Class C barging into a Class S matter, they’re understandably pissed, and suspect foul play. Enter the Tank Top Brothers, Tiger and Black Hole. Rather than challenge him to a fight, they start yelling abou how Saitama is responsible for all the destruction around them, gathering a crowd that turns against Saitama and starts to chant “give it up”.

The true test of Saitama’s greatness as a hero is not in his victories over impossible foes like the meteor. Rather, it is in his ability to withstand the indignity of not only hardly ever being recognized for his efforts, but on the contrary, blamed for secondary issues, when if it weren’t for him, every man, woman, child, and building in City Z would have been toast.

Bang witnesses the Brothers turning the crowd against Saitama, but does not interfere, knowing sometimes being the bad guy in spite of being the good guy is part of the job. But the Bros’ scheme backfires when they try to put their hands on Saitama, and they very publicly show how much weaker they are.

Saitama uses the opportunity to tell the stunned crowd he’s a hero because he wants to be one, not for admiration. If they have a problem, they can either say it to his face or go to hell. It’s the first real case of Saitama, who has the clear moral high ground, addressing a good-size crowd of people directly. He probably swayed few minds, but perhaps being known and despised is preferable to not being known at all.

One Punch Man – 06

I’m not so sure this Hero registration was such a good idea for Saitama. After all, none of his amazing deeds have gone noticed prior to registering, and no matter how phenomenally powerful he is, he seems doomed to never be recognized for it, whether it’s because witnesses are hardly ever around when he performs his feats, or other, more famous heroes hog all the notoriety.

When Genos informs him he must bag a bad guy within a week or lose his registration, Saitama learns just how hard it is to find a low-level monster or criminal to apprehend or punish when he actually wants to find one. Luckily, he bumps into Sonic on the streets, and Sonic is so bent on fighting him he “pretends” to be a villain for Saitama to nab, which actually just means blowing a lot of stuff up and putting people in danger.

Still, Saitama has to thank Sonic for showing up, because otherwise his career as a pro hero would be over before it ever got started.

As a bored Class-S hero Tornado (a rare female character on OPM) complains to the HA administration about getting more tasty work (a lot of the work suited to S’s Saitama already did without fanfare), news of…something bad going on in the abandoned area of City Z prompts the HA to send two Class-A’s to investigate.

Rank 29 Golden Ball and Rank 33 Spring Mustachio saunter in, weary of the widespread destruction and lack of people in the zone. They end up confronting a vicious seaweed monster who also heard rumors about things going down in the area, including a congregation of monsters like himself, but instead decides to kill time by wasting both of the Class-A’s, clearly establishing how strong he is.

There’s something familiar about this area: it’s Saitama’s neighborhood. Ever since all those battles in previous episodes, everyone else who lived there moved out. He and Genos are all that is left, which makes the fact Genos insists on living with him in his cramped apartment all the more ridiculous. As for the seaweed monster, he not unreasonably mistakes Saitama for just a regular schlub and prepares to kill him, but rather than witness what happens next, we go straight to the end: Saitama boiling kanbu leaves from the slain monster for broth. Waste not, want not, eh?

Just as we didn’t see what Saitama did, no one else did, so he gets no credit for easily defeating down a monster that ate two Top-35s for breakfast. Instead, he rises from 388th to 342nd for apprehending Sonic, for which there were witnesses. And he gets to start the drudgery all over again, going from crim to crim in a mad dash to keep his license. There’s no justice in this world…for Saitama, that is!

Instead, only the collateral damage from his battles is noticed by the HA, who sends more heroes to City Z’s abandoned area on high alert for “something big” to go down. But there isn’t anything to be on high alert for. It’s all Saitama, taking care of business. Saitama just operates too far outside the boundaries of the system to ever find success within it. He’s too fast; too strong; too good at his job.

At least with more eyes on his location, the possibility increases that a hero somewhere, someday (who isn’t Genos) will witness him doing something great and relay it to the HA so he can finally get his proper due. It could happen.

…But it probably won’t!

Comet Lucifer – 03

After plucking their host’s last straw by knocking over his perfect pot of curry, Sogo, Kaon, Felia, and the very irritatingly-voiced Moura are kicked out of the cafe, which thankfully still shows signs of the damage Moura caused. They take Felia downtown and show her the sights, and we get a very pleasant, detailed, yet wordless montage of their fun, and likely expensive, day to keep Felia entertained.

Everything is chipper until in her excitement Felia bumps into a passerby, sending her pigeon-cat cake flying. She tries to use her telekinesis to save it, but Moura startles her, and the cake is dumped on a purple-haired cafe patron, who seemed annoyed but not unreasonably angry with the incident. Turns out he’s a master hacker-terrorist who has been watching Felia for some time, and judging from his expressions and gestures in his dark office, he’s also quite unhinged in the “creepy unhinged villain” kind of way.

In order to induce as many expressions of fear and worry on his “mademoiselle” Felia (which he watches with relish on cameras, which…ew), he throws the entire city’s traffic control system into chaos, thus turning the city into a game board and the kids game pieces he moves around by controlling the ample technology around them. Even Gus and his blonde buddy aren’t immune from the disarray.

But every time the Bad Guy tries to close in on Felia, Sogo and Kaon split up and misdirect and serve as decoys to keep him off balance, until he gets angry and steps up his game, activating a spider-type mecha to pursue Kaon and Felia on a cable car. Sogo gets as high up into the air as possible and Kaon throws Soura to him, activating Soura’s mecha transformation.

Once Soura is in play, it’s Game Over for the bad guy, as his mecha is beaten back and the cable breaks. Felia uses her “force power” to give the cable car a soft landing, while the bad guy falls victim to the cable’s recoil, which gives him a reverse mohawk.

The physics (magic hoverboards and telekinesis aside, of course) were pretty solid, right up until here; such a huge cable would surely have taken off his head, if not more. Instead he gets an old-style anime villain comeuppance, even though he surely put dozens of people in the hospital with his reckless antics…all for his personal entertainment.

Even the most gorgeous sunsets of the Fall season can’t save this episode, or this show, from the inescapable fact that it is artful, attractive, and often thrilling (and thus watchable) but utterly lacking in substance, making it my Fall guilty pleasure. It’s cotton candy; empty calories with no payoff; a bunch of elaborate fun stuff that happens, and then it’s over. Sure, Alfried joins Gus’ dream team, but we just saw Alfried fail miserably to a couple of kids, so it’s not like he’s that much of a threat. He’s just an overwrought creeper.

Wizard Barristers: Benmashi Cecil – 06

This episode begins rather appropriately with Cecil getting chewed out for using magic in practically every single situation she’s found herself in so far, causing collateral damage and inducing fines for the firm. So naturally, she ends up in yet another situation where she’s forced to use magic to protect others. It makes sense to us because there are shadowy types—including Asst. Inspector Shizumu, who’s a closet Wud—creating these situations so she’ll awaken to more and more powers.

While it makes sense to us that trouble will always follow her around, it hasn’t yet occured to anyone else that it might mean anything other than the fact she’s unlucky. This was also the first episode with no case and no trial, just a terrorist hostage situation with some heroine costumes thrown in for fanservice, and very weird little details like the teacher promising to protect the kids, then shoving them out of his way when things get hot, getting shot in the back for his betrayal.

That’s pretty dark stuff in an episode where we were still thinking these terrorists may just be messing around for a hero show (especially after their leader’s speech about world domination). But this scenario underlined the fact that as powerful as Cecil is with her diaboloids and elemental magic, she lacks any kind of restraint. You’d think someone that could mine metal from her surroundings could make a smaller weapon, but no: just a giant robot, which is kind of overkill.

It also sure looks like a few cops get killed and maimed in the melee, resulting in a pretty hefty butcher’s bill. One Wizard Barrister who has a very useful skill indeed is Tento Moyo, who literally saves Cecil’s life by stopping time and redirecting what would have been a fatal bullet. Interestingly, neither Cecil nor anyone else perceived Moyo’s presence, suggesting she prefers to work stealthily. We also liked the observation that kids aren’t prejudiced against Wuds like most adults. But while this episode had some nice details, it also felt thin and padded at times.