Gushing over Magical Girls – 12 – Playtime is Back

Utena is now Supreme Commander of Enormita by unanimous vote of the other girls, but morphing Lord into a kid took a lot out of her, and she’s worried about Tres Magia and Azure in particular. When she hears from Matama and Nemo that not only are Tres Magia just fine, but Azure has developed a new ability that was able to crush Lord’s goop monsters, she’s over the moon.

The heads into town where Tres Magia are rebuilding, but without her transformation star, so that there’s no chance of her cover being blown. Azure recognizes her classmate, but has to pretend not to. Utena, barely keeping her composure, offers Azure an innocent back rub that soon gets entirely out of hand(s) when she goes below the equator. I have to think Sayo won’t look at Utena the same way next time they cross paths in class!

Since Utena and Kiwi are essentially Korisu’s parents, they take her to a toy store to treat her to some new toys to replace the ones she sacrificed in the battle against Lord & Gigant. While there they encounter Haruka with her adorable triplet sisters, who proceed to play with Korisu. Haruka notes that it would be nice if days were always like this: quiet and peaceful.

Alas, it’s neither Utena nor Kiwi who ruin the peace, but a Neroalice excited to play with her new toys: a Godzilla-like lizard she blows up to the size of a building, and a magic wand that she uses to similarly size up Magenta once she responds to the disturbance. Unable to stop Alice from having her fun, Baiser and Leoparde join in, climbing up into Magenta to mess with her.

Azure and Sulphur head in to help Magenta out, but having four tiny magical girls crawling all up and down her body have the opposite effect. Everyone eventually gets too overheated to keep fighting, and gravity sends them down into Magenta’s panties, which then tear. Having had quite enough of this, Magenta blasts Utena and Kiwi into the sky, then reverts to her normal size.

All’s well that ends well, with Haruka reuniting with her sisters, who report that they saw Magenta’s butt, but she was still really cool. As for Korisu, after having fun with her toys and Tres Magia, she falls into a peaceful, satisfied sleep beside Utena and Kiwi. So begins Utena’s reign as Supreme Commander, whose standing order is to have fun messing with Tres Magia, not eliminating them!

The Wrong Way to Use Healing Magic – 09 – Staying the Person They Admired

If only she’d stayed a little closer to her team, Rose might have been able to heal some of them. Instead, Nero is able to lure her farther away. And while both Aul and the others are able to fight Nero’s subordinates to a stalemate that earns them Nero’s praise, once he uses his cursed sword to compel his people to fight without regard for their lives, Rose’s people start falling one after the other.

The episode doesn’t spare the brutality of the ensuing bloodbath, as the knights call for Rose to heal them. Alas, when her eye is struck by the cursed sword, her healing magic has no effect, and her mana is drained. She can’t make it in time to save anyone, but Aul makes it in time to save her, at the cost of her own life.

Rose lashes out in rage and beats the hell out of Nero before throwing his own cursed sword into his shoulder. He is not immune to its effects, but he still has one subordinate in reserve: a young, inexperienced, and clearly freaked out Amila. In her face Rose sees Aul’s, and ultimately allows her to escape with her maimed master, though with her wounded foot it’s not like Rose can move much.

With her last strands of life, Aul puts her hand on  Rose’s pained, bloodied face and smiles. She has no regrets, is glad to have been able to fight under Rose, and knows the others felt the same way. She urges Rose to “stay the one they admire,” before breathing her last. Rose, utterly broken, lets out a primal scream.

She does manage to return home with the bodies of all her subordinates, for which the parents of one are grateful. But she asks the king to relieve her of her army command and revoke her knighthood. She refuses to heal her eye, so she never forgets the lives lost under her watch. She spends a month alone in the suddenly empty and silent barracks once so full of life. She even admits to a concerned Siglis that the thought occurred to her that death might not be so bad.

But Rose has no intention of ending the life Aul gave her. It’s only a matter of what to do with it. Visions of her subordinates and Aul appear before her and tell her that if any of them were acting like she did, she’d throttle them and assign them to training from hell. Aul then reminds Rose of what she told her: that everything changes, and you have to accept that and move forward.

Rose allows herself a few more minutes of fragility, and tears, then stands up and walks outside the barracks with renewed purpose and resolve. She’ll honor Aul and the others by creating a new kind of force, one that saves lives and won’t allow anyone on the battlefield to die. She knows she’ll need someone like her who can both heal and fight.

Back in the present, she tells that someone, Usato Ken, how glad she is to have found him, and that he should be mindful of how precious his existence is. As they near his first battlefield, we’ll finally, finally see how her Rescue Team system works, and how the Heroes fare, and whether Ken can save them from a supremely confident Black Knight, not to mention a grown Amila eager to kill Rose.

The Wrong Way to Use Healing Magic – 08 – The Knights of Summer

Rose is at the reins of the wagon bearing the Rescue Team to the battlefield, and Ken is at her side. He asks about the demons they’re about to engage, and Rose describes them as being essentially really strong humans with horns and more mana.

When she asks if he’s afraid, he implies he’s much more afraid of her. He then says that he originally endured her punishing training simply to “get one over on her.” He expects an angry reaction, but doesn’t get one. Instead, Rose raises her hand to her hidden, ruined eye.

We then go back to five years ago, when she was the Knight Commander of an entire battalion, but also of a small and tight-knit group of elite, possibly misfit knights. Her deputy is Aul (Kohara Konomi), a happy-go-lucky young knight with a personality so much like Ken’s it’s no wonder she took a shine to him so quickly.

Her team of seven knights occupied the same barracks now used as the Rescue Team’s headquarters. And we already know that all of them, including Aul, will eventually die. The series could have started with Rose’s past, but presenting it now adds a layer of melancholy and grim inevitability. No matter how silly these knights act, I was already pre-mourning them because I knew their fate.

Of course, they don’t think they’re doomed, nor does Rose. When they enter the Darkness of Llinger and camp for the night, Aul can’t sleep, and instead joins Rose by the fire and asks her why she chose her as her deputy commander. She ends up essentially answering her own question: Because she was what Rose was looking for in a successor.

Aul was a troublemaker, stubbornly refusing orders she didn’t agree with. She was an immovable object everyone else gave up on, but Rose became the unstoppable force she needed to nuture her potential. She never gave up, and Rose never gave up on her, believes she has what it takes to succeed her as unit commander when the time comes, because as she aptly puts it, “everything changes”.

This is a very moving, intimate scene between Rose and Aul that really does a lot of legwork in terms of making Aul a compelling tragic figure. Kohara Konomi also really gives the role the gravitas it needs while still being silly and hyper when called for. Knowing that night by the fire will probably be the last for everyone but Rose adds to the somber, wistful vibes.

The next day they come across the Demon unit stunning and capturing shock wolves, likely so the mad scientist demon guy can develop stronger monsters. Rose is the first to emerge from the trees and give the Demons a chance to withdraw and avoid conflict. It’s a deal the Demons’ commander won’t take, because now that humans have seen them, they must die.

As soon as Rose puts Aul in charge of leading the other six knights against the rank-and-file demons so she could focus on the leader, my heart sank in my chest, because I knew this was the beginning of the end of her unit.

For those eager to see this series actually give us some action, we finally get some here the end of the episode, as Rose throws everything she’s got at the Demon, who is impressed by her speed and strength. The battle music comes correct here, and there are some flashes of decent combat animation.

He’s so impressed with her tree-hucking ability that he deigns to give her his name—Nero Argence—and deigns to ask for hers. He summons a nasty-looking demon sword and announces that he’ll be killing her now, but Rose nonchalantly cracks her knuckles and tells him she’ll beat the crap out of him before he can.

I certainly didn’t expect the show to suddenly go back in time just when it looked like we’d finally see her, Ken, Suzune and Kazuki in their first real battle. But having watched this flashback unfold, I’m not mad about it, nor am I even mad that it won’t conclude until next week.

Such is the nature of the show’s careful and subtle character work and writing, as well as the fact that Rose is Just the Coolest no matter what timeline we’re in. There will be time to watch Ken, Suzune, and Kazuki do their thing. For now, it’s important to watch Rose’s history unfold, and hope that it won’t be repeated.

Chained Soldier – 01 (First Impressions) – Not Bad, for a Man

Wakura Yuuki is an unassuming man in a woman’s world, fated to end up in some innocuous dead-end job after high school. But when he suddenly falls victim to a “Mato Mishap” he ends up in Mato, an alternate dimension filled with nasty, hollow-like monsters called Shuuki.

Yuuki is cornered and about to buy the farm when he’s rescued by Uzen Kyouka, commander of the Demon Defense Force’s 7th Squadron (voiced by Kitou Akari). When the monster she’s riding is defeated, she uses her ability to turn one of the Shuuki into a steed, and orders Yuuki to hop on.

As she cuts through the Shuuki, her officers report in and join the fray: Azuma Himari (blue hair), who can conjure a machine gun arm; Suruga Shushu (yellow hair) who can grow to colossal size and wreak havoc; and Ookawamura Nei (pink hair) who can scan Mato for other people in need of rescue.

After rescuing a little girl (whom Yuuki moves to protect), Kyouka raises a temporary barrier, then decides to use her ability on Yuuki. Removing her glove, she holds her finger out, and Yuuki, who vowed to do anything to survivew, reflexively licks it, then transforms into a monster.

Leaving both the little boy and his big sister in the other officers’ care, Kyouka mounts Yuuki and is impressed by his strength, speed, and agility.  Even when a boss-level Shuuki coalesces, with Yuuki as her steed she’s able to defeat it with ease. While the ensuing battle has a fair share of CGI, it’s at least easy to follow, while Monster-Yuuki packs a punch.

After the battle, Yuuki returns to normal, and Kyouka must give him his “reward” for serving as her “slave.” That reward consists of her giving him a passionate kiss, then a downright raunchy French kiss. She makes clear that her body moves on its own in instances like this, and the shuuki she enslaved only wanted meat as a reward. Herein lies the ecchi element of the show.

Presented with a new job opportunity in which he’ll be able to make a difference, Yuuki jumps at the chance to join Kyouko on a full-time basis. But upon arriving at the Demon Defense Force’s dorm, he learns he won’t be joining the force—men aren’t allowed.

Instead, he’ll be the 7th Squad’s caretaker. Since Yuuki said the only thing he had confidence in was his housekeeping skills, Kyouka believes he’ll be a good fit, even with the colorful personalities of her three officers. The character designs are attractive, Yuuki’s a likeable enough lad, and they don’t take the ecchi stuff too far. All in all it’s not a bad start, efficiently introducing the main players, setting, and premise.

My Happy Marriage – 04 – Getting Better All the Time

Miyo has a dream about her mother pleading for her husband to love their daughter even though she isn’t gifted, to no avail. You really have to hand it to her father, he’s a real dyed-in-the-wool piece of shit. He “could have” presumably loved Miyo…if he wasn’t the head of a supernaturally-gifted family.

Miyo wakes up in her bed, unsettled, but also determined to repay Kiyoka’s kindness by giving him a gift in return for her comb. Yurie suggests she make something he will see or use everyday, and Miyo decides on a braided hair tie. Miyo asks to go into town with Yurie, but Kiyoka gives her an amulet and warns her not to wander off.

Honestly, the moment I knew Miyo would be going anywhere without Kiyoka escorting her, I was pretty worried, because Kouji’s dad Minoru is still out there, determined to secure possession of her at any cost. We meet Kouji’s gifted playboy older brother, who would make a far better match for Kaya. Both of these families are The Worst.

Miyo picks out some lovely regal colors for the braid, but her day, and indeed her psyche take a critical hit when she spots Kaya out in public with Kouji by her side. Kaya assumes that Miyo has been tossed out and is on her own, begging on the street. But she is somewhat happy Miyo isn’t dead, because it means she can pick on her more.

Kiyoka couldn’t join Miyo in town because he had another errand: visiting her father and stepmother to declare his intention to marry her. That said, he also voices his concerns and his fundamental contempt for these creatures for the way they treated Miyo. If he’s to furnish a dowry and and cultivate a relationship with the Saimoris, he’ll need both of them to apologize to Miyo, in person.

Meanwhile, Kaya has Miyo paralyzed with fear and knows it, and brushes off Kouji’s half-hearted attempts to stop her from digging her claws in deeper. Miyo is a complete wreck when Yurie arrives to rescue her. I’m glad the encounter ends with Kaya pissed that Miyo is due to marry Lord Kudou and become a lady.

I also like that Kaya catches a glimpse of Lord Kudou on his way out when she returns home (though whether she knows this beautiful man is Miyo’s fiance remains to be seen).

That said, the immediate gratification of Kaya’s day being ruined (may they all be ruined, forever) is undercut by Miyo’s traumatic experience, which sends her into a spiral of depression and self-hatred. Even when Kiyoka assures her through her door that things will get better and he’s always there to talk to her about her troubles, she won’t leave her room or eat.

She makes Lord Kudou the braid, but doesn’t believe she has any right to present it to him. That’s when Kiyoka expresses his love and support for her another way: by tracking down Hana, the servant who was fired for defending Miyo from her stepmother’s abuse. Seeing Hana is well, married, and with a baby on the way absolutely makes Miyo’s day.

The reunion also gives Miyo the courage to present Kiyoka with the braid she made, and tell him the truth about her straight-up: she has no supernatural gifts. Of course, that he wrote to Hana means he already knows her story and the abuse she endured. When she says she’ll die or leave or both if he tells her to, he has her raise her head, then draws her into a gentle embrace.

Kiyoka, as you’d expect, doesn’t want her to go anywhere. He intends for her to become his wife. She shouldn’t see her being in his home as a privilege; she’s there because he wants her there, and wants her to want to be there as well. She does, very much so, and the two take another big step closer as a couple, with Miyo tying his hair with her braid, as if to mark him as hers.

Yes, Tatsuishi Minoru is still out there, spying on the happy couple, fuming, and scheming some kind of plan to secure possession of Miyo. But while that’s concerning, I’m confident he’ll fail, hopefully miserably. Kiyoka is no fool, and he knows he’s not dealing with good or moral people, so he’ll be vigilant.

My Happy Marriage – 02 – No Apologies

Miyo’s first encounter with her enigmatic fiancé Kudou Kiyoka is a chilly one, in which he lays out his primary directive: obey him no matter what. And while I just met him too, I could tell he was taken a little aback by just how submissive, even downtrodden Miyo seemed.

After years of sparse accommodations and sparser affection, Miyo feels unworthy of  her new spacious room and luxuriously vast bed. Her subconscious reinforces that feeling, and she dreams of when she learned that unlike every other member of her family, including Kaya, she did not possess supernatural gifts.

It fell to a servant to give Miyo emotional support. Miyo wakes up from those bad memories and consoles herself with the fact she’ll never again wake up in that place again. She also surprises Yurie by getting up before her and making Lord Kudou breakfast. Yurie admits she’s getting on in years and will never turn down help.

But disaster strikes when Kiyoka decides to institute a hard line when it comes to breakfast. As soon as he hears Yurie didn’t make it, and Kiyo hesitates to take a bite, he assumes the food was poisoned, and leaves without eating it. Miyo is devastated; she tried to be useful, in part so she wouldn’t be thrown out on the street, only for it to end in failure. The anguish in Ueda Reina’s vocal performance is palpable.

When we’re with Kudou Kiyoka on his own, we learn why he’s so strict and curt: he’s the commander of an “anti-grotesqueries” squad of gifted soldiers who protect society from ghosts and demons. After training his far more laid-back adjutant makes a glib joke about his boss’s string of fiancées, but Kiyoka isn’t in the mood.

Meanwhile, Kouji is treated not so differently than the help by his fiancée Kaya (Sakura Ayane really chews the scenery with Kaya’s stark villainy). Kouji is still sore about how things went with Miyo, and decides that he’ll do whatever is necessary to help her if she ends up on the street, no matter the consequences.

Miyo greets Kiyoka with a full bow of contrition, and he clarifies that he wasn’t actually suspicious of him poisoning him; he simply didn’t want to eat the food of someone he didn’t know. She accompanies him to a dinner made by Yurie, but there’s no food for her, because she wasn’t hungry. He also wishes she wouldn’t apologize so much.

When he goes to heat water for his bath with his pyrokinesis, it’s another sign to Miyo that she’s as useless here as she was at her previous home. But then Kiyoka returns, apologizes for refusing her breakfast, and asks her to please make it for her next time.

He offers her the use of the bath as the water is still warm, and as she bathes, Miyo’s mood improves, remembering Yurie saying that Kiyoka actually has a kind heart and sweet temperament. Clearly, he’s quite skilled at hiding it behind a curtain of steel and ice!

The comfort Miyo gets from her soothing bath is all but undone by another dream of her past, when all of her mother’s mementos were tossed out by her evil stepmother. When she confronts her stepmother, she’s physically assaulted then locked in a storage shed to “reflect on her actions.”

Miyo’s father stands by and does nothing, it’s again a servant who tries to stop this heinous treatment of an innocent little girl. The stepmother, drunk with power, declares she can do whatever she wants, and the servant is fired. When she wakes up, Miyo feels grateful to that servant, whose name was Hana, and hopes that wherever she is, she’s happy.

Breakfast Round Two goes much better. Yurie wakes up earlier than expected, but can tell Miyo wants to make breakfast for Kiyoka, so she merely assists. Kiyoka takes a sip of Miyo’s miso and is approving of its novel flavor. It’s the first time Miyo has been complimented in years, so of course she’d get teary-eyed.

While being dressed by Yurie, Kiyoka decides he’ll investigate the Saimori family while asking Yurie to keep a close but discrete eye on Miyo. He cannot fathom how a thin, sickly girl with a tattered kimono and the rough hands of a servant came from a predigious family. If she did, her day-to-day life was clearly substandard in some way.

He doesn’t know the half of it, but I hope he finds out and exacts punishment on those who wronged Miyo. But trouble is on the horizon as Miyo’s father gets an angry phone call from Kouji’s father about whom Miyo should be marrying.

It’s not hard to fathom Kiyoka’s previous fiancées running to the hills due to his not-so-winning personality. But Miyo has already endured far worse personalities, so he actually comes off as warm and kind by comparison. As talented a magic user as he may be, he has a lot to learn about expressing his emotions, just as Miyo has a lot to learn about valuing herself. They seem well-suited to learn from one another.

Takt Op. Destiny – 05 – Train Ride of the Valkyrie

The road trip continues until Anna catches a flat tire, and Takt, chivalrous as always, is sitting on the car as she tries to jack it up. We learn how dangerous it is to not be mobile when D2s almost immediately show up, but after learning something from Lenny and Titan, Cosette is able to dispatch the baddies with pinpoint accuracy and efficiency.

At the end of the battle Cosette finds herself standing on a train track, and an incoming train is forced to stop—and good thing it did, as it would have definitely borne the brunt of their collision! She’s met by a tall and honorable-looking fellow Musicart in knight’s armor. It’s a Symphonica train.

In charge is the blond, arrogant Commander Felix Schindler, who considers this unregistered Musicart and Conductor to be valuable pawns if managed properly. The train is on its way to Houston, so he offers Anna, Takt and Cosette a ride as they’re ultimately headed to New Orleans.

Schindler tries to keep things cordial, but while Cosette is easily distracted by a super-rich chocolate confection, neither Takt nor Anna particularly like or trust this guy…especially when the knight Musicart basically tells them to stay in their cabin like glorified prisoners.

Of course, when Cosette detects D2s outside, the leather, glass, wood, and metal of the train cabin are no match for her, and we get an awesome new kind of battle for this series: a battle on a moving train. Again, Takt and Cosette prove they were paying attention to Lenny and Titan’s instruction.

The uptight knight Musicart doesn’t care at all for their constant insolence, but the other Musicart, Schindler’s personal guard, takes a liking to the pair. She also reveals that the knight Musicart is actually a big ol’ softie who has yet to bond with a Conductor, and recommends Takt basically bring her to heel. This Musicart also wants Cosette’s eyes…so…yeah. She’s a bit of a wild card!

While Cosette was far more precise than her first battles, she still caused damage to the track that takes a half day to repair. With valuable D2-luring material on board a train that’s now a sitting duck, when the sun starts to set a properly massive swarm of aerial D2s descends upon the train.

Cosette and the Knight go to town, but even the latter eliminating D2s quickly and efficiently, the sheer numbers they’re up against mean Takt is soon exhausted. The Knight, with no Conductor to draw energy from, starts to fade even faster.

Even so, neither of them give up, and the Knight seems to admire how Takt continues to conduct even while lying prone on the dirt, for the sake of protecting the train. When the battle is won thanks to some unconventional thinking from Takt (having Cosette blast a couple of nearby cliffs to dust most of the D2s), she even flashes a smile and properly introduces herself as Walkure. When Takt voices his approval with that Wagner piece, Walkure (who I think I’ll just start calling Wally) blushes and swoons despite herself.

When a giant D2 boss shows up, with Takt and Wally basically running on fumes, Schindler turns to his trump card, Hell. Voiced with a seductive unhingedness by Ueda Reina, Hell activates her wheel boots, climbs up the cliff to where the boss is, and absolutely kicks the shit out of it, laughing maniacally all the while, and seemingly experiencing a measure of ecstasy upon defeating it. This is clearly a Musicart who absolutely loves to fight and destroy. Unlike Cosette, this isn’t duty; it’s pleasure.

When the train reaches Houston (or what’s left of it), Schindler is determined to claim Cosette and Takt as his pawns in a larger political game. So it’s extremely rewarding to see Takt refuse any and all offers. The three get in the car and motor out of there.

Rather than place a collar on a couple of “stray dogs”, Schindler got growled at and utterly rejected. He’s pissed, but Hell is more amused than anything. As for Wally, she seems to be the odd Musicart out, as her services are no longer required by Schindler, but she doesn’t join the road trip either. I hope we’ll see her again soon. But first…time to hit the Big Easy!

KonoSuba 2 – 05

No matter how much ass Aqua kicks, she always finds a way to negate every positive contribution she makes to the party. To whit: the magic circle she set up in the dungeon a couple weeks ago is causing monsters to pour out and cause a big to-do. So the gang has to go back to the dungeon and sort it out.

Megumin continues to wisely stay out of dungeons, and this time Aqua joins her in passing on the adventure, so this time Kazuma is paired up with Darkness. Both of them have complicated feelings on the matter of being alone together in dark places.

In a twist, no less than a commander of the Demon King’s armies, Vanir, has set up shop in the dungeon. Vanir is your typical blowhard villain, though he brings some vibrant enthusiasm and tongue-in-cheekness to his role.

After some initial success making contact, Darkness is unable to land a hit, and only manages to defeat Vanir when Kazuma trips on a bit of stone, crashes into Vanir, who by sheer dumb luck ends up getting slashed. With his body gone, the mask that remains latches itself on Darkness, and the fun begins, as Vanir is shocked to find Darkness is actually pretty okay with being possessed by a demon.

She’s so okay, in fact, that every time Vanir thinks he’s achieved “full domination”, Darkness chimes back in. The back-and-forth repartee between a defiantly turned-on Darkness and an increasingly flustered Vanir should get old quick, but never does.

Aqua is ready with exorcism magic, but due to Darkness’ intense magical resistance, it’s a big chore bringing him down. Darkness ultimately has to consent to being blown up by Megumin, who, after all, has been practicing as is pretty good at making a big-ass explosion.

In an even bigger twist, in light of defeating Vanir (and the mobile fortess earlier), Sena and the state she represents lifts all suspicion from Kazuma (who did, after all, help defeat a Demon King Commander right before her eyes) and the party still clears 40 million eries after their debts are taken care of.

Not a bad night’s work in the dungeon, and entertainingly done in the zany, hyper-caffeinated way I’ve come to expect of earlier KonoSuba. I had grown a bit weary of Kazuma & Co. being broke and miserable; it’s good to see them enjoy a victory, even if something might come up early in the next episode that’ll slap them back down into the muck.

Attack on Titan – 10

After building a partial Titan to protect Mikasa and Armin, Eren considers going on alone to his parents’ basement in Shiganshina. In the present situation, Armin is crippled not only be fear, but the feeling he’s worthless and holding the other two back. One would think he wouldn’t still feel this way after his baller plan to liberate the resupply depot, but then again this is a pretty stressful situation, which can lead people to reopen still-raw wounds.

The reality is that Armin is a crucial member of the young triad: the brains. So it makes sense that those same brains can betray him by making him overthink things and be his own harshest critic. One reason Eren is a more effective conventional fighter is that he doesn’t think as much. So Eren leaves it to Armin to secure his safety as well as Mikasa’s, because of the three he’s the only one who can do it.

To do so, Armin must disarm and expose himself to Woerman and his troops; which takes every drop of courage he has, but also proves he has plenty of courage. Unfortunately, Woerman is so spooked (rightfully so) by the prospect of Titans who look, walk, and talk just like humans, he’s no longer thinking rationally, only viscerally, which means he’s impervious even to Armin’s most dogged and reasonable arguments for sparing their lives.

Woerman is about to take them out with a second cannon shot when his arm is suddenly stayed by his superior, General Dot Pixis, whose sudden presence catches everyone by surprise. He’s a bit of a weirdo (if he’s going to be eaten by a Titan, he’d prefer if it was by a smoking-hot lady Titan), but he’s got a lot more sense in this situation than Woerman, and more importantly, his actions aren’t driven by fear. He uses his judgment and his authority to save the three cadets, then asks to meet with them personally atop the wall.

I liked Pixis’ attitude towards the nobility in an earlier episode, and I like his no-nonsense practicality in dealing with Eren here. He takes Armin at his word that it’s possible someone like Eren with “Titan Power” can be utilized to re-take Trost, if only by sealing the breach in the wall with a boulder.

Pixis first asks Eren if he can do it, but Eren isn’t entirely sure and worried about answering “irresponsibly.” So Pixis rephrases: Will he or won’t he? Obviously, he will. But even if Eren has found a valuable, powerful ally in Pixis (and we’re by no means sure of even that), and even if he does seal the breach and save the district, there will always be some, like Woerman, who won’t look at the evidence or listen to reason. Those who have let Fear take over, and will consider anything remotely Titan-related an enemy to be vanquished.

Attack on Titan – 09

The show chooses a rather odd time to introduce us to a new group of characters in the elite Scout Regiment, led by “neat freak” Captain Levi. I saw bizarre because there’s still quite a bit that needs to be resolved with Eren. As great as it is to see soldiers other than Mikasa having success in killing Titans, the truth is I was patiently waiting for the show to get back to the main characters, which thankfully happens about a third of the way in.

Before returning to the present, we find out what became of Eren after being swallowed. Not surprisingly, he ended up in the Titan’s gut, surrounded by his dead comrades being slowly digested, which…gross. But Eren refuses to give up, doggone it, and a light flashes and he transforms into Titan Eren, bursting out of the Titan who ate him and commencing his rampage.

When Eren wakes up, he finds himself in a bit of a predicament. No good deed goes unpunished here on AoT, which means an entire battalion of his fellow soldiers have their weapons trained on him, Mikasa, and Armin. They’re led by a very twitchy commander who looks like he needs a lot more sleep, and everyone is convinced Eren is a Titan in disguise who needs to be eliminated.

With Eren still highly disoriented, negotiations break down pretty quickly, with Mikasa only offering temporary relief by putting herself between the guns and Eren and challenging anyone who wants to try to hurt him to get through her first. Eren finally cries that he’s a human, but the commander has already made his decision. Mikasa tries to get Eren away as the cannon above them fires, but Eren…does something else.

And that something else is transforming back into a Titan, using his only partially constructed Titan body to shield his friends from the cannon blast. Once again, a bold action keeps him and them alive, but only a little longer: it doesn’t exactly help his claim he’s human, and I doubt such a trick can be pulled twice in such short order.

Preceding Eren’s last-ditch effort to keep death at bay, he experiences flashes of memory, like his dreams in earlier episodes, in which his father tells him the key around his neck and the secrets in the basement of their home are of utmost importance. I imagine the power he’s awakened has something to do with those secrets.

But first things first: how are he, Mikasa and Armin going to stay alive long enough to uncover those secrets? Forget the Titans; he’s got humanity against him at the moment. Talk about ‘out of the frying pan, into the freezer’.

Ai Tenchi Muyo! – 48

Okay: so the peach tree is actually Beni and Momo’s ship, which Washuu needs in order to set everything straight. They start the start-up process as Yuki tries to hack into the warhead. They’re confronted by troops, but Touri, Hana, and Hachiko take care of them. When more arrive, Kurihara orders a retreat, warning the girls to get as far away as they can.

Something tells me with Washuu on their side, they won’t have to worry about anything going BANG, at least in this situation. When Beni gets the ship started, Tenchi and Momo finally ‘synchronize’ in the same time, much to Momo’s tearful delight. Some progress at last!

Ai Tenchi Muyo! – 47

With the rift widening, the Galaxy Police commander has no choice but to swallow his pride and ask for Washuu’s help. Washuu, understandably smug, agrees to ‘bring the situation under control’, but only if the GP drops all the charges against her. With no leverage to negotiate, the commander caves completely.

Meanwhile (if that’s even the right term to use in this situation), Momo and Tenchi are ships passing in the night, only the ‘night’ in question is a variety of random timelines, all presented in different color palettes. Tenchi doesn’t know what the heck is going on, only that he has to try to stick with Momo through it all.

As Washuu gets in her spacetime manipulation chair (or whatever), cracks her knuckles and gets started, Ryouko and Beni finally soft-land at the bottom of that cavern, where they find an enormous blossoming peach tree. What does it mean? Err…I’ll have to get back to you on that.

Black Bullet – 12

While I wouldn’t exactly say Gado was unfit for command, one can’t deny that his decisions he made led to costly defeats. But even if there was no way he could have predicted the events that would follow it, one of his last acts as commander may have been his best: sending Rentaro off to defeat Pleiades rather than executing him.

Rentaro’s unusual sentence leads to him running into Kagetane and Kohina, and they collectively have the strength to take out a weakened Pleiades all by themselves, opening Aldeberan open to airstrikes that force him back for at least another few hours. Rentaro returns to camp to learn Gado is dead, and as the next-highest ranked promoter (due to all his past victories in this show), he is the new commander.

Before that sinks in, Rentaro visits Shouma’s injured partner Midori, whose corruption level is reaching critical. He has a chance to take her out while she’s still human, but he can’t do it, but she manages to sneak away and do it herself. Midori was only a wisp of character, but her scene with Rentaro has a quiet, sad weight to it. Having Gado’s initiator Asaka pair up with Shouma was also a neat development, even if, again, Asaka is barely a character.

After that, Rentaro takes the reins of the remaining forces and yanks tight, suffering no objections. When someone suggests they cut and run, Rentaro cuts him with his sword; he explains his ruthlessness as an effort to make his men fear him more than they fear the Gastrea. It helps when Miori arrives with some primo Shiba Brand weaponry and a plan to take out Aldebaran so he won’t come back.

In another moving scene, Enju asks Rentaro why so many people hate the cursed children so much, and whether being in the civil service is just a means of thinning their ranks. Assuring her like the big brother he is, Rentaro says he became a civil officer to risk his life to save people. The people they’re saving can’t be judged if they’re devoured by the Gastrea, so he’ll keep fighting to save them now, and worry about whether they were worthy of saving later.

Stray Observations:

• Pleiades and Aldebaran bellow like whales, but they’re also not that fearsome…like whales. The CGI-to-regular animation transitions were pretty jarring, too.
• “Papa, can I cut them?”…”You may kill half of them.” What a great dad! I really missed these two.
• Midori also mentions a “darkness” that could consume Kisara unless Rentaro keeps her close. Sure enough, she promises him she’ll always be by his side, no matter how ruthless he gets.
• Thankfully the Kisara-Midori rivalry doesn’t rear its annoying head; too much shit to do!
• Midori’s demise reinforced something that’s been hanging over the show’s head for some time: Enju’s also perilously close to crossing the red line of corruption. Will that come into play in the finale? That would be rather sadistic of the show…
• Oh God, that insuffrable lickspittle Yasuwaki is back and has something planned for Rentaro. Can’t this punk go die a horrible death already?