No Game No Life – 04

With the proper wisdom, the weakest can defeat the strongest—that’s the credo of King Blank; the newly-risen combo of Sora and Shiro, having beaten Zell fair and square at one of the most ludicrous games of “chess” I’ve ever witnessed. Even her massive and egregious amount of cheating with Elven magic couldn’t topple the formidable wisdom Blank possesses. The One True God Tet plucked them from a world where they were only kings of a small room into a world seemingly designed to be ruled by them.

After dipping into his expertise in dating sims to win the crown, Sora uses his experience playing Civ to iron out the domestic problems with Elkia, then delivers a long and stirring (and long) motivational speech to its demoralized populace. He tells them Imanity had the monopoly on weakness and wisdom before war was banned, and the first step to regaining their old stature is to acknowledge and embrace it’s position as the weakest race in Disboard. Dora is dazzled by their proficiency in matters of state and knack for igniting a crowd.

Lounging in their new royal chambers, the siblings are visited by Tet once more, who asks them how they like the place. Sora cuts to the heart of matters: when Tet lost to them at chess, it may well have been the first time Tet lost at anything. Therefore, Tet brought them to Disboard as a challenge, the first stage of which was to become King of Elkia. The next step is to conquer the world—commanding all sixteen races like sixteen chess pieces. Then they’ll be ready to take Tet on.

After that tough battle in which their opponent brazenly cheated, Blank’s victory and rise to the throne was satisfying (and Zell bursting into tears was an amusing surprise), but I’m curious to see where the show is going. If Sora and Shiro really aren’t ever going to lose a game, the show’s success will hinge on how craftily and awesomely they win (and the opponents not always being pushovers). Delivering a show in which winning is a forgone conclusion will be tough to pull off, but despite their recent success Blank still feel like underdogs, so we look forward to the endeavor.

Samurai Flamenco – 18

Well now, that was pretty damn weird. Dealing with the fairly lame Alien Flamenco, thought to be the next great menace to world peace, was only a one-episode exercise, in which Samurai Flamenco attains new heights of ridiculousness. It aims to fit all of the random stuff that has happened to Masayoshi and Co. up to now into one grand unifying theory of bullshit, and it doesn’t quite pull it off.

In its haste to explain the connections between all of Flamenco’s increasingly strange battles, it inflates Masayoshi to an undesirable god-like status, or at least to the level of a messiah-like instrument of God. Saying the “will of the universe” sent enemy after enemy to Masayoshi because he wished for them is tidy and all, but ultimately not very satisfying. It was all a bit silly, frankly.

While it tries to come off as a “Ha-ha, we’re in on the joke” silly, we got more of a “Meh, we’ll just make it up as we go along” vibe, which can be fine, but it’s harder than it looks. Even if this was all planned from the start, the answers we get this week just weren’t worth all of the whiplash of the past escalations. It’s a nonchalant, overly-meta resolution that does a disservice to the other characters who sweated and bled and cried and struggled by his side all this time. Like the big From Beyond battle, this just wasn’t as clever or ironic as it thought it was.

Take away the window-dressing of the “illusions” and the brief and fairly plain space battle, and this was nothing but Masayoshi standing around talking with a robot who’d finish sentences in English for no reason, followed by somebody who may as well be God, taking the form of Masayoshi’s friends and enemies. But hey, at least he makes what we thought was the right decision: to stop the flow of goofy villains and return to normal life on Earth.

Rating: 5 (Average)

Noragami – 04

Despite being susceptible to street-market scams, when Yato tells Yukine and Hiyori straight-faced that every dream he has will become real, part of us believes him, as they do for a fleeting moment. It’s just that, at his present pace, it could take several millenia to do so. Also, this entire episode was essentially an elaborate dodge of his responsibility to stop Hiyori’s out-of-body experiences.

Or perhaps we just can’t see far enough in Yato’s plan for helping Hiyori, as he decides the time is right for her to meet his “girlfriend” Ebisu Kofuku and her many-named regalia Kuro/Koku/Daikoku. We had a notion that perhaps this Kofuku would provide some valuable answers regarding Hiyori’s situation, but she’s a bit of a clumsy airhead, and the meeting is cut short by a job request.

But perhaps as a result of his recent visit to Kofuku (more on that later) when Yato appears he ends up knocking his client off the building atop which he was perched. Yato conducts formal introductions with the client, one Urasawa Yusuke, who then regales Yato, Hiyori, and Yukine with his tale of woe about a lovely girl he met who drove him bankrupt, unemployed, and considering suicide as the only way out. Did we mention their entire encounter with Urasawa takes place while continuously falling a seemingly infinite height?

The “highly mobile” setting lends an urgency to the situation that is comically subverted by Urasawa and Yato’s utter lack of haste. Ultimately Urasawa’s girlfriend is revealed to have been Kofuku—goddess of misfortune (Binbougami)—a bond Yato severs with Yukine, earning Yukine kudos from fellow regalia Daikoku. The potential is there for Yato to achieve his dreams, but Kofuku warns Hiyori that Yato was once a fearsome war god who’d fulfill any immoral wish in exchange for adherence. If Yato were to return to his bad old ways, will Hiyori and Yukine run away (as Yato seems to instruct Hiyori), or stay by his side to redeem him?

Rating:7 (Very Good)

Kyousougiga – 10 (Fin)

Koto and Myoue travel to the celestial plane and meet their grandfather, God, who tells them they’ll be the ones to replace Inari, who will then disappear. Not liking the sound of that Koto and Myoue leave the plane and travel through a time continuum until she finds Inari and Lady Koto and busts in with her hammer. As she beats up Inari for being selfish, Myoue restores Lady Koto. God agrees that the thirteenth plane will be allowed to exist, while Inari will not disappear and remain with his family.

Just as it always announced at the start of every episode (or in this case, at the end), Kyousougiga was a story of love, life, and rebirth; with the latter two being possible because of the first, a love that started with a rabbit that became a beautiful woman. Inari states that before her, he merely wandered the world aimlessly, separate from it. Lady Koto and their children became his real world, and the start of his real life. He went on to make a common mistake family heads often make, out of stubbornness and obligation: to arrange the future in which his offspring would live; a future that didn’t include him, as he’d pass his duties to them.

Armed with the wherewithal to challenge his unilateral decisions was Koto. Just as she wanted to spend a little more time with Myoue before carrying out his death wish, Koto loved her father too much to let him quietly disappear. This results in climactic celestial family squabble, and ultimately, a happy ending for all. Inari meant the transfer of his heart and soul to be his final act of love to his children, but the only love Koto wanted was to experience the love of her family all in one piece, including him, sharing sunsets, meals, and other good times.

For all its whimsical extravagance of its fantastical setting, Kyousougiga always remained true to its staunchly human, immanently relatable themes of love and family. It was a story that left us as warm and fuzzy as, well, a rabbit.

Rating: 8 (Great)
Final Cumulative Rating: 8.400
MyAnimeList Score (as of 12/22/13): 8.08

Kyousougiga – 09

Koto pleads her case with the chief priest that the mirror world should survive. She doesn’t make any headway, but Inari embraces and praises her for becoming “the other [him he] always wanted”. He stabs her with his sword, putting her in a trance, and she starts to destroy all of the planes. Myoue wakes up in a cave with Kyouko and Kurama, who tells him he was always supposed to rule the mirrored city alone when he was ready. Armed with the beads that contain the power of creation, Myoue rushes to find Koto, snaps her out of her trance, to create a new beginning together.

It only comes as a minor surprise that Inari is indeed a god, the brother of the cheif priest, who was tasked with creating the twelve planes and looking over them for their “lazy dad.” Inari got bored with that existence and a bit too creative, resulting the thirteenth plane, which was outside of his mandate. When he finally returned, preceded by Koto, it was to put an end to the current order of things and start over. He instigated the end, which is in progress as of the end of this episode, while it’s up to Myoue to see to it there’s something after that end. As Kurama tells him in a subterranean pep talk, the world won’t change if he doesn’t.

Kurama’s always been the one to deliver him cold truths, from the time he says he and Yase are “false siblings” to the day their parents leave. It’s fitting that the big bro, false or not, is there to give a sulking Myoue a slap in the face. For so long Myoue’s been fixated on the past and his own denied death. But the truth is that life is gone and won’t be coming back. But he does have Koto, and his prayer beads, and he won’t let everything end the way Inari has set things up…”probably”. Inari pulls a bit of an infodump early on, and the score goes big and movie-like, almost bordering on sappy at times, but after last week’s standoff it’s good to see things on the right track to a favorable conclusion.

Rating: 8 (Great)

Ao no Exorcist 19

*Clicks tongue*…surprise birthday party episode. But hey, I didn’t mind it nearly as much as the previous filler ep, the one with the kitchen demon. Perhaps because, like the best episodes of any series with a vibrant ensemble cast, it gives everyone something to do and allows for some very nice character interactions. Considering how much everyone’s been through the last three weeks, a break was inevitable, but also far better than expected. Also, by this point, we know everyone a lot better, making them more fun to watch even during filler.

When else would we learn that Bon is good at papercraft? Or that Konekomaru could work out his awkwardness with Rin by helping him bake? Or that Renzou and Paku have such great chemistry? The party is being planned for Izumo, who then keeps bumping into her friends as they plan. Most distressing is when she keeps seeing her best friend on an apparent date with Renzou, and her ill-fated undercover spy mission is cute, if misguided. I enjoyed the increased role of Paku; she may not exactly stand out, but she was fun to watch this week.

There are a whole lot of nice character moments in here, and I’m not going to pretend the episode was much more than that…but it did have at least a minor twist: the surprise was ruined (thanks to Izumo’s spying), so the party becomes one for everyone, not just her, by her request. Meanwhile, Yukio observes the festivities from a far, still having told no one about his ominous, worsening malady. Just to segue back to business, the episode ends with a report Rin and Yukio’s monastery is under attack. Wash down that X-mas cake and get movin!

Rating: 3