Urusei Yatsura – 40 – The Young Man Dressed Like a Woman and the Sea

When the newly-resurrected Nagisa has no place else to go, Ryuunosuke and her dad invite him into their house, but he proves to be an annoying freeloader who sleeps in and eats more than his fair share. When Ryuu complains, Nagisa pretends to get upset and cry. Meanwhile, Ryuu’s dad considers Nagisa his “son’s” precious fiancée, and so offers Ryuu no relief.

Things take a turn when Nagisa invades Ryuu’s school life. Lum helpfully informs him that the crying schtick won’t work on Ryuu and a more aggressive approach is needed. When Ryuu evades Ataru’s advances and throws him into a wall, Nagisa does the same to her, displaying strength equal to hers. Everyone is shocked.

As the school day ends, Ryuu has had her fill, and decides to settle her little Nagisa problem with violence. Alas, beneath her girlish appearance, Nagisa is a man of the sea, and thus strong as a mule. Not only that, even the formidable Ryuu can’t land a single punch on him. She’s saved when Sakura uses a ghost-warding talisman on Nagisa, but doesn’t believe their fight to be over.

When Ryuu comes at Nagisa again and Nagisa makes use of her champion sumo skills to artfully dodge every blow, then bear-hugs Ryuu into submission, Sakura (who along with Lum and Ataru are enjoying the match while scarfing concessions) has no choice but to declare Nagisa the winner. Ryuu cries in frustration, telling Nagisa how little he thinks of her and saying she hates him.

In his defense, Nagisa tells Ryuu he could never hit a girl, especially one he has feelings for. He held back because he likes her, not because he doesn’t consider her a worthy adversary. Watching Nagisa sulk away, Ryuu softens her stance and agrees to let Nagisa stay with her. She then proceeds to immediately regret her decision when Nagisa can’t seem to stay in his own futon.

The second segment is all about Onsen threatening to prescribe supplementary lessons to Class 2-4 on account of their constant chatter during lessons. They collectively decide they won’t make a sound, not even when he calls upon them to read from the textbooks, deeming that a trap.

It’s an extremely rare instance of the characters of Urusei Yatsura actually being silent. Onsen is loving that silence at first, but soon it starts to feel mocking, and becomes a different kind of annoying, equally intolerable to their usual chattering.

When Ten shows up in a floating space Yankee bike to exact revenge on Ataru and his friends for ignoring him earlier, the students are put to the ultimate test. Can they maintain their vow of silence as they come under increasingly violent attacks from the tiny alien? The answer is yes.

They outlast both Onsen’s threats and Ten’s assault, and the bell rings announcing that class has ended. I must note that the scenes of the injured students slumped over their desks are a bit too evocative for my tastes, but as with the cute segment with the little fox who loves Shinobu a few weeks back, Urusei Yatsura proves it can still deliver the goods even when its characters aren’t constantly shouting at each other.

The Apothecary Diaries – 14 – A Whimper and a Bang

The big news in the Inner Palace this week is the arrival of the New Pure Consort, Loulan. She arrives under cover of darkness on a snowy night with only her retinue of ladies-in-waiting. Upon entering her parlor, she removes a jeweled hairpiece, unceremoniously drops it into a box, sits down, and … well, that’s pretty much it.

The arrival of a new consort spurs both Gyokuyou and Lihua to recommend that all four high-ranking concubines undergo some concubining lessons, and they both recommend to Jinshi that Maomao be their teacher. Maomao is all for this as it means she gets paid a bonus.

Like a curious Jinshi, the exact content of the lesson is kept secret from us, but we can assume that it involves the bedroom knowledge Maomao has learned from her big sisters at Verdegris House, some of which she already imparted upon Lihua to great success.

In all honesty, I hoped we would learn a little more about Loulan, but she proves far too cool for school, yawning frequently, avoiding eye contact, and saying nary a word. She’s either uninterested or unimpressed with Maomao’s lesson.

Maomao don’t care; she’s getting paid either way, plus Gyokuyou and Lihua got something out of it (Lishu, on the other hand, was simply scandalized). That night she’s exhausted, but hears a distant blast. But not wanting to get on Suiren’s bad side, she resists the urge to investigate. The old man with an eyepatch, however? He’s immediately on the scene.

That changes the next day, when Maomao is gathering herbs when she spots her old pal Lihaku with another military officer next to a bombed out warehouse. Lihaku says it was a small fire, but it doesn’t take long for Maomao to determine that an explosion occurred. Inside she finds the warehouse quite dusty, and a burnt smoking pipe on the ground.

Maomao has a theory, and to test it, she borrows some wood, nails, flour, flint, and a rope fuse for a little experiment out in the courtyard. When she lights the fuse she runs for cover and urges Lihaku to do the same, but just as he’s asking why the flour blows up in his face.

Maomao and his adjutant put him out with water, but Maomao’s theory seems to be confirmed: someone, possibly an undereducated warehouseman, lit his pipe in the warehouse and ignited the loose flour in the air. The only issue is that the pipe seems far too fancy for a mere warehouseman. Was this just an accident, someone else’s experiment, or something else? Like Loulan, it remains a mystery to be solved.

The Eminence in Shadow – 32 (S2 Fin) – By Any Other Name Would Smell As Sweet

Ah, are we already at the end? I was having so much fun. The first season spoiled us with twenty whole episodes, and this second only has twelve. But boy did it ever make the most of them, not least of which this finale, which wraps up the Oriana arc … and a lot more than that!

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Perv Asshat and Queen Reina are dead, and the Black Rose has been activated. When Eta reports this, Alpha is unconcerned, because Lord Shadow is there. Unless the apocalypse is part of his plan, it won’t happen, legends be damned.

Turns out Rose’s mercifully cancelled wedding was attended by far more members of Shadow Garden than she thought, and they all rise up and recite their motto to Mordred, who has no idea how out of the league he and his metal dragon are.

The Garden members spread out to take care of the myriad beasts it unleashed upon the capital and minimize innocent casualties. Before heading up into the sky to fight Ragnarok, Cid gives Rose the nudge she needs, and she joins the fight on the streets to protect her people.

Mordred must face off against Beta and Epsilon, the former being an elf who resents that he wields and hides behind stolen Elven artifacts. The duo intends to teach him a lesson, and after that look forward to him telling them everything he knows.

After taking down a monster with relative ease, Rose is approached by Margaret, who like everyone else heard the message from the dearly departed king. There’s no time to apologize, but Margaret does bow her head, accept Rose’s orders, and recognizes her as Queen Rose.

While Cid toys with Ragnarok, happy to be in a real-life fantasy video game boss fight, Mordred ends up a defeated mess. While he’s in bad shape, he’s still confident Ragnarok will destroy everyone and everything, so he has no problem indulging Beta, Epsilon, and Rose with some high-level cult intel.

He starts by describing the world they currently inhabit as merely one of infinite dimensions. The worlds in other dimensions, called “realms” by the cult, are where they believe humanoids came from, which explains their dominance over the earth.

Those realms also brought magic and magical creatures. The Black Rose creates a portal between realms, and allowed Ragnarok, a creature of another realm, to pass through. This also pretty much confirms how Cid got here from the Japan of our realm.

Like Perv, Mordred loves his little arranged speeches, but just as he’s promising the ladies that their moments are numbered, a shattered piece of the ruined and defeated Ragnarok comes crashing down upon him.

As a smirking Shadow looms above, 559 makes her report to Alpha and Epsilon that all monsters in the city have been eliminated. She also makes sure to shoot Rose a dagger of a look, but Rose stares right back through her blunt bangs.

With Ragnarok dusted, the apocalypse has been postponed, but Mordred still manages to morph into his Final Fantasy Boss Form, losing much of his humanity but gaining a whole lot of power. Unfortunately, the most power he can muster wouldn’t equal the power in Shadow’s pinky toe.

Shadow demonstrates this by engaging Mordred in a quick but stylish and scenic battle, launching him up into orbit, then going into a monologue about man’s successful struggle to harness the lightning of the heavens (i.e. the power of the atom).

Of course, we know what’s coming. As soon as a rightfully panicked Mordred sets him up perfectly by asking “WHAT ARE YOU?!” Cid answers, this time with a contraction: “I’m Atomic.” The resulting eplosion creates a light brighter than dawn down below, where everyone who has ever interacted with Shadow look up admiringly and know exactly who’s responsible.

When the light fades and he returns from orbit, Alpha and Epsilon are delighted, and 559 is … well let’s just say she’s enjoying herself, shall we? But then something happens even Cid didn’t predict: Whether it’s the remnant of the Black Rose portal or a new portal created by I Am Atomic, it sucks Cid in with a burst of green lightning.

Just like that, Lord Shadow is gone, leaving behind his Seven Shadows, the Garden, and Queen Rose. I’ll give Eminence this: it’s not content merely to return to the status quo in this finale! This is the last we see of everyone we know other than Cid. I had hoped for an after-party, but the show had bigger plans.

In a realm where Tokyo is a charred ruin, Nishino Akane, the girl from the first episode of the series, wakes up, looks up at the crescent moon, and is reminded of an utterly average classmate she once knew. That makes this the same Tokyo Cid originally came from, only this is what has become of it several years later.

Akane is in her 20s, so I guess time flows differently between the realms? In any case, Akane (voiced by Horie Yui) is walking alone down an alley when she’s suddenly accosted by two toughs with cybernetic implants and knocked out with a stun gun.

Akane wakes up bound, and one of her captors addresses her as the “grand savior,” and their intent to turn her over to their bosses. The other captor, nicknamed “brainless”, goes off-script and starts choking her.

But just after looking up at that familiar crescent moon through the hole in the ceiling, Akane’s would-be attacker receives a devastating blow that shoots him clear across the building, while the rest of the ceiling shatters, revealing the night sky in which the moon hangs. Akane’s savior, of course, is Shadow, not the “Stylish Ruffian Slayer” from the first time he saved her. He’s back!

Presumably Cid knows where he is, but even if he doesn’t, he’s sticking with this persona for the time being. As for whether he remembers Akane, what her and this world’s whole deal is, how Cid will contribute, and whether he’ll ever return to his Garden are questions for future sequels, the first of which will apparently take the form of a movie with a release date TBD.

It goes without saying that whatever form future Eminence in Shadow anime content takes, I will be there for it with bells on!

Assassins Pride – 06 – Kick Back, then Run for Your Lives

Since the tournament ended so abruptly last week, I was glad for some kind of epilogue, which happens to come in the form of a belated Halloween episode. It starts with Rosetti entering Kufa’s room at night with ominous news, and then we see Melida and Elise meeting up with Salacha and Mule and heading to a secret underground pajama after-party held by the seniors of the two schools.

It’s a welcome opportunity both for the characters to relax and for this newly formed quartet to interact and bond some more. I also liked how they all admitted they had no love lives to speak of, but Mule still didn’t even bother asking poor Elli!

Then Mule and Salacha regale Melida and Elise with the harrowing legend of the Gray Witch, and how there’s a murderer in Flandore copying her M.O. of cutting out the hearts of her victims. It’s enough to make Elli faint, confirming her Little Sister status.

When the lights suddenly go out on the party and a witch appears, wreathed in pink mana, there wasn’t really any doubt was was going on: Rosetti found out about the secret party, and decided to have some fun by putting a scare into them as punishment for breaking the rules.

Of course, the girls don’t know this, and end up getting chased by the witch through wet underground waterways and getting covered in a strange squishy pink substance. It’s enough for Elli to consider simply tearing off her robes, but the others hold her back.

Personally I thought Rosa and Kufa went way too far with their fright-fest…at times it bounded on straight-up cruelty. These girls just went through a very stressful ordeal (the tournament plus Madia) and just want to kick back and relax for one night…haven’t they earned that much?

Once the Witch catches up to them, there’s a wonderful comedic moment when Salacha sprouts winged feet to fight her, and the others make a collective impressed noise…only for Salacha to bonk her head on the ceiling, followed by the others making a collective…unimpressed noise.

When they finally exit the waterway to street level, they’re relieved to find Kufa there, but the adults aren’t quite done with their tricks, as he reveals he’s bleeding from the chest and mouth, having had his heart ripped out.

Thus thoroughly terrified and chastened, Kufa has the girls apologize for breaking curfew and whatnot, but then they turn on him for his liberal use of the pink goo, which they see as perverted.

After all that running around scared, when the girls try to rise from their kneeling positions, they find their legs are asleep, so Kufa has to carry them all to a bed to sleep, only for Melida to grab his hand while he sits beside the bed, ensuring he won’t be sleeping tonight.

While the identity of the witch, and thus the stakes of the episode, were never in doubt or particularly high, respectively, this was still a fun, well-executed, seasonally appropriate episode that got to let its hair down and provided an extended intro to Salacha and Mule.

Owari no Seraph 2 – 04

On the way to Nagoya, after fighting off Four Horsemen of Johns, Shinoa has a little fun by leaving Yuu behind to walk the rest of the way. In addition to being a little too mean, it seems extraordinarily stupid thing to do under such serious circumstances. The show thinks it was dumb to, and Shinoa later comes to regret it, because Guren throws and elaborate lesson their way that drives the message into her and all the other newbies’ heads. Fooling around will get your family killed, so knock it off.

When the five show up late, they make a bad first impression on the more experienced squads Guren has amassed. Then Yuu takes full responsibility, but Guren knows he’s covering. Then he, Shinya, and Mito face off against the five right there and then to test how well they gel as a team. Even three-on-five, the older soldiers barely break a sweat overwhelming the noobs. Yuu hangs in there with Guren, but in the process, all of his comrades are “killed” by the other two veterans.

The lesson is, take this seriously and learn to work better together under duress, because the vampire nobles they’re going after are even tougher, and won’t end the lesson by sparing lives and mussing Yuu’s hair. Yuu is uncharacteristically mature throughout this lesson, already working out how they should handle such a fight next time, and taking it in stride when Sgt. Narumi protests the newbies’ inclusion in the plan.

Speaking up backfires for Narumi, as Guren puts him and his haughty squad in charge of teaching Shinoa’s squad the ropes, much to their chagrin. But Yuu doesn’t feel like a hot potato, or at least doesn’t show it: he’s eager to work and learn. As long as he can kill vampires and get Mika back, he’s growing up in a hurry.

As for Mika, the day Krul warned about—when her blood alone would no longer be sufficient—is fast arriving. Mika has insisted on not drinking human blood, but the blood calls to him as his partner and their squad rounds up children for tribute to the very nobles Guren’s group of 100 are going after.

He pounces on a girl and grabs her by the throat, but is able to pull himself back…for now. But that control will only get more and more difficult to maintain. When that happens, he’ll have little choice but death or human blood. But would he really choose the former, knowing what it might do to Yuu?