Hell’s Paradise – 09 – Something’s Different This Time

Not content to sit around and think about how to proceed, Gabimaru leaves Sagiri, Senta, and Yuzuriha and heads through the mists to Horai on his own. When he reaches the gates, he’s met by one of the Tensen. He breaks its arm and neck, but it regenerates almost immediately. He burns it to a crisp with Ascetic Blaze, but its charred body still delivers a devastating blow.

Realizing he can’t fight this monster like he would a living thing, Gabimaru jumps into another gear and pulverizes it so quickly it cannot regenerate. Even then, its body sprouts flowers and it transforms into a giant plant monster that zaps him with electricity. He wakes up in his home with Yui, momentarily relieved he woke up from the nightmare that was the island, only to realize that this is the dream. Nevertheless, he’s glad he got to see and talk to Yui once more.

When the Tensen has him on the ropes, his body goes into instinctive self-preservation mode, enveloping his opponent in ninpo flames before collapsing into a heap. Before the monster can counter, Mei appears and puts up a shield around Gabimaru and herself. That morning, the others see both Gabimaru and Mei are missing and go looking for them. On the way, then encounter a “forest” of trees that were once humans—some of them Houko’s family.

The seven Tensen, including Zhu Jin, whom Gabimaru fought to a draw, assemble in their little gazebo in Horai. Their leader then distributes shots of the Elixir of Life that they all imbibe. Gabimaru wakes up beside a river with Mei, glad that the Tensen aren’t really gods, but demented monsters that can be killed. But first he’s going to have to deal with Tamiya Gantetsusai, who just happens to cross paths with him.

Gabi strolled right up to the front door of the final bosses, only to get his ass handed to him. But he still put up a decent fight, and makes the point that if he had two or three people helping him he might actually be able to score a victory. The thing is, neither the Yamada Asaemons nor his fellow prisoners have any reason to help him. None of them, that is, except for Sagiri, who earnestly hopes he’s okay as they search for him.

The Ancient Magus’ Bride – S2 08 – Mage-Snack Camp

Chise insisted that Elias not accompany her on her camping trip, because she wants to learn how to take care of herself. Elias proposes a compromise. He makes a smaller, dog-sized duplicate of himself that isn’t very strong. Chise shares her tent with Lucy, and while fetching water from the lake, meets an each-uisge, a white water horse that drowns anyone who tries to ride it. She makes sure to warn Lucy not to get on any horses she sees.

While Chise really wanted a more independent trip, she’s still comforted by the presence of both Ruth and Lil’ Elias, which quiets the voices she’s not sure are neighbors or those of her classmates. But there’s something out there lurking in the sea.

The next morning, Chise makes a Philomena sighting, but she scurries away after exchanging good mornings. Lucy doesn’t understand why Chise is bothering with Mena; Chise sees a bit of herself in her. Lucy, however, hates all sorcerers, which makes sense if they killed her family.

The last night of the trip comes before Chise knows it. Lucy says she has to study as soon as they’re back at the College. She says she has important things to do, “unlike” Chise, but Chise says there are things she needs to do too, only she’s not certain if she’ll ever be finished. Giving Lucy a taste of her own medicine, rather that say what those things are, Chise simply says goodnight.

Later that night after going to the bathroom, the pages of a magical book turn, and Lucy ends up passing out on her way back to the tent. Chise wakes up to a sudden magical disturbance and locates Lucy, who has been completely drained of magical power. Chise is a veritable font of magic, so simply holding Lucy helps her recharge, but she and Elias have bigger fish to fry: a nuckelavee, a giant centaur-like amphibious monster.

Ruth returns with the boys when Chise and Elias are running away from the nuckelavee, and while Zoe’s head snakes temporarily stop the monster, he soon passes out, and it’s on the move again. Lil’ Elias calmly reminds Chise that he’s in a form that can’t defeat something like this, so it’s up to Chise. That said, he can offer her advice and information on their opponent, who cannot touch fresh water.

Chise has Elias summon the each-uisge, and she and Rian hop on its back. This serves as an enticing lure for the nuckelavee, which gives chase all the way to the freshwater lake. The each-uisge dunks Chise and Rian, then kicks the nuckelavee in too.

It starts to disintegrate, as the fresh water is poisonous, but not before it’s able to grab Chise. It almost kills her, but in a gorgeous sequence, the dragon that dwells in her blackened arm awakens with one purpose: to destroy the “horror” before them.

The arm essentially has a mind of its own, and it confidently slashes the nuckelavee to bits. Chise swims to shore, where Rian is holding the each-uisge from attacking her with a magical axe. Chise isn’t about to let the water horse eat her, but she snips off her ponytail for it to each, and that appeases it enough for it to return to the depths of the lake.

On their way back, Chise isn’t just sporting a new-look with her hair, but her face. Only Rian recognizes the face, because he’s seen it many times before…in his mirror. It’s the face of someone who didn’t know what to do when things took a turn, and they certainly did take a turn suddenly here!

Chise was saved thanks to Elias’ knowledge of monsters, Rian’s brave stand, and most importantly that blackened dragon arm of hers, which certainly did know what to do. But this camping trip demonstrated that even when she’s not looking for trouble, trouble finds her, and she wasn’t in control when it mattered most.

The thing is, Chise shouldn’t be so hard on herself. That dragon arm isn’t going anywhere, for one. Even if Elias isn’t a a true groom, he’s still committed to being her lifelong companion. And she continues to bond with her new friends at College. The times when she’s ever going to be totally alone, able to rely only on herself, are vanishingly small.

Hell’s Paradise – 08 – Blooming Potential

There’s no Sagiri or Gabimaru in this episode. It’s given over entirely to the duo of Tenza and Nurugai, the island’s cutest couple. Tenza came from nothing, was nothing, but was taken in by a member of the Yamada Asaemon clan who believed he had potential.

Now he himself is a Yamada Asaemon, and like his master, has decided that simply executing someone of Nurugai’s potential (both as a person and a wife) would be a waste. Unfortunately, on this island, both of them draw breath at the pleasure of the Tensen.

When then Tensen attacks, Tenza is thrown back and disabled, but before the Tensen can attack Nurugai, he finds his second wind, lops off both the head and hands of his opponent, and flees through the forest with Nurugai. When the quickly regenerated Tensen instantly catches up with them, they’re both saved by Tenza’s master, Shion, a blind mad with a kind heart.

When Shion points his sword at Nurugai and asks why Tenza hasn’t executed her, Tenza shows how much he’s grown by speaking like a man, insisting to Shion that he’s only doing the same thing Shion did with him. Not only does he see potential in Nurugai like Shion saw in him, but she is that something Shion told him he’d come to want to protect.

But while Shion tables the question of Nurugai’s fate for another time, all their time grows short as long as the Tensen persues them. It cuts Shion’s throat, and Tenza digs deep into his swordsmanship to simply buy time for his master and Nurugai.

There was a time when Tenza didn’t believe in his potential like Shion did, and had decided to quit his training. Shion agreed to let him go if he could land a single strike on him.

When fellow Yamada executioner Eizen showed Tenza the grave of Shion’s former student who had fled and become a criminal Shion himself had to execute, it motivated him to not only land that strike on his master, but decide that he wanted to stay and continue to be taught rather than run away.

In the present, Tenza doesn’t run away, but fully realizes the potential Shion believed he had by sacrificing himself to allow his master and Nurugai to escape. Nurugai is beside herself and wants to go back to where Tenza is, but Shion insists that’s not what Tenza would want.

It’s clear that no human, no matter how skilled, is a match for a Tensen. It’s also clear that Jigokuraku is not above teasing enticing executioner-prisoner ships and then promptly sinking them with extreme prejudice. Tenza’s past was efficiently and compellingly laid out this week, and his death is a cruel gut punch.

Vinland Saga S2 – 07 – The True Master

When Einar and Arnheid are at the well for a few minutes each morning, they’re in their own little world. Neither is a slave, they are just a kind man and a kind woman making a connection that transcends the brutal, merciless world they were unfortunate enough to be born in. When Arnheid returns to the house, Ketil’s wife slaps her across the face for chatting. Arnheid’s dark expression shows she’s back in that world. Back in the darkness.

Einar and Thorfinn are faring quite well so far. Wheat seedlings have sprouted. Einar insists they pray and pray hard to a god…it doesn’t matter to which. As slaves, they have nothing to offer but their prayer. The dream of buying their freedom is alive and well. But Einar wonders if Arnheid has a similar arrangement (I assume she does not).

In the cold open, Snake and his mercs are investigating petty food theft, and declares that the culprits must be punished. When Ketil returns to the farm with his eldest son Thorgil (who is as terrifying and capable as Olmar…isn’t), they encounter Snake, and the two thieves in tow: mere children.

Tired from their journey, Ketil and his son sit down for a meal before dealing with the thieves. Thorgil regales his father and younger brother with “glorious” tales of battle and plunder, and also informs Ketil how well now-King Canute has done for himself, meaning maybe there’s hope for Olmar.

But Olmar hurts his case when Thorgil gives him a necklace of ears, and once he realizes they are ears, Olmar freaks out. Like a a normal, well-adjusted human would. Thorgil also tells Olmar that their father was once a legend on the battlefield, bare-chested, bare-fisted berserker his peers nicknamed the “Iron Fist”.

That brings us to Ketil’s sad duty as master of the farm to mete out justice against those who stole from him. If he doesn’t, it will encourage more theft, and he’ll be seen as soft to his retainers, the mercs, and his sons. But as soon as Ketil learns their names (12-year-old Sture and his younger sister Thora) and circumstances (ill mother, likely dead father), the man still lauded as the Iron Fist develops leaky eyes.

Thorgil quickly recommends each kid lose an arm. Sture says he’ll take both punishments, so Thorgil is fine taking both of Sture’s arms. Pater almost bails out Ketil by suggesting the kids work off both what they stole and what their father owed in rent. Ketil cannot mask how happy he is a non-violent solution is agreeable to all.

…But it isn’t. Ketil may be the master of this farm and an immensely wealthy and powerful individual, but even he is beholden to an even higher master in this world: the master that is burning through England. That master is violence and it demands its tribute.

Ketil must even go against his better nature in the number of stokes of an axe handle, going from five to ten. Sture again protects his sister, and will take all twenty. Thorgil volunteers, but his first stroke almost kills Sture, and Ketil, almost in a panic, takes the handle and completes the beating.

That night, Thorgil feasts with Olmar the mercs, while Ketil retires to his bed—a bed warmed by Arnheid. He weeps into her lap, confiding in her that the “Iron Fist” legend is a complete lie he made up. In reality, he’s as much a “coward” as Olmar, which is to say he would simply rather not commit violence to further his aims. Further, he fears Thorgil, his own son, for committing it so easily.

Arnheid, with a neutral expression, tells him what he needs to hear in that moment: that admitting to being a kind man can’t be a bad thing. But it is a bad thing in this world where his ultimate master demands payment for the life he lives. And lest we forget, Arnheid is not in that bed or on the farm willingly, she’s a slave, and slavery is a vicious form of violence.

That makes Ketil a hypocrite, and even if he’s a repentant one, if he wishes to maintain his wealth and power, he’ll have to continue to be a hypocrite. Notably absent from this episode was Sverkel, the first person on the farm who treated Einar and Thorfinn as humans, not property, paying them for their chores with his horse and plow.

Of the three generations represented by Thorgil, Ketil, and Sverkel, only the latter both talks the talk and walks the walk. Like Ketil, he’s long lost the taste for the kind of life currently enjoyed by Thorgil. But unlike Ketil, Sverkel trying to live an honest life free of trinkets and exploitation. In the waning years of his life, he has rejected the master that currently tortures Ketil and flatters Thorgil.

In / Spectre – 14 – Youkai Alibi

In/Spectre can really spin a good yarn. This week we meet Muroi Masayuki, who is pushed off a mountain by his best friend. As he lays contemplating his imminent death, a spunky yuki-onna (Yuuki Aoi) pays him a visit. She’s not there to kill him, though she does think long and hard about it when he knocks her looks!

Yuki-onna subverts Masayuki’s idea of her kind by building an conjuring an igloo around him so he’ll last the night, then flying him down the mountain in a princess carry, all for half of the cash he’s carrying. Once back in town, he’s able to walk in on his former friend lying about what happened and finger him for attempted murder.

Eleven years pass, and Masayuki moves back to the town by the mountain where he met the Yuki-onna. As luck would have it, he doesn’t need to search far for her, as she’s enjoying soft serve in human form. When he tells her about the time he met a yuki-onna she’s initially furious he broke his vow of silence, but he’s sure she’s the same person, so he technically isn’t.

Masayuki is coming off a divorce from a woman who cheated on him and tried to kill him, as well as the hostile takeover of his company by another former friend. Understandably distrustful of future human interactions, he sought her out. Yuki-onna is eminently interested in human food and drink (and cars!), so he agrees to buy her booze and cook for her at his bachelor pad.

An adorable, mutually beneficial friendship ensues. The connection to the In/Spectre we know finally comes when Yuki-onna speaks glowingly about her lady and Goddess of Wisdom, Kotoko. Yuki-onna cleared befriending Masayuki with Kotoko, and even got approval for sexual relations with him should things go that way (as long as they use protection!)

The good vibes suddenly sour when detectives come to Masayuki’s door to inform him that his ex-wife has been murdered, but that’s where Kotoko comes in. Yuki-onna reports that she knows for a fact Masayuki wasn’t the culprit because she was with him at the time of the murder. The problem is she can’t go to the cops and Masayuki can’t say the source of his alibi is a yokai.

It looks to be a fascinating case, and one that has a lot more resonance now that I’ve come to know and become quite fond both Yuki-onna and Masayuki. They make a surpassingly cute and charming couple whose playful banter and cozy chemistry rivals Kotoko and Kurou, and if anyone can get this out of this legal dilemma, it’s the Goddess of Wisdom.

In / Spectre – 13 – Things That Go Thump in the Night

When In/Spectre last aired, I said I’d hope we’d get more of the adorable duo of Kotoko and Kurou as they investigate and resolve more supernatural cases. Thirty-three months later here we are. There’s a lot of expository dialogue between a ghost and two youkai that bring us back up to speed on what this show is about, and Kotoko and Kuro’s abilities.

This is the same old In/Spectre, which means it is absolutely packed with scenes of people doing nothing but sitting or standing and talking. If that was fine with you in the first season, it will be fine here, as it is with me. There are three things that makes this not only tolerable but enjoyable for me, and that’s Kotoko’s magnetic charm, Kitou Akari’s firm yet affable voice, and Manabe Akihiro’s beautiful accompanying score.

The spook-of-the-week initially seems to be artificial, Kotoko tells the ghost and youkai discussing it that the scary thumping in the night wasn’t a supernatural phenomenon, but the sounds of an escaped monitor lizard illegally owned by the building manager. The truth is that an ancien cursed sumo doll was making the sounds.

Kotoko not only works out a deal with the manager that gets Kurou a cheap new place for them to live, but she and Kurou take the doll out to the isolated woods. There, she instructs Kurou to fight with the four-armed, horned sumo demon that manifests. This doesn’t go well at first, with Kurou suffering a number of gruesome deaths.

Of course thanks to eating of both mermaid and kudan flesh, Kurou is immortal and can see and choose the future. In between death and revival, the future he picks involves basically pinning the sumo down, exposing his back and enabling Kotoko to stab him through the throat with her cane.

It’s a victory, but not an ideal one for Kurou, who had hoped Kotoko could have been kept out of harm’s way. But Kotoko remains steadfastly unafraid of dangerous situations, and knew she could score an easy blow against a being that would not attack her due to her goddess status.

All of the various supernatural beings that dwell in the woods come out not just to gaze upon their kawaii Goddess of Wisdom, but thank her for dealing with the sumo doll. They all still consider Kurou a terrifying monster, but as long as he’s by Kotoko’s side and she’s vouching for him, they’ll accept him.

As for me, I’ve long since accepted that this is one of the talkier anime out there, and that more often then not that’s an asset and not a liability. And with all the reintroduction out of the way, next week’s dialogue will be less about what we already know and more about what we don’t.

Golden Kamuy – 38 – Blades and Buttcracks

As one would expect, being poisoned and buried alive is no biggie for Ushiyama, tank-made-flesh that he is. Fortune smiles upon our young ice skater Chiyotarou, who is tied to a felled tree by his tormentors, when Ushiyama frees him (by the most extra method) in exchange for peaches. That said, Ushiyama is still drugged and can only manage brief utterances, leading Chiyotarou to think the hulk’s name is “Pussy.”

When Detective Kadokura receives a ransom letter from Sekiya, he and Kirawus head to the frozen lake for a parlay. At that same lake, Chiyotarou introduces “Pussy” to ice skating (using gerori, or geta skates), but the bullies return and toss a moss ball at Ushiyama. In his drugged state he lashes out violently, sending the three bad lads packing, but Chiyotarou is mortified: he only wanted Pussy to be a visual and psychological threat. The kid has a gentle heart, and doesn’t want anyone actually hurt.

Taking responsibility for unleashing this Frankenstein’s monster on the world by feeding him peaches, Chiyotarou arranges for Pussy to leap right into one of the holes in the lake formed by hot springs. Around the same time, Kadokura meets with the ever-cautious and well-prepared Sekiya, who makes him strip, and soon deduces that the detective is hiding an Ainu blade between his clinched ass cheeks.

Sekiya flees, but it was always Kadokura’s plan to make the deal go bad so he would, enabling a well-hidden Kirawus to then tail Kadokura back to where Hijikata is buried. And he would have, too, were it not for Ushiyama suddenly coming to his senses and emerging from the ice.

Kadokura discovers Sekiya’s hideout anyway (a silkworm factory) thanks to the cocoon that falls from Ushiyama’s jacket. There, Sekiya presents the former warden with yet another one of his trials designed to reveal whether someone is on the right path. He has Kadokura pick among a circle of cocoons and take whatever is inside, and he promises to do the same to the cocoon opposite that one.

This gives them a 50-50 chance of taking the deadly poison, but Kadokura knows that with his ruinous bad luck he’s sure to pick the poison. Indeed he does, but before it kicks in, Sekiya tells him the story of how his young daughter was suddenly struck by lightning and killed, leading him on a lifelong exploration of fate and faith. Kadokura starts to show signs he took the poison, so Sekiya holds up his end of the bargain and digs up Hijikata.

Only to his surprise, Hijikata is fully conscious once he digs him up. Using his own pharmaceutical knowledge, he made sure to take enough of one poison to counteract the effects of the other. This, incidentally, is what Kadokura does, trying to take more poison to speed his death but ending up taking the precise dose needed to neutralize both poisons in his system.

Even with Sekiya’s life in his hands, Hijitaka has no time to talk about God or faith, as he’s singularly focused on the world of men and what men can do. He considers fate not to be something endowed from a higher power, but something to be taken with one’s own hand, through experience and guts. You can’t exactly argue with his results so far, as he’s had more lives than a cat and is now in possession of more map tattoos.

As for young Chiyotarou, he flashes a dirty look at his bullies who then cower, but he’s unaware that “Pussy” is alive and well, lucis, and walking right behind him. Hopefully he’ll notice him so he won’t have to bear the burden of thinking he took a life in order to prevent a monster from taking far more of them. While I missed Asirpa and Sugimoto this week, this was still a meaty, fun, and at times quite hilarious Edo-period hard-boiled detective case.

DanMachi IV – 10 – Game Over, Man

When Marie hears the shouts of agony from the Dungeon itself, all she can do is stay below the water and cover her ears; later, she wishes she was by Bell’s side again. But unfortunately for most of this episode, Bell and Ryuu are simply standing around as they express outrage at what Jura has done.

Jura, in turn, laughs maniacally as he describes his diabolical scheme, then laughs some more. Rinse, repeat. It got to the point I actually said to the TV “Alright already, enough build-up…let’s get to it!”

Not helping matters is that the static, repetitive scenes of Bell, Ryuu, and Jura are interspersed with scenes of Ouranos delivering exposition to Fels via magic telephone. It’s all very dull and plodding, not what you want when trying to build tension for the Dungeon’s most vicious beast.

When Bell’s party starts to hear the screams from below, Lili prepares to head down to see if they can help, which is quite possibly the dumbest thing she has ever attempted. Thankfully, a weeping Cassandra stops her and tells them they’re only alive right now because they’re here.

The beast itself is…kinda weak looking? Like some kind of giant emaciated, skeletal horse-mutant. Maybe that’s the point; even Bell notes that it has barely any armor, even as a well-placed strike from his sword simply bounces off. It does kill a great number of the adventurers in the Ryu hunting party through slicing in half, dismemberment, and straight-up glomping, but the vast majority of its victims are nameless NPCs.

It isn’t until Bell says enough and charges at the beast that we truly learn just how deep into the shit everyone is. Bell is level four, and has learned a lot in his short time on these lower floors, but against the Juggernaut, as it’s known, he might as well be one of those scores of Bors’ adventurers getting cut in half. None of his attacks have any effect, and Juggs is far faster than he anticipated.

By the end of the episode, Bell’s right arm has been sliced off, he’s been thrown across the cavern like a ragdoll, and the life is fading from his eyes. Considering he may be the strongest adventurer down there, that’s not a good sign. He’s no longer in any condition to even dodge the Juggernaut’s next attack, which begs the question of who (or what) will come to save the day—or at least get him and Ryuu to safety?

DanMachi IV – 09 – Somebody Set Us Up the Bomb

Will Bell have to fight his friend in order to stop her from murdering Jura? Well…no, because after Ryuu insists she didn’t kill Jean, it only takes a couple of “gotcha” questions for him to determine that Jura has been setting Ryuu up this whole time. Right on cue, Jura sports a villainous smirk and (somewhat forced-sounding) cackle.

Jura, a monster-tamer, has a surprise for Ryuu and Bell: a Lambton, which is not Lamb-themed Reggeton but a giant burrowing snake from the lower floors. Jura is controlling it with a magical stone around its collar that responds to a similar magical stone on Jura’s whip. A second Lambton attacks Lili, Aisha, Welf, and the others.

The Lambtons’ movements seem erratic, but once Ryuu discovers a pattern, she asks Bell to back her up while she brings it down. When the great snake tries to go to ground, Bell stops it with a Fire Bolt, and Ryuu finishes it off with a Luminous Wind.

Bell’s Party defeats their Lambton by having Haruhime cast Level Boost on Welf and Ouka to serve as the party’s shield while the archers riddle its head with arrows, and finally Aisha chops off its head with a Hell Kaios. They got the tools, they got the talent. It’s Miller Time.

But Cassandra is worried. This can’t be the disaster that causes a “banquet of tragedy”. Sure enough, it’s just the appetizer: Jura and the Lambtons were just stalling for time while Turk and the other anti-Ryuu squad mined the entire level with blazerocks. Once ignited, Jura helpfully explains that the Dungeon is made “delirious”.

This, in turn, awakens “Despair”, which like the Lambton has glowing red eyes. While Ryuu has fought Lambtons before, one look at her face, equal parts shock, anger, and fear, says it all: this guy is trouble. Unfortunately, this episode didn’t feel like much more than what it was: stalling for time before the main course.

DanMachi IV – 08 – Elfhunt

Bell joins Bors’ party as they descend to the 27th floor, and proves his Level 4 mettle by making quick work of both a lead merman and laser-shooting foes. He learns that some of the party members actually understand why Ryuu is going after those who caused the destruction of the rest of her familia…but the 80 million in bounty is far more pressing to all of them.

When he gets a chance, Bell breaks from the party to find the source of the singing everyone hears. He knows it’s Marie, who is extremely spooked when he encounters her. Something is down here that shouldn’t be, and it’s powerful enough to make huge holes in the Dungeon walls that don’t quickly heal.

Marie also helps lead Bell to Ryuu’s location, and their encounter is pretty cut-and-dried: Ryuu doesn’t want someone like Bell, a gentle soul from a gentler part of her life, to be anywhere near this place. Bell wants her side of the story but she has no time for him, and flies off.

Meanwhile on the 25th floor the rest of Bell’s party waits, which Cassie believes is the key to keeping everyone alive. That said, Turk, the werewolf who pinned the Rivira murder on Ryuu, insists on searching the floor for Ryuu. Some of the hunting party stay put per Bors’ orders, but Bell’s party decides to follow Turk’s, if only to keep an eye on him, as Bell asked.

Bell reunites with Bors’ party just as they end up afoul of Ryuu, who is targeting the last survivor of the Familia that contributed to the destruction of hers. Letting him survive simply isn’t an option to her. She makes quick work neutralizing everyone who comes after her, but Ryuu keeps up the chase, until it’s just him, Ryuu, and her prey.

For the first time, Ryuu raises her wooden sword, warning Bell that she won’t hesitate to cut him—even him—down to get to her target. Bell, who did not come to capture Ryuu or collect a bounty, simply wants everyone to get along and be happy. But it would seem he’s out of his element here. How can he hope to quell Ryuu’s murderous rage when he’s never experienced the trauma of losing his entire Familia?

Can he say he’d remain the kind-hearted live-and-let-live Bell Cranel if that fate befell him, as it does in Cassandra’s premonition? But with that giant evil snake slithering around, it’s looking more and more like Ryuu isn’t the cause of that particular “banquet of tragedy.”

Love After World Domination – 07 – The Reaper of Oyafuko-dori

Green Gelato, AKA Todoroki Daigo, is regarded as the unflappable psychological rock of Gelato 5. But when he delivers a home-cooked meal to Fudou and sees he is writing an exchange diary for his girlfriend and hears her full name—Magahara Desumi—he suddenly goes into convulsions and collapses. When he comes to he tells Fudou why: Desumi was the monster he created.

So begins a tale of regret and trauma, as Daigo recounts how he regarded himself as the top karate student in the prefecture (both of them were Hataka natives). Then a pint-sized, seven-year-old Desumi showed up one day, his sensei assigned him, a middle schooler, to look after her…and she nearly killed him with one punch.

Each time she nearly one-shotted him, he refused to do anything but save face and look cool, which of course only made Desumi more enthusiastic about training. Within days, she’d defeated Daigo’s master, who closed the dojo and became a hermit. But Daigo kept training her, even as it seemed likely to shorten his life considerably. No doubt he simply couldn’t turn his back on such a talented (yet cute and innocent) fighter.

His face-saving delusions that she always bought aside, Desumi didn’t so much surpass Daigo as was always superior. She developed a reputation as “The Reaper of Oyafuko-dori” as a middle-schooler, eviscerating all challengers and developing the thick lonely, bored shell which Fudou would eventually help her break out of.

Daigo’s parents divorced and he had to move to Tokyo, he met her one last time on the riverbank, and despite going all out, was put on his back easily. Now that Young Desumi is back in his life, Daigo feels he must put his trauma aside and do his duty as Gelato 5’s recruiter by bringing Desumi into the fold. Of course, he’s still oblivious to the fact she’s already a Gekko executive.

 

Fudou can’t help but admit that having Desumi as Black Gelato would mean spending a lot more time together, so he arranges a meeting with her and Daigo. After some reminiscing, Daigo gets down to brass tacks and offers her a job with Gelato 5. Like Fudou, it’s an enticing offer, but she thinks about her family and comrades and respectfully declines.

She’s happy where she is and is worried if she was any happier she’d open herself up to karmic retribution. But seeing this older, gentler, somehow cuter Desumi flirt with Fudou like an ordinary girlfriend gives Daigo the completely wrong impression that she’s gone soft, and calls her out to a riverback to fight once again.

He sets the stake of their duel: if she wins, he’ll give up on recruiting her. If he wins, she’ll join Gelato 5 and end her relationship with Fudou, mentioning to her for the first time that Gelato forbids workplace relationships. While Desumi would have likely beaten Daigo (even in his Gelato suit, which his survival instinct activates without thinking), she gets super-fired up about winning when her relationship with Fudou is on the line.

Just as in the past when she’d very nearly killed him, Daigo plays it cool, saying he couldn’t go all out against his beloved pupil after so long, and grudgingly accepts defeat, with some final words of warning: whatever she ends up doing with her immense power, don’t go over to the dark side of Gekko. Whoops…

After parting ways with Daigo, Fudou and Desumi agree that they’ve gotten a bit too loose and comfortable being a public couple, and vow to take steps to being more careful. This includes Fudou pulling her off him should she take him by the arm in public, though that might prove both emotionally and physically impossible.

Regardless, they are still being watched and photographed in the shadows by someone I assumed at first to be Misaki, but might actually be a heretofore unseen character. Looks like Fudou and Desumi are in store for more drama and adversity…

Love After World Domination – 06 – Beauty and the Beach

Summer’s here, and Desumi wants to do summer dating stuff with Fudou. Fudou’s completely on board, but doesn’t know if he can handle Desumi in a swimsuit (even though her villainess uniform is basically occult lingerie). But if anyone can arrange it so their respective teams have a battle on the beach, it’s these two.

Back at Gekko’s cafeteria (which I stress is not an evil cafeteria, just a regular cafeteria…which is great) We get more of Beast Princess and Desumi interacting, which is never not fun times. Beast is basically an earlier version of Desumi before she found love, but while Beast thinks Desumi should mind her evil image, she also seems to idolize her from afar.

That said, they’re both the same rank of Princess, which is below the boss-level Monster rank (Culverin Bear is technically Desumi’s boss). So it comes as a great and sudden shock when Bosslar gathers both ranks together to announce the creation of a new unit: one that will be lead by Desumi once she undergoes genetic merging with a Mountain Gorilla. She’s being promited to Monster…and all Monsters were once humans.

The downright strange ramifications of these are too simply much to go into in this brief recap, but suffice it to say I love how the show went there, and simultaneously treats it as a goofy joke and also deadly serious when it comes to Desumi. We also go in-depth into her family life as they call to congratulate her. But Desumi doesn’t want to be a monster. She wants to be a girl…Fudou’s girl.

All it takes is answering her phone in her native Hakata dialect for Fudou to sense something’s up, and like the Perfect Boyfriend he is, rushes right over to meet her on her roof. She asks him what he thinks she should do, but he tells her it doesn’t matter; she should do what she wants. He’s been with her long enough to know that while there’s no one kinder than her, she needs to turn that kindness inward more.

Desumi doesn’t want to be irrevocably transformed into an eldritch abomination, and never did, so she turns it down. Instead, she informs Bear that she got a tip (from Fudou) that Gelato would be doing test runs in part of the tokusatsu mech Gelato Robo. The Bear, Steel, and Beast and their underlings thus don beachwear and stake the place out. On the Robo Submarine, Misaki and Haru are also in a beachy mood.

In a brilliant sequence of misunderstandings about what she’s watching, Beast, whose real name is Majima Kiki, witnesses Desumi emerge from their hiding spot to take Red Gelato on, bury him in the sand to torture him (actually just for fun), smash his head in (actually a watermelon), and infiltrate the enemy (going to say Hi to Haru and meet Misaki). Because she’s not wearing her usual getup, no one knows she’s Reaper Princess.

Instead, Misaki simply realizes the truth: whoever this Desumi is, she and Fudou are dating, and she’s made Fudou a better and more open person. It’s probably the first time Desumi has been told she’s had a positive impact on Fudou, since she is usually fixated on the positive impact he’s had on her.

After some barbecue, fireworks, and sparklers, Big Gelato prepares to fire the big finale, but accidentally closes one of the missile hatches. Kiki, who had been being chased by Blue Gelato (who is apparently a cad) the whole time, witnesses the resulting explosion just as Desumi is rejoining her, laughing the whole time.

Of course, Kiki mistakes Reaper’s giddy laughter over what a fun day at the beach she’s had as sadistic pleasure in the wake of the destruction of the Gelato submarine. Desumi’s true superpower seems to be tremendously good luck, such that she doesn’t even have to hide how she acts and feels; her comrades will simply assume something else entirely.

Fabiniku – 01 (First Impressions) – Old Pal-idigm Shift

Life with an Ordinary Guy Who Reincarnated into a Total Fantasy Knockout is a stupendously ludicrous title; honestly, even my horribly punny title would be better. Fortunately, the show seems to be far more clever and engaging than its name, and it all comes down to its nucleus of two old friends.

Ordinary but horny Tachibana Hinata and hot but woman-averse Jinguugi Tsukasa aren’t friends because they’re similar—they couldn’t be more different—but the fact of the matter is they’ve been friends for 25 of their 32 years, and you can feel that history in the way they act.

A combination of a typical night of drinking and the classic tongue-in-cheek serious-voiced narrator gives us the skinny on their attributes and internal thoughts about one another. Tachibana is trying to get Jinguuji married off, while Jinguuji is fine being with Tachibana forever.

The mixer they attend goes poorly for Tachibana as usual (all the women gave Jinguuji their contact info) and he gets so drunk he’s face down in the park wishing he could be a beautiful woman whom everyone fawned over. Then an exhibitionist goddess makes it happen!

Just like that, Tachibana and Jinguuji find themselves in a strange forest in the daytime. More concerning, Tachibana’s body melts into green goo than reconstitutes into the body of a petite blonde beauty (with very sharp teeth!) voiced by MAO.

As Tachibana so eloquently puts it, she’s gained stuff up top and lost stuff down below, but her speech patterns and mannerisms are still the same old Tachibana Jinguuji knows…and she’s honest, loves, either in the same way as the friends played by Jonah Hill and Michael Cera in Superbad, or something more romantic in nature.

It’s not even that much in doubt that at least part of Tachibana feels the same way…and that’s before they insult and anger the naked Goddess of Love and Beauty while she’s trying to give them their mission to save the world that she casts some kind of mysterious curse on them.

The immediate effect of this curse seems to be that Tachibana and Jinguuji suddenly find each other even more attractive, something neither one wants the other to get wind of. Their brains simply are too used to each other as best mates to properly process what their hearts are doing.

To their credit, neither one immediately dismisses their feelings as a direct result of the curse. Maybe the curse increased their affection for one another, but it was always there. Only now Tachibana is a woman, and because she is still fundamentally Tachibana, she also happens to be the only woman the distrustful-of-women Tachibana could ever fall for.

This results in a Love is War style battle of wills, with the two trying to get the other to admit their attraction. As the the one with the cute girl’s body, Tachibana goes on the offensive, only to find Jinguuji irresistible simply by being Jinguuji.

Meanwhile, Jinguuji hides his outsized reactions behind his usual stoic calm—a skill well-honed throughout the years staving off all those women who fancied him. He’s never thought about his type, but now he knows it, and it’s his best friend in a girl’s body.

As the two struggle with their new reality, a seemingly harmless and cute-looking fluffy white bunny thing interrupts. No sooner do they call it cute than its face unfurls reveal a grotesque monster. Suddenly survival mode overrides scoring flirting points against one another.

Jinguuji instinctively gathers his suddenly much smaller, lighter, and pleasant-smelling best friend in a princess cary and shows off the fruits of leg day. The two fall down a cliff, enabling the monster to catch up, but rather than continue running, Jinguuji decides to make a stand. He never let some woman take away his best friend, and he’s certainly not about to let some nightmare-faced Gossamer do it!

That’s when he punches the monster right in its core, quite unexpectedly creating a huge hole in said monster’s body. Turns out while he doesn’t look any different, Jinguuji is actually a Level 70 badass. Yes, it’s revealed this world has RPG-style menu screens that pop up in front of one’s face.

Tachibana is a Level 1 Hero, by the way, making Jinguuji her ideal trusty knight. As for their castle, Jinguuji is able to summon what looks like the door to a modern Japanese apartment with one of his active skills; the proverbial rest and save point.

While all the isekai and RPG trappings and their quest to defeat the Demon Lord are sure to play a larger role as our two best friends continue to explore their new lives (and meet more people), I hope the focus remains on how the bond between those two old friends continues to morph and evolve due to a very new and unexpected development.