To Your Eternity – S2 18 – Bringing Out the Deathless

March is just a hair too late to reunite with her “child”, as all of Fushi’s vessels are stolen from the Nokker in Kahaku’s arm. When he chops that arm off, it escapes and runs off, leaving a distraught Kahaku, March…and Horse. So what now? March gets on Horsey and rides to find a doctor.

Her path takes her through swarms of Nokkers overruning the city and its defenses, which are now crippled because there’s no Fushi to repair structures or replenish ammo. The three immortal warriors are also out of commission. All hell is breaking loose. But March does manage to attract Bon’s attention. He comes to Booze Man’s house, and is soon follow by Eko, who recovers Fushi in orb form, still attacked to the city.

Bon believes the only way to bring Fushi back is to remind him of the sights, sounds, and smells of the ones he absorbed, since there’s still something of them within him in that orb. He achieves this by stabbing himself, dying, and becoming one of the ghosts that once haunted him. Then he, Gugu, and all the other dead vessels place their ghost hands on the orb, in hopes of bringing him back.

That resurrection can’t come soon enough, as Renril has been all but lost to the relentless Nokkers, who as we know are determined to “free” every person on earth from their physical bodies. A desperate fight outside the hospital ends with Kamu getting smashed by a Nokker ball, then Sera getting arrows in the back from what appear to be Nokker-controlled metal puppets.

Eko, who has a Nokker infecting her arm, spends a good deal of the final third of the episode preparing to leap off the tower (a scene foretold in the OP), but that arm stops her fall, and from it emerges Fushi’s head, this time with those purple eyes Bon bestowed upon him way back when. I am not entirely sure what is going on, but it definitely was a lot, and I can only hope that the fortunes of Fushi, his friends, allies, and the people of Renril will improve when all’s said and done.

To Your Eternity – S2 17 – No Exit

When Fushi spots March’s tiny handprint on the wall, indicating that she’s alright, he recreates her body and disconnects it, just as he does for the three immortal warriors. The body doesn’t come to life because March is still alive somewhere in the city. Fushi just doesn’t know that. No one does.

Hylo faces a moral crisis of sorts when he encounters a thief breaking evac protocols. The old man doesn’t care about consequences, he was born and raised in prison and never had a roof of his own under his head. Hylo lets him go, but that same thief ends up killing a young boy when he robs a house. Is he damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t?

The biggest blow to the immortal allies, however, is Messar. He arrives at the palace to find Alme mourning the death of her father the king. Then she runs to the nearest balcony to jump off, and he catches her. He lifts her veil to reveal she’s become infected by Nokkers. He’s forced to kill her, then asks Fushi to bring her back to life. He produces a copy of Alme’s body, but there’s no sign of life.

Being asked to bring Alme back reinforces Fushi’s suspicion that Bon, who gathered the three allies, is keeping something from him (which is true!). That’s confirmed when Bon says he can’t discuss it until the battle is over and won. He won’t talk about it, just as he hasn’t brought it up ever, because he doesn’t want to shoulder Fushi with yet one more thing.

And yet, in the closing hours of this, just the fourth day of the Battle of Renril, the weight Fushi already carries threatens to crush him. His nose is almost always bleeding, forcing him to shift from one vessel to another constantly. Kahaku frees himself (by killing Kai), then accidentally kills the three when they resurrect at the Booze Man’s house for dinner.

Fushi initially says he wants “a breather”, but then confides in Kahaku that he wants this al to end. The constant death, pain, anxiety, and creeping  defeat as the Nokkers continue their relentless advance—it’s all too much. Kahaku says he’ll help Fushi, but then his left arm suddenly goes berserk, tearing and slashing at Fushi’s vessels one by one.

In the midst of this, the March he unknowingly resurrected bursts through the door, having been brought there by Horse. She scuffles with Kahaku and his arm, begging him not to kill Fu-chan. His mother, the one who named him two centuries ago, is finally here. Will she be able to save him not just from this assault, but his own feelings of despair and futility?

The Quintessential Quintuplets Movie – His and Her and Their Circumstances

In the prologue, Uesugi Fuutarou is in a wedding tux, summoned by the bride, only to find five identical brides: the Nakano quintuplets. Polygamy is as illegal in Japan as it is in the states, so what exactly is up here? Rewind to the eve of Fuu and the Quints’ final school festival. Fuu gathers them in a classroom and tells them he likes…all of them. However, he realizes he owes one of them an answer, and she’ll get that answer, at the end of the festival.

From there the narrative takes a non-linear approach, starting by showing each of the five sisters alone at the end of the third day, followed by an account of the festival from each of their points of view. Ichika, Nino, Miku, Yotsuba, and Itsuki all get some quality time with Fuu, and all of them (except Itsuki) manage to steal a kiss from him. During the festival, each sister steps forward.

Ichika with her acting career; Nino with her resentment of their distant doctor dad;  Miku learns to be confident and assertive and mend fences between boy and girl classmates, and vows to go to cooking school; Yotsuba learns that sometimes she can be the one being helped rather than always helping; Itsuki rejects their asshole biological father who can’t even tell them apart, and embraces her dream of becoming a teacher like her mother.

Each of these segments represent both a summing-up and resolution to each of the girls’ arcs and points them forward. Indeed, each could have been its own episode in a third season. But when we come to the end of the third day and the movie throws every misdirection it can on who Fuu will go to, he ends up choosing…Yotsuba.

Yotsuba was “Reina”, the first sister Fuu met, and together they shared one of the happiest and most fun days of their young lives. But Yotsuba initially rejects Fuu, and it’s not him, it’s her who feels unworthy. The movie digs deep into Yotsuba’s past as the maverick of the quintet, the first one to differentiate her hairstyle with her green rabbit ribbon.

Yotsuba wanted to stand out from the crowd and be useful; this we know. But in trying to do so by joining (and excelling) at every club at school, she ended up flunking her exams, having to repeat her grade. When her father told her she’d be transferring to another school, the other four sisters said in no uncertain terms where she goes, they go.

Yotsuba runs from Fuu and his confession because she doesn’t feel she deserves to be “the special one” after trying to be just that in the past caused so many problems for her family. And yet, Yotsuba’s independent spirit was bolster by her meeting with Fuu, who like her wanted to work hard to become someone who was needed.

Even after calling herself “the best of the sisters”, the others had her back when she thought she’d cast away to be alone. When Fuu stumbles and falls and grabs Yotsuba’s ankle when he turns around to check on him, he tells her how much that day with her shaped him into the Fuutarou he is today. He chose her, he loves her, because she is special in that way to him. And when he asks directly, she can’t lie, she loves him too. She always has.

But just because Fuutarou loves Yotsuba and Yotsuba loves Fuutarou doesn’t mean they’re on easy street. Each of her four sisters reacts to it in different ways that suit their personalities. Ichika accepts her loss to Yotsuba, and now knows how Nino felt when she said she’d support her sister even if Fuu chose someone else.

Miku sings karaoke with Yotsuba all night, admits it’s hard to let go of Fuu, but ultimately gives her her blessing. Nino is the toughest, as one would expect. Always regarded as the strongest and sternest sister, the one who cared for everyone, even her older sister Ichika. She initially feels betrayed by Yotsuba for hiding how she felt until Fuu made a choice.

As Fuutarou and Itsuki are talking in a dark classroom, they have to hide when Nino and Yotsuba walk in to hash it all out. Ultimately, Yotsuba accepts that Nino can’t accept matters, at least not yet. But Yotsuba also assures Nino she won’t lose. In this context, Nino tells both her and Fuu to be on their guards; she’ll be watching, and if there’s any sign their love is false, she’ll swoop in and steal Fuu away.

A litte bit later, Yotsuba and Fuutarou have their first official date together, and it’s as adorably awkward and sweet as you’d expect. Fuutarou puts a lot of thought into the structure of the date, first taking her to a family restaurant where his family went, then to a library where he always studies, and finally to the playground where the two of them had a happy memory.

After Yotsuba takes a huge leap off the swing, Fuu attempts the same and ends up breaking the chain and falling on his face. But he rises to one knee and pledges to become a man worthy of standing beside her, and proposes marriage without a ring…on their first date.

Yotsuba points out he’s skipped a lot of steps, and warns that just about any other woman would probably hit the road…except her. By proposing to her, Fuu helped her remember another dream of hers: to become a bride. So while they can’t get married right away, she accepts his proposal.

Five years later, Ichika arrives back in Japan from her new home in America, Nino and Miku run their own café, and Itsuki is a schoolteacher. Yotsuba meets her sisters there and is all sweaty from riding the bike, even though the marriage ceremony is later that day. Their bridal gift to her is their mother’s diamond earrings, but they have to pierce Yotsuba’s ears so she can wear them.

The earrings are a sign of their collective love for her and blessing for her marriage. The momentary pain of the piercings are a reminder of the initial collective pain they felt when Fuutarou chose Yotsuba over them. With time, that pain has subsided. In the end, the quintuplets stuck together.

This brings us to the prologue of the film, in which Fuutarou is faced with five identical brides. Only unlike their asshole biological dad, and like their real date (Dr. Nakano), Fuutarou has long since been able to tell the five sisters apart. Fuu correctly identifying the sisters one by one is intercut with Yotsuba’s reception speech, where she thanks the sisters she loves so much for helping her become the woman she is.

Fuutarou then walks down the aisle with Yotsuba and puts a ring on her finger, and hey presto, a question two seasons and a movie in the making is finally answered. It was Yotsuba all along; the one who wrongly felt least deserving or worthy of Fuutarou’s love and favor. I for one couldn’t be happier.

And when it comes time for the honeymoon, naturally Yotsuba’s four sisters decide they’re coming along (though hopefully in separate, non-adjacent rooms). The only question is where they should go. On the count of three, the five girls point to five different spots on the map, just as they did years ago for their graduation trip. For all the ways they’ve changed and grown, they remain quintessentially quintuplets, and I loved each and every one of them.

Tenten Kakumei – 06 – There’s Something About Lainie

This episode wisely doesn’t attempt to top last week’s action and romance-packed dragon-slaying thriller. Instead, it does a lot of heavy lifting, plot-wise. Now that she has dragon magicite, Magical Girl Anisphia heads to Tilty Claret’s manor in order to harness it for her purposes. Euphie knows Tilty only through her reputation, which is that she’s an unstable individual who performs dangerous magic.

It’s not surprising that after supporting Anis and essentially keeping her from getting killed in that intense battle, Euphie is determined to protect Euphie from any and all threats to her person. What she doesn’t understand is that Anis considers Tilty a kindred spirit; someone just as kooky and willing to push the magical envelope as she is.

Anis presents Tilty with a proposal for implanting the dragon magicite into her body, and Tilty approves it, while Euphie is justifiably weary. But Anis doesn’t consider the dragon’s curse to be a bad thing, but rather a valuable opportunity to gain esoteric magical knowledge and power.

That venture is briefly interrupted by the king, who summons Anis to the palace where she sees that her mother the queen has returned alive and well from her travels. We don’t get a great sense of their relationship, but for all Anis’ rough edges her mom does trust her intuition and value her opinion on the matter.

The queen and king ask Anis to join them for a meeting with Lady Lainie Cyan tomorrow, in order to get to the bottom of her brother Al’s annulment. Anis agrees, but in the meantime, she has Tilty give her a totally badass giant back tattoo. I mean, as if Anis wasn’t cool enough already!

From the information she has, Anis already has a hypothesis about Lainie’s whole deal, and reveals to Ilia that her new tattoo, made with dragon magicite ink, will serve as a “countermeasure” when she meets with Lainie tomorrow. She also wants Ilia to join her.

At the royal audience, everything goes down pretty much as Anis expected. The moment Lainie opens her mouth and delcares that she didn’t have strong feelings for Al had no intention to wreck the royal wedding, everyone present immediately sympathizes with her without any further questioning.

Everyone, that is, except Anis, who uses that good old line “kimochi warui” to describe how Lainies words affect her in the same moment they charmed everyone else into siding with her. She asks to speak to Lainie one-on-one in private. When Al’s ally Lord Chartreuse protests, she stands her ground, and her parents back her—a testament to their love and trust in her.

Once Anis is alone with Lainie (with Ilia there as a kind of control) she inspects her body, and confirms it: Lainie is unknowingly using magic, because she has magicite in her heart. Specifically, the magic of fascination. It works indiscriminately, such that most people instantly like her, which often causes conflict between those people.

While perhaps not quite as gentle and caring as she is towards Euphie, Anis nevertheless treats Lainie not as someone who has done anything wrong, but as someone who has been afflicted with what amounts to be a curse. It’s a curse that has served her well socially at times, but also led to her being bullied and abused at others.

Anis relays her conclusions to her mother and father, and her mother, clearly a pragmatic sort, immediately remarks upon the great threat to the nation someone with Lainie’s power poses, especially since she’s apparently unable to control it. Anis instead says she’ll take Lainie in … before remembering she already has a pretty assistant at her villa!

Indeed, while Lainie had no knowledge of her power and meant no harm, it already has caused Prince Algard to cancel his engagement with Euphie. Does that mean that the entire incident with him publically bashing her was nothing but the result of him being “fascinated” by Lainie’s innate magical power?

Well…no, at least not entirely. Prince Algard clearly has a plan, and Lord Chartreuse informs him that Anis has discovered Lainie’s little secret, he intends to accelerate his plans. Algard is particularly villain-like in the way he looks, talks, and is lit here, speaking of Anis’ “weaknesses” he can exploit—no doubt considering Euphie to be one of them.

Is Algard still operating under Lainie’s influence? Or is he well aware of her power and thus has a resistance to it, and is using Lainie as a useful pawn—a wife who will bring anyone and everyone to his (and his allies’) side? Also, he doesn’t seem to be in charge of this plan, but is himself a pawn of Chartreuse and others hoping to depose the king.

Be it a battle of wits or magic, I’ll put my money on Team Anisphila any day. But despite her immense intelligence, her love for her brother and the sense of security her powers lend her may be causing her to underestimate him and those using him. In other words, I believe she’ll need Euphie more than ever as things look primed to get uglier.

Saving 80,000 Gold in Another World – 03 – Swiss Army Mitsuha

With all of Mitsuha’s intricate preparations complete, all that’s left is to get chummy with the nobles of this world. When she’s stopped at the gates for lack of appointment or invitation, she improvises. She pretends to have been struck by the Count’s sons’ carriage, and they bring her right into the manor. This way, their first interaction is one in which they have done her wrong and owe her amends.

Once she’s “recovered”, Mitsuha formally introduces herself as “Mitsuha von Yamano” of the distant land of Japan. Her story is that she was separated from her traveling companions and her life was in danger, but she was saved by the people of this land. She offers a Swiss army knife of all things as a token of her gratitude, and her hosts are impressed by its craftsmanship.

That night she wows them with an evening gown and pearls, which while the cheaper cultured kind, are deemed so perfect by the Count’s wife Lady Iris that she goes on a tirade about how they can’t possibly exist in this world. She also meets the Count and Lady’s two sons and daughter, all younger than her, and explains the true reason she’s here was due to a succession dispute in her land.

Freed from that dispute, and from the titles and riches of her homeland, Mitsuha is determined to start over and make her own way by opening a general store in the capital. Mitsuha manages to appeal to Lady Iris by offering her “priceless” necklace because she reminds her of her own mother. She also tells them that all proper ladies in her country are trained in the “knife arts” and carry a blade on them at all times.

As the night goes on, Mitsuha continues to entertain her hosts over tea with her stories and ideas about how they can boost their flagging crops, her ambition on full display. The Count notes how it’s so fun chatting with her he’s lost track of time, and when she accidentally knocks over her cup, she’s suddenly reminded of a real interaction she had with her parents back when they were still alive. She realizes that she never truly wept for her lost family members, and finds herself unable to hold back genuine tears.

After how the interactions with her brother were happening in her head for mostly comedic and expositional purposes, it was surprisingly touching to see that this interaction with another family made her yearn for her own, and properly grieve them for the first time. And even though that wasn’t her intention, it only supported her calculated plan to gain the nobles’ trust and affection.

The next morning they send her off on a carriage to the capital with attendants with both the financial and moral support to get her empire started, with the understanding that she’ll always be welcome in their home. It’s a win-win-win situation for Mitusha “von Yamano”, and her future is looking bright!

Vinland Saga S2 – 02 – The Wheatgrass Is Always Greener

Ketil introduces Einar to his new best friend Thorfinn. He’s given them a forest to clear and eventually sow wheat, which he’ll buy at a fair price when harvested. Ketil estimates that if the two men work hard, they’ll have made enough money to buy their freedom. This sounds like a sweet deal, except that the forest they have to cut down is enormous, the labor is ruinous, and the retainers eat most of their paltry lunch.

The best-case-scenario of three years seeming unlikely with this caloric intake, Einar is furious by the bullying from the freemen, but Thorfinn takes it all in stride, clearly playing a long game. When Ketil rides past them at the end of his first day, Einar is ready to report the retainers’ stealing their food, but he’s distracted by a gorgeous woman with piercing blue eyes—presumably Ketil’s daughter.

The next day Einar watches Ketil pitching in for harvest work, which is odd because Einar didn’t think the rich dirtied their hands with manual labor. But it’s clear Ketil is proud of this place, and intends pass it along to his son Olmar. Unfortunately, Olmar is a lazy, spoiled brat with dreams of going to England and being a badass warrior.

We actually get a fair amount of Olmar screen time that softens his character’s plight, but only so far. He has a hissyfit when he realizes the tenant farmers’ daughter is only sleeping with him in hopes of gaining some of his father’s favor and fortune (she may genuinely like him, her parents are clearly using her).

The bottom line is that Einar is wrong about rich people not having any cares, and Olmar is taking his victimization way too far. I mean, all he needs to do is look around the farm to see people far worse off than him. And yet the fact he’s not on a battlefield covering himself in guts an glory like he wants means he doesn’t consider himself any more free than the slaves or retainers.

That night, Einar condemns Olmar’s desire to go to war when he has no idea what awaits him. Einar tells Thorfinn how the English armies pillaged his village and killed his father, then the Danes came, pillaged again, and killed the rest of his family. He condemns soldiers as nothing but beasts in human skin, unaware that his new best friend used to be one.

Thorfinn’s role this week is passive to the point of background character. That’s fine, but to what end? Do the fires burning in his memory mean he yearns to return to the battlefield? Or has he given up on any kind of glorious future and is content to wile away the last of his youth chopping wood and sowing seeds? If he is playing some kind of long game to get back into the thick of things, he’s keeping mum so far.

The Fire Hunter – 01 (First Impressions) – A Girl and Not Her Dog

Before any narration, we’re thrust right into a battle in the forest, or rather the end of one. A hunter has killed a great black beast to protect a girl named Touko, but at the cost of his own life. His last words are to tell Touko the name of his dog: Kanata, who is wounded. Touko takes the dog, the hunter’s sickle and warding stone back home to her village.

It’s then we learn that the people of this world no longer use naturally-occurring fire; to do so would cause them to spontaneously combust. The fire they use is sourced from the beasts killed by fire hunters. Touko is also living with neighbors after a fire tore through the tiny village. Touko’s “sister” Rin rejects her as cursed.

Neither Kanata nor the hunter’s effects are Touko’s to keep. She must take them back to his family in the capital. To travel there she must board the collection truck that comes periodically to the town twice a year. None of this would have happened if Touko hadn’t entered the black forest, but her adoptive mother knows Touko did it for her sake: to find medicine for her eyes partially burned by the fire.

I’m glad for the little moment of tenderness between Touko and her de facto mom. This is a harsh world where every seemingly innocuous action could carry disastrous consequences that can affect the entire village. Touko has a good heart—and clearly good luck—but is regarded as a burden by her adoptive sister Rin: an extra body taking up space; an extra mouth to feed.

The heavily-armored collection train arrives and sets up a two-day bazaar, the village comes to life. The day both it and Touko depart it’s raining heavily, adding to the brooding atmosphere. This is not just a quick trip to the big city. It’s a circuitous odyssey that will take Touko away from the only home she’s known for a minimum of two years, with no guarantee she’ll survive the myriad dangers along the way.

But when Touko is told about these risks—both in sugarcoated mode by the kindly Enji and in cold-hard-truth mode from his boss Sakuroku—Touko simply says, in her slightly trembling yet resolute voice (deftly provided by Kuno Misaki), that she’s ready to go. She goes up into the turret to watch her village and her family recede away, possibly never to see them again. Rin wears a mask—is it one last eff-you to Touko, or to conceal tears?

From here the story shifts to the capital Touko is heading to, where a young man named Koushi resides with his sister. Their mother has just passed away, poisoned by the toxic waste at the factory where she worked. Unlike the village that has basically regressed to ancient times, the capital is still in a semi-industrial state, but without fire disease and short lifespans are widespread.

If you like bleak yet meaty stories in beautiful environs, The Fire Hunter is for you, as it is for me. I was reminded of Attack on Titan, and especially the wonderful, and dark-as-hell From the New World. There’s a Girls’ Last Tour look to the capital. This is a fallen world, but the people endured, so it’s not all doom and gloom.

With a veteran cast led by Nishimura Junji and Oshii Mamoru, there’s a great sence of both competence and confidence in the story being told, while the visuals are stark yet lush. Whether the following episodes will chronicle Touko’s six-month journey to the capital, or fast-forwards to when she and Koushi meet, I’m excited to see where this goes.

Vinland Saga S2 – 01 – Living is Winning

After a thoroughly badass James Bond-style OP followed by a downright poetic sequence about carving “that warmth” into anything and everything, Vinland Saga’s second season settles in the idyllic home of Einar, who lives there with his little sister Lotta and their mother. He’s practicing hacking with an axe in case their home is attacked again (the last time claiming their father), but their mother tells her children that as long as they’re alive, they haven’t lost.

Things don’t go well for Einar’s family, as their home is burned and pillaged. When the three try to flee, the mother is felled by an arrow, and neither Einar nor Lotta are able to leave her behind and keep running. Instead they are paralyzed by the prospect of doing so. When Lotta is carried away she stabs her captor in the neck, and is killed for it. Einar is taken away to be sold as a slave.

After a passage from the Old Norse poem Hávamál equating one with no love in their life to a fir tree on a barren land, Einar is on a boat filled with other slaves, one of the women can’t stop coughing. Their captors determine she won’t survive, so they toss her overboard to drown. Einar protests, but his captors are as cruel and unreceptive to mercy as the brooding ocean waves that churn before him. Once ashore, he and the others are washed and fed and put on display in the market.

Einar tries to escape, fleeing to a farm and stealing some food, but is immediately re-caught and severely beaten as a message to the other slaves: There’s no escape. There’s no going home. In this world, it is better to be a slave and be fed for their work than a runaway beggar. The world is utterly uninterested in your welfare.

Our first familiar face appears at the market, when the slaver presents Einar to Leif. Leif isn’t interested, as he’s looking for his relative, Thorfinn. But before departing, he grabs Einar’s arm and apologizes. It’s the first time anyone has apologized to Einar since he lost his home and family. He envies the man Leif is looking for, since it means there’s someone in the world who still cares about him.

Eventually a farmer inspects Einar and agrees to buy him, and escorts him to his sprawling farm, which reminds Einar of the idyllic home that was destroyed and stolen from him—the home and the family he was trying to defend, but could not.

At this farm, Einar meets the “blonde, small” guy Leif was looking for: our boy Thorfinn, who is chopping trees at the border of the woods. He has the look of someone who is carrying on with the same determination Einar’s mother demanded: to survive, and live at any cost, is what it means to truly win.

It may not feel anything like winning to Thorfinn or Einar. Their wait has only just begun, and may end fruitlessly. But as long as their wait continues, and their hearts continue to pump blood, they still carry the potential to carve their mark into the world. Maybe they can help one another.

Spy x Family – 24 – Rebuilding the World

Annihilating Fiona in tennis proves not to be a cure-all for Yor’s replacement anxiety. It’s gotten to the point where Loid observes her walking into lampposts while muttering and the neighbors gossiping about adultery.

Taking her out for drinks only heightens Yor’s distress, as she assumes the bar to be the venue where he’ll officially declare he’ll be moving on with Fiona. That’s not what he’s planning to say, but before he can get a word in edgewise Yor champs her fancy cocktail and then chugs his scotch to soften a blow that will never come.

Once Yor’s lips have been sufficiently loosened by alcohol, her rants make Loid realize that this goes beyond her worrying about not being an adequate wife and mother, and passes into jealousy territory. Assuming Yor has developed romantic feelings for him, he turns on his practiced Twilight charm.

But while there’s definitely something to Yor feeling something for him, his advances are far to powerful, and her reduced inhibitions mean she has not problem kicking him in the chin and sending him flying. He manages to to a mid-air flip and land on his feet, but the kick landed, and Loid goes down.

He wakes up from a dream of his mother humming a lullaby to him to find his head in Yor’s lap as she sings the same tune (though with improvised lyrics). The mere fact her song reminded him of his mother, and of a time when he felt happy, safe and loved even in the midst of a terrible war, speaks to Yor’s latent skills.

When she says of course he’d want to move on from a “musclehead” like her, he recounts to her the story of his mother, and sees that same strength in her with Anya. While he, Nightfall, and the other spies have been working tirelessly to rebuild the world, Yor has already rebuilt it in their home: made a place where Anya feels safe, happy, and loved.

That’s why he’s honored to have Yor as a wife and mother, and has no intention of replacing her with Fiona. As for Yor, Yuri was once the only thing she cared about in the world, but now she can add her new family to that short list. It’s a home she and Loid built that she doesn’t want to leave anytime soon.

In the second half, Becky notices Anya watching Damian from afar and assumes she’s in love with the twerp. In reality, she’s trying to befriend him since eight Stella are out of the question. But Becky assumes she’s just being shy, and tells her the best way to get a man’s attention is by looking as good as possible.

To that end, Becky invites Anya on a shopping trip to a department store she rented out in its entirety. A shopping montage ensues, with Anya trying on increasingly avant-garde clothes and Becky cheering her on all the way even though she’s increasingly unsure what’s going on.

All this Fashion exhausts Anya, while Becky realizes that at the dorm party where they’ll be able to be out of uniform, she needs to come up with an ensemble to impress her darling Loid. Moving on from that, the girls keep shopping for shoes, glasses, accessories, and then have some tea and lunch at the store café.

When Anya appears colorless and says she’s near death, Becky asks her if she didn’t enjoy shopping with her. In response, Anya brightens up and assures Becky that she had tons of fun, as this was her first time shopping with a friend. Hearing Anya say “friend” really moves Becky.

As her maid and chaperone Martha drives the tuckered out girls home, we learn why that is: Becky had trouble making friends prior to enrolling at Eden. She came off as an arrogant bully and found socializing with commoners to be beneath her.

Considering her father runs one of the country’s largest conglomerates, it’s not surprising her to-the-manor-born upbringing caused this aloofness. Combine that with her precociousness, and Becky thought she had the entire world and everyone in it figured out before she turned eight.

It was Martha who told her the first step to being a true and proper adult is accepting that she didn’t know all there was to know about everything and everyone. Watching Becky interact with Anya, who may well be her first true friend just as she is Anya’s, Martha can see how far Becky has come since attending Eden and meeting Anya.

It warms her heart to see Becky with a real friend she can be herself with. That genuine happiness is more attractive than any couture outfit, as evidenced by Damian blushing when he sees Anya and Becky the next day, walking and laughing with their matching sheep keychains.

The Eminence in Shadow – 09 – Doing What They Must

It doesn’t take long for Sherry to tune the control unit, and she opens a hidden passage in a bookshelf to use the secret tunnels to get to where the artifact is so she can shut it down. She’s doing all of this for her father Ruslan, who took her in when her mother was brutally murdered.

She thanks Cid for all his help, and they go their separate ways. Once she reaches the balcony of the auditorium she finds out how bad things have gotten: the invaders are now simply picking off students for sport from above. Sherry wastes no time deactivating the anti-magic field, and when she does, Rose is ready.

Within seconds of getting her magic back, she slices the nearest invader to ribbons with a flourish of her drill-like ojou ringlets, and encourages everyone else to rise up and attack their captors; after all, they outnumber them. She tries to reach their armored boss man, whom even she isn’t sure she can defeat, but is soon surrounded and running low on magic.

Still, she fights on, confident others will fight if she dies, and eager to live up to the love Cid felt for her that led him to die for her. Things look dire until Shadow himself crashes through the ceiling and dispatches everyone around her. He’s not alone: his army of Shadows are with him, and mop up the invaders.

But the boss slips away, then hikes up the pressure of the oil lamps school-wide, causing an massive inferno. While I don’t hear a single cough from the ensuing smoke and flames, nor does anyone seem to be getting burnt by said flames … eh, whatever, maybe they’re special isekai flames.

The invader boss proceeds to start burning everything in Ruslan’s office, but Cid is there waiting for him, and knows who the boss is: Ruslan himself. Once he’d reached the absolute highest summit of swordsmanship, he became ill, and sought out a radical cure.

That’s how he ended up meeting Sherry’s mother. When she warned against using the artifact, Ruslan murdered her in a elaborate, grisly way, and while Sherry was present for that, it’s been established that she’s not very observant, and so never knew her adoptive father killed her mother.

Ruslan never gets into why he took the academy hostage, or why he set the academy on fire, but never mind, now that Cid’s there he’s not going to accomplish anything else. There’s a fun little fakeout when Cid lets Ruslan slash him right out the office window to his apparent death, only to reappear Batman-style in his Shadow form.

Ruslan fuses with the artifact in order to augment his power—as one does—but as you’d suspect, fighting him is still child’s play to Mr. Atomic, who doesn’t really have to break a sweat parrying his opponents’ lightning-fast fusillade of attacks.

When Cid has had enough, he ends Ruslan’s life in the exact same grisly way he ended Sherry’s mom’s … and just like that traumatic event, Sherry arrives just in time to witness a parent’s demise. Shadow departs as she screams out in anguish, not having the heart to tell her who Ruslan is and why he deserved this end. Knowing how much her dad meant to her, she most likely wouldn’t have believed him anyway.

While Ruslan was as two-dimensionally eeeevil as villains come (why else hire Oostsuka Houchuu to voice him?), he was never anything but a loving, supportive father to Sherry, and I was devastated watching her experience a repeat of her mother’s death. No one should have to face that. And now she’s an orphan again.

At the same time, I don’t blame Cid, because he did what he had to do. Even though Ruslan promised him that he arranged things so the real Shadow Garden would be framed for this entire terrorist attack, he shrugs that off. He never claimed he and his garden were walking the path of righteousness, but nor do they walk the path of evil.

Instead, they walk their own path. This comes as news to Alpha, who thought they were being righteous, but accepts Cid’s interpretation without hesitation, as does the rest of the organization. If Shadow is now the number one most hated and wanted fugitive in the kingdom, so be it—they’ll continue to do what they must.

As for poor Sherry, she and Cid share a muted farewell scene where she regrets not getting to know him better before heading abroad to a prestigious research institute. Before they part, perhaps forever, Cid asks her what she thinks she needs to do. A kaleidoscope of emotions fall over Sherry’s face as she’s momentarily unable to hide her emotions with a sad smile.

But she won’t tell Cid; it’s a secret. Does she, unlike so many others, know Cid and Shadow are the same person, and thus Cid is the one who killed her father? If that’s the case, is she going abroad in order to plan her revenge against him, or simply to start the next phase of her life as a researcher? It’s pretty ambiguous, and I like that.

Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War – 07 – Night of Fallen Souls

The last battle between the Gotei 13 and the Quincy looked a lot like the current one, only in reverse. Yamamoto’s thirteen captains back then were vicious, savage killers who made quick work of the Quincy … yet Yamamoto wasn’t able to take Yhwach’s life.

That day of slaughter is memorialized in a painting in Yamamoto’s dojo, as seen by a young Shunsui. Yamamoto warned Shunsui that if the subject of the painting ever returned to Soul Society it would be a dark day indeed. And so it is, with Yamamoto being sliced in half by the real Yhwach after expending all his energy fighting a fake one.

With the Head Captain defeated, Yhwach orders the Stern Ritter to summon their foot soldiers to complete the slaughter of shinigami. The soldiers meet little resistance, mowing down their opponents with east and leaving Soul Society dark, burning, and drenched in blood.

It would appear Yhwach and the Quincy have had their revenge, but after being unable to simply stand by and watch countless lights of souls in Soul Society wink out, Ichigo manages to power his way out of Quilge’s prison and completes his journey through the Garganta.

The first Quincy to encounter him falls quickly by his sword, but before engaging Yhwach, Ichigo pays a visit to Kuchiki Byakuya. Before the sixth captain dies, he takes solace in knowing Rukia and Renji are still alive, and asks Ichigo for a final favor: protect Soul Society—what’s left of it, that is.

Yhwach is surprised but not totally shocked to see Ichigo before him, having defeated Quilge’s prison. It only reinforces the fact that Kurosaki is one of the five special threats that stand in the way of total victory over Soul Society. Ichigo, meanwhile, is already bloodied and battered and not in the best shape to face off against the Quincy king.

That said, he still puts up a hell of a fight, even if Yhwach is likely holding back from killing him. Their ensuing battle is nothing like the flame-wreathed inferno of Yamamoto vs. Yhwach. Things get downright 2001 trippy with the colors and patterns created by the sheer force of their attacks upon one another. But in the end, Yhwach puts his blade in Ichigo’s throat.

Confident he’s disabled but not killed Ichigo, Yhwach prepares to take him back to their realm so that he can revive him and turn him to his side, But he encounters another surprise: Ichigo is still conscious, Yhwach’s stunning strike blocked by a Quincy technique: Blut Vene.

Yhwach surmises that Ichigo’s persistent contact with Quilge’s prison when he busted himself out caused the Quincy’s spiritual pressure to mix with Ichigo’s, enabling him to unconsciously use the Blut to save himself. Yhwach takes off the kid gloves and surrounds and restrains Ichigo with rocks.

But then, just like that, he gives the order to withdraw. It isn’t a retreat, merely a break in the invasion that will be resumed again soon. The Quincy have only a limited timespan in which they are able to function outside of their realm, and that time comes sooner than Yhwach expected due to a little illusory fuckery from his brief encounter with Aizen.

Speaking of fuckery, Yhwach gives Ichigo something to chew on while heals up and awaits his return: the fact that he’s … a Quincy? Or, at least, possesses Quincy blood. It’s why Yhwach hesitates to refer to himself as Ichigo’s “enemy”—as far as he’s concerned, Ichigo is family: a prodigal son to be brought back into the fold. But something tells me Ichigo won’t be going quietly.

Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury – 07 – Gundam Startup

Witch from Mercury has it’s duels down—they’re exciting, fun, dynamic, and pack a punch. But after another episode where not a single character sets foot in a cockpit, I’d argue Mercury’s secret sauce is everything other than the mobile suit duels: the inter-family conflicts and political and economic wrangling. This week it goes full Succession, with a hint of Silicon Valley.

Mine was content not going to the 15th Annual Benerit Group Incubation Event Party, either as a representative of the Rembrans nor as an observer of venture capialist strategies (she’s found past events dull and dusty affairs). But Suletta wants to go in case Elan shows up, so they go.

Suletta hasn’t seen nor heard from Elan since their duel and his standing her up (we know why) and as expected, the death of his clone and the existence of a real, jerk-ass Elan is kept a secret from her. With Elan’s new clone “not ready” yet, the Peil CEOs have a task for the real Elan.

This is a formal event, so Miorine and Suletta are dressed to the nines in elegant blue and red gowns. Suletta learns that Mine and Shaddiq have known each other for years, and from his reckoning, Mine has changed into someone who does things for others’ sakes now. Miorine meets her future mom-in-law face-to-er…mask.

It gets a little awkward when Prospera tightens her grip on Mine’s hand and asks her fiancée if she and her father have always been at odds like that. Prospera then lists all the things Miorine has and can and will be able to do because she’s her father’s daughter, and warns Mine that she’ll have to throw away “that adorable pride” if she truly wants to get anywhere.

When Suletta drops some glasses and her broach, Guel’s brother sneers at the fact his brother fell for such an “oafish woman”. But it’s real-deal Elan who helps Suletta out. Elan plays a more cheerful version of his clone as he explains away his extended absence, then asks if he’ll come with her for an impending presentation.

(We also learn that Shaddiq is in discrete contact with Nika of all people … not sure what that’s about, but it suggests Nika is leaking intel to him. To be continued…)

This is when the scheme that had been cooked up by Peil and Jeturk comes to fruition. Suletta ends up in a trap, answering questions from the four Peil CEOs that end up incriminating Aerial as a Gundam, since the Peils freely admit that Pharact is also a Gundam.

Whether Suletta was aware of this doesn’t change the fact that Gundams are forbidden. So Peil agrees they’ll dispose of their Gundam if their upstart rival from Mercury does the same and disposes of Aerial. Literally in the spotlight, Suletta calls out for her mom to clear up this misunderstanding, but Prospera was drawn outside of the presentation area by Guel’s brother.

With Suletta in the hot seat, what composure she has fading fast, and Delling about to render his judgment, Miorine steps up to protect her fiancee. Having hacked the PA, she takes the stage and argues for keeping Aerial around, as it defeated the best both Peil and Jeturk could develop.

Miorine then gets to show off her skills as a businesswoman by coming up with a business plan on the fly with hand-written notes that will salvage both the Peil research and the Aerial. Her intention is to purchase both Peil and Shin Sei’s developments through M&A and create a new company called GUND-ARM, with the protection of life as top priority.

This, she says, will be the spark that reignites Benerit Group’s flagging profitability. It’s a decent plan, especially considering how rapidly it was put together, and it also diverts attention away from Suletta while demonstrating that Miorine can protect her in her own way.

The only problem is, none of the assembled investors dare make a move to fund Miorine’s venture without the okay from her father, who bluntly tells her to get off the stage as he’s through indulging a willful girl’s whims. While Suletta stood up straight unbidden because she remembered Mine’s words, this time it’s Miorine who hears Prospera’s words about ditching her “adorable pride.”

Realizing what she must do to get funding moving, Miorine kicks off her heels and runs barefoot to her father, bows deeply, and asks him for his support. Delling knows it’s a good business plan that solves a lot of problems and could spell bigger profits, and now his daughter is essentially prostrating herself to show him the deference he believes he’s due.

Delling warns Miorine there’s no shaking the “curse” of Gundams once they’re out of the box, but he still contributes a 3% contribution to her plan. Once Rembran is officially in, the floodgates open and within seconds the plan is successfully funded.

Now not only have Peil and Jeturk lost on the battlefield to the power couple of Suletta and Miorine, they’ve also lost in the boardroom, their gambit foiled as Mine outmaneuvered her by using the tools at her disposal, while also preserving Suletta’s dignity by preventing her innocent words from condemning Shin Sei. Jeturk’s brother can only twist his hair in frustration at the loss.

Lady Prospera once again shakes hands with her future daughter-in-law, knowing Suletta is in good hands. Suletta uses this opportunty to ask her mom to confirm that Aerial isn’t a Gundam, to which Prospera says, no, actually, Aerial is a Gundam, teehee! It may only be a matter of semantics, but this casual revelation hits Suletta like a ton of bricks.

Why, for example, has Suletta never felt any physical or mental ill effects from pushing Aerial—a Gundam—to its limits? Is it simply a matter of her and the Aerial having “grown up” together, or her having just the right collection of genes to prevent damage … or is something more sinister at work? If her mother kept this from her, what else is she concealing?

While these are enticing questions going forward, I really enjoyed the show’s break from piloting and duels in favor of the weapons of the upper crust business battlefield: evening gowns, flowcharts, fancy lighting, funding apps, and, of course, words. This was Miorine’s time to shine and she did not disappoint.

Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury – 06 – Scaling the Wall

Lady Prospera has a chilly reunion with her former Vanadis colleague, Bel, AKA Belmeria Winston, who says she had little choice but to join Peil Group in order to survive after the punitive assault on their facility years ago. She asks Prospera why she’s using her daughter as an instrument of revent, but Bel retorts by asking “how many” Gundam pilots there have been before Elan.

While Earth House reconsiders their opinion on Elan in light of his treatment of their new housemate, Guel is thrown out of House Jeturk and cut off from all but the remaining school tuition. He leaves with his head held high, having done what he (and I believed) to be the right thing in standing up for Suletta. She and Elan meet for pre-duel formalities, but she has yet to decide her stakes.

Earth House know theirs: the 2.7-to-1 odds they’ll enjoy if Suletta wins. Led by Nana’s cautiously-can-do attitude, they scrounge around scrap and spare parts to cobble together a flight unit for Aerial. I can only imagine Suletta’s mom didn’t provide her such a unit because she was confident her daughter would make the necessary connections.

Meanwhile, Elan undergoes more lonely testing and his blurry recurring image of a candle is interrupted by a surprise visitor in Elan … the real Elan Ceres. He’s every bit the smug, privileged aristocrat you’d imagine would be heading up Peil House, and is the rightful recipient of a future face-punch from Chuchu, Miorine, and/or even Suletta herself.

The “Elan” we’ve known thus far is no villain, only a pawn and victim, though he apparently volunteered for this with the promise he’d get his “face” back and a citizens ID should he prevail. I suspect the memories of his past life have been subordinated by the Permet conditioning.

During flight testing out in open space, Suletta is down in the dumps, feeling dumb and annoying after Elan’s hurtful words. Miorine is out there assisting with Nana, and gives her bridegroom a bit of tough love, as well as reflect back Suletta’s “move forward, gain two” credo.

Suletta snaps out of it and gets back to testing, then afterwards visits Peil House insisting to speak to Elan. She’s put over house-wide loudspeakers calling out to Elan, asking if he meant everything he said, and then singing him “Happy Birthday.” He only calls her to tell her to go home, saying he has no birthday. But we know better; her singing briefly brought his hazy memory into focus.

But the die is cast, and the next day the duel unfolds as planned, with Suletta announcing that her stake is that if she wins, Elan has to tell her all about himself. This further rankles an Elan already understandably frustrated by his lot in life; from his perspective he has absolutely nothing, while Suletta has everything, and yet still wants more from him, and won’t let him have this victory.

A thrilling space battle ensues, with both Aerial and Pharact’s Bit Control Systems dueling, and the latter suit’s superior mobility creating a long-range disadvantage for Suletta and her jury-rigged unit. Once again the corporate bigwigs—in this case Peil—arranged for unfair conditions. Perhaps they know that they need every edge they can get against Suletta and Aerial.

The entire school is watching, including Guel from his new home—a tent in the woods (I’ll admit to laughing out loud as this uncommented-on development, and part of me hoped Shimarin or Honda Tooru would show up). It looks bad for Suletta, but she has an advantage Elan doesn’t: time.

Elan has to continually up his Permet Score to maintain his edge, which takes a toll on his already depleted body. He even predicted this would be his last duel, judging from Bel’s reports on his testing. He and Suletta trade flurries of beams, and the latter’s flight suit is damaged.

Now a drifting sitting duck, Pharact’s Bits prepare to envelop Aerial as they did Guel last week, but in a development that may even come as a surprise to Suletta, an emergency defense system is activated that neutralizes the Bits and Pharact. The laughter of children can be heard as Aerial’s Bits form a spinning ring around her and then blast Pharact to hell.

Suletta has won, her house has more than doubled their money, which means they eat next month, and Miorine doesn’t have to worry about Elan becoming the Holder and her new groom. Elan drifts in defeat, but his memory finally comes into focus: a mother, his real mother, with loving eyes, presenting him with a birthday cake.

The light of the candle becomes the light of the glowing debris as Suletta stretches out her hand for him, and he takes it. As they drift together in the void, she assures him he doesn’t have nothing, and she and many others will celebrate his birthday.

As Elan flashes perhaps his first genuine smile, Miorine sits in the repair pod with Nana and endures this bit of “minor two-timing”, which extends to a second date for Suletta and Elan, so he can fulfill the stakes of the duel. Miorine leaves Suletta to await his arrival, but the clock ticks by and he doesn’t show.

Suletta cheerfully sings “Happy Birthday” once more as she waits, but she waits in vain. Elan isn’t standing her up; the Peil bigwigs have decided to scrap him. He was never anything other than a disposable tool for them, and with his failure to gain Aerial he’s no longer of any use to them. That they unceremoniously stick him in what looks like a goddamn sci-fi cremation furnace while he’s fully freaking conscious seems inhumane to the extreme.

Just as they did with new Yuru Camp cast member Guel Jeturk, Gundam successfully rehabilitated Elan’s character into someone with whom we could sympathize and root for. Unfortunately, it looks like we’ll also have to grieve for him. Will the real Elan replace him in both the cockpit and at school, or will it be another “spare” with his face? Either way, Suletta’s victory is tempered by a bitter loss; the latest casualty in this corporatocracy’s unrelenting thirst for profits.