Gushing over Magical Girls – 04 – The Naked Truth

Utena’s constant tilts against Tres Magia (most recently an aerial slime-fest) are having a negative impact on her grades. She was probably never top-ranked in academics, but now she’s simpy too horny to study properly, even if she had the time. Her mom threatens to throw out all her magical girl stuff if she fails a make-up test.

Yet even though Utena fully intends to go home and study, she spots Magenta with a crowd of admirers and surrounded by signs practically begging Magia Baiser to attack her. Utena can’t resist, and ends up using a swarm of scissor monsters to slash away all of Magenta’s clothes, scandalizing the witnesses.

While she made the interaction brief, Utena can’t get naked Magenta out of her head. Venalita also remarks that he’s observed her not studying and simply looking at BDSM magazines, so she might as well head back out for another Tres Magia fix. He also implies he’ll leave the mags out for Utena’s mom to find if she doesn’t.

Utena does the exact same thing to Magenta, but this time, Megenta is wearing pasties on her breasts and crotch. For a little while, at least, she doesn’t display any embarrassment, as the “important bits” are covered. Her resolve falters when some of her fans start snapping picks, but she tries to fight through it, resulting in her ending up on top of Utena, whose nose is bleeding profusely.

When Sayo and Kaoruko find Magenta in this state, Sayo is extremely curious to know what exactly Baiser did to her and how horrible it was, which suggests she’s somewhat upset she missed out on the action and has come to actually enjoy Baiser’s treatment. Kaoruko seems to be picking up on this too.

The fact that Azure is becoming less and less effective in battle and Magenta is resorting to near-nudity to fight Baiser speaks to how Venalita and Enormita seem to be winning the war to corrupt Tres Magia. Haruka isn’t even sure Baiser is trying to defeat them, since every time she has them where she wants them she flees into her dark portal.

The third Tres Magia member, the foul-mouthed Kaoruko, isn’t the goody-two-shoes her partners are. If anything, she’d make a more appropriate bad guy! That much is clear when Haruka invites Utena to join them for lunch and Kiwi explodes, accuses her of trying to steal Utena.

Kaoruko provokes Kiwi into a nasty bout of trash talk that makes everyone else uncomfortable. It’s incidents like these that make it very hard to suspend disbelief these five aren’t at least little aware of their magical alter egos.

We also see that Kaoruko hates all of the PR stuff like photo shoots Tres Magia has to do, booked by their good Kyuubey, Vatz. Her smiles in these shots are forced, because to tell it like she would, she’s fuckin’ frustrated with Baiser and Leo continually splitting before finishing what they started. When a civilian accidentally backs their car into one of the magical barrier devices at the studio, Baiser and Leo are there once more.

We learn from Vatz that Venalita was once good but went to the dark side. Kaoruko uses her own barrier magic to deflect Leo’s bombardment, and when Vatz tells her the sponsors won’t like her using her fists, Kaoruko’s response is delicious and very un-magical girl-like: “Who gives a fuck about our sponsors?!”

Kaoruko wants a knock-down, drag out fight, so she unleashes her giant fists and lets the baddies have it. Much to her delight, Baiser being attacked and having bits of her outfit torn off only seems to make her happier and more excited to wipe the smug look off Sulfur’s face. Sulfur’s reply is basically “Bring it, bitch!”

In the end, Baiser and Leo gain the upper hand in the battle and flee once more. But Sayo (who was once again strung up by vines), Kaoruko, and even Haruka all have a look of satisfaction. Kaoruko got the fight she wanted for once, and is no doubt looking forward to the next one. Thanks to Kiwi being a straight-A student and helping Utena scrape by in her make-up test, she’ll get that next fight soon.

Gushing over Magical Girls – 03 – Bad Friends Forever

Venalita takes Utena to a dark dimension where Enormita HQ is located, and its imposing geometric form is sufficiently cool for the bad guys’ lair. There she meets her first comrade, Araga Kiwi (Koga Aoi), who joined right before she was forced to join. Kiwi hates the Tres Magia, watched Utena’s battle against Sulfur, and is curious why she looked so happy after getting her ass kicked.

Wondering if it might be weakness, Kiwi tests Utena by initiating a battle as Magia Leoparde. Utena is able to dodge Kiwi’s giant gun fusillade attack and encase her in a light bulb monster. After zapping her a couple of times, she explains that she was smiling because seeing new sides of Tres Magia as she bullies them makes her ridiculously happy.

Perhaps throwing stones in glass bulbs, Kiwi, who as Leoparde eschews pants or a skirt for a skimpy thong, declares Utena a “fucking lunatic.” She’s insanely jealous everyone thinks Tres Magia are so cute. But after she  gets sufficiently zapped, Utena gently pulls her into a hug and declares her, right now, to be the cutest girl in the whole entire world.

Those are the words Kiwi has always longed to hear, so the next day, she transfers to Utena’s school and lovingly tackles her on site (interrupting an interaction with Haruka). Utena is her first friend, and she is Utena’s. Kiwi meets up with her on the weekend on what she deems to be a first date. It’s here we learn how Kiwi, obsessed with beating Tres Magia, was about to post racy photos of herself online when Venalita invited her to Enormita.

When Kiwi activates both her and Utena’s transformation stars, Tres Magia arrives, and Kiwi picks a fight with the similarly hot-headed Sulfur. Magenta backs Sulfur up, leaving Azure/Sayo alone with Utena again. Sayo loses her composure by anticipating what Baiser will do to her next, which turns out to be tying her up with vines and playing with her breasts. As Venalita hoped, Utena is discovering more and more depraved things to do by the day.

Utena ends up sacrificing an Azure figure as a decoy to rescue Kiwi and escape together. Kiwi apologizes for making her use the figure she just bought, but Utena says she’s just glad Kiwi is okay, and smiles at her so brightly Kiwi begs her for a kiss. Yep, by first dominating, then praising then saving her, Utena has caused Kiwi to fall head-over-heels in love with her, to the point where she’s dragging her towards a love hotel.

If nothing else, a kind of balance has now been struck between the punishment Utena doles out for pleasure, and the punishment she’s now receiving in the form of Kiwi’s unwanted advances. We’ll see what they get up to next week, or if the third Enormita girl makes her debut.

Vinland Saga S2 – 11 – Head of the Line

“Norsemen won’t follow a weakling”, says King Canute’s Gunnar as he and a worried-sick Estrid watch her brother sparring with Wurf, the head of his royal guard and a much larger, stronger man. Estrid is just shocked to see Canute even handling a sword, he used to fear touching them. And while Canute ends up using Wurf’s crush on Estrid to distract and beat him, impressing his subjects, Estrid can tell her brother is in pain.

The late King Harald’s body is barely cold when Canute assumes the throne and gets to the work of keeping the kingdom financially solvent; no mean feat when he insists (probably with good reason) on keeping a native Danish force under his direct command in England, at the cost of all of the English taxes. Raising the Danes’ taxes will only foment unrest and resentment, so Canute has a different plan in mind: requisitioning lands from wealthy owners.

Right on cue, one of the men singularly equipped to benefit the very least from Canute’s imminent policy, Ketil, arrives in Jelling, three days after Harald died. Ketil, who didn’t even know the old king was that ill, is suddenly in the position of having to win favor with the new one. His elder son Thorgil, one of the king’s guards, will ask for an audience on Ketil’s behalf. As for Olmar? He’s in town acting like a pathetic gangster, bumping into a simple merchant and soiling his cloths.

Ketil arrives to de-escalate the situation, and the young merchant’s father also appears…and it’s Leif Erikson. The lad’s name is Thorfinn, AKA “Bug Eyes”, and we can surmise pretty easily that he was the product of Leif’s search for Thors’ son. Rather than abandon him, Leif ended up more or less adopting him. When Ketil mentions one of his people has the same name, hair, and eyes, Leif suspects that Ketil’s slave may be the Thorfinn he’s been looking for for years.

Ketil gets an audience with Canute almost immediately, which should be a red flag to him. The meet initially goes well, with Canute accepting Ketil’s fine gifts (the bounty of his vast farms) and assuring him of the necessity of strong farmers to keep the kingdom strong. Then Olmar stands (which you’re not supposed to do before the king) and starts to unsheath his sword (which you’re definitely not supposed to do before the king) and asks if he can join his brother in the royal guard.

Canute humors Olmar, and brings him before a freshly roasted pig to show his prowess with the blade. Olmar makes a lot of martial noises that startle the folks outside, leading to perhaps the funniest goddamn jump cut in Vinland’s history, as he is barely able to pierce the pig’s skin, let alone its bones. Even so, Canute says he’ll consider adding Olmar to his ranks. But it’s a bad look overall for the Ketil family.

Not that it matters. As soon as Canute learns that Ketil is a wealthy landowner, Ketil was doomed to be the first victim of the king’s requisition plan. Call it bad luck. Canute also identifies Olmar’s usefulness, not as anything resembling a warrior (he’s “all pride, no skill, as Wurf says), but as someone who can be easily manipulated into facilitating the land takeover. I’d feel bad for Ketil…if he wasn’t a damn slaveowner.

How will the impending takeover affect Ketil’s plans to free Thorfinn and Einar? I imagine all bets will be off, to say nothing of Arnheid’s freedom (or even safety). That said, it’s possible that Lief, or Canute, or both of them may soon find themselves in the presence of the real Thorfinn once more. They may not recognize the man he’s become.

Kino no Tabi – 01 (First Impressions)

After fourteen years, Kino is back on broadcast. I only caught a handfull of episodes from the original series, but the formula seems to be pretty much the same: Kino is on an unending journey astride her trusty motorized steed Hermes, traveling from country to country and never spending more than three days there, the “perfect length.”

The first country she encounters here is one where “killing is not prohibited.” Since she’s good on the quickdraw, she’s confident in holding her own there, but also curious if the country will be what a fellow traveler moving there expects it to be: a place where he can kill with impunity, and the home of an infamous serial killer, Regel.

Upon entering the country, Kino finds it to be a placid, bucolic place, where people walk the streets without fear and warmly interact with one another. Everyone also seems to be armed. The country’s culinary specialty is a delicious-looking tower of crepes. An old man representing the country invites Kino to settle there; Kino kindly declines.

Then the boorish traveler Kino encounter outside the country’s walls appears and threatens to kill her if she doesn’t give him all of her stuff. Kino hides behind Hermes, preparing for a protracted fight, but before the man can fire at them, he’s shot through the arm by a crossbow-wielding lady from the window of a nearby building. The entire town, fully armed, descends upon the man.

Then their leader, Regel himself, informs the traveler and would-be killer of the true way of things in this country: while killing is “not prohibited”, it isn’t permitted. The only killing that’s done is by the citizens as a whole; rising as one against anyone who would try to kill another. It is their way of maintaining justice and peace, and at least in their case, it seems to work.

Back on the road, Kino encounters a second traveler, who unlike the first is trying to find a safe country where he doesn’t have to worry about killing others to survive. While there is killing in Regel’s country, it’s not the kind this fellow need worry about. The legend he hears is not of the serial killer Regel, but of the country’s famed crepe towers.

As for Kino, she’s headed for the next country, which is sure to be completely different from this one, which will no doubt provide another fable about a certain aspect of life.

Yuuki Aoi is a worthy successor to Maeda Ai, and aside from some bursts of action (in this case violent and bloody) the overall presentation is calm, relaxed, and understated, as befits a slice-of-life series that focuses on a very unique and interesting transient life. Count me interested!