Golden Kamuy – 43 – A Far More Difficult Path

Over six months after it was postponed due to the passing of a key staff member, Golden Kamuy marks its stirring return with the long-awaited meeting between Asirpa and Lt. Tsurumi in Karafuto. While he’s cordial with Asirpa, his insistence that he fights for a happier world for all—including the Ainu—doesn’t convince Asirpa.

Before they meet, Tsurumi says under his breath that he’ll keep her detained indefinitely in a dark, filthy cell furnished with a bucket and a stool until they find the gold. At the sight of Asirpa’s dazzling blue eyes, so much like Wilk’s, he can’t stop leaking…er…fluid from the brain. So Asirpa makes a break for it, with Sugimoto right beside her.

Tsurumi’s men fan out and search the town, with Usami finding them first and Tsukishima training his rifle at them. When Sugimoto keeps running, he shoots him, but that only unlocks Immortal Sugimoto, who goes to absolute town on Koito and another 7th soldier.

Asirpa holds Sugimoto tight throughout his rampage, and while he was shot a few times, he assures her he’s not hurt bad enough for “his soul to escape his body”. Tsurumi shoots a disapproving look at Tsukishima for letting Asirpa get away, while she and Sugimoto encounter the hooded Russian sniper, who takes them away on a horse.

Shiraishi and Tanigaki catch up to them, but only Shiraishi hops on the horse. Tanigaki has to protect Inkarmat, so he stays behind. They make it onto the ferry back to Hokkaido, but a single 7th soldier follows Sugimoto’s blood trail. Asirpa tells him to shoot the soldier in the leg, but the sniper goes for the headshot, and they’re home free…

That is, until Tsurumi gives chase in his destroyer. The ferry captain, pissed off that a warning shot was fired at a ship full of civilians, agrees to help Sugimoto, even sailing the ferry directly at the ice floes. When Tsurumi’s destroyer opens fire, it blasts away the floes, allowing the ferry to slip past.

When the gap closes and the destroyer attempts to blast its way through, Asirpa, Sugimoto, Shiraishi, and the sniper disembark while wearing white sheets, making them invisible to Tsurumi’s men as they complete their journey on the ice fields.

When they first ran from Tsurumi, thus spoiling any potential deal they might have had with him, Asirpa tells Sugimoto not to tell her not to do things anymore. Instead, he should be thinking of things they can be doing together in the future.

On the boat, Sugimoto tells Shiraishi that he’s heard both him and Asirpa, and has decided to believe in her as she tries to protect the Ainu the best way she knows. He knows that this will be a far more difficult path than simply killing their way to the gold.

Asirpa, meanwhile, withholds the secret of the code to Sugimoto, believing that will keep him with her. Where he was once so obsessed with protecting her that he wanted to keep her out of the search for the gold entirely, now she is determined to be a “powerful shield” for him.

Our pals manage to encounter a group of Ainu on a wooden boat who take them the rest of the way to Hokkaido, but days after they fled Karafuto, Ogata manages to steal the dead soldier’s uniform and gun, along with some salted cod, and tells a sob story about coming home after being wounded in the war that the ferry captain eats right up. Always good to see Ogata lucid and focused.

Insomniacs After School – 02 – Going Legit

After waking up and making himself and his dad lunch, Ganta arrives to find Isaki’s friends wrapping her in the classroom curtains. When she suddenly emerges, she looks like a perfect princess. Ganta desperately wants to say good morning, and she prepares to do the same, but he gives her the cold shoulder.

It’s not that he suddenly doesn’t like Isaki—far from it. He explains through texts that it’s in both their best interests not to draw too much attention to their sudden buddying up. Rumors could spread like wildfire, both about them, their hideout, and their insomnia. Isaki agrees, and everything stays their little secret.

The two agree that the observatory could be comfier, however, so Isaki brings a bunch of games and toys and such that will create an environment conducive to sleep. On the physical comfort level, they luck out when a cushy red leather chair and couch are due to be tossed. They start with lugging the chair up to the observatory, which proves so taxing they don’t bother with the couch.

Of course, that means playing rock-paper-scissors to determine who gets the chair first. Isaki wins, and immediately wants for a leg rest. As gunta is pulling a table towards her, she playfully rests her legs on his back, briefly using him as an ottoman. He protests, but methinks he doth protest too much. If a girl is comfortable enough to rest her legs on you, you’re doing something right!

When they hear the door to the observatory creak, they hide behind the chair, wondering if it’s an intruder (or a ghost), but it turns out to be a bicolor cat who has been wandering the school grounds. It makes itself at home on the chair, and Isaki draws close to admire one of the “grandmasters of sleep”. My own cat was in a nearly identical sleeping position not three feet from me as I was watching this.

Isaki buys ice cream for herself and Ganta at the school store, but while she’s gone, the cat returns to the observatory with a piece of lettuce … from Kurashiki-sensei’s sandwich. That brings her to the door that Ganta is currently repairing, and just like that, they’re discovered.

Ganta at first takes full responsibility, saying he acted alone, but when Isaki happily returns with the ice cream, Kurashiki-sensei not unreasonably asks if they’ve been having sex up there. Ganta tells her the truth: this is the only place the both of them can get proper rest.

But even if their intentions and actions are totally innocent and Kurashiki-sensei agrees it’s a hell of a hideout, it’s still her job to report this to the faculty and their parents. Absolutely crestfallen, the two eat their melted ice cream in silence, with Isaki unable to hold back tears.

So that’s it, right? After just two episodes, the dream is over, right? Well…not quite. When Kurashiki-sensei mentioned that the school was considering reviving the observatory for astronomic purposes, Gunta is quick to offer to join the astronomy club. But she questions his motives, and the next day he and Isaki are called to the faculty lounge fearing the worst.

Luckily for them, Kurashiki-sensei is cool. She told her higher-ups that the two of them offered to revive the astronomy club, which is exactly what those higher-ups wanted to hear. The vice principal also remarks that this will put to rest rumors about the student who died haunting the observatory…ya know, the rumors Isaki started.

The news that they’ll still have their palace of seclusion causes such a release of stress and tension that as soon as the two leave the lounge, they start running down the hall smiling and laughing their asses off. It’s a testament to the character design, quality of animation, writing and voice acting working in unity that after so little time I am totally invested in these two adorkable kids and would glad fight a war for them.

That said, they actually will have to do astronomy stuff, so Ganta obtains a basic toy telescope and assembles it on the roof to observe the moon. Isaki repeats her earlier praise for Ganta’s affinity for mechanical stuff, but wait till she learns the guy’s a great cook too!

Once the telescope is assembled, Ganta and Isaki take turns looking at the moon, even bumping heads due to lack of coordination. But when it’s Ganta’s turn to look Isaki aligns herself so the moonlight hits her just right, and she’s a magical princess again, this time telling Ganta “If I end up on the moon, then I’ll wave down to you.”

Ganta at first thinks she’s joking about the ghost again, but Isaki shoots him a far more serious and earnest face than he was expecting. I gotta say, it was the first time I worried this show might eventually enter Your Lie in April territory with Isaki, but I prefer to be more optimistic and upbeat with these too. After all, they fought the law and won!

Insomniacs After School – 01 (First Impressions) – Our Time

Nakami Ganta can’t sleep. We’ve all been there, but this guy is an Edward Norton in Fight Club insomniac. There is no relief in the darkness, and there is no manual boring enough to help him doze off. He simply lies there in his bed, waiting for the sun to rise and the next day of despair to begin. At school, he gets flak from classmates for being a lazy grouch.

But while off on an errand to procure more boxes for what looks like his class’ cultural festival exhibition, he decides to explore the school’s observatory, once headquarters for the astronomy club but now used as a warehouse. But once he’s there, Ganta finds it the perfect place to nap and refresh. Only problem is, someone beat him to the punch: Magari Isaki.

At first, the two are repelled from one another due to a lack of familiarity. But once they realize that they’re each dealing with someone with the exact same problem as they have and searching for a good place to rest, they lower their armor, and end up falling asleep while huddled close together like an old married couple.

There’s a magic to watching two kindred spirits finally find each other after so much aimless wandering and suffering. When Ganta’s trustworthy friend lets them out (when Ganta closed the door he locked himself and Isaki in) Isaki promptly gives Ganta the code to the lock on the door. After they clean up the place a bit, she opens the observatory’s roof and declares the establishment of the Nightly Fun Society, with a membership of two.

One night, Ganta and Isaki sneak out for their first official society meet-up, and they have the entire sleepy town to themselves as the explore together. While this isn’t presented as stylishly or stylistically as Call of the Night, and neither of them are vampires, I still got that nice goosebump-like feeling you get in the dark that makes it more fun and exciting.

When Ganta spots a cop on patrol, he and Isaki hide inside an enclosure, and Isaki gets so close to Ganta she can hear his heartbeat. It’s soothing enough that for a moment she drifts right off, as if Ganta is the key to solving her insomnia and vice-versa. When she comes back to, the coast is clear, Ganta mentions how his heart is racing, and Isaki knows, because not only did she hear it, but hers is racing too.

In case they encountered a policeman, Ganta brought a camera so he could say they’re with the photography club. Even if he says it’s an excuse, the beautiful nighttime sky beckons, and he snaps some shots of the moonlit clouds, as well as Isaki goofing off, showing that even though she was frail and hospitalized as a kid, she’s all better now…aside from the whole not sleeping thing!

The two watch the sun rise at the waterside, then Ganta walks Isaki home and they exchange contact info. As they do, Ganta wonders what kind of relationship they’ve started. Just days ago, they ‘d never even spoken to each other, and Isaki assumed he was a scary jerk. But now they’re exploring the town at night, have each other’s numbers, and have started a club of just the two of them.

I’m going to not go out on a limb and call this the sweetest premiere of the Spring. Ganta and Isaki aren’t just adorable, they feel like real people with a real, relatable, and basic problem: sleeping. By meeting, they have stumbled onto a way to not only possibly improve their sleep patterns, but make the time they are awake much more enjoyable.

I couldn’t help but wear a big goofy smile throughout the episode, and by no would I dismiss anyone for whom this isn’t their cup of tea a cynical grouch who needs more sleep ;) This just feels to me like Laid-Back Camp: warm, fuzzy, charming and inviting. So I’ll be sticking around.

To Your Eternity – S2 13 – Fushi for the People

With Fushi having to build quicker to make his daily quotas, he isn’t home a lot, so Eko decides to bring dinner she made to him. It tastes terrible, but it’s the thought that counts. While everyone else is keeping Fushi on task, Eko and Kahaku don’t want him to forget the little things that make us human. But while Fushi appears to be sleeping in his room, it’s just a dummy; the real Fushi is out rebuilding through the night.

One of Renril’s biggest remaining vulnerabilities is its underground water and sewer system, which has to be completely rebuilt to make it Nokker-proof. During this process, Eko notices the water is dirty, tracks down the source of the fouling, and alerts the proper channels, all without saying a word. She even pitches in with the demo work, one stone and plank at a time.

At this point Kahaku has taken on the role of house husband, keeping an Eye on Eko, cooking meals, and keeping the Booze Man’s house clean. He also continues to worry about how hard Fushi is working. Eko lures him home with a clay pot vision of a feast of all his favorites. While he’s initially disappointed to find hot pot instead, once he tastes it, he gives his complimnents to the chef—in this case Eko. It wasn’t her cooking that was bad, but the city water.

Eko’s hard work spurs Fushi to work even harder. Messar gets the princess to agree to extend Founding Day to a week to keep the bulk of the citizens in the festival area, allowing Fushi to rebuild the network of towering walls one by one. The more he builds, the more sensations—both good and bad—he feels. If he focuses too much on them, they overwhelm him. He realizes he can’t help anyone. There are too many people with too many problems big and small.

Fushi’s in a charitable mood the next day, when he agrees to take the fall for Cam in a fighting tournament so he can impress the girl he likes. However, stuff happens that attract the suspicions of the citizen soldiers and Fushi’s little favor to Cam nearly exposes him. That night, the soldiers decide to head out looking for the one doing all the building, wondering if its the Fushi demon the Church of Bennett condemned.

The soldiers end up catching Fushi in the act…of rebuilding a wall. Fushi accepts that he’s been caught with cool resignation—a kind of do your worst, ya ingrates stance. He also boasts that even if the church captures him again, he knows his way out of molten metal now, and will be free again in two days. But by shifting into various forms the soldiers all know, they realize it was Fushi who helped them and their loved ones all those times in the past days, weeks, and months.

The next day, an adamant Fushi decides to walk out onto the streets in his regular form, whatever slings and arrows come his way. But to his surprise, both royal knight and citizen soldier salute him, and he gets nods of approval and thanks from the other citizens. Bon and Messar flank him as he continues his walk, not of shame, but of honor. The people have spoken: if Fushi is a demon, he’s a demon on their side.

NieR: Automata Ver 1.1a – 03 – This Cannot Continue

Lily brings 2B and 9S to their ad hoc base, and does not get into why she shoots so many intent looks in 2B’s direction. Could Lily have known a former version of this 2B? Did she know 2A, since she recognized her as “Number Two”? We also meet Jackass, who really wants to take the YoRHa androids apart to “collect data”, but is content to drive them to their recon site.

The truck ride, and really all establishing shots in NieR succeed in creating a vast sense of both scale and desolation, especially when we see the half-buried ruins of our familiar civilization (Saturday is apparently post-apocalypse day for me—not that I’m complaining). The grandeur is enhanced with the score, with themes perfectly suited to the base, desert, and the orbiting YoRHa base.

When they encounter Machine Lifeforms wearing tribal masks and markings, 2B and 9S get to work trashing them. But when 9S hacks the biggest bot, he gets a lot more than he bargained for. These MLs are among those that have absorbed knowledge from the library of humanity of yore, and he ends up in the middle of a Mesopotamian-style  ritual.

With this group of bots defeated, 2B, 9S and Jackass trudge on into the ruined city, where all communications to YoRHa HQ are being jammed by an unknown power source. They keep exploring, and locate a group of android corpses, including the missing YoRHa liaison. That the corpses aren’t totally destroyed but in various states of dismantlement bodes ill for our two androids.

2B and 9S fall though quicksand and into a yawning undergeround complex. They come upon a circle of yellow-eyed, non-hostile MLs both reciting and emulating various human emotions and activities, including copulation and childrearing. All of this makes 9S particularly uneasy, since this is not the way the enemy should be acting. But then things get even weirder when one comment from a red-eyed ML—“this cannot continue”—sends the yellows into a frenzy.

The MLs climb columns made of the fossilized bodies of their dead, and huddle together in to the super-brain thingy teased last week. The mass opens and out pours an approximation of an android that quickly grows skin and stands up, part Terminator, part Sephiroth. 2B and 9S’ first instinct is to kill it ASAP, even though he is not immediately hostile to them.

While they successfully break his energy shield and impale him with their blades, a second, unharmed ML android emerges from the lifeless body, good as new, and this one is a lot more aggressive. 9S is just able to grab 2B and leap out of the way of the android’s devastating main weapon. The resulting cave-in apparently crushes the android, but as we saw that’s not going to be enough to do it in.

We learn from Commander White up in space that she didn’t send 2B and 9S to assist the resistance, but to use the resistance as a shield and decoy in order to facilitate their real mission, which has now borne fruit. Not only do they know what became of the liaison, but they’ve uncovered a potentially game-changing development in their once-primitive foe.

A Couple of Cuckoos – 21 – Phoenix Rising

This energetic episode of Couple of Cuckoos got a lot of previously stationary balls rolling just in time for the season’s final push and really brought the ensemble humming together for the first time. And it all comes down to scenes of directness and honesty. The first term ends with Nagi back in the #1 spot, which considering his fall to 13th (and all his life’s distractions since) is a truly impressive feat.

He not wrongly believes this feat to trigger a reassessment in Segawa Hiro’s “placing him on hold”, and sure enough, he gets that love note in his locker with her atrocious handwriting inviting him to the roof. After she uses the same “phoenix” analogy in his own head, he once again asks if she’ll go out with him. And while she once again doesn’t say no, her “yes” is filtered through a confession: she wishes she was engaged to him.

The runner’s high from exams turns into an even more potent lover’s high for Nagi, as he takes great pains to let Erika and Sachi know that Hiro confessed. While Sachi doesn’t see it as a real confession, Erika is at least well-versed enough in the language of love to know that Hiro would never just say that outright. She proposes the four of them go to her (private!) beach house to further investigate the intent of her words.

Hiro’s all in, but Sachi is out on supply shopping, so it’s Erika and Nagi this time. We missed this dynamic when Shion was the fifth wheel, but it’s another reminder of the infectious chemistry these two have, even if neither of them are comfortable seeing it as romantic affection. They’re just good buds who’ve greatly enjoyed spending time together…even on a cramped bus.

However, there is one big elephant in the room, and it’s that Hiro still doesn’t know they live together. Nagi doesn’t like the idea of keeping secrets from Hiro, but Erika thinks it could destroy their relationship with her…and also selfishly wants to have some secrets with Nagi, adding further texture to their complicated but compelling bond.

So both are saved a lot of trouble when they arrive home dressed in matching Hawaiian vacation wear to find Hiro tutoring Sachi. Also, Sachi told Hiro that Erika and Nagi (and Sachi) are living together. Hiro plays this cool in the moment, but you can tell there’s drama brewing beneath that easy smile.

Sure enough, when the four go on the trip (this time with no fifth wheel needed) there’s plenty of stuff to sift through. We naturally get to see the three girls in their swimsuits. You’d think Erika would buy Sachi a new one for the trip, but she has her school swimsuit, further increasing her kid sisterliness factor.

Erika continues to play her role as girl-pal to a T when she offers to talk to Hiro, who is clearly avoiding Nagi, on his behalf. Nagi thanks her, but knows this is something he has to talk with her about face-to-face.

The luxurious deck of Erika’s umpteenth vacation house serves as a dramatic substitute for their usual venue of real talk, the school roof. Hiro is intentionally coy, and then lays out all the ways Nagi fucked up. It’s not just that he kept a secret when they agreed not to. It’s all the opportunities he had both to tell her and to stop living there that he didn’t take.

It’s not that Nagi living with Erika is unacceptable to Hiro; it’s that he wasn’t honest about why. Hiro realizes this when the excuses about complicated family matters falls flat even as he says them. The truth is, he enjoys living there, which is why he’s stayed. And that’s fine! He just needed to tell Hiro rather than her having to infer it and Sachi confirming.

Of course, as we know, Hiro is immensely kind and magnanimous, so she forgives Nagi with a slap on the wrist…or rather, a pluck of his hair, playfully warning him she’ll use it put a curse on him should he do it again.

So finally, with what, two episodes left, everything (except the truth about Sosuke) is on the table, even Nagi being told by Hiro that Sachi has a crush on him. Again, this might not be something Sachi said to her, as she’s still figuring out her feelings, but like Nagi and Erika’s secret, it’s something Hiro inferred from Sachi’s words and actions. Let us not forget, Hiro is a smart one…but for Nagi, she’d be #1 in their grade!

Because Sachi isn’t ready for Nagi to say things like that about her, she devolves into kid-sister mode, putting him in an elaborate wrestling move. But I still feel that with all the real talk, revealing of secrets, and forgiveness in this episode, I feel like all the characters are finally ready for the cards of fate to start falling as they may.

Rent-a-Girlfriend – 13 (S1 E01) – The Play’s the Thing

After an efficient recap of where the four girls currently stand in the story, we return to Kazuya’s filthy flat (seriously dude, clean it the fuck up!), lamenting the “countdown to ruin”—Chizuru’s big acting break that will lead to her being discovered by a big-deal director and quitting her rental girlfriend gig.

He decides to buy a ticket to Chizuru’s play as “moral support”, but also wonders if he simply wants to watch the beginning of the end of his relationship with her. Sumi spots him, but before she can say anything the lights go down, the curtain comes up, and Kazuya gets a lot more than he bargained for.

Watching Chizuru perform as a completely different person—in this case a puckish kunoichi—is a revelation for Kazuya. He’s taken on an emotional roller coaster as Chizuru grabs the entire audience in her hand and doesn’t let go. She’s magnetic, clearly the “MVP” of the play. He’s so stunned by the end he doesn’t move from his seat for a while. Sumi, who can probably tell why, leaves him be.

But while he, Sumi, and indeed I truly thought Chizuru stole the show in which she wasn’t even the lead, her performance doesn’t lead to the opportunity she’d planned. Turns out the famous director is basically the lead actress’ damn uncle, and gives her the role. Even though she was a victim of nepotism, Chizuru thinks she wasn’t good enough.

Kazuya leaving the theater in no particular hurry combined with an upset Chizuru skipping the wrap party means the two inevitably bump into each other on the streets. Kazuya quickly owns up to coming to see her perform, and is extremely effluent in his praise. He also accepts the fact that this probably means the end of their rental dating.

When Chizuru explains that things didn’t work out and then puts on a brave happy face, Kazuya at least realizes that she’s trying to keep her frustration bottled up. But he’s not going to let her say she’s “just like him” in getting “too worked up” about acting, because her rental girlfriend gig is proof she does have talent, and plenty of it.

Chizuru’s attitude suggests she’s ready to throw in the towel and face reality, but Kazuya suspect she doesn’t want to, and also doesn’t think she should. If she needs to keep funding her dream of acting, then he’s going to keep hiring her to be his rental girlfriend, getting a job to pay the fees.

Chizuru is recalling Kazuya’s words when she comes home and sits in the dark, and then she gets a call from the lead actress who got the role thanking her for “warming up the crowd”, twisting the dagger and sending the cork on the bottle of her tears shooting across the room.

That said, her tear-filled eyes are suddenly reflecting the light of her phone, which just alerted her to a whole slew of new bookings from Kazuya, putting his money where his mouth is and adding financial support to his moral support. While she calls him a dumbass as usual for going to such lengths for her sake, the gesture doesn’t fail to bring a smile to her face and color to her cheeks.

I said in my review of the first season finale that if a sequel of RaG was made, it would be the girls who’d bring me back, since Kazuya was mostly an infuriating pest of an MC. Well, that sequel has now arrived two years later, and while Kazuya continues to keep a pigsty of a place and harbor a lot of misunderstandings, he’s…not that bad in this episode!

Ruka would probably disagree, seeing as how he continues to utterly ignore her, but that’s for another episode. Here Chizuru clearly stole the show, and Kazuya did what he could to make her feel better and encouraged her not to stop dreaming after one setback. He was a pretty good fake boyfriend! Now, keep it up!

Love After World Domination – 04 – Can’t Take Me Home

This week showed that while many of the characters play rather cartoonish heroes or villains, at the end of the day everyone’s a normal human being. Desumi even attends high school and has normal friends while she’s not “at work”. But while hanging out after school, she spots Fudou with the new Pink Gelato, and her reaction—running away in tears—is as intense as her friends are confused.

Pink, AKA Haru, is also confused…by the photo of Fudou with what looks an awful lot like a girlfriend. She and Fudou aren’t on a date; she needs to ask him about the photo. But instead he intuits the reason for their meet-up is that she’s interested in upping her physical training regimen. Haru is helpless to stop him from going off on his favorite topic, and she ends up relieved, as there’s simply no way Fudou would have a girlfriend.

But he does, and she’s pissed. When Fudou and Haru’s coffee is interrupted by a call of duty, Fudou finds and engages with Desumi expecting them to go through their usual dance, only this time Desumi’s dropkick lands. He thinks it’s an accident, or they’re just a little out of sync today, but eventually he realizes Desumi is hitting him on purpose.

The two end up in a secluded warehouse, where Desumi admits that even though her brain didn’t really think Fudou was cheating on her, the sight of him with Haru sent her heart into such turmoil she didn’t know what to do with herself. In fact, she started to think maybe someone “girly” like Haru would be better for him than a jealous, violent, loathsome outcast like her.

Fudou is swift in both his comforting hug and his rebuttal: he will only love her, with everything he’s got, as long as he lives. With her totally undeserved self-loathing out of her system, she and Fudou simply exist together for a bit, hand in hand, planning an afterschool date in their school uniforms…when all of a sudden they notice that Pink Gelato is sitting right next to them.

Fudou and Desumi are certain they’re 100% busted and doomed. But the thing is…they aren’t, at least not for the time being. They both believe Haru is planning something, and simply biding her time before she drops the hammer. But Haru is conspicuous in not only not telling anyone what she saw, but acting like she never saw it; like everything’s normal.

That is, until Fudou and Desumi’s after-school date. After a civet(!)-based false alarm, Desumi realizes Haru is lying in wait, and sends Fudou off on an interminable and ultimately doomed Starbucks run. Haru doesn’t mince words, challenging Desumi to a duel. Despite her transforming into Pink Gelato, Desumi handles her easily even in her school uniform. After all, Pink’s only been at this six months; Desumi’s a veteran enemy commander.

Desumi puts the end to the fight by knocking Haru out, but Haru is shocked to find that when she wakes up, Desumi is still there beside her. She admits that she joined Gelato 5 because she was in love with Fudou. She always suspected someone so amazing would have a girlfriend, but never expected it to be someone else she knew. Turns out Desumi rescued her from some thugs in an alley…and inspired her to become stronger.

Haru heard everything Desumi said to Fudou in the warehouse about how “love was making her weak”, but after fighting her, Haru assures her she’s as strong as ever. As for why she didn’t snitch on them, well…as much as she wanted Fudou to be hers, it just wasn’t in her to steal happiness from Fudou or Desumi. When Haru says this her eyes well up with big soppy tears. Desumi can’t help but hug her, and then she starts crying too.

When a very confused Fudou sees Haru’s head in Desumi’s lap and asks what’s going on, Desumi simply shushes him; let Pink Gelato rest a little more. Once she’s awake and back in her uniform, the three walk a bit together. Having experienced a catharsis, Haru is now rooting for Fudou and Desumi…but playfully won’t rule out stealing Fudou if given the chance.

It’s amazing how quickly this love triangle came together this week, and how affecting it was throughout its progression. From Desumi’s early jealous spiraling and Fudou’s stalwart vow he’ll never leave her side, to Haru’s discovery of their tryst and how she handles it, this was Koiseka at its best and most heartwarming.

Love After World Domination – 03 – Never Want to Touch the Ground

There haven’t been any battles between Gelato 5 and Gecko for two weeks, and both Fudou and Desumi are missing each other something fierce. So when Gelato detects a new weapon at Gecko HQ, Fudou impresses both Misaki and the Professor by valiantly volunteering to undertake a potential suicide mission alone.

Naturally, his comrades are unaware he just needs to see Desumi really bad. Dropping in suddenly makes her happy, but she has to use her lightning speed on more than one occasion to keep him from being spotted by her comrades. This results in her sitting on his face, then getting smushed into her locker with him and her bras.

When Culverin Bear comes in her dressing room, it looks like the discovery of their secret forbidden love is imminent…until Desumi lashes out in embarrassment, sending Fudou flying out of the locker, knocking Bear unconscious and activating his new weapon, which then self-destructs. Fudou gives Desumi his phone number, only for her to learn it’s the land line of his family home.

Fudou’s drop-in is followed up by a meeting of colorful, eccentric Gecko baddies, naturally led by a boss named…Bosslar. The various villains try to come up with the manner and location of the next battle against Gelato, and all Desumi comes up with are fun date locations, because she wants to see Fudou again. Bear actually backs her on the suggestion of an amusement park.

Misaki, suspicious of Fudou’s new smartphone, decides to stalk Fudou when he heads to the amusement park, dragging Haru with her. While Misaki clearly has a tendency towards sisterly meddlesomeness, Haru is more trusting of Fudou, and also seems to be hiding a hidden crush on the big lug.

When Fudou and Desumi meet as planned and begin to grapple, they are both surprised by the sudden arrival of Yellow and Pink Gelato. No matter; they speed away to fight a duel as in previous battles, only here they change into street clothes and ride a series of fun amusement park rides. All the while, both Misaki and Haru are convinced that Fudou is just his usual good hero self and nothing is up.

Despite being a superhero, Fudou gets motion sickness form the rides, including the intimate Ferris Wheel. Desumi no doubt finds this cute about him, and is happy to learn something about her sweetheart she didn’t know. But she also uses it as an opportunity to take Fudou’s hand, which causes his sickness to subside, replaced by warm, happy vibes.

Those vibes may not last much longer, however, as Haru has a quick passing glance at photos of people on rides and spots Fudou riding a roller coaster with some woman. If we’re going by anime logic Haru can’t recognize the Reaper Princess unmasked, but the fact Fudou is with a girl at all is a huge shock for Haru, and will likely have far-reaching repercussions. One thing I’m sure of is that the added stakes won’t detract from the snappy comedy or the sweet romance.

Tokyo 24th Ward Dropped

Somewhere between the far-fetched lightning episode, the flashback episode that didn’t move the story forward, and the show not airing at all last week, I lost interest in this show. The first half of this episode did nothing to re-spark that interest.

The ham-fisted political commentary now dominates everything, leaving our characters nothing but pawns darting across a breakneck plot while two bad guys on opposite ends of the spectrum weave their respective webs. I’d have preferred more of RGB solving trolley dilemmas interspersed with slice-of-city-life moments of earlier episodes.

Karakai Jouzu no Takagi-san 3 – 11 – Merry Dried Sardine Day

Last week might’ve been the last “standard” episode of Takagi-san,  because this week is anything but normal. It’s suddenly Valentine’s Day, and for much as Takagi and Nishikata interact, there’s hardly any teasing. It’s pretty clear why from the moment Nishikata opens his locker and finds three boxes of chocolates from three different kouhai. For as predictable as Nishikata is, we’ve known Takagi long enough to know what’s up.

Major Kudos to both the animation team and Takahashi Rie for making it plain that Takagi is just a little “off” this week. She came to school early so she could put chocolates in Nishikata’s shoe locker, only to find three girls had beaten her to the punch. That Nishikata tries to hide the fact he got chocolates only makes things more awkward, even though he tries to find the right opportunity to tell her.

Meanwhile, Houjou interrupts Hamaguchi talking with the boys to nonchalantly hand him a bar of store-bought chocolate before sauntering off. Hamaguchi assumes the worst, since he spotted her at the grocery store buying ingredients for homemade chocolate. If he gets a Meiji bar, that means she doesn’t love him! Of course, even here, I knew Houjou must’ve just screwed up the homemade chocolate.

Oftentimes predictability can make a show boring or unengaging, but the opposite was true here. As we watch Nishikata struggle to tell Takagi about the other girls’ chocolate, even trying to intentionally lose a contest to cheer her up, it is wonderfully, heartwarmingly plain that winning and losing those little games doesn’t matter to him nearly as much as wanting to turn Takagi’s frown upside-down. And hey, he does—albeit accidentally when the teacher catches him goofing off.

Fortune favors Nishikata, as Takagi just happens to be walking down the hall when she sees him respectfully return the chocolate to the three girls who gave it to him. Takagi knows why. It doesn’t matter whether the girls made a mistake and meant to put it in another boy’s locker (the one who played the dog at the culture fest). Nishikata takes this entirely in stride, because he’s not interested in those three girls. He never was.

Their innocent mistake may have screwed up Takagi and Nishikata’s February 14th, but after school the universe rights that wrong by once again having the two cross paths by chance. Their timing is so precise, the moment Takagi finally decides on a text to send him, she hears the alert on his phone as he’s already arrived. It’s kismet!

What follows is one of the most serious, dramatic, honest, and beautifulest exchanges between these two in all these three seasons. Takagi admits she was bummed out all day because when she saw those three boxes of chocolates, she was worried Nishikata would mention them, and that she’d respond by “acting mean” again.

Takagi doesn’t like the part of her that’s mean when she’s jealous. I adore the empathy they express for each other in this scene; how awful even the thought of hurting each other makes them feel. That said, all’s well that ends well, and Takagi manages to give Nishikata a box of chocolates. Only the first box she gives him is actually full of dried sardines.

She just happened to prepare that little prank before he mentioned it being “National Dried Sardine Day” (because of how the numbers “214” resemble the Japanese word for dried sardines). That their two adorkable minds thought alike—and are thinking alike more and more—delights Takagi to no end.

The next day, Nishikata sees Hamaguchi sitting in the hall looking super-cool. Since the store-bought/homemade chocolate mixup was all cleared up, he’s resolved to confess his love to Houjou on White Day. Not only that, he tells Nishikata that’d he’d better confess to Takagi on that day too.

And I fuly agree with Hamaguchi…he sure as shit better! Or, if it’s Takagi who confesses to him, he’d better accept his damn destiny. I don’t want any cliffhangers for a fourth season…let’s get this done!

Tokyo 24th Ward – 09 – Sowing and Reaping

You said it, Cowboy Man. Nothing like a prequel three quarters into a show to kill the momentum. RGB, who flailed around independently last week during an improbably destructive thunderstorm. Rather than follow up on those events, we flash back to 1999, when Kanae was still working on autonomous driving tech with her colleague Kuchikiri.

When a car drives into their lane, the AI overrides Kanae’s steering so that Kuchikiri is seriously injured while Kanae and a pedestrian, a young Tsuzuragawa, are spared. When Kuchikiri comes to he finds himself unable to read words or numbers properly, and decides to reinvent himself with the name “Kuchikiri” now looks like to his eyes: 0th.

Kanae, who had just struck a business deal with Suidou Gouri, eventually becomes his wife and the mother of his kids…but the episode isn’t interested in explaining exactly how these two people with zero chemistry fell in love. But hey, Tsuzuragawa, guilty over what happened with 0th, decides to follow in Kanae’s footsteps even as Kanae abandons her research. Tsuzuragawa also meets Chikushi at college, where he once exhibited the same wannabe hero qualities as Shuuta (which explains his present-day cynicism).

Kanae also sets up the Takara Food Bank with the shopping district, which is how her kids Asumi and Kouki meet Shuuta and Ran. But while she’s chasing after someone asking if they need help, she ends up robbed and stabbed to death. Chikushi came between her and the first slash, but couldn’t stop the second. Gouri’s kids watch their dad break down for the first time in their lives, and I daresay he transformed into a different person in that hospital that night.

Determined to prevent crimes like the one that claimed his wife, Gouri turns to Tsuzuragawa to dust off Kanae’s research and complete it; the beginnings of what would become the KANAE System in the present. Tsuzuragawa probably knows right then and there that if Kanae couldn’t perfect the tech, she doesn’t have a prayer, but presses on anyway out of guilt and obligation.

Where Tsuzuragawa finds time to do this research while acting as chauffeur and personal assistant to the Suidou family is unclear, but as the years pass Gouri turns the resurrected Cornucopia Project as the cornerstone of both his mayoral campaign and his bid for the 24th Ward to join Tokyo. When 0th hears about this, he wants to fight Gouri, and I can’t blame him. Kanae’s tech was flawed and she knew it, but he’s going to use it anyway?

Perhaps too conveniently for the completion of Gouri’s descent, Tsuzuragawa is unable to make the system work without a human brain at its core, and as you’d expect, you can’t buy living brains on Rakuten. But when Asumi is severely injured at the school fire, Gouri decides to turn her into the 24th Ward’s “Guardian Angel”, which even for him feels like too large a leap to Super-villainy.

Ultimately, while this flashback episode colored in some of the broad strokes and made some connections regarding the adult characters of the show, the fact remains RGB are still flailing about in the present day, with one less episode for them to figure shit out. Meanwhile, Gouri’s monstrous decision was decidedly not justified here, while Tsuzuragawa comes off as the misguided protégé. The grown-ups have left a big mess for the kids to clean up!

P.S. Episode 10 is delayed; a recap episode is airing this week.

Karakai Jouzu no Takagi-san 3 – 10 – A Better Snowman

Dang photo bombers…your ruining the shot!

Knowing it would be hard-pressed to top last week’s full-length Takagi x Nishikata wonder-date, this week’s episode doesn’t bother; instead it returns to the warm, cozy, less dramatic flow of the couple’s interactions. Last week wasn’t an official acknowledgment that they’re dating now, but such a formality isn’t needed with these two. They’re fine just existing beside one another, fitting like, well, gloves!

To whit: the two didn’t plan to meet at the shrine visit; their families just happened to come at the same time. It sure looks like those two married couples were their parents, doesn’t it? I feel like at some point they’ll have to meet each other’s parents, but that they don’t mean we get more time with these two. hen Takagi is called back to her folks, Nishikata says they should do it again next year…which she says happened to be her shrine wish. Who’s to say it wasn’t?

Yes, that’s right…make that ball bigger…

The next segment is classic Master Teaser, with Takagi up to her old tricks in cornering Nishikata into a snowman-building contest knowing full well that he’ll get to ambitious. While he’s sweatily rolling dirty lumpen mounds trying to build a Snow Titan, Takagi puts a lot of time and care and quite effortlessly builds the cutest lil’ snowman in all the land…so cute Nishikata doubts he’d have won. even if he’d finished…which Takagi helps him do.

NGL, from a distance this looks like a confession…

After Nishikata’s friends and the three girls have their little mini-scenes talking about the new year, we come to “Advice”, when Houjou takes Nishikata aside and asks him what he thinks Hamaguchi might like for his birthday. Yuuki Aoi is masterful at sounding both mature and incredibly hot-and-cold. For his part, Nishikata is both thoughtful and helpful. Then Houjou asks him to keep their chat a secret.

Little did Nishikata know that Takagi spotted him talking with Houjou, and asks him what about. When Nishikata demurs, she guesses correctly on the first guess, and pretty much knows, but Nishikata still won’t break his secret. Takagi’s facial expressions are so subtle here, but you can tell she’s a little mad Nishikata is keeping something from her…even if she knows what it is with 99.99% certainty!

Takagi expresses her jealousy by trying to stoke Nishikata’s, saying she wants to know what to get a “15-year-old boy”—not a Chihuahua, but a third-year middle schooler. This does affect Nishikata, who doesn’t want to give advice for some other guy…even though these two spend so much time together he would know of such a guy!

Of course, this time, Takagi is referring to Nishikata on his next birthday. He’s quite relieved, and apologizes for not being able to break his promise. Takagi apologizes too, owning up to the fact she did do something a little mean. When Nishikata asks her why she doesn’t always think that, she says this and her usual gentle teasing are two different things!

When Nishikata flat-out asks Takagi why she teases him, her answer is as expected…“Who knows?” But she knows, and so does Nishikata, and it’s the same reason they’re already making plans for spending next year together.