Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead – 09 – Voice of the Forest

I thought that episodes 9-12 were delayed, but turns out I was off by one episode, so that counts as a BONUS in my book! We also get the full OP in all its glory, complete with more singing and dancing. As the gang draws closer to his home village, Akira recalls the last time he saw his dad was literally looking down on him as nothing but a simple country farmer. Shizuka can tell he’s nervous about reuniting with them, but come on: in what world would they not be happy he wasn’t killed in the zombie apocalypse.

While stewing in his nerves, Beatrix has to shout at him to brake (did he learn nothing from the last time he met an obstacle on the road?!): the only tunnel into the village is blocked by sandbags and construction vehicles, holding in a dense horde of zombies. The good news is Akira doesn’t recognize anyone, and it’s blocked on both sides, so the villagers are likely safe. The bad news is, they have to go the long way ’round.

As they hike through the dense mountain forest, a shout rings out: a non-zombie old man is being chased by a zombie boar. Thankfully, our gang now has an expert archer among them, and Beatrix makes quick work of the porcine menace. The old man, named Kumano Masaru, is grateful for their help.

A master carpenter, when the city became rife with zombies he retreated to the wilderness, and has begun building his own treehouse from scratch. As an item on Akira’s list relates to treehouses and he’s always dreamed of building and living in one, he’s happy to help out, even if it delays his family reunion.

While helping Masaru, Akira learns about how the tree and the forest can tell you how to build the house, if you listen carefully. He also learns Masaru had to kill his wife and son when they became zombies. He plants the idea that when a child finally comes around to repaying their parents, it’s too late, but that goes both ways.

Kencho, Shizuka and Beatrix end up chipping in, and they get the house done in one afternoon. I know this because Akira is ready to leave without spending the night there, as spending time with Masaru has made him eager to see his parents. I’m willing to suspend my belief that such a large and elaborate treehouse was completed so quickly.

After a similarly comically wild journey across a very narrow mountain pass and a creaky rope bridge, the gang finally arrives at Akira’s village, which is incredibly pretty and idyllic…and also looks exactly like the remote village in every horror anime I’ve seen. There’s a brief few moments when Akira and the others fear the village is abandoned. It turns out the lion’s share of the villagers are in the common hall, drinking, dancing, and socializing.

One of them recognizes Akira and tells his parents, and when Akira sees them, he launches into a very detailed apology for never coming home the last three years and not giving them anything in return. His dad responds by punching him on the top of his head and telling him to stop spouting nonsenses, and telling his friends there’s plenty of empty rooms to go rest up.

Not the warmest reception from his dad, but he seems like the classic stoic aloof anime dad type who doesn’t easily show emotion, so it tracks. We learn that a convoy of survivors from the city sought shelter in the village, but only a handful made it there after someone infected among them turned most of them into the zombies trapped in the tunnel.

The city folk look out of place—particularly a group that looks like they’re up to no good for some reason—but Kencho, Shizuka, and Beatrix love how homey and nostalgic the place is. After he’s unable to help out his mom, who doesn’t need it, he goes out to the fields with his dad, who seems to be hiding a terminal illness from him. On their way home at sunset, those four ne’r-do-well-lookin’ cityfolk walk past, and Akira thinks he recognizes one of them.

This lad, whom I’ll call Boilerplate Okamoto Nobuhiko-voiced character, gets his own backstory. Unlike Akira who was a cog in the corporate machine being ground into dust, he was a NEET, and considered himself outside the machine of society altogether. As the days passed, his resentment turned to rage.

When the apocalypse happened, he celebrated like Akira, but because he wanted to see everyone die and everything burn. He came upon three other society-hating sociopaths like him who traveled to this village, and now he’s planning to release the tunnel zombies on the unsuspecting village. They have their own “dark” bucket list, which I’ll henceforth be calling their “Fuck It List.” It’s with this enticing new threat looming that we press pause on this season, as the remaining three episode airdates are TBD.

Mieruko-chan – 07 – Tunnel Visions (of Horror)

Things are only getting spookier for Miko, and it’s largely Hana’s fault! When Hana’s photo gets a lot of likes on Instagram (666, to be exact) she believes it’s her calling to be a photographer, and buys a Polaroid to take more. Yulia, waiting for an opening to exact her revenge on Miko for humiliating her/choking her out, eggs Hana on by suggesting a bus trip to the mountains for some prime photo spots.

Yulia’s motivations aside, this is the first time in a long time, maybe ever, she’s gone on a trip with friends. That said, she sticks to her mission, getting Hana to enter a tunnel known to be haunted so Miko will have no choice but to admit she also sees ghosts, and deal with them. Of course, at first it’s normal stuff that gets Hana spooked: the darkness and a sudden drop of water falling on the back of her neck.

When Miko trips in the dark, then dusts off her hands, Yulia believes her rival is setting up some kind of supernatural barrier. Because of the discrepancy between the types of ghosts Yulia and Miko can see, Miko’s gestures seem to coincide with the ghosts Yulia can see shriveling up and vanishing, as if Miko exorcised them. But Yulia can’t bigger and much more horrifying monster that is devouring the ones she can see.

Yulia makes things worse by trying to get Miko to admit she can see the ghosts too, totally unaware the biggest and baddest instantly reacts to the sensation that the humans can see them. Miko has been operating under the assumption that this is, as Egon once said, “very bad”. The monster prepares to swoop down on the three girls, but is stopped and defeated by the shrine spirits, who once again protect Miko.

Hana takes Miko and Yulia’s defeated, exhausted expressions on the ride home as shared disappointment in not getting to the end of the tunnel to the photo spot. So she gathers the two close for a selfie. That ends up making Yulia’s day, as it’s established her belief in ghosts cause other classmates to ostracize her, but she’s finally found new friends.

As for Miko, she’s just trying not to overthink why some spirits protect her while others want to kill her, Hana, and now Yulia, or what one of the ones protecting her meant by “three times”. But as the preview says, things are going to get spookier before they become less spooky, so Miko will likely need all the spectral allies she can get!

Warlords of Sigrdrifa – 02 – Operation Sneaky Eel

After a doozy of a welcoming party for Claudia, most of the base sleeps in with raging hangovers, which doesn’t seem ideal for battle readiness? The culture of Takeyama Base is a far cry from the iron samurai and the elegant ladies who supported them described by her dad upon visiting Japan. Still, now that she’s not considered a Grim Reaper here, Clau is ready to learn and eager to fit into this base full of eccentric misfits who are really not that bad once you get to know them.

Between Sono’s gardening and Miko’s cooking and cheerleading, Takeyama is more than just a place of war, but of life—thriving in spite of the threat of the Pillars. Clau’s open-mindedness even inspires her to come up with a choreographic introduction, but she’s interrupted by the Gjallarhorn, or Pillar alert. The recon squadron heads out first, but not before Miko sees them off with her blessing, a promise to come home safe, and rewards like breakfast when they do.

As with last week, this is a Pillar that is more powerful than an over-water Pillar should be, suggesting the enemy continues to evolve as they defeat it. We also get the first look of the effect Pillars have on civilians, as an entire island of them are rendered unconscious. The Valkyries only have 3600 seconds (an hour) to eliminate the threat, or all those people are dead. Just one problem: the Pillar has surrounded itself with an impenetrable water barrier.

Thankfully, that barrier doesn’t extend below the water surface, which means the girls have a route into the barrier: through the underwater tunnel to the island. The sight of four planes screaming through a tunnel meant for cars is a pretty awesome and harrowing sight, especially when they start getting fired upon from both ends of the tunnel. And even once they’re inside, the Pillar puts up a water wall that blocks their attacks.

Luckily the water wall is open at the top, but the Pillar protects itself with a cushion of heat so intense it melts all ordinance. That’s where Sono with her payload of coolant bombs does the trick, freezing the Pillar so it can be shattered and Claud can destroy the core so a giant tree can be born—while also reciting the intro she prepared. Rescue teams were dispatched so there are no casualties…but how long can that good fortune last?

Once back at base, Clau and Miko bump fists over a job well done while Azu and Sono look on. The quartet demonstrated much more cohesive teamwork, a product not just having been in the air together before, but of Clau knowing her comrades better and trusting them, and they trusting her with taking the lead.

There’s something inherently charming about the inoffensively fine Sigrdrifa’s quirky battle system, even if the enemy itself is a dull-as-sand force of nature the rules for which are always changing. The main draw here is the team of bright and endearing Valkyries, and while the peril has been underplayed so far, Odin’s close observation of his “daughter” Claudia and ominous warnings suggests it won’t all be smooth flying from here on in.

O Maidens in Your Savage Season – 12 (Fin) – Using the Same Words on a Train with No Brakes

The girls might be referring to the hostage situation, but the real train with no brakes each one of them is on is adolescence. It’s a crazy chemical, biological train where bodies take off before minds are ready; where feelings are felt before the words to express them can be found.

The reaction of Tomita-sensei, the principal and vice principal to the girl’s act of rebellion couldn’t be any appropriate: they shrug and go back home, hoping things will cool off by morning, or in about a day or so. They’re not looking down on their students or mocking their seriousness.

Instead, all they have to do is remember when they were that age to know that in this case, anything they try to do or say in this situation can only make things worse. Better to let the crazy kids work things out; to find the brakes. Also, Tomita will be by in the morning with McDonalds breakfast! She’s an angel.

What Tomita also does is call Rika, the person for whom the girls kidnapped Yamagishi-sensei, and who arrives with Amagi by her side. But this isn’t just about Rika anymore; it’s about settling things among each other, so they don’t let Rika or Amagi in.

Rika contacts Izumi, who contacts Kazusa to tell her he’s coming. He sneaks in to find Niina tangled up on the floor with Momoko as Kazusa looks on. Niina thinks it the best time to confess her feelings to Izumi, but Momoko doesn’t accept Kazusa “giving her permission”, and she sure as hell doesn’t have hers.

Izumi somehow makes things far worse by declaring he’ll clearly state how he feels about both of them, then proceeding to say that he loves Kazusa but is sexually attracted to Niina, words so lacking in nuance and open to interpretation they end up satisfying no one.

No one, that is, except Niina, who we’ve known for a while now is too far removed from traditional “love” to value it as much as the pure physical attraction she can make better sense of, since she’s experienced it herself, most powerfully on the train when, as she says “he touched her.”

Those words also lack nuance and serve to stir the shit further, until Kazusa suggests they simply dispense with further words and make it a pure neolithic fight, like their pillow war at the bathhouse. Rika, who arrived with Amagi in time to castigate Izumi for his harsh and imprecise words, laments that her girls have been “driven mad by lust” but doesn’t think abandoning language is the answer.

The only adult in the room, Yamagishi, free of his binds, suggests that they combine some kind of “fight” with language: color tag. By having those who aren’t “it” look for a color the person who is “it” describes in a very personal way, it will enable them to reach beyond mere words to find the thoughts and feelings behind them.

Momoko fails to find Hitoha’s “gray sigh,” but when she just blurts out “peach-colored Momoko” despite not knowing what it is at the time, Niina still runs at full speed to find it.  Niina wants to understand Momoko’s feelings so they can continue being friends. Happy that Niina feels that way, she embraces Niina, declaring she is now “it.”

Niina tells the others to find the “Blues of our youth,” which leads Kazusa to a dark hall, where she thinks about how she’s felt like she’s been lost in that darkness ever since Niina fist mentioned sex during club, confused about romance, sexual desire, and everything in between. But once her eyes adjust and the moon peeks out of the clouds, she and the hallway are bathed in blue light—the blues of their youth.

Izumi ends up right there with Kazusa, and manages to use the opportunity to put how he’s feeling into better, more useful words. To Kazusa’s dawning realization and delight, he’s finally using the same words she would use to describe how she feels. Now they both have a useful tool to fall back on if they ever get anxious in the future. Neither of them are experts on what they’re headed into, but they’re speaking the same language, so they won’t be walking that path alone.

On the other fronts, in addition to Niina and Momoko making up, Hitoha notes Milo-sensei’s dedication to the advisor role even in such an unusual situation. When he plays the “you’re nothing if not entertaining” card on her, she proudly warns him not to “attempt to satisfy me with half-hearted platitudes,” as that isn’t entertaining.

Finally, with things calming down around them, things aren’t as bad as Mom-Mode Rika initially feared. She’s more concerned about Amagi’s experience kissing other girls. But Amagi isn’t that experienced after all, as he’s never kissed anyone on the forehead before, as he does with Rika, and which he states makes his heart race more than any past kiss. Dawwww.

The other girls find them before they’re able to start making out, and Amagi, Izumi, and Milo are all dismissed so the five girls can finish working things out without further interruption from members of the opposite sex.

Their group catharsis takes the form of a massive poster and banner-painting project that leaves the facade of the school plastered in revolutionary slogans and the girls sleeping in their clubroom, spattered in paint of all colors.

Those literal colors represent the proverbial colors that color the blank white canvas of youth as one goes through one’s savage season. To be so colored is no curse, nor anything of which anyone need be ashamed. They are necessary and inevitable—as much as a train with no brakes will, after enough distance with the throttle pulled back, eventually slow down and become more manageable.

After some time passes, it seems all of these young women are managing fine with the bevy of new colors that have been splashed across their canvases. Jujou sends Rika a photo of her, her boyfriend, and their new baby, aged two months. Rika is on a date with Amagi. Hitoha is working on a performance for Milo and Tomita’s wedding. Niina and Momoko are hanging out and having fun.

And Kazusa and Izumi are holding hands, in public while taking a train together. In a marvelous callback to an earlier episode when their train enters a tunnel, she thinks to herself with a placid smile, “It fit.”

O Maidens satisfied my desire for a candid and genuine teen romantic drama that didn’t rely on cliches and didn’t hold back. It was packed with richly-rendered, distinctive, and ultimately lovable characters, and didn’t hesitate to put them—and us—through the wringer, but also didn’t keep us or them in that wringer, and balanced drama and comedy with aplomb. It looked great, too.

Finally, while that ship was built on stormy seas, it managed to sail the ship I wanted! It would have been a dealbreaker if it hadn’t, but that makes all the difference between simply liking or admiring a show, and actually loving it. O Maidens just…fit.

Karakai Jouzu no Takagi-san – 06

It’s Summer Vacation, which means, presumably, that Nishikata won’t have to deal with Takagi’s teasing. But one can never presume when it comes to young love, as Takagi and Nishikata end up spending a lot of time together despite not being beholden to it by school schedules.

When Takagi proposes the two of them practice tandem riding during the summer, Takagi might bristle, but he doesn’t refuse. After all, while he’d probably never admit it he enjoys her company, and not just for the challenge of trying to best her.

Because Nishikata can’t pull off the tandem riding on the first day, he owes Takagi a juice, but can’t afford one of his own. Takagi first offers a sip from her can, which would be an indirect kiss, but then buys him a juice with her own change, because more than wanting to tease him, she wants him to be hydrated.

After a rainy day during which only the class president does her homework, Nishikata is late for his “appointment” with Takagi, and when she arrives, she’s in such a cute summer outfit he hardly recognizes her, so used he is to seeing her in her sailor fuku.

But there are too many puddles in their practice lot, so Takagi proposes they hang out anyway by doing a test of courage in a nearby “haunted” tunnel. Predictably, Nishikata falls for a number of pranks Takagi all too easily executes, capitalizing on the fact he’s scared even though he insists he isn’t.

Once they emerge on the other end, two young siblings passing by spot them and the sister deduces Nishikata and Takagi are another couple having a date. Which, sorry Nishikata, you kinda are. Sucks to be you! Oh wait, no it doesn’t.

The next day Nishikata doesn’t expect to see Takagi, who is on a family vacation. But when he spots her in the road (in another adorable outfit) he attempts to follow and surprise her, only for her to spot him first and devise a countermeasure.

She succeeds in scaring him, but more importantly, she wants to know what he’s up to, and since they’re both going shopping, she makes it another “date.” However, she did not expect a cicada to be under her hat, and almost falls backwards; Nishikata tries reflexively to catch her, but trips and falls himself, skinning his knee, while Takagi managed to regain her balance.

The caring Takagi comes out once more, insisting Nishikata wash the wound at a water tap. She gives him her personalized handkerchief to tie around his knee (thereby literally marking him as hers), then slips off her sandals and soaks her feet in the tap, inviting Nishikata to join her.

Nishikata had been having the “worst summer vacation day”, but Takagi counters his assertion by saying she’s having a good one because she got to see “a certain someone.” Lady, just tell him you got to see him. Either that, or fall for someone less dense!

Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans – 50 (Fin)

Once the tunnel digging is complete, everyone falls back except for Akihiro and Mika, who stand their ground and continue to buy time for their family. And while Tekkadan’s two toughest pilots put up a hell of a fight, even initially surviving a direct Dainsleif attack from orbit, they’re sufficiently softened up to allow Julieta and Iok to go in for the kill.

Akihiro gets Iok in his giant binders and crushes him, but he in turn is killed by Iok’s subordinates. Julieta, who has vowed to remain human while being as ruthless as Rustal needs her to be, beheads the bestial Barbatos Lupus Rex and raises it in triumph before her elated comrades. It is over. Mika, Akihiro are dead, and so is Tekkadan.

But life goes on, and those who survived thanks to their fallen brothers continue to follow Orga’s final order to keep moving forward. And what to you know, things end up working out both for Gjallarhorn (which reforms from within to a more democratic system under Rustal) and Mars (which gains nominal independence from Earth, as a new union under the chairmanship of Kudelia).

Kudelia and Rustal work together to end the practice of turning destitute orphans into human debris once and for all. Even without the main actors who set the stage alive to see it, and very few people remember who they even were, a measure of their ideals were realized anyway. Atra’s powerful monologue about how one doesn’t notice a flower blooming by the side of the road really drove that point home.

It helps that the “bad guys” who “won” are interesting and likable enough that years after they brutally took Orga, Mika, Macky and Tekkadan down, it’s still satisfying to see Gaelio returning to his old “frivolous” self, only now far more wiser, while Julieta has steady-competenced herself to being the likely successor to Rustal for leadership of Gjallarhorn.

Meanwhile, some survivors, among them Ride, can’t move forward without taking revenge, as he does when he assassinates Nobliss Gordon while he’s sitting on the toilet.

As for Kudelia? She’s overjoyed to learn Merribit and Yukinojou are expecting their second child soon, but can’t go out drinking with Chad and the guys. She heads home to the Sakura Farm, where an older, taller, and very badass Atra is waiting with their kid, with the unmistakable blue eyes and vacant expression of Mikazuki. The kid’s name is, naturally, Mikazuki, and unlike his father, he’ll have a childhood full of love and kindness, not desperation, and violence.

While chatting with Gaelio, Julieta admits the fighters of Tekkadan weren’t devils; she knew that the moment she saw an unconscious Mika when his cockpit cover sheared off. They were, in fact, the most human of us all, belonging on the battlefield for no other reason than to keep living and fighting. So it’s fortunate that there’s civilization to filter out some of our raw, instinctual humanity.

Thanks to the sacrifices of Tekkadan, McGillis and their allies, that civilization has been improved and made available to the next generation of youth, so maybe there won’t be a need for another Tekkadan ever again.

And that’ll do it. Whether you just checked in this week or have been following them since the very beginning, thanks as always for reading my reviews of what I believe to be one of, if not the best Gundam yet. It was a fantastic ride, and the franchise will be hard-pressed to surpass the greatness it achieved in these fifty episodes. But if they make a (non-SD) attempt down the road, I’ll be there to review it.

Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans – 49

Orga is dead, but he succeeded in giving Tekkadan one last chance to survive. Eugene and Mika agree (without saying anything) that Orga’s orders to not stop and keep moving forward stand. The way Mika works, he doesn’t need Orga around to tell him what to do; his final words were broad enough to last Mika the rest of his days—which hopefully aren’t too few.

While some Tekkadan members are thirsty for blood and revenge (unaware it was Gordon’s men, not Gjallarhorn, who gunned him down), but in a rare instance of Mika gathering everyone ’round, he stands atop Barbatos and informs/warns everyone of the consequences of getting in the way of Orga’s orders. Eugene flashes a downward gaze, realizing he could never hold a candle to Mika’s charisma any more than Orga’s. But everyone’s roles are clear. All that’s left is to execute Orga’s orders.

When Rustal is informed of Orga’s death in a convo with Gordon, a healed Julieta is present to hear it. She laments that Tekkadan must fight in such a desperate fight after being used by so many “shady adults.” Rustal reminds her that he’s one of those adults; she understands, but perhaps she’s just as trapped as Tekkadan. Meanwhile we see two of the best adults in the series, Yukinojou and Merribit, saying a tearful goodbye.

Cut to the shadiest but also one of the toughest and wiliest adults of the series, Todo, who we learn arranged a shuttle for McGillis so he could rejoin his flagship, which he quickly evacuates. The final stage of his battle will be fought alone, for he believes it will give him the most freedom.

Contrast that with his wife Almiria, who towers over her towering father in proclaiming she will stand with her husband, and that they’ll bear their sins together…just so long as he returns home safe. She wears the mantle—or, if you will, shackles—that bind her with Macky with pride and nobility. All I can say is…Poor Almiria.

Meanwhile, true to McGillis’ style, he puts on a hell of a show, ramming his flagship into one of Rustal’s ship (unfortunately, not the ship Rustal is on), bursts out of the wreckage with Bael, and starts menacingly hacking away at the fleet, one ship and suit and pilot at a time. He’s slowed down by Gaelio, whom he warns he’ll truly kill this time if he impedes him. But Gaelio is intent on showing his former friend and comrade that being alone isn’t freedom, it’s a death trap.

Gaelio has what’s left of Ein by his side, and Carta in his heart. When he delivers a coup-de-grace to Bael, McGillis bails out and boards Rustal’s flagship, bleeding out from a shrapnel wound. He’s met in a corridor by the masked Gaelio, but he removes his mask and insists McGillis really look at him. McGillis demurs almost to the last, telling him that as wonderful as it was having him and Carta in his life, being with them clouded his resolve.

That might be Macky’s fatal flaw: his inability to trust even those closest to him (or as close as he ever let anyone get to him). Just think if he had confided in his friends, and instead of tattling, they joined him? McGillis’ plan to reform Gjallarhorn would have been bolstered by his friends’ family fleets. Instead, he treated them like parts of the system he had to destroy, but only led to him isolating himself into a checkmate.

What’s worst of all is that it’s plain he never entirely gave up his friendships. Gaelio can see this in Macky’s face and words, and killing him gives him no joy. Gaelio says Farewell, but as is the case with so many supposed death scenes (including…Gaelio’s), it’s not 100% certain Macky will succumb to his wounds.

One thing is for certain: McGillis Fareed has lost. His crusade to wrest control of and reform Gjallarhorn has failed spectacularly. In his wake he leaves hundreds of his loyal officers and men, as well as the orphans of Tekkadan, whose only slim hope now is to scurry under ancient tunnels and trade their identities for their lives.

Even that is not so easily done. Mika, Eugene, Akihiro, Dante, and Hush buy the tunnel-diggers time, but Hush seems to buy it, fighting hard until the end, and it seems like the best the rest can manage is be “ground to dust” as slowly as possible by the seemingly endless Gjallarhorn onslaught.

We can only hope Mika’s words of reaching the place Orga was headed is a place of the living; a place where they belong and won’t have to fight; and that his words won’t end up ringing as hollow as Macky’s.