Metallic Rouge – 13 (Fin) – All’s Well that…Ends

I was officially checked out of Metallic Rouge last week, and this finale didn’t offer a whole lot to change that position. Everyone basically stands around in a room for the entire episode while the Puppetmaster, revealed to be a Nean version of Roy Junghardt, explains how he always had a firm grip on the Immortal Nine’s strings.

Silvia tries to go against the “settings” he’d set for her, and pays the price. He inhabits Cyan’s body, but Naomi merges her consciousness within Rouge and fights Roy-in-Cyan’s body. Cyan also fights Roy and rejects him, enabling Rouge/Naomi to defeat him. Rouge then activates Code Eve, which I thought she didn’t want to do, and it triggers a Usurper trap.

A virus is sent to all Neans everywhere, making them pliable soldiers in an imminent Usurper war against humanity. But Gene, who is Noir’s human son somehow, predicted something like that would happen and uploaded an antivirus. Now Neans can push humans who push them, but aren’t automatically killbots, I guess.

The episode and the series end in abrupt and thoroughly unsatisfying fashion, with Rouge (with Naomi inside her) engaging a huge horde of Usurper killbots led by the clown girl Opera, who was never really a character. Naomi says “all’s well that ends well,” but I’m just glad this mess is over. Metallic Rouge started strong and had some fine moments, but it kinda completely fell apart at the end there.

 

Metallic Rouge – 12 – Live for Love

…Could we maybe not?

Here we are, back to having to hear the Puppetmaster drone on in his insufferably avuncular tone about puppets and plays and performances. I’m at the end of my tether with this stuff, frankly, and my worry is that if Code Eve can’t be extracted from Rouge, it will be extracted from the captive Cyan.

Rouge and Naomi run around the maze-like facility some more, encountering a Gene who’s a bit too energetic to be the real one. The two ladies calling Giallon out was one of the more chuckle-worthy moments of the episode, but then he has to start going on about how the proverbial play is boring and he wants the two of them to make things more interesting.

While he says he’ll take them to the real Gene, he instead takes them to Silvia, who offers Rouge one last chance to surrender her id willingly and sacrifice herself for the good of all Neans. Rouge declines the offer and a duel ensues, but Silvia can regenerate her lopped-off limbs, and stabs an open Rouge through the chest, extracting the id she needs to create her world.

At first Naomi leaves the id-less, fading Rouge on the floor and rushes to fulfill her duty as First. If Rouge lost, which she did, she has to initiate the self-destruct of the entire facility to prevent Code Eve from getting out. But as she’s going over the protocols, she has a change of heart, runs back to her friend, and lends her her own id to have another go at Silvia.

~dun dun dunnnnnn~

Meanwhile, Gene and Ash have convinced Aes/Alice to help them, and Eden has killed Grauphon, leaving Silvia with fewer and fewer allies. That said, she’s so certain that her cause is right she doesn’t seem to care. They all meet where the Puppetmaster likely intended them to meet, and he finally removes his mask to reveal that he’s Dr. Roy Junghardt himself.

I hate that it’s come to this, but like a Nean without an id, my energy and enthusiasm for this show has simply cratered. I’ll stick around for the finale to see if Rouge, Naomi, Cyan, and I guess Ash make it out of this, but I honestly don’t give a hoot about anyone else.

Metallic Rouge – 11 – Strings Attached

The Alters are all in attendance for the curtain to go up on the New World Silvia intends to lead. With the help of the Puppetmaster and Opera, the ship carrying Rouge and the others is being made to crash land at the Venus complex, ensuring they have no reliable way back home. But as Noir is also with them, Silvia asks Grauphon to give him back his id, and with it a second chance to join his bretheren.

Opera also sees to it that Rouge and Naomi are separated from Noir, Cyan, and Ash. Naomi knows the way, while Rouge busts up any guardbots that get in their way. But while they do a lot of running and bot-busting, you get the distinct feeling that they’re like rats in maze, their movements being largely controlled by the strings of their hosts.

Cyan is determined to meet back up with her sister, and make her own choice should she hear the voice again, but when the Clair de Lune plays in her head once more, she’s unable to fight it, and falls into a trance. She heads towards the Puppetmaster, her “masked father”, as Ash follows, while Grauphon gives Noir back his id, and prepare to fight.

Once Cyan arrives at the spot where the Puppetmaster summoned her, he knocks her unconscious, removes his mask, and places it on her before snatching her up and heading off we know not where. Ash might have managed to catch a glimpse of the Puppetmaster’s face. Is it Jung, whose death was faked? Or someone else?

While Aes takes Gene to his room where he’ll stay for the time being, Silvia orders Giallon to intercept Rouge and kill Naomi, but doesn’t specify how. He disguises himself as Gene in hopes of lowering Rouge’s guard. It’s a simple trick, but that may be all he needs against someone as pure and simple as Rouge.

I’m not feeling too great about Naomi’s life expectancy, to be honest.Just about everything this week goes Silvia’s and the Puppetmaster’s way. We even see that there’s a factory churning out both new Neans and the Nectar to fuel them, which means Silvia doesn’t have to convince all extant Neans to follow her; she has a pliable army waiting in the wings.

We’ll see if Gene can make any headway with Aes/Alice, or if Naomi can stay alive long enough to keep Rouge and Code Eve out of the Alter’s hands. If she can’t, the Solar System will likely be Usurper territory within a year.

Metallic Rouge – 10 – Rocket to Venus

Rouge has decided that she wants to protect both humans and Neans. On the trip to Venus, Naomi is eager to unveil a secret weapon that will help their cause, but in the crate is a stowaway: Cyan. Unlike the one who was hellbent on killing Rouge, this Cyan is a lot more affable and childlike than when we last saw her, insisting Rouge is her big sister and that she only wants to “play” with her.

Meanwhile, Gene arrives on Venus with Silvia and the other Immortal Nine. They are welcomed by the Puppetmaster, who assures Gene that the Usurpers are merely his “sponsors.” They all sit down for a meal (of chocolate bars, of course) and reminisce on memories Gene doesn’t quite recall of all of them being together as a family.

Despite looking like a young woman, Cyan acts like a little kid, drawing crude pictures of her ideal life with her beloved big sister. That said, she’s perceptive enough to notice that Naomi and Rouge share a bond. When she refuses to bathe, it’s Ash, who is a father, who manages to convince her with the promise of ice cream.

While strategizing for when they arrive at Venus, Cyan takes exception to Naomi, even going so far as to tell her she hate her and starting to transform into her gladiator mode. Rouge stops her and calms her down, saying she can’t just hurt people, and she should also question the voice in her head when it pops in to tell her to kill. She should make her own choices.

Cyan tells Rouge she’s a bit jealous of her and Naomi, and asks what Naomi is to her. As Naomi overhears in the hall, Rouge tells her Naomi is the “best stranger”, someone who is irritating at times, but overall someone she doesn’t mind spending time with. This is heartening for Naomi, who as the First Nean has probably always felt pretty lonely.

I can’t say what awaits them on Venus—likely more robo-fighting—but this was a pleasant enough calm-before-the-storm episode that takes stock of the connections between the characters and the roles they’re to play on the final stage.

Metallic Rouge – 09 – Making Up In Space

Turns out Aes isn’t on Rouge’s side, but Silvia’s. Grauphon knocks Gene out and offers him to Rouge in exchange for her id. Eden sacrifices his id to save Rouge. Giallon arrives in a Usurper landing ship to pick up Silvia, Graupon, Aes, and the unconscious Gene. Rouge prepares to chase after them, but is kicked by her counterpart Cyan, who is itching for a fight.

She gets one, and she and Rouge soon learn they’re equally matched in Gladiator mode. Naomi reaches out to Rouge and tells her to trust her and invert her output phase, deforming as if she were in human form. Rouge puts her faith in Naomi once more, and it works: she and Cyan cancel each other’s power out and revert to human form, with Cyan passing out.

Rouge and Naomi agree that they need to talk, and Naomi chooses a rather extraordinary location to do so: the orbiting space station of the Visitors, the first aliens to make contact with humans. After docking and walking through a corridor devoid of air, Naomi suddenly takes her helmet of, shocking a still-very-mad Rouge. Turns out Naomi is a Nean too, one created by the Visitors to serve as a go-between with humans.

Naomi takes Rouge to meet three of the X Noah—the Visitors—who look like a possible design for the spice-transfigured Navigators in Dune, but Rouge first mistakes for merfolk, which is cute. They call Naomi “First”, since she’s the first Nean ever created. She’s brought her here because it’s the safest place to be, both for her, the humans, and the Visitors.

Within her id is the key to decoding Code Eve, which will free all of the Neans from the Asimov Code. However, the Usurpers, the evil aliens who started a war, are trying to start a new one, using the Immortal Nine with their mutual enemy as their vanguard. If Code Eve were executed, all the freed Neans would end up assisting the Usurpers in their conquest of Earth.

With all that in mind, this space station is the safest place for Rouge to be. But it is not the only logical place for her to be. After Rouge learns that the Nine and Gene are now on Venus, she wants to go there to fight them and get her brother back, and Naomi manages to convince the Visitors that Rouge’s wish to go is logical, because she trusts Rouge’s potential to defeat the enemy with her own power.

After Naomi kinda-sorta apologizes for putting Rouge through so much and making her think she betrayed her when she was only doing what she thought would keep her safest, Rouge insists on punching Naomi once. After that, the Visitors allow Rouge to head to Venus to try to resolve things, but order Naomi to stay put. In response, Naomi asks for her first-ever PTO day for self-care, which the Visitors grant.

When they reach the airlock to their ship, they encounter Ash and Eden, who flew up to orbit after learning Earth is on DEFCON-1 due to simultaneous Usurper attacks on and around Venus and Jupiter. Shit is starting to go down, and I couldn’t be happier Rouge and Naomi are back together to save the day, and then hopefully go to a nice beach somewhere and relax.

7th Time Loop – 02 – Rishe’s Precious Riches

With the setup provided in the first episode, this second one is free to explore the person Rishe Imgard Weitzner is today: a supremely capable young lady with years of experience in multiple disciplines. In other words, she’s a catch. This is a status not achieved just thanks the time loops, but by her own hard work.

She declines Prince Arnold’s proposal at first, because it’s coming from someone who instigated a war that lead to her death in all past loops, and someone who personally slew her in the last one. It gives her a blind spot to the fact that this Arnold is not the bloodthirsty emperor of those past … not yet at least.

As a Crown prince, Arnold is used to getting what he wants. When he tells her he’s “fallen in love”, its an acknowledgment he’s never encountered someone like Rishe before. As such, he agrees to all of Rishe’s very specific conditions for giving him her hand in marriage.

Those conditions include hiring the Aria Trading Company for everything needed in the ceremony, a place to receive foreign guests, a separate residence from the emperor, and most importantly, leave to laze about and loaf about the castle. If anyone has earned a life of leisure, it’s Rishe.

Her final condition is that he not lay a finger on her, but when she’s asleep in the carriage leaning against his sword like a grizzle knight, she senses he’s about to touch her, wakes up, and unsheathes the sword. Noble ladies aren’t supposed to fall asleep on swords or sense movements while asleep and not being touched, and yet she can.

When some bandits attack the prince’s convoy, he locks her in the carriage for her own safety and joins the fray personally. When she picks the lock (a skill learned from her life as a maid) she sees he’s swiftly dispatched all of the bandits himself, but notably didn’t kill any of them, another sign this younger Arnold is not yet too far gone.

When some of the guards report numbness near their wounds, Arnold and Rishe both conclude it’s the work of poison. She even knows its composition, and tells the prince she can make an antidote with the plants she has on hand. When the soldiers hesitate to accept the balm, she cuts her own arm with the poison blade and treats it, which convinces them it’s safe.

Rishe later learns that the men are not just random guards but Arnold’s handpicked retainers, so chosen for their diversity of backgrounds and experiences. When she finds his gaze lingering on her, she asks what’s up, and he simply says he finds her “unfathomable,” and can’t wait to see what means she’ll use to “entertain” him. Rishe tells him it’s not her intent, which Arnold understands.

He then gets on one knee and bows to her in thanks for saving his retainers, explaining that they were wary because they knew her engagement was broken and still wondered what their prince was getting into. When Arnold notes that he told his father the emperor that he “stole” her, Rishe states that that makes her a hostage of the empire, which gives her that much more freedom to laze about like she wants.

Rishe is overjoyed to arrive in Galkhein’s imperial capital, where he gets a royal welcome and the streets are packed with smilng faces. Of all the lands she’s visited in her lives, this is the one place she’s never been. When Arnold reports that the villa where she’ll dwell is in no fair state, she is unbothered.

Donning simple work clothes and tying her hair back, Rishe once again calls upon her maid experience to clean the whole house herself. After all, it’s much more rewarding to loaf about in a home you yourself cleaned.

While fetching washing water from the well, Rishe encounters three maids bullying a fourth that they call a “novice”, while they all have three years of experience. Rishe, with five years under her belt, helps the novice up and ignores the others, then recommends they don’t wash large articles today as it’s supposed to rain. They don’t believe her and do so anyway, but it does rain. She then helps Elsie, the novice maid, properly wash her muddied outfit.

While admiring the city from the balcony as the sun begins to set, Rishe’s knight senses are set off by Arnold lurking inside. He is impressed, as he purposefully masked his presence only for her to detect him anyway. He tells her about the interesting buildings she points out in the distance, unsure why she values them, then notes that she’s unlike anyone he’s ever met, and possesses skills a “simple nobleman’s daughter” would have no need for.

Those words cause Rishe to remember what her noble mother told her: that personal feelings, academic studies, and pursuit of anything other than the art of maintaining appearances in social situations are immaterial to one born to a duke’s family. Her duty was merely to marry a prince and bear children.

Rishe tells Arnold that while others may deem the things she’s learned unnecessary to her station, she treasures them as riches she’ll always have. In other words, she is the one to decide what pursuits are “necessary”. To her surprise, Arnold is in full agreement, and declares that she should be free to do whatever she wants without constraints.

When she asks why, he says simply that he’s fallen completely in love with her, and that he doesn’t find her various skills pointless, but delightful “from the bottom of his heart.” Again Rishe, informed by her bloody past, suspects he must be up to something … but I don’t think he is. He is telling her the truth.

In all the other loops, the day arrived when Arnold killed his father and started a war. But in all those other loops, he’d never met Riche. Their fight in the castle when she was a knight doesn’t count, because he didn’t know her. This Prince Arnold may prove quite different, solely by dint of him meeting and falling for her. If only she realized she possessed that transformative power, she’d be a lot less wary in her dealings with him.

 

7th Time Loop – 01 (First Impressions) – The Constant

We open on a dark, stormy, bloody night. A castle has been breached, and invaders in black jackets are slaughtering knights in white. The leader of the invasion walks purposefully, in no hurry, and cuts down anyone who gets near him.

Even the four elite knights guarding the young princes’ chambers are no match for him. The last knight is very slim and feminine in appearance, with coral hair and full lips. This knight is the only one able to spill the enemy’s blood, but not before being impaled and killed.

As the knight declares she’s lived another full life, she proceeds to undergo the process of magical reincarnation, returning as Lady Rishe Imgard Weitzner. She stands before her fiancé Crown Prince Dietrich as he is leveling charges of being a “devious woman” against her and annulling their engagement.

Not only does Rishe take all of this in stride, she responds as if she knew it was coming, because she does … it’s the seventh time she’s relived it! The first time it came as a shock, and she was disowned, exiled, and thrown onto the streets with only the clothes on her back. But she happened to meet some friendly merchants and ended up becoming one herself.

When she was swept up in a war, killed, and reincarnated, she left with more money and effects, and while she didn’t encounter the merchants, she used the amassed knowledge from that life to become an accomplished herbalist. When she was killed again in the war, she became a scientist in her next life, and a simple handmaiden in the life after that.

In her sixth life she cut her hair short, disguised herself as a man, and became a knight, only to be cut down by one Arnold Hein, Emperor of Galkhein. While this is the only loop in which he kills her personally, Arnold is the one who starts the war in every loop, which always claims her life five years after her engagement is broken.

After excusing herself from Prince Dietrich’s false charges a seventh time, Rishe decides not to use the main entrance to depart this time. That turns out to be quite fortuitous, as who should she nearly collide with as she rounds a corner but Arnold Hein himself!

The shock of suddenly standing before the man who took her sixth life causes her to blurt out his name, including the title of emperor … which at this point in the timeline he has not yet achieved; he is merely a Crown Prince.

Rishe begs his forgiveness, as she’s in a hurry. Resigned to leaving with only the clothes on her back like the first loop, she removes her shoes and leaps out the window, landing into a roll to protect herself, then breaks the heels off her shoes and runs off. Arnold is thoroughly amused by this spectacle.

Delayed by her surprise encounter, Rishe ends up encountering Prince Dietrich outside her house with her parents, guards, and commoner bystanders all present. Dietrich, who is a right piece of work, notes that from the state of her she must be feeling heartbroken and overwhelmed with grief. But Rishe says “grief does not dirty a dress.”

Armed with six loops and a combined thirty years worth of experience, Rishe levels with the prince: she will be okay without him. She says, because she knows, that she can go out into the world and find her own worth, purpose, and happiness.

When Lady Marie, the woman who framed her, speaks up for the Prince, Rishe tells her she holds no ill will towards her, as she knows she only usurped her in order to save her family. She urges Marie to lead a life where both she and her family can keep smiling.

Having left Dietrich on the ground thoroughly chastened and Marie looking quite inspired by her words, Rishe continues on her way, but Dietrich orders his knights to stop her. As one approaches her from behind, her own knight instincts kick in, she steals his sword, and uses it to block a strike … from Crown Prince Arnold, coming around another corner.

The fact that she successfully parries his strike pleases him, as does the fact she knew he was holding back. But then he does something even she in her six lives could not have predicted: Arnold gets on one knee and asks for her hand in marriage!

Having watched her reaction to being spurned by Prince Dietrich and her heroic leap out of the window, to her powerful declaration of independence at the gates of her family’s home and finally parrying his blade, Arnold has evidently become smitten with Rishe … and who can blame him? She’s the complete package.

I don’t know for sure, but I assume he isn’t aware that he is the “constant” that has cut short all of Rishe’s previous lives. It stands to reason that if he doesn’t start a war in the next five years, she won’t die in this seventh loop. What better way to stop him from starting a war than by becoming his bride, and perhaps confidant?

That’s a hell of a premise for a reincarnation fantasy series. This first episode is largely setup, but makes that setup efficient, compelling, and epic in scale. Rishe has worked her ass off in loop after loop; not only does she deserve to end the cycle of death and reincarnation, but she deserves happiness and respite. We’ll see if life as an emperor-to-be’s fiancée will provide that!

The Rising of the Shield Hero S3 (Fin) – 12 – Doing It for Her

Naofumi and Raphtalia undergo rigorous dragon vein training with Gaelion with only Sadeena accompanying them. Sadeena breaks out a little booze that proves too much for Raph or the dragon, allowing Sadeena to ask Naofumi a simple question: What are your feelings towards Raphtalia?

His answer is the predictable one: he sees her as his daughter. At least he wants to believe that’s all. Even if it truly isn’t any more complicated than that, as long as Raphtalia can smile, Naofumi’s heart is at ease. He cares for her a great deal. Of all the comrades he’s amassed, she’s his number one.

When Elhart comes to Luroluna with the delivery of a gift made specially for Raphtalia, it’s not a weapon, but a miko outfit, and Naofumi can’t mask his delight. The fact is, Raphtalia looks super cool (and cute) in what to him looks like traditional Japanese garb.

Unfortunately, this turns out to be a serious unforced error made completely by mistake. Naofumi doesn’t know it until Sadeena returns to town and insists Raphtalia take off the outfit immediately. But it’s too late: a bomb goes off in the house in which she’s changing, and suddenly the village is lousy with ninja-like assassins.

These assassins turn out to be tough customers by dint of their apparent immunity to attacks from heroes; Naofumi, Ren, and the recently acquired Itsuki are of no help. That means Atla, Fohl, and Sadeena must keep them at bay while Naofumi and Raph do chorol magic to cast confuse on all of their foes, allowing them to be mopped up.

Sadeena identifies the assassins as being from Q’Ten Lo. Raph was born into the royal family of Q’Ten Lo and is a descendant of its Heavenly Emperor (a lot of analogues to the Japanese imperial family). Her parents flet Q’Ten Lo to escape all the political wrangling, but then Luroluna was attacked by slavers.

That day happened to be one of the few days Sadeena, a royal guard of Q’Ten Lo who went on protecting Raph’s parents, wasn’t there to protect her, as she was busy fighting wave monsters at sea. She also makes clear that these would-be assassins have been watching Raph since before she was born, not lifting a finger to keep her from suffering or being enslaved.

As we know how important Raphtalia is to Naofumi, this obviously cannot stand, so he prepares to head to Q’Ten Lo immediately to open a dialogue. He can’t have assassins roaming around when the Phoenix arrives in less than two months. He stops in the captial, where Queen Reina rewards him for gathering the other three Heroes by committing knights to help protect his town while he’s away.

Naofumi intends to travel to Siltvelt with Wyndia aboard Gaelion, then open a portal for everyone else to join him. There’s a ferry from Siltvelt to Q’Ten Lo, and it will be interesting to see not so much if he gets support in his diplomatic venture from Siltvelt—which essentially worships him as a god—but how much.

Unfortunately, we’ll have to wait until Season 4 to learn what will transpire. Will the Phoenix attack while all this Q’Ten Lo stuff is going down? Will Raphtalia be able to reject her claim, or be forced to wear the crown of a country she never knew? Who will Bitch swindle next? There will be plenty to cover, but it’s good to see Naofumi has his priorities straight.

Reign of the Seven Spellblades – 01 (First Impressions) – Freedom and Results

Oliver Horn is a new first-year student at Hogwarts Kimberly Magic Academy, a school with the design of a breathtaking castle perched upon a hill. While walking through the cherry blossoms to the opening ceremony, he encounters his classmates, and they encounter one another. The one that makes the biggest impact on all of them is a petite samurai girl with a bright smile and a complete disregard for the dress code.

The assembled classmates are greeted by a parade of magical beasts, but one of them gets pissed off when a troll is part of the parade, believing it to be a wrong, even racist practice. She butts heads with her male classmate, and it’s here where I note that she has huge brown hair and he’s a redhead, just like Ron and Hermione! Probably a coincidence.

What likely isn’t a coincidence is when someone in the crowd casts a spell that makes the brown-haired girl’s legs run even though she doesn’t want them to. She’s on a collision course with the troll, and it doesn’t look like he cares whether she’s pro- or anti-troll. Who should come between her and her sudden and unncerimonial demise but the magical samurai girl.

Here, Oliver not only shows his ability to herd cats and get the classmates to execute his plan even though none of them know each others’ names (and neither do we—we don’t even know Oliver’s yet) but also his penchant for spell customization, creating a decent facsimile of a dragon’s roar.

That roar distracts the troll, giving samurai girl the perfect opening. As she leaps into the air, she’s covered with glowing mana and her hair turns white. Her magical katana slams against the crown of the Troll’s skull, knocking him out.

Immediately after looking cool and badass as hell, the girl turns around and acts like a big goof, as her hands are still shaking from the skull impact. But her classmate is safe, and so is she thanks to Oliver and the others’ magical teamwork.

When Kimberly’s headmistress Esmeralda apparates into the auditorium with a flourish of lightning, it’s made clear that incidents like the one we just saw are relatively common, as the academy has a student attrition rate of 20%. And by “attrition” I mean death by myriad means both magical and otherwise.

Esmeralda minces no words in making her point, which is surely to sharpen these first-years and get them used to the fact that while they have extraordinary freedom, with it comes responsibility for their own lives and futures. The curt sobriety of the headmistress’ speech is followed by the samurai girl not asking Esmeralda a question, but just recommending a way to reduce headaches.

Once the classmates are magically wafted to the banquet hall, the classmates finally introduce one another. This should feel like last-second infodump—and in many ways it is—but allowing each student to introduce themselves also allows gives us an efficient Cliff Notes of who they are and where they’re from, it also allows for plenty interaction between these six different personalities.

You have the cordial aristocrat oujou-sama Michela McFarlane, complete with drill curls, the mousier animal lover Katie Aalto, the outgoing farm boy/botanist Guy Greenwood,  the introverted tsundere Muggle-born Pete Reston, and Oliver, who has two older cousins at the academy. They all come off as likeable, though Guy is the closest to being grating.

Finally, there’s Hibiya Nanao, the samurai girl, who is far more far-flung than anyone else, and also didn’t have to take any test to enroll. Instead, she was discovered by a faculty member (who happens to be Michela’s dad) and received a special recommendation.

With all the intros out of the way, everyone heads off to their dorms. Oliver is roommates with Pete, and makes sure he’s tucked in before heading out on an pre-dawn stroll. He’s confronted in the garden by a “covert operative” named Teresa Carste, sent by his brother Gwyn to watch over him.

Oliver gets another taste of Hibiya Nanao’s whole fish-out-of-water deal when he finds her topless, purifying herself with water from a fountain. Oliver warns her about the nearby boys dorms, but Nanao doesn’t possess the same Western modesty as he does. What she does have are a lot of battle scars, suggesting she’s no stranger to leaping into death’s jaws.

The reason she was able to save Katie was that she also harbored a healthy, if almost unconscious trust in her peers to back her up and, incidentally, save her from getting killed by the troll. It’s a group I’m looking forward to watching as they grow closer as friends and make each other better mages.

Saving 80,000 Gold in Another World – 12 (Fin) – Dragonslayer Mitsuha

The dragon that shows up at the end of last week isn’t just a dragon, but a great ancient dragon, who is the force behind the Empire’s invasion. When talking with the dragon (with a giant drone-projected image of herself) fails, Mitsuha and her military contractors let him have it.

Small arms fire doesn’t do much, but heavy machine gun fire and a bazooka to the mouth does. Once sufficiently beaten up, the dragon flies off with its tail between its legs, and the imperial army retreats. It’s an unqualified victory for the Messenger of Lightning.

Because of her contribution to that victory, the king and nobles are very generous when it comes to providing recompence for Mitsuha’s use of soldiers from her homeland. She makes up a story about them fighting against the laws of their land, and sits back and waits for each and every noble to contribute enough.

The thing is, Wolf Fang didn’t even need Mitsuha to pay them anything, because the dragon fang they’re allowed to take home, along with the patent rights from Harvard research, fetch a more than hefty enough sum for their services.

Mitsuha and Alexis (who makes a “miraculous” recovery thanks to modern medicine) are both bestowed the title of viscountess and viscount, respectively. Her new lands happen to be just a half-day’s walk from Colette’s village, and Mitsuha pays her a visit to invite her to work as her retainer.

Colette is not only over the moon to see Mitsuha is safe and sound from the war, but delighted to come live with her in her territory; her parents are also fine with it. And so now Mitsuha finds herself a powerful viscountess in another world, responsible for the upkeep and development of a large swath of fertile land.

That means there will be quite a few more expenses involved than maintaining a small general store in the capital. As they say, more money, more problems. Mitsuha is now well on her way to that 80,000 gold she needs for retirement. Despite her new station in life and the riches that may lend, she seems determined to stick with that relatively humble goal.

There’s no news of whether there will be a second season of 80,000 Gold, and due to its animation and character shortcomings (Mitsuha’s a little too perfect), it’s not a given that I’ll be tuning back in if one were to be announced. That said, it wasn’t a bad show for what it was: an exploration of the economic and social intricacies one would face in a new world.

Saving 80,000 Gold in Another World – 11 – Bringing Guns to a Spear Fight

Though she can transport herself and Captain out of danger, Mitsuha doesn’t want to abandon the innocent refugees to be slaughtered by monsters. So Captain holds off the horde with bullets along enough to teleport home, grab all the firestarter paste, newspaper, and fireworks she can, and uses it to burn/blast away the remaining monsters and their human handler.

With the refugees saved and able to cross the river, Mitsuha and Captain return to the mercs’ base, where she dons a custom-made “battle gown” and delivers a stirring speech to rally the sixty men who will have to go up against 20,000 imperial soldiers and unknown number of monsters under their control. Captain is impressed by her ability to agitate, while she admits to no one that she borrowed the speech from a manga.

She teleports the entire mercenary contingent into the palace courtyard, then has the motorcade split off to defend the various gates. The cityfolk see the dawn light hit Mitsuha just right, and the legend of the “Messenger of Lightning” really starts to take off. Then Mitsuha has the enemy envoy wounded and takes out all the veteran soldiers and monster handlers, leaving the imperial army in disarray.

Their commander celebrates when their groundbreaking Wyvern Squaron arrives, and Mitsuha sweats her first drop of sweat. However, the Captain and his men have the skies covered thanks to their own personal “God”, an old half-track with twin 20mm anti-aircraft cannons. It once saved their asses in a past battle, and here it tears the wyverns to ribbons. Technically speaking, this show’s ambition is undermined by its limited production values; there’s an awful lot of panning across still frames.

It’s looking like it’s going to be a walk in the park for Mitsuha and her hastily mustered squadron of battle-tested mercs. But then a massive dragon starts stomping through the trees, and all of a sudden it’s looking like they may take some losses. The episode ends with this cliffhanger, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the big guy gets his ass kicked by Colette, Mitsuha’s freakishly strong first friend in this world who is worried about Mitsuha’s safety.

Saving 80,000 Gold in Another World – 10 – Shift in Priorities

While we saw goblins on the march last week, things start out far more casually this week, as Mitsuha attends a cookout back on Earth held by the military contractor Wolf Fang. She brings a brace of antlered rabbits which are a big hit, but I had a feeling their presene would cause trouble once somebody snapped a photo.

The trouble doesn’t have anything to do with cross-world contamination, but a war swiftly brewing in the isekai. The king asks Mitsuha to take Princess Sabine to a neighboring country for her protection, but Mitsuha refuses, as doing so would expose her general store to the imminent invasion. Instead, she considers taking Sabine to Earth where she’ll be safe for sure.

When Mitsuha returns to the palace, a full-on war council is in progress, and her old friend Alexis von Bozes is in attendance on behalf of his father. When a herald attempts to assassinate the marquis in charge of the defense, Mitsuha dives into the line of fire, but so does Alexis. She gets a bolt to the arm, but he gets one in the shoulder and one in the gut.

That escalated quickly! Suddenly this is a show not about how much fun Mitsuha has making friends and earning retirement gold, but keeping herself and those friends and allies safe from an increasingly volatile situation. She transports Alexis to Wolf Fang, who has a surgeon on staff who fixes them up.

Then she asks the Captain if he’ll agree to a job defending a kingdom in another world. When the Captain bristles at what sounds like nonsense, Mitsuha tries to run him over with his own Humvee. When he opens the door to protest, she transports the two of them and the truck to the isekai.

There, she and the Captain see that the situation has already deteriorated, and a wagon train of refugees are at risk of being slaughtered by goblins. She pays the Captain a gold coin on the spot, and they work to protect the wagons as they try to cross a flooded river.

They find that the goblins don’t go down easily, so I imagine they’ll need to headshot and/or blow them up to cease their advance. Needless to say, they’re going to need reinforcements from Earth.

This will cost Mitsuha dearly; likely all the money she’s saved up from her store and consultations. Maybe the king will reimburse her. But either way, funding her cozy retirement is no longer her top priority. The lands and people she’s come to care about are in danger, so no expense will be spared in helping them out. I look forward to the effort.

NieR: Automata Ver 1.1a – 02 – Blood and Lilies

In episode two, perspective shifts from the YoRHa in their pristine orbital headquarters to a battered but still operational Machine Lifeform (ML). Curiously, despite having apparently been created by “Aliens”, they have a very similar bootup and heads-up display as the humans’ androids.

This single ML unit starts to walk, creating a sense of scale and grandeur to the ruined landscape. Upon returning to a base, it finds a book, and in that book, a bookmark with the image of a white lily. Scenes of ML are interspersed with a childlike narrator telling the story of the MLs with colored paper compositions.

This particular ML develops an “emotional matrix”, deemed a critical error, and its red eyes turn yellow, denoting neutrality. It ;earns how to garden, and devotes its existence to growing flowers, gathering “followers” in the form of other yellow-eyed MLs.

The comparisons to WALL-E are obvious from the serene, gorgeous empty vistas ML inhabits to the way the storytelling takes place without dialogue (narration segments aside). But hey, if you’re going to borrow, borrow from the best.

Not far from ML’s growing garden is an embedded group of human resistance fighters led by…Lily. I immediately wondered if, like the stiff redheaded twin maintenance units assigned to the unit, she was an android in disguise. Regardless, she’s bitter about the “Council of Humanity” on the Moon ignoring all requests for badly-needed reinforcements.

Every encounter with the red-eyed MLs means at least one of her unit will be injured or killed, with no one to replace them. They’re ambushed when trying to gather resources to keep fighting, and have to abandon those resources when the MLs send in kamikaze units.

Little does Lily know that up in orbit, she’s about to get a helping hand, in the form of 2B and 9S. When 2B wakes up she tells 9S she finds the sound of his voice comforting, only to cooly head to the control room without him.

They may have just come back from a brutal battle that claimed 9S’s memories, but Commander White sends them back down to perform recon on the resistance unit. They had an android embedded with the unit, but there’s been a breakdown in communication.

2B and 9S can’t come soon enough, as a huge mass of red-eyed MLs trample and destroy the yellow-eyed peaceful bots and their garden on their march to kill the humans. Lily demonstrates that she’s a capable leader despite her youth, quick and decisive and maximizing the limited resources she has.

When they mine a bridge and lure the red-eyed bots across, the detonators fail to work. It’s here where Lily’s underlings spot the yellow-eyed ML we know and have grown fond of. He stands in front of the hundreds of red-eyes, seemingly to try to talk them out of further fighting.

But before he can turn any red eyes to yellow, the entire bridge is lit up by missiles from 2B and 9S’ flying mechas. 2B makes a characteristically stylish entrance, and Lily not only knows her as “Number Two” but is very shocked to see her, or indeed any Council reinforcements. That said, Lily’s bloody shoulder seems to confirm she’s a flesh-and-blood human, not a “tin man”.

As for our yellow-eyed friend, he didn’t die in vain, nor is he alone. Hundreds if not thousands of his kind are soaking up knowledge from the library of the civilization they toppled, and seem to be combining their amassed knowledge and brains into a single mega-brain.

While I’m not sure what this is quite about, from a visual standpoint I can at least guess that yellow eyes and books are, at least now, less of a threat than red eyes, kamikaze bots, and slaughter. The narrator also describes the yellow-eyed bot anomalies as “treasures”. Were they meant to evolve in this way, or was it just random happenstance?

Whatever the answers are, and even if they’re never revealed, I remain thoroughly intrigued, and the setting lends the show a welcome splash of color and life from last week’s largely monotone, industrial battles. The post-ED omake featuring a cloth puppet 2B and 9S answering fan mail provides humor and whimsy.