Hundred – 03

Don’t get me wrong; I knew I was playing with fire by sticking with a show that was clearly billed as not only action sci-fi, but ecchi harem – not to mention watching this after Kabaneri. So if I had a bad time watching this very overtly tone-setting episode of Hundred, it’s my own fault.

The thing is, while this was often goofy and rambling and cliched and patently ridiculous, and I probably don’t need to watch anymore, rather than punch my screen I embraced the silliness for an episode, and mostly just had fun, as Zane did when I handed Recon in G to him. Maybe he’ll take this off my hands too?

I guess I’ll summarize the plot, such as it is: When a bigger Savage than expected shows up, Claire says no way to letting Hayato and Emile tag along, but a midget and a computer immediately convince her to let them tag along. Sortieing involves jumping out of a plane and activating their Hundreds, which made me think: what if for some reason your Hundred doesn’t turn on? I guess you’re dead.

That aside, Claire, Liddy and Erica have no trouble with one of the small fry, but the larger Trenta-class Savage is too much, and the three are all taken out. I guess it was a good thing they brought two inexperienced rookies with them, or they’d be dead, right?

Hayato plucks Claire out of the air, and he and Emile have at the Trenta, but while Emile is protecting his would-be dueling partner Liddy, the Savage cuts open the front of his shirt, exposing her boobs. When Hayato sees the scar between them, it all comes back to him: this was the silver-haired girl he tried to save back in that flashback. Obviously.

To defeat the Savage, Hayato suddenly transforms into Overdrive mode, donning full-body armor and almost going too far. He is saved from that by Emilia, who snaps him out of his berserk trance the way you usually snap people out of berserk trances: by french-kissing them.

With that, Hayato refocuses and cleaves the Savage in two with his mighty giant sword of many shapes and sizes. Thank goodness a man was here to save all these defenseless women who were brought down and nearly taken out so easily by a robotic beast thing whose design is so forgettable, I’d have forgotten they’d fought anything if I didn’t have screencaps of it.

With that, Claire does her tsundere act with the pointing out that Emile has boobs and kissed Hayato and such, and everyone flies back to the Little Garden, safe and sound.

While in the air, Hayato notices a throng of Zwei Islanders holding up a huge sign that reads Thanks a lot with no punctuation, which I actually couldn’t stop laughing at because it read as sarcastic to me. I mean, he did blow up a lot of property in the battle, not to mention the side of a mountain. Those forest fires aren’t going to put themselves out.

But more than that, the battle itself was very random and all over the place, as the foe took out the supposed veterans far too easily to ever take them seriously again, then the foe turned into a pushover when Hayato stepped in.

But the show was clearly worried I would still take it seriously after that battle with boob grabs and kisses, so the final scene puts the final nails in its coffin. Hayato and Emilia, you see, are “variants”, which is to say they have the Savage “virus” in them, but because they’re special they didn’t die, and instead are really good at killing Savages. It’s a lot like the half-Kabane Kanaberi, Ikoma and Mumei. Only far far worse.

There’s also the matter of how this show will continue to integrate french kissing in its milieu: the exchange of “non-activated” virus DNA with berserk virus DNA—i.e. the exchange of bodily fluids like saliva—are how Emilia is able to keep Hayato from losing himself. Sure, why not?

Just to cap things off, Claire barges into their room to make sure “Emile” has moved out, to find the two making out. Naturally, Hayato trips and falls onto Claire, grabbing her boobs and locking lips. Sigh. And with that, the spell is broken.

Hundred – 02

Due to RABUJOI’s informal commitment to keep the number of shows we review at a reasonable dozen or less, Hundred seemed like a no-brainer for a drop after an underwhelming opener. I’m still won’t go so far as to call its follow up good, but it was an improvement, and Hundred has the good fortune to air on Monday, classically a slow day for anime. …So here we are.

A big reason this episode was better than the last is that it actually has a good fight in the beginning…and at least the start of a second fight at the end, followed by the promise of our protagonist and his definitely not-a-boy roommate being pressed into action due to their abilities and the scarcity of slayers.

Back to that first fight: it’s not earth-shatteringly awesome or anything, but it gets the job done (an article of praise one could use very often in Hundred). There’s a boob grab early on, Queen Claire makes Hayato pay, and intends to finish the duel quickly, but can’t.

Hayato’s better than she thought he’d be; he’s better than he thought he’d be, going into a kind of trance where his eyes turn to slits, he dons full-body armor, and backs the Invincible Queen into a corner.

To its credit, Hundred doesn’t put the haughty chick in her place; instead, the duel is a tie, and by her own acknowledgement (she broke the rules she set for herself in order to win). As such, she recinds the expulsion orders we knew would be rescinded, but she’s not foot-stampingly angry about it.

In fact, she, like the rest of Little Garden, is impressed by Hayato, and takes an interest in him, to the chagrin of Emile, who, let’s not beat around the bush, IS A GIRL IN BOYS CLOTHES. She decides to use the fact Hayato still thinks she’s a guy to go on a date with him in the town center.

The episode lags a bit here, but it becomes clear that Hayato is aware on some level that Emile is a girl, or at least s cute ano girly a boy that he can’t help but blush and be self-conscious about their interactions. Not that Emile is going to pull anything, but one reason I want to stick with Hundred is I want to see how her gender is finally revealed (even if that reveal turns out to be underwhelming).

Hayato becomes flanked on both sides when Karen invites herself out, after her tarot cards indicated he was with a woman. Boy or girl, Karen doesn’t quite trust Emile yet, and why should she? Emile really is concealing something pretty dang important to her roommate and colleague.

Hayato, Karen and Emile’s lunch is interrupted by Claire and her entourage, but not out of any kind of malice: Claire wants to make Hayato a slayer as soon as possible. Indeed, she kinda has to, as there’s currently a slayer shortage (a welcome reminder this peaceful city-ship is the exception, not the rule, in this world).

Hayato’s duel with Claire, and Emile’s surprising impromptu duel with Claire’s veep Liddy, somewhat mitigate the fact we haven’t seen anyone in grave danger in the first two episodes (at least in the present day). Emile shows she can hold her own against Liddy, but an alert sortie ends it without a decision.

Instead, Charlotte shows up out of nowhere and tells Hayato and Emile they’ll be going with Claire to Warslarn HQ, where his trial-by-fire will continue. Frankly, I’d be worried about his inability to control or even remember his overdrive powers, but hey…they need slayers.