Gushing over Magical Girls – 05 – Down the Rabbit Hole

When we meet Korisu Morino, she’s chilling in a dark alley in the middle of the night, which is an immediate red flag. Is she a homeless orphan? Her clothes are too clean! Then she meets Venalita, who asks her if she wants to join Enormita, and when next we see her she’s meeting Utena and Kiwi. Utena is in awe of her cuteness, while also assuring Kiwi she’s extremely cute too.

After she transforms into her evil magical girl form, which is an ornate Alice in Wonderland outfit complete with oversized watch, Vena deploys the trio into the field to demonstrate Korisu’s ability. Tres Magia, or specifically Magenta, is easily led right into a trap by a tattered stuffed animal, much to the bad-tempered Sulphur’s chagrin.

Once they’re shut into a closed room, suddenly Sayo is being attacked by her own comrades. Haruka cross-dresses and plays the role of a suave husband, while Kaoruko dons a bonnet, acts like a baby and starts suckling at Sayo’s breast. The setting changes to a hot spring, their clothes are gone, and they’re locked in a steamy threesome.

This is Korisu’s power: once she’s trapped someone in her magic dollhouse, they become her playthings to do with what she pleases. Judging from what goes down, I agree with Utena that she may just be the most depraved of the three Enormita girls. Her power doesn’t last long, and Tres Magia are soon released from the dollhouse, but they aren’t likely to forget what they just did to each other.

Another day, Kiwi invites her and Utena to Korisu’s house, where they find an ominous note from her mother with money for food. My mind went to a dark place: How long has that note been there? Did her mother leave for work and never return?

The neat and tidy state of the place suggests no, but it’s clear before Utena and Kiwi entered her life, Korisu’s only friends were her dolls and toys, many of which are in pretty bad shape. Utena actually shows there’s still a good girl within her when she stays up all night mending Korisu’s favorite doll.

When she returns the mended doll to Korisu, Utena is suffering from what seems to be a pretty bad cold. Korisu then uses her powers to place Utena in a hospital dollhouse, where an adult Korisu appears as a sexy nurse, has Utena partially undress, then applies some kind of ointment to her.

The camera perhaps wisely cuts away shortly after Korisu produces a plastic syringe filled with the ointment, and seems to be moving it further down Utena’s body. But as strange as this whole incident is, it ends with Utena declaring her cold is gone!

The next day, Kiwi is upset that she didn’t get to nurse an ill Utena back to health, but also considers that she could use Korisu’s powers to turn Utena into a helpless “wittle baby.” It’s at this point that Korisu traps Kiwi in a prison dollhouse (i.e. horny jail), which indicates that Korisu will be the sole person deciding how Korisu uses her powers.

When Korisu’s mom finally shows herself, returning home with some groceries, I breathed a sigh of relief. Her mom can also tell Korisu’s in a good mood, which she correctly chalks up to her finally making some friends. If she only knew what she and her friends got up to…

Gushing over Magical Girls – 04 – The Naked Truth

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ace Attorney – 03

I enjoyed David E. Kelley’s legal “dramedy” Boston Legal, despite that fact it could often go off the rails of what was reasonable legal procedure, (particularly courtroom conduct) because it was goofy and funny. Ace Attorney is also goofy and funny, but I find myself unable to constantly overlook its cavalier attitude toward the sacred institution of the law.

Mayoi’s trial is a damned free-for-all from the start, when Mitsurugi Reiji calls a witness in the middle of his opening statement, before Naruhodo even gets a chance to say his part. The witness is Det. Itonokogiri, whose testimony is so full of holes a mouse could mistake it for cheese.

Oh, and the cheese is laid on thick here, when after Naruhodo rather easily exposes the good detective’s inconsistencies, Mitsurugi changes “died instantly” to “died pretty much instantly.” That said, he also makes the mistake of calling another unreliable witness to the stand.

This witness is apparently meant to titillate the men in the courtroom and little else, while Mitsurugi is concerned only with theories he can prove with facts in the courtroom, regardless of whether those theories point the finger at the entirely wrong person, i.e. Mayoi. It’s all rigged!

Wen Naruhodo breaks the pink bombshell (her transition sex kitten to fist-pounding harridan is hilariously abrupt) and Mitsurugi calls for an adjournment so he can go over all the evidence Naruhodo keeps pulling out of his pockets (real professional, that!) things get even more ridiculous, when Naruhodo tracks down the witness’s boss.

Konaka Masaru is a grotesque joke of a character, with his flamboyant wardrobe, goofy office, and constant use of Bad English in his speech. This guy also happens to be the kingpin of a massive empire of blackmail at every level of society with the front of an IT company.

He also has the motive to be Chihiro’s true killer, since she’d been investigating him for years. And with one phone call, Konaka gets Haruhodo arrested as the new prime suspect in her murder. Hwhaa?

With lawyers going around acting like detectives, detectives acting like judges, and absurd circus trials with no semblance of order, this is a dark, fallen, poorly-animated world, and I feel bad for anyone with pure justice in their heart who has to live in it. Fortunately, I don’t, and so I’m checking out.

Space Dandy 2 – 12

Space Dandy has spoofed a great number of things, but never a courtroom drama until now. What I appreciated was just how polished and professional a courtroom drama it came up with, which still managed to include Dandy trademarks such as a plethora of strange-looking aliens, crazy plot twists, and a story that starts out about as simple as you can get but gradually expands into much more.

The trial also served as a kind of unofficial retrospective of Dandy’s journey thus far. Despite the fact he, Meow and QT are friends, the “defendant’s affidavit” is a lot more harsh and impersonal about their relationships, while Scarlett is forced to admit from the witness chair that he’s never brought in a particularly rare alien. As the incident of the transdimensional batted ball gets more strange, we enter into the quantum and metaphysical qualities that often surround Dandy. That, and his love of Boobies.

What made this episode so good was its dedication to telling a story in a calm and orderly fashion within the courtroom confines it established, not matter how crazy the particulars of the incident get (and they get plenty crazy). The prosecutor is big, flashy, and intimidating, yet respectful, while the defender puny and more reserved but just as tenacious in his desire to learn the truth of things. Dandy, notably, doesn’t say a word through the trial.

Finally, it was just a gas to watch how the twisting trial wove all the individual well-spun threads of the case. A multitude of scenarios presents itself, but the story of the incident is constantly being revised as new information comes to light. Turns out a kid on a faraway planet went a little too far and batted a ball with such murderous intent that it transported the ball into the victim’s apartment and into his head.

Despite the fact there was ample evidence and motive established to convict either Dandy or Rose (or both of them) of conspiring to kill Guy, all of that turned out to be totally peripheral to the true crime. This episode emphasizes the crucial importance of the presence of reasonable doubt. Ironically, it’s a tweeting juror who happens to be on the boy’s feed that flips the whole case upside down. Oh, and the victim wasn’t dead after all, so no harm, no foul.

Dandy is free to go, and his buds, while mildly perturbed he described their roles in his life so callously, are glad he’s back…and then, outside the courthouse, there’s an alien army waiting for him. The episode closes with a “To Be Continued”, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the final episode of Dandy doesn’t bother picking up on this. I could just be one more reminder that the twists and turns in a story never stop, and it’s time for the next adventure.

The super-serious end credits were pretty awesome too.