10 Second Anime - Tamayura ~More Aggressive~ - Episode 8.5 (OVA)

Tamayura ~More Aggressive~ - Episode 8.5 (OVA)



Maon gets sick right before the class trip to Okinawa, and Norie is sad her sketchbook wasn't filled with memories. Fuu suggests they make their own trip to Onomichi.

Heh.

It's too bad that pure slice of life shows like Tamayura need to have their own sub-genre called "healing anime." Since last summer, when the broadcast episodes aired, there has been no actual slice of life anime running a full half hour, except Non Non Biyori. Shows coming close to pure "slife" have featured fox gods, agricultural schools, and strange people in boarding houses. Tamayura's hook, if it can be said to have one, is that the cute girls doing cute things in their daily lives also visit many of the sleepy coastal villages near Takehara. Watching Fuu and her friends again definitely gave me that sense of calm and "healing" that I've been missing.

How great is it to have a friend in Norie who cries for your empty sketchbook? Sentiment has a negative connotation these days, but that's the word I think of when all of Maon's friends quickly decide to make their own school trip to replace the one Maon missed in Okinawa.

Momoneko yawning and blessing their trip? Auspicious!

Maon's mom stopping doting papa from tagging along was hilarious.

Sketchbook was filled, views were seen, food was eaten, and memories were made together. Successful trip all the way around. Maon even replied with a whistle or two. I can't wait for the four movies coming out next year showing the girls' last year of high school. Sentimental healing anime with no negative connotations. Fuu was "more aggressive" this year. I wonder what she'll be next year.

10 Second Anime - Attack on Titan - Episode 25 [END]

Attack on Titan - Episode 25 [END]

The Throwdown Downtown ends in a split decision. Eren takes down Annie, but she had time to encase herself in hard crystal so she can't be interrogated. Oh, FYI, the walls are made of titans.

Eren did much better in round two against Annie, for a few reasons. One, her objective was to escape, not capture him. Two, since Eren knew who he was fighting, and the titan was using Annie's martial arts moves, he remembered what to expect and how to counter them from his sparring with her. And three, Eren was much more conscious of himself and his surroundings than his previous transformations; he's actually getting used to being in a biological mecha suit. Plus, he still had the help of Mikasa and Levi while he was able to fight.

With the fight ending in Annie stuck inside a big crystal of that hardened material she liked to use on her titan body, the titan capture operation, which Commander Erwin never really considered over, just postponed, ends in mostly failure. They now have proof, besides Eren, that some people can transform into titans, and that there is an opposing group conspiring to bring down the walls. But without Annie to interrogate, specifics are lacking and not forthcoming.

Some irony to appreciate during the fight happened with Eren's first punch, which drove Annie to collapse a church with people in it. They belonged to the newly formed church which worshipped the walls as God's divine protection against the titans, so even trying to repair their gates was blasphemy. To be flattened by a titan inside the deepest part of the city can't have been good test for the faithful. Nor the reveal at the very end of the episode, when the cracks made by Annie in gouging out handholds caused part of the façade to fall away and reveal the face of a titan buried inside the wall. Yup, titans form the material of the inner structure of the walls. Great way to end this first installment of the anime adaptation of an ongoing manga.

Final Thoughts: Attack on Titan was brutal in its depiction of gory horror from the very first episode. People who were important died. And died terribly. This was a story of war against a relentless enemy, and people die in war. This anime never let you forget that. Some may complain about the pacing, but that was mainly because they have source material to compare against. There were obvious signs of stretching out the story to reach a complete number of episodes, like using the old Bleach tactic of editing down the last act of the previous episode into a three minute recap before the opening credits. I understand the frustration, but thankfully it was used sparingly until the last few episodes so they could reach 25. Aside from the adaptation process, the story and the world is interesting and mysterious. Even after 25 episodes, there are many questions to be answered, while still following a narrative arc of combatting these strange creatures and trying to discover their origins and purpose. This is good stuff to keep people interested. I am looking forward to what comes next, though it may be a couple years or more before an animated adaptation shows up again.

10 Second Anime - Toaru Kagaku no Railgun S - Episode 24 [END]

Toaru Kagaku no Railgun S Episode 24 [END]

Action! Chokepoints! Mecha vs. Mecha! Nerd Slap! Railgun doing her Railgun thing. And a happy end.

There were some nice surprises for how the Railgun girls and their friends dealt with the plans of STUDY. They may have neutralized the official police force of Anti-Skill, but they didn't count on the entire student discipline squad of Judgment to come and keep the 20,000 robots bottled up inside the conference center grounds. Throw in dozens of espers to take out their share of robots, plus a couple of Level 5's in the football stadium to take out the bulk, and STUDY had to go to phase 2 awfully quick.

They brought in bigger mechs, but Kongou's papa lent her a brand new toy, piloted by their own video game crazy Level 0 in Saten. Whomp whomp, double nerd defeat. Also, the communications jamming that STUDY liked to do? Taken out by ad hoc telepathic network. Superior strategic planning by Uihara and Mii. And trying to use the 4th ranked Level 5's meltdowner power on the 3rd ranked? Nerd please. That Meltdowner lady was not too happy about her powers being copied by a couple of robots, so ITEM finished off the rest.

That diversion let Mikoto and Febri into the command center awfully quick, which forced megane-douche to go to the suicidal-blow-up-the-town final plan. Oh, and instead of being there to watch his AIM Diffusion Field Fission missile explode, he decided to take the coward's way out too, by shooting himself in the head. Wait, he tried that with a metal gun in front of an electromaster? I thought he was supposed to be smart. Here's what Mikoto thought about having to save his life too.

10 Second Anime - Genshiken Nidaime - Episode 13 [END]

Genshiken Nidaime - Episode 13 [END]

Hato has been avoiding the Genshiken club, and even its members lately. Sue takes action: field trip! Issues get resolved. Plans are made for next year. The End.

Sue is much more than the American mascot of the club. She also seems to be the animating spirit. After Hato got worried about Madarame quitting his job and just bumming around, which got jumbled up with his other conversations about recent graduates shouldn't really live so close to campus so they can move on to the next chapter of their lives, he now appears to think that he should give up his weird hobbies sooner than later. Sue doesn't know what's wrong, but she knows how to fix it: club field trip. She knows this is how Ohgi worked out her issues with Sasahara before they started dating, because she was embarrassed that she had drawn many, many, um, many pictures of him with the other guys in the club in Boys' Love manner. See? She fits right in with the other girls as a fujoshi. Sue wasn't in the club at the time, so it's a bit of a mystery how she knows about certain conversations, but it was enough to spur Ohgi into agreeing to the trip before anyone starts asking what Sue is quoting.

Yoshitake picked out the historical town of Yamanashi, mainly for its role in the Feudal Warring States period of Japan. She got to play tour guide, while injecting her fujoshi fantasies of the historical figures. Ah well, what do you expect? The hot springs hotel looks nice, but Kuchiki seems lost without wifi. I know that feel.

10 Second Anime - Hyperdimension Neptunia - Episode 12 [END]

Hyperdimension Neptunia - Episode 12 [END]

Tari wants to destroy the world. The other console goddesses come to help Neptune. They take out her weapons with great teamwork. But as Tari tries one last attack, a superior villain steals her thunder. Planeptune throws a party to celebrate.

Hah! They even mentioned the Great Tari Crash. The Japanese dialog actually called it what the Japanese called it in 1983, Tari Shock. In the anime's version of events, Tari tried to tell her citizens how to act, and they lost faith in her, and her share power collapsed. However, in the real world, Atari lost control of publishing standards for third party developers, and the market was glutted with horrible games. The market collapsed from $3 billion in revenue worldwide in 1983 to only $100 million in 1985.

These days, when most of the thousands of apps that Apple and Google like to crow about are mainly single function "fart apps," this situation does not hurt their profit margins, since there's no inventory space, and most of them are free. Back in 1983, physical cartridges had to be sold in toy stores with limited space, and the console makers had no control over the quality of these games. When the hardware of the Atari 2600 could easily handle the graphics of the arcade versions of Pac-Man or Zaxxon, but the home console version looked nothing like them, it's no wonder the consumers ran away, and the toy stores decided home gaming was just a fad.

Atari could not control what third party developers could publish and market to toy stores. Hell, all the fast food restaurants at the time had their own horrible branded versions of Frogger or Pac-Man, and they weren't free, or you could get them with Happy Meals. No wonder the whole thing collapsed. Nintendo had to sneak back into America as an "entertainment system" and had to market terrible accessories to convince Toys R Us that they weren't "consoles," "cartridges," or "joysticks." This is why you have unwieldy names today, like game paks, controller pads, or main systems. Good times, good times. Also. Pong Laser. That's just gratuitous, but I'm just pointing it out, not complaining.

Anyway, the goddesses give their all, and thwart Tari's suicidal terrorism, but she still has some share power left to take out the city. But the real villain of all console gaming comes to save (?) the day, Arfiore (piracy). She makes a miniature version of her anti-crystal pyramid, and drains the last share from Tari's crystal. I guess she didn't take to eggplant farming after all. She claims she's just saving the world of Gamindustri for herself to conquer someday. Sure. Piracy is really parasitism anyway, so she had to protect the host. Good tapeworm. Sit.

And then, after some rebuilding from the damage, we have a party. Neptune declares the friendship treaty null and void, because they don't need it anymore. They're real friends. Aww. Victory Slash!

10 Second Anime - Danganronpa - Episode 13 [END]

Danganronpa - Episode 13 [END]

Wow. Junko is crazy! All the mysteries inside the Hope's Peak Academy are revealed. But not the mysteries outside the academy. Hope may win at the end, but despair is contagious.

I counted 8 distinct personalities in that one mastermind. What the hell has been going on here? Well, two years earlier, the 16 kids we know about entered the school, and had a normal life for about a year. One year ago, some artificial calamity happened, and drove the entire world into despair. During the initial panic, all the kids but 16 were killed in the rioting and mayhem, and the principal decided to turn the school into an ark to protect the kids who were left. This explains the security measures locking them in, and even an air filtration system. Junko said that despair was contagious, so that may or may not mean something about the calamity.

After the security measures were all in place, the despair sisters struck, and hatched this elaborate plan to foster despair inside the school and have the students kill themselves in a macabre game that was broadcast to the external world gone crazy. We don't know how they caused the amnesia in the other kids, but I guess that's not really that important. They even checked these version of the facts with the serial killer personality inside Fukawa. Genocider Sho did not suffer amnesia, but since she's been trapped inside the school for a year, she only knows that something bad happened from the initial news broadcasts.

Like a crazy person, Junko insists on the game being played to the end, but she didn't count on Naegi being Super Duper Hope. Yup, nailed it. Junko had tried to use her knowledge of the other students lives to make them despair, sacrifice one of the students, and continue living trapped inside the school. But Naegi countered with his own knowledge of their personalities, and gave them hope. Junko lost, let herself get squashed, and the kids open the main vault door to whatever is actually going on outside.

Oh, but there's a teaser at the end. The mastermind might be dead, but Monokuma still functions. Perhaps Junko had created an AI to help with her plans, and it had gotten out of control. That might explain the bizarre pictures of the current anarchy with monokuma masks, huge monokuma robots, and armies of monokumas. I don't know. Supposedly there will be a sequel to the game this anime was based on, and they will introduce larger mysteries and more story.

Danganronpa The Animation was an interesting adaptation to the video games. They ported in the graphics from the game engine for the executions scenes, which was a nice directorial decision to show appreciation for the fans of the game. Those who liked the game may have been disappointed that the courtroom scenes did not match the mood or tension from the pacing of the game, but at least the graphics were included, like loading up ammo for objections from the clues that were collected. But this was an anime, not a video game, so that meant we got to spend more time with the back story and characters, instead of roaming the hallways looking for clues. I liked the character designs, and how they interacted with each other. Reaction gags were top notch. I'm glad I kept going with this strange mashup of Survivor and Ten Little Indians. I didn't know how apt that description was going to be until 10th episode with the reveal of the reality show broadcast. Some good mystery, some good twists, some rushed courtroom scenes, but fun all the way around.

10 Second Anime - Love Lab - Episode 13 [END]

Love Lab - Episode 13 [END]

Riko comes clean about being a love novice with all the other Love Lab girls. After some appropriate punishments, things continue on as they did before for the Student Council. All's well that ends well. That's a thing too, right?

Riko frets about what will happen to her friendships with the Student Council girls if they find out that she's not really some love expert. Again, her being a "crude tomboy" puts her way above any kind of middle school love expert because she has all this insider knowledge of what boys are like. She really doesn't need to worry. But thankfully for Riko, she finds out her friends don't like her for her love expertise, but for having common sense (in Maki's case), being the "Wild One" (in Suzu's case), or just not being shy about boys (in Eno's case). Sayo doesn't care since she knew from the start, but does like having another person to help keep the ridiculousness of the other three girls down to a simmer.

What was worrying Maki wasn't the love expert lie, but whether what Yan had told her was true, that Riko wasn't really her friend, but was just putting up with her and going with her flow. Maki actually likes that they're on equal footing for the love lab research stuff because they can have fun at the same pace. Still, Riko knows way more about boys than Maki does.

But she still has to make it up to her friends for being stubborn and not owning up to the misunderstanding about why she knows so much about boys (being a tomboy instead of a pretty girl who got their attention) much sooner. Suzu made some special tools at Sayo's request:

10 Second Anime - Stella Jogakuin Koutouka C3-bu - Episode 13 [END]

Stella Jogakuin Koutouka C3-bu - Episode 13 [END]

The Stella girls make up for the glaring lack of Honoka fanservice. Bladam! Moe Rin and Karila wardrobe malfunction make good attempts, but Honoka is your reward for 12 episodes of angsty Yura. Yay, fua-fua fuansaabisu at the end!

As I thought, this episode was a bit of an extra one, that takes place before Sonora leaves for America, but could have been stuck in anytime before Sonora ends up in the hospital. The jokes here would not have had the same payoff if they had done that though. Appreciating moe-moe shy Rin after seeing her as a cold hardass is full of win. Plus, seeing Karila beat her cross-dressing twin brother by having her girly parts exposed would have blunted the tactic he tried in the tournament of impersonating Karila. So, it was a good call back to an episode from mid-season.

But the revelation (heh) was Honoka, showing off her master strategist skills and the rest of her body. I'm telling you, don't mess with the power of megane-oppai. We were denied a bit of her skin in the water pistol event, since she was the MC, so having us wait until the end of the season for her turn of fanservice made it so much sweeter. No extra fanservice from Sonora, though. As last year's winner of Field Queen Contest, she had commentary duties. And the C³ Club gets another year supply of soft pellets.

Final Thoughts: As a cute-girls-do-cute-things anime, Stella Jogakuin Koutouka C3-bu, was anything but. Usually, if there's some dark element, it's external, and whatever faults the characters have, they overcome them by the power of friendship and working together to defeat the enemy. But here, we got some pretty realistic self-esteem issues needing to be worked out, and in the main character, where there was a strong risk of the audience no longer empathizing with her. That may have even been the goal, while relying on the other nice characters to bring the audience back to Yura as she works things out. That kind of emotional writing is harder, I think, than just coming up with quirky side characters and costumes, which is what I expected coming into this show. Well, I stuck it through, and got a fluffy fanservice episode with a double helping of Honoka. Good enough for me.

10 Second Anime: Servant x Service Episode 13 [END]

Servant x Service Episode 13 [END]

Hasebe learns from his father about how Lucy really got her name approved. Avoidance, shenanigans, and obstacles before the Hasebe tells her about it. Aw, cuteness overload. The End.

Haha, Hasebe's dad thinks his son is going out with an American because of her name. And then he tells the story about a really strange request that he never forgot: Yamagami Lucy (the rest omitted). Poor Hasebe. Plus, his dad says that it was really the stupid bunny being all lazy and he was preoccupied because little Yutaka was in the hospital with a high fever. Now Hasebe thinks it's his fault that Lucy got her long ridiculous name. How can she forgive him? What will happen?

So, awkward avoidance, until Hasebe finally screws up his courage and tells Lucy what he found out, eh, a little bit accidentally.  After all that, things work out, because Lucy likes it when Hasebe calls her by her name. "It's your fault, so you better take responsibility by making sure you keep calling me this weird name, Lucy." D'aww.

It's a good thing their colleagues were eavesdropping, otherwise Toko, Kanon, Tanaka, and the section chief would have all interrupted them, just as Hasebe was going to ask Lucy a very important question. Their respective foils all took them out. Ichimiya carried Kanon and Toko away, Miyoshi shoved Tanaka, and Megumi stomped the bunny. What's with these girls covering guys' eyes as they shove them backwards? Finally Hasebe asks Lucy to be his girlfriend. She says, "not yet."

And then funny season ending montage. Like Megumi finally getting her magical girl group all together.

Even Miyoshi got roped into that. Heh. But things around the office don't change that much, except for Hasebe, instead of asking Lucy for her email address or a date, it's now "please go out with me." "Not yet." Otherwise, Kanon still tinkers with her dad's robotic bunny, Ichimiya still can't tell Toko about Megumi being his girlfriend, and Miyoshi continues to lecture Tanaka about his obsession with Hasebe. I think we're ready for a second season!

Servant x Service was a good funny show where nothing happened, but the great characters were fodder for gags and reactions. A little bit of romance, a lot of misdirection and miscommunication, all playing off the little weaknesses of the human condition in relation to coworkers. The same anime house did Working!! so I'm not surprised at how they handled the quirky characters here. Great stuff, and I hope they come back to these characters soon.

10 Second Anime - Naruto Shippuuden - Episode 332

Naruto Shippuuden - Episode 332

Kage Shippuuden continues. Oh, and Sasuke Shippuuden too. The Earth Country has a will of stone, but the resurrected Madara is way overpowered with the first Hokage's cells grafted on to him.

I've said before that Naruto Shippuuden does filler right, and by filling out the battle of the Five Kages against Madara, they keep us Sasuke haters placated as the anime continues on that important side story with Kabuto and ending the Reanimation jutsu.

The Kages are all monsters in their own right, but to be battling an immortal Madara, with infinite chakra, suffused with the most powerful ninja's cells so he has all of Hashirama's abilities too, that's just too much of an ask. He's also sexist. Look, we already know he's evil, no need to pile it on. Well, we got a nice look of grrl power from the Mizukage after Tsunade's "stuff it, old man" speech.

I do like how they added the explanation of the will of stone, which is that any unremarkable stone has the same hardness, but like all the ninjas of the Hidden Stone Village, they must be polished. That's a little different philosophy than the Hidden Leaf Village where the will of fire is honed to protect the children who represent the future. That comes from the first Hokage's gentle, and almost childlike trust in his friends and his optimism. Hopefully the filler with the Kages vs. Madara will touch on the will of wind, water, and lightning too.

10 Second Anime - Free! - Episode 12 [END]

Free! - Episode 12 [END]

Rin whiffs his individual heat after being scratched from the relay. His friends put him on their relay team, with Rei stepping aside. Friendship power! Uh, disqualification... And funny stuff at the end of the end.

It wouldn't be a sports club anime at a tournament without drama, right? Rin seems to have a fragile psyche, and totally blows his individual heat. His old friends are worried and go chasing after him. Rei tells them that Rin told him it wasn't Haruka beating him when he came back to visit from Australia that made him want to quit swimming. He had just hit a wall in training and was doubting himself. Rei comes up with the only solution to make things right: have Rin take his spot in the relay.

First they have to convince Rin to do that. We got some shouting, some grappling, and some wrestling (calm down fujoshi), and then everything is sorted. All the swim club members have their own moments of water zen that Haruka always has, and they place first in the relay, by the power of friendship, or something.

But not for long. They just broke a ton of rules to put Rin in the lineup, and they were disqualified. Ah well, there's always next year. Oh, we get to learn the first name of that little freshman always running after Rin: Ai. Another boy with a girl's name. If the teaser at the end of the show is true, we'll get to see more of him next summer.

And then we get funny resolution montage. Somebody is stashing old magazines of Ama-chan-sensei's bikini layouts in the locker room. I wonder who it could be...

Final Thoughts: Overall, a fun take on a sports club anime, Free! decided to concentrate on the bonds of friendship between the guys with girl names, and gave us funny moments that we would normally associate with a cute-girls-doing-cute-things anime. I've said before, this show was like K-ON's older brothers join the swim club. Same animation production house too. The friendship power thing is a bit of cliché, but with the gender bending tropes thrown around throughout the show, there was a bit more depth to it that had nice moments. This show also did not take itself seriously, knowing it was mixing girly themes in with a muscular sports anime, and really did a lot of winking at the audience through the little sister character of Gou, a girl with a boy's name. I'm sure the merchandising potential of this show will do great among girls, and some guys. Just don't expect to get any tips on competitive swimming from this show.

10 Second Anime - The World God Only Knows - Goddesses Arc Episode 12 [END]

The World God Only Knows - Goddesses Arc - Episode 12 [END]

Vintage and the Loose Souls Team square off as Katsuragi tries to awaken the goddess in Ayumi. Chihiro looks on and offers advice. Mercurius awakens, the goddesses use their power to destroy the monster souls Vintage was creating. The live concert at the school festival ends the arc.

It's too bad the anime did not have time to have some funny scenes with the awakened Mercury, because it looks like she would have been the sleepy, slow talking straight man to Katsuragi's outrageous reactions. I also took note that the usual rush of emotions that awakens a goddess happens during a kiss, but with Ayumi, it happened after the kiss, while looking into Katsuragi's eyes. Just a further exclamation point on what she wanted him to know before the "conquest" would become complete - she chose to fall in love with Katsuragi. Like a regular girl. Like Chihiro did.

Chihiro's band played the song she wrote, and it was a fitting title for this show: The Memory of My First Love. During the song, we had a nice montage of all the girls Katsuragi has conquered over the past few seasons, knowing they don't have memories of their first loves. The girls with goddesses in them remember, and the only one who fell in love with Katsuragi for real, Chihiro. Aww.

Overall, a fun season with the right amount of laughs and schmaltz. I appreciated that each of the girls had different storytelling direction to fit their personalities. By far the funniest, and most adorable, was the chapter with the librarian girl, Shiori. There seemed to be too much story for only 12 episodes, but not enough for 24, since this show isn't really a battle manga. Only Negima could pull that off, but also failed in its anime adaptations. Still, the scenes they showed were enough to tell the story, and it was still entertaining. The story in other media continues, so you'd better keep practicing Katsuragi. These girls are going to start chasing you pretty soon.

Bonus gif - who's supposed to be doing the conquering here?

10 Second Anime - High School DxD NEW - Episode 12 [END]

High School DxD NEW - Episode 12 [END]

NSFW for boobie power

The devils make quick work of the insurgents when Gasper uses his power. But betrayal by Vali causes Issei to boost his red dragon suit by the power of baka and oppai. Azazel joins the school staff to mark the end of this season.

A nice battle scene. Akeno does her magical girl transformation. Azazel shows off his artificial dragon-based sacred gear. It still needs some fine-tuning, so he sacrifices his left arm to take out Leviathan in one shot. But when you think the battle is over, betrayal!

Vali, Azazel's dragon minion, was in cahoots with the insurgents as part of the Chaos Brigade, and is a descendant of Satan from the Leviathan side of the family too. Just a bit overpowered, huh? If one dragon is fighting, that means the other has to oppose him. Issei quickly matches Vali's power, and takes on the full-armored suit. Issei overloads Vali's suit, a piece of his sacred gear is broken off, and round one is over. Now he wants to get serious.

Issei's boost power is about to give out, so he does something only an idiot would try, taking in an opposite dragon's power at the same time. Now he's got red dragon power in his left hand, which has the power to increase (boost), and the power of the white dragon in his right hand, with the power to decrease (divide). To win, Issei needs to knock out Vali, but he needs some extra motivation. Vali tries to distract Issei by decreasing the dimensions of the school grounds, but Azazel tells Issei that if he doesn't do something quick, Rias' boobs are going to shrink too. Unforgiveable! By the power of protecting the boobs of Rias, Akeno, Asia, Xenovia, and even Koneko, Vali slowly loses the fight. As Vali considers taking out his suicidal trump card, his Chaos Brigade comrade interrupts and takes him away to his next assignment.

And then, denouement. The three factions will have to unite against this new enemy, who wishes to impose a new order because both God and Satan are dead, and they want to build a new world without their old influences. Michael promises to tweak the System so Xenovia and Asia can still pray even though they're devils. Azazel becomes the faculty advisor to the Occult Club as his cover in developing all the capabilities of their sacred gears. And he tells them of an order straight from Lucifer himself, Rias' brother, that all the female members of the team have to live with Issei, to, er... accelerate the development of his powers. Issei got his harem after all!

Final Thoughts: Another fun and ecchi season from High School DxD. Not much more can be said than that. We've got a new enemy to oppose, new friends for Issei to, ah, meet, and a houseful of oppai. The next installment should be fun as well, as long as they keep remembering to base everything on Issei's oppai obsession. Oppai is life. Oppai is justice. Oppai!

10 Second Anime - Kamisama no Inai Nichiyoubi - Episode 12 [END]

Kamisama no Inai Nichiyoubi - Episode 12 [END]

The snow globe world shatters, and everyone makes it out, even one who wasn't supposed to, thanks to a wish by a special grave keeper. A nice happy end for the show's end.

Everything gets explained, just in time for the end of the series. As I noted for the previous episode, the name of the student in all the news clippings was Alis. He was the student that died, but I thought it was because he would do something to cause too great of a contradiction for the world to exist, and it would be how the magical world resolved itself. And perhaps Dee was trying to prevent that sacrifice as well. But the explanation was neater than that. He actually died 14 years ago, and it was his class' wish to include him in their happy eternal world.

The Alis from the snow globe world is part of the snow globe world. He was the fake, and the other students, and the people he brought in were the real ones. The reason that he had a real body in the outside world was because he was physically part of the membrane of that fake world. Dee, who was the only one to join him outside, was a ghost because her real body was still inside the snow globe world. But because part of the class' wish was to forget the tragedy of Alis' accident in falling out the window to save Dee, she figured that she was the one who died, but she did not remember it. If any of the other students had followed Alis to the outside world, that notion would not have been built.

Dee did a better thing than Alis did when he tried to break the world before, by making other witnesses to the reset. When Alis "killed" his classmates previously, the only one who saw them die without being reset was Dee, who already knew about the artificiality of their world. But by letting the class see one student get reset, the world started to collapse on itself. Perhaps, this is why Alis did not go that route. He did not want the world to break while the observers were still in it.

This is the one secret Alis kept from Dee: that he was not real. Which was why Ai was so mad at him at the end. He wanted to bring in an observer to gently break the fantasy world, but it would mean he would vanish as well. But how to break the world gently? The observers have to know it's fake, and then exit. All of them. It wasn't enough for just Dee to exit. All the original classmates had to, and it had to be done after all the other people that Alis brought in also left. The quick sequence of events from the class remembering that Alis had died to all of them leaving gave everyone enough time as more exits were created during the upheaval. Finally, Ai was the last observer, which was making the fake world smaller and smaller. When she exited, the world would vanish. But she was already a different kind of person who should not have existed in that world that God abandoned. Do the rules apply to her at all?

I was under the impression that everyone got one wish after God left, but how many wishes does a person get if she were born after the time that people couldn't have children anymore? How would it work? Whatever the case, she used her wish, and resurrected Alis, who had died 14 years ago, who had been properly buried by a grave keeper, so he wasn't an undead. We know it was a wish because she appeared very far away from Ostia at Alis' grave. Far enough away that baby Celica could use her special talent of locating grave keepers she knew, and threw her baby arm in a certain direction. Alis seemed a bit annoyed that Ai saved his life too, but Ai just smiled. And then the show ended.

Final Thoughts: This show based upon the light novels might or might not get more seasons. I can't tell. I do know that how the series ended was a little controversial with its fans, and may have been rushed, but I always say "so what, it's an adaptation." The background art, and its use of music was extremely emotionally evocative. The animation style of the characters may have seemed a little too cartoonish, considering how ultrarealistic the rest of the art design was, but I think that was a creative choice to evoke even more emotion. This was a fantasy story, and we the audience, were discovering it through the eyes of a special 12 year old girl who had never left her village before. Things are not supposed to make sense, until they do.

As a personal observation, by one who has no intention of reading the base material, I don't think this world that God abandoned has actually been abandoned. Why would wishes keep working, especially ones that had to incorporate new information, such as the snow globe world that kept getting filled out as more people entered it? What are the origins of the grave keepers? Did someone wish them into being to take care of the dead? If so, why do new and different ones keep coming? That might be the secret of this strange fantasy world: that God decided to actively answer prayers no matter how frivolous, or how contradictory they were to his original creation. Well, it's a nice thought, anyway. Maybe someday I'll become curious enough to find out.

10 Second Anime - Attack on Titan - Episode 24

Attack on Titan - Episode 24

Annie transforms into a titan. Eren can't believe it. The Recon Corps tries to fight her, but without Captain Levi, things look grim. Oh, now Eren believes it. The Downtown Throwdown is next.

Eren better never get a girlfriend, because the boy has performance anxiety. He just watched Annie transform into the female titan, and he still can't accept it. So, he's stuck biting his thumb in a tunnel as the rest of the Recon Corps move on to backup plan C, harpooning and netting her again. But they don't have enough lines, and she escapes.

Meanwhile, Eren has to replay the arguments for why Armin and Erwin figure Annie is the female titan, while he's pinned down in rubble. Now, I can accept that this was a story-telling tool in the manga to draw out the suspense and circulation numbers, but, come on. He just watched her transform in front of his eyes! Ah well, at least now I have a good answer for why Armin was going on and on about Marco's maneuver gear and why Annie had it. The two titan test subjects that were killed would have left some evidence on the gear the suspect used, or the culprit would have been missing theirs. So, either Annie lent it to the agent, or she herself was the agent.

Finally, Eren gets pissed off enough, and though he may have lost Rumble in the Jungle, he plans to even the score in the Downtown Throwdown. I still don't see how he can win, though. It's not as if he practiced anything between bouts. I guess we'll have to find out next week.

10 Second Anime - Genshiken Nidaime - Episode 12

Genshiken Nidaime - Episode 12

Madarame has to take a little teasing over his feelings for Saki. Ohno worries about graduating and finding a job, and balancing that with her cosplay hobby. Tanaka makes a promise.

I think the better question about Madarame's crush on Saki would be: who didn't know? He takes the teasing with some dignity. Then his friends have to build his cosplay harem just for one picture. Too bad they were all characters from that yaoi-trap game that Kousaka's company published. Saki, ever-perceptive, thinks this might be Madarame's time to be popular with the ladies. We'll see, we'll see.

After the cultural festival is over, it's time for the seniors to get serious about graduation and employment, but Ohno doesn't seem to be making much progress on her final paper, and she doesn't have any job prospects yet. The fujoshi wonder if she can't make a living off cosplay, but she might turn into one of "those" cosplay girls who need to do sexier and sexier things for money. During a photo shoot with her boyfriend Tanaka, who makes all of her outfits, Ohno tries being a little sexier for her character, but ends up going too far. Oh, she's drunk, that's why. Yoshitake thought to loosen her up with a bit of sake, but she downed the whole bottle. Tanaka promises her that they have a future together. The other girls take that as a marriage proposal. Will she actually stay another year at college? Tanaka hopes not.

And as a bit of a cliffhanger for the next show, Madarame quit his job and makes Hato worry that he'll move away. Saki's warning rings in his ears, "you just might unlock the harem route."

Bonus gif - Drunk Yoshitake:

10 Second Anime: Toaru Kagaku no Railgun S Episode 23

Toaru Kagaku no Railgun S Episode 23

Mikoto escapes STUDY by showing them what a real level 5 esper can do. The Railgun girls prepare the battle space with a little intelligence gathering. 20,000 robots? Mikoto knows some little sisters who can even the odds.

The whole motivation for this STUDY plot was because the old man in charge of the Level 6 project with Accelerator called the dude's chemicaloid plan a "summer school project." Academia. Where the smallest slights can change whole worlds. Megane-douche forgot, or never appreciated, that the level designations for the people with ESP was not just raw power, but also the intelligence to use it. In the Sisters arc, we saw that Accelerator's real power was doing billions of vector calculations in real time, and using that ability with his ESP power of changing the vector of any force. He was only stopped from creating a big ball of planet destroying plasma by the Mikasa network using the windmills to introduce random variability so he couldn't compensate for the random fluctuations in the atmosphere. And look at how Mikoto escaped their clutches even while paralyzed by a neurotransmitter blocker: by using her own knowledge of biochemical electrical grids to control all her neurons. You couple ESP with genius IQ, and you win. That's why megane-douche had a half-baked proposal. It doesn't matter if someone without ESP is controlling an artificial AIM-diffusion field. It just doesn't beat the years of living and breathing the stuff you made yourself.

Anyway, we know megane-douche is going to lose, but the Railgun girls still have to make sure of that. They find out, through two independent sources, that the STUDY plan involves 20,000 robots being controlled by Janie's power. How can they manage so many? Mikoto may not have 20,000 robots in her back pocket, but she does have 10,000 clones. I think we're ready for the finale.

10 Second Anime - Danganronpa - Episode 12

Danganronpa - Episode 12

The students have amnesia. The school has a morgue. And one of the dead characters came back, sorta.

This story keeps giving us new twists, and interesting turns on the old mystery clichés. Some key clues let the kids figure out who the mastermind is, and Kirigiri gets an unhappy reunion with her father. A box of bones in his secret hideout is pretty disappointing. Kyoko figured he was dead already, from the clues Monokuma passed out that only 16 students entered the school alive, and was ready for the news.

Neat clues for the mastermind's identity came from finding the morgue, and how there were only 9 bodies, when there should have been 10, which means one of them was recycled. Eww. The wounds on Ikusaba included a whole bunch of stab wounds, which pointed to how someone else was killed, and whose body it was. Also, Monokuma was being very active in thwarting some of their investigations, plus trying to throw red herrings at the kids with pictures of their school life before the amnesia. Naegi and Kyoko found a video file with all the kids' interviews agreeing to attend the school, but Monokuma destroyed the disk before one of them started to speak. And in all the pictures of their previous school life, one of those students always had her face obscured.

The mastermind was Junko, who was supposedly the 2nd student killed when she destroyed a Monokuma robot. Now we know why there was an extra sense of surprise to her death. That Junko was actually Ikusaba pretending to be Junko, who was her own twin sister. However Ikusaba had grey eyes and freckles, but the Junko in the principal's video had blue eyes and no freckles. What would have made the switch obvious was the voice. The revealed Junko's voice is totally different than the one we heard earlier in the season.

At least one question for me has already been answered: are all the dead kids really dead? Yep, they are. Once the story reused the twin sister's body as a mystery corpse, there's really no way to get around that. So, what is going on with these twin Super Duper Despair students? Why would Junko kill her own sister? What was the point of this whole scenario? Answers, hopefully, will all be revealed next week in the last episode.

10 Second Anime - Hyperdimension Neptunia - Episode 11

Hyperdimension Neptunia - Episode 11

Planeptune's share has increased dramatically, so Neptune wants to throw a party. The other goddesses aren't so happy about that, since share increase means share decrease some place else. An ancient goddess awakens, showing herself as the source of the increased share.

Well, I'll just spoil everything and say that the mastermind behind the PC plot, and Anonydeath's client was the hidden personality of the useless social activist. Her true name: Tari. As in Atari. Talk about ancient video game empires. The Atari name that is out there today is not the same one from the 80's that made the console, and died with the advent of PC gaming in America. The current one is just a holding company that owns several publishing licenses. The mid 1990's was a dark time for console gaming, with only Nintendo and Sega battling for supremacy. Much like this episode when Lowee blames Neptune for the her decrease in share and accuses her of stealing.

It turns out the continent of Planeptune was built on the ruins of Tari (oh man, this is actually so true on many levels, from consoles, to game titles, to arcade machines), and now the goddess wants her land back. Interesting things to note about her power: it's the same color and consistency as the share draining goop from the Forgotten Games island in the previous Arfiore arc. The bottom of Tari's floating ruin seems to be housing another machine and share crystal like the external one that powered PC. Does this share draining vortex explain why Planeptune was gaining share at the expense of her goddess friends?

Her land's communications are cut off and the other console lands have no idea what is happening. Can Neptune save her land by herself? Nice cliffhanger for the penultimate episode!

10 Second Anime - Love Lab - Episode 12

Love Lab - Episode 12

Riko's lies about her being a popular love master are starting to weigh on her conscience. Maki still can't handle boys, but she's learning. Will Riko telling Maki the truth about her loveless grade school days change their friendship?

The newspaper association's underground newspaper won't just have embarrassing pictures of the student council (although it will have plenty of those, heh), but will also have a love advice corner written in the style of a short story. This is their solution to the student council's love advice question problem from the suggestion boxes. The student council will have to come up with a diplomatic way to approve the newspaper association's suggestion.

But, having a regular forum for the love advice questions means that Riko will be relied upon more, and her tacit acceptance of the other girls' misconceptions of her past popularity is weighing down on her. This part doesn't make sense to me, but I can understand how it might be a big deal to younger kids. However, Riko being a tomboy did make her popular among the guys, but as one of their friends, so it does give her the qualification of expert on what boys like in girls. She just wasn't one of the girls they liked, well, except for Nagi when they were in preschool.

Besides, Riko is way popular with the girls in her all-girl school now, although it's as the "Wild One." None of this seems to be a problem to me, but it's apparently a problem to the people who knew Riko in grade school. The best comedies really are much ado about nothing. I think that's a thing or something. Heh.

This is all coming to a head as Riko is finding it harder and harder to keep the secret of her supposed unpopularity (although, come on, everyone knows who she is, so how unpopular could she be?), and one of her friends lets slip about it as Maki is coming to get her. I think in the end, it won't really matter.