This show is going to give me cavities.

 
I try really hard not to play favorites with the cast of UtaPri since I like every character for different reasons, but if I had to pick one, it would easily be Otoya just for being adorable. He's constantly happy and upbeat, like he's the Golden Retriever puppy of the group. His feelings for Haruka are pretty cute as well, since their chemistry is based around actual interaction rather than having her act as an obvious stand-in for the audience like we've seen in the previous episodes. Otoya certainly isn't the only one to get this treatment, but it's always nice to see a relationship based around the characters rather than just a single character and the people watching.


Admittedly, this episode uses several cliches that those of us who've been around the anime block a few times will be able to spot, but UtaPri proves that it's not the trope, it's the execution. We get to learn a bit more about Otoya in this episode, marking the only time I've heard a character in anime tell a tragic backstory without pulling the angst card/standing in the rain/dramatic violin music. He doesn't let the fact that he's an orphan bother him, although he does seem a little concerned that his friends will treat him differently because of it. The short scene where the other boys say that it doesn't change how they think of Otoya at all and then prove it at the end of the episode to help with the bazzar (in bear suits, because this is UtaPri) was probably one of my favorite moments in the episode.

Of course, the best part was how cute a couple Otoya and Haruka make:

LOOK AT THEM

SO ADORABLE

EVEN THE ORPHANS SHIP IT

 
...Where was I? Right, two other things. First, I refuse to belive that the distraction provided by Cecil at that moment wasn't deliberate, given how open he is about his feelings for Haruka. Since he's made significant appearances in every episode since he's shown up, I'm unsure whether the people adapting this show are trying to make up for his lack of screentime last season or if they're setting him up as the "main guy." I wonder how Tokiya will feel about that, since it's arguable that he was the "main guy" of the first season.

Second, Shining's instruction to Haruka to write more songs is pretty interesting. I can see his reasoning (the more darts you throw, the more likely you'll hit the center, or something like that), and it also gives a surprisingly good plot excuse for the character songs. I also wonder if they'll take it any further than that and have Haruka suffer from burnout or something, like in the first season.

Is it next Wednesday yet?

10/10 Shining impersonation, would laugh again

Images from Crunchyroll.com.

Muse: After a recap break, we’re finally back for the team tournament finals! After the official introduction of Fujisaki’s players two episodes ago, I knew that they wouldn’t go down without a fight, but this is the episode where I felt the difference between the two schools. One has prestige and respect along with an advisor who has a lifetime’s worth of experience, while the other is just trying to make a name for itself despite having excellent players. Last time, I wondered how their fractured team identity--since they compete against each other for spots--would play into their style. I got my answer. Fujisaki is not a team built around an ace or even a unified style of play. Each of them are powerhouses all on their own. By the time one of the Fujisaki players said that they could easily win without Rion, I believed him.


However, Rion is an interesting player in her own right, if a little rough around the edges. After the first few rounds, easily holding her own against Chihaya, I was amazed that she wasn’t A-class yet. Her grandmother, the top-ranked reader for this match, sheds a bit more light on that in a monologue flashback, noting that Rion is a genius, but gives up easily. She sums it up in this line:

"Rion has never won a tournament. She will never be Queen."

This was a bit disappointing, since I was hoping that she’d join Chihaya and Megumu in becoming a serious contender against Shinobu. As the match goes on though, I can see what she means. Chihaya jams one of her fingers (a serious injury, as we saw with Kana), and the guilt completely throws Rion off her game, to the point where I wondered if she was giving Chihaya the match out of shame. Chihaya recovers in excellent fashion though, keeping her focus and setting the example for Rion. Chihaya’s level of dedication is what separates the two of them.

Justin: In leaving off the last episode of the Nationals arc, Chihaya basically had to overcome fatigue, the fresh and rested player in Rion, the loss to Megumu in the semi-finals, and the reader, who is not only a Grade 7 level reader, but Rion’s grandmother. In other words, Chihaya had a lot on her plate. You then add an injury to the mix that she suffered in the match, and that sounds like a time to go home and try again next time. But of course that’s not how Chihaya operates. And in not operating like so, she realizes what she needs to do to actually beat her opponent. Maybe the injury did distract Rion. But if Chihaya didn’t follow through and have the desire to keep playing despite the pain, then she would definitely lose her match. I know I should expect this from her, but it’s always good to see her toughen things out.


On the other hand, we have Rion, who in the end, and at least so far, has disappointed me. She stood on the sidelines and seemed like a great observer when watching Chihaya and Megumu face each other, and in getting her shot against Chihaya, she seemed more than able to hold her own. But then we get to her real issues, and after we get that established, she lets an injury slow her down. I can’t exactly criticize her for feeling guilty for what she did to Chihaya’s finger -- she alone knows what she did to Chihaya and how much it hurts -- but at the same time, that’s a moment she has to try and let go. What’s happening now is the tables have turned on her. What should have been her time to take advantage of her injury instead turns out to be advantage Chihaya. That needs to be fixed if she wants to prove there’s more to her than I think.

Now, one thing that gave Rion an advantage was her grandmother happened to be reading the cards. Kana gave brief impressions about that, and in this episode, you see just how vital it is to have a good, consistent reader. Hey, remember back in the early episodes of Chihayafuru S2 we had that awkward newbie like reader who messed things up? There’s just a good advantage for the player when you can get the right kind of voice reading the cards. Of course, you can’t always get the best reader, but when you do, like Rion did, you definitely get an edge.

It probably also helps that Rion’s grandmother is a Grade 7 reader.


Muse: After the storm of cherry blossoms at the end of Episode 15, I thought that the show had significantly hyped up and explained Yamashiro’s relevance as reader in this match. However, this episode proved that there was still more to it. Before this point, our advocate for karuta as a way to enjoy poetry and Japanese culture was Kana, and while her insights on the Hundred Poets (and by extension, the game) have been fascinating, the main effect has been on her own playing style. However, this time the “images of the poems” are coming from someone outside of the Mizusawa team.

Yamashiro creates amazing images with every line during this match, resulting in some of my favorite art direction from Chihayafuru so far, overlaying lineart on amazing backgrounds. Once introduced, this technique is used again and again in Chihaya and Rion’s match, particularly when Chihaya is injured. I thought that it was an interesting connecting line visually, since we go almost straight from Chihaya trying to hear the cards by “color” to jamming her finger, and I thought it carried across the feeling of the match very well. Rion does have a slight advantage since the reader is her grandmother (and a flashback shows that she’s really picky about her readers), but Chihaya figuring out her secret (thanks to Kana’s poetry lectures) may have leveled the playing field on that front.

Justin: Now, we talked about Chihaya and Rion, and it looks like that matchup, which didn’t start favorably for Chihaya, will point to a Mizusawa victory. At this point, that looks like the only victory they’ll get, since everyone else is not having fun with their opponents -- and I saw that coming. Even scouting can’t hide the fact that Fujisaki has an advantage in all aspects of karuta, and it would pretty much take a near miracle for them to win their battles. So far, not so good. I’m not sure what they can do to actually get a victory.


So that probably means Shinobu will have to be the answer to this problem.

No, I don’t know how she’ll solve all of Mizusawa’s woes, but the fact is she was there, and none of the players even noticed her. I’m assuming they will notice at some point she was there. We know Chihaya would just get pumped up to see her, but what about everyone else? Will they up their game, or will they feel a bit of pressure to do something else? My guess is Chihaya will notice Shinobu is watching, then everyone else will follow Chihaya’s lead and try and win the final. From there, it probably still won’t be enough for Mizusawa to beat Fujisaki. The only question would be will Shinobu gain anything aside from remembering who Chihaya was? I’m going to guess she’ll think of something.

Muse: Yeah, Shinobu will probably have an impact on the players, whether she likes it or not. Despite finally getting interested in the team match finals thanks to Arata, she got bored pretty easily and wanted to leave. It’s her status as Queen that forced her to stay (and also being placed in the front row), but this is the first time in a while we’ve seen Shinobu acknowledge her isolation. While I still think she was being harsh when she said that team matches were for people who don’t love karuta, I think I understand her disinterest a bit more. With the reputation and skills that she has, where is she going to find a team, let alone other teams that would play against her? It’s hard enough to find good opponents that can handle her one-on-one. The results in these finals don’t affect her at all.

...Or so it seems. Maybe something will change. I’m not sure what that “something” will be, but maybe it will happen once Chihaya realizes that her rival is watching her. That, at least, will be something to see.

Images from Crunchyroll.com.

Image from Pixiv
Two years and counting!

This anniversary kind of snuck up on me! I guess that's a good thing, since I've been busy not just with work and school, but also with finishing up reviews for last season's shows. The stereotype is that anime blogs never make it through their first year or don't celebrate an anniversary past two years... But I'm still going strong, so I'm taking it as a good sign! Time to start year 3!

If you'd like to hear the story of how this blog came to be, I tell it in the first anniversary post. Since that post was put up, quite a few things have happened:

Making it to the third round of the Aniblog Tourney
...It feels like the Aniblog Tourney happened several years ago, not just last year. Anyway, I had a great experience in the tourney, and the layout and direction of my posts have been influenced a lot by the feedback I got from it. While I can understand if no one wants to do it next year because of the work and drama involved, I'm glad that I participated in it.

I fail at editorials
Last November, since school and work were taking their toll, I thought that I'd scale back Subdued Fangirling's episodic posts in favor of editorial blogging. This idea crashed and burned spectacularly. I had plenty of half-written post ideas, but no time to finish them and put them up on the blog. I should've just taken a hiatus. On the positive side, now I feel like I've hit a groove where I can balance work, school, and still churn out reviews and episodic posts. I can disappear or just cut down on my internet time for a few days to focus on real life without hurting my blog. Hopefully I can keep this up!

Installing Disqus
I have no idea why I put up with Blogger's default commenting system for so long. The thing is just broken. I remember getting really excited when they finally added threaded commenting...and then that broke too. Disqus is a godsend. I get all the moderating power I want without it breaking my layout. It's an awesome plugin that I can't recommend enough.

Continued Adventures in Figure Reviewing
I was pleasantly surprised during the Aniblog Tourney that a lot of people mentioned that they liked my figure reviews! Since then, I've been trying to make my photography better; I've built a lightbox for my reviews, and I'm still experimenting with the light quality to find out what works best (I'm really jealous of pictures I see where people seem to have perfect light quality in their rooms!). I've also learned a lot more about the figure community and collecting in the last year. Even though it's a pretty expensive hobby (although anime in general is an expensive hobby), I'm really enjoying it, and I'll keep it up as long as I can! I think I'll need some better shelves...

My First Visit to Anime Expo!
It was awesome! ...Even though I could only go for a day. I wanted to go for all four days this year, but some money logistics (I pre-ordered too many figures, ahahaha...) mean that I'll only be there for two days. I still plan to have as much fun as possible though!

And now to show off my horrible stats!


I wanted to do this last year, but I installed Analytics late and couldn't get accurate information for the whole year. This time around, that's not a problem! I'm happy that anyone reads this blog at all, so the fact that I average around 2,000 hits a month makes me really happy. The worst month in the last year was November (for reasons I stated above) at 1,490 hits, and the best month was this last April at 4,481 hits. That's also probably the most active month ever on this blog in terms of posts, so I guess that's not a coincidence.

And for laughs, here's the referrer-spam inflated Blogger stats:


Other Stats
Total Published Posts: 366
Total Comments: 549
Feed Subscribers: 76
Google + Followers: 56

Best/Weirdest Search Terms (in no particular order)
--maoyuu maou yuusha boobs (and every possible variation you could think of, filed under "titles I didn't think all the way through")
--will chihaya and arata kiss (I sure hope so)
--sword art online gba (wat)
--will aichi play cardfight again (I wasn't aware that he'd stopped)
--chihaya and taichi kiss (:|)
--anime nudists (Another title I didn't consider the consequences for)
--kirito is a mary sue (A proven fact.)
--completed romance anime about a girl who has powers (Off the top of my head, Kamaisama Kiss, Fushigi Yuugi, Sailor Moon, and Inu x Boku SS. You're welcome.)
--why is popura so perfect (One of the mysteries of the universe, anon.)
--all anime shows whose main character is a teenage girl (...It would take too long to list them all, anon. Are you new here?)
--amnesia anime why are the eyes weird (Because it heightens the viewing experience for a horrible, horrible show.)
--chihayafuru season 2 what do you think (The pacing could be better.)
--did minority report steal its idea from psycho pass (1. You've got that backwards. 2. There's a difference between "stealing" and "thematically similar." Or "homage.")
--why is medaka box so bad (Gainax has lost everything. Don't take their trolling away from them too)
--sad rain anime (I recommend anything by Key to suit your needs)
--what does fangirling mean (The following is the best definition I can find:

Forget television jobs, we're going straight to modeling!


Ren is the kind of bishounen character type that sets off my OCD because he never moves his hair out of his face. Seriously, this bugs me. I want to reach through the screen and brush it aside. Yes, I know it's a fashion choice/part of his character design. It still bothers me. Anyway, prior to Cecil officially joining the party, Ren was the most forward of the group, with the frequent innuendoes and the "Lady" nickname for Haruka. However, he's never taken seriously about this like the way Cecil is, with Haruka dealing with his advances with confusion and everyone else writing it off with an "oh, you." (It also might be because Ren and Masato are the Designated Yaoi Couple. Or maybe that's just me.)

 
This episode takes sort of the same approach as Otoya's episode last time by bringing up the past. Ren's relationship with his brother is still affecting him in the present however, and that's where we get most of the drama for this episode. Despite loving his job as an idol, Ren is still resentful towards his brother (or maybe distrustful is a better word?) for pushing him into the business just to serve as the pretty face for the family conglomerate. When he's offered the top spot at a modeling show run by his brother's company, Ren knows exactly what they expect out of him.


But the truth of the matter starts to come out when Ren is too sexy for the electricity to handle, so the entire stadium loses power. He has the great idea to sing to the audience while they wait for the power to come back on, and Haruka has the backup music to the song he's singing on a CD (via Cecil, who we'll get to later). This is where we get to something we haven't seen too much of in this season: treating minor inconveniences like they're life-threatening problems.

UtaPri's natural state is to be silly and over-the-top, but this is a slightly different brand of silly that, if I remember correctly, showed up at the end of the first season. The problems that the characters are facing aren't that bad; in fact, there's a readily available solution, yet they're played with all the drama and weight of a soap opera. Haruka gives the CD to Ren's brother, who has the clearance to take it to the backup A/V room. It's not explicitly stated, but I guess you can assume that the ticking clock here is the security announcement, which may or may not ruin Ren's performance. But is it really that important to have backup music? UtaPri certainly thinks so.

Normal show: "Oh, you have a CD for the music? Cool, I'll get it to the other guys so we can make a show out of it."

UtaPri: "HOLY CRAP, IS THAT THE BACKUP MUSIC? I MUST RUN IT UP THERE IMMEDIATELY, FALLING AND INJURING MYSELF ALONG THE WAY! HOLD ON, LITTLE BRO!

You think I'm kidding

 
Only making this better is the part where he ninja teleports into the room and slam-dunks the CD into the tray (wouldn't that break it?) making the entire console explode with sparkles. And it's not UtaPri until a half-naked idol sings a song that makes an entire stadium hallucinate about candles. I guess my theory about everyone being on LSD still holds up.


I've said it before and I'll say it again: most of the fun of this show is how ridiculous the scenarios are, and I don't believe that a show could reach this level of hilarity unironically. I'm pretty sure that the staff are laughing too. It's just a feeling I have. Anyway, in the end Ren's older brother admits that he forced him to be an idol because he thought Ren's singing was awesome. Hugs for everybody!


Other notes (which is turning into Let's Talk About What Cecil Did This Week): As a lot of people have predicted, Cecil is slowly warming up to the idea of being an idol, although he's still insisting that it's not what he wants and he's only hanging around to be close to Haruka. When he shows up at the fashion show, he reveals that he carries around all the cheesy character songs just because Haruka wrote them. Ren does give him some good advice this week, since both of them were forced into the business (although under different circumstances):

"It doesn't matter how you start, as long as you're serious about it now."

It's a pretty good line. We'll have to wait and see if Cecil learns anything from it.

Even as a shota, Ren had his hair in his face

Images from Crunchyroll.com

This season confirmed my suspicions; Oreimo is an incest show after all.

Incest is a big squick factor for me, and it's a very rare show that can have it as part of its plot without me getting skeeved out (see: Revolutionary Girl Utena). The only reason I was able to tolerate the undertones of it in the first season of Oreimo was because it was not the focus; there were plenty of other things going on in the show that I could ignore it entirely, from the otaku humor and references to the only reason most people watch this show, Kuroneko. However, so far this season has dumped the plotline that the extra episodes started in favor of mostly episodic storylines that have recently culminated in Kyosuke admitting that he is a siscon.

The lolibait friend from America didn't help my opinion of the show either

Setting aside my physical revulsion at incest for a second, it doesn't help matters that Kirino has a horrible personality, to the point that while watching the first season I was almost convinced that she was written that way deliberately to make the audience hate her. She treats nearly everyone in her life with little to no regard for their feelings, but if they dare to make her feel bad, you'd better watch out! Making this even more infuriating is the fact that her attitude seems to have no negative consequences on her life. In every industry Kirino decides to grace with her presence--modeling, light novels, track, anime--people are falling all over themselves to offer her work, inflating her already astronomical ego. The story presents her as perfect when her personality clearly isn't, and treating this flaw like a bonus asset doesn't sit well with me.

 
Kyosuke hasn't made this easier. He's gone from an older brother who was trying to understand what the heck his sister was going on about (and occasionally growing a spine to call her out on her BS) to a whimpering pile of goo who finally admits to himself that he likes what she dishes out. When I made the mistake of giving this show one last chance, I nearly threw up at his repetitions of "my honey" on his "fake" date with Kirino. And really, that's where I need to draw the line. If an anime is making me queasy when it is meant to be entertaining, then it's time to stop watching.

Images from Crunchyroll.com.

Justin: One of the Nationals staff members commented on something regarding the match between Hokuo and First Akashi Girls:

“The main reason people continue to fight after losing is because other people are still watching.”

There’s a few more things to add to that.

It is of course because people -- in this case, not only karuta enthusiasts, but their classmates, former alumni, and karuta players as well -- are watching them. You don’t want to let up since you do have people watching. But questioning those two teams desire to win even though they lost in the semi-finals was pretty silly. After all, it’s bad enough you lost the semi-finals, and now you want to end your tournament in fourth place? In the back of their minds, that’s one of the things that drive them to still keep playing. Another reason is because they’re just driven to play karuta hard no matter what. It’s something they love to do, and for the Nationals guy to question their spirit like that was pretty bad.

Of course, being driven to play karuta has gotten Chihaya in a situation that will most likely end without her playing in the individual tournament. Something happened to her finger, and it’s seemingly gotten worse the more she plays. I like her chances to be playing the next day to be at a generous 10%. Of course, the last thing she wants to do is to give up and have her team go out meekly to Fujisaki, or have somewhat of a repeat of last year’s Nationals where she couldn’t continue, and we know how greedy she is when it comes to winning, and you know she wants to win with the team. But her greed may end up costing her her chance to face off against Arata and Shinobu, and there’s not much she can do about it, unless Mizusawa can pull off a win to validate the chance she’s taking -- and it’s not looking likely.


Muse: We’re getting into a nail-biter of a final showdown here, with no sign that it’s going to let up until the victor is decided. All of the matches that have been going on are interesting in one way or another, making the two Mizusawa losses especially hard to take. Tsutomu had already predicted his failure only to want to beat his own prophecy...and ended up losing anyway. Tsukuba had a particularly poignant promise with Kana to win the match in her place, since her jammed finger was keeping her out...only to lose to a guy who was focusing more on which Jojo pose he should use next. This leaves the championship to Chihaya, Taichi, and Porky; they have to win. One loss means failure.

Throughout this edge-of-your-seat match coverage, the theme of team play that has been covered from many different angles since the start of this arc is starting to come together in a cohesive statement, finally presenting a solid counter argument to Shinobu’s statement that team play isn’t for people who love karuta. But before we get to that, we get some interesting insight into her past that we’ve guessed at before but have some solid proof now.


Shinobu was always presented as solitary, to the point that I’d assumed it was part of her nature. However, it seems that wasn’t always the case, since it looks like isolation was forced on her at one point in order to hone her skills at karuta. To quote the adult in the flashback:

“The more alone she is, the stronger she’ll become.”

You can’t really argue with the results, but what about Shinobu as a person? The last few episodes have highlighted how lonely and isolated she really is, making Chihaya’s statement a few episodes ago about not wanting to leave Shinobu alone even more insightful. And Shinobu had something very interesting to say in this episode about herself:

“Nobody will ever take me seriously.”

Taken at face value, this seems like a ridiculous statement. She’s the Queen. Everyone surrounding her respects her. Plenty of people “take [her] seriously.” But can anyone play her seriously? What’s the point of being the best player if no one can really challenge you? However, I think we all know that Shinobu is slightly wrong in that assumption. Chihaya’s goal is to take the Queen title, and to do that, she has to face the Queen seriously. I don’t think that she’ll be alone for much longer, and Shinobu’s interest in the match seems to mean that she realizes that, even if she’s not willing to admit it to herself.


Justin: Two things ended up standing out when it came to Shinobu. The first one was when, after some of the girls all shouted “Please wait!” and had their hand raised, something seemed to have gotten to Shinobu, as that moment got her more into the match. Considering her attitude prior to it, it is a complete 180, and almost validates the decision of her watching the final team match -- only in the next episode can we confirm that it did change her thinking, at least enough for her to not brush team matches off forever.

The second happened to be something Muse quoted Shinobu saying. The only reason she had said this is because she was thinking what Arata was thinking, and what he said really stuck out to me out of everything in this episode:

“Our love for karuta is real, but think about it: our beloved karuta can only grow through the recruiting, teaching, and encouraging of new players. It’s team players who keep this game alive.”

After hearing this quote a few times from Arata, I took away a lot of things from it, but I’ll leave it at two things. The first is regarding karuta. In case you still didn’t realize, the world of karuta is pretty small. It’s one of those small pleasures that have people so knowledgeable and intense about the game, but in general, you’ll probably get people that aren’t quite so versed and it doesn’t quite have the cache like other sports or activities out there. So how does one make something as small as karuta grow? By encouraging ways to get people involved. To teach them how to play. And one way you can kill those two birds with one stone is to have them work together, to enjoy the game together, and that encourages them to keep playing the game, and to help the game grow. Sure, they may not know everything, but that’s what sustains karuta; you may not have to love them, but you can’t turn them away since they help the game grow. That means you still have to try and support them.

The second thing that this quote made me think of was anime/manga. It almost seems like both of these things are pretty big, but in general, those two worlds are pretty small. That quote ended up taking me to a bit of a bad thing that took place regarding manga over Twitter this week; it showed just how the culture is pretty isolated and how it is seen from everything else. Now, while it seems like both are sustainable, you realize there could be more people that can like both, but entry into each are pretty difficult unless there are people that can encourage them, and encourage them properly. As of this point, I don’t think that has happened yet, and it probably won’t happen unless something major occurs. Then you look at it from another angle: other people that are just getting into both of these mediums and how they are supporting the industry, misguided or not. In other words, the anime we watch and manga we read, some of it might not have been thought of without those other people. So what does that mean? Should the best way to start is to adopt Arata’s approach to team karuta? Who knows; all I know is whether it is karuta, anime, or manga, they can all grow, but it starts with the person and how they recruit, teach, and encourage others into what they love.


Muse: But once someone is “into” karuta, what is it that they get out of it? The answer is as varied as the characters, but I was wondering about that with Rion in this episode. In the second half of the episode, she says this line:

“I've never lost a match with Grandma as reader. I was convinced that I could defeat the Queen if Grandma was reading.”

This directly contradicts what her grandmother said in the last episode, about Rion never becoming Queen. Now I’m wondering if that statement also came from her years of experience (since readers also have to be high-ranked karuta players), knowing that being able to win with a particular reader doesn’t amount for much, even with all the skill Rion clearly has. Chihaya possibly has a broken finger, and she’s starting to push Rion into a corner. And she thought that she could take on Shinobu as long as her grandmother was reading? Rion could very easily be a powerhouse player if she learned to branch out a little and accept that not all readers will be as perfect as her grandmother. Regardless of how this match turns out (although I really want Chihaya to win), I hope Rion learns from this encounter with someone who has the skills to win and can adapt to the situation. Only having the former isn’t enough.

Images from Crunchyroll.com.

I wonder how long I can keep up the silly song references in the titles.

 
Now that we're past the halfway point, the show has nailed down its episodic structure: harem member gets a job offer, then has a problem that has to be resolved because of said job offer, and after said problem is resolved, we get a cheesy character song and everyone is happy. I think that this sequence of events has been working pretty well for this season so far, since despite knowing exactly how things are going to progress, there's still plenty of room for each guy to create a unique episode. And that's certainly the case for Natsuki, since this episode gave me the biggest fit of giggles since I first saw the new ED sequence.

 
Natsuki's job offer is a gravure photo shoot for a lipstick brand called...Lipstick (they had to sit up all night to think of that name, I'm sure), and my first reaction was "hahaha, are you kidding" even before the other guys pointed out that the "image" they were going for in the photo shoot was the complete opposite of Natsuki's personality. Making things worse, apparently he was given the job in the first place because the photographer saw his alternate personality, Satsuki, at that concert from last season, and from there the episode revolves around that.

 
In keeping with the last few episodes having sad childhood reveals (with the exception of Otoya, who does not care about his soap-opera-worthy origins), it turns out that Satsuki was "created" after a teacher betrayed Natsuki and stole his song. Since then, he's been taking care of the stuff that Natsuki can't deal with. In light of this, Natsuki giving Haruka his lyrics at the beginning of the episode was a really sweet gesture of trust, and I wish that they'd focused on that a bit more. Instead, we get a ridiculous chase sequence on the roof where the boys try to put his glasses back on.

FOR SPARTAAAAAAA

 
While I did get a good laugh out of that, it was nothing compared to what was coming. The dilemma with Satsuki was resolved pretty easily ("He wrote this song for you!" "Oh, ok, nevermind then.") and with no transition whatsoever, we go straight to the character song. The editing on this had me in stitches. It didn't help that a lot of the fadeaways could be easily taken out of context as well. The first season of UtaPri made me literally fall out of my chair laughing more than once, and I'm surprised that last week's episode didn't accomplish that. But now the current count is 1 literal ROFL. Let's see how much higher that can go.

 
On Cecil's plot contribution this week: Is he going to keep walking in at a random point with the Plot Item of the Week until his episode rolls around? At least last week there was more of an excuse. This time he's just like, "Hey! I learned how to be incognito! Wait, why are you taking my sunglasses?" Anyway, it seems like he's still going through the slow realization that being an idol isn't such a bad idea after all, since we see him thinking about dem abs how hard Ren and Natsuki have worked to overcome their weaknesses. Although in Natsuki's case, I think that the question asked towards the end--"Did he really change at all?"--had a good point. I don't think we'll be able to use the adjectives "mature, strong, and manly" to describe him anytime soon.

And as for the title I chose, I can't be the only one who thought of this:


Images from Crunchyroll.com.

It has all the potential to be a fascinating supernatural show...if it can find its focus.

 
When I first started watching the show, the synopsis that MAL had listed made it sound like an action show to me (this synopsis is now only listed with the manga). Because of this, I spent a lot of time frustrated with this anime because I thought that it was taking too long to get to what it was about. I had expected supernatural action in a detailed fantasy world alongside character interactions that hinted at BL (basically, I was comparing the show to 07 Ghost, since a lot of things in its premiere reminded me of it). As it turned out, my guess was only partially right.

Most of my initial frustration came from the fact that the characters mostly just stood around and talked to each other while self-contained plotlines introduced someone new to the crowd. The supernatural fighting that I expected didn't occur very often, and the thin connecting through line of the plot didn't seem to have any urgency to it. It took me a while to realize that Hakkenden wasn't putting off its action; instead, the character interactions were the main concern and the best part of the show.

 
Hakkenden follows Shino, who is cursed with the body and mentality of a small child despite actually being eighteen because he carries inside him a demon sword called Murasame. He lives with his childhood friends Sousuke and Hamaji under the protection of the Church until one day Hamaji is kidnapped by talking foxes who want Shino to give Murasame to their master. Shino and Sousuke head to the city to rescue her, where it turns out that the fox's master, Kaname, is actually is nice guy. He and Hamaji have some Beauty and the Beast chemistry going on, so the group ends up becoming friends and decide to stay in the city. At the same time, their benefactor, Satomi, a high-ranking member in the church that can summon a giant wolf familiar, decides to give Shino and Sousuke a job; they are to gather the people who carry small orbs similar to the ones they already posses, marked with symbols representing virtues, and bring them to the city.

 
From my fragmented synopsis, you can see how thin the plot of Hakkenden can get at points, if it bothers to justify the plot relevance of an episode at all. The first bit of momentum the story is given (rescue Hamaji) is diffused pretty quickly, and soon after that, the show seems to forget the orb quest as well. Rather than creating a series of events building up to a specific point, the majority of Hakkenden's run is spent creating circumstances so that a character will be in a certain place at a certain time so that they can meet another character for an episodic introduction plot to occur. They also vary widely in tone, to the point where I wondered if the original manga (if it also does this) was expanding the cast as an excuse to try out different tones of storytelling to see what worked the best. The result is a bit of a mess with too much going on; with so many different characters and subplots that don't have clear connections to each other, it's no wonder that the "main" story gets drowned out.

 
The setting makes this problem worse; Hakkenden takes place in the increasingly popular anime backdrop of "lets take cool stuff from famous historical periods and not give any explanation why it is this way." A weapon of choice could be a gun just as easily as it could be a sword, and characters will wear T-shirts and jeans just as readily as a kimono. There isn't much rhyme or reason to the technology presented or even how the world organizes itself. The closest thing we get to a government in this show is the Church, since their reach expands to everywhere the characters go, but it also suffers from a lack of justification. The Church's architecture and the way their higher-ranking members dress is clearly lifted from the Catholic religion, but because of their association with demons and the fact that the show never mentions what the Church preaches, it feels like that look was chosen because it was pretty rather than explanatory.

 
But as much as I disliked Hakkenden's meandering episodes and confusing setting, by the end of the show I loved the character interactions. Humans and supernatural beings becoming tangled in each other's lives and what results from those relationships becomes the main topic of this show, and it's explored through character interaction. Nearly every supernatural/human pair in this show involves the non-human keeping the human alive for one reason or another, and whether that is a beneficial relationship for both of them or not depends on the characters' temperament. I was more forgiving of the vagueness surrounding the supernatural creatures in the show because it was made clear that the humans don't fully understand what they're dealing with, and a lot of reveals are made to the other characters at the same time as the audience. This is where the character interactions get interesting, since despite mostly being friends and aware of each other's unique circumstances, each of them still keep a lot of secrets.

 
And as for the BL fodder, there's a good amount of it from the blatant remarks (Genpachi openly expressing his affection for Shino) to scenes that can very easily be taken out of context with a well-timed screenshot. One character even spends the majority of the season not realizing that another character is male. Most of this falls under the banner of light shounen-ai fanservice rather than full-on yaoi however, and a lot of it depends on how the viewer interprets the subtext.


Overall, Hakkenden doesn't get its act together plot-wise until the end of the season, which would be the biggest problem with the show if it weren't for the fact that a second half was announced immediately after the final episode. This takes a lot of the complaints that I have with this half and kicks them down the path to the Summer 2013 season, so it's completely possible that all the separate plot threads that confused me will wrap themselves up in an interesting way next season. While I don't have much of a clue what the show is leading to, I am invested enough in the characters now to want to know how this ends. If you were on the fence about watching this series and enjoy character-centric series with a good dose of the supernatural, now is a good time to catch up before the second half airs. Until then, I'm putting a bookmark on judging Hakkenden until it has completed its run.

Images from Crunchyroll.com.

Muse: Where do I even start with this episode? Is this real life? Are we allowed to have a finals episode that is this perfect? The tension in the matches, the strategy seamlessly connecting to the character development, and that final moment of “holy crap, they actually did it.” I cannot praise this episode enough. For me, it made sitting through the slow pacing worth it.


But let’s back up a little bit and look at how Mizusawa was able to win the championship (simultaneously becoming the best players in Japan... Victory is sweet!). Surprisingly, the lynchpin this time wasn’t Chihaya, although her win against Rion shouldn’t be devalued at all. However, the match against those two was essentially taking place in its own universe by the time it got down to the wire for the teams. In the end, it was Taichi who pulled together that final blowout win with two simultaneous luck-of-the-draw matches.

As we all know very well, Taichi’s extremely concentrated, analytical style of keeping track of all the cards that have been read in a match versus the ones that are still on the field is a very strong style of play, but not enough to push him to the next rank. His tendency to go for whichever card that has the higher probability of being read instead of trusting his gut feeling and reading the flow of the match has cost him time and again, resulting in the “horrible luck” that the characters on the sidelines have pointed out this season. But in this match, a funny thing happened. Taichi finally let go of all that and just focused on the cards that he needed. The repetition of “read it read it read it read it” is one of the more intense moments in this episode, mostly because that moment is almost two seasons in the making. Knowing how much Taichi has struggled with his playing style and how difficult it must be for him to break his habits in a finals match, of all things, makes it all the more compelling. And, of course, it’s even more incredible when it pays off.


Justin: Well, I predicted wrong. I do still think they didn’t need to win this match, but at the same time, I did say it would have been icing on the cake. Whatever the case, I had my chance to change my pick to Mizusawa since all of the usual flags that dictate a win were triggered last week. But like how it is in sports, I stick with what I pick until the bitter end. That backfired on me in the best possible way, since it provided one of the best anime ending episodes of the year.

So Muse covered one of the reasons Mizusawa was able to win the championship, backing up Taichi’s bold guarantee and also allowing our main characters trials and tribulations to pay off with the team championship. However, they would not have pulled off the victory had they not lost to Hokuo in the High School Tournament. In that matchup that took place many many weeks ago, their inexperience in team matches finally caught up to them as they were placed in a no-win situation where Hokuo had the advantage in what cards they needed and with their skill, Mizusawa stood no chance. This time, Mizusawa was in a position where they took advantage of what was left, but it required Porky to pick up on what Taichi was doing the entire time. It was reminded that in team matches it’s always one on one so you can’t focus all the time on what your teammates are doing, but there are times, as when Taichi announces which card to send over, that you have to know the situation for your team. We of course saw Chihaya screw this up when facing Hokuo, but if Porky didn’t send the right card in this match, we might not be talking about Mizusawa holding the advantage against Fujisaki. So in the end, and probably sneakily, Porky manages to redeem himself a bit, as he put the team in a position to win the whole thing.

And I have to say, it was for the most part worth it!

Muse: I think that sums up one of the reasons why Chihayafuru remains one of my favorite shows. There is no such thing as plot armor in the matches, and every win has to be earned through a combination of skill and luck. This episode had that out in full force, putting me on the edge of my seat until the very end of the match, since there was no guarantee that Mizusawa would win, even though they’d clearly learned from their loss to Hokuo. That moment wouldn’t have been nearly as dramatic--or euphoria-inducing--if this was the kind of show where the main characters always won no matter what. It was hard-fought, but Mizusawa truly earned it.


So what about the losing side? Fujisaki were more than worthy opponents, and the power we’ve seen on display for the last few episodes has made it obvious why they were the favorites to win. However, the weakness that we pointed out a few weeks ago ended up being their undoing, namely the idea of a team focused around strength rather than a mutual bond. I was happy to see that Fujisaki’s coach was able to realize that she’d made the wrong judgement call without blaming her students. Maybe she can trade training strategies with Mizusawa. They could use some of her stamina regimen, and she could use some of their heart.

As for Rion, like I said last week, she has all the talent but still a long way to go. Losing to Chihaya seems to be an important first step for her, since as her coach pointed out, this was the first time she lost with her advantage (her Grandmother reading). She’ll probably be less picky about readers from here on out, and hopefully wanting to have a rematch with Chihaya next year will make her a better player. Chihaya might not realize it, but she might become a similar motivator to Rion as Shinobu has been for her. She might not need to look up the ladder for her potential rivals in the future!


Justin: With this episode over, team matches should be over with and done. However, I admittedly didn’t think about this too much until Taichi had pointed out a truth that I should know:

“Chihaya...We’ll have plenty of chances to try to become Master and Queen, but we only get to play as a team during our three years in high school.”

I never actually thought about this, but I should have really. As important as the individual tournament is, we’ll have a number of opportunities to see everyone play. But with a team, you’ll only have a certain amount of time to see them play together. As you can probably tell, team matches provide more drama, more bonding, and everyone leaning on each other. But just like that, it can all be over in a flash. As the Chihayafuru manga is still ongoing, I’m going to guess there aren’t any more team matches (call me out on that if there are team matches going on. Just that though!). That has its own implications, but in general, we can try to believe Yuki Suetsugu intended to make sure the focus of the start of Chihayafuru revolved around the team first. Everyone will have their chances to prove how good they are by themselves. But you only get a few chances to do so with others. In adapting it to anime form, Madhouse had to roll with it, and only that mention by Taichi made me think about this significance -- Mizusawa started their club only a year ago, and in their second year, they made it to the finals. But after that you’ll only have one or two more years, and who knows if it’s with the same people? And then you know everyone in Japan that plays karuta will want to beat you. Winning is not easy. So as Taichi said they may never get another chance like this, it kind of made me think again of sports, and especially at the high school level, where an opportunity to win it all only happens every once in a while, but then rarely or never again, due to a number of factors. That’s why you always see the emotion, the sadness, the finality of it all take place a lot whether a team wins or loses, all because you know that things don’t stay the same once its over. Change is constant. But going for it all now is finding a way to stay in the present, and living it up.

So my final say on team matches -- assuming this is the last possible hurrah, anime or not -- is that it was a definite journey. It involved dealing with a lot of things happening at one time and maybe some parts that weren’t needed. But I think the message is clear since it’s been harped on since Season 2 started: it pays to win together. All the long hours, the training, the development of character, all of it, it basically culminated with Mizusawa winning the championship. If somehow nothing else happens to them the rest of their lives, they had their moment at Nationals that can’t be taken away, that everyone can always look back on and admire, and they can all celebrate as a team together. If this is the last time we see it from this perspective, then in the end, it was a hell of a ride.


Muse: So now that the team tournament arc is over, what’s next? I think that there are several directions that the individual tournament could take: Taichi still doesn’t have his A-rank, and Sumire seems to finally understand the appeal of karuta. Tsukuba needs to redeem himself, as does Porky (although they may drop that since he played really well in the finals). Also, we have yet to see Arata in a serious match, and the same goes for Shinobu. And we still don’t know what’s wrong with Chihaya’s finger! These are all possible roads for the show to explore, but we’ve only got six episodes left. Unless there’s a surprise third season announcement waiting in the wings, I’m afraid that the cutoff point for season two will be even more painful than season one.

Images from Crunchyroll.com.

The ultimate artistic expression was right under our noses all along!

 
From the way this episode started out, I thought that we were getting a breather episode to watch the whole cast interact with each other before before we got back to the episodic stuff, but nope! This was Cecil's episode in disguise. I thought that they were going to save this stuff until a little bit later. So, uh, I guess Tokiya gets his episode later? That is, unless they're planning something else with him that also has to do with Cecil's storyline.

 
Speaking of getting a bad deal on screentime, what the heck have the senpai group been up to all this time? I still know basically nothing about them, and I was pretty excited to see them at the start of this episode because I thought that it might fill in their personalities a bit. No such luck. At this point, it seems like they really are here just for the extra eye candy.

 
Anyway, this episode focused on the plot point that we all saw coming since the second episode: Cecil realizes that he wants to be an idol. The way he goes about admitting this to Haruka is interesting, since at first I thought that it was a straight-up love confession, not an apology for wanting people other than her to be happy. (...When you unpack that statement it comes off as a little strange, but I get what they were going for, so I'll roll with it.) The usual UtaPri silliness comes in a bit later, when instead of just writing lyrics like everyone else, Cecil gets mugged by fireflies and receives lyrics straight from the goddesses of song instead. While I don't think I could ever accurately compare UtaPri to another anime, a lot of things after this point in the episode reminded me of AKB0048.


Image from Tumblr
I don't know how much the audiences for these two shows overlap, but bear with me for a minute. Cecil receives lyrics to a silly J-pop song from an unexplained deity of song, which is also how the AKB0048 girls get their material. The song is stated to be able to connect the people who hear it to a higher frame of mind, even though, again, it's really just a silly J-pop song. But the thing that sparked the comparison in my brain was the giant floating sparkly heart sequence similar to the stuff that we got at the end of the first season. When the members of Starish sing together, they trigger a Center Nova phenomenon.

Or it could just be what Otoya said.

Of course, the main difference between the two shows is that AKB0048 used a lot of worldbuilding to give context for the crazy idol stuff that was happening and backed it up with well-done character arcs. UtaPri has never had that kind of justification, and most likely never will. If something is as entertaining as it is fabulous, then UtaPri will go there regardless of logic and story reasoning. Despite this, I think it says a lot that I enjoy both shows equally, if for different reasons.

"Hey son, I heard that you're not a cat anymore. Would you like to rule our vaguely defined kingdom of music, Y/N"

Anyway, just when I started to wonder if the show would start focusing on the idol contest a bit more now that Cecil was over his misgivings, instead we get a conveniently timed letter from his dad the king, asking him if he wants the throne. Judging by his stern voice and the fact that UtaPri loves family drama, my guess is that Cecil's dad will not approve of his son giving up his royal title in favor of joining a boy band group with homoerotic undertones. If that's true, I might just have to make some popcorn for that argument.

Images from Crunchyroll.com.

Justin: Nothing kills momentum of a previously solid (or great, however you want to look at it) episode of anime than a recap episode placed awkwardly when it shouldn’t be there.

Chihayafuru almost fell into this trap.

I say almost because after it finally went and celebrated Mizusawa and them winning the Nationals Team Tourney, it brings forth a scene where Taichi and Chihaya happen to be together. Taichi’s just tired, asleep. Chihaya, who shouldn’t have been in the room anyways but she’s clumsy like that yet we still like her, ends up getting closer to Taichi and rests beside him. What could have been an interesting moment...ends up giving us a recap of most of the team matches Mizusawa went through. Needless to say, it was kind of awkward. I get where Madhouse was trying to go with this, and especially since this might be more budget problem than anything else, but it was attempting to go through a quick reminder of what Mizusawa gained from becoming champions, from facing the international team to facing First Akashi to the match against Fujisaki. The problem is they would have been better served going through Chihaya’s memories as it seemed it should have gone, but instead it had everyone else’s struggles included. Thankfully, this only took around four or five minutes, so it wasn’t bad, but for me, it was just awkward. But considering how it ended, I might be slightly harsh.


Onto more awkwardness: Chihaya’s actually going to play in the individual tournament. Sure, it probably was expected that she’d try to play, but considering how many episodes are left, you again worry how much time everyone else will get to have their chance in the spotlight. Currently, Chihaya playing in many matches looks like it won’t happen. Her finger can only get worse, she’s trying to play using her left hand against Class A opponents, and her first opponent is Yuube. You know, that girl who basically ran circles against Porky like he was nothing in the match against First Akashi Girls. I think Chihaya is better than Yuube. The problem is playing hurt against any opponent can be difficult. I mean, you already have to deal with them being healthy and just about as good as you. Now you have to play them hurt. For Chihaya, she’s not used to playing hurt. Sometimes you can make an adjustment that will allow you to overcome an injury, but more likely than not, you usually get more time to adjust or you’ve had experience with injuries to overcome them. But Chihaya has neither. In her match against Rion, the adrenaline pretty much kicked in since her injury happened mid match. She has to overcome more to actually win this match now that’s she had to think about her decision to play and her finger is still injured. Let’s just say I don’t like her chances.

Muse: I would’ve been more forgiving of the choice to go into a five minute flashback recap if we hadn’t had a full recap episode recently cover the exact same material. It gets even more superfluous when it covers the same victory scene after the final match...which it had already shown at the beginning of the episode. I’ve complained about the strange pacing in this season already, but this is the weirdest choice so far. If it’s really coming down to budget problems, couldn’t they find another way around this?


Anyway, as for the new content in this episode, I probably should’ve guessed that Chihaya would still play even if her finger is messed up. For some reason, I didn’t consider that. Chihaya could be in a full-body cast and still find a way to play karuta. I underestimated how far she is willing to go yet again. I need to stop doing that.

However, I’m not sure how far she’ll be able to go using her left hand. As Chihaya herself pointed out at the end of the episode, her non-dominant hand just doesn’t have the same reflexes. I wonder if she won’t try something similar to what she did during her match with Rion, and start focusing on hitting the cards with her middle finger. That might put her dominant hand back into play, but is she willing to risk a more serious injury?


Aside from that, I also really wanted to talk about Taichi and Arata’s conversation in this episode, since this was something that I was looking forward to for a long time. And to be frank, I’m really disappointed in Taichi. When I watched the first season, it took me a while to warm up to Taichi’s character because of how he was introduced. Instead of playing fair, he thought that stealing Arata’s glasses would somehow make him look better and “win” back Chihaya. As the season progressed, I let that go since they were the actions of an immature kid, and Taichi seemed to have grown past that. However, his reactions to what Arata had to tell him in this episode, and how he acts even before they started talking seriously, I felt like Taichi was backsliding towards becoming that jealous kid again.

First, he doesn’t tell Arata what’s wrong with Chihaya. When he asks what’s going on, Taichi just moves the conversation to something else. It’s a subtle burn, but interesting in light of what comes later. After that, Arata tells Taichi that he’s planning on coming to Tokyo for college, no matter what it takes. We get some interesting insight into Arata here, especially taking into account that he gave up karuta for a while:

“Taichi, in my mind, the only team for me is the one I had with you and Chihaya.”

That line got me right in the heart. Forget romance and shipping, Arata just wants to play karuta with his friends. Sound like anyone else we know? (Hint: She’s playing karuta with a chip fracture.) But then Taichi follows that up with this:

“Arata, Chihaya wants to be on a team with you again... But I don't. You're my enemy.”

Just like when he was a kid, Taichi is letting his emotions get the better of him. Sure, he can be rivals with Arata. Wanting to beat him in karuta is a great goal, similar to Chihaya’s rivalry with Shinobu. But I think he’s getting stuck on the romantic aspect. Yes, Chihaya is crushing on Arata (whether she realizes this or not is a whole different story, however). But completely throwing out his past and a friendship with a person who’s affected his life pretty deeply because of feelings he won’t act out on--he wouldn’t be playing karuta if it weren’t for Arata and Chihaya--seems pretty immature to me. C’mon, Taichi. I thought that we’d moved past this stuff.

Justin: Ah, I think this is just how it is to be young...maybe!


Otherwise, aside from what we talked about above, this episode serves as a break from all of the serious karuta matches we’ve had for the past few months. Instead of obsessing how Mizusawa was going to win their matches, we now see them preparing for their individual matches in their class. Considering all of the colorful and interesting characters we’ve met so far, it would be interesting for me to see what matchups will take place. Would we see members of the Mizusawa team have to face one another? A rematch from the team tourney in some of the classes? The possibilities are somewhat endless!...The only question is time. Is there enough time to focus properly on everyone showing their brand of karuta? I’m not sure. I can only feel comfortable trying to figure that out after next week’s episode. It would be pretty unfortunate if a focus on some other characters was left to the side. But I guess I’ll have to put some faith in Madhouse here.


Muse: I’m particularly interested in Shinobu going into the individual tournament. The team tournament finals definitely had an effect on her, even though she doesn’t seem to want to accept that:

“I'll make them admit that the team tournament is nothing serious. I'll crush them all!”

Hopefully Chihaya will have figured out a solution for her hand before she has to face her rival again. And then there’s Arata. Are we finally going to get some coverage of his matches? Is it next week yet?

Images from Crunchyroll.com.

Since it first finished airing two years ago, merchandise from the breakout magical girl hit Madoka Magica has continued to roll in with no signs of stopping soon. Of course, figures count towards a good portion of this number, with many figure companies offering their take on the five magical girls, covering everything from small trading figures to huge scaled models.

The last few months in particular have been dominated by GSC's and Max Factory's releases of Ultimate Madoka figures (a.k.a. Godoka or Madokami). Starting with the amazing 1/8 scaled figure back in December and following up with a Figma this past March, the current Godoka offerings are wrapping up (for now) with the release of this beautiful Nendoroid.

 
But man, is she a pain to set up! I hate to start off a review with negativity, since I do love this Nendo, but I need to vent for a minute. With every figure that I have ever purchased, I've been able to take them out of the box, put them on their stand, and display them as-is if I felt like it. With Godoka, that wasn't possible. The arm on the stand she comes with is longer than usual and is apparently supposed to attach to her hair (with a separate joint for the magic circle that goes below her). However, for whatever reason, the joint that attaches to the Nendo is slightly loose. This would be a non-issue if it weren't for the fact that Ultimate Madoka is the heaviest Nendoroid that I've come across. Attaching her to the stand in the way intended makes her fall on her face. The solution that I found was to fold the arm stand, having it rest on the base and attach to the base of her skirt. However, she can only balance this way at a specific angle, otherwise she will still fall over. You can see in the side-view images below that she's tilting upwards, since that's the only way she will stay in place. It does achieve the "floating in space" look, but prevents me from moving her to any other angle, since I'm afraid that she'll fall.

 
The other problem was with her wings. I was forewarned about this by the comments at MFC, but I didn't realize how bad this problem was until I had to struggle with it myself. Ultimate Madoka's wings connect to holes underneath her hair, but whoever drilled them or thought up this solution in the first place didn't seem to be thinking about how the average collector was going to attach them. The holes are drilled at an odd angle, and they're surrounded by strands of hair. Not to mention the fact that the wings are thin to begin with, so I spent most of the time attempting to attach them paranoid that I was going to break something. After over an hour of trying (these instructions are the best I've seen), I managed to get the right side in, but after another fifty minutes of trying to get the left side in, I realized that the hole was too small and gave up because my fingers were going numb. For that side, I went for the inelegant solution: tape. I'll figure out another way to attach it later, but I was amazed that I had to spend so much time getting her to look the way she was advertised, wings and all, and then struggle to get her to balance on her stand. All of this happened before I could get her into the lightbox for pictures. I'm not sure what happened here.

But when you're done bashing your head into a wall from sheer frustration, she is quite beautiful. The paint job on mine is the best I've seen on a Nendo so far. I'm not sure if the gems on the front of her dress are clear pieces or if it's just the paint, but they look great. The pearl shine on her dress is quite the sight as well. The view of the universe on the underside of her skirt is faithfully recreated as well. There are quite a few obvious seam lines on her hair though, especially on her pigtails and at the ends of her flowing strands of hair where they branch off. However, they create some interesting shadows so it's not that big of a problem to me, especially after having to mess with her wings for over an hour. Speaking of those, the wings do have a nice pink gradient applied to them that gives them a clear look. Thankfully, once they are attached there's no way they're coming back out unless you want them to, and you can move them around to a small extent.


But enough about all that. It's time to talk about her accessories! The first is the magical circle that I mentioned before, which matches the one on her 1/8 scale counterpart. The lines aren't really visible on it unless you get up close to it though, but I still like it anyway because it looks like Ultimate Madoka is floating through the stars somewhere. My camera wasn't able to pick up on the fine details very well, but they're there. Aside from that, Ultimate Madoka only really has two main accessories, and they're both forms of her bow. The first one reminds me more of a staff than a bow, though. I remember reading somewhere that the official justification on including this was that it's what her bow looks like "pre-awakening" or something like that. I don't know about you, but when I think of Ultimate Madoka, I think of her big, fiery bow!


That's more like it! Ultimate Madoka comes with specific hand, arm, and shoulder pieces specifically to recreate her signature pose. I think it looks pretty good, but it does have a few problems. The bow is a bit top-heavy (it's resting on Madoka's head in this picture), so if you're planning to display her in this pose, it may pull the arm down over time. Also, the hand that holds her arrow angles it upwards for some reason, reminding me of the problems that I had with my first Madoka Nendoroid (although her arrow went down). This picture also shows her only other faceplate: a determined look. I think it complements the peaceful, smiling expression pretty well, and I can't think of what they could've added for a third faceplate, so only having two is fine by me.

 
Her final optional part is a pair of folded hands. Clearly it's meant to go with the smiling expression, but I think it looks amusing with her determined expression, like she's a disgruntled parent. "I sacrificed myself for the good of the universe, and this is how you behave?" Or something like that. Anyway, this is my favorite pose, and how I've decided to display her. It also looks really good with the closed-eyes faceplate from Menma's set!

Don't forget. Always, somewhere, someone is fighting for you. As long as you remember her, you are not alone.

Overall, while she is easily the nicest-looking Nendoroid in my collection, the problems with her stand, her wings, and the fact that she's just so heavy makes her more like a statue than a posable figure. All of the other Nendoroids that I own have a pretty high level of playability, but Ultimate Madoka is not the kind of figure that you can pick up and mess with for a while. She's a "set it and leave it" kind of figure. That's a bit disappointing, but she does have quite the presence when displayed with the rest of my collection. I would mainly recommend her to people who are big fans of the Madoka Magica series, since the time spent to get her set up will probably grate on your patience. She's sill available right now for under 3,000 yen, so if you'd like a cost-friendly statue of Ultimate Madoka to round out your collection, now is the time to get her.

Images by me.

You get a heart-shaped sparkle! And you! And you! Everybody's getting a heart-shaped sparkle!

 
With the way last week's episode ended, I thought that the show was going to spend some time angsting about this, with Cecil probably having a drawn-out argument with his dad about becoming an idol. I was excited to get more information about Agnapolis, assuming that Haruka and the harem would probably have to go there to help Cecil with his argument or something. But this episode says LOL NOPE to all of that, opting for angst over Cecil's disappearance in the first half and another hallucinogenic shoujo bubble light show in the second half.

 
I'll admit, I was a bit disappointed in this episode because it played out like a sped-up version of the events towards the end of the first season. The point of the episode wasn't about Cecil making a commitment and leaving his old life behind him like I'd guessed last week. Instead, it was about Starish convincing Shining that they're better as a group by singing the ED song. When this happened in the first season, I'm not sure how I stopped laughing; however, recreating it didn't have the same effect this time around. I think that this has to do with the fact that this season has consistently been bigger, flashier, and more ridiculous than the first season, so pulling the same trick twice feels like a letdown. Not that it wasn't a sight to see anyway. If they add any more sparkles, I don't think I'll be able to see what's happening on the screen anymore.

 
As for Cecil, he really resolved that problem quickly. Shining may have some unexpected competition for most ridiculous entrances if Cecil keeps this up, since I was not expecting him to parachute in. Also, apparently he needed some kind of elaborate scroll to prove that he has permission to sing J-pop? Honestly, I want to see Agnapolis even more now, just to have a visual on a country that crazy.

You weren't even gone for 24 hours

 
Anyway, with all of that out of the way, we're back to the vague UtaPri award! I'm even more confused this time by Shining's ability to make light show announcements out of nowhere then I was last time. Aren't they at a secluded campground? What's the point of doing this here? I keep imagining confused wildlife. More on topic, apparently the award is between two groups: Starish and Heavens.

Heavens hasn't been officially introduced before this point, although I did recognize them from various magazines the characters have been reading during previous episodes. (Foreshadowing? In my UtaPri?) It's still more than a little out of left field, since show still hasn't really done anything with the senpai characters and I'm losing hope that a Tokiya episode will happen. Now we have a whole new idol group of top of everything else? I don't know how this went in the games, but wouldn't it have made more sense to set up Heavens as their rivals from the beginning, competing for the same jobs as Starish? It wouldn't have to be anything big. For example, one of them could've been in Ren's modeling show and pointed out that he was only there because of his family, underscoring the problem in that episode. Or have another guy compete with Masato for his role in the musical drama, pushing him to do better and resulting in him asking the others for help. There was a way to do this without upsetting the balance of the episodic storylines.

...Of course, that implies that UtaPri would choose the logical path in the first place, which it never does. Forget I said anything.

Just listen to the siren call of Starish, and all your plot questions will go away...

Images from Crunchyroll.com.

Muse: I probably should’ve seen that one coming. Like I said last week, I was convinced that Chihaya’s left hand just didn’t have the same reflexes as her right, so I thought that she would end up playing like she did in the finals match by focusing on using her other fingers to hit the cards. What actually happens is a brilliant move that is obvious in retrospect. With Chihaya’s playing style, everything was in service to her right hand, from her stance to the way she laid out the cards. Because of this, the problem wasn’t reflexes; it was that she was treating the hand on the left side of her body like it was on the right. The reach simply wasn’t the same. Unconsciously, Chihaya was still playing as if she was using her right hand.

Once she figures this out though, the rest is just simple readjusting. She mirrors all of her movements, even realizing that she needed to move all of her cards as well (I wondered if she was allowed to do that, and then the ref came over saying that it was bad manners, so I guess that answers that). And while she gets used to this mirror style, Chihaya makes an interesting discovery:

“Right handed players only know how to play against other right handed players.”

With the number of left-handed people in the world estimated to be around 10% of the population (Google says so, therefore it is fact), it makes sense that karuta players create and refine their strategies based on right-handed plays since that is the majority of what they will encounter. But considering the split-second timing needed in the higher ranks of karuta, when a block intended for a right-handed player is up against a left-handed player instead, the likelihood of success goes down.

This episode also points out an interesting fact that I hadn’t really thought too much about before: Shinobu is left handed. Her talent is unquestionable, but now I wonder if she built up some of her skills based on the fact that most people don’t know how to play against a left-handed player. I think that this will be very helpful information for Chihaya in the future, and depending on how long her finger takes to heal, I’m also wondering if Chihaya will try an ambidextrous playing style in the future.


Justin: I just can’t seem to get anything right when it comes to Chihayafuru. It looked like smooth sailings for a while, but then I started to fear the worst when Yuube, up by ten cards, started to become convinced Chihaya would give up because she couldn’t play with her left hand. This feeling of hope already emerged during the team tourney final, so as soon as it happened here, I knew Chihaya was going to win. How? Well, I didn’t know how, but I knew, as Arata was giving some hints about trying to play left handed, it would’ve involved Chihaya having to play as a left-handed player. She finally played like a left handed player, though it took some fortune for her to do so! And that’s one of the reasons why she beat Yuube. I mentioned already Yuube’s willingness to let up against Chihaya (and even allowing her to move the cards like that -- what are you doing Yuube? Why didn’t you stop her?); the other happened to be time. As I mentioned last week, you usually figure out how to play with an injury over time. For Chihaya’s case, she was fortunate to have had enough time in a karuta match to figure out how to play with her non-dominant hand. And that’s what pushes her to her two victories in the individual tournament.


For me though, while Chihaya’s story was nice and there’s some sort of karuta matchup we have to talk about, I think I have to talk about Arata. For most of the season, Arata probably had lesser screentime than that old teacher with his slowness of speech. It was that bad at one point. He then got his chance to shine in the Nationals Team Tournament, but even then, he was probably not as cutthroat as he was in his match against Porky. The set-up was obvious: Arata had not faced a member of Mizusawa before (and at least for me, the way Arata had talked to Porky, did he forget about facing him as a child?), and when he does, he goes and praises them, saying that they must be special and awesome.

He then merely swipes a card in maybe a nano-second. It was so bad that Porky was not even out of his stance by the time Arata swiped the card. At that point, despite Porky’s insistence on not giving up, if we didn’t think Arata was already going to win the match, well, that clinched it right there. You see, we all knew Arata was on a tier higher than most Class-A players, but after quitting the game for a while, he lost those skills. I don’t know about you guys, but it looks like he’s all the way back. As was mentioned by the karuta staff when they were debating on what to do with Arata, he really looks like he’ll be a worthy challenger to Master Suo, assuming he can get there.


Muse: Arata’s match versus Porky was particularly interesting because Porky initially lost his drive to play karuta as a kid when Arata beat him in a tournament. Back then, Porky was only interested in winning for the sake of winning. He’s changed now, but it’s still an emotional matchup for him. Making it even sadder is the fact that Arata clearly doesn’t remember him. I guess when you’re at that crazy-good level, you can’t remember all the people you beat. I think that he’ll remember Porky after this time though, since he did make Arata fight for that win.

Of course, despite that, losses still hurt. That rematch forced Porky to take a deep look at his motivations and what he’s actually doing for the team, which is something I’ve been waiting for in his character for a while now. You can really feel his desire to win, which makes the loss particularly sad. It does result in this great line though:

“That's why I hate strong players. They make me want to beat them! They make me want to work harder!”

However, you can hardly blame Porky for losing. After all this time, we finally get to see Arata’s skills in a match, and not just for a brief scene or hyped by secondary characters either. I can see why Shinobu is so eager to play against him; I’m pretty sure that he’s faster than she is. He can hit not just one spot on the board, but move between at least three points within a second and with amazing accuracy. I don’t think anything like this has appeared on this show before this point. I hope that we can see his play style in more detail during the upcoming episodes.


Justin: That’s going to be hard to do Muse. That’s mostly because it’s now time for Round 2 of Chihaya Vs Shinobu. Someone’s gonna need to get the popcorn ready for everybody that’s watching this one. Chihaya obviously has come far in her growth as a karuta player, and she wanted to prove that to Arata by facing him. She’ll have to prove her skills to him against Shinobu, and that means playing left handed isn’t going to cut it. It will be very interesting to see just how far Chihaya has come...

...but it will also be interesting to see Shinobu’s play. Muse already pointed out what Chihaya learned while she played left handed -- will that be a factor in their match? It might, but what I want to find out is what did Shinobu gain by watching the team tournament? After all, that was one of the big keys in that arc. Eventually it’s going to have to pay off. We’re going to find out if it pays off, for Chihaya, or for Shinobu. Now whether that’ll take up the entire episode or we’ll have to find out in another week, who knows. But we will be getting our answer.

Muse: In the meantime, I’m getting hyped for Chihaya’s rematch with Shinobu. This is one of the moments she’s been working towards! Anyone else excited?

Images from Crunchyroll.com

I think my favorite part of this episode was when some guy in a newsroom yelled: "Change tomorrow's front page!" Apparently nothing in this world is more important than an idol contest. I would expect no less.

 
This week's episode focused around Starish's competition for the UtaPri prize, Heavens! And they're a bunch of jerks! Well, maybe not the dude who doesn't talk, but he doesn't really seem to have an opinion on anything, so I'm not sure if he counts or not. The other two are just as shallowly characterized, with the glasses guy making creepy faces and turning Haruka into an object to be "won" (dude, wrong show) and the thirteen-year-old (yes, seriously) acting just as annoying as you would expect from his age.


However, it's clear that the show is doing this deliberately. We're not supposed to be rooting for Heavens (although I don't doubt that they have their share of fans), since we already know that this is going to end in Starish's favor. That's the nature of the show. It kind of reminds me of fake "pro" wrestling matches that have backstories more akin to soap operas. You know who's the good guy and who's the bad guy and how things will end, but that doesn't stop people from enjoying the spectacle.

 
And if any show knows how to make a spectacle of something, it's UtaPri. Most of this episode is dedication to dropping a ton of exposition about not just Heavens, but another new character called "Raging." He's apparently been Shining's rival ever since his best-selling record was broken by everybody's favorite school principal. Now he runs the agency that represents Heavens and apparently jerk glasses guy is his son. Making things even better, Shining and Raging get into a one-up argument during the nomination announcement, agreeing that whoever looses will have to disband their group. Bye Heavens!


In any case, this is a lot of new information to take in. I'm just going to point at my comment from last week about how this could've been spaced out throughout this season instead of dumped on us all at once and leave it at that. I imagine that the next few episodes will deal with the harem getting ready to defend Haruka's honor through song and Haruka herself working through her angst about her songs being sung by people outside of Starish.

Or I could be completely wrong and they go to the beach or the moon or something. You never know.

Tokiya is sad because his character song was at the end of an episode that wasn't about him.

Images from Crunchyroll.com.

Justin: Finally, we get one of the desired matches we’ve been clamoring for months: Chihaya vs Shinobu.

There’s only one big problem.

After months of training and still remembering the loss to Shinobu last year, it would have been interesting to see just how far Chihaya had come in karuta and whether she could compete with the current Queen. But all of that came to an end when she got her finger hurt against Rion. Remember all of things Chihaya wanted to accomplish way back in January? We all knew she couldn’t accomplish everything, but she dared to try and do it anyways. In losing her match soundly to Shinobu in their rematch, it almost seems like it was just wishful thinking. We all knew that a healthy Chihaya probably wouldn’t be able to beat her, but at least we could think she could compete with her. Now we’re trying to convince ourselves that she could play against Shinobu with a sore finger -- a finger that may have gotten worse in this match? So all in all, it seems like all of the training was just about worthless.


But...maybe, just maybe, this match proved one thing: Shinobu will keep in mind who Chihaya is. Shinobu didn’t exactly take note of whoever she was playing aside from Arata, but that was because Arata beat her while she was a child. She ended up taking note of Chihaya in the team match, then in this match had to consider why Chihaya would try so hard to win despite being injured. After the match was over, Shinobu started to question whether she should have let up. Chihaya reassured her that’s not what she wanted -- she needed Shinobu to play at her best, as two signs: to not disrespect the game and show respect to her opponent. If there is one thing I believe Chihaya accomplished in facing Shinobu now instead of bowing out of the individual tournament, is that Shinobu respects her now. Now they both have goals set for each other, and that opportunity wouldn’t have come if Chihaya had quit. We’ll see how they act after this otherwise, but in the end, it didn’t turn out to be a complete waste, and considering the circumstances, that’s not too bad.


Muse: I had pretty high expectations for this match, and even considering Chihaya’s injury, I assumed that she’d find a way around it. However, Chihaya is only human in the end, and she lost pretty badly. However, like Justin mentioned, the match isn’t a complete wash. This episode had an interesting focus on Shinobu’s belief that when she plays against others her age, she holds back, which we saw briefly in a flashback a few episodes ago. When she sees that Chihaya is injured, she offers to play with a handicap, but it’s clear from her tone and expression that she’s not saying it out of good sportsmanship but because she already feels that the match isn’t worth it. However, Chihaya quickly puts her in her place:

"Show me your true strength. The strength of the number one player in Japan, in the world.”

Even with her injury, Chihaya wants to play against the real Shinobu; this is the moment that she’s been working towards. However, we still see small moments where Shinobu assumes that she’s beaten Chihaya’s spirit but Chihaya always comes back. But even after seeing her tenacity, Shinobu assumes that Chihaya must have hated playing against her:

“How many cards should I have let her take?”

Shinobu is used to being alone. She’s used to people being overwhelmed by her power and therefore ignoring her. Therefore, it’s a pretty big moment for Shinobu when Chihaya runs after her to thank her for not holding back. I doubt that Shinobu has ever heard that before. Now, Chihaya making it to the Queen match isn’t just a goal; it’s a promise to her rival. I don’t think Shinobu will doubt herself again the next time she plays Chihaya. While I thought that this would be the epic rematch I was waiting for, this turned out to only be the beginning. The real rematch will come later.

Justin: Yes Muse, it will. And hopefully adapted!

Anyways, now that Chihaya and Shinobu’s match has ended, it’s time to get ourselves hyped for the matchup that Shinobu’s been waiting for and I’m sure everyone else has been waiting for too: Shinobu Vs Arata. It’s been pretty clear that they just stand out compared to the rest of the competition, and while they still have to go through one more match, I can’t see either of them losing to whoever they face. So ultimately, I have to wonder about a lot of things, but I’ll just say three: one, are we really going to see this matchup? Like, on our actual screens? I mean, we know how good these two are! Two, who will end up changing the most out of this match -- Arata, Shinobu, or Chihaya? Considering Arata’s approach thanks to hanging out with Taichi and Arata, maybe Shinobu can still learn a thing or two that will only make her change for the better...or maybe the worse. And the third thing: how will this match affect Chihaya and Taichi? I’m going to believe they’re both going to watch this match, and both see just how far they have to go before they can even dream of competing against them. It’ll be interesting to see the aftereffects once the match is over.


Muse: I’m really excited for that match, but first things first! At the end of the episode, we finally got some long-awaited screentime for the other members of the club, and it looks like a match far more intense than Chihaya’s is underway. Taichi is facing off in the finals against Retro, and unless the way that scene was shot was deliberately lying to me, it looked like Taichi only had one card on his side. This puts him in a pretty bad situation; he only has a split second to decide whether to attack or defend. Add this to the fact that Retro has just as much of a stake in this as Taichi does and you’ve got a serious match on your hands. Both of them have been Class B for such a long time when they’re clearly better than that. Hopefully we’ll be able to see this play out from the start, since it would feel like too much of a cop-out on the pacing to only see the very end. Even with his bad luck, Taichi made a big discovery during the team tournament and I’d like to see it more in action. Hopefully that’ll be enough to get him that long-awaited win.


Justin: Well, Taichi did get his screentime at the very end of the episode, and it looks like he will get more screentime next week as well. But what about everyone else? We had a host of distinct personalities enter the tournament, but as far as I can tell for the individual tournament, we ended up getting Yuube’s side, and it was only because she was facing Chihaya; we ended up getting Porky’s side, and that was only because he was facing Arata. What about everyone else? The members of the international team? More of Megumu? What happened? I was kind of worried that this would happen, and right now, it’s pretty much exactly how I thought it would be. This episode didn’t even mention how Kana and Tsutomu did! I feel more exploration would have been nice in the form of a match with some of these distinct characters, but at best, we only got something from Sumire, and it didn’t last very long. I can only wonder how things we’ll be next week, but on that focusing on the other characters front, I think that ship’s starting to sail.

Muse: I think that they might get a little more focus now that Chihaya is out of the running, but we’ll have to wait and see!

Images from Crunchyroll.com.

TOKIYA EPISODE KYAAAAAAAA

 
I've been dealing with finals and some family emergencies this week, so I wasn't sure if I'd be able to put together a post. However, after seeing this episode, I knew that I couldn't put it off. This is easily my favorite episode of the entire season.

Despite getting a huge amount of focus in the first season, Tokiya's role in the show seemed to be usurped by Cecil--although that choice increasingly seems to be because of Cecil's smaller role last time. In any case, this episode more than made up for this season largely ignoring Tokiya, giving him the important role of pulling Haruka out of her rut.

 
I do wish that Haruka's songwriting block was developed a bit more, since she goes pretty quickly from being depressed about Heavens singing the songs she intended for Starish to becoming someone who lacks a creative spark and is motivated only by results. It makes sense, but watching her struggle with it a bit more would've given it more weight than something that seems to have taken place within a day. That aside, what Tokiya decides to do about it had me grinning the whole time. Everything that this season seemed to have forgotten about his character development from last season came back in full force, and I love it when a show takes things full circle.

 
As soon as I saw where Tokiya had invited Haruka, I knew where they were going with this. Although Tokiya's alter-ego Hayato has long been put to rest, if it weren't for that chance timing with the commercial that day, Haruka's passion for songwriting (and the ridiculous yet lovable plot of this show) wouldn't exist. Therefore, it only makes sense for Tokiya to be the one to remind her of that moment. He even quotes back her own words about wanting to make everyone happy. He's the only one who can take her back to the start, when writing music for idols was her dream. And then everyone else shows up to tell her that they believe in her... I'm sorry, I think I have something in my eye...


Maybe it's just the timing, but damn I loved this episode, even with the surprising off-model animation that suddenly came up this week. Maybe they spent all the budget on sparkles. And was it just me, or did Tokiya get the moe makeover with larger eyes? Anyway, I'm happy to see that my suspicions were unfounded and Tokiya got an awesome episode. Plus, we got not just the character song, but a new Starish song featuring lyrics such as: "We love song!" Can this show never end? Please?

I never knew how much I needed megane!Tokiya until this moment

Images from Crunchyroll.com.

Image source
As the season winds down and the shows you love turn into the shows you hate, it's time to turn to the siren call of the next season! This summer season is packed with good-looking shows, and it looks like there's something for everyone!

Disclaimer: The following is my personal (and sometimes embellished) opinion based on the information available and is subject to change throughout the upcoming season. None of the opinions expressed are directed at any individual. You are welcome to express your opinion in the comments section, but anything overwhelming negative (name calling, abusive trolling, etc.) will be deleted.

This preview does not include: upcoming movies, OVAs, special episodes, sequels to shows that I have not seen the first season of (when seeing the first season is necessary to understand the plot), spinoffs that I have not seen the original material for, "kids" shows that I do not intend to watch, shows where there is little to no information available, re-releases, adaptations of games that I have not played, and shows intended to be shown on mobile platforms in Japan (such as cell phones).

Overall, please respect others' opinions and feel free to share what you're excited about in the comments below!

Servant x Service (MAL/Hummingbird)
Genres: Comedy, Slice of Life
Synopsis: Anime about the staff of the health and welfare section of the ward office of a certain city. Newcomers Hasebe Yutaka, Yamagami, Miyoshi Saya, and their supervisor Ichimiya Taishi go through the everyday quirks of working at their office.
Thoughts/Personal Hype Level: High. I really enjoy Working!/Wagnaria, so I'm excited to see the other work that the creator is responsible for. They also have the director from Ika Musume, which is a plus for comedy as far as I'm concerned.


Silver Spoon (Gin no Saji) (MAL/Hummingbird)
Genres: Comedy, School, Shounen, Slice of Life
Synopsis: Yugo Hachiken dreams of life separated from his family, so he takes the initiative by enrolling in an agriculture school. He thinks, with his talent in studying, no problems will arise no matter what kind of school he attends. He is proven wrong very quickly. Raised as a city boy, he is forced to uncover the inconvenient truth about agricultural life. Enjoy the story of Hachiken, as he tries to keep up with his new friends, farmers' heirs, who are already accustomed to the harsh world of farming. With no clear goals or understanding of farming life, how will Hachiken survive this new, cruel reality? The story of a sweat, tear, and mud-stained youth begins!
Thoughts/Personal Hype Level: High. From the creator of Full Metal Alchemist comes a story about...agriculture? I thought that was kind of out of left field until I remembered that the mangaka represents herself as a cow and apparently grew up on a farm. In any case, I'm excited for this change of pace. It's also a noitaminA series, in case you need any more convincing (although that's not the same declaration of quality as it used to be...).


Genei wo Kakeru Taiyou (MAL/Hummingbird)
Genres: Magic
Synopsis: A story of girls who solve mysterious matters that occur in this world, using the mystical tarot cards that hold the power to read destinies.
Thoughts/Personal Hype Level: Moderate. Here's one for all you people who watched Madoka and complained that other magical girl shows weren't "dark" enough (ignoring the fact that most magical girl shows go to some pretty dark places... but that's a rant for another day). From the PVs that have been released so far, it looks like the angst has been turned up to 11. It also shows off some interesting character designs, and I'm always willing to give an original anime a shot. However, I'm a bit concerned with the fact that, for whatever reason, the promotional material keeps pointing out that the director worked on Ro-Kyu-Bu (a.k.a. the loli basketball anime) when it probably should be pointing out his Nanoha credits instead, considering this is a magical girl project. The person in charge of the series composition has quite the resume, with everything from Mouretsu Pirates and Tegami Bachi to Queen's Blade and (again) Ro-Kyu-Bu. The last magical girl series she worked on was Twin Angel: Twinkle Paradise, a show which overshot parody and landed in insultingly stupid territory. In summary, I'm keeping my excitement in check even though I want this to do well.


Blood Lad (MAL/Hummingbird)
Genres: Comedy, Demons, Vampire, Supernatural, Seinen
Synopsis: Staz is the vampire boss of a section of the demon world, but he has little interest in human blood. He's more infatuated with Japanese culture. When he learns that Yanagi Fuyumi, a Japanese teenage girl, accidentally wanders into the demon city, he jumps to the occasion. However, while Staz deals with an intruder on his turf, the oblivious Fuyumi is killed by a monster and becomes a wandering ghost. The disappointed Staz vows to her that he will find a way to bring Fuyumi back to life.
Thoughts/Personal Hype Level: Moderate. This was in my preview guide I don't even know how many seasons ago, but it ended up not airing for one reason or another. This time around, the studio is releasing a lot more information about the anime production (character profiles, background art, etc.), so I think it safe to say that it'll actually air. Otherwise, my feelings on it are pretty unchanged; it's not a big title, nor one of the series I'm really looking forward to this season, but it looks like a fun premise all the same. I'm expecting a decent, middle-of-the-road title. And with a season like this, it's good to have at least one of these.


Brother's Conflict (MAL/Hummingbird)
Genres: Romance, Shoujo, Harem
Synopsis: Hinata Ema is the only daughter of a famous adventurer, Hinata Rintarou. One day, Ema learns that Rintarou is going to remarry with a successful apparel maker named Asahina Miwa. Since she doesn't want to disturb them, Ema decides to move out and live with her 11 new brothers in a mansion called Sunrise Residence. As they live under the same roof, romance is starting to grow between Ema and the Asahina brothers.
Thoughts/Personal Hype Level: None. This basically sounds like Sister Princess with the genders flipped. I'm also not very confident about Brains Base's ability to pick good otome games to adapt, given that last time we got Amnesia. I may bite the bullet for the OASG team and write a first impressions post on the first episode, but I'm expecting nothing out of this.


Love Lab (MAL/Hummingbird)Genres: Comedy, Romance, School
Synopsis: The Fujisaki Girls Academy is known for their school body being composed of very proper students. The most prominent one of them is Maki, the student president who is admired by her classmates for her calm and polite demeanor. On the other hand, Kurahashi Riko is also admired but for having a very forward and boyish personality. Riko accidentally walks into Maki while she's practicing kissing with a pillow and learns that she isn't what everyone thinks she is. Riko is forced into keeping Maki's secret and join her in practicing all aspects of romance like holding hands and more.
Thoughts/Personal Hype Level: None. Hey, let's have a show where schoolgirls act like lesbians except they're not really lesbians because it's just practice for a real relationship because they all have to stay pure otherwise the fanbase won't love them anymore and-- *I throw a table out a window*


Makai Ouji: Devils and Realist (MAL/Hummingbird)
Genres: Comedy, Demons, Fantasy, Shoujo, Supernatural
Synopsis: The story revolves around William, an aristocratic family's progeny with rare intellect. One day, his uncle lost his possessions after his business failed. Fearing that his family's name has been tarnished, William returns home and searches with his family's butler for anything that can be converted into cash. A search of the premises yields an underground room left by an ancestor. In the room is a magical seal, and William unintentionally summons a devil. The summoned devil tells William his name Dantalion, and reveals that William is the designator who can choose the acting ruler of the demon world.
Thoughts/Personal Hype Level: Low. Why am I getting Black Butler vibes from this? Anyway, while I do place this a rung above Brothers Conflict, this looks like another series featuring Hot Guys Doing Hot Things While Meeting Other Hot Guys, with some supernatural stuff thrown in as an excuse. The director worked on Sekaichi Hatsukoi and Junjou Romantica, neither of which I'm fond of because of the use of the "rape=love" trope. Her most recent directing gig was Arcana Famiglia, which was just bland and when it wasn't making any sense. The person in charge of series composition has a lot of experience though, so I guess it'll come down to the source material. I'll give it a shot, but I'm not expecting much.


Stella Women's Academy, High School Division Class C³ (MAL/Hummingbird)
Genres: School, Military
Synopsis: Yura Yamato has just arrived at the high school division of Stella Women's Academy, when Sonora Kashima invites her to join a club called "C³". Sonora is the third-year student who became the new head of this club for military survival games. The other members include two second-year students (part-Japanese Karila Hatsuse and G36K-wielding Honoka Mutsu) and two other new students (Rento Kirishima whose family runs a Japanese sweets shop and the really short Yachiyo Hinata).
Thoughts/Personal Hype Level: Low. While this does have a pretty cool trailer, this series already has two big strikes against it even before its premiere. The first is that there is a lack of material to adapt: two volumes is not much for a series that will (assumingly) run for thirteen episodes. Depending on the studio, this may or may not be a problem, but that ties into the second strike: Gainax is making it. Everyone with the creativity and cool vision that Gainax is famous for have jumped ship to either churn out more Evangelion or to work on newer projects like Little Witch Academia. Basically, I'm not confident. I'm passing on this one unless someone tells me it's the next Girls und Panzer.


Inu to Hasami wa Tsukaiyou (MAL/Hummingbird)
Genres: Comedy, Supernatural
Synopsis: A nonsense comical mystery. Harumi Kazuhito is a high school boy who loves books and is a fan of novelist Natsuno Kirihime. One day, he finds Kirihime writing at a cafe, about to be shot by a robber. He protects her from the attack but is killed instead. Through the supernatural power of a book-worm, he is reincarnated as a dachshund dog. Kazuhito (as a dog) writhes in a painful bookless life, when a sadistic woman carrying a pair of scissors offers him help. She is Kirihime herself.
Thoughts/Personal Hype Level: None. They lost me when I saw that animal abuse is apparently the punchline. ...Really strange animal abuse, at that. Not to mention that Gonzo hasn't been doing so well lately. Pass.


A Town Where You Live (MAL/Hummingbird)
Genres: Drama, Romance, Slice of Life
Synopsis: Eba Yuzuki, a girl from Tokyo moves to a countryside to attend high school. She lives together with a guy named Kirishima Haruto whose father is an apprentice of Eba's father. Haruto never agrees to let Yuzuki stay at his house and always rejects her. Another girl, Kanzaki Nanami, comes whom Haruto might be in love with. So... what will happen in this story?
Thoughts/Personal Hype Level: None. Nothing about this is grabbing me. It sounds like it'll have a dragged out misunderstanding and/or an unrequited love triangle that is in pretty much every romance anime. And again, Gonzo hasn't been doing too great. Pass.


Fantasista Doll (MAL/Hummingbird)
Genres: N/A
Synopsis: This original story revolves around cute dolls who fight and power up with special cards.
Thoughts/Personal Hype Level: Moderate. ...Honestly, I should be a lot more skeptical of this (or ignore it entirely) but the short PV appeals to the Precure and idol anime fan in me. And besides, it was created by the guy who directed Code Geass, and that show loved laughing at itself. THAT'S MY EXCUSE AND I'M STICKING WITH IT.


Free! (MAL/Hummingbird)
Genres: Sports
Synopsis: The story revolves around Haruka Nanase, a boy who has always loved to be immersed in water, and to swim in it. Before graduating from elementary school, he participated in a swimming tournament along with his fellow swimming club members, Makoto Tachibana, Nagisa Hazuki, and Rin Matsuoka. After achieving victory, each of the boys went their separate ways. Time passed, and in the middle of their uneventful high school lives Rin appears and challenges Haruka to a match, showing Haruka his overwhelming power. Not wanting it to end like this, Haruka, gathers together Makoto and Nagisa once again and brings a new member named Rei Ryugazaki to create the Iwatobi High School Swimming Club in order to defeat Rin.
Thoughts/Personal Hype Level: High. AWW YEAH. I'm a fan of KyoAni's stuff, so I'm looking forward to seeing how they make a show with girls as the intended audience. They're already doing a fantastic job with the PVs, although the whole "Swimming Anime" thing had the unintended consequence of making Tumblr believe that their outpouring of support caused the studio to immediately green-light the thing. If that were true, then we wouldn't be seeing this until next year. No matter how awesome a studio is, they cannot make something like this within a few months. This has been in the works for a while, and the attention before the announcement was probably a welcome surprise for them. Anyway, I'm getting off track here. I'm excited! The end.


Dangan Ronpa: The Animation (MAL/Hummingbird)Genres: Action, Mystery, Horror, Psychological
Synopsis: A group of 15 elite high school students are gathered at a very special, high class high school. To graduate from this high school essentially means you'll succeed in life, but graduating is very difficult. The school is presided over by a bear called Monokuma, and he explains to them that their graduation hinges around committing a murder. The only way to graduate is to kill one of your classmates and get away with it. If the other classmates discover the identity of the killer, the killer is the only one executed. However, if they fail to catch the killer, only the killer graduates and the others are annihilated. Which of the 15 will survive the bloodbath to come?
Thoughts/Personal Hype Level: High. YESSSSS. I'm a big fan of the LP/translation of this game over on the Something Awful forums, so let me warn you in advance: this game is completely nuts. The gameplay mechanics are pretty similar to Ace Attorney, where the first half of a chapter has a lot of wandering and talking to people with visual novel styled conversations, with the second half focused around a trial. However, instead of throwing around evidence, you metaphorically shoot contradictions out of the air. ...I have no idea how that is going to work in the anime. But it's definitely a fun ride, albiet a messed-up one. If you're planning to watch this with no prior knowledge of the game, I suggest not poking around for more information since spoilers are everywhere. I look forward to the reactions on Twitter.


The Sunday Without God (MAL/Hummingbird)
Genres: Mystery, Fantasy
Synopsis: God abandoned the world on Sunday. As a result, nobody in the world can die or reproduce. A little girl, Ai, is the gravekeeper for a village. She has prepared 47 graves for the eventual deaths of every member of the village. Later, a boy who identifies himself as "Hampnie Hambart, the 'Man-eating Toy'," which is coincidentally the name that Ai's mother left behind as the name of her father, arrives in the village and slaughters everybody. Just what is going on?
Thoughts/Personal Hype Level: Moderate. I've been burned on light novel adaptations with interesting-sounding premises enough times that I should know better, but this one has me interested anyway. The PV looks pretty good, and the idea of a gravekeeper in a world were no one dies is pretty fascinating by itself. However, I'm still a bit hesitant. When the synopsis contradicts itself--"a world where no one dies," and then in the next line they state that people will die--that doesn't exactly give me confidence in the writing. Still, I'm interested enough to give it a look.


The World God Only Knows: Goddess Arc (MAL/Hummingbird)
Genres: Comedy, Romance, Shounen, Harem, Supernatural
Synopsis: Third season.Thoughts/Personal Hype Level: High. I enjoyed the last two seasons, and I'm happy that it's getting a third. Not much else to say.


Rozen Maiden (2013) (MAL/Hummingbird)
Genres: Action, Comedy, Drama, Magic
Synopsis: Continuation of the series.
Thoughts/Personal Hype Level: High. The manga series has a bit of an interesting history. Despite it being very popular during its run, some rights problems (if I'm remembering correctly) caused Peach Pit (the mangakas) to pull it from the magazine where it was being syndicated, leaving behind a random non-ending with no word on whether or not it would continue. A year later, it started up again in a different magazine in what appeared to be a reboot, but it turned out to be an extended plotline that attempted to give an in-universe reason for the series' absence. It looks like this version will adapt that part of the manga, so I have no problems watching this despite the fact that I've never seen the anime version. Desu!


Gifuu Doudou!!: Kanetsugu to Keiji (MAL/Hummingbird)
Genres: Action, Historical, Martial Arts, Samurai, Seinen
Synopsis: The Sengoku era gave birth to many historical legends. One of them is Naoe Kanetsuku, the brilliant military general of the Uesugi family. Together with Maeda Keiji, a legendary warrior on the battlefield, who become lifelong friends with each other, they carve out a piece of history in the most dangerous and volatile time in Japan’s history. The two men recall their beginnings and the journey they took to get to the accomplished position they now sit at.
Thoughts/Personal Hype Level: Moderate. Fab-looking Sengoku-era dudes...with potentially crappy animation by Deen. Well, the director of Hetalia is involved with this, so maybe I'm worrying about nothing?


Hakkenden: Touhou Hakken Ibun 2 (MAL/Hummingbird)
Genres: Action, Fantasy, Shoujo, Supernatural
Synopsis: Second season.
Thoughts/Personal Hype Level: Moderate. It took me a while to like the first season, but it definitely got better towards the end. Let's see if it can keep that up.


Kiniro Mosaic (MAL/Hummingbird)
Genres: Comedy, School, Slice of Life
Synopsis: The story begins with Oomiya Shinobu, a 15-year-old, seemingly pure Japanese girl who actually did a homestay in Great Britain. Even after coming back to Japan, she still misses her time overseas. One day, an airmail letter arrives from Alice, the girl in Shinobu's host family in Great Britain. The letter reads: Shinobu, I'm coming to Japan! The Japanese/British girls' mixed comedy follows the lives of Shinobu, Alice, and other girls from both Japan and Great Britain.
Thoughts/Personal Hype Level: None. Filed under: Show I Would Probably Watch If There Weren't a Ton of Shows This Season I Would Rather Watch.


Gatchaman Crowds (MAL/Hummingbird)
Genres: Adventure, Sci-Fi
Synopsis: The story is set in Japan in the early summer of 2015. 180,000 people live in Tachikawa City, the "second metropolis" of the Tokyo area. Among them are "Gatchaman" — warriors who fight in special reinforced suits powered by "NOTE," the manifestation of special spiritual powers in living beings. A council has scouted a group of individuals with latent powers to protect Earth from alien criminals. In recent years, the council has assigned Gatchaman warriors to deal with the mysterious entity known as "MESS."
Thoughts/Personal Hype Level: High. So I heard that people were mad because there was a girl is this since it's not the 80s? I don't know. Anyway, apparently this has nothing to do with the previous Gatchaman, which is good, because I know nothing about that series (hence the 80s comment. I probably got the decade wrong for all I know). Anyway, this has the team from Tsuritama on it, which is a pretty good way to get me to watch anything. I'm excited to see how this shapes up.


Watamote! a.k.a Watashi ga Motenai no wa Dou Kangaetemo Omaera ga Warui! (MAL/Hummingbird)
Genres: Comedy, School, Shounen
Synopsis: Kuroki Tomoko is a super popular, high school girl who has had 50 years of dating experience and 100 boys... in the Otome game world. In the real world, she is a 15-year-old shut in who has all of the qualities of a "mojo" (a gloomy or unpopular woman).
Thoughts/Personal Hype Level: High. Otherwise known as "It's Not My Fault I'm Not Popular!" or "The Manga That 4-chan Built." I stumbled across this by accident one day, and it's painfully funny and relatable. I've always thought that it would translate well into an anime, and the PV is glorious. I can't wait!


Tamayura: More Aggressive (MAL/Hummingbird)
Genres: Comedy, Slice of Life
Synopsis: Second season.
Thoughts/Personal Hype Level: Moderate. I really enjoyed the OVA series, so I was pretty happy when the first season of the TV version came out. However, since it lacked the framing device of the main character's father and his pictures, the show just kind of wandered around with nothing to do. I ended up putting it on hold when one of the episodes literally put me to sleep, and I haven't gone back to it. However, I miss Tamayura. "More aggressive" sounds like exactly what the series needs.


Futari wa Milky Holmes (MAL/Hummingbird)
Genres: Comedy, Mystery, Super Power
Synopsis: Third season.
Thoughts/Personal Hype Level: Moderate. When I first saw the title, I thought: "AW YEAH, MILKY HOLMES IS DOING A PRECURE PARODY!" But apparently that's not the case. Very few details have been released, but it has been announced that the main characters will not be the four girls we've grown to know and love, but two new characters instead (the ones towards the front of the key image above). There's also a rumor that this season will take the more serious tone from the VN game, i.e. playing the premise completely straight. Why they would do that is beyond me, since Milky Holmes only works because it never takes itself seriously. In any case, I'll believe it when I see it. There's a good chance we're all being trolled anyway.


Kitakubu Katsudou Kiroku (MAL/Hummingbird)
Genres: School, Seinen
Synopsis: When a friend asks Natsuki what high school club she's going to join, she cheerfully responds "the go-home club" (meaning, she's not going to join any of them). However, she soon realizes that this club actually exists at her high school, and she's just expressed interest in joining it! Before she knows it, she ends up as one of the two new members of "the go-home club," which is a small group of eccentric school girls. One of the girls likes fighting bears, while another is ridiculously rich. But what exactly constitutes the activities of "the go-home club"?
Thoughts/Personal Hype Level: None. Filed under: Show I Would Probably Watch If There Weren't a Ton of Shows This Season I Would Rather Watch.


Uchouten Kazoku (MAL/Hummingbird)
Genres: Comedy, Fantasy
Synopsis: In Kyoto, there are three kinds of residents: humans, raccoon dogs, and tengu. Shimogamo Yasaburou is the third son of the Shimogamo raccoon dog family. His father, Souichirou, had been the head of Kyoto raccoon dog community until he was eaten by the human members of "Friday Club". While taking care of old tengu, fighting with other raccoon dogs, and playing with a psychic human girl, Yasaburou approaches the truth of his father's death.
Thoughts/Personal Hype Level: High. That premise is pretty confusing, but it's from the guy who wrote Tatami Galazy, which is one of my favorite shows of all time, so this is a must-watch. In fact, they could've replaced the synopsis with "by the writer of Tatami Galaxy" and I'd be just as excited.


Monogatari Series: Second Season (MAL/Hummingbird)
Genres: Comedy, Ecchi, Romance, Supernatural
Synopsis: Adaptation of the second season of the Monogatari Series.
Thoughts/Personal Hype Level: Moderate. By "second season," I'm assuming that they mean the rest of the series, since we've already literally had a second season. I ended up marathoning Bakamonogatari and Nisemonogatari back-to-back a while ago, and I definitely enjoyed the first season more. Maybe it was because I watched them right next to each other, but the changes in Nisemonogatari in terms of characterization were more immediately obvious (read: Araragi is the main pervert, as opposed to the camera [a.k.a. Shinbou] acting as the pervert), and I didn't like it. Nekomonogatari was interesting, but the emphasis was placed more on fetish fuel than the backstory it was revealing, which doesn't really give me a lot of confidence about this installment. Still, I've invested this much time in it and would like to know how it ends, so I'll be watching.


Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya (MAL/Hummingbird)
Genres: Action, Comedy, Fantasy, Magic
Synopsis: Spin-off of Fate/stay night with Illyasviel von Einzbern as the protagonist, living an alternate life as a school girl.
Thoughts/Personal Hype Level: Moderate. Magical girl spinoffs are nothingnew, but I am interested in seeing how the Fate universe can be bent to fit the genre. However, I'm bracing myself for some...other kinds of scenes, considering that this was originally a doujinshi. Still, it looks like this one has more of a parody bent, considering that the staff Illya is holding should be recognizable to most magical girl fans.

Series information from MAL, Hummingbird, and Anichart.net. Images from MAL and Google Image search.

Nobody actually thought that this was hot, right? Right?

 
There's a scene roughly halfway through Maoyu that summarizes my experience with it pretty well. After a public flogging in the place of the person she trusts, a character gives an uplifting speech about freedom and human agency, urging the people listening to rise up against the corrupt system that has held them down. The music swells and pans across the crowd...showing a sea of badly animated faces that look either bored or asleep. And that's the problem with Maoyu; it's convinced that it's offering something really compelling when the truth is that the execution makes it fall flat.

 
To be fair, it does offer up an interesting premise: the Hero finally makes it to the Demon King's castle, expecting a final fight to save the world, only to be greeted by a girl who wears demon horns as an accessory and wants him to help her change society from the ground up, without violence. However, the problems with the show are evident from the beginning. It creates a great opportunity to subvert tropes, but immediately undermines itself by having the Demon King's boobs flying every which way. The random and unnecessary fanservice continues throughout the whole show. The characters are named after archetypes--Knight, Hero, Scholar, etc.--with some kind of twist on the "fairy tale" view of these characters, but towards the end they turn out more like anime stereotypes: the perverted old man, the tsundere, the battle maid, and so on. Magician was pretty interesting to me because of her unexplained multiple personalities, but since she showed up so infrequently, I wonder if I really liked her because the show didn't have the time to hit her with another stereotype.

 
Speaking of tropes, I'm not sure if the creator of Maoyu was aware that the Inquistion has been used so much that having an evil church ruling the world in a story is a cliche in and of itself. You have to do a little bit more with it. However, Maoyu paints everyone not on the protagonist's side with the broad brush of "evil" and leaves it at that. The plot reads like a summarized version of the Protestant Reformation from a middle school textbook (which is unfortunately not an embellishment--the seventh grade kids I tutor were studying this while the show was airing, and the story beats were nearly the same, including the hand-waving over the more complex elements) with some fantasy elements thrown in for good measure. The result is a sort of well-meaning moral grandstanding, but since the show deals in black and white with no shades of gray, its message doesn't come across very well.

 
Similarly, the economics aspect accidentally undermines its own moral. The Demon King's idea essientially plays out like this:

1) Teach the farmers crop rotation
2) They produce more food
3) ???
4) Profit

This then gives the lower class more time and income to spend on pursuits like education, which would then result in more technological breakthroughs, and so on and so forth. The idea to lift up the masses first is a good one--even though, again, it glosses over some important details--but the problems come in once the show gets to the education part. It emphasizes that the evil church and nobles have denied their people access to education, opening the door for one of the show's major themes revolving around human agency. Again, this is fine, but the execution makes it feel less like the Demon King (under the guise of the Scholar) is bringing out the people's real potential and more like the impoverished feel indebted to her as a noble who bothered to take the time out of her busy schedule to teach the lower beings how to read. It makes the heroes appear not all that different from the villans, but the show completely misses this point to push the good/evil side of the plot even further.

 
I've spent a lot of this review complaining, but there were aspects of the show that I liked. The town where demons and humans lived together was an interesting touch, and provided some of the moral duality that the rest of the show was lacking. I also enjoyed the merchant character, especially when he was manipulating the market of the continent through the medieval stock market (although the way the prices changed was pretty ridiculous). On the character side of things, Hero's dilemma about lacking a place in the new world the Demon King was trying to build was an interesting one, plus his vague adventures in the demon world. However, most of these elements are either forgotten through the course of the show or put alongside more fanservice. The truth behind the Demon King's title is far more interesting that the argument about potatoes as Satan's crop, but Maoyu is a show that doesn't have all its priorities straight.


It feels like Maoyu was afraid to get too complicated with the economics or stray too far from the fanservice, and its more interesting parts are cut down or ignored as a result. Whether that's the result of it's 2chan roots or a failure of the adaptation itself, I can't say. However, the result is that the anime itself can't seem to make up its mind about whether it is more concerned about presenting a slightly altered version of a generic fantasy story, a retelling of Spice and Wolf, or just an excuse to look at thongs through wet pants. It can't even commit to an ending, leaving a lot of loose threads hanging. In the end, while there are parts of the show that are genuinely engaging, Spice and Wolf  has already done a much better job at accomplishing all the things Maoyu only manages to be mediocre at. If you were thinking of watching this or enjoyed this show anyway, Spice and Wolf is a much better version of a fantasy economic romance anime. I admire Maoyu for trying to create a similar show, but its lack of confidence in anything but the fanservice overrides what it could have been.

Images from Crunchyroll.com.

Just when I thought that UtaPri's antics couldn't get any more ridiculous, this happens.


First, let's address the elephant...er, dragon in the room. I'd figured that Heaven's performance would be over-the-top and jaw dropping, but I don't think that anyone could've predicted a Giant Screw You Dragon would rise from the stage for the finale, setting the stadium on fire with blue flames. I think that UtaPri finally broke my WTF meter with that one. I'm still not sure what to make of it, since this series has a history of blending fantasy and reality in ways that are not entirely clear. Sometimes a music video is just a music video, and other times the whole group is the center of a heart-sparkle storm. Of course, Heavens didn't really kill hundreds of people (right?) and it's more likely that this is some kind of elaborate special effect or a too-literal interpretation of "bringing the house down."

The moral of the story is, this show is insane. I will never stop loving it.

 
Aside from Giant Screw You Dragons, the beginning of this episode made me think that the show was finally fleshing out the senpai characters. In a way, I was right, but not in the way I would've liked. We do get to see how the character dynamics of Quartet Night operate, and arguably the most ignored characters--Ran and Ai--get their moment of focus. However, their role in this episode basically boils down to: "Why am I having these feelings? I don't do feelings." At least in Ran's case we get a little bit of backstory: the band he was in previously ditched him, making it hard for him to trust people. However, I still feel that these characters got the short end of the stick in terms of screentime and development. Maybe they'll have better luck in season 3...?

Let me show you the dance of my people

And then there was Cecil with his Agnadance. I've gone back and forth on whether or not I like his character, but I think he's finally won me over. The silly sound effect as he spun around in a circle was too priceless. And his justification that he'd danced that way since he was a child made it even better. It does seem like something a small child would think up, yet the idea of innocence and pure love for music is a big theme in UtaPri, so it works well. At first I was as concerned as the other characters about Cecil's ability to learn all the choreography in a day, but then I remembered that he got permission to be an idol from his vague country in a matter of hours, so this is nothing.


But seriously though. A Giant Screw You Dragon. What is Starish going to summon? A tiger?

Why don't these two have their own spinoff yet?

Images from Crunchyroll.com.