Pinkie’s Saturday Anime Adventure 10

Hello Island Guests, the week is all over again! So I watched some anime again!
This week I had a few issues that prevented me from watching Saki in the evening so I did not make any progress with that! Yet for Saturday I finally have gotten myself some Unicorn Fruit Loops and I poured myself a cold bowl of milk and I watched five anime!

I actually really liked this episode of BNA , the past two were so so with an increasing fear of things going south at the end.  While this episode made me worry even more about the future I actually had some fun with this.

As we slowly so the plot begin to unravel  we see that Allan Silvasta is trying to create a cure to turn beast man into humans, which upsets Shirou because he does not feel he is something that needs to be cured. Alan however tells him that part of the Beast Man Genetic code has a defunct that turns them wild and feral when they live amongst other species of  beastman. This is called Nirvasyl Syndrome named after the city where Shirou once lived. Where the event actually happend. The humans attacking the beast man city where also lead by a Sylvasta causing the god wolf to go feral and attack Alan and his cure development production line. Michiru stops him and he goes renegade. The mayor also finds herself in a lot of trouble after the minister of Japan betrays here.. who also has contact with Alan. Shirou seems to team up with flip, Michiru with Nazuna and  who knows what happens to the Mayor.. in the end we know little as we move towards the finale of this series.

This episode to me succeeded quite well in building up tension, it also put the last two episodes a bit in place. We needed those elements  because they all play a critical role in whatever deception Alan is up too. Even now I am not fully sure what he is up to.. or if he is even that evil. It fits that cyberpunk dystopian undertone that had been in this show without the actual cyberpunk element. This was enforced by the synthwave music during the explanation, the apparel of all the medical droids and tech devices that stopped Shirou. My favorite scene was in fact that synth wave supported exposition scene. I am not sure he is that evil because he did not mistreat Michiru in any way either, would she be something in the way he could have easily dealt with her there… so this is a strength that can later turn into a massive weakness if it turns out her is like , evil-evil.  I do think I can understand his motivations though and I do think that is what a show like this needs. It is on that political side of the spectrum.. that should deal with grey areas and not make it very black and white. I do fear this a fake out but for now.. I do like this set up.

What I liked less about this episode is the fact that it once more is almost entirely a single set episode. The last episode was the room where Nazuna was being scanned the episode before it was only the terrace where Michiru had a talk with mamma Melissa and episode 6 mostly took place on the square.  BNA can feel very static at times. Almost theater like which is a problem if you are trying to show how people in the city are slowly going crazy. We see this in episode 1 until 4 that is true but after that we have mostly been having very tiny self contained stories where these elements drift to the background a bit. Alan’s talk is so convincing his betrayal of the major seemed odd. It seems as if the show could be resolved without action but trough smarts and that it might be a battle of health versus basic rights which could be very interesting to see people struggle with that.. but it also feels like they are going to backpedal out of that idea. Like watching a circus actor do a really interesting stunt but there is a safety line and a net and they drew a target on the net for them to drop in as well.  It takes away the tension.. so the way the Major was framed or seems to be framed had to be my least favorite moment of the show it felt confusing to me.  Could you just not stall her out bureaucracy is a thing and she knows it so you could have played that string.

All in all I had a sweet time with BNA Episode 10. It wasn’t amazing and the episode themselves really begin to creak with the building pressure of the approaching end. It doesn’t do much wrong other than suffer under a to strict countdown. I do still quite like this show but I think it will be a solid 7 out of 10 and maybe a 6 or even a 5 if they really fumble ending for in the long run. This show is like a taco,  but in some bites there is to much lettuce, in some bites we only taste shell… but this bite was pretty well mixed.. however those last two bites are bound to be overstuffed. I am happy I had a good bite .. but I am at the point where I can enjoy it less, because it is such a sloppy overall experience.

Episode Score

I really enjoy this series and this episode was no different. Samurai Flamenco and Slime is what get me out of bed on Saturday! Super excited to watch another episode! They consistently make my day!

We see a very natural continuation of the Samurai Flamenco and Flamenco Girl dynamic as it slowly reaches it rupturing point. Maya wants to be in the spotlight so much that she pushes Masayoshi away using her cruel and harsh techniques. She is a hero for fame while he is a hero for justice. It makes the two non compatible and doesn’t  adhere to Masayoshi’s code.  When he is cast as an extra on a Sentai Show and he can finally make it big in that industry he also begins to see the darkside and the hypocrisy of that world.. he begins to see what he does is fake. Meanwhile Goto is given a “fake” job as well forming some project that deals with the Flamenco fighters in a PR stunt like thing.  Even as a blogger I have dealt with that.. why am I doing this struggle, I think most of who ever pursued anything ungraspable can relate to this struggle. A postumes gift from his grandpa on his 20th birthday offers us some origins of the Samurai Flamenco concept and on Masayoshi’s values as we see him return to his ways with new found confidence and making sure he follows HIS path! Kudos!

I think I had one of my favorite moments in the series when Masayoshi got that gift from his grandpa. It shows so much goodness. It basically validates that Samurai Flamenco should exist.. because Masayoshi believes.. he is a symbol for justice because that is the value Masayoshi pursues.  While he loves Sentai shows.. he always to an extend knew they are fake and he has to find his own way in the real world that is real.. while he can be inspired by them he isn’t a 1 on 1 copy of them. Most of all he won’t have his treasured values be corrupted by someone who looks at it from a different angle. The separation of Girl and Samurai was also very strong in my opinion! Both value their dream to much to give it up for the other, even though one seems more noble than the other I am very happy they did not make Maya flip like that.. No one should ever have to comprise on their dream! Placing Goto in a similar situation as Masayoshi made this episode even more relatable, the two seem to reflect of each other. Both are unhappy and struggle with their job, both have partner issues and question if what they do now is the real thing.. it gives the episode a strong sense of theming throughout.. they mirror each other with some different choices. 

My biggest gripe was this episode was the exact same as I had with the previous episode. Goto’s girlfriend who only exists in text messages. I can’t read Kanji and the subtitles are a bit slow to follow it all because they only appear after a whole message is being typed and since we have never seen her it lacks any form of impact. Sure he stares at her umbrella with that cute octopus a lot which shows he cares for her but it is still pretty hard to care for a character you have never seen.  Maya crushing on Goto gave me a good chuckle when she rolled around with her Dakimakura of a uniformed man saying she needed more but again her relationship with Goto is from afar with him being unaware of it.  So as far as the “romantic” subplots go  I do still feel rather un-engaged.  I am not sure if I should be engaged by it but these moments are fairly frequently present so perhaps I am.. I am not sure! I would prefer this to be a bit more minor or at least be told through dialogue with Goto telling Masayoshi his girlfriend blew him off again or something. It would impact me just that bit more, I could “hear” in his voice that he is hurt… in text not so much.

While not as strong as the last two episodes this one still was very good from throughout it’s entire runtime.  It deals with a lot of stuff that needed to be resolved in a very human way. The writer seems to really understand what drives these people and Goto Maya and Masayoshi all seem quite real to me. Representing something like the Realist, The Dreamer and the Idealist yet all pursuing the same keyword “justice”.  It really dig how this episode highlighted that to us and how  we can be different while being the same and it doesn’t mean blindly having to support others if it endangers your own desires!  Being able to understand the mindset of characters is super important in a show that is THIS character driven. This episode nails that brief yet again and provides some good entertainment to boot.

Episode Score

My least favorite episode of Slime so far that still was a very enjoyable experience to me. If this is going to be my “low point” Slime might even become a personal favorite of mine.

In this episode Rimuru, Rigur, Gobta Ranga and some other goblins and tempest wolves have reached the dwarven city in order to trade for knowledge in craftsmanship. However when some Ruffians at the door give Rimuru a hard time an act of self defence and trying to scare them off results in a small disaster with people massively losing their minds and soiling themselves in fear leading to the slime and Gobta being imprisoned. After helping the security forces of the dwarves with potions and saving their lives in combat with some underground monster, whose name I forgot on the account that it is fought of screen. Rimuru stays behind in jail but is released after the potions helped them in the battle and he is to meet a great blacksmith, using his devour and copy skills he makes him a few magic weapons and earns his gratitude and a trip to an elf host club where he is hugged and held as pet under some blobs these woman carry themselves.. as a mysterious figure approaches the club. 

This episode was a bit “simpler” in nature than the other three episodes, less is set up and it’s mostly enjoyable on a comedy level that just feels satisfying and cute.  My favorite scene is where Rimuru goes out and makes swords for the master blacksmith, from the way he talks to the showmanship on display it just felt great. You can really see this former salaryman starting to love his new life as a slime and finally getting some respect. The fact that Rimuru’s power comes from something other than sheer combat force and more so on a reliance in strength pays off once more!  It really endears me to this character a bit more. As a 33 year old myself I find traits in him of a person who has seen and experienced the other side a bit..that insignificance that a teen doesn’t quite get.. so yes I really loved that.  I also really enjoyed the innocent of Rimuru in jail, not breaking out as well as getting in trouble for performing to well in a certain situation. It reminded me off classical D&D adventures.. this stuff happens a lot there! So I really liked the jail bit as well, especially since there was no way to hold Rimuru properly since jails and slimes don’t combine. But yes that just felt so right to me.

Kicking in an open door, the scene I did like the least was the scenes where Rimuru was lewding the elves. I get it to a certain extend.. he is a predator after all and he likes the concept of boobs and all that since he never experienced any so to a point I could get behind this. Still I have some questions.. for example it does seem that Rimuru is really prone to share slime biology so I would imagine that it doesn’t have that high of a libido in the physical sense. A lot of girls think the slime is cute and hug it like a pet underneath their breasts but I sure as heck would not cover myself or my breasts in slime..let alone sentient slime. I guess they were paid but even then.. why would the dwarves think a slime is interested in elfen women? It doesn’t really seem like the first thing you think of when you see a slime. Most of the goblins and all the wolves stayed behind so Gobta and Rimuru could visit the village, why did they come in the first place then? Clearly Rimuru is strong enough  to hold his own ? Maybe because they want to follow him? I do not know but I lacked the sharpness  from before, like how comedy is more set up for comedy’s sake again.. which isn’t bad.. just not as awesome as some stuff it did before! 

I had another blast with Slime so while I can point out a few flaws ..it’s all more in the “less awesome than” category than the actual flaw category. I just like the world building of this show a lot , while the humans seem like total jack-asses this show puts a light on the other races still. I just liked the goblins a bit more than the dwarves and well .. the elves felt a bit to Twi’lek like for my generally Gray-Sexual like tastes.  It’s was still perfectly enjoyable and I laughed and got excited. I felt good and cheered up while watching and want to watch more of it. So that’s always a good sign.. a very good sign!

Episode Score

I did not like Tower of God Episode 3 a lot, I felt the plot droned on, had poor pacing and little interesting character development. It felt very colour by numbers to me, not surprising me and just feeling like a bootleg Hunter X Hunter. 

I planned to give this a chance untill episode 6 but after today’s episode I think I am going to call it quits right here. While this episode definitely was better than the last one.. I felt overwhelmed by not giving caring about anything and I still think the writing is extremely lazily! Given that the big cliffhanger on episode 3 basically is the same cliffhanger as the one we got in episode 4 as it had no pay off before. When I started Saturday Morning Adventures I decided to follow very strict rules to make it feel like a Saturday Morning show line up .. I had to put a bit of effort in my shows and give each show at least 6 episodes to win me over. However I found myself so painfully uninterested in this show that I am pretty sure 0% of those watching Pinkie’s Saturday Morning Channel is having a good time with this show..because I am the only one I am doing this for! So why waste more time writing about it after todays episode? It’s just not for me!

While I take you to this episode I will explain my feelings as to why I will drop it. We continue to crown trial in this episode and Anaak has to defend her crown from a few assailants. Including that sleeping guy whose name I forgot.  We see the two bladed samurai guy take out a lot of people while the little lizard girl uses her special weapon to defeat the sleeping guy who turns out to be  powerful mage . While it’s nicely brought visually it lacked any impact for me, we already knew she had a blade similar to Bang’s because the same logo has been shown several times.. so that was not much of a reveal. The sleeping guy being a mage did nothing for me either..mostly because the only trait the guy had so far was that he sleeps a lot. Obviously he must be powerful… but the fact that he is a mage.. well that is nice but it didn’t do anything for me, he had no build up yet so he could do anything and I would believe it, it doesn’t tie neatly in the sleep theme either so it doesn’t feel rewarding.. for example say if he woke up super grumpy and turned into a barbarian like rage.. THAT I would have found rewarding.. here it felt like just a power to give him a thing. I know liking a character theme to their powers can feel a bit forced, but at least I would have felt something. It felt like he was really meant to be impressive.. but he did not actually hit anything nor was it show how powerful his magic could be..its just there. Anaak’s whip is nice but it felt like something that would be in Bleach.. and now this show had two shows  I saw heavy influences off and both are better than this show (for the most part).

Bam’s sword begins to react to Anaak’s sword and she wants to kill him because those blades belong to the princesses of Jahad, of which there are 13 named after the months.. +1 I guess. His blade representing March and hers April. Okay.. that’s neat I guess?! A bit boring flavoring to be fair. Leaving the throne to eye up Bam gets Anaak disqualified though so her group can leave the arena without being killed, just as the group with the sleeping guy  retreated seeing Anaaks weapon. Conveniently this happens to all the important characters. Once more contributing to me how forced this plot feels. Everyone has to make it out alive Due to the animation style you can sort of tell which characters are important as well, though I cant tell extactly what.. but side characters seem to get al lot less love and attention. After big Deus Ex Machina 1 and 2, Bam’s group participates in the game. When Khun uses his magical bag to beat all 6 opponents with a knife and wind skills.. making him feel even more like Killua to me.. both are air elementals as well. Unlike HunterXHunter his powers aren’t really explained.. he just absorbs a huge spell attack with his bag, can clone items in that bag and he can conjure up Tornado’s from Arceus knows where. When a guy EXACTLY  dressed like Zorro from One Piece showed up..next to a shadowy guy who proclaims his powers were that of a rubber body I completely tuned out. Thats 3 shows it mimics now that are better than this.

Every fight so far felt completely inconsequential to me and stakes extremely low.  Obviously Anaak is important so she can not get hurt so BOOM , disqualified, obviously sleeping guy was build up so he could not stay and fight to the death even if he wanted to, and obviously Rachel isn’t going to kill anyone who matters in this next trial so that set up of her character will not pay off at all. To me this show is the equivalent to someone setting up a line of domino’s and then live streaming topping them over, some creations are creative and look nice but we can still tell what is going to happen with very standard type characters that just seem to be  taken from random shonen shows and put together again.  While this show isn’t particularly bad I just find it very VERY uninteresting.  Like a german car! It goes vroom, it is fuel efficient and it does what it needs to do.. but it will never surprise you. It can go fast enough to keep you somewhat entertained but to me it lacks any form of own personality..it just took what works well from others and makes something that is okay.

I feel if this show had focused on one battle at a time and let us learn more about a characters abilities as we go on I might be more into it.. now it’s basically Deus Ex Machina solving problem one, into the fortunate event solving the second. It’s a show where the characters are powered up by the plot to drive the story fourth because the story needs to be move forward. I feel  like the characters are completely interchangeable with each other Anaak could be on Bam’s team instead of Rak and nothing would really change! Khun could be replaced with the sleeping guy.. and instead of the magic bag he would just dream up chocobars for Rak..it doesn’t matter. I can’t help but feel like I am watching an okay fan fiction turned into an actual anime when I watch this. The visual style feels to layered to me with characters being on a different layer than the world making me feel even more disengaged.
No need for an episode score for this one because Tower of God’s status is:

Today i saw Aa nice set-up episode with some minor flaws that most likely will be among the lesser memorable episodes in the series for me. Yet also an episode that tells me that the guys responsible for this really know their cinematography and storytelling. 

We return to Hikaru after two episodes of Akira just to be introduced to another addition to the cast.  Mitani is a guy from Hikaru’s school who solved their Go puzzle poster which was seen by Akiri .. who apparently was not a part of the Go club despite constantly being their. Surprising even the captain. After eating some Ramen when Akiri runs away angry again Hikaru finds out there is another Go Lounge nearby where he conveniently meets this Mitani guy, quite a promising Go player who plays matches for money! Yet what makes him different is that he cheats! After beating Tsutsui in a match by once again cheating he runs off again not interested in the Go club! Hikaru chases after him to challenge him to a match and change his mind and his ways.

I love the introduction of the new character Mitani , while arguably seeing him in the Go Café felt a bit to convenient I love what he brings to the table and how his motivations to play are so different from the rest. Mitani is a poor guy who plays Go for money because he wants to buy stuff he can not afford otherwise.  Since he is poor and can not afford to lose money  he also resorts to cheating, something Hikaru did not have to deal with before.  Something that makes him truly unique. Go isn’t a passion for him, neither in the good way nor the bad, it is just a thing he happens to be good at and can make a buck with. He is also a pace disruptor and manipulator, in his duel with Tsutsui he eggs the guy on to make moves faster and faster.. in order to force him to to think of his move in Mitani’s turn instead of his own, by calling him slow. This results him to not pay as much attention the cheaters move who then tricks Tsutsui into making another move, disqualifying himself. I also like how Sai finally speaks up about not having been able to play for a while that was what started this whole thing in the first place so I am glad it was at least acknowledged.. the show really answered the questions I had as a viewer..why isn’t that a thing? I also feel that facing a cheater could be both interesting to Sai and Hikaru as an opponent due to the unpredictability of it all.

Akiri gets completely duped again though. Hikari makes her angry again and she leaves upset and no one chases after her, despite how much time and effort she has put into helping this Go Club and how much she provides. By now I would even expect Tsutsui to follower her and given how important this club is to Hikaru I would have loved so see at least some decency towards his lady friend who supports him so loyally. I really feel for the poor girl  and as a result I do think less of the two boys so that is a bit  that  could be improved upon.  The pacing of the go matches this week also felt a bit off, they did not feel exicting or tense they just happend.  That cinematography though.. how the camera angels in to see Tsu locked in though.. in order to also distract the viewers attention of the board as if we are watching trough his eyes.  The way the camera does a frog perspective shot from the Go board in the go parlor to show what part of the field Mitani’s opponent is counting.. showing what is in his sight form a reverse angle to emphasise that this is all he sees. I really loved that. 

I was impressed by this episode of Hikaru no Go but from a much more clinical perspective. What impressed me is more on a technical level than the actual episode itself.  The writing the cinematography, the way stuff is set up smartly. For the actual events in this episode I feel less excitement it, I wasn’t bored exactly but like I said I doubt I will remember this episode for to long, it just feels a bit irrelevant.. considering what’s about to happen next. The whole Sai committed suicide over being tricked into “cheating” and all raises the tension for next week’s episode for me! Meaning I will probably only remember that part of the encounter in the end. It’s too good to be just mediocre though so this week we are happy with the new review system and will use one of the new rankings to the maximum effect! 

Episode Score

Another Week’s worth of anime done! Real life me had a bit of difficulty coping with humanity as it is right now, spread across all factions ideologies and belief I see so much mean spirited behaviour as each other. I considered getting of Twitter but I opted out of that for now. I had a family event Thursday and my father really shunned me a bit which..always was the case but after not having him seen him for almost six months this time it hurt a bit extra. Which resulted in a bit of Somatic Stress Disorder Nausea that still lingers a bit. While I love the summer, the heat in this case did not help. So if I was more silent to you this week or missed a post.. I have in a bit of hide away mode this past week.

In more positive news! My blog Aniversary is coming up and I am looking for ways to celebrate! If you have a good idea please leave it in the comment or poke me on twitter…while the profile lasts of course! I hope you had a great week though and I wish you all an amazing next one as well!