Tag: Episode 22

Animini: That Time I got Reincarnated as a Slime – Episode 22 – Conquering the Labyrinth

Sweet island guests, today’s Animi cocktail will be served in a slightly cracked coconut. It will have a few bitter tones but overall will provide a sweet experience.  My Arceus , how annoying are the female Demon Lords in this show!  If I ever get reincarnated into THAT world please let me be a rope so I can strangle them!  That being said Slime offered a fairly okay episode again this week! While not great it is certainly nowhere near as shiit(ake-soy-sauce )  as the last arc.

The Summary

Despite Shizu suffering quite a bit due to being inhabited by a superior spirit , Rimuru still things this is the best way to let these kids live longer so he travels with them to the maze that holds the Spirit Queen, to find spirits he can put inside his class, she can help him summon. When the group enters the maze they are prepared for a maze-like place filled with traps. It turns out to be a straight hallway that is heavily enchanted, maybe they will end up wandering forever. Suddenly a voice begins echoing and laughing in their head, saying they are going to die here and trying to invoke fear. It works pretty well on Chloe, but the rest of the kids doesn’t seem all that scared, much to the chagrin of the voice.  Rimuru tells  what they are here to do and the voice chuckles thinking that sounds fun.  Suddenly the  ruins light up and a kind of portal appears.. well more like a Bifrost.. but either way Rimuru and his kids are invited to a new location! There the voice will give them a test! A fight against a pink mecha thing! YAY Pink represent!

Rimuru decides to talk the spirit out of it saying if the voice doesn’t make the Golem back down he will be forced to destroy it.. the spirit doesn’t believe he can do it and makes the Golem trying to kill Rimuru , who promptly ensnares and torches my beautiful new pink friend! It was great to have you here while it lasted, Golem-Chan! Rimuru then threatens to burn down the entity in their heads as well. A pixie shows up! She tells everyone she is Demon Lord Ramiris and she is like Milim..on caffeine pills. By all means just like with Milm she should be a character I really love but she mostly got on my nerves. Rimuru thinks she is too weak to be a demon lord but after she reveals Milim visited her fellow Demon Lord to tell about her new bestie Rimuru opens up to the idea. She is a lot wiser and has more support like abilities that might make her amazing after all. A lot of talking happens and she is bribed with a lot of cookies.  Since it is revealed Ramiris is also the Queen of spirits.. and like 20 other things.. (kind of like Denny was in Game of Thrones)  she tells Rimuru she is a neutral being and she will help him summon spirits to save the kids.  Which functions kind of weirdly but we are left with the children preparing for the ritual.

The Positives

The fact that the pink Golem was one of my highlights kind of shows quite well where I am in terms of liking this episode. I liked it fine.. but the element that got me most excited was that the creator coloured in something pink! I guess it works with Ramiris personality well.  But still I was most excited about a visual choice and a one minute encounter.  That being said on the design front this episode was truly excellent. I do very much like Ramiris design, she is cute but dark enough looking to indeed sell that she is a “fallen” queen.  Her personality is similar enough for me to believe she is friends with Milim and that Milim would come brag to her as I can easily imagine them being friendly but also have a fair bit of rivalry.  The magic maze , while not a maze was designed pretty nicely and I liked the idea of Rimuru exploring a dungeon  for once. Of course the colourful pixies floating around helped as well.  Design wise great episode.

I also like , in theory , how flawed these Demon Lords are,  it makes it feel an achievable status for pretty much everyone, making me believe that Rimuru at one point will get it.. probably because one of them will stupid enough to attack and end up being absorbed.  It leaves the path of progress open for Rimuru as I really feel that to progress beyond his current limitations he will probably need to absorb a Demon Lord.   Like I said in earlier reviews I am kind of unhappy that they tossed in so many creatures more powerful than Rimuru if there are no consequences to this. I am happy if you do it and there are consequences but if nothing bad happens anyway you might as well just keep him powerful, now it just feels like the plot is treading water.. but people like Ramiris show me.. there is hope for Rimuru to evolve. One will mess up and further the plot.. eventually.  I am also quite curious to see what kind of spirit these children will get so at least I am excited for this , semi final ish episode coming up. (As far as I know the other two episodes are set in a time before Rimuru) 

The Negatives

This isn’t a very strong episode for me however. The plot stalls several times. My biggest gripe is that they do the whole Charybdis thing again.. the Golem is said to be super powerful and that it might kill Rimuru if he fails to dodge.. he dodges twice.. then pretty much One Shots the thing again.  I am fine with him One shotting the thing.. but if we first get an explanation on how dangerous this thing is and how most of Rimuru’s magic won’t be effective , you start to expect a real fight but no.. he just kills it in one hit. I still do not mind the kill but I just feel the warnings before have become wasted. There is no need to think about how to defeat a monster if you already know! It is just bad writing to draw out an episode or a manga page. I don’t like it. It happens several times as well, Rimuru explains how hard this place will be to navigate… they get invited to progress immediately, Ramiris explains it is hard to summon a spirit, if they fail they will just create a new spirit they can use. So much safety nets that contradict earlier dialogue, making a lot of the text empty.

I have not made it a secret that I do not particularly enjoy Milim, while I do feel her personality was a bit much, she at least had the oomph to back it up.. she was just used very wrong.  Ramiris is even more annoying. There is this “Boy Who Cried Wolf” element to her that once again makes all her dialogue feel a bit “filler”  I am not even sure she is actually a Demon Lord. She shows up in the intro as her own separate presence. I just find her quite unpleasant to be around with or something! Not sure the character just doesn’t really work for me!  I like her level of peppiness.. but the whole punch throwing thing has been done since Scrappy Doo.. in fact he is a perfect analogy for her and there are a lot of people who do not like Scrappy Doo! Ramiris kind of annoyed me more! Like the Scrappy Doo , from the Third Scooby Doo movie in which he becomes the villain!  Just no!

The Score

Overall I am left with a mediocre episode that is in between Fine-Apple and Okiwi to me.
I did enjoy the Pink Golem a lot, and it is a beautiful episode to watch. It is nice to see some more classical fantasy elements such as dungeons exploring pop up more , at least on the main cast.   We have mostly seen action on a large scale. For a series that references Dragon Quest so much, it felt more like Slime, Total War or Slime Fantasy Tactics than as Slime Quest to me. While I do like the village growth it is quite good to see an adventure like this happen as well and it nails the location and the looks pretty much on the head. Definitely  this is one of the prettier episodes to watch!  Battles overall do look pretty in this show even though they are quite short and this one is no exception! Great choreography as well! 

However, everything that happens feels rather hollow and I do not blame the action, I blame the poor set up.. it feels extremely contradictory for me. “This Enemy is really strong” ..Oneshot. “This maze is super dangerous”….. “Please follow the shiny lights to get to the next area where your test will begin”. It’s like looking forward to a bag of crisps, what is in there is pretty good.. but once you open it and realise that half of the bag is filled with air you also kinda feel scammed. The annoying Fairy doesn’t do this episode any favours either.  While I do like her design and I would not mind her having this personality as much if she was the only one to have it, her being basically a copy of Milim but smart instead of strong..  makes her feel more throwaway and annoying. In fact it is because of the fact that she brings so little new to the table I will say this episode is not good enough to be fine-apple!

Animini: Hikaru No Go -Episode 22 – The Insei Test

Welcome back to another episodic review of Hikaru no Go my dear Island Guests. This series has been the first one I have faithfully kept up with. It sure has its ups and downs .. although mostly ups. The last few episodes have been stellar so I was kinda disappointed that this episode broke that streak. It isn’t bad it is just no way up to bar with the rest of the episodes that came after the Internet-Go Arc started. 

The Summary

I will have a bit of trouble filling two paragraphs with the plot this week because it is really quite simple! Last episode we saw Hikaru move on from his Middle School Go Club to go and head on to the Insei Exam, this week picks up with the start of the test. At first glance Hikaru seems rather unimpressive with the examinatior. His matches are sloppy, his playing style is too aggressive  and he doesn’t have any notes of playing  worthy opponents.  As the exam goes along he discovers more and more about Hikaru’s potential though.  For example he finds out Hikaru has only been playing Go for a year and he played his 3 matches simultaneously. After losing the match to the examinator Hikaru.. barely .. passes the test. With some doubt in the head of the examinator and a lot of stress in Hikaru’s body!

The second part of the episode we see Hikaru play matches against the other Insei about a week later.. they are all intrigued in himn because he blabbed about being Akira Touya’s rival which makes everone want to play him..and Hikaru loses all his matches, showing he is back on the bottom of the foodchain again. We slowly see him becoming.. “half” friends with Waya and a guy whose name did not stick yet for me!  Waya’s buddy at least  They have lunch together and Waya jokes about a very weak player from Kaio High. We get a bit of an explantion to how the Insei classes work.. there are two tiers , first and second class Insei and by winning your way among your class and against superiors you can climb up the ladder. This Kaoi guy was known for how unremarkable he was and the lack of talent, eventually leading him to drop out.  This guy turns out to be Kaoi’s First Board.. a guy Hikaru thinks is way out of his league… demotivated Hikaru leaves the class.

The Positives

This episode is significantly weaker as the episodes that came before. Many of the show’s normal strengths are not present in this episode. The cinematography is a lot more bland, the pacing seems off and the natural flow the series has is stifled with a few plot points here and there.  What the show does well however is creating that sense of unfamiliarity. Hikaru had to give up playing with his friends for this.. he is in a strange environment and he basically went from the strongest player to being the weakest again. The show does a very good job at fleshing this out in the second part of the episode. My favourite scene is where Hikaru loses to a girl. He  has always disrespected Akiri to a certain level as a Go-Player so making him suffer a loss like this is a good way to put him with his feet on the ground again and awaken a passion to grow.

The fact that we do not cut to see what the others are doing helps in establishing this sense of Isolation. We see Waya’s cruel and mocking side. In a way to me this  reminded me from the behaviour change from primary school to middle school… or whatever definition is used from the one you leave at 11 onto the next one. Suddenly all the people you grew up with are gone or in different classes, the whole Kumbaya atmosphere has dried up and kids are more cruel and mocking to each other. This truely made it feel for me like Hikaru has indeed advanced to the next level.  We also finally get an explanation on why he on occasion ignores Sai.. apparently Hikaru can’t speak to him when he is concentrating really bad… I kind of wonder how that works with a voice in your head.. but sure!  As long as it’s established it can happen I am a happy camper!  Sai addresses it so .. that issue is fixed for me now. All in all I would say the episodes nails what it is trying to tell… the way it is dressed up though….

The Negatives

I was super excited to see the Insei exam… it could have been something really special .. but instead it’s a rather bland match against the examinator that get’s plagued by the shows weird sense of comedy again.  There is a cultural thing about the sitting position and etiquette that did not land..but well that of course is forgiven.. but all in all it’s just a bit of an odd element. We see the stress in his eyes in the beginning..but as soon as he learns he does not need to win to pass the test all tension is broken. The exam isn’t over yet and I would have liked to see that reflected a bit more.. perhaps maybe even offer a written test with several Go puzzles to solve.. like the ones Hikaru got  in Go School earlier on.. having it all come down to a single match, lacked some serious tension. This also comes into play in the second part, where Hikaru first doesn’t seem to bothered by his losses.. which DOES make sense with the character he is but it doesn’t make for a great and enticing chain of events.

The trigger that pushes Hikaru into the next phase is most stupid yet. It’s a conversation about black coffee. The subjected needed to land on Kaio’s first Board and apparantly he was a student that at a young age like the Insei already drank Black coffee.  Waya and the other Insei remember this trough a wrongly purchased drink.. and seeing the man Hikaru admires in terms of skill being nothing but mediore at best deflates him. It’s a natural chain of events that can occur in daily life.. but it isn’t a particularly interesting one. As the audience we are not in  the know of this and can not link that to the guy so for the majority of the talk it’s just banter about black Coffee. The eventual reveal isn’t that impactful either.. because if Kaio’s first board really had the talent to become a pro.. he would have done so.. so it makes perfect sense that he is a mid tier Insei. While I do get the impact it would have on a kid as Hikaru we as the audience don’t really get anything to be excited about from this exchange… not even that much from this episode even.

The Score

I do get that this is where the story needs to go, but it doesn’t match up with the pacing we had of the last episodes, suddenly everything stagnates.. which is fine.. that happens, but it happens with a whimper.  If we could see Hikaru struggle more with his own confidence from the moment he passed the Insei test and see him start reading more about Go to close the gap already that would have made an impact. Instead we just gloss over the test and then see Hikaru struggle..but that struggle only becomes a burden when some kind of obviious knowledge is revealed. It just doesn’t flow very well.  Had this episode been a two parter, with the exam in this part and the introduction to class as a second this way of approaching things could work.  With the relief lingering in episode A and the Road ahead being paved out in Part B. This does the right thing but it has no weight.

I do not feel as frustrated as some of the other “bad” Hikaru no Go Episodes, but this one genuinely had me bored.  Obviously Hikaru is a .. barely passable.. level Insei because he loses to Kaga and Kaio’s players still who don’t even try out for Insei. The exam isn’t exciting because it is glossed over and half of it ..is comedy. The early losses don’t matter because Hikaru doesn’t care yet.  Had he heard Kaoi’s first board was weak just after passing the exam and would have frustrated him prior to coming to the school doubting his skill, everything would have had a much bigger impact, yet as things were now I did not care. With no investment I can’t rule otherwise than to me this episode was just Okiwi.