Tag: Masayoshi

Animini: Samurai Flamenco – Episode 21 – Teaching Love

Noooooooooo Moe-chaaaaan! Please be safe! Stupid Hajii deserves to die for what he did to you my sweet blue spring flower!  He even scared me out of my Steampunk outfit because I am so worried about you! .. Where last week I nearly dropped the show.. two episodes before the end of the show, which shows up how messed up it was,  this week I absolutely am blown away…but if they make Masayoshi the actual villain here.. this entire review is null and void! In  fact.. if they go the stupid route.. this might be the first post I will ever delete.

The Summary

Episode 21 begins at Masayoshi’s hotel, we see him contemplate killing himself so that Hajii stops. He now seems a bit more certain that the boy is not in his brain.. but if there is no one for him to torment his friends are safe. He calls Mari and  warns her about Hajii. Mari does not seem worried but asks about Goto and if they have made up again.. this  does not happen. Too worried about her love interest and not happy about him missing his friend she misses the time to drink her coffee and they have to go on stage. Mizuki and Moe collapse.. their eyes totally white.. big foam on their lips.. my heart drops and I am about to chuck my laptop out of the window.. No one hurts my Moe! Luckily the pair seems to have survived.. their stomachs get pumped and now we have to wait and see.. and no it isn’t resolved this episode so I am not sure of my darlings fate! While Masayoshi watches the news report about the attack on MMM in relative silence.. he gets a call from the hospital. Joji is finally awake and he wishes to talk to Masayoshi.

Masayoshi and him have a heart to heart and the Mentor tells his pupil he saw the boy just before he got hit by the truck..He said to him “Give Samurai Flamenco my regards”. Thank you show! At least you have given him a distraction. Jojii tells Masayoshi to find out about love as it is the only way to defeat this foe. However Masayoshi being obsessed with being a hero has never known or experienced love.. or so he thinks. He doesn’t understand what love is. Here I am a bit afraid that Jojii wanted to speak to Masayoshi and say he saw him.. and that if he finds love in his heart he can stop doing terrible things.. but I really hope it is my over imaginative mind. Masayoshi talks to his agent who gives him a nice speech about love and gives us their cutest interaction yet.. I finally like her as a character a bit.. then she goes back to Tsundere all over Kono again and the admiration drops a bit again. Meanwhile Goto loses his phone at work.. he  finds a new one on the spot where his old one would be and gets a text from his girlfriend.. which turns out to be Hajii. Goto gets captured..which makes me afraid it is Masayoshi beating him.. because a young kid might not be able to do it.. although  there is a taser. The two talk about Hajii wanting to evolve Samurai Flamenco.. he pulls out a gun on Goto.. tells him he will see him tomorrow aims .. and pulls the trigger. The screen goes black in a huge cliffhanger.

The Positives

These positives only apply if Masayoshi doesn’t turn out to be the bad guy.. but I really like it how this episode actually steers away from that idea!  I don’t mind AS much if Masayoshi imagined the entire thing and the show ends with the guy from the first episode having knocked his lights out or something… but making him the bad guy would kill the show for me.  So I do like that at least it SEEMS like Red Axe saw the guy as well.. it at least seems like Goto is captured by an actual guy and it seems unlikely that Masayoshi would steal Goto’s phone.. then replace it.. use the spelling of his probably dead girlfriend , then imagine himself being called with Goto’s phone to be baited for a final showdown.. that seems a bit much!  So if we judge it as an actual chain of events.. like I said last episode! I do like the Joker vibes.. from Haijii, I do like that I am super eager to find out what happend at the cliffhanger and I am more than eager to explore more!  i even like the idea that Masayoshi must learn to love to break that Super Hero cycle.. or a rivalry would never end.. that feels like a clever take on the genre. I like how they went with a concept where everyone is at danger.. so no matter who your favourite character in the show is.. you have stakes in this last episode. I must see that my Moe is safe.. and some might have to see if Goto survived. Others might have to check what the super angry Mari will do.

I weirdly kinda like that they left the door open to that stupid shitty ending that I really do not want to see. Goto never says “I should have believed him”  , Jojii never confirms he saw Haji just that he  saw who was standing behind him. It leaves options open.. but the same goes for Hajii being rule.. one might wonder how an 11 year old or however old he is survived by himself out there.. but right after his funeral his parents went missing, perhaps he killed them and took their money, perhaps they support his crazy goal someway somehow.. and went along with it out of their blind love. If Masayoshi is the one that poisoned Moe and Mizumi and pushed Kanede under a truck the show will be ruined for me.. because I feel it goes completely against the spirit of the show.. but at least I have a stake in this final episode. Kind of like seeing your favourite V-Tuber play russian roulette or something and if they fail.. they delete their channel. You will not like it if it goes bad.. but you sure have to be there to see that it doesn’t. I really want to watch this final episode badly!

The Negatives

I really felt nervous this episode and that is a super good thing, so my negatives are mostly hypothetical.. and I will not include those, but yes this was an amazing episode. I felt super engaged and excited so there is very little for me to complain about. However there was one scene that did not make ANY sense to me. At one point Lady Axe in the hospital waiting room asks if Green considered her offer to adopt him.. which he declines, Blue then gets upset and asks why he isn’t getting adopted and the answer he gets is.. You are too dumb.
Meanwhile Lady-Axe yells some petty things against Pink who suddenly holds a pair of divorce papers in her face. What the heck is up with that scene. If Masayoshi isn’t imagining what happens in the other room there.. this is just a really stupid scene. So either this is a very poor written scene or a sign on the wall that I will get a bad ending.. so it’s a negative alright.

There is also a lot of bad animation in this episode. Drawings that seem over-simplistic. Mostly around the hospital time. As long as a single character is in shot or two of them are in close up it is fine.. but if there are two or more full bodies it really shows in the animation. While I do not care for animation particularly this one feels so incidental and “not part of the same episode” as the rest that it REALLY took me out of the scene. When you look at the MMM concert you see a lot of love went into those shots. The shot from Mari laying there on the floor foaming from the mouth .. still haunts me.. and that scene in the ending with Hajii in Masyoshi’s apartment was done nice as well .. I truly felt the wind around that place. So it really felt as if the hospital bit did not matter.  I am also kind of upset that Masayoshi did not visit Moe and Mizumi.. they helped him out on numerous occasions. The lackluster animation kind of carries over in the scene with Masayoshi being thought about love from his agent.. but not as bad.  I don’t mind an episode with bad animation that much I guess.. I mind more when it’s fluctuating. It feels as if some parts lack love.

The Score 

I adored this episode.. like it really is on Star Fruit level for me.. I was super invested, super entertained and besides that one throw away scene I really love what happened here.  It was really good! Yet because the previous episode was SO bad .. I can’t fully enjoy it until I have seen the last episode! I will most likely not be able to wait a week before I watch this…. but never had a show been this high stakes going into the final episodes and it’s weirdly fantastical. I will either laugh or cry when it’s over.. maybe even both. 

Knowing this show the final episode will be yet another surprise for me.. so the two endings I suspect to happen will probably not even come to pass .. but  it has been a wild ride.. I am left with one big leap.. it is a scary one.. it can ruin a show I hold very dear..or it can make it even sweeter. This episode gave me hope again! Lots of it!  Yet the show has also run its course it’s time for this to end.. but as a ramp up to the finale this is one of the best episodes a girl can wish for!

Animini: Samurai Flamenco – Episode 20 – Boy From the Past

Joyous Salutations , my dear Island Guests, we have entered Steampunk Month on Paradise.. however just because our palm trees have turned into metal and our pool is now heated by coal and steam vents.. doesn’t mean we will stop with providing you our weekly anime! The Animini shall continue.. however I will immediately admit.. that with this first episode within anime Month.. I am not that pleased. I am not that pleased at all. Where I liked the set up of the villain last week, I think it’s current execution is not something I particularly enjoy.

The Summary

The episode picks up where the last when finished. Masayoshi is greeted by a young boy named Hajii and that explosion we saw last time.. it turns out it was Masayoshi’s apartment. I did not realise it because.. I haven’t really paid much attention to the outside of his apartment building if it even has been shown before. I do try to pay attention to this show so I do feel that explosion at the end of the episode missed a bit of impact. I wanted to see Masayoshi react a bit more.  The two have a mexican stand off and the boy tells Masayoshi a tiny bit of his background story before vanishing. He tells Masayoshi he plans to cause misery to Samurai Flamenco. Masayoshi is being taken to a hotel to spend the night where he orders a curry. Hajii calls hims room  and tells him he poisoned the curry and will soon treat Masayoshi to a colourful chain of events. Plus offering a lot more backstory. He was the young boy that was part of the group of ruffians.. I even described him there I think.. Apparently he found the word Flamenco to be really funny.. and he decided to be his rival.. long story short he wants to be his complete opposite.. so no justifications he just is pure evil! To offer Samurai Flamenco the best possible foe he can have.

Because of the phone hint Hajii gave Masayoshi the model deduces his first target is the Flamengers.. and this indeed is true.  Blue gets his cardboard cutout of Red Axe being torn. Blacks Grandpa gets pushed over, Green gets his book  cut to shreds and given to his little sister, Pink gets her hair cut off. and Red Axe gets hit by a truck and put in the hospital. We also see someone get pushed off a stair and ..kind of hurt their ankle I guess.  While I do like the power display here.. something feels off in how these are scaled and follow each other up.   Masayoshi goes to the police but no one believes a highschool boy can do this.  There is no trace of a bomb in Masayoshi’s apartment, no poison in the curry, and the boy is said to have died from a disease over a year ago.  Even Goto won’t believe his friend and the two get in a huge fight.. causing Goto to break all ties with Masayoshi and throw him out.. because he found it unfair that Masayoshi called him out for being a hypocrite. Masayoshi sits on a riverbank and waits for Haiji to  call who shows up on an island in the river. When Masayoshi swims to him to proof he is real and not a figment of his overworked mind.. he finds no one there.. we see Masayoshi lay there wondering if this villain is hin his head.

The Positives

I do really like how Hajii is set up as the Joker..  he is evil just because he can and he wants to be the opposite of Samurai Flamenco.. being evil just for evil sake is great. I also love the mind game that is being played here.. if that is the route they are going for..  Samurai Flamenco has very much dependent on all his allies, so the way to fight him.. is indeed by taking his friends away from him.. making him seem like a madman.. It will also reduce his chances to be world president.. which I already found dumb.. so I am all for that.  Overall Masayoshi’s struggles in this episode have been done really well.  I have so much empathy for him.. from simple things as wasting a perfectly good curry due to a tease.. to slowly losing his sanity.

I also like the fact that Moe did not get killed in this episode.. for some reason I had the feeling that she might be killed off and that would have completely ruined the show for me.  While I do not like this episode .. they at least managed to keep it salvagable for me.. but given that I mention this as a positive might give you an idea for what is about to come next.  To linger in the positives for a little while longer, I do like the idea that this young kid is just to smart for Masayoshi.. if he is not a figment of his imagination and faked his own death.. and is just playing the man I do think that is a really REALLY cool villain concept and probably something that I would see myself as .. as a villain as well.. that would be how I’d work as well. However I do not think the villain works here.. It works along with Masayoshi but not with the show, not with the universe.. not after that episode I should have kept as my final episode. I do love the concept .. but it’s like a concept car.. they all look really cool but if you look a bit closer it makes no sense at all! Still it does look super cool on a photo so that is still a positive.

The Negatives

I am sorry .. I have a LOT of negatives with this episode! I kind of hated it! Not in terms of flow .. but I just found it to have zero credibility and consistency. Let’s immediately drop in with the scene that utterly ruined this episode for me and that is Masayoshi’s fight with Goto. Goto believes Masayoshi is just overworked and is imagining this guy. Masayoshi tells him he is a hypocrite.. because he wants to cling on the illusion that his girlfriend is still alive and will come back.. but he doesn’t believe Masayoshi saw a real guy. That is hypocritical indeed.. and it would have been a super powerful scene.. had it made any sense..  but let’s look at this closer. Goto saw a guy transform into a Guillotine Gorilla while standing next to Masayoshi… he used a pink  Hummer to dislodge a Missile made by a man who turned himself into a giant puppet. He has been saved by his favourite Sentai and he has seen an all American Hero turn into an alien. Had he had a telescope.. he could even see his friends IMPRINT on the moon.There in my mind is just NO way that .. a young boy .. flying under the radar is THAT unbelievable to him.. that it results in a friendship ending fight.

Then there is the attacks on the Flamengers.. which are all super petty and silly. It makes Hajii feel more like Butters from Southpark playing Professor Chaos.. ripping a cardboard sign and a book and cutting of someone’s hair.. tipping a grandpa.  Then Joji is hit by a truck?! That just feels super inconsistent.. at least build up in gravitas over a bit of time if you do that.. but no everyone was hit almost at the same time..And they are HIT at the same TIME.. same day within minutes of each other.  Yet the police and GOTO!!! Explain this as.. You guys go t some weirdo fans that will do weird shit. NO!  Had it happened over days.. I could have seen them going that route but there is no way you can make Masayoshi the boy that cried wolf like this. It doesn’t fit into the world building at all..  the entire world wants this guy to be president for Arceus sake.. Even if I would belief Masayoshi himself is turning into a villian so much things would not make sense. The Flamengers fought monsters.. they are highly trained.. yet Red Axe can’t jump away from a vehicle.. Black doesn’t notice an intruder.. while his father is walking on soft soil.. Pink doesn’t chase the guy that cuts her hair and just screams?! They are basically meant to be like Masayoshi so this passive behaviour also is weird. The next two episode better offer me one Distortion World of an explanation because right now this feels SOOO badly written.

The Score

Despite me hating how this episode is written there are a few things going for it that keep it from getting the lowest score in my system. This might still be salvaged..I can see Masayoshi distracting the Flamengers.. to cause the atttack to happen.. if he really is the villain himself.. but then .. Joji makes no sense as he never answered.. So that route is out of the window for me.. I must hope Hajii is at least real.. and he is just tormenting Masayoshi but even if that happens.. everyone else here got the serious short and off the stick. I might be able to justify Goto’s action because he loves his girlfriend so much.. but I still kind of find it bad writing when you know that your friend saved earth from the aliens ..and you fought alongside him twice.. to prevent the end of Japan..that this whole girlfriend thing outweighs that. It doesn’t feel right we always seen Goto as a realist so to weigh this.. THIS heavy.. Eeh..

If you are simply out here to see Masayoshi’s adventures .. this is a good one.. if you are like me and think also from the mindset of the other characters.. this episode made SO little sense to me.. it kind of felt to me as if the show said.. “well this all isn’t relevant anymore lets toss it in the bin shall we” and I do hate this episode for it. For me this is the single most worst episode of the show so far. It doesn’t ruin the show for me but I do feel as if this was  very very bad day for the writers. Sometimes a cool concept should just stay a cool concept.. I would have loved this as fan fiction.. but I hate that it’s part of offical Canon.

Animini: Samurai Flamenco – Episode 19 – The Quiet Life

Konichi-holy-doodoo! I did not expect this episode of Samurai Flamenco to go as dark as it did my dear Island guests.. I mean Digimon bummed me out.. but beaver-dam I did not see this one coming. I expected a nice slice of life episode with maybe some elements of boredom.. but this… eeek! Unlike Digimon I did end up enjoying myself more.. though I still feel the series should have ended after last weeks episode.. I mean I did get closure for that thing I wanted closure about earlier.. I just did not expect that closure to be sledgehammered in.

The Summary

This episode starts with a 6 month time skip after the defeat of Alien Flamenco and Masayoshi’s  encounter with the Will of The Universe. Like the latter said the universe has returned to normal.. or did it? The world is so peaceful that we are moving into some advanced negotiations for a joined “world” government. The one that enjoys the most votes to be it’s president is Masaysoshi himself.. even  though he does not seem interested in the job .. Everyone else wants him to be the president of the world due to his heroic antics.  While he is still training his combat skills, we see him discuss “settling down” with the rest of the cast. His agent and Mari in particular. With no more enemies to fight, the idea is brought up that Masayoshi should find a girlfriend, his agent should date Kono and Mari even suggest Masayoshi to date his agent himself. He doesn’t know what to do.. and he doesn’t want to be world leader so he goes to his best friend Goto. He sees on the calendar of the cop that it’s soon to be date night .. he finally goes to see his girlfriend.. whom he is in a long term relationship with.  Curious Mari and Masayoshi plan to chase him to see if they can help.

This leads them to travel to Goto’s home town.. they lose track of him because they can not board the same train, but since Mari lived in his closet for a while during her great depression she snooped around and found his home address and remembered it. So she moves to the Goto family residence. Here they talk to Goto’s mother in the hope of figuring out where Goto went. Telling her he is on a date. The mother looks shocked and tells a story that Goto had a girlfriend only once in his life.. one day she disappeared while waiting for the bus.  The bus was found empty with no driver.. evidence showed a single passenger had boarded the bus, leaving only an umbrella with a Takoyaki Tako strap behind. Goto’s girlfriend disappeared many years ago.. and he was never able to let it go. But who has been sending him these text messages then? Could it be some kind of trap?! Mari and Masayoshi go to find out.. Mari .. who feels a bit  lovescorned, snatches his phone crossing the street when a bus blocks Goto’s path to find out who is responsible.. it turns out Goto had been pretending to be his own girlfriend all along.. unable to let her go.. he just imagined what she would text him back.  Mari gets bummed out and invites the girls to stay with her at the inn she is staying at while Masayoshi wanders the streets.. bummed out he could not be there for his friend.  A young boy shakes his head.. when suddenly an explosion goes off behind him.. This young boy.. seems to be A new enemy!

The Positives

I feel conflicted about this episode again.. because jeesz the truth about Goto’s girlfriend hit me hard! I always had expected her to be the final villain or something and I am pretty sure this new guy will find out and abuse Goto’s broken hard someway later on.. the building blocks are fairly set up for that.. but this?! I was surprised and I think it was a very strong choice to make. It balances out the sugarry , morale victories Masayoshi had lately! That  basically always involved him being such a great hero that the situation he would get himself in more or less resolved itself. We needed a taste of bitter.. but I did not expect it to leave me with this much of a bleeding heart.  I do think this is a great engine to keep Masayoshi , Mari and Goto involved together so as far as continuations go this is actually a quite briljant way to pull it off. Goto finally got his little moment, even showing why he became a cop and why he bites so much onto mysteries. All the events basically take place in the same day, where the sunshine is being used for when everything is perfectly fine. The peaceful world that Masayoshi is going to be president off.. but as they discover someone they love is in trouble we transition into dusk! Not everything is as bright as we would like to believe .. and when they realise Goto can not be helped right now.. we move into night!  Where a terror attack happens as well.. showing things have gone bad once more.. it is all quite beautifully done.

There are also some great character moments for basically everyone that was once relevant , we see where everyone is. Even the Flamengers. Even the pink ranger got accepted back into her home again.. but she has to deal with regret of never getting the love of her life. The other rangers all get a neat little reference to! Kono is bored with the news being so peaceful and our adorable , best dude, gadget guy has become super famous and successful for contributing to Samurai Flamenco’s success so much now becoming the most successful stationery producer, like now one ever was. The episodes manage to nail both the peace and conflict images very successfully and thus doesn’t leave as sour of a taste in my mouth as the Digimon episode! That being said there are some odd choices in this episode I can not really get behind.

The Negatives

While I really enjoy the episode overall, there are a few choices I do not really like. For one the whole “making Masayoshi world president while he doesn’t really want to” thing  I find very stupid and not an interesting conflict. I do get WHY he would get a majority of the votes,  as people would only vote for someone not of their country if it’s a symbol..  Yet at the same time we see Masayoshi is constantly being interviewed and he is very open about not being interested in becoming the President. So I do feel that whole plotpoint really isn’t going anywhere.  If the world is so peaceful.. Why would you make someone president against his will? He makes a fair point that he is not fit for the job.. as he isn’t all that political .. or smart enough to get that done..which again.. is a fair point. Kaname would make a better ruler that way and he would be a much better choice.

The second issue is that this new villain person is something I find very iffy! It’s a bit as if Masayoshi would be the Tony Stark from the Marvel Universe.. and this new guy is Spider-man is he felt inspired by Tony.. but to go in the wrong direction.. we get a little but seemingly very brainy .. kid as a  villain.  I do like the idea of a final villain that is grounded more into a harsh reality.. bringing the series back to the hero in Masayoshi and not in Samurai Flamenco.. but to make it a kid?! It feels like it’s a bit overshot.. like saying Rallo or Rollo or whatever the guys name was from Geass would be the actual final enemy.. or have Selmin Bradley be the ultimate bad guy in FullMetal Alchemist Brotherhood. The final thing that got me annoyed is that we do not see Moe react at all when Mari is feeling heartache that the cop she is pursuing dumped her for a figment of his imagination.. She is just supporting..  but she is clearly in love with Mari .. or she used to be at least.. why don’t we see any of that here? 

The Score

For what it is worth, I am happy they went this route for the “epilogue”   of the show, this first episode of the final four does show some very competent writing and offers an idea to close this show out on that is of substance enough to justify its existence.  Outstanding plot points are being resolved, and they are doing this in a bold and exciting way. I really loved this concept of Goto being super broken and his best friends being unable to see it!  He always seemed so composed.  Politeness and etiquette prevented Masayoshi to dig deeper… he wants to follow the rules after all and that fits him so well! It really is a great twist and a legit established conflict. So basically everything that would go into the episode synopsis is very amazing.

It is the rest though that still makes me wish that the show ended last episode. I do not find the idea of Masayoshi becoming world president to be even remotely in character, I do not think the new enemy is as strong as I would like him to be. I think it should have been someone more familiar to the cast.. like Kono wanting to create news, or maybe even Kaname becoming a terrorist because his student pushed him from the spotlight. Heck even Flamen Pink because she blames Masayoshi for ripping her and Kaname apart would have had more of an impact. This new guy now has to be established in three episodes and I feel like I can’t take him all that seriously.  Alien was not build up.. but he was strange.. otherworldly he did not need the build up. Same goes for From Beyond Flamenco.. but .. with a normal human… I feel like they will stumble in the end.  I really hope that Mari and Goto don’t end up together either..  because poor Moe! All in all an episode with a very sweet core but a rough exterior.. and I have just the fruit for that.

Animini: Samurai Flamenco – Episode 18 – Flamenco in Space

Samurai Flamenco has always been a show that had hits and misses for me .. though it had more hits.  Now this episode does something I haven’t really experienced yet, it made me feel conflicted. On the one hand this is a stellar episode that concludes the story of Samurai Flamenco beautifully!  It could have been the perfect final episode… except… this isn’t the final episode… and it isn’t perfect either……. Had this been the final episode I would not have minded the imperfections and loved it to bits and would it not have been for those weird imperfections I would not have minded that there was more to this story still. 

The Summary

We pick up where we left off in the last episode with Samurai Flamenco and his allies standing outside  the government building staring at the flying saucer of Alien Flamenco.  The group discusses their action plan when the Alien shows up and shows them a vision. Our favourite Gadget guy recognises this as a vision.. which makes the Alien impressed. He invites Masayoshi over to his spaceship to  discuss the fate of the world. For this he summons a door that will lead the crimson hero into the spaceship! This is it the final fight!   The group discusses whether or not this is a trap , for some reason even including the Prime Minister in this debate. Eventually it is Goto who says that the fear of death never stopped Masayoshi before and it should not stop him now.. he is the only person who can save earth right now as he is the true hero!  This prompts Masayoshi to indeed go inside the alien spaceship and  soon he finds himself sitting at one of those typical Japanese Waterfronts.. you know green hills, a canal and a bridge in the distance.. the one you lay in to think about life with a sprig of green in your mouth!

Alien Flamenco reveals he wants to assimilate humanity inside himself.. he is actually 5 billion people that have evolved past the point of needing a physical body as such and his goal is to bring peace to everyone by evolving them beyond a need for violence, only then will there truly be peace. Masayoshi is given a stone .. the same he ripped from King Torture and it is told that it can make him evolve.  All he needs to do is focus on evolving and him and humanity will be at peace and be assimilated by Alien.  Of course our hero refuses this which prompts the spacemenman  to try and kill him. Masayoshi finds the evolution stone he tossed earlier and doesn’t use it to evolve but to grow giant. The two  Sentai then have a space battle.. on the moon. Which seems to have Masayoshi critically injured. However he realises why the offer of Alien Flamenco did not sit well with him.. Humanity needs to grow and learn.. not to evolve.. with this he gains a new special attack and Uppercuts Alien Flamenco away.. seeming dying himself on the moon. He then wakes up in Sunshine Sentai’s house who reveals he is not Sunshine.. but the will of the Galaxy! Offering some deeper insights and offering Masayoshi a choice. New enemies for the next billion years.. or going back to normal life. The hero chooses the later saying his job was not to fight evil but make the world a better place.. and he can still do that. He gets sent back to earth and tells Goto he went to the moon!

The Positives

This would have been one of the best show endings i have seen in a while.. so obviously it means it also is a great arc ending/ episode ending. There is no doubt about that right?!  I am not sure really, the epsiode does some VERY amazing things that is for sure.  The way everything ends up full circle.. King Torture, From Beyond,  and Alien .. they all are linked in a manner I did not really find intrusive or forced even. It felt earned.  The journey of Masayoshi up to this point is explained and it has left me very impressed. The way things spiral out of control from simple to galaxy breaking reminded me of Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, my favourite anime of all time so that never is bad.  There is so much good writing in it, even now still reminding me of Tarintino’s way of writing dialogue.. and since this episode is so dialogue heavy  that really makes it shine! Even the joke that Flamenco is eventually nothing special.. it is just a word that has a 0,00000002% chance of granting a wish…but mostly it’s something like the town Eromanga in Australia. Something that has a different meaning in another language and thus becoming something it is not.. that was pretty funny.

The sound design of this episode was stellar. The sound that plays when the group is talking under the saucer felt completely unworldly and sold  the whole space theme and strange  threat of the situation so incredibly well. Masayoshi’s voice acting this week also made an impression. He has to convey a very difficult emotion .. he has to disagree with someone..with a passion.. but not being sure why he disagrees. He just knows in his gut that what is being said is wrong. It comes out excellent, I don’t speak Japanese but I could still hear both the fire in his heart and the doubt in his mind. Truly excellent work. The use of colour underneath the UFO also really impressed me , giving everyone a bit of an unreal glow with a light that doesn’t fully seem to match with what we see making it even less feel of this  world.  The final attack, the little cues it for the most part was amazing. 

The Negatives

I hate that this is not the last episode though, I already had assumed it would go beyond this as I did not think they could drag out Alien Flamenco for more than a few episodes.. but this had me very conflicted. I felt so strongly about it that I even considered dropping the show at this point and not watching the final four episodes.. because no way in heck the show is gonna top this. So this leaves me a bit bitter and having lost confidence in the future.  It is a weird gripe to have that this episode is basically just too good to be in the middle but it is the truth.  Imagine adding the first 55 seconds of Queen’s Best friend at the end of Bohemian Rhapsody and making that the new Rhapsody.. it would not nearly be in as many hitlists then!

I said there were a few gripes I had with the episode as well and it all has to do with Alien Flamenco.  Taking Masayoshi to a japanese canal felt really out of place for me.. using a trope that is relevant only in Japan.. while he already has the entire rest of the world. I don’t buy it.  The setting isn’t even used that well.  Yet what is more annoying is Alien Flamenco’s constant use of Engrish..  “Sit Down”  .. “Listen to me” . Why?!  He did not do that before.. I mean sure he was using the American hero  as a disguise but even then he did not really do that. It just felt so annoying. Take Jojo’s adventure for example who also make Jospeh use a lot of English things.. first of all he is genuinely english unlike Alien.. secondly those moments are played for comedy and not during heartfelt talks where dialogue is super important.  I never cringe but this one made me do it.. to a point at the first 7 minutes that I thought.. well they compltely ruined this episode with that shit…. but then the show picks up and becomes one of the best episodes yet….. 

The Score

So honestly I am not sure what to do with this score. It both had some of the weakest and some of the strongest moments in the show.. and normally I deem an episode is good or not based on how much I want to see the next episode! I very much want to NOT see the next episode… but not because the episode was bad. This is complicated! The show genuinely made me feel.. and I do kind of want to see if Goto’s girlfriend will ever reveal her face.. but I am kind of done with Masayoshi’s story. I would have given this episode the benefit of the doubt if the Alien Flamenco dialogue wasn’t so cringe worthy. I actually hated that.. and I normally kinda enjoy Engrish in anime.

In the end I will base my grade by comparing this episode by comparing it to a very delicious and clear broth.  It is a very flavourful episode and it’s very clear as well, we see everything that is inside and how it relates to each other. This is a star quality soup! However it has been garnished with stale croutons. Something added to just to give it a little playful element floating in between backfires and makes it just annoying to fish those weak bits out.  It’s a bit of a hassle  but I might be able to forgive that still.. however the Soup is so good that you know in advance that chicken cordon bleu that is coming next will disappoint you.  It might not taste bad.. but it has less room to be amazing based on what it is.. thus the soup might not really fit the menu.. despite it being so tasty! If I had judge the menu.. the soup would be the odd duck out and I would mark it down for it.. and  that is why .. this episode is just fine…despite being amazing.