Tag: Pinkie has an awesome saturday

Pinkie’s Saturday Anime Adventure 16

It’s been another sleepless week for me but little by little I am getting in a few sleep hours that remotely approaches a normal human sleeping pattern. From an hour a day I am up to four or five hours now! Sleep deprivation DOES lower my standards for what I find funny though. So I might grade a bit high here, or perhaps these episodes were all pretty good again.

Digimon Adventure Episode 4

This episode is titled Soar Birdramon, so it already got me excited! I get to see Sora! I get to see Sora. I might have to raise my expectations for Digimon Adventure a bit because again I was very pleasantly surprised by the quality I have seen so far.

Taichi has reached the Digital World, which in this episode is explained, is the deepest part of the Network. The world Taichi visited in the first three episodes. Koshiro however is stuck in the Network itself so the two are seperated. However, as I suspected last time.. Sora got drawn into the digital world as well. There she stands looking at Taichi a bit sheepishly very accepting of her random predicament. Asking if Agumon is a dinosaur.   Even when he talks she doesn’t seem that surprised. They encounter an ancient stone tablet that Taichi can read despite not being able to read it normally. A beam of light makes them journey to a colourful mountain. Yet a cry suddenly draws Sora’s attention and a pink bird glomps onto her.. as she is chased by a Snimon!  Sora rescues the pink bird and Taichi holds Snimon off. The group escapes the monster by jumping in a river and the bird goes unconscious with Sora nursing her back to health. 

Yes that pink bird is Biyomon! Sora empties her bag of groceries revealing all sorts of camping equipment and her signature hat!  To get to the mountain they decide to make a raft. Biyomon wakes up and tells Sora she has been waiting for her.
A confused Sora travels with the group and Biyomon down the river when two Champion level digimon attack. A fight ensues and Sora not wanting to see Biyomon get eaten goes through great lengths to save her. This causes Biyomon to evolve and the fight is subsequently  won fairly easily. The group is then carried by Birdramon to a temple where I can see statues of Seraphimon and Hououmon respectively, which are Sora’s and Takeru’s Mega Digmon.

We get our first digivolution/evolution animation in this episode and it looks stunning! I love the new visual for digivolution. I also really liked that the first evolution of Birdramon like with Greymon is done differently! It gives it more of an impact. The cinematography in this episode is really good! Sora for once is portrayed as a very loving character. In the old show they tend to depict her as a bit cold. Sora this time around is much more the crest wielder of love. Immediately and without a doubt hugging  that strange pink animal that holds onto you.  Accepting her situation along with Taichi, even stating that since she is here she might as well make the best of it and there is no point to stress around this. I love this!  So many shows waste our time with the acclimatization phase. I know that  getting used to your environment makes sense but we all know it will happen anyway and this show wastes no time in having her faint at the strange sights.Forward! Towards the content we want to see. The statues of Hououmon and Seraphimon.. depicted from the looks of it as a Digimon deity also shows that this episode really respects the previous lore and just seeks to retell a tale in a new way and we might just get Mega’s for everyone! I really loved Sora’s depiction throughout and that is this entire episode so .. Digimon soars to new heights today.

Were there parts I did not like about this episode? I am not sure, maybe Sora was a bit TOO casual about her situation, but I get a feeling there might be something behind that. I think she might have a crush on Taichi so she is glad she is here with him?!  There are also a lot of little tributes to the old show here and there. I like how Sora’s new shirt which is pink holds a yellow BUTTERFLY, the yellow seems to be the colour of her original outfit yet at the same time it is kinda strange that some characters get different outfits and some don’t. I also had some issues with Sora’s immense physical strength. She can hold herself to a phoenix with one arm while flying very fast, she can lift a bag filled with camping supplies and a digimon without effort. Then again Ash held a 72 kilogram weighing Larvitar so this one isn’t that special.  While it may be a tad much it is great to see other destined can now shine! So while it took some suspense I am all for it. This show has clearly evolved.

I am going to do something strange and give Digimon Adventures Episode 4 my highest seal of approval. I had a blast with this episode. Perhaps it was the most amusing watch I have seen today. Sure this is no Flip Flappers and no Samurai Flamenco but what it did it did so well that I can barely fault it! I had a great time!

Samurai Flamenco Episode 11

I am so proud of Masayoshi he is finally legit.While I did love this episode this  one did make me a bit more unwilling to suspend my disbelief as it went somewhere I can’t exactly agree with yet.

The episode starts where we left off last time! Masayoshi has just revealed he is Samurai Flamenco when Red Axe or Jouji shows up at the scene. He tells Masayoshi to board a strange airship. Apparently all his travels abroad were a lie, in fact he has in secret been founding his own Sentai organisation. the Samurai Flamengers. He wants Masayoshi to become Flamen Red. They even have an underground base. You see.. King Torture was only a mild villian he was suported by a new evil organisation named From Beyond.. which seems to consist out of monsters who love to send people pixelised Trailers from their submerged space ship. To introduce their organisation in a way that looks a surprising lot like the intro from the old Teenage Mutant Ninja turtles cartoon. When Jouji wants to introduce Masayoshi to his new team we find out they have been murdered by a monster called Ugly Toxic Poison. So a back-up team is summoned.. The only problem is these are only Red Flamengers candidates. After some struggles Masayoshi is elected red and the group fights the monster as official Sentai..including a fight with a giant combiner robot.

As expected.. This episode fixed my issues with the last episode. The weird technology that King Torture had.. it was these alien folks of From Beyond who sponsored him.  Okay that was explained quick enough, the escalation also feels like how we swap Sentai seasons even. Including a replacement of the cast. Goto is sidelined and we see a new team of Sentai united in fighting for Justice.  While we know little of this new cast , and I doubt they will stick for too long, as the outfits do not seem on brand for Masayoshi.. weird reason to think they will be replaced soon huh,  and something just doesn’t feel right! The show is under my skin now.. what is happening.. what is going on? Will this last?  I love how this show makes me wonder about these things. Added with so many sentai tropes being tossed my way I feel like a girl who just got spoiled with lots of candy from grandma! So much happens and so much is done so well! The fights, the whole super robot thing, there is so much to unpack here I feel my appreciation for this episode might grow.

There is a big BUT in this one though.. it’s big enough to prevent it from getting my highest score and arguably big enough to even boot it to just being fine.  This episode killed a bit of the spirit of the show for me for now!  While it makes sense that Masayoshi can function as a ranger since Jouji trained him a lot of things are quite unbalanced by it. Why did From Beyond wait until the exact moment that King Torture croaked. It makes sense from a Sentai perspective.. so it is a great reference but in terms of narrative it makes very little sense. This show always walked that line perfectly for me and this time they heavily tilt over to one side. The fact that Masayoshi is able to pilot a plane for example makes no sense to me at all. Just minutes before Jouji explains that Masayoshi isn’t as ready to be a real sentai as those other people he trained here and so far Masayoshi has always operated within limits and now that is broken?  It is explained why his Sentai suit makes him stronger but it should not be able to allow him pilot a combiner mecha?!  I also REALLY hate Jouji as a character so I am not too pleased to see him survive this! …but hey props for at least having a lethal monster again… I think.

I liked this episode but I don’t want to lose Moe and Gotou from the show, I am afraid we will lose that humble tone it had before and instead move into a more classical Sentai show! I also had a bit of issues with the name of Samurai Flamenger on something Jouji came up with.. unless they link Masayoshi’s grandpa to the organisation in the next episode or so , so much came undone here! Yet that is why I will leave my verdict at Bery Good.. I feel the show will fix this and the episode in hindsight was very good! Right now it’s actually lower for me but this show has told me to trust it so for now I will.. with a healthy dose of scepsis.

That Time I got Reincarnated as a Slime Episode 10

I got more of my pink ogre, they even made her cuter now!  They fixed a few designs I did not particularly like…. but that is also about all what this episode did for me.

Phew explaining the plot of this episode is kinda heart. We begin with a feast and the Ogres are invited to join Rimuru. The lead ogre doubts in swearing his loyalty to Rimuru and needs to think about it. We get some exposition on someone named Gelmud which seems to be the Plague doctor that is also named Rigur’s brother.  He serves one of the demon lords.
The ogres accept Rimuru’s offer and he names them all, after which he passes out.  After that we see more exposition on the orc army and learn there is a Lord Orc.. also a group of Lizard men seeks out aid in their war against the orcs who approach with a 200.000 strong army. Led by this Orc Lord. And that’s all that happened really.

I would not say this is a bad episode but it is even less a good episode. I love the new design for the most ogres, especially the pink one, named Shuna and Souei.. the sneaky blue one. The old man is cool as well and I like they have an Ogre who looks like a middle aged man as well. It offers some diversity among the Bishounen guys and pretty girls. Shion is one of those boob characters again so I don’t really care. Benimaru’s design is a bit too sleek for my liking but  it does submerge the standard trope-conform look he was before. The way the war against the ocrs is set up is nice and slowly builds some drama.

However this episode is in truth nothing more than exposition. They talk exposition during a meal, they talk exposition after the ogre’s have given names and even during they establish levels of monster classes. Almost every minute of this episode is exposition. Nothing is established through showing us everything happens through dialogue. Even the change in looks of all the ogres is mentioned into detail. After discussing the villain behind this, Gelmud, and discussing monster classes, we discuss the look change and then the lizard men begin to recruit people! We get hard numbers. Their army is only 100.000 strong and the orc army 200.000. Those seem like super weird numbers anyway  but after they tell us that 100.000 is a smaller number than 200.000 we see the son of the Lizardman king get a mission to recruit more people!  This could have been implied and might have gotten some tension but no everything has to be explained in this episode. Had I just listened to this episode (albeit in english then) I would have missed NOTHING important.. and that for an anime I think is a bad thing.

This episode easily is the worst I have seen in the series so far. It showcases some good new designs but once  more does the slime boob joke thing and other than that..it just tells us stuff we need to know. Also stuff we don’t need to know! Why linger 5 minutes on how everyone changed! We can see that! It wasn’t a bad episode but I did not enjoy myself here either.

Flip Flappers Episode 6

This was a cute episode that felt a bit clutterly here and there!  The second episode that isn’t going to get the highest grade. but one that still came pretty close by to snatching that appreciation.

Summarizing Flip Flapper Episodes can be quite hard and this one is no exception. Cocona and Papika baked cookies and they wanted to give their Senpai, the artsy one Iroha is here name Iroha Irodori.. or Iro for short.She likes Cocona’s cookies who for some reason are super nervous to give them to her! Papika is afraid to  walk into the class because the nailpolish overwhelms her senses. The three share a moment and suddenly we cut to a battle for one of the amorphous in Pure Illusion! This realm seems to be based on abstract paintings so it clearly represents Iro’s mind!  When the monster is defeated and the Amorphous is obtained, Yayaka comes to steal it. A fight ensues and while Papaki manages to retrieve the stone a portal is opened..one that seems to go deeper than Pure Illusion.


Inside we see how Iro had an old lady friend, who was suffering from dementia and ends up forgetting Iro. Cocona and Papika get to relive how happy Iro was with the woman unlike how locked up and limited she felt as an artist around her own parents. Scared off by the demention Iro never got to tell the demented lady her name so she rememberd and because of the guilt..she can’t wair nailpolish.  Papika and Cocona cope with the pain of losing a loved one in Dementia and introduce themselves as Iro to the old lady! Fixing the memory and allowing Iro to finally wear nailpolish .. or something?! So now Papika and Cocona can dive deeper so they can influence people’s minds? Maybe?! We will see soon.

My grandpa at the end of his life had dementia. I have seen him not recognise me anymore.. but also that spark of .. it is someone important I have forgotten. That is something this episode captures pretty good. The whole metaphor of an abstract painting or the weird style fitted in really well with it. It’s also nice to see that there is more at stake than just these Amorphous things.  Once more there is a duality in this episode. Papika and Cocona can only walk in one world of Iro at the time. The world of her parents where she had to hide her creativity where she had to be normal.. or the world with her “auntie” who supports her dreams and lets her bloom in the way she wants to be. However it is soon shown that that last world is not as durable. It will come crashing down sooner. The pain of loss can seem greater than the pain of locking things away. Eventually though both join together in realising that both sides of Iro have grown and can finally face that obstacle she could not overcome.
I really liked a lot of things here.

At the same time, I am not sure about the relevance of it. Where the last episode developed Cocona and Papika further as a possible couple and at least boosted the rivalry between them and Yayaka, this seems to not do anything for anyone at all. Except for Iro.. who in the big picture seems irrelevant. Maybe that is the point but this is a relatively short show so It can’t afford too much to linger without progress. It really is quite a touching episode but it is hard to grasp what just happened. Did Cocona and Papika help Iro? What was that portal even?  Maybe it was Iro dealing with things herself and that allowed Cocona and Papika to take a peek? I don’t mind the vagueness normally but here I am not sure if anything was gained with this episode so I am not as impressed as usual.

The topic of dementia is handled pretty well and I was emotional a few times during this episode. I felt what the characters felt can say it certainly was powerful. Yet I can’t say this episode felt relevant.  As if it’s a Van Gogh and a Rembrandt Exposition. It sure is a pretty piece of art and it can stand well on it’s own but you still can’t shake it doesn’t fully belong. Even if it’s strong on its own accord if you are at home and tell the weakest part of it to your art loving friends you are going to mention there was a Van Gogh that did not really fit and designate that as the flaw ..even if some of Rembrandt’s works could not hold a candle to that piece.

Hikaru no Go Episode 16

We get introduced to a new character in this episode! Also the Dutch player returns with a lot of art from his team! One guy is so horrible! He wears an orange shirt and has orange hair.. based on our sports teams that all play in orange! Like.. please don’t make him important!

I could summarise the plot by saying Hikaru let’s Sai play more online matches. And that would perfectly encapsulate what this episode is about! But I think I can add a few more lines. In the process of playing. Sai defeats a few people online including the young Insei (which is a sort of protege that tries to go pro) Waya , who plays by the name of Zelda. I do hope he realises it’s the name of the princess. A chinese, Italian and the Dutch Pro alos get defeated by Sai so all travel to Japan to some sort of expo on Go to find Sai. Waya however is the first to discover Sai might be a school kid! At the expo thing the search begins. Also Waya took the exam to go pro and faced Akira for a bit.


That is all I can make of the plot, there aren’t many other matches shown except parts of them. It offers a nice variation on the previous episodes. Waya is very much like Touya , he got beaten by Sai and now wants to find out everything about this person. His obsession takes about the same levels, but Waya seems less interested in playing against them and more so into discovering who they are. As Sai seems to be one of the most talented players he has ever seen, not believing he is a pro. I really like the Waya character, he is clever and driven and in my opinion a bit of a less annoying Akira. Later on he will also be the perfect crutch for Akira and Hikaru to become entangled again. Right now with how Pro players are set up and Touya Senior keeps getting named dropped I suspect they will host a big online tournament where Sai ends up defeating Touya Senior at the end of the arc or so.. and Waya revealing to him it was Hikaru. I might be very far off here.. but regardless I feel this show is steadily building to a big  story!  With Waya being an element I might very well come to appreciate. 

I once again think that the cinematography for the online matches isn’t that great. About half way in the episode in a montage we see a cool visual of Sai’s fan going over a board followed by clicks of Hikaru but over all, it lacks the impact the other episodes did!  It just feels less impressive.  I also really lack a bit of mentoring Sai could give to Hikaru here! This is the perfect time to make him a better player.. show him explaining to Hikaru why he plays what where so we know Hikaru is growing. Instead we see him depicted as a gleeful manchild who just wants to play! Come on guys do something that bond! Show you are a pair not two individuals in one body! I miss the synergy here! This is the perfect time to train Hikaru and teach him things. I get that this tournament focusses on Pro’s and Hikaru is not at that level.. but they also establish that Sai also challenges no pro players.. use those moments to show that against a weaker opponent Sai quizzes Hikaru on what to play next or something and I would be content.. but  just do something!

I love the set up for Waya and his potential, I really like how the story possibilities are set up as they go along. I feel this  series builds itself as an actual Go game.. not just making a moves for that episode but also setting up moves for later in the game. I see potential, I see a possible future. Yet at the same time I feel more and more that this bond between Sai and Hikaru isn’t fully utilised because both  the focus is too much on the individual. I want that bond from episode 6 back! I know you can do it! In the end it’s a strong episode that did not quite live up to its maximum potential.

So that was five shows again! While all episodes did amuse me, except for Slime.. there was a theme there! Most of these episodes did not live up to their potential in the bigger picture while providing some decent entertainment on it’s own! Maybe my mind is on the future a lot? On the personal front I had bad experience with my father, he really dropped us as his family! So that was a bad experience! I planned something with Mom and my sister to have some fun and shake it off and we did that fairly well. I had a pretty persisting case of insomnia as well. I think I haven’t reached over four hours of sleep for almost 10 days now. So my brain is a bit mushy! I have dinner with a friend today! He kept wanting to make it an entire day out but I told him I had no energy at all so with Covid reservations and the prices it was not something I want to risk.. I can feel so drained I can barely walk. I can sit out a dinner but after that I need a nap or some quite time. He is very intense as well, I tried so hard to make it clear that I am low energy but it did not work for a long while.

Next week we are celebrating my sister’s birthday. Indigo’s first blog should also go live! Maybe even Kuro’s if the weather doesn’t go insane! I might skip a day of posting somewhere to do some house cleaning but I will try to make sure you will get some amazing content! I wish you all a great next week! Tell me how your week was in the comments!


Pinkie’s Saturday Anime Adventure 9

It’s the end of the week again so I am telling you about my Saturday-Morning Anime Instead of Cartoons adventure! The one where I schedule in commercial breaks and hard timelines..just like it used to be back in the days of the living room with cereal. I had a stuff stomach ache while watching my shows today so let’s see if that left me a bit more crabby and harsh to shows or that it made me appreciate it all more.

Oh BNA… if only you were longer, with only 3 more episodes to go it becomes harder and harder to ignore that this will not end well for the show as todays episode offered us basically just a exposition dump.

It’s the big “this is how the pieces all seem to fit together” one but it is also one that clearly is not the full truth , more should be going on or the last three episodes will fizzle out hard, with Michiru being asked by Alan Sylvasta to leave Nazuna alone while they do research on her. You see it is revealed that Sylvasta pharmaceuticals was responsible for Michuru and Nazuna’s transformation. A mix up happened that caused them to be administered contaminated blood after their accident. Michiru also finds out the cult has more or less been working with the human chemist/bioengineer to make the people less “resistant” to the idea of a cure..like making them belief god is here so they can pass the cure as a godsend.. or at least have her promote it as such. It does feel like an important episode and judged completely on is own .. this episode has a lot of stuff happening.. but with what I have seen I find this episode extremely pointless.

Let’s start with the positive things though, if you haven’t been paying attention to the series or if you have been left completely oblivious to the inner machinations this episode does an okay job on tying all those clues it left behind in the previous episodes together. What is being truth in this episode is obviously a half-truth still feels like a kinda welcome pad on the back for people figuring it out! So I WAS right that they got infected due to their accident! So the cult WAS involved with the pharmaceutical company. It all fits the narrative the story has been building up to and it can feel kinda rewarding to see these little hints pay off now. It also does manage to shift the tone. My favorite moment came from Michiru trying to save Nazuna from some weird scanning device that has her encapsulated as well as her  tracking her to said machine. The whole rescue sequence does show how Michiru has grown and how she has become familiar with her powers and can even make use of them in combat. It shows that she is ready for the final part of the show. Michiru meeting her friend with the water purifier was cute too!

What I did not like about the episode doesn’t really have to do with the episode itself.. well it does.. but it’s bigger. My problem is..from my perspective.. we already knew ALL of this that was in the exposition dump, those big reveals have been set up by the show so well before that nothing comes as a surprise here. They really make a big thing of the whole working together with the cult thing, the hospital infection thing and take clips from earlier episodes to show how well everything ties together… yet everything ties so well together… that I remember! They did a great job on pointing out what was important before that this reminder is rather pointless. I mean sure narrativly Michiru needs to find out..but why waste half an episode on telling us what we already know?

You could just have shown him talking to her briefly telling the basic connections and then cut away to actually further the story ..but no we are treading walked ground for the third time in a 12 episode series. It kinda feels like this episode was made for people who watched this show while playing with their phones.  While I’d say the episode is fairly solidly written I do feel a bit insulted as how dumb this episode thinks we are that we need this callback. The show is running out of time and now wasted an episode. While again.. not persé a weak episode..it does feel pointless.. since I do like this show in general.. that to me is a bigger sin right now.

Episode Score:

This was with distance the best thing I have seen today, I was having anime girl eye sparkles while watching this episode because it was that amazing. The best episode of Flamenco so far, best episode of today and probably one of my favorite episodes (top 3)  in all the 45 anime episodes I have watched for this series so far.

I loved what they did with Maya!  In this Episode we see that Masayoshi has been training with Red Axe and has become more combat capable! As a result he is now actually able to stop criminals and this results into a new influx of popularity. This hinders Masayoshi from doing his job so he flees, into a crime in progress. However when these criminals knock him out and threaten to reveal his identity for the million yen bounty a pink Hummer crashes into their hideout..revealing a new heroine! Flamenco Girl! Maya’s alter-ego  who wants to partner up with Masayoshi! However her ways are much more brutal and quickly become a problem for our wanna be hero! When Goto gets hurts because of their antics he is going to have to re-evaluate his values.

This episode is truly amazing throughout! So many great choices are made here. First the fact that Samurai Flamenco is powering up from having a mentor is great. It feels very sentai like.. but also polarises Gotou because now it’s easier to go to far! Sugoi! Introducing Maya as a new Sentai element is amazing as well, it helps push Masayoshi delusions and enforce them , being a nice counterpart to the break on the series that is Gotou (in a good way though). Her being obsessed with magical girls instead of sentai makes it interesting.. like as if their Sentai Powers come from their fanbases.

Could Gotou become the blue Kamen Rider Sentai in the show? Of course he has to be blue because he is a cop!  Maya being quite violent and using actual weapons also a great way for Samurai Flamenco to find his way. When she hurts Gotou to flee you can see him feel conflicted.. this new way does not work for him. We see him make her apologise to the cop the next day showing he has taken back control. I think not showing their conversation yet is great, as it would hurt their characters, now they just worked it out somehow character intact.

I loved almost everything in this episodes, we see so many important things..like how being a hero is more important to Samurai Flamenco then his friendship to Gotou, it pains him but he acknowledges it and tries to find his balance.  Maya being a girly counterpart to  Masayoshi makes her such an interesting addition now! I love her! What I did not like AS much was Gotou himself though.. there was this really weird thing with him and text messages with his girlfriend where he went home and had the next day calling off a date in texts..but he he cancels a date with his invisible girlfriend but everything happens through text chat. Why could he not call?! Half of the time he was just outside..it feels like we are supposed to care about their relationship but it doesn’t feel real enough to be engaged with that. Still that is a nitpick that did not make me enjoy the episode less.. I just would have fangirled even harder if they made it more impactful! Still my highest grade can be awarded to this episode without a doubt in my mind.

Episode Score:

I can’t help but love this show! Everything it does has this wholesome touch to it , even if they don’t shy away from the roughness that would be a fantasy world either. As a result it’s not sickeningly sweet…but still adorable! A perfect breakfast!

We see Rimuru prepare to stop the direwolves attacking the goblins, he does this by organising the green little guys behind a fence and having them fire arrows while using his own spider skills to set up webs and metal traps. Once the Direwolf leader has met quite a visceral and bloody  depicted ending Rimuru eats it to acquire a new form and some abilities, allowing the Dire-Wolf’s son to swear loyalty to him. Having united the wolves and the Goblins , Rimuru decides to name everyone not knowing that if a monster gets a name it can evolve but also that it costs magic to do so! As a result he overuses it and slips into a coma only to find out everyone has evolved..except for the one he named Gobuto. To help the now Hobgoblins Tempest Wolves and Goblina.. Rimuru has to travel to the land of the dwarfs to make new allies. 

While this episode is my least favorite so far, I still enjoyed the heck out of it! It was funny , cute and it has really original ideas.  Rimuru becoming some sort of slime god to these people and him caring for these creatures is amazing. The way he is trying to build up their village reminded me of those old Black and White games by Lionhead, just with monsters instead of humans. My favorite moment definitely being, when our slime is passing out from exhaustion and we see this village put the slime on a pedestal and cuddling it showing their gratitude. Usually in anime we see a hero save a village and under some fanfare music they are played off while everyone tosses flowers their way or just yells “Good Luck, We Will Miss you” kind of lines. These people even if they are not “people” and are just monsters show they also have love in their hearts! They are good mannered and just are guided by their ways an mannerisms.. no matter how someone might look they can still be sweet!  The wolves treat him in the same manner, grateful for the sacrifice Rimuru made.

What made me think this episode was a bit less than the other episodes is that this one had quite a bit of throw-away/slapstick comedy. While the other episodes have humor as well and it makes this show a delight a few jokes in this episode really felt like.. a joke for jokes sake.  I like how a storm wolf can whip up a storm by wagging its tail.. since he gave them a storm based name they evolve that way.. that is funny, however Rimuru being blown away by that force is funny once.. but the second time it felt a bit meh. The slime then keeping to roll of a hill,chased by the dog trying to fetch it, but isn’t fast enough felt a bit to Looney Tunes to me. Maybe it’s because I’d imagine since he can change shape the situation feels perfectly preventable but that scene felt like it dragged on a bit. It has a few of these illogical moments that don’t quite flow narratively. For example why would the village elder not explain naming a monster costs magic, Rimuru clearly does not know. Why would Rimuru not ask more specific questions to Elder making some odd requests. It sets up for a great evolution joke but the way we get there could feel a bit sloppy here and there!

Still my second favorite view of today and a very good episode. The flaws I did find with it are very common anime and series errors that I am just becoming increasingly aware of as I search the net for new skills myself! I’d say it’s about as bad a a kid drawing a sun with a smiley face. It’s still super charming, cute and fun and to be honest a perfect morning cartoon! This episode proved that to me so it still gets an amazing grade! It more or less fixed my nitpick with the last episode with some interesting lore and I have no doubt this series will continue to do so for me in the future! I had a blast, just one I acknowledge was a bit lazier than it needed to be in terms of comedy and conflict.

Episode Score:

I am not sure what I think about this episode, I am not even fully sure yet what I think about this series. Once again I could not escape feeling how similar this to me is to Hunter x Hunter. Which obviously is not a bad thing, yet it’s a high bar to hold it up against.

Khun the weird layed backed assassin like kid with a knife,  apparently was exiled by his family. This left him to believe that he can trust no one and he just so happens to be reflective of that lesson as they gain a test to check their trust. A weird pink headed almost balloon like humanoid tells them something happens five minutes into this trial, this is indeed reflect by by a clock outside the test area showing a 5:00 mark after previous contestants went in. However due to not being able to trust anyone Khun completely zones out into his own world, leading him to fail the trial were it not for Rak and Bam solving the trial by themselves. Sort off… After that we see a mysterious tower traveling group kick ass in another test area which worries the organisation..so a bonus trial is held a king of the hill game and they who wear the crown during the fifth round will earn the right to challenge the tower of the god. This new team however seems to hold a face Bam is very familiar with.

That twist in the end was my favorite moment of the episode Bam thinking he saw Rachel as the opposite team renewed my intrigue for the next episode, which I would not had without it. It’s also implied that Rachel is very strong and very bloodthirsty, so she will most likely develop into an antagonist. You can’t kill that many people in half an hour with doubt in your heart! This episode did some interesting world building things. It builds mystery around Rachel and also to the Lizard girl with the whip.. Anak I think.  It also shows the test commissioners and the organisation something quite interesting. I noticed how all thest directors have yellow eyes like Bam and Rachel. and The group dynamic between Bam Khun and Rak is becoming more interesting as  episode pass. I do love Rak.. he feels so one dimensional to be a main character and that is what makes me warm up to him so much

The pacing is very much off in this episode, my least favorite moment is how they explain the rules of the king of the hill game 2 minutes before the episode ends.It’s a substantial explanation and we see the first round take place but knowing anime that means the trial has to be explained again next episode. It would be like me writing a post about Pokémon Snap and then beginning to explain how Pokémon Stadium works for my next post.. yet because I can’t assume everyone saw or remembered that I’d have to explain those rules again. It felt super sloppy to me. I am already annoyed that I am going to see the explanation again next week, so hence my least favorite moment.  Khun’s build up also felt sloppy to me.  We just see him worry about his issues out of no where! If we had gotten events in a different order it would have felt much stronger.

We begin the episode with a semi flashback and him talking to his mother about trusting no one.. this is followed by a guy tapping their shoulder and go like “psssst I have info about this next test…trust me”… jeesz… I wonder what will the theme of this episode be?! Had they swapped the Balloon talk and his worries, said worries would have felt a lot more natural, the trial would have still felt forced but the first part would have flowed a lot better. What also annoyed me is how inconsistent they are with their characters so far. Groups are being called in one by one while everyone analyses what is going on and no one noticed the pink yellow balloon cloth person talking to all themes going Pssst?! Khun even attacked him with a knife.. and no other group noticed? This basically goes against everything already shown! Super sloppy! The “What is off screen doesn’t matter mentality” This episode put this series “at Risk” for me.. If I still feel this way after episode six, this show will be dropped by me.  But the ending still left me wanting for more.. so let’s hope episode 4 can change my opinion. Not horrible, just poorly written and generic this week for me! The intro theme I do find horrible though!

Episode Score:

A good episode that I could have done without would be the perfect summary of this one for me. I really love the Akira angle we still see in this episode. As long as we see this as an episode for Touya alone it’s one of the best so far. But…

The three guys who wanted to break his arms and challenge him to a match so they can brag if they beat him at an advantage have finally formed a plan…they will make him lose a match by forcing him not to look at a Go Board. He manages to win his first match still so now they force him to blind play TWO go Boards. In Other words they ask him to require to visualise a 20×20 tile field and remember separate on 2 boards if a square is blank, white or black and use this knowledge to play Go actively. Basically it’s just three guys bullying Touya trough playing Go and him going along with it to earn respect and improve as a player so he can face Hikaru! It is the most exciting and tense game(s)  I have seen so far and Touya is growing into a better character each episode.. but I couldn’t help it feels a bit weird as well.

I’d say we get two versions of this episode here, one is amazing one is kinda bad. From the perspective of Akira Touya this episode is sweet! We see him develop , we see his determination, motivation and his skill, we also see the path that is still left open for him.  We see this episode reveal his flaws to him.. the thinks to much in the standard patterns, his mind is very much engaged with the Meta and he can not let that go easily. He realises this is why he has trouble with Hikaru whose ancient ways of playing are not in line with the current guide books! It is also the reason why he begins losing to the rookie player in these blind matches. Him being acceptant of this bullying also illustrates the mindset he is in very well. Had this episode opened from the perspective of Akira I would have probably given this my highest rating possible!  The brief dip into  Hikaru and friends back at school was sweet as well and once again shows that they know where the interesting events in the story lie and focus on that. Kudos!

At the same time I found this episode incredibly stupid from the perspective of Touya’s challengers. I still do not get why him losing to the third best player in a school (counting him)  known for being good at Go Tournaments, would shame him all that much. That would like  saying I should be ashamed for losing a Pokémon match against a person who  at least knows how stats and typings work.. while I could only use 6 Pikachu and they can build a team. Not that I am that good at Pokémon but still, I doubt anyone would take you seriously for winning against a chess grandmaster while they are having a heart attack (non lethal)  and you force them to play. I just do not get it.  Luckily a girl shows up whom does show Akira how stupid this is and he should get his head out of his bum and play them like a real Go player would. Again showing how human Touya can be despire his talent! He does feel a bit dumb for such a genius though!

The third best player however resigns after losing to Touya..which again is so dumb.. challenger is a prodigee, to your knowledge the best youthful go player around? How does losing him put you to so much shame that you have to quit?  I mean sure he beat you blind but that says something about Touya not you! You’re still the third best in school nothing changed about that. The biggest mistake the episode makes is starting with the bullies, you follow their perspective, that angle doesn’t work, your not supposed look from that angle either. You need to feel they are bullying Akira but is unfair Go reallying bullying? Great episode but you really need to look from the perspective of Akira because the bullies are just dumb! It gets a good score with an asterix.

Episode Score: *

*If you are unable to see this as Touya’s story and take everything face value as it is presented to you this episode scores 1 to 2 grades lower depending on your ability to read between the lines

Another week done! This week I have had some stomach ailment which kept bothering me luckily doing a fair bit better now! A few restless nights made my energy a bit lower than it could be but meeting a friend I had not seen in a long time turned out to be a lot more pleasant than I had anticipated. She can be a bit of an energy drain due to being prone to melancholy over the silliest things. There was a stabbing in my flat today though so I am even more prompted than before to find another place! I am also really excited for the blog restyling happening on Wednesday! This week I finished my project called Camp Coconut and the final assets that I needed. That is my personal update complete as well! Thanks for reading and let’s have an amazing next week!

Last time this asset will be used! Thank you for serving me well!