Saki – Pinkie's Paradise

Pinkie Watches: Zombieland Saga Episode 2 – I <3 Hip Hop Saga

Hiya! Sweet Little Lights! As a VBlogger .. a Kaijuman and and a Moth.. I have developed a bit of an unhealthy sleeping pattern.. actually it’s heart medication that kind of inhibits my ability to sleep but.. now that I am a virtual presence we glam that up a bit! It means I am not having a Saturday Morning.. so my anime block has been torn to shreds. So as a true VTuber..but for Blogging I decided to make reaction videos to anime I am watching. Not in any particular order either.. just kind in whatever order I feel like.. or at any time I feel like them. The Anime I chose to test this format with is Zombieland Saga Episode 2! I felt like something cute and silly..after those nasty thingies happened in America!

Annoying Guy..Funny Joke!

Okay so this is me reacting! To this episode! I notice that the title is I ❤ Hip Hop Saga. I do not like Hip Hop music myself… I oftenly don’t like the rhythm and the atmosphere. A lot of female Hip-Hop singers do what I call a lot of voice stunting…in changing the pitch of a tone while keeping it going. I do not find that pleasant.. like a flickering light! I don’t know wether to go or not! It confuses me and creates a bit of unrest! The episode starts with a lovely chaotic recap that I quite enjoy! I really do enjoy these 20 second blitz of information things! I have a good memory so a recap should be funny and this one nails that brief so yay!

We then get reintroduced to everyone again yet the names still do not stick to me! I am in awe by the design and the character quirks that shine through.. I know two names of the girls.. one of them being the main character.. the other being the one that is still zombified. The manager tells the girls his plans again and I must confess… I find him annoying! If I was a zombie I would probably bite him..he shouts at one of the girls for not reacting to him ..congratulating them for waking up… man. He is quite a bit of a Peepee-head. Kind of like this little kid with a Gigan-shirt I greeted recently… he just ignored me so my laserbeam put a hole in his shirt where Gigan (and kind of where his major organs) used to be… well now he has a reason to ignore me.

The opening that wasn’t in the first episode is not what I would have expected.. big Kaiju fights and Sentai stuff.. I assume that is a joke and it won’t be in here… could this show get any more awesome? I might die if it would be THAT awesome.. I am immortal now though so probably not! The music has a bit of a Jojo opening vibe to me.. the level of surrealism has that as well. The manager is too prominent in it though! I do like that very thick paintbrush outline though. This thing is my kind of jam! I do not like the slew of text at the beginning of the intro though it gives me One Piece trauma’s.. I stopped watching that show when half of each episode was the intro and all those maps and flashbacks! A pretty solid opening all in all but I don’t think it will stick in my head very well!

The manager continues to be super annoying and by now I would shoot a laser through his head.. but I would break my laptop .. but Oh my this guy is really vexing me! I do love how he is voice acted.. but the character is becoming annoying to levels that I actually am beginning to dislike this scene. He teases the characters about being a zombie and shows how they must keep the fact that they are zombies hidden. I wonder if all those humans have Anosmia or that zombies do not smell! They look fresh enough to smell.. but then again no one really says these rotting corpses stink.. so do zombies not stink?! I like how this anime brings up important philosophical questions like this. As the manager of a tropical resort most questions I get are all the same and with such obvious answers. Like “Can I leave my towel on a Poolbed in advance” or “Did you see my son.. he was wearing a Gigan shirt?”. I just wanna watch anime here and murder this annoying character manager guy!

Ai’s Great Escape!

The scene gets a bit funnier at the 5:00 minute mark. When a girl who I know is not named Saki or Sakura.. but the one with most of her face bandaged gets in an argument with Tatsumi! That is right I just learned the name of the manager. They talk about their knowledge of Saga and Tasumi tells he loves the region and knows everything about it.. when the girl insists he tells something he freaks out and tells her she should just use Wikipedia and that isn’t Friggin Wikipedia. He just wants to make them idols! I like how the girls can see through him.. but also how he brings in a fairly valid argument! I for sure am not very interested in factoids about the Saga region. The girls have to perform at Saga Castle the next day and now have to train! All the girls except Sakura think there is too little time.. but Sakura knows how this man works by now and she just agrees! He is just this odd! It was good for a chuckle!

Bandage face is called Ai! She is kinda cute! We do see her personality a bit more established in the next scene where only Sakura is trying to learn some dance poses.Saki just stares menacingly while the one who is still a zombie is biting white haired zombie girl’s foot! The blue haired girl has funny faces in the mirror and I just love her design so much! I want to hug her and possibly meet her during a speed date! She seems playful and well spirited. Ai however just stares intensely at Sakura. As we move to later we see the bitey zombie whose name I knew but forgot to bother white haired girl again while Ai hugs a pillow.. I hug pillows a lot! I relate so much! Saki the biker girl then has the greatest interaction with Sakura! She threatens her for not remembering who she is.. doing the whole High School gang skit! Bullying her for being a goody two shoes. It sells her character so well .. and we get a softcore Yare Yare Daze.. followed by.. I bet my Tamagotchi is dead by now! That made me laugh! The girl cares about her Tamagotchi even in this situation!

Ai chan and Juno which is the name of the White Haired girl.. try to escape the mansion.. which makes sense.. so would I.. well I would love to be an idol so maybe not!.. But well I expect a normal girl would behave like this.. the bitey zombie is named as Tae-Chan. We get a funny scene of Sakura trying to stop the girls and ripping Ai apart, her arms detaching like Legos and her eyes popping out! It looks so clunky yet very satisfying! Great scene! Sakura decides to go with them so she can convince them to go back.. but the girls just want to go back to Tokyo when they are harassed by a bunch of rappers. This is so silly but I love it! A cop would show up.. and wouldn’t you know it is the cop from the first episode. Ai steps into the light asking for help and reveals her Zombieness.. the cop shoots and for about three seconds the girls just stare at the window he just broke.. then everyone begins screaming in a hilariously timed scene! I love that comical timing! I am laughing so hard I nearly knocked over a lamp!

The second concert

Next we get the semi-emotional bit of everyone being bummed out being a zombie! Ai and Juno in particular, because they were just shot at. Sakura has a talk with Saki who wants to take over the world.. I am not sure if I like how overplayed her delinquent persona is. She wants to take over the entire country she says.. which feels like a really easy but cheap bridge for her to become an idol and take over the country. That way what annoys me more is that Sakura, when asked why she follows the sunglasses guy, doesn’t tell Saki anything. She told Ai and Juno earlier ..talking about wanting to see if her memory returns on stage. Saki can’t really object that even.. since she said Sakura SHOULD get her memory back.. it feels very weird that it is written this way! However we can’t linger too long as we move to the make up scene. Blue girls and ancient Japanese girls call each other by name.. but for some reason my brain doesn’t lock on! The names fade as soon as they come in! I do like how thick the make-up looks! I also like how the two Metalheads came back .. showing that Death Musume already has some fans! It feels slightly heartwarming and reminds me of my first followers Mallow and Emma!

As the concert starts the girls are surprised that their name has changed from Death Musume to Green Face. Well or at least Sakura is… is this going to be a thing that their name changes each episode?! Tae is still a zombie and is pretty much set on eating the crowd again.. when Sakura struggles to set up a show and the traditional Japanese girl just does some sort of fan dance everything seems super awkward.. but then a random element of the show is brought back.. if you pull to hard on an arm it falls of. So while Sakura tries to restrain Tae.. her hands some off and as she falls on the ground her head bounces off into the hands of a guy eating dried squid.. who feeds it to her with her eating it constantly! The girls play it off as some magic trick but Saki has fun with this chaos and wants to keep Tae’s head separated. She gets into a fight with Sakura which turns into a rap battle.. mostly because they start yelling insults and text to each other while Kotaro beatboxes over it.. caught by the rhythm the girls commit to this line.. while blue girl gets riled up and begins clapping and shouting YO YO YO YO! Traditional Japanese girl.. picks up an instrument I do not know the name of and plays some strings to give it a bit of a traditional tint… of course the crowd loves this and Sakura vents what has been bothering her. Even to the audience.

The concert is done and the episode is wrapping up! Just as i feared Saki’s way to take over the world is by becoming an idol.. but okay I guess I did not have to expect deep writing here! She has gained some admiration for Sakura who also explained her situation to the girl now and even if everything feels quite forced I had a lot of fun with it. I loved the jokes! There was so much humor that really worked. Saki bringing up the Tamagotchi even during the rap was a great callback and a lot of the humor is recurring. I really like that, it gives lines weight.. even though they are funny you can sense Saki is really annoyed that she lost her precious Tamagotchi! Her best comment was that she liked Sakura.. because her head was so egg shaped and she was a nice person so she reminded her of a Tamgotchi! The Tae-chan joke is used fairly well as well and even the little blue girl just fizzes with energy while Ai and Juno feel defeated so others can spotlight on stage.. it felt… Balanced and well thought out! I had a great time today.. BUT.. I also feel like this show won’t be funny for THAT long. I had a blast.. but it kind feels like a free fall ride. The first drop is super exciting but if it would go up again just to go back… each subsequent drop will feel less amazing.
Oh well! We will see that later!

Pinkie watches a Random Anime: Saki

Hello my sweet island guests! For my Saturday anime posts I have been covering ways to discover anime for the past two weeks! Ending with how excited I was to watch some random anime using the Random Anime Generator Website! Now once a month, or at least I will try to do so, I will generate one random anime and watch it’s first five episodes (about a movie length) discussing my thoughts about it and whether or not I would pick it up to finish it! My first randomised anime came up as: Saki!

I did not read any descriptions I just generated a random anime title , looked if it was available to me and watched the show. Saki should still be available for everyone using Crunchyroll but I am not sure how everything works for that. The first opening minute I saw a slightly tomboyish girl looking at another girl thinking she is super pretty! I never heard of this anime before and I had no clue what to expect.. but already I was getting some Yuri vibes. Lucky! The tame kind too! It was also clear there would be a lot fan service.. even though it’s fairly tame.. I did find myself kind of annoyed by it, but that is mostly because I really like the character being lewded a lot. They at times make her out to be just a pair of boobs .. and they have to really go out of their way to set it up as well so yes in this case I found it unpleasant. Still I get why you do it.. gotta keep Mahjong interesting.. because yes I stumbled upon an anime about Mahjong. With a pink seemingly gay (semi) main character , some flashy weird animations and people taking part in a tournament. This SHOW random show really hit some marks for me.

I’ll be honest, I have started watching A Certain Magical Index as well, but now that I am five episodes in for both! This one has my preference to finish first. The show is about a girl named Saki .. if you would believe it… a young girl who comes from a broken family. During family game night they would always play Mahjong but if she did to well her sister would throw a tantrum and people would get mad at her and if she did to poorly she would not get any candy! So Saki learned to play perfectly average and is blessed with incredible luck playing this game. She finds out the beautiful girl is in the Mahjong club because a friend asked her to help her out for a bit.. and little by little Saki begins to enjoy the game of Mahjong again .. that she learned to hate under her broken family! Now that same game has the chance to bring the family back together as her sister represents another regions team, playing in the Tokyo nationals. Before they do that though they have to win regionals.. which according to the first five episode holds some very scary and evil girls they have to face. As well as super powers?! I am not sure yet!

I have no idea how to play competitive Mahjong , only that tower stack thing we get from internet games here.. well that is not the Mahjong this is about. This is about changing together events, like Ron and Richi and Kan or whatever they are called. I have no idea but this anime certainly makes it look impressive. Studio Gonzo produced the first 14 episodes ..which obviously includes the first five I have seen and they certainly know how to frame the game nicely. The dramatic reveal of hands really have this larger than life vibe. Which is great because this series very much knows what it is. There is a strong cast of character that are larger than life which again compliments the series very well. Saki is the overly nice naive girl that is attracted to pink girl , with big boobs, talents in spades and a child like demeanour, Nodoka. Nodoka is a very calculative person who secretly is into Saki as well but also someone who can not comprehend her luck (yet) . They represent two aspect a skilled player needs to have , skill and luck! Nodoka has a plush penguin named Etopen which I find adorable! Could it be that she is Waifu material?!

Kyoutarou is the only boy in the Mahjong club.. he dreams of being with Nodoka he wants to play with them tiddies.. but of course he doesn’t know she looks at Saki! His fantasies about her are often interrupted by Yuuki, a tiny energetic bubbly girl, who loves taco and tako. She likes to play house with him calling him darling or husband. She has a wild imagination and always seems to twist reality around her! She lacks the ability to do proper math which results in her being weaker in the game than she could be. The cast is rounded off by the student council president.. though .. she calls it Student Congress President , she is a strategist and plays the group to make them better and then there is Mako.. the presidents bestie whose parents have a maid café. She seems leaned back but also very analytical.

Five episodes in and I really like this cast a whole lot more than I like the main cast of Magical Index. These feel like people I’d enjoy being around. . if I would be their age. I honestly did not expect that I would like this anime this much. Yuuki can be a tad annoying with how her voice sounds but I rather found that endearing. I even smiled empathically at how Kyoutarou is such a loner just for being a guy! If you can make me care for the kinda bro-ish boy .. you are doing something right!

I really like how these first episodes where paced out. Without getting into spoilers to much, episode one sets up the main character Saki and episode 2 sets up Nodoka. Episode 3 sets up the main plot.. that is participating in the tournament while episode 4 lets reality set in and turns down Nodoka’s amazing talent and Saki’s luck by putting in into perspective by having them learn they are not ready for the tournament yet. Which perfectly sets up for episode 5, training camp! Every episode flows very nicely into the next and each episode and as a result each episode can stand on its own. It’s all well defined tiles that when put together form a nice combo. I notice how this is in contrast with Hikaru no Go for example which has stronger episodes in their lineup..but a weaker flow between them. While Hikaru tells the better tale.. it has slack water.. dead tides in between. This show (At least so far) flows nicely. In fact there are very few anime I’ve recently been watching that match it’s amazing pacing.

Toss in a lot of cuteness and this show becomes something that does warm my heart. The Blossoming friendship between our main characters works well. Saki feeling awkward around Nodoka in the beginning makes sense because of how toxic her family games were. When the titular character finally begins to enjoy winning this goes at the cost of Nodoka which makes her passion feel invalidated as Saki claimed not to like the game. It sucks to be beaten by someone who doesn’t take your passion seriously. These emotions feel legit and make sense with the characters that are established.

This does come at the cost of the personality of the other team members though. While Hisa the team leader still shows some proper character.. but mostly in her understanding how others work, Yuuki, Kyoutarou and Maki remain rather 2 dimensional. I am not sure if this is a bad thing though. I found Yuuki’s flat and shallow character quite hilarious and it breaks up awkwardness of two closet lesbians playing with some tiles. Maki is the exposition character. “Boss did you set that up to teach them a lesson” .. “Do you think she realises she has that ability” .. that’s her type of dialogue. It could be painful but since they made her a bit of an analytical slightly colder person.. it works. Kyou makes the awkward romantic stuff more comedical by putting it into perspective. So everyone adds their bit to the pot.

The only thing detrimental to this is the fan service. Our pink haired girl has a fully developed chest while the others don more humble models. Nosoka thusly often gets the butt of some jokes that kinda feel out of place. For example how hugging her plushy means hiding the thing under her boobs. I might be flat so I could not compare.. but I hold my plushies near my heart or chest at , Etopen is quite large though so it makes sense from a perspective that she also has to play Mahjong.. But still that feels like hugging a friend in my belly button area! That just feels awkward! There are a few cheap shots like that like having her run through the rain and giving her a dramatic talk while zooming in on her chest emphasises her white shirt got wet and all. If that floats your boat good for you but I did not like it. I am not against the use of fan service as long as it is used in moments where it’s not detrimental to the main emotions and that’s where the show misses a few swings for me personally. It just feels like Nosoka’s character on occasion has to make room so she can give some fan service at times.. which is a wrong way to go about this.

The opening song and the ending song are AMAZING! Well they aren’t that memorable but the fact that they could make this work for them as a Mahjong series was pretty good! It has action in it but also some beauty..it is almost shot as a shounen opening which I really could appreciate. The ending is so cute that this one one of the few ED’s I ended up watching three out of five times. Well two and a half but normally I don’t watch it at all so thats HUGE!
Like I said Yuuki’s voice can be a bit annoying at times when she talks to long or has to shout for shouting sake. but this also endeared her a bit to me at the same time.. that is who she is. The final knitpick is that this does not make it very clear on how to play Majong.. which is also i’s strength.. it’s not a game you easily pick up I think there is a lot involved so since everyone in universe would more less know how to play.. there is little exposition to explain. There are a few schedules and diagrams but there might as well have been a unicorn poster there! I did not get info at all. The characters do though so that is good.. but I guess I just have to believe the words and the flow here.

I know Ron is a good thing for the one who declares it. So I will use that term for my final evaluation! Five episodes in and I am very pleasantly surprised by this series. So much so in fact that I am probably going to finish this series and bench Magical Index for a while. This series spoke a lot more to me. It’s just cute , slightly yuri , fun with characters I really enjoy and stylistic and visual choices I enjoy even more! I very much hope it keeps this nice buttery smooth pacing throughout the show because that to me was it’s absolute strength.
I could not tell you what I think about the animation because I haven’t really paid much attention it it. I noticed it was from 2009 and I would have guessed it was slightly earlier.. but the visuals worked for me.

The colours are nice and vibrant but never obnoxious, there is plenty set-up going on that makes me feel this might quite the interesting show. So yes I do want to finish this show. With only 25 episodes I should be able to do so before the next randomisation is up but this is also a great series to cheer me up so I might save some of it until I need some Etopen and Yuri Mahjong goodness in my life! We will see but I really think the first five episodes of this Mahjong show where very good! The only thing that prevents it getting my highest score is my inability to comprehend Mahjong.. and my inability to care for boobs!