Tag: That Time I got Reincarnated As A Slime

The Perfect Saturday! Pinkie’s Saturday Anime Adventure 19

Yo Island Guests! So I’ve decided to give these things episode titles now! Why?! Well if you can’t guess from the title you don’t deserve to know! Teehee!  So how was this week for me?! It was pretty solid! I haven’t heard of my new rental contract yet so I am a bit anxious for that. Dad quarantined himself so we did not get to see him again either. So instead me and my sister went to visit mom and we had a nice afternoon. Board Game night at Bean’s place was pretty fun as well and tonight my GBF is coming over and I am sure that might be nice! Speaking of Nice… this week’s anime… it was perfect.

Digimon Adventure Episode 7

Wow.. normally I’d rank my episodes saying which spot in the top 5 they take. This week however everything was really really good! It began with Digimon really impressing me and I was sure it was going to be my favourite episode of the watch as soon as I saw it.

In this Episode the Chosen Ones travel towards the sea in an attempt to cross it.  Mimi is lounging in a chair enjoying the tea that her butler Palmon made for her. Having no sea worthy digimon in their team they decide to evolve Biyomon into Birdramon to scout ahead.  When they encounter a strange vortex in the water , Bidramon gets hit with a mysterious attack and takes some serious damage. With a defenceless Biyomon the group has no chance but to retreat. They are helped out by a cheerful young Digimon named Gomamon who tells them he has a partner as well and he brings them to Joe. Joe Kido is the senpai of Taichi and Sora and they vaguely recognise him but something is wrong! Joe isn’t at all interested in being a chosen one. He knows he lacks the physical strength and the courage to be a hero and besides that his family RELIES on him to become the next generation of doctors to help people in a way where he CAN make a difference. He refuses a partnership with Gomamon because of this as he can’t let people down.  Gomammon travels with the group and they decide to cross the canal but they have to deal with the tentacle digimon named Gesomon.

Since Birdramon got injured last time and used a lot of energy to keep her evolution up so long to scout the last time she is out of the fight for now. Thus Gomamon decided to be bait and lure Gesomon to shore so Greymon and Togemon can fight with an advantage. However because Gomamon gets injured the squid like digimon flees back in the water again and the group is at a disadvantage. Gomamon gets slapped around and Joe, who came to spy on them, feels responsible. Gomamon needs him just as much as his family needs him to become a doctor. Gomamon being aquatic is the only one who can help them here.. they have to rely on him. Joe realises this and talks to Gomamon, who tells Joe that it doesn’t matter if he isn’t;’t brave or strong, they are a group he can rely on others just like they can rely on him. Joe accepts this which causes Gomamon to evolve to Ikkakumon. Using his Harpoon Vulcan technique he alongside his friends defeat the evil squid. Joe joins the team and on Ikakumon’s back they travel across the water-straight. 

Okay so that is a whole lot of plot.. but I had to because that was the strongest thing in this episode. I loved how everything was so connected into a compelling narrative where everyone was needed. Bidramon is established as a scout.. but also gets taken down  for understandable reasons. This gives Joe and Gomamon a perfect opportunity to step in. Joe not having time for Gomamon was established as a problem in the earlier show as well but it came AFTER they had bonded so much which always made me hate Joe.. to make him start off with that trait and to burden him with his virtue however was such great thinking. It feels like a much healthier version of Joe. Early on he was amazing but after S2 was launched and especially in Tri he was this mean selfish bastard. This actually fixes Joe for me.

The way they kept in the princess Mimi thing with her having a luxury chair out of nowhere also felt funny and it made her stand out so much more yet again. Having Taichi rely on Mimi instead of Sora like he did before also spreads the screen time across the chosen ones and for every narrative problem that could arise in this situation they had a valid solution. This way you can unlock the Ultimate stage digimon way sooner as well as everyone really is working on that virtue they have so I expect this to be much better paced. Maybe not even needing a mc-guffin like the crests. I loved the animations and the camera angles for this one too. We got much more close ups which allowed for much more detail to be inserted here as well as it made the ocean more vast and the Digimon bigger! It really did everything right for me.

This episode did not really have any weaknesses for me that at least are not inherent to the genre. The monster of the week was a logical complication for a problem that needed to be dealt with the way things unfolded made perfect sense for what this episode needed to do and Gomamon and Joe got a fantastic introduction. This show seems to be way more focussed on the characters rather than just the adventure and it works out so great for this show. Now that they polished away last weeks cinematography/graphic issues nothing can stop me from giving this show my highest rating.

Samurai Flamenco Episode 14

After last week, thoughts of dropping this show came into my head if it did not pick up by episode 15. Yet by Arceus.. this episode improved SO much!  It threw some amazing twists at us and it felt “fun to watch” again

Last week’s episode  was a rather big downer for me tonally it seemed to grim and while this episode continues that dire situation there is much more a hint of positivity again. The Hero’s dilemma has been dealt with and Masayoshi is receiving positive feedback from it.. as well as negative but he stands by what he does.  From Beyond will attack the next day and the government is not playing very nice only wanting to evacuate VIPS. This results in Masayoshi making a plea to the people to help the Flamengers out.. but mostly to stay safe. The president scolds him for his mistakes but it seems the choice is made and so we move into the final battle. A battle against the 60.000+  members  of From Beyond. The group uses their Robo’s to fight them but quickly get overwhelmed.  There are to many tiny monsters, and also a need for the combiner robo but they can’t do everything. When Flamen pink is about to die she gets rescued by Red Axe  who recruited all the other Sentai who now have actual Sentai powers. I love that trope in Sentai episodes.  They all fight together when the strongest member of From Beyond contacts the Flamengers requesting to meet with Flamen Red.  It is then revealed he is From Beyond Flamenco.. Massayoshi’s brother.

This episode is gempacked full of sentai goodness. The Sentai cross over is always my favourite moment in any power ranger series and even though we only saw the other sentai as fictional characters in this world somehow seeing them show up still feels amazing and powerful. The monster designs as well as the silly sentai designs make sure that this episode is also gem packed with humor, even if there are no actual jokes. There are just so many visual gags that this episode is a delight to watch. The action is fun and I worried for Flamen Pink. We get a few great scenes where Mari is being picked up by her friends as well as Mrs Kaname finding that handkerchief revealing it is actually from Flamen Pink trying to convince Joji/Red Axe to commit adultery but he refuses it.  So many characters here get a redemption arc just before Japan is destroyed and that is pretty amazing. The glum atmosphere is washed away with tons of fun references and a lot of negatives are revealed to “not be as bad” as they think! Yet with Japan at stake with a big monster in a Mount Fuji.we can’t rest yet! I am so excited for next week.

Do I have any negatives to this episode?  Not really and that will be a theme across this installment of Anime Adventure. The only thing I will say here is that I am a bit dissapionted that Masayoshi’s brother was not hinted at before. In a way it makes sense because it’s always a mystery family member that shows up  but I would have liked to see their twist on this rather than them doing this trope.  This is only a nitpick though as I am happy with this one as well. The one sloppy thing  I found a bit dumb is the fact that non of the Flamengers family decided to be rescued. Some have a great reason like just having triplets and thus the flamenger only having five spots to give away.. and not having room for the childeren.. but others felt dumb. “We do not want to be saved, because you are in love with a married man”  seems like a stupid reason to die for. 

The fact that both Sentai and human’s fought side by side paid tribute to what this series is about for me and it shows the two sides of Masayoshi.. this entire episode to me is a perfect mix between season 1 and season 2 and works towards a great conclusion of that story arc. I adore this episode not only for being vastly entertaining but also fixing some past mistakes! I know this series has a habit for that.. but today I was completely blown out of the water.. and that is why it earned today’s rating.

That Time I got reincarnated as a Slime Episode 13

I can’t believe they actually gave Gabiru a good fight, I also can’t believe how badass this episode was without Rimuru even doing a single thing. This episode made the “side” characters shine and shine they did in a very good episode that was the great buildup to an even bigger battle.

Now that Gabiru has betrayed his father and taken the crown he takes the offence to the orcs, not knowing about their Hunger ability that allows them to steal abilities from the dead. When a Lizardman gets eaten by the powered up orcs, suddenly they can move through the swamp without problems and any advantage the lizardmen have gotten is gone. Luckily Rimuru’s ‘dreamboat’ Souei  saves Gabiru’s sister who then meets up with RImuru a bit later on. The slime names her acting chieftain and forms an official alliance. Now the ogres and Gobta can  official step into battle. Ranga as well. While the dryad confronts Gelmud in the forest Ranga, Souei, Shion Benumaru and that old guy.. I forgot his name.. show of their skill. Which easily wipes the orc army of the map. The lizardman king is also rescued and he is glad to have these powerful allies. Rimuru watches from the sky and finally finds the Orc Warlord as Ranga effortlessly deals with an Orc General and evolves into a Star Tempest Wolf.

While nowhere near as narrative as any of the other episodes here, this was such a “power walk” episode.  One of those HECK yeah. Where Digimon was one of the best written episodes, and Flamenco was the ultimate redemption and the best “on brand” episode.   This one made me feel so good and it was such an epic feeling. I love how these creatures can decimate entire armies with a snap of their finger. The way it is all brought onto my screen is really good. The poses, the difference in height, the colours, the motions. It all felt very satisfying. Yet my favourite moment is when Shion reassures Gabiiru’s sister he is going to save her. Not only reflecting her perfect faith in him.. but also doing her job as his secretary. When she used her Getsuga Tenshou like attack and waved at Rimuru after having created a giant crater was great too. It had the perfect tone for such an episode for me. 

Dislikes.. well.. I am kinda sad Gabiru did not die.. but that is more personal. He had a pretty good fight against the general, which actually works as a great measuring stick to how powerful the rest is. Gabiru is slightly below the Orc General and Gobta can knock out Gabriu in one attack so he is most likely above.. and he is one of the lesser warriors of the village. Gobta not getting the kill on the general is a bit of a missed chance and maybe powering Ranga up more was not needed.. but man his special attack looked so great.
So while I can come up with a few flaws I can also give a counter argument.

This episode is something slime really needed. We finally get to see what the evolved henchmen of Rimuru are capable off and despite them being so powerful I felt thoroughly entertained. It is a nice twist on the Isekai genre to not only see the protagonist overpowered but his side characters too! This episode just really worked for me and it  made me a very happy Pinkie to be able to watch this. I could come up with flaws but I was happy so who cares.

Flip Flappers Episode 9

I never would have thought that I would like an episode with a negative mindset so soon after seeing Cocona restore from one, but this one really worked for me. I also begin to suspect some things here as the plot thickens.

Cocona is angry at Papika for calling her Mimi. Thinking she is insensitive for misremembering her. Papika isn’t aware of any ill actions on her behalf and gets angry at Cocona for ignoring her and treating her like filth.  When they dive into Pure Illusion again they arrive in a scene almost like the loading room in the Matrix. Yayaka is send to deal with them and steal their Amorphous.. a new Amorphous sister who kinda looks like Papika is to be her replacement if she fails. When Cocona is trapped with the other two twins Papika and Yayaka fight over Cocona and the Amorphous. We find out  how Yayaka and Cocona met over medical testing.. but we also find out their friendship has been staged as Yayaka is supposed to monitor her.

Papika gets pretty beaten up by Yayaka but despite the twins lying to her Cocona eventually finds out Papika really DOES care about her.  Breaking the trap. The two are reunited but once more attacked by Yayaka. Papika gets taken down and the two childhood friends face off with Cocona losing. When Yayaka is forced to cut out the shard in Cocona’s leg.. she refuses and the twins attack and nearly kill her.  Papika saves the pair and the twins leave with the shard. Papika and Cocona bring Yayaka to Flip Flap where she is about to be nursed back to health.. waiting for any news Papika has a drew and yels out for Mimi again revealing it was her former partner.

This episode was the most emotionally powerful of todays line up. I felt genuinely concerned for Papika , Cocona and even Yayaka.  I understood this conflict as well.So I get why this became an issue. To me it seems to indicate that Cocon indeed is falling in love with Papika and coming to accept it more and now being mistaken for someone else hurts. Yayaka balancing friends and duty might not be a theme directly related to me as I would not be in her shoes but it is a place I saw some of my friends be in.I loved that Papika finally stepped up for herself and would not let Cocona treat her the way she does. She is indeed a super loving grl and she doesn’t deserve to be treated that way.

The empty world with the defective trap fascinates me.. I think this is once again a reflection of Cocona.. and with the mystery that has been building up, pure Illusion might resolve more around Cocona than we are led to think. That medical test that happened on her.. the fact that she has a shard in her leg. I also think Papika’s former partner is the third amorphous child. The other ones are called Yuyu and Toto so Mimi would fit that same namesake. Meanwhile Papika, Cocona and Yayaka also have a very similar naming convention. So I still think Yayaka might become a third Flip Flap girl if she doesn’t die. 

Okay so these weren’t exactly positives about the show but any show that makes me thing this much must be captivating. I don’t see animated characters , I genuinely care about them!  This episode made me realise that more than ever. I felt for all of them! It is structured in a way where it really does that very well. The fact that nothing except the characters exists in this episode highlights that.. Well there is the defensive trap which I think symbolises Cocona constantly putting up walls towards Papika. First because she is so dangerous, because she is so weird, because things happen she did not expect etc. I should be talking about the negatives in this paragraph but as you might hav guessed there are none. 

I never like the break up trope, so when I saw how this episode started I was super worried, however unlike episode 7 I think this episode did it well. This fight stems from a bigger narrative that drives the plot further much more than the incident in episode 7 did.  The fact that the fight was mutual this time helped that as well and the fact that these emotions feel earned. Not only is this is the first  “our heroes” fight episode in Flip Flappers that I REALLY like., I think this one is an example on how it should be tackled for other shows. This is my new benchmark for that trope! So with that honour what other grade could I give…

Hikaru no Go Episode 19

After last week I was afraid that I would be shoved into an arc about Akira and Waya and I would not see how much Hikaru improved after the Internet Go arc. Luckily I was proven wrong.. I was so wrong.. and I am super happy about it!

The deals with Hikaru’s return to school and people noticing his growth during the holiday.  He beats Mitani with a handicap in his favor and he beats Tsutsui without a handicap! Finally he  seems to have caught up! Sai now wants to play Hikaru but there is one problem. Hikaru has no Go table. So he goes to his grandpa and ask him to buy one for him, he even wants to play Go with him to buy an expensive one.. or get the table that Sai possessed. His grandpa is astounded by  Hikaru’s talent showing he was a prize-winning Go player himself. While grandpa would win he forfeits as he thinks Hikaru has become so good in such a short timespan that he deserves one of those go tables with legs.

  This allows Hikaru to play Sai and after working out some “bugs” in their playing we see he grows stronger so fast that he can even beat Mitani on equal grounds.  Akiri meanwhile gets a new female recruit for the Go club and gets confronted with her feelings for Hikaru..Mitiani become more serious and Tsutsui is having to graduate this year so we are introduced to the new rules of this year and a new “season” of Go.

This episode was the most rewarding viewing experience of all the five to watch. You finished the Internet Go Arc “here you go.. all the character development that happened during that arc will be neatly presented to you”  Once again I love it! This is what I said I  wanted to see last episode and it is exactly what I got.  While it lacks the spectacular imagery that the previous episode had it was a great touch to show the next tier of this story to begin where it all began. At Hikaru’s grandpa’s house. To show the progress by taking him past the Go club he used to visit by making him face both Mitani and TsuTsui!  There is cleverness in that design.  We know how weak Hikaru was at the Go Club as he got kicked for his weird behaviour and barely could follow, now he can beat their strongest student. We can see him face Tsutsui and Mitani and they acknowledge him for his own skill not Sai’s now! We see the passion he has gotten for the game. This episode did so much for Hikaru!

The title of this 19th installment is not for nothing. This anime also gets my highest score! I had little to no gripes. Seeing Akiri do her thing was nice and we even got to see her develop and recruit a female friend. I am so happy for her. However there is one gripe I had with this episode and that is how Sai is depicted. He has been depicted like this before but he is obnoxiously playful when begging for a game.  His awkwardness around the board feels unprofessional. His demeanour doesn’t fit that of a ghost who commited suicde over losing a rigged match in front of the emperor. I don’t mind if he gets like this sometimes but this guy is supposed to be the absolute zenith. He displays this whimsical a bit too often and when facing an extremely strong opponent I get it.. but for facing Hikaru it seems a bit much! Still a nitpick but it was an actual gripe I had here.

The fact that Sai can be a tad annoying did not make me think that much less of the episode though! It is still  very good and I do get why it happens. This show needs that kind of flavouring as well. I just wish I could respect him a tiny bit more! Now I just like him/ I like him well enough though so all in all I am still very happy with what unfolded for me today! This weekend was the perfect weekend! When it comes to anime at least!

And my weekend ended perfectly! At least when anime is concerned! Besides a bad migraine on Monday I had a great week! For the next week I will actively pursue my rental contract for my new home! So it will be an exciting but also kind of stressful week. I would see my dad again but he cancelled out yet again, which this week is actually nice as I have more liberties to chase that contract I want so bad! I am so happy if I can get out of this place! We have a verbal agreement already just waiting for the paperwork!

For the blog next week! I am going to tell you about the adventures in my Pokémon Heart Gold Randomiser Nuzlocke started this week, I watch a movie about a very jumpy prince person and I play a retro game one again! We will also see Sunny’s first post go live! Telling us an amazing story about fishing! So you can look forward to that! Speaking about something fishy!?! Did you know the fictional museum of Paradise holds a cursed jewel that is said to be worth a lot of money?! Well I know of a shady guy who really wants it! If you don’t want me to do anything FISHY, like that please consider supporting my Kofi page!

Pinkie’s Saturday Anime Adventure 18

My dear island guests! Yet another week of the less beloved year of 2020 has come and gone!  It has been an interesting week in which I experimented a bit with post order and I will continue to do so in the near future! I want a bit more liberty with writing and all! I started doing a Pokémon Randomiser Nuzlocke, picked up Oblivion again and started Fall Guys! I watched another video game movie and this week the blog featured Kuro’s first ever post! Check it out if you haven’t already! I also finished a random anime and loved it.. and then I watched 5 anime I always watch and that is why we are here today!

Digimon Adventure Episode 6

The introductory chapter for Mimi sure left some impressions. Some good, some bad, some a tiny bit ugly! Yet like these past few weeks this series is yet again among my favourites of week! This week though it had some stiff competition and it fumbles just a bit too much to end up as my favourite but still taking a very honourable second!

The plot of this episode as predicted deals with Mimi joining the group! Sora and Taichi are trying to find the holy digimon while Japan is drawing closer to their power outage. However spending so much time in the digital world has already made the group hungry! When they discover purple trees with golden pumpkins they get trapped by Mimi and Palmon who are defending the trees from some monster called Tuskmon! Revealing Mimi is a princess of a village of Tanemon and Palmon is her butler we see classic Mimi.. but with a twist. The group does not know her and thus she mistrusts these new people  thinking they may work for the Tuskmon. When Ogremon wants to kill the children he uses the Tuskmon and a Drimogemon  to attack. Taichi and Sora fight the  Tuskmon but Palmon gets nearly killed by Drimogemon.. Mimi who through some of Kochiro’s tech saw her Grandpa is in danger in the real world and now is about to lose her friend.. as Palmon lays dying manages to activate her digivice and evolve Palmon into Togemon. Defeating the boss monster of the week with Coconut Uppercut!  A second technique! Greymon breaks off Ogremon’s horn who cries out in revenge as we leave this week’s episode.

This episode is amazing yet again! I love the way Mimi is introduced to the group! Being a princess of this village and it all feels very happy and very Mimi! While a bit snooty to call Palmon her butler it feels more like a childs play than actual belittling.. and through her we can see .. “oh that’s right these chosen ones are only children” Mimi likes protecting these girls and is clever and shows great tactical insight. Which could bounce off nicely of Koshiro’s insight, Taichi’s bravery and Sora’s powerful support.  She adds to the group instead of just being there. I don’t know if it will last but for now.. she has a role!  Something else she has is a REASON to be involved. She has her own goals and missions. She sees her grandpa is working hard and is stressed trying to save Tokyo.. so she wants to help him. She isn’t just a girl that got teleported to a mysterious world and now follows the group. Mimi is an established character! Yay!  Palmon laying on the ground dying was a very powerful moment in the show and through a strange form of sincerity that did not feel forced we see her identified as the Crest wielder she is! Kudo’s! The time slow down is also introduced in this episode which is a great choice as it gives so much more pacing options!

That being said, it was introduced in a bit of a weird way. I can understand how Koshiro does not experience it because he isn’t deep enough in the network yet but because they communicate through their digivices the fact that it is “patched” out seems a bit of a cop-out.  At least it IS explained which is great but it feels slightly cheap! It has implications that all the digidestined should be in the digital world and Koshiro is the last one heading there and if that turns out to be true ..credit where credit is due but for now.. I found it just a bit meh! Taichi gets a spotlight again and once more the only stock footage evolution and that is a shame. Sora using Birdramon would have made more sense in the moment but she was passed up for the hero! She joins in later.. but much less spotlighted. Taichi doing his thing was my least favourite moment!  That however did not affect my appreciation of the show however and it would have gotten a maximum score if it was not for … weirdly enough. The animation. I noticed this episode had worse animation than before. Not persé in battle.. but because of all the Tanemon a lot of wide shots were used. These very much lack detail, not uncommon but when you hold on shots like that or have conversation IN shots like that it really stands out. I actively questioned many shot choices and it took me out of the episode.

I love what this show does with it’s writing.. even the parts I like less I am still glad they include. It’s like an extremely detailed figurine. Sure you might see a slight imperfection here and there but you still get a lot more detail than from a basic Funko Pop! This show really feels as if the original series was just a Funko. This episode contributes a lot to this new world so I love it! It doesn’t look very pretty this week though! Which makes drop it from a perfect score to an almost perfect score!

Samurai Flamenco Episode 13

For the second time in a row this show offered me my least favourite watch of the day, with quite a bit of distance to the other four! That being said this episode is a lot better than the previous one! Yet it is also less special! I am glad it returns more to its roots and offers some interesting choices but what this episode really lacks is charm.

We skip ahead in time yet again and we see the Flamengers deal with the aftermath of dealing with the Four Generals of From Beyond. They were only rookies. Part of the 64 ..Elites or something.. who are nothing compared to the 256 .. other words.  The group discovers that the evil army has about 65.000 monsters or something! Forgive me for not knowing the exact number.. but let’s just say! They will be overwhelmed and they will lose.  So for that reason they want to try and evacuate Japan when the Prime Minister steps in and tells them not to tell people! He wants to ready the police and evacuate some VIP’s first before wide panic ensues. He pleads with the group to let him do this and talks about the politics and the purpose behind it. He looks insanely evil though for some reason! But he grovels for the group and they decide to trust in his instincts. As a flamenger they all can save five people important to them.. and Masayoshi wants to save 7. Who will he not warn.. who will he put in harm’s way?! We see him struggle with this.. and his doubt about the politicians view. His mentor tells him he will go down fighting and not evacuate and he will not tell anyone but the next day he is gone! Tossing a memento of his wife. While Masayoshi deals with more of the responsibilities and the real politics behind being a hero.. he cracks and on live tv warns the public of their upcoming disaster.

While it lacks the charm of the first 10 episodes this episode at least follows it’s themes a bit closer again.   It is about how real heroes have to make choices that aren’t always “morally white” and Masayoshi’s inability to cope with that. What the Prime Minister said to get the police ready  for the chaos that is to come makes a lot of sense,  to evacuate VIP’s first to keep structure in these times does make sense.. but is it right? Is it the hero way?  Is putting those people endangered to save everyone more heroic or is that actual evil?! It is good writing. I like to use this trope in my roleplaying games and I do like it here! I also like the fact that the enemy doesn’t blankly send out monsters one by one as they know they will get slaughtered like this so now they go for an all out attack instead. Goto’s talk with Masayoshi was my favourite scene, really reflecting the struggles very well! But why doesn’t Goto know about anything?! He is a cop right?! Should they not be getting ready?! Is the Prime Minister up to something here?! I am curious to know so at least the show has me eager for the next episode again! We are only half way through the series so a new enemy has to come at some point still and we still have one form of Flamenco to be introduced!  The real form! The one we see in every opening! 

This episode though is extremely glum! Only the first two minutes have a hint of a joke.. unless Mari walking out of the bathroom of Goto counts as one. It feels so somber. It fits.. but at the same time it doesn’t.  There is an energy to this show that is completely lacking in this episode. It makes sense that it is.. and it has somewhat done it before..but at least then we had Mari or Yun or Red Axe to balance it out. Here I felt  as if I had been punched in the gut. It just goes on and on about this choice and shows us how hard the choice Masayoshi has to make is. It shows all these lovely people who care for him.. and him throwing up at the stress. We see him have nightmares of children being crushed to death, we see him struggle with the fact if he wants to save his agent or Goto’s girlfriend. These types of choices should not be taken lightly so I get why there is no comedy from him.. but alleviate it a little at least. A brief Mari in the shower scene doesn’t recharge our battery. It feels as if Christoper Nolan (Batman Begins) suddenly took over directing this series from Joel Schumacher (Batman and Robin)..same IP but the tone just flipped!

In the end I do think this is a lot like  my feelings about Flip Flappers last week! It is a needed episode, but it is not a fun episode. It makes the story stronger but I found only appreciation and no entertainment here. So I will rate it as fine! It does everything it needs to do and it works.. it really does.. I just do not care for it that much.

That Time I got Reincarnated As A Slime

I HATE the Gabiru character so much! I find him so annoying and of course this is the episode  where he ruins everything for Rimuru and friends. To make things harder for them! I really REALLY hope he dies! No redemption please just kill him! Please! While I did find enjoyment in this episode it is only on the 4th spot of overall enjoyment because of that stupid lizard!

The Dryad we met in the last episode enlists Rimuru for aid, confirming what we have known for two episodes now! And the Orc Lord is coming! But he has a unique skill! Starved! In which he is very hungry and consumes everything on his way gaining their ability. Thus mimicking RImuru to an extent. This prompts the slime into a call to action and he sends Souei to form an alliance with less idiotic lizardmen than Gabiru. When the idiot lizard wakes up he finds there has been a jester in his camp! Someone who tells him lord Gelmud thinks  Gabiru needs to step up if they wish to defeat the Orc Lord, confirming this new threat to him. in order to make him believe his father is weak. The Lizard King does not wish to accept an alliance with these strangers unless he meets Rimuru so arrangements are made. Souei asks the lizards not to fight alone because their dead will fuel the enemy army and the king gracefully agrees.  However since it takes 7 days for RImuru to get to the marshes.. Gabiru shows up before and overthrows his father. He fights the orcs out in the open and sees them power up as they devour their dead while the narration tells that the man has made a horrible mistake.

This episode functions as an exposition episode and those usually aren’t good..but by using the skills of the dryad the show does manage to do some exposition spam  without it feeling forced.. it is just her ability! It also does a great job at keeping Rimuru’s neutral stance intact. By offering him a treat he can not ignore he is forced to intervene as the threat becomes to large to ignore. It really establishes Rimuru’s thinking style more as that of a regent of sorts rather than an OP hero! He doesn’t want to lose anyone so he does not want to take needless risks!  This episode all brings it in balance without feeling to “change of heart like”  My favourite scene is Rimuru having a massive man crush on Souei calling him a Dream Boat.. to me it shows how Rimuru’s mind is changing and how he likes it not having to be the one who always tosses the first stone! I laughed a lot! Shizune was cute in the brief moment she shined and all in all I did get those good old feelings the good episodes of this show gave me.. I just got a whole lot of other stuff as well.

All the Gabiru stuff is pretty bad, I really hate the character.. not in the good way as in I hate his qualities.. no I hate that the character exists. I hate that for no reason at all his followers keep clapping for him no matter how often he gets his but kicked or how often he is made to eat his words. I hate how he basically is named in SO much forsight for this weird plan of Lord Gelmud whatever it is. I hate how his father’s weapon actually recognises him! With everything that happened so far it just feels SO un-earned. The show goes out of his way to show he is weak, delusional and not very tactical yet expects me to buy that he has so much respect because Lizards are a warrior race?! A warrior race knows when to fight it doesn’t just like to fight there aren’t barbarians! When another army approaches that will chop you to bits a warrior race would fight tactically.. look at the spartans..but no! Just because there needs to be a complication everyone follows Gabiru! The father barely tells him he is waiting for a super powerful ally that can resolve this situation much better than they can. He doesn’t tell the orc lord can consume the dead so he must not attack.. he just gets send to jail so Gabiru can make the stupid mistake. Everything about the whole character is dumb!

While the episode does a lot of clever things with Rimuru and raises the stakes it also enforces complications on the story that are completely not needed. Just raise the base power of the orcs a bit to give the same level of difficulty from the get go .. and  you could have the exact same story. Heck tell the orc army ate half of their own so instead of fighting 200.000 average soldiers you fight 100.000 that are twice as strong that is still pretty darn scary those numbers are scary enough! There is no reason for Gabiru to exist here other as to make the plot trample. While I did enjoy myself with this episode more than I did with Samurai Flamenco this episode feels pointless to me.. pointless but entertaining versus useful but no entertainment. The fact that I enjoyed it more..keeps it just a smidge above the formers grade as I mainly want to be entertained.. but please let the show pick up again!

Flip Flappers Episode 8

Lasers, Gatai, Aeroplanes and buff bodybuilding pigeons!  Apparantly that is what I needed to give Flip Flappers my number 1 spot of the week again! After the slow paced episode of last week and the somber Cocona this high energy , positive episode was just what I needed.  Thank you Flip Flappers!

Cocona , Yayaka and Papika are playing by the pool! Yayaka is glad to see Cocona seems to be a lot better than last time! Showing she truly cares. When Papika gets a little too playful she and Cocona end up in the swimming pool but instead of taking a dive into the cool water, they are plunged into deep Illusion. We see a cold and sterile world.. very cyberpunk like. I would assume this is a look in the mind of Yayaka but as always I can’t be sure.  While Papika tries to eat some electric cables Cocona gets attacked by a laser spitting pidgeon monster with more muscles than a Jojo’s character. Papika saves her and together they go Flip Flapping. The monsters are a bit much for them though so Yayaka steps in to save them much to the dismay of her partners. Failing to get the amorphous shard she retreats. Laser Pigeon gets back up again and gets killed by a tiny professor guy who claims to have built this city. It turns out his city was a utopian paradise filled with tech and cyberpunk coolness! But it all changed when the laser bodybuild animals attacked.  Lead by something he calls a big creature that he fears. 

Papika and Cocona who are double the size of the scientist think they are big as well and step outside to fight the creature.. that is about the size of a Kaiju! With their magical girl powers unable to do enough damage.. they get into tiny mechas.. that can Flip Flap into a combiner robot!  The girls are easily defeated though so Yayaka meddles in and Flip Flaps along them into an even bigger combiner robot that destroys half the city in a giant beam attack.. but also the Kaiju!  Of course all these mecha’s have a golden eyebrow thing because.. it’s mechas! When the bad guy lies defeated the twins Yayaka tags along with snatch the Amorphous but the tiny professor steals it back and hands it to the girls who earned it.  Yayaka lets them have it and the twins swear to tattle on her!  Post credits we see Papika call Cocona Mimi by accident which triggers her and that is yet another episode that required me to summarize the plot in two paragraphs.

This episode was bonkers again and I needed that! After the last two humble episodes I needed magical girl transformations and little did I know I needed combiner robots as well. I theorise these  stand for Yayaka’s feelings towards teamwork. Her old team is clean.. uses hi-tech stuff and operates with precision and a sterility that is not seen from the girls. Yet somewhere she really wants to work as a team. And so the combiner robots come into play! Who only works to their maximum potential if you shout and let go! Emotion is needed as that is what really makes a team work, you can strategize all you want but if you care for each other you can achieve more than what you thought was possible! I love how this message is combined with very Gurren Lagann like visuals! The way fusion is first achieved, the whole shouting thing, it seemed very similar. Even the way the golden eyebrow thing is more a crescent than a certain v shape  like in Gundam made me think of Gurren Lagann a lot. The ridiculous combinations helped. And Since Tengen Toppa is my favourite anime ever.. this episode almost seems as a tribute to it REALLY sang for me!  These are the messages I like to see in a magical girl show and no one was really depressed for once! Great!  It looks like Yayaka might switch teams and might become a third magical girl maybe..and I really hope that she does but I will have to find out in the future! I am looking forward to it at least! The Mimi thing in the end could maybe give Papika something to go through instead of Cocona all the time!  So  yay for that as well! Oh and I loved loved LOVED the visuals of this episode!  The tiny professor was also very cute and the cramped mechas made me laugh!

Was there anything I did not like? I am not sure actually! Maybe the fact that they could not keep up their Flip Flap form in the mecha and were instead there in their bathing suit?! Then again the suit most people wear in mecha feels kinda bathing suit like so that might have been a joke?!  Papika trying to eat electricity cables was a bit dumb.. she is still a person people , she isn’t an animal?! At least I think! She might be an alien or something! I have no  idea anymore! She has a weird thing around her foot she can not remove. I am not sure what that was about! That felt kind of random. But yeah really that it’s this was one heck of an episode!  Not my favourite! I still think that goes to episode 3.. the Mad Max looking one but this is pretty much in my top 3 so far!

I do not mind the more humble episodes this show has but I am really glad they steered away from Cocona’s constant doubt, she took on a more pragmatic stance in this episode and for such a short series I love that. In a 100 episode series sure let your main character doubt about their mission but in a 14 episode one..this feels so much more like the way to go.. I felt like actual progress is made instead of being put back on course and it is what I want to see in Flip Flappers.. it is short so please blow my mind! Treat me to these fantastical landscapes as much as you can! I love this!

Hikaru No Go Episode 18

Sai versus Akira, we have been waiting. I wanna say 14 episodes for this now?! And it is finally here! I did not expect it to be As I really felt Touya’s father was being build up to something.. but here it is! And it was handled sublime! At the very least in the cinematography department.. The aftermath though made sure this one ended up on my third spot.

The big rematch is finally here.. but Akira is not sure if it is a rematch or not! It is at least important enough for him to  skip his match to become a pro! Apparently there are more of them but Waya has a great point in thinking this shows Akira thinks very little of them. Sai plays Touya and ends up winning yet again. It leaves Akira conflicted. Was that Hikaru he faced or was it not. He is unsure, so he goes back to the Go Parlor where he first met Hikaru. He finds out Hikaru spends time at the internet cafés somehow and now is convinced that he is Sai. So he runs towards some local internet cafés and finds Hikaru behind a computer… reading webcomics.   Hikaru gets told by Akira everyone is looking to find out who Sai is because he is so good. Not being able to live with this kind of pressure Hikaru decides to pull the plug on his little internet arc. Touya also seems disgusted by Hikaru’s mentality and promises that he will never see him again after some intense staring again.

Once more it’s a plot that I can fit in a very tiny bit of text but my oh my is that first half presented beautifully visually. We see Touya stand in front of a big blue glowing Go Board placing his stones. The environment is pitch dark. From the darkness with an accurate thinking pause Sai’s hand is shown placing a stone on  the board.  As he plays white the board seems to get brighter and brighter as he is closer to victory, while for Touya it feels almost as if he is encountering one of those retro video game final bosses. I loved it!  This is my favorite match so far, and Sai’s conclusion that both he and Hikaru grew but Akira did not is very strong! Touya chased something and became so obsessed that he did not really progress. He just wants to face that demon of his and it changed him as a player. I like that. The doubt he has as he now can see the playstyle from an adult but with some of the choices he knew are from Hikaru’s playstyle are great as well. The stakes, the outcome and how it is all brought to live is done amazingly well! The fact that the greats in the Go world know about this loss can become important as well.

What I like less is the second half. Akira finds the exact right internet café , Hikaru, to be reading webcomics instead of playing Go at that time.. and their logic in that part seems off.  Hikaru now feels like if so many people search for his identity he better stop now.. but if he stops right after Akira confronted him would that not confirm to Akira that he IS in fact Sai?!
The fact that Akira seems to blame Hikaru for not taking the sport as seriously as he does seems very hypocritical when the day before you skipped a tournament. Akira seems to really sever his bonds with Hikaru here and burn those bridges which makes it a bit hard to see where the show is going next.  Why set up all these pro players if they do not get to play Sai anymore.  Touya’s father also gained some focus and now it all seems tossed away?! Surely this can not be the end for them playing on the internet?! Can it?! Will we take a break from Hikaru and see the story of Waya and Akira placing for the pro’s maybe?! Yet when will we see Hikaru’s results from this training then?! I just don’t hope they will give us a proper payoff! 

Strong first half but the second half squanders a bit of potential in my opinion! It seems again like some trouble only arises for it to be called trouble! I think after having played so much Go on the internet Hikaru does realise he can just switch nicknames to keep Sai playing but it does not seem to be the case. Summer vacation is almost over .. so it would be nice to see him go back to school and suddenly completely outclass Mitani and Tsutsui!  Yet everything in that second half of this episode to me screams that they are blocking off to much content for themselves.. much more than I would like!  So while it is still a very good episode I liked it less than my number 1 and 2 of this week.

Tonight a friend will come over and treat me to dinner, tomorrow I will host my online tabletop! They are playing trough a Kingdom Hearts themed arc and just destroyed the world of Beauty and the Beast by removing the rose from their story. They looted it.. now they have to deal with the fallout and take their anger out on some Huns when they venture into Mulan’s world. I have a family day on Tuesday, also meeting my father, something I look less forward to and on Friday I should meet some friends for board games, we are gonna play Epic Spell Wars of the Battle Wizards and Gloom, amongst some other thing! I really hope the contract for my new apartment will come soon so I can start cancelling things here!

On the blog we will conclude the Favourite Top 5 with the final type, the Fairy Type.. my favourite Type! I got the next chapter of What If Raditz Turned Good already written out and we will discuss another Uwe Boll movie with my review of BloodRayne 2! Indigo’s first post should drop as well so yay for geeky content! Speaking of content! I would be very content if you decided to support my Kofi down below or leave a nice comment below! Thanks for reading and I hope you have an amazing next week!

Pinkie’s Saturday Anime Adventure 17

Another week is done! It’s been a post where I struggled with my health a bit. Insomnia caused some extreme fatigue issues in the middle of this week and my heart being a bit weak at times caused me some extreme nausea in the earlier parts of yesterday! All good now though! Happy and with colour on my cheeks again! Time to tell you about the anime I watched saturday!

Digimon Adventure Episode 5

Holy Digicow  another week that Digimon is my favourite view of the day?! What’s up with them?! Yet again another very solidly paced  episode with plenty of action to balance the fair amount of exposition! And so much great foreshadowing! Wow!

In this episode Sora and Taichi reach some ruins of what was once a great temple. Using their digivices they can read the mystical text on giant stone slabs and it asks them to feel the words. Once they touch the slab they get a vision of a digital world of the past. A war was fought with the Mega forms of the Digidestined digimon partaking in this war. They also see Omnimon again. They learn that they, along with other chosen ones, have a role to fulfill to help their digimon evolve and face evil. If they can’t stop this evil it will leak out into the network and eventually into their work. From inside the belly of a Whamon Koshiro deduces that this in fact must be happening right now.. but through his digivice he shares this vision. 

Also it turns out the statue is not of Hououmon but the digimon whose feathers Takeru and Kairi have been getting.  Almost as if it is one of the three digimon deities. Yet to my knowledge the holy trinity was always Ophanimon, Seraphimon and Cherubimon.  So who is this?!  Before all exposition is given however both Koshiro inside Whamon as Sora and Taichi are attacked by the forces of evil! The Goggle boy and helmethatted companion are attacked by Dokugomon who trap them inside the pantheon of ruins with their webs and Koshiro is attacked by Tylamon. Through the power of evolution all the forces of evil get dispatched and we learn of a mysterious digimon that controls others with sound.. and it seems to belong to Devimon! Now that Kabuterimon has been introduced.. Koshiro travels on him to meet up with the group and we pan to plant-village. A cute Pelmon runs around..towards a girl with a pink dress and pink hat! Mimi is here! Yay!

This show is SO well paced out in comparison to the original. We get background story, we get world mythos, we see every character so very much established!  Koshiro uses his smarts to analyse attack patterns and uses it to dodge foes. Sora once again is very lovable towards Biyomon (whom I shall keep referring as Biyomon even if in Japanese it’s Piyomon)
We see their mission, get teased  with the return of a classic foe, and now that we know these three digidestined we get introduced to the next one. There were so many great moments and the pacing is so nice. For example at one point Birdramon needs to escape from a web so Biyomon digivolves real time. In the fight that happens next that has much more a montage feeling to the beat of the new intro song we see the “stock footage” digivolution scene of Greymon. Both feel incredibly well paced.  Koshiro is making contact with Tentamon when the evolution occurs so he also gets a real time evolution sequence which again fits the tone needed greatly. The whole backstory about the original war gives this world so many more layers and Kabuterimon’s fight was pretty awesome. My favourite scenes would be the hints of Devimon and Mimi coming, I want more! And I nearly broke my own rule and continued to watch on! I was that excited.

I have little gripes with this episode. If anything, displaying Digimon’s names even if we saw them before looks a bit tacky in red but it is very readable.. I just don’t read Kanji so it feels a bit wasted. The only real gripe I had is that Taichi and Sora seem to have forgotten soundwaves were running through the web earlier, when Koshiro mentions a soundwave using Digmon over communications. That feels a bit cheap. Biyomon tells him  that she saw  Digimon before and in fairness Digimon eyes , especially birds would be much better than that of a human so the problem is subverted a bit but there the exposition given in this episode felt a bit forced. Only standing out because of good the backstory is delivered in the rest of the episode. It is a very lore heavy episode and to me as a fan, that lore came with a lot of interesting visuals. I could recognise Mega’s I could recognise other important elements of the digital world. Perhaps if you are less versed with this world it might be less appealing to you. But I can’t judge that I can just speak for myself! 

This in a way reminds me of my beloved DuckTales reboot..but maybe better. Both tell an old story in a contemporary way but add much more substance to the world. However where Ducktales came from an episodic format to this mory story driven one.. Digimon already had this sort of Origin with a progessive storyline. It really seems to fix everything what did not work about the old digimon and weave a much more interesting tale. Assuming this show will run as long AS other Digimon series I love this pacing! I love how this episode gives us something new.. some fun action to digest it and then sets us up for another episode! As far as my viewing experience goes! I can’t fault it!

Samurai Flamenco Episode 12

Unlike Digimon this is an episode I can fault! I loved a lot.. but there was also a lot of stuff I really hated as well. I am still not sure but the show seems to be making choices I really don’t think fit in with what came before. For the first time since I started watching it Samurai Flamenco was my least favourite watch of the day.

We see Masayoshi be part of the Flamengers and do their thing in this episode. In a style very similar to how Samurai Flamenco.. the character got rushed to his final battle.  We see all three of the other monster generals being dispatched in this episode!  We also get a really weird new opening. Why weird? Because it only shows the fight against Ugly Toxic Poison and no new stuff. It barely even focuses on the flamengers.  Something feels fishy about it.
We see Masayoshi struggle with his new command and with being respected…this leads the Flamengers to be in more danger than they have to be! We see some act to cold others to be hot headed and Masayoshi needs to pull them all together! Even if his heart might point out one way or the other. Because he misses his old life he goes back to Goto.. mostly because the new team doesn’t want to eat Curry with him.  They talk a bit and we find out that Moe has been depressed because Mari went missing.  She is living in Goto’s closet and still trying to seduce him. He seems less averse of her but that might be me! Masayoshi tries to recruit Goto as the Yellow Flamenger but he refuses. The Flamengers fight the final two generals of From Beyond and defeat them ..after they find out one of them is actually 43 monsters. Slowly the team begins to respect Masayoshi and they go eat curry together.

I did not enjoy myself that much with this episode. Something felt off for me. I don’t like how easy controlling that giant Robot feels like and how easy these new abilities are to wield for Masayoshi.  I do not like that Moe suffers without Mari! Yet I also saw a lot of good things. As always it does a great job on setting up stuff. I liked how their robot’s emblem could melt in the heat, I love how Masayoshi’s career is now inverse as how he started. My favourite scene is him encountering a drunk man on the street smoking. Masayoshi tells him it’s a no smoking zone and the guy recognises him and puts out the cigarette without polluting and puts it away. Thanking Masayoshi for all his good work. That is a really great callback to the show before. I also like how his reliance on Sentai Tropes makes him think of a good solution later on in the episode! There are some very solid thoughts going into here. I also really liked how the Giant Robo took realistic damage from the fire! That isn’t a thing in Sentai shows normally.

I really do not like the flamengers though! The way everything is paced, how Masayoshi suddenly doesn’t have to learn things anymore, the way every important element is dispatched without impact. this doesn’t feel like a team. In part that is what this episode meant to convey. I like how everyone tells what they add to the team in a documentary style but suddenly that style is dropped near the last bit of the episode so it doesn’t fully pay off. It also shows you a big problem. I know nothing about these other guys. So I am not invested at all in what they do. I don’t feel invested in these fights. I recognise it’s still solid. I am just not having any fun with these guys, they feel flat and one dimensional.  It feels like I suddenly have really bad seats in a cinema.  I can sorta follow the movie and it’s sorta good still but with all these tiny little annoyances around I just can’t get sucked up into it anymore. I do not like the Flamenger design as it feels as a downgrade of the very personal costume Masayoshi had, I can’t be invested in their weapons because they now have so much less flavor.  Even their posing explosion is dull and grey as if something is off! It lacks the energy it should have..maybe it is intended..but I just felt a whole lot of meh.

I can’t score it to harshly though because there still is so much great writing going on! I just don’t care about it as much! It is an issue that needs to be fixed though, maybe now that Masayoshi is forming bonds so can we.. or maybe we go with something new yet again.. like I said things feel off! The opening was weird and a few things do not align and this show is to clever for it to not mean anything. As a solo episode however this did not do anything for me.

That Time I got Reincarnated as a Slime Episode 11

Slime climbed back up a fair bit after last week’s episode. It still did not reach the level of some of the episodes before but this was a very entertaining episode nonetheless. It takes the number three spot for me. 

Gabiru the named Lizardman shows up at the Village of Rimuru and tells him he now can serve Gabiru.. which doesn’t go over well with the Ogre’s , Ranga or Rimuru himself.. but first we see Shion’s cooking actually kill Gobta. …well not actually kill.. but everyone assumed he was dead. He has become a bit of the Meg Griffin of Slime which I had a lot of fun with.  Gabiru challenges Rimuru for ownership of Ranga but there is one problem. If any of these guys fight Gabiru they will almost certainly kill him and they want to find out what he has to say. So a Gobta.. who luckily gained poison resistance because of Shion’s food is there to fight for them. Threatening that Gobta might have to eat more of that food if he loses the little HobGoblin is unleashed and trashes Gabiru who tells the village that an army of 200.000 orcs is coming. Which one of their scouts confirms. Rimuru tells Gabiru he can come back later to talk about an alliance but he will not work under him.. and then a Dryad shows up! Pleading for Rimuru to go out and defeat the mysterious Orc Lord named by Demon Lord Gelmund. Since the group more or less were gonna do that anyway this hardly seems like an offer Rimuru will reject.. but the episode ends before we see an answer.

Comedy-wise this episode had a few great hits for me. The poisoned food scene was very funny and Shion and Shuna’s fight for Rimuru’s affection was done in a way that visually really pleased me.  Even if Shuna is a bit of a throw away character for a princess for now , instead just weaving. The other ogre’s also all add something to the village. It fleshes them out a bit more.  The treat of the Orc Army is now nice and thickly layered on and it will allow the show to go a few directions. Will they go for a direct confrontation or first recruit more allies for Rimuru’s little group? Everything is possible and that is what this show does well. It sets up expectations but also ways to subvert them. The way to write off Gobta so cold and cruelly came out of nowhere yet felt in line with what was shown before. His return however also did! I really expected him to be dead. The way Gobta used his powers as cool and I loved the visuals in this episode! I am happy that not everything is solved through Rimuru’s powers and they do come with a drawback.

Yet this episode felt like it was slacking a bit. It dragged in some parts. The rivalry between Shuna and Shion for example.  It was pretty established yet the seen lingered for a while to make some boob jokes and fangirl jokes. It wasn’t bad but it feels like it just could have been a bit snapier. Gobta’s fight was an example of how it was paced well but for some reason Rimuru kept imagining how the situation would have gone differently.. which all was super obvious! I don’t need to imagine Gabiru annoying people so much they will beat him to death! I know that would happen anyway. It kind of feels like those skits in Scrubbs the tv show where JD imagines a situation going elsewhere, it can be fun..but for some reason those fantasies are kept really toned down.. almost still images as if it’s a virtual novel..with some extra art. Because of this these scenes do not land for me and put a brake on the flow the episode. 

In the end the episode felt like a kid in one of those pedal cars. It’s cute and charming and it does move forward and you can clearly see where he is going..Yet it is also a bit impractical meaning the kid can’t really move as fast as they would like and the spectacle becomes a mix of endearing but also awkward. Still a mighty fine episode!

Flip Flappers Episode 7

This episode made me appericate the episode before a lot more! It contributed to things before I even knew! So with that my gripe against the last episode was gone. This one I really liked..yet because of the theming it ended up  at the fourth space when it came to my favourite views.

The plot of this episode.. how do I talk about that?!  Papika and Cocona discover that they have altered the personality of Iro-Senpai and feel really guilty about it. Suddenly she doesn’t care too much for art anymore and she paints her nails. Did they break her? Did they fix a trauma for her? Nobody exactly can tell them what happend and thusly Cocona doesn’t want to dive into pure Illusion anymore. “The Break-up”  is one of the anime tropes I really like the least so doubts if they should continue what they are doing midway a show.. that is about them doing THAT thing..fllies under that same banner for me.  They force Cocona into Pure Illusion however and she ends in an exact duplicate of her world.. with all sorts of different Papika’s.  Reflecting her doubts about change most likely. Is Papika still Papika if she is a pretty boy, or a scary girl? It seems these all reflect different aspects Cocona’ thinks about when thinking of Papika. The girl she can learn from, the scary girl, the pretty boy which she is attracted to and the little sister she must keep safe and tries to appeal to her. These are all aspects we have seen from Papika towards Cocona before.  In the end Cocona is unable to find the real Papika and she falls into a hole but Papika comes to rescue her with a spaceship made of the sewer pipe where they first met and Papika’s alleged house. or her stay over place at least.  They then fall into a field of flowers and Papika’s shard glows.. as she suddenly has a memory of being Mimi? A man has a shard that resonates with hers.

I really liked this episode from a distant observer kind of way. It was fun to see these different incarnations of Papika and see how they actually tie in  with the actual Papika. It was strong to see a much more realistic but empty world reflecting Cocona’s worries. It also shows to me at least how hard it sometimes is to separate dreams from reality. It can be really hard to tell, and sometimes in the real world even when there are actually people around you can feel as Lonely and lost as Cocona feels.  I do think once more they depicted her struggle very well. I like how we do not get a magical girl transformation in this episode either  as it was much more about Cocona’s issues to deal with what just happened and given what just happened these are very reasonable and logical doubts. So as far as cohesion is concerned this is one of the stronger episodes. The tinier form of storytelling, the much clearer metaphors. It very much works for the episode they made.

But yet again, I did not feel that swept up by it. I know why Cocona is having doubts and it makes so much sense..but with half a series to go I know it won’t last and that is my big issue with this trope. I get that it’s a storyline and in the context of what happened it works yet this trope never carries too much weight with it because there still is half a show to go until characters will get over it. Just like I know that Cocona won’t die at least not before the second to last episode, it feels just a tad pointless to make us the audience think she won’t be.. because.. who are you trying to fool?! While a character is in mortal danger there still is an excitement in showing how they escape. However when a character has to make a decision that struggle is much harder to make exciting. As a result the issue of Cocona’s inner conflict feels a bit like a non issue. We know she will flip the switch and no matter if it is because of Papika rescues here with a spaceship.. or she would have found the real Papika amongst fakes.. it would not have really mattered to us which one it was.. I am glad we got from A to B .. and A and B are legit. The stuff in between just feels just a tad filler.. entertaining filler but filler still.

It really is a great episode, it is just not MY episode. While this show really earned the feelings on display and does it well, I really do not like to see the hero in doubt about their involvement in the show, especially in such a short show. I want to see more content like episode 3 and 5 rather than this, so in a way the show just spoiled me. I still had a fine time watching it..but I want my amazing things from this show not just good things.

Hikaru no Go Episode 17

This episode was really simple yet effective. It is weird how involved I got with this. I might even argue it is a bit of a messy episode, but I had so much fun watching it!  Just because of a weird way to raise the stakes.

We pick up at the same go convention we left last time. People talk to each other about Sai and Waya even hypes him up to be that great historical figure whose name I unfortunately forgot..the legendary Go player that was indeed possessed by Sai. We see everyone going completely mental over Sai once they figure out that half the people of the convention are there.. and Waya’s word of hype triggers a young prodigy to get involved. That is right Akira shows up! A laptop is brought up ..with the internet for some reason even though I am pretty sure there was no  wireless internet yet? Where Dongle’s a thing? There is a thingie sticking out of the computer. Akira faces off online against Sai.. and they replay their second match stone for stone! But then to avoid being recognised Sai plays a different stone and  Akira resigns making an appointment to face him in the middle of his own Insei exams, showing he has not let his obsession go yet. Maybe he recognises Hikaru and wants to face him alone?! Whatever is happening clearly he is willing to risk anything for it, which angers Waya a great deal. The episode ends with Hikaru and Sai going to the café to face off against Akira when at the exams it is revealed Akira has not shown up.

I really liked this episode more than I should, for the most part it’s just a bunch of agitated foreign men shouting at each other if they know who Sai is. An international bunch of confusion. We mostly see side characters do unimportant things as they all speculate, until Waya recognises the playstyle of Sai and tells his master. Also adding in his theory that it might be a school kid. This triggers Akira to become involved as well, stepping a bit on Waya’s turf giving into his obsession. I like how the psychological game between him and Sai starts and how Sai is able to identify Akira because of it. I also really like that Akira recognises the online player as Hikaru. Opposed to Waya who sees Sai, though not knowing it is Sai in name of course. Hikaru got completely unmasked without being unmasked. It also gives Akira a bit of a different rival and maybe a potential friend in Waya. Sure Waya really seems to hate him now..but should they find out they obsess over the same guy. This episode has a way of building tension towards its conclusion..and then by making Akira resign it takes the tension to even bigger stakes. Thingies just got real.

Like I said before though, with all the international players shouting through one another the episode kind of starts out very cluttered. It’s a bit tiring to be tossed around all those international players whom we barely know. I recognise most of them but they haven’t been that established yet so I am not that invested in their perspective. The shouting can be a bit draining to the attention as it is hard to focus your attention on one thing. The show cuts around that fairly smart but it is very VERY clear that the goodness that was this episode came from the second half. I became so invested in this episode and the set up for the next during that half. The first half falls a bit flat in comparison. What it did though was show the emotional involvement of all these people! It shows all these people are really committed and that for me helps with the world building for Hikaru no Go. I complained a bit on how oddly these kids react to things.. almost inhuman but by mirroring them to these guys their reactions feel less over the top.It’s just how this world is. Visuals in this episode are a bit off I feel.The dutch guy seems to suddenly have lost a few pounds of weight and Akira looked a bit differently to me too. Hikaru no Go doesn’t have the best visuals and by setting this episode on a busy convention floor we do see some issues I think. Yet nothing I really worried about.

This wasn’t a flawless episode but it was one I was really engaged in and thus really enjoyed. While if I would measure with more objective standards for all we would get an entirely different list and different grade.. but as for my enjoyment this took second place. I really loved the ending so that’s why it gets my highest grade!

I already updated you on my last week! I have also been catching up with my laundry! I hate doing that as it makes noise that might bother other people! All caught up now again though! Also did a few cleaning things throughout the house where energy allowed at least! This week I have a nice family outing planned! The one that should have happened last week but due to my health.. and my sister making double plans this worked out better! Excited for that. Later today I might get some very important news that could be a big change in my life as well so I am a bit nervous today! So be sweet in the comments!

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 15

Even though it was really hot this week and I barely have gotten any sleep, the week has come to an end! When the week comes to an end Pinkie celebrates by watching five anime as if they were a Saturday morning cartoon line-up. Last week I was a bit disappointed but I also cried a lot! So much so that I labelled two episodes wrong!  No biggie though! I fixed it and this week we got proper episode numbers again! On both this post and the last one! Yay for me!

Digimon Adventure: Episode 3

So as expected this was the weakest view of the day. Yet once again this is saying more about my line-up than this actual series. Digimon Adventure is surprisingly good for what it needs to be. I saw the adorable Sora today! I really like her character so far! Even if we did not get to see a lot.

The episode picks up after the early omnimon digivolution! I had not noticed it yet but the logo for this show is basically omnimon.. so him coming out so soon kinda made sense. I am not sure exactly what happened in this episode as we leave the world of the Network after the virus from the last episode has been defeated. The nuke is still on it’s way to Tokyo but using their Digivice Yamato and Taichi manage to destroy the web virus infecting the missle.  A chain of mysterious events start, the missile flies up and explodes into space and an EMP cripples the city..but not for good.. everything restores itself. Taichi gets booted back to the real world seperated from Yamato again. Koushiro and Taichi head home and talk about Summer Camp.You know that location where everyone was at last when they got sucked into the digital world.  Yet nothing happens there.. they meet up with Sora and we see Jou stress out about wrongly cut meat and veggies.

Sora is the popular girl everyone heard of her and thinks she is cool. She also seems to have a bit of a thing for Taichi, setting her up more immediately as the crest keeper of love. Then time skips a bit ahead , people no longer talk about the mysterious incident when suddenly all the systems that the nuke shut down before began to shut down again. More malicious this time slowly crippeling Tokyo.  Koushiro and Taichi’s digivices begin to glow and they decide to meet up!  Sora runs after Taichi after meeting him up at the street and as the two known digidestined lock hands they get teleported to the digital world.. with a visual of a third thing being teleported as well.

Is it Yamato who get teleported? Could it be Sora?  Who knows?! The show offers us a few mysteries that feel much more concrete as the start of the original show. Why are these viruses targeting Tokyo , what are Digimon? Where does Yamato live?  Did he or Sora get transported? We don’t know yet  are able to ask questions. Unlike in the orginal where stuff just kinda happened.. here everything seems to be happening for a reason. As a result this is much more like a proper show with attention and care to it’s story writing. It is as if we are watching the story the original SHOULD have been. With some clear hints of dark elements, but also a lot of mystical isekai elements and cute interactions.  Whatever happened to the Network after the nuclear strike seems not to have created a much more beautiful digital world.. or is the Network just what connects the two worlds? I am not clear yet but I am intrigued. Compare this to the Original and there you just wanted the next episode to happen to see more digimon.. here I am finding myself invested in the story. The way Sora and Jou are just teased, yet so in line with their crests was definitely my favourite scene.. the camp scene is a great homage  and with just two lines of dialogue each I already feel.. Jup that’s right! That’s Sora and Jou! Sweet!

The Omnimon fight was a bit weird though, that guy is Beyond Mega level. Yes I am using the English terminology here because in English an Ultimate is the third form of a digimon after Rookie and Champion, while in Japanese Ultimates are the final form after Youth Adolescence and Perfect forms since I feel people are more likely to be familiar with the english branding I will use that indicator even though I am watching the sub version. This is how most people remember it… regardless Omnimon feels REALLY underpowered here or this enemy is already stupidly strong. It makes me worried for the future, the power scaling seems a bit skewed. If Omnimon now already is an option will the others even be relevant?
They go through a lot of effort to make him look cool but that also involves breaking earlier established rules.. if you kill a boss you kill the virus.. yet here Omnimon has to use a special technique?! I am not sure if I like that. Let’s keep everyone relevant and not make Omnimon  some kind of digi-jesus. It will all depend on the rest of the series though.

Despite the slightly convenient start.. which very well could end up becoming a big writing trap I really enjoyed myself with this episode.  There is plenty of potential for the future, but unfortunately the show also sets itself up to fail in the future. Dropping landmines in its own court alongside nuggets of gold. Whether we will get rich or blow up remains to be seen but this episode was a double bladed sword. There is not much wrong with this episode. It’s a bit like  making a delicious tea when your favourite, but dumb,  nephew is around.  You may end up with good company and some good tea or you may end up with screaming company and hospital coffee. While nothing is wrong yet when the tea is on the stove.. those minutes until you pour your tea aren’t as enjoyable as they could be.

Samurai Flamenco: Episode 10

The final battle has been fought and we aren’t even halfway through the series! What the heck! Also I was wrong! There go my  predictions I really thought we would get a Fight Club like scene but no! Instead my favourite girl gets tortured, the  poor thing. Pinkie is here for you Moe!

The episodes opens up with Samurai Flamenco on his bike speeding to King Torture’s secret base to do his final battle and save Mari. Mari meanwhile gets tortured by King Toture, I never suspected he would be into that. He tells her she is a side character and he has no interest in fighting her. When she refuses to believe this he tells her she is a horrible person and it is revealed she is not the only one in there. King Toture has captured Moe as well.. as he begins to crush her finger and she cries in pain he offers her to give up her life for Mari and agrees  without any doubt. She tells that she lives and breathes for Mari so she would happily die for her as well. Which makes King Torture respect her.. she is an actual good person an actual hero. He then tells Mari she is a fake hero, who only told Moe to save herself because it’s a hero line.

Mari goes silent as King Toture reveals that Moe is aware that Mari said it to spout a line as well but hoped that Mari hoped she would sacrifice herself. Samurai Flamenco drops in and the final battle begins! It is revealed that Torture plans to use a missle to make his monsters grow.. he was a Sentai fan like Masayoshi but saw the benefits of evil and began turning people into cyborgs. Goto is warned and joins Masayoshi in the final fight with him being tasked to stop said missle, which he does by ramming Mari’s car into it.. and Masayoshi rips out king Torture’s robotic heart. With the fight over, Flamenco walks outside and reveals his identity to the world.

Wow last episode was kinda lame but this episode was SOOOO strong! I can’t believe he did an Iron Man.  And Moe.. I love her so much! That scene  with her was so touching. Even if she knew Mari wanted Moe to die in her stead and be the one that is tortured , Moe loves her anyway. Her friend and the woman she is in love with is hurt so she just hugs her and tries to keep her safe at all costs regardless of what that friend did to her. King Tortures dialogue with Mari really felt Tarantino-esque.. I am specifically referring to the “Superman” talk  from Kill Bill 2. The way he twists Mari’s beliefs, yet speaks truth and makes sense is briljant. That whole Moe, Mari interaction is my favourite moment in the SERIES not just this episode. The dialogue with Samurai Flamenco and that he is a Sentai fan who took lessons from villains is friggin great. His bond with his monsters, his logic.. I get it! Even Samurai Flamenco being his trigger to finally dare to do this is amazing.  There is so much heart in it. I even had a chuckle when Goto’s girlfriend texted him while he was busy driving a car into a missile. Finally that stuff paid off. It even tried to make sense for why monsters exploded.. I love this show a lot for how it brings Sentai much more down to earth and in such a clever way. This episode is filled with that.

There are few minor gripes I have with this episode though. Reality has been a bit floaty around these bad guys, which I do not mind but all our human characters have been very much exposed to normal human limitations, which makes this show so good. Yet they make Goto jump out a moving card drop three stories into an exploding room and walk away without injury?! That seems slightly against the point they were trying to make. I will go lenient here because we do not see exactly how deep the drop is and maybe he landed better.. but still a bruise or a shoulder injury would be nice there and help keep the story feeling a bit more humble. Secondly a few things did not make sense. We saw that first guy transform in a monster as far as I remember. King Torture here says people willingly let themselves transform into monsters by surgery.. that first one did not look willingly..also he would have had sugery again to make him fold into a human again then?! I don’t get it.. maybe I missed something maybe it’s a plothole.. maybe it’s intentional?! While it did strike me as odd.. unlike Digimon.. I have the faith that this show will explain this to me.. it’s good at that. So for now this is only a small issue!

Thus this episode does it again! I might have found a plothole but even if I did, I don’t really care. I am willing to accept this retcon because this story is so amazing!  There is so much cleverness hidden in here and the dialogue in this anime is absolutely among the best I have seen. Top 20 easily if not top 10. That Tarintino influences once more is shown and along with the whole concept of this show it blends so well into this episode! Highest Score possible.

That Time I got reincarnated as a Slime Episode 9

So obviously this episode wasn’t going to top last week for me! I cried so much last week! I thought I would see a battle against the orcs this week.. and in a way I wasn’t too far off. Instead we are introduced to Ogres..I think it’s the guys in the opening before they are named or something but I am not fully sure.  All I know is, we got a pink character introduced! She seems important as well so YAY!

Rimuru is exploring the benefits of his new human form and discovers in his natural state he has no gender. He can give himself one if he so desires but he seems to opt out of it wanting to honour Shizune. He carries her mask along as a keepsake. Shizue had a skill called degenerate which allows him to combine skills I think.. allowing him to grow even more powerful and develop black fire.  He also discovers the mask Shizu wore completely hides his magical presence. So he decided to wear it when facing new people… suddenly Ranga cried out for help when the village is under attack. Rushing back he sees the Goblin Lords overwhelmed by a pack of ferocious fighters who protect a cute pink horned girl who puts their defeated opponents to sleep. This leads Rimuru to believe they are not evil and he tries to talk to them..however they think he is a Majin,.. as their village was attacked by someone in a similar mask.. an orc. I assume Gelm or whatever that orc at the end of last episode was called. Since RImuru refuses to remove the mask not wanting to show his true potential yet.. things escalate and he has to fight the ogres easily defeating them.. wanting to talk to them by sparing them does not yield any results as the Ogre Leader is willing to die.. while fighting with his head held high. When the Pink ogre stops him.  She tells him Rimuru might not be evil as he is so powerful.. he doesn’t need to work how their Majin did.. he gets convinced and decides to talk with Rimuru at the village. That’s where the episode ends. 

Surprise surprise, I liked the pink Ogre, there is a mystique to her and this group seems powerful. I think they will lead us into the story that is the season’s main “arc” both based on the opening and the fact that we are almost 10 out of 25 episodes in without having a main mission to focus on. I doubt demon lord Leon Cromwell is in his direct sights unless he is responsible for the attacks on the Ogres, but we still need to find out the identity of the plague doctor as well. I like how this episode feels to have some weight to it and I do like Rimur’s battle with the ogres, with my favourite scene being the moment his hand gets cut off and he casually puts it back on. Also having another character that recognises the skills he uses is nice. The old man ogre might have a great sage like ability as well. I also like how snappy great Sage can be from time to time.. she doesn’t do it often but she can do sarcasm which lifts her beyond just an exposition tool for me. The pacing is nice and we get a very solid episode throughout.

This episode does stick very much to the clichés thought. The Red Ogre has fire power, the big ogre is strong but slow.. and the tiny girl ogre with pink hair has the support skills and might be a princess.  As a D&D player I know these tropes are super common in any tabletop and it helps us evaluate danger a bit, yet it also means it does never feel amazing. Even the old man .. being white.. being super fast feels kinda cliche.  What is it with fast old guys. Gran Torino (My hero academia) , Yoda, The Whizzer (from Spiderman)  and much more. Then Rimuru disappoints me a bit. In the beginning he makes a female clone of himself but matures up and gets all embarrassed by her breasts. It feels a bit needlessly fanservicey even if nothing is shown. Also he used to be a 33 year old guy.. a virgin but still.  He also has been buried in elf boobs earlier so I don’t get why he is THAT awkward about it. Part of what gives Rimuru his charm is that he is actually a matured character. A bit of an otaku sure, but here are a few moments where he feels a bit too much like a sixteen year old boy to me. It’s not like I hate it , I would just have loved to see him act a bit more mature and less .. again…cliché.

That could not ruin my fun with this episode though and this episode is makes me understand why people call it one of their trash-taste-favourites or lower class gems or whatever else they use for a show that isn’t deep but very entertaining. I do even think these terms sell it short. Even if it has no deep message , this show has won a place in my heart regardless of what standard it adheres to. And it rarely scores lower than my second highest ranking. 

Flip Flappers Episode 5

I love it when a funny show tackles horror, that was why I was so upset Bofuri skipped the horror locations each and every time!  Flip Flappers though delves into a Victorian Horror World this time, as our heroes get their transforming items and their catch phrase. Having won my heart yet again , it was time for some Flip Flapping.

This episode picks up post whatever pure illusion they got sucked in at the end of last episode..which made me a bit grumpy at first, but briefly it was explained that they lost more amorphous thingies to Yayaka… which made me grateful for not seeing it. We could feel the sense of loss, and get their frustration but we do not need to see that loss. As it would not have meshed with the tone of last episode.  This time the girls get a magic item that allows them to help transform for this they need to pick an item they cherish. Papika has plenty of stuff and chooses a bracelet while Cocona has difficulty deciding  She has no items she cherishes so Papika gives her a twig. She rejects it at first but then settles on it anyway.  I began to notice how Cocona always has trouble when she needs to make choices. They then travel to a Victorian horror world where they find themselves stuck in a time loop. Occasionally encountering Yayaka who isn’t making that much more progress than them.. but always seems to be a step ahead rubbing it in their faces. 

There are creepy dolls, girls with no faces and time loops, so I assume this might be Papika’s fear.. of a mundane life.  I am not sure thats what I make out of it. Of being locked inside the house as well as there is a fairly deadly sort of rain that knocks them out and bloody.  Lots of freaky stuff is happening here. Eventually though the girls find a secret exit that allows them to enter the mysterious clock tower. Where they race Yayaka and her fellows.  When Cocona ends up in trouble along with Yayaka .. her allies betray her  and basily leave her to die.  Papika transforms to save Cocona but also saves Yayaka even if the doesn’t care for her.. surprising the latter. Papika tosses Cocona towards the bell to destroy it before it can ring 11 times.. and resets time but misses.. Cocona transforms and hits the bell with a hammer, actually allowing it to ring 12 times breaking the curse and revealing the artefact. Yayaka saves them from Pure Illusion and the episode ends with Cocona refusing to give her the item saying she earned it herself.

I loved how the creepy girls spoke and the two girls being slightly endeared to them after finding out they are not that scary, The girls give them tea, do embroidery with them and live the same life day in and day out. Meanwhile Papika and Cocona are actually different, that is not for them. They have a mission! They have to break that routine and can’t be shackled down by it. This resonates so hard with me. While we have taken a look in Papika’s and Cocona’s mind with Pure Illusion this could be a look into my fears.  The rain prevents me from going out maybe not so much, but as a metaphor of not having other options than stick to what is done there.. It still works. So yeah my favourite part of the episode is basically the entire episode. At least the parts in Pure Illusion. I loved LOVED the visuals in this one.  The red glowing clock, the faded out colour palette, the creepy faceless masses. I adored the design.  I also loved what they did with Yayaka in this episode. It made her a bit less stuck up. She has some redeeming qualities so yay for nuance!

What I liked less is once again that Papika is very dumbed down. This time for some reason she is not smart enough to remember Flip Flapping.. she can just remember the Flip Flap part… the magical spell to transform them. She overcomes this but come on! This is a girl who worked for Flip Flap for a while. She can identify poisonous and good berries on instinct. She is capable of having normal conversations. I guess Flip Flapping makes more sense in english so maybe that’s why.. but remembering to end a ping behind the organisation you worked for , for quite some time seems quite easy. I don’t know why they do her dirty like this. I don’t mind her being a dunce it’s cute.. but they push it a lot at times.  This event only occurs twice though so it’s not that overused and it is not like Cocona has higher success who knows the words so it’s rather irrelevant I just love Papika as a character so it feels a bit bad they make her THAT ditzy. But that’s like five to ten seconds of this episode.

That’s right, it’s a bit more brief about my positives and negatives.. because it’s just that good of an episode again.  I could highlight more specific points within the episodes that were good but I loved 21 minutes and 50 seconds of it dearly. I am very scared though.. Cocona has trouble with making a  choice in almost every episode. Let’s hope they dont build up to her having to make the ultimate choice in the last one.. I would be very sad. This episode however made me far from sad.

Hikaru no Go Episode 15

So there is a pattern for every two episodes or so of Hikaru no Go. I like there is oneI like less. More in favour of the positive.. never two negatives in a row.. so that would mean this episode would be good again.. as last week I was very dissatisfied. This turned out to be true! I really enjoyed episode 15. Also I was surprised to learn that the Netherlands has a character and apparantlu a Go Scene? I mean .. they based it on something right?

In this episode we see Hikaru and Tsutsui visit some sort of Go convention, as the main event it has an exhibition with pro players.  While Tsutsui is fascinated by the match Hikaru can not focus thinking on how he did both Sai and Touya wrong! He doesn’t want to be called the luckiest Go Player in the world for playing over his skill level either though so he has to find a way to let Sai play..without it affecting his own reputation. It harms people. So Hikaru discovers about online matches. I assume this series takes place before 2002 then because everyone is using those bright colourful macintosh things that were very popular in the 90’s. He is being instructed by some guy and reveals he wants to use this system to make Sai play.. as himself! Build up his own reputation. So together they visit an internet café  where Mitani’s sister works so they can play for free. Sai beats a few people including a really good Dutch player who is like fourth in the world or something and they promise to play more during summer break. Akiri Mitani and Tsutsui also make plans to meet each other and play go during summer break.

And that’s the entire lot summarised. Unlike all the other shows this one could be recapped very easily and it’s in part of what I like so much about this show. It’s always a simple humble tale that is the perfect anime to end my Saturday Morning Cartoon block on. After Flip Flappers blew my mind I can have a cooling down with this, and  this episode really does that well. It shows a boy wanting to redeem his mistakes, this is a logical consequence. This is also a logical solution to Hikaru’s problem which in its own is a conflict within himself  that feels validated by what happened before.The whole concept of online matches opens up the level of challenge we can get as well. Maybe even Akira’s father, big man Touya can now be a target. The Dutch guy did say that some Asian pro’s play online. It could give Sai an arc alongside Hikaru as two separate entities while Hikaru  can still learn from his mentor that way. Akiri learning Go and becoming more skilled at it was also great. She is so humble but I also felt my heart warm when she wanted to play team matches and hear her tell Tsutsui about what she learned from Mitani.. I like how she has a small arc but it is still kept measurable.

There wasn’t all that much I disliked about this episode either. Hikaru finally does right by Sai.. but he forgets about Akiri and his other friends again..which needs to be tackled soon. I also felt a slight lack of a closure on  the Touya front. For the tournament his match had been really built up, I would have loved to see him at least quit the theme or cry into his pillow or something with next week’s episode fleshing it out a bit. He was just as important as Hikaru but it feels like a lot of time has  passed since their loss. I also like the cinematography of the online matches less. That could have been done a bit more dramatically.  Not a lot but they could do something like where you replace the mouse in their hand with a go stone and place it on a board in their head.  Most matches are skipped anyway which is a shame because I really would like to see Sai play for once. Finally Sai’s crying when Hikaru walked out of the demo felt a bit lame. Where everyone’s tears mean so much normally this cartoony approach annoyed me just a tiny bit. Not anything major but it was my least liked scene nonetheless.  Just less heartfelt as all the other moments.

In the end it is hard to fault this episode. It did not have me in awe as much as Flip Flappers and Samurai did, but I probably placed it a slight nodge above Slime this week. So while it doesn’t gain my highest ranking it is on the cusp of it. It’s like a fifth glass of wine during a wine tasting where you don’t use the spitbucket. The taste sensation is a bit dulled in comparison to the bold flavours that came before and you are not given the best wine and the staff just pours you a rather mundane but passable wine. Yet somehow this one in all it’s humble origins can measure up with the best. Is that a merlot grape I am tasting no.. it’s a :

So this week is over. With temperatures this high my focus had been very low! I had a bit of trouble writing! I am lagging a bit with my posts as a results. So some slight struggles! So my backlog is a bit dried up! I had a few days I got some heat nausea. Had a lot of fun though. I finished Divinity Original Sin 2. I started Pokémon Ranger Shadow of Almia. I got a few shinies in Pokémon Go and other than that , I mostly isolated myself. Too hot to hang out with friends! A new wave of outbreaks for Covid have made me a bit more careful to go out, and well I felt like Cheddar for the most part of the week though. It’s not fun to go out for drinks if people just see Cheddar sitting on that chair! Pink Cheddar would be awesome though… so I am going to make a hamburger now!
I hope your next week will be amazing! And I will see you all when I see you! Stay Safe stay Happy!

Pinkie’s Saturday Anime Adventure 14

My dear Island guests! It’s the end of the week again! So that means I watched a whole lot of anime like it is a Saturday morning cartoon program. Five shows with fake commercial breaks in between, set time slots (so if I am late I skip part of an episode) and a bowl of cereal! The past two editions quality was pretty amazing with over half the shows getting perfect scores! Unfortunately that streak ended this week!  I still had a good time watching my five shows but the overall viewing experience wasn’t as great. Let’s take a look at what we saw. Of course since these are episode reviews they will contain spoilers!

Digimon Adventure Episode 2

Digimon is a great way to start your morning and this second episode.. really surprised me!  I did expect to see what I ended up seeing. Other than that it was just perfect low brow entertainment befitting of a Saturday morning… with a seriously dark undertone though! Jeesz!

This episode is a direct continuation of last week. Taichi has just encountered Yamato while Koshiro tells them about the attack on the  United States army.  Inside the digital environment , Taichi and Greymon and Yamato and Garurumon have to rush towards the new location where the virus digimon are causing trouble. The “new kid” seems to know what he is doing but he has difficulty playing in a team and communicating with Taichi which causes some problems. As we cycle through a set of techniques and digimon forms from the viruses we discover the point of this hack is actually to fire a nuclear missile. The group is unable to stop the monster in time which keeps evolving. As the missile is launched it is headed towards Tokyo as a strange feather falls down on several places in town .. going to the youngest two digidestined of old but also to Koshiro.  As Garurumon and Greymon are about to be finished off.. we see blue and and orange lights swirl intermixed on their digivice… and we see….. OMNIMON?! Huh!?!

This episode was a bit of a mixed bag for me, I really liked the darkness of the ending. A nuke being fired at Tokyo killing Kairi , Toshiro and Taichi’s family in nuclear fire if they fail? Man that sure is concrete… and a very heavy consequence for episode 2 and a children’s show.  Greymon and Garurumon suffering defeat this early on is also very powerful! It establishes this show is something completely different from the old Digimon Adventures. I like how characters are more defined into a role. Yamato clearly has much more of a road to travel.  The old one was a jerk but he was pretty easy to lean into the group dynamic making his crest of friendship an easy journey. Here it seems a much more tangible element.    I also like how the enemies seem to have more of a style. While it does make them more interchangeable with the plot being chosen so far I can really see this being much more of a designed attack. While it is still monster of the week-like it feels much less so due to recurring design.. it feels much more like a designed attack which makes this the most high stakes digimon series from the get go I have seen so far. I also like that we only see hints of the other digidestined drizzled in. Kyoshiro’s laptop had an effect and the feathers were a thing but it’s not all.. bam! Happy group here and ready. These guys don’t bond over years we never saw.. these guys bond over a experience we also experience and thus I feel their characters are all much stronger already.

Yamato’s personality however also puts the first half of this episode in some trouble. He says nothing.. so we only see him say like.. Watch out! GO!, or “where do we go” . It creates a bit of a weird dynamic where the new character being introduced is basically just “shown” we learn nothing about him. We SEE Takeru so we assume is in Tokyo as well.. but I have doubts. He did not seem as startled, does he even know of Takeru?! Do they even live in Tokyo? We don’t know anything he is just there. While the fighting in digimon never looked as good and fluent as this did.. by having the villain constantly evolve all previous fights are basically nullified unless they took lessons out of them.. and to be fair .. they didn’t really. In te penultimate phase..which is in the second half of the episode they begin to sync up and come up wit some more advance tactics but the first half is just about shooting fireballs or blue fire beams.  Which in the end do not do anything..so it felt a bit wasted. Entertaining time waste but still time wasted. It’s not bad but if you did not see the first 15 minutes of this episode you would have not missed anything establishing. So I would  have loved to see maybe a shadowy figure of an evil guy telling the virus to hold on.. or sending it some energy to evolve. Maybe have Yamato spout a line that he only trusts one person.. or give us a gander at where Joe and Mimi are.

It’s still a nice episode but clearly less than the first episode! The Omnimon reveal in the end is super cool but only if you know who Omnimon is. Also the design still has Metalgarurumon and Wargreymon arms so .. how is that explained?!  I know DNA digivolution is something else..  but if you are not a fan of the series this reveal might not have any impact. Also DNA there a very much visual clues for a fan.. but if you are new to the franchise or joined in post Adventurers you might be very confused to what happend. I am a fan though and the reveal was pretty cool!  Regardless how it happend! I want to know more! So with that in mind my score is quite favourable for this episode! But lower than last episode.

Samurai Flamenco Episode 9

Another mixed bag episode for me! On the one hand I really loved WHAT happened but I kinda hate HOW it happened. There was this air of negativity surrounding this episode that just made EVERYONE super petty or bratty save for one character. When everyone acts unlikeable you are going to have a hard time making a likeable episode.

In this episode we make another time jump. Masayoshi has been steadily dealing with monsters and is becoming arrogant over it. He deals with them with more and more ease. Even so much ease the Flamenco girls just bailed. He can do this by himself. No one has died since the Gorilla and all monsters just end up exploding once Samurai Flamenco is done with them. The people now rarely react to monsters anymore. So when Branding Piranha shows up which tosses like poisonous business cards .. everyone sees it as a hassle for their own reasons. Masayoshi gets smug, Mari gets resentful and challenges Lord Torture and Goto is fed up with doing te paperwork and quits working with Samurai Flamenco. Mari tries to seduce him after he scolds her for trying to provoke the dark lord.. but as he refuses her again she pouts and sulks for te remainder of the episode.  Mister Konno, the tv guy who tried to unmask Samurai Flamenco gets captured by King Torture and his mind twisted near the end..and ends up betraying Flamenco Diamond’s identity to King Torture. Samurai Flamenco is summoned to fight is final battle against him but is stopped by henchman! Jun.. the gadget guy however steps in and fights in his place as he Masayoshi dashes off on his bike to save Mari.

What this episode does great is tying in consequences to the actions of the characters. They had a few episodes everything was going great and now they have to deal with the fallout of that. No one really appreciates a hero anymore when it becomes that common. The show shows how tv and reality work differently. This is best seen in my favourite scene! When the Torture Boys try to stop Samurai Flamenco when he is heading towards King Torture. He scolds them for being bad henchman being very annoyed. They tell him that they are very passionate about being evil.. so even if they are deemed of grunts they all dream of taking him down. Just because their leader wants to fight him too doesn’t mean their dreams and ambitions suddenly stop!  Great! This is the writing I want from this show and it is in here pretty deep! Jun stepping up with his gadgets to take these people down spouting lines like! Do NOT  underestimate STATIONARY are great and remember me why I fell this in love with this show!  The fact that the hero doesn’t remember all the villian names is also great. It’s like Sentai actors who forget monsters they fought because most monsters are just total pushovers and leave little impression even if they do with a crowd.  There is a lot of subtle references to tropes and expectations here that are being challenged and it was time for that. The narrative timing of this show is impeccable as always.

However the smugness people got over them in this episodes makes me care little for people. Mari’s envy getting her captured and tortured feels deserved, Masayoshi being shown some sentai tropes do not stick up in real life feels earned..but as a result there is no tension. Everyone in this episode except for Jun..who is the hero of this episode for me.. felt very shallow and deserving of the bad things that happened to him.  The fact that Masayoshi is just annoyed at the henchmen who stop him..instead of panicked he might not make it to Mari in time.. kills suspense though. The episode is to somber to be funny and that is fine.. but everyone is to flawed to be forgiven for their mistakes. Akira Konno, Masayoshi, Mari and even Goto all react super petty at several things and my least favourite moment is how King Torture made Akira flip over by simply saying.. it will give more interesting tv if you turned evil here!  Think of the entertainment value.  This is explained a bit trough that he got to know how the man works trough torturing him for hours, but the calmness of the flip made it feel a bit forced.. it does play in my theories though!  So we will see next week how things go!  I could have done without this episode if I am honest. It’s not bad but all the main characters took a bit of damage for me! 

Had they at least kept Masayoshi a bit more pure or Goto a loyal supporter I would have probably liked this episode a whole lot better. If they did not have Jun step in and fight the Torture Boys I would have given this episode a grade lower and it would slip into the “bad”  third of my review system. I love the world building..but I hate what they did with the characters this episodes! It does look like they are on their way to redemption so I doubt the bad taste will stick..but this might be my least favourite episode of the show yet.. as it did deliver what I wanted to see.. but in a way I really did not enjoy.

That Time I got Reincarnated as a Slime Episode 8

Man I was not ready for this! I half expected to see what I was about to see.. but it was an episode where I constantly fought a battle against tiers.. and then Eren made me lose that battle.  Hard. Wow… I did not expect to cry over a show like Slime.

The plot of this episode is all focussed on how adorable slime Rimuru gets the body he has in the opening. I had seen it had to much similarities to Shizu  to be a coincidence but I had hoped for a slightly more light hearted explanation than what we got. Shizu is dying after having her Ifrit removed from her.. having unfinished business she asks Rimuru to hear her out.  A bunch of exposition is given about the powerful demon lord, Leon Chromwell. We mostly see what she did with her life after that. How she met another Iskaid character.. like I already expected.. that thought her about Dragon Quest. We see her attempting a few things but failing at most things which she did in live.. even though she also had some great successes she recounts herself mostly trough her failures. As she starts to slip away from live she asks Rimuru to eat her..saying she does not want to decay in this world she had come to despise so much she does not want to be absorbed into it. Rimuru agrees and swears he will fufill her final wish and get her existence at least acknowledged by Leon Cromwell. The girl dies and Rimuru and her party say their final goodbyes as she is send into a perfect dream of meeting her mother again.  She is gone.. and now Rimuru has a new mission!  As we see a plague doctor like figure give an Orc a name and tell him he is Gleb or something.. the one that shall conquer Jura Forrest.. which is where Rimuru and his clan live. A new phase of adventure is about to begin! 

Man seeing Rimuru turn into  a human body just so he can cry tears over the lost Shizu was hard enough.  Seeing everyone shocked over her loss made me all misty eyed as well.. and seeing a woman die seemingly young..upset that she did not achieve what she wanted hit very close to home for me! It was not an experience I minded though..I just did not expect it. I fought against tears and I was winning. But when her old party asked Rimuru to transform into a human I was like.. oh they hug him for everything he has done for them.  When they used it as a way to say goodby to Shizu and talked to her and thanked her for everything they had done for them I knew I wasn’t going to win the battle anymore. When Eren then broke into tears… I followed suit. In fact I cried again just writing this review. This one really hit me right in the heart. Dying a failure is a big fear of me and the whole, wanting to say goodbye to someone..in such a way was really beatifull to me. Everyone got closure. Everyone moved on pretty fast sure.. but it’s a fantasy world.. people die a lot.. so it made enough sense.. they had their closure.. they thanked her from saving them from those big ants.. and for being their party member and that was enough.. it might be my favourite scene in Slime so far.. and I love how the fantasy world this show creates feels quite down to earth.
This was a great goodbye.

I am not  sure if the death was necessary to tell a tale  and her flashing back telling her tale felt kinda fast paced.. but she knew she was running out of time.. so it makes sense it was going fast as well , so I am not sure if I really have negatives to tell.  Eren doesn’t look great in her white mage like outfit it doesn’t seem to match her colour-scheme and design all that much, then again she is an ice mage.. but yeah ..that would be a nitpick!  Their story is probably closed now at least for a long while. I don’t think I will see them again in season one but I might be wrong..these characters really grew on me so while I said before I did not like them much..that has completely changed. I do feel Rimuru will leave the village behind after stopping the orc next episode so with that said I do feel like there isn’t much being done with that but I might be wrong. While I do love the set up of the bigger story the tinier subplots like building the village and the minor characters, they are parked a lot.. but it would not have fitted this episode either.. they should have done it before.

If an anime can make you cry it is doing something right. I would not cry for characters I did not care about and this show made me cry three times. Once during the viewing..once when writing my positives and even made me sniffle when I thought about crying for the characters typing these lines just now. I assume people dislike this episode .. but I cried..it was a good cry! I had closure in the end and it was a nice way to end a three episode arc.. in a more powerful way than i could have ever imagined.. it sets up plenty plot for the future as well .. so I can only give this my highest praise! 

Flip Flappers Episode 4

The fourth episode was the one that broke the perfect streak it had going so far! It still scores very high in my book but it slipped up a few times to many here to be the absolute best. It did not help it came after such a powerful other episode of it’s own AND Slime either.

In this episode Flip Flap established Papika and Cocona are out of Sync. This causes them to land in different spots which made them lose the important artifact to the other organisation and Yayaka’s group. To prevent this they must live together for a few days.. so from so from Friday till Sunday they will have a sleepover..which Cocona first calls a camp to patch up issues.. not for fun.. but as Papika is her usual self and shows her more and more wonders, around the school and later even on a deserted island Cocona warms up more and more to the weird girl.. although with some reluctance. She starts to respect the much more feral girl as she managed to turn a sewer pipe into a cozy but weird little house,  some weird vegetables she doesn’t even know into food.. and even can survive in the wilderness no problem. Cocona is confronted with her own shortcomings and realises Papika is very much an addition to her as they grow closer. The sinking of Papika’s rocket board leads them to having to escape by building a raft that quickly manages to get sucked up in pure illusion. In a Myriad of colours instead of getting blown apart the two now hold hands as they venture into a new adventure together saying they will never let go of each other!

I love this show! I love this show I love this show! Even when the episode is a bit weaker I can not help but to adore it. It does flirt around with one of my least preferred tropes.. and that is the “doubt of the partner trope”. You know “I only do this to save the world”  and claiming not to enjoy their company while the last three episodes proved otherwise. Where it shines though is in the fact that it doesn’t linger on that. Cocona is depicted throughout the episode more as someone who reluctantly accepts Papika only to find out more and more that she needs Papika in her live as much as Papika needs her. She is the brain while Papika is the heart. She is the break that keeps Papika in check.. or functional while Papika keeps her alive and while not very well adjusted in her own way she is just as skilled as Cocona.  In fact Cocona even begins to look up to her.. we are shown her limits on the deserted island.. which is my favourite scene. We are shown that these girls are not like each other and will most likely not change that much.. they need each other compliment each other and that’s what makes them such a great pair. They really do fit together like heads and tails on the same coin! With the exception of Papika’s house the colours are a lot more real as well..there isn’t anything strange going on. Showing us that this bond is not just needed in Pure Illusion but also in real life as well. 

The downside of this episode comes for me in the form with how Feral Papika is. She is almost a Tarzan to Cocona’s Jane.  While adorable it also dehumanises Papika a little.  At times she can almost seem more like a pet. Like A Pikachu to Cocona’s Ash..even though Uexkull and Bu-Chan are also there.  Papika isn’t THAT simple. Also what happened with Cocona’s need for glasses?! She doesn’t wear them at all anymore. It kind of invalidates Papika’s effort in episode 1. I would like to see some equality in that relation .. we constantly see Cocona huffing and puffing at Papika’s action but I would like to see Papika depicted as slightly less of a simpleton.. who doesn’t blindly love Cocona.. it’s nice she is a counterpart but I would love to see how she gets upset that Cocona doesn’t like spending time with her as the other way around. In the last episode we saw glimpses of that.. we could see Cocona shutting herself out because of doubt. or  maybe doubting Papika’s soup hurt the soft orange haired girl. The Cocona she adventured with would not say that or something.  Instead she is a bit over simplified and to me feels a bit like a puppy following her master. I do think more highly of her though so I think she is sold short by showing not even being able to tie a scarf.. even if it results in a super cute scene. 

Regardless of the route they walk I do really love this show still if Papika is a puppy she will is still a puppy I love! My gripe is more so that I do fully sense the equality the show is trying to aim for.  I hope this will fix itself as the show goes on.. if it doesn’t I am still perfectly fine watching the show.. but in episodes like this it will be fairly noticeable.  I still found it very very good but where the rest of the episodes really gelled for me.. this just sold a character slightly short!  So it gets a slightly lower grade than the other three episodes. Can’t wait for more though!

Hikaru no Go Episode 14

The long awaited third match between Akira and Hikaru. I knew Hikaru should not be able to win as it would cause narrative problems.. and while it was a very dramatic episode..what some might see as a nitpick or a misinterpretation from me .. really soured this episode for me and it all has to do with worldbuilding. 

There is not that much plot to discuss in this episode! Kaze Junior High is playing Akira and his buddies and they soon find out they are getting more than they bargained for. While Akira finally gets his rematch against Sai we see he is super nervous.  When Hikaru notices the change in the eyes when Akira plays Sai.. a moment of clarity causes Hikaru to take over the match from Sai.. trying to see how far Hikaru stacks up to Akira instead.. which of course he doesn’t. Sai is surprised by Hikaru’s initial play and allows him to make his own mistakes once more he spots the raw seeds of talent in the young boy  but has to acknowledge he is not there yet! Akira consumed by rage that this was not the match he was looking for makes Hikaru cry and walks away crying himself.  Tsutsui and Mitani also get dominated in their matches and cry over their loss as well. They did not stand a chance. Kaze High now being eliminated must now come to terms with their loss and Akira must leave knowing this was not the match he wanted. Everyone.. lost this day that much is clear from the episode. 

Since I know there are well over 60 episodes left into this series alone, and there is a second, I knew this is how the story had to flow. Something like this had to happen given how much the show had focussed on Akira. The grim everybody loses atmosphere made for a very very powerful statement. It left everyone with goals to strive for. Sai allowing Hikaru to play was a nice call from the spirit as well, which really endeared me to him. He wants to perfect the godhand trough Hikaru but to that he realises he has to let Hikaru bloom but also fall. He has to show Hikaru how much he still has to grow.. so Hikaru himself can improve. He really feels like a man with a mission and the way Hikaru seeing that golden spot was depicted on the camera, with a little beam of light brought back memories of episode 6.. the beautiful duel which still is my favourite episode. This simple visual showed us how Hikaru is beginning to blossom as a player. Akiri crying for the loss of her team members was kind of beautiful to. She saw them shake and struggle and can’t help but feel for them. She is just such a trooper and I am really glad she is there. She makes it so that this is not only about personal pride but also about their little clique! This episode is super important for the future of the show and that much is made clear. There is very much a weight to this all.  I can easily see people really liking this episode. Unfortunately it all came crumbling down for me due to a very simple situation.

At one point Hikaru can be heard thinking to himself that 11-8 would be the perfect next move to  make while Sai has to think. Until now Sai has always been able to understand Hikaru when he had thoughts like this.. but this one he misses.. because he is thinking?!  That already feels a bit weird but when Hikaru makes an interesting move ..instead of complimenting Hikaru he also does not communicate with him. Hikaru wants to see how well he stacks up with Akira.. but he knows exactly where his strength lies. He is not able to defeat Tsutsui.. he says this several times.. so measuring this gap.. seems odd. Instead I think it would have made more sense to let them play a hybrid match. Where Hikaru made that move and Sai could show him how stones flowed afterwards. Instead without communicating he just lets Hikaru suddenly take the loss. At least establish this with a small conversation.. or give him some advice.. 

I do really get  Hikaru wants to play and that seeing how far he is away from Akira is something he’d want to know.  Yet a minute before he SAYS Akira is totally out of reach.. so it really feels Akira had to take the win here for the story to continue. There were better ways.. Have Hikaru play a few bad moves and and let him realise is out of reach but when he wants to resign Akira resigns instead.. saying if he won’t give him the match he wants.. he won’t take the win either.  Having Akira take the in here feels extremely detrimental.  Sai not hearing Hikaru’s move and playing off it and making it more interesting also feels against the rules we know so far. I really disliked it. With just a SMIDGE of communication this could have been so much more interesting and much more a lesson than it was now!


While the episode in theory is very well written for the sake of the story, I felt it was written throughout. Where in the past few episodes these characters felt like real people in this viewing to me they were anime characters throughout.  Maybe I know little of honour and pride in games..but in no way the events of this battle felt natural to me.. it felt like they needed to happen but with what characters said, how their “bond “ works and what characters know about their own strength, this felt did not feel like part of the same story for me. Stuff happens because it had to happen.. it did that but I can’t give it more than just an okay for doing so.

With that the week is done again! All in all I had a nice view but the extremely high quality of the last two weeks  made me a bit spoiled for what was to come today! The 40 degrees out there might not contribute to enjoyment either so do take this review with a grain of salt as I am somewhat uncomfortable. I also had an annoying little wound on my foot so I had a bit less chill than before!

On a personal level not a lot happened!  A few days break did me some good and all sort of good stuff happened when I got back.  I have been playing a lot of Divinity Original Sin 2  now nearing the end and been I’ve also wrapping up my playthrough of Pokémon Sweet 2th, that’s not a great pokemon game.  I went swimming for the first time in a long while last Friday and got a Chinese soup fondue at the end it felt nice to be out for a bit.  I struggled for a bit with mental stuff but this week would be very much in the theme of recovery! I had a great week even if it was uneventful. Little by little we are crafting happiness!  Next week we should see Kuro’s first post and maybe even the introduction of another staff member! I am quite a happy camper! A half melted happy camper but a happy camper non the less!

If you per chance would like to prevent me from melting further! Please consider supporting my Kofi so I can buy a fan and some ice-cubes! If you do not have money to spare, a like or a blog follow will also do! I have to put myself back together again for my fans so don’t feel free to just leave a comment or anything positive! I hope you had an amazing weak and will have a even better next one!


Pinkie’s Saturday Adventure 13

Hello Island Guests! Now that my anniversary week is already a week in the past it is time for yet another Saturday Morning Adventure! I had to pick a new show for BNA and I wanted to either go for Re Zero Season 2 or the 2020 Digimon Reboot.  In the spirit of Saturday Mornings though.. I chose Digimon 2020! Re Zero might be something I can watch witch friends soon! It is also something I might not enjoy as much as most! Which scares me!

I did not know what to expect when picking this series up? Would it tell the same tale in a modern way? Would it be something all new?  Well it turns out to be the latter and it was unexpectedly awesome. 

Digimon Adventures follows the adventures of the original cast but now living as kids in 2020. Taichi seems to go on summer camp.. which is the trigger for him being booted in the original. However this time when he is home alone the doorbell rings and we see Koshiro standing in front of the door. The two seem rather unfamiliar with each other showing already how different this show will be.  Koshiro , to us westerners oftenly better know as Izzy , notices he is in the same summer camp group as Taichi and went over their to discuss some things when suddenly crisis strikes Tokyo. All sort of electronics go haywire.. including the train Taichi’s mother and sister are on. The two decide to look into this further now that Taichi’s family is in danger. When things go even more dire and their live is put on the line Taichi jumps the fences of the closed train station and his telephone shows the crest of courage. He becomes Digitised and travels to a strange world.. much more cyber like.. than the old digital world. Here he encounters a wounded Koromon, who upon partnering up evolves into Agumon. Not fighting Kuwagamon as the first enemy for once.. the pair decimates some virus digimon but they have to Evolve into Greymon to finish the fight!
A mysterious young man..we know as Matt.. or Yamamoto stares down at the pair as Koshiro tells them about A digimon attack in America!

This was a nice first episode! Much better than I expected it to be. The action really shined!
The orginal Digimon was much more static, here we get beam struggles, melee attacks, even Taichi helping in the attack and as a result the actual Digimon part feels much more dynamic. The Digivolution also does not happen in this static magical girl like fashion but it happens during combat. While this will also appear in my negatives section it just keeps the action flowing. This digital world also seems much more connected to ours than that of the original series.  Elements in the digital world correlate with  that of the real world. Such as a railway plan being a bunch of data in the sky in the digital world on top of a tower. My favourite scene is when Taichi is brought into the digital world.. Seeing that crest appear on his phone plays heavily into the nostalgia but it looks so much cooler this time. When he is floating among the digital objects he also uses these to his advantage. Again showing how much more “fluent” this show is. The approach of slowly introducing all character one by one also seems like  a great idea, we have seen hints at many of them but it is great imagining how they will fit in. I can only assume that mentioning america will help with the introduction of Mimi.. but maybe cool boy Yamamoto  will have a way to access it.  I am looking forward to more. 

My negatives are mostly nitpicks based on the first episode. I miss Butterfly as an opening theme and would have rather seen a remix of it than a completely new song… but there is still an homage made to the original opening with Taichi falling through some digital letters.
In Fairness Butterfly has really been overused lately but the new song can not hold a candle against that greatness. Having Evolutions (they are just called evolutions  in the sub) without Braveheart takes some getting use to as well. Other than that I have no negatives so far!
This is what I expected it to be plus a fair deal better. I kind of expected Marvel’s Disk Wars of kid pandering but it wasn’t that bad.

Great first episode, I felt blissfully Nostalgic and I liked the new Digivice design. It left me wanting for more. Obviously this type of show is something I as a collectible  creature aficionada can appreciate. Up until Xros Wars I have always found Digimon the superior anime of the two and this first episode makes me think I will keep thinking that. Pinkie is pleased with her pick for this so far!

So last episode this show took an unexpected twist by introducing monsters and it seems they stuck around! So it seems it is all real.. I still think Masayoshi fell into some drugs and is hallucinating all this.. because suddenly his career does super great as well and everything goes his way… but we will find out! Please do not spoil.

The episode opens up with Samurai Flamenco ,aided by the Flamenco girls and even Goto, taking out a Bird Monster named after a kite. It shouts Viva Torture and explodes. We then look back a few days in time and see the aftermath of Guillotine Gorilla. The Funeral of the cops  that got guillotined to death..Goto is worried about what is going on but when a new monster named Boiling Rhino..which is a Rhino in a soup cauldron attacks a bus that holds Masayoshi agents. Samurai and the Flamenco girls get to the bus and fight the monster and the ..gimp suit minions. In rollercoaster like speeds we see the group take down four monsters, all revealing something about the groups new abilities and their limitations.  They are held alive by their tech but they clearly do not possess the ability to have superhuman abilities. Masayoshi seems to be very happy how is life is now ..even with these risks which Worries Goto.. Masayoshi has changed ..when will he push to far. The show ends with him being on the cover of every magazine and the guest of some show… I still think this might all be a dream or something..because of how well things are going.. but I also really worry about Sapphire!  I do not want to see her get hurt this episode she almost did.

The fight against the horse monster was my favourite scene.  Not only did it make me feel worried about the Flamenco girls, it also made me laugh. Samurai Flamenco tells he has a new gadget and it turns out it is just very sticky double sided tape. I love how silly these office supplies gadgets of him are. So great. This scene seamlessly combined a threat.. towards Moe with lighthearted comedy and sentai tropes. I loved it! The opening scene was great as well..everyone working as a team really felt amazing. I even liked Mari’s pettiness again. She wants to deal the finishing blow! Now that is pettiness I can believe from her.  I can see her going rogue for a bit or someone getting hurt because she wants the spotlight and it being a big point of development. I loved this episode!  The BIC shield instead of the Big shield really hit home for me!  It’s funny how this show manages to mix high tension with comedy so well.  Normally comedical shows like One Punch Man, or heck even Slime have very low stakes because the main character is very overpowered. These are normal people and the show makes a point of out it to show it.. yet still is funny! Great!

The ending of the episode was a bit of a whimper for me.. coming of last week’s episode  with such an epic bombshell Goto texting with his girlfriend that Masayoshi changed attitude scares them felt a bit forced. It was already established that this was a thing.. why do it twice and with a lackluster medium like texting.. I still don’t get it. I bet if I could read Kanji I might ..but meh.  I think next episode someone will get hurt! Let’s hope it is not Moe.  As much as I like the gadgets their inventor Jun I can find a tad annoying at times. Not all that much but in this episode he had a few lines of dialogue that not really stick with me. Like at one point Samurai Flamenco tells Yun he is worried his gadgets might get knock offs and he says “we can’t have that’ and that is the end of it.. it doesn’t go anywhere. Huh?! Nitpicks though!

Amazing! AMAZING Episode! I have so many theories! For example I think that Akira guy Might be King Torture! Not sure why I think that but it’s just me telling! That guy is totally king Torture! He wanted to see Masayoshi unmasked.. met the agent just before she got in trouble ..or just after she escaped….not sure.. and he keeps showing up.. he might just be a cute romance for her though. I would ship them if he is not King Torture. That text only thing has to come back as well. This episode made me think, laugh, worry and wish I knew of this series earlier! Highest score one again!

My Oh my  this episode sure was different. There were some very dark moments in there! Not a lot of comedy either, still it felt like an episode of slime and like almost every episode so far I enjoyed this watch.

The episode begins with a flashback on Shizu’s or Shizue’s past.  She is summoned by a demon lord and possessed by the Ifirit , we saw that last episode but this week we saw how it took her over and she evaporated a friend and her pet against her will… the screams of that girl were quite haunting and the pet monster was really cute! It just growled at the man who clearly has a demon in himself or is a demon!  That was enough for the Ifrit to trigger and turn the very cute pet and the cute girl into a very dead pet! We then go back to the village where Shizu is leaving trying to fight the control of the Ifrit but just as she is about to head out she fails. The Ifrit comes out and destroys the goblin Village. The human adventuring Party wants to help Rimuru defeat this beast because Shizu is one of them and they want to help her in her time of need. Even if they now know that Shizu is the legendary hero of old. Rimuru finds himself overpowered. His water blade evaporating and having no effect. Yet when Elen the group’s mage girl manages to hit some summoned dragons or wyrms with ice Rimuru asks her to shoot him.. as he eats the ice he develops a new technique called Ice shotgun that is used to defeat the Dragons. Elen’s party however gets taken down and is majorly hurt by a self destructing enemy and Rimuru has to face the Ifrit by himself.. luckily he finds out he is immune to fire and after a short scuffle the Ifrit is devoured and faces Veldora.. the look on his face shows us he knows he is fricked!

This  episode brought us great payoff to everything that has been set up by the last episode. Last week I really disliked Elen and her group and this week I was worried sick about them.  Please be okay! They are such good guys I thought! That moment that the dragon self destructed in front of them might have been my favourite moment of the episode. Genuine concern and an actually fun fight despite the fact that Rimuru is so powerful.Pacing wise I needed an episode with stakes as well and  this episode sure provided. This was exactly what I needed from this show at the right time..and that seems to be one of it’s biggest strengths. It doesn’t go above and beyond, to blow you away.. it gives you what you want .. it gives you what you need. I was thoroughly entertained and I even cussed at my screen when the Ifrit faced Veldora.. I was like.. oooh boy you ..(bad word)  now! If I talk to the screen.. you made a good episode! I think I did talk to my screen twice this episode at least. And mumbled a few other times! I liked the flashback of Shizu as well though I wished the cute monster did not have to die for it! It was powerful enough for me though.

That being said.. the Puppy and the girl evaporating was my least favourite moment of the episode I watched this Saturday.. not that it’s bad and I don’t even think it is poorly paced because If I knew her any better I might have been actually upset over such a minor character, it just wasn’t  fun. Not always has to be fun though. The reason though why I put a disliked scene and not a bad scene in here is because there is very little negative about this episode. People not included were excluded for a reason and characters I disliked before totally redeemed themselves today for me. If I HAVE to give this episode a negative it would have to be that no one wondered what a Shotgun was when Rimuru first used his spell.  I know I better drop it for that right?!

No this is another highest rank episode for me this week! It is in a very different light  than good episodes of Hikaru no Go are for example…but within the confines for what this show is it’s a near perfect episode and just a tremendous amount of fun.Nothing we haven’t seen before…but that is not what this show aims for …so a perfect score for you!

I am so confused. What the heck just happened!  Gone is the cute world and the bitey bitey bunny stuff! No this week it’s Mad Max meets magical girls! I do not know what is going on and I love it that I don’t.

At first this episode barely seems to connect to episode 2. After finishing it I am still not sure that does. Papika can be seen walking through a desert and collapsing from thirst and fatigue looking for Cocona. She is rescued by some Jawa like folks that treat her as an enemy. A pink one however  gives her water  and lets her recover. Papika being her usual somewhat selfish self wants more and travels to the well to see these villagers are struggling to exist.. so she sucks a slightly poisonous cactus instead when suddenly raiders attack. These raiders smash up the village and pour the water all over their genitals and waste it. When Papika speaks up a giant raider tries to beat her up which she beats with the flick of a finger. A metal faced school girl shows up called lady Cocona.. not believing it is Cocona Papika fights here while a hooded stranger looks from afar. This fight is totally Dragon Ball Z esque including the sound effects. Finally Papika realises this is Cocona but the helmet controls her. So she knocks herself out with a headbutt breaking the helmet. Cocona is immediately regretful but can not be for long. Papika tells she loves loves loves loves LOVES Cocona.. but there is also evil afoot.

It turns out the Pink jawa like thing is actually a sort of succubus like creature with an army of female gimp like creatures that put the helmet on Cocona to make them fight..and fight them just because she is bored. By eating a giant purple potato Cocona and Papika get the power to transform into magical girls that can summon a giant gun.. that helps them defeat the witch/succubus with the last of their strength…but it turns out that the creature is still alive. Facing defeat the two girls get saved by three other girls belonging to a different organisations.. one of them is Cocona’s classmate Yayaka who seems to work for some kind of weird cult.  They take a pink orb from the creature and return to their base where they feed it to a black spiral thing as the cultist leader person says they are close to their goal.
Our two heroines return to the real world where Dr Salt is being very mysterious.

So yeah that was a WEIRD plot summary lots of stuff happening.. and without a doubt in my heart my favourite moment is their magical girl transformation. My oh my I liked that transformation sequence.. the Pure Barrier and Pure Blade alter egos seem very Pretty Cure like.. where characters are called Cure (Whatever their handle is) . I also loved the weird loading mechanic of their ultimate weapon.. a cannon that is loaded by energy that is just stuffed trough some weird holes in the back of the gun. It was so insane and out there that  I was constantly amazed.  It seems that the desert reflects Cocona’s persona this time.. her issue is that she is bland..she lacks a will of her own as told by the monster of the week. So it makes sense this world looks barren.  The fact that there is another organisation except from Flip Flap really came as a surprise. When I orginally saw the hooded girl I thought.. oh that is the real Cocona..she will show up to help her friend in a bit.. then stuff happend and I forgot and it turns out it was Yayaka.. did not expect but I love it.. this show has me so excited and gleeful when I watch it … It feels like this is my candy and i am the baby.

I will be honest this episode was so weird and that magical girl transformation came out of nowhere.. while I loved that it came out of nowhere  on three separate occasions I checked if I was watching the correct episode. First if I was on the right episode number secondly if they might not have uploaded a wrong episode as episode 3 and thirdly if there wasn’t another episode in this form of Pure Illusion.. I loved that feeling of disorientation and awe but I can easily imagine it will not be for everyone.. this is so much my jam though that only gripe this week is that I don’t think I like dr salt. He feels to obviously traitor vibes to me… but hey.. I did not get what I expected last time at all! So I might very well be wrong! No spoilers!

Best thing I watched today! And I watched an incredible amount of good stuff today!  In fact this week has 4 perfect scores for me! So this for me is my baby Jesus of anime. Before I thought this might end up in my top 10 favourite anime of all time.. the way things are going it might end up in my top 3. This is so much my thing I can’t even bring it to words!

The fourth and final perfect score of the day does so on completely different terms as the other episodes. This didn’t keep me as entertained as the others did but I am amazed with how strong of a set up this episode was.  Where it fumbled in the earlier set up episodes the last ones have been really strong and this is probably the best written one so far.

In terms of a summary I can be a lot more brief than I was with Flip Flappers. The Go Tournament is about to start and after some provocation and Disdain from Touya’s team Haze Jr High’s team is more motivated than ever to win!  Meanwhile Touya just stares at Hikaru intensively! After a player disrespects Hikaru he suddenly gets very serious and manages to secure his first official win in a tournament making Haze Jr High the flawless victors of round 1. Touya asks his teacher how Hikaru played but he doesn’t tell him he played bad .. wanting to teach him a lesson or something?! So instead Touya stares at Hikaru with great intensity. During lunch Hikaru doesn’t feel hungry and he refuses Akiri’s lunch and instead walks out a Touya that stares at him intensely.. for a breath of fresh air.  Hikaru really wants to play himself and he plans to so .. knowing he will be defeated and disappoint Touya.. but this match is important for him too. He overhears Touya’s first board team member talk with that girl who helped him out when he was bullied once and realises how much Akira gave up to face Sai in a match. So with heavy heart Hikaru wants to help the boy and grant him the match he so desires that he has endured so much for it. Akiri shows up and talks to Hikaru for a bit and later can be seen supporting TsuTsui and Mitani as well.. the girl is such a champ in her own right!  The episode ends with Touya taking place across Hikaru and staring at him intensely.

Jokes aside.. this episode was quite heavy! There is so much things that come into play! My favourite moment was Mitania watching Kaio‘s (Touya’s School) ‘First Board match. The disrespect he gets makes him want to beat this guy fair and square. He tells this to TsuTsui as the two’s bond gradually but fastly increases in this episode. It didn’t feel out of the blue either, it felt so real. Where I can’t help but think these people take Go way to seriously the motivations of.. “I am not going to be looked down upon like that”  is something I can totally understand. This isn’t about the poetics and the beauty of Go.. this week’s episode makes crystal clear that everyone is playing for themselves.. not for sport..not for beauty.. everyone has their own realistic goal. It also makes it very clear that not all of these goals can align.. something’s got to give. Sai being completely neutral in his talk against Hikaru I found amazingly strong. The guy knows he shares a body with Hikaru and knows Hikaru has to grow.. he also wants to play Akira himself very much but he perfectly understands Hikaru as well as a player.. thus he leaves the choice to Hikaru making Hikaru’s choice all the more impactful.


This act is also my main negative from the other perspective . Hikaru is shown as a very sympathetic person and his reasons to face Touya are sound.. his reasons  to let Sai play Touya are noble.. but he doesn’t consider Sai’s feelings all that much it could help him get out of his depression knowing that he can let his partner play.. I get why he doesn’t don’t get me wrong but Hikari gets sooo much support from everyone and he is depicted as a kindhearted person so I find it a tad weird he does not consider Sai at all in this. Perhaps if I ever become possessed by my checkerboard I can more clearly tell where his mind is at.. but for someone who is depicted as so selfless he is often really selfish which does make me feel like.. “wait but that isn’t what you are showing me right now”

This though is no major strike against the episode, I really get where he is coming from and why he is sad.. I am happy he is flawed like that even but I would like it if the show doesn’t depict Hikaru as two different persons.  I could easily scale this down to a Berry good.. but I’ll be honest this is one of the more powerful set up episodes in terms of development I have seen..I can really read what people are thinking here.. When I say this is one of the best set up episodes I seen I do not mean that exclusively to this series and that I think justifies my highest grade.

And with that it is time for my weekly personal update! In which I promised to reveal the winner of my giveaways!
– DuckTales has been won by Winst0lf Portal who invented me a great new Cocktail for my Birthday! The Pinkie-Co-Lada .. I think it comes served in a cheap russian car!
– The Elders Scroll Online With all the deluxe expansions has been won by The Holy Mailman who thought my new tagline should be A Daily Dose of Happiness! Which is a great tagline! I am not going to use it as it requires me to write daily even if I would not feel like it! But a great tagline nonetheless! Both of you have fun with your prizes!

There was no doubt in my mind that these two should be the winners of their respective competitions!

Besides that, I had to step down as a DM for my group, at least while we have to do this campaign online.  I noticed the shy roleplayers not getting a turn anymore because we now lack the visual aid to see when someone is about to speak, people walk off for snacks or play a game when I cant check up and as a result nobody really is following the same stories..everyone works with half hooks. Voice chat lag only made this worse and I can’t do voices or motions and I can’t read my audience and adjust to it.. as a result the players constantly were doing each others work in order to shine themselves not realising another player had an actual hook. It became an energy drain rather than an energy boost so I had to let it go for now. One player kinda hurt me in this and as a result I have had a lot of somatic stress which caused me to be physically sick again. So I have been falling behind with my writing now! Only two days ahead now! But it is not all bad! We had a nice family birthday with a sushi dinner which was fun so there was a good day as well. I am also getting closer to a few of my blog goals so I am excited for that! Let’s make next week amazing!

Pinkie’s Saturday Anime Adventure 12

Today I completed my second show in this format and had another crazy strong line up on episodes! I did SO not expect things to go the way they did this week. Amazing! I even finished BNA on a fairly positive note! So I was pleasantly surprised! Yet both Flip Flappers and Samurai ended with a big cliffhanger! And Next week is my SKIP week! Due to my special week! What Bad Luck!

Our farewell to a show with troubled pacing and slightly pedantic world-building is one that is a perfect summary of this show..it was a good watch but it’s more akin to your kid going to the potty by himself for the 26th time good..than it is finding a way to colonise mars kinda good. 

We pick the show up right after Michiru’s apparent demise.. which as it turns out was barely a flesh wound. Her blood holds some antibodies for the Nylvarsyl Syndrome because she is like special and adaptable and what not. This results into Shirou’s beast factor becoming stable again and everyone being fine! Meanwhile Allan puts his plan into motion to use his  Eggman like drones to end these Beastman and turn them all into humans!  Shirou and Michiru tell him about the other cure and he doesn’t care..because he isn’t on humanities side as it turns out. Allan is a godly beastman.. like a pure one with an immortal body! As he shoots big energy beams trough Shirou.. Michiru has to leave him there to defeat the thrones. Aided by the Major, Flip, the Police and some others the fight against Allan’s purification army is on. Nazuna is there too and runs away from her former Retainer Boris saying she doesn’t want to date him. Eventually Nazuna and Michiru find out that Ginrou’s howl passifies the beastmen makes them howl with him and they move back to the Live event to play his cry to the city where Ginrou and Allan’s Cerberus form have their final face off! Ginrou/Shirou learns from Michiru and shows compassion to Allan and in the end everything is right as rain. Michiru and Nazuna decide to stay the way they are to form a bridge between humans and beastman.. the End

The show does a fairly decent job on wrapping up the story at least if we do not take it’s earlier flaws into account ..as this is an episode review! The series review I will do after next week. We get an ending that is both definitive and open at the same time and it actually has some nice imagery. Like when Shirou Spared Allan.. he trusted on his heart rather than his instinct..show humans and beastman might be a bit closer than we think, but done from the beastman perspective. They allow themselves to be shunned by simply giving into all their impulses or primary acting..perhaps that is not the way. I am glad they addressed this because I do understand that some people are different and we should try to make the world a welcoming place for everyone.. but that doesn’t mean we should excuse every whim. In the world of Beastman this issue was waaaaay larger because some of their behaviour was just never acceptable, like killing each other in recreational sports, rule of the strongest. It was a big weak point in the story to me and this somewhat countered it! My favourite scene was the water purifier kid whose name I still do not know.. saving Death Rube/Nazuna still worshiping her has a god. When  she tells him she’s not a god he says “You fed me fresh bread with a super delicious crust.. if you provide food to the poor you are like god to them’ (More or less) She helped them.. and they worship her for it! I really liked that sign of gratitude. Having Michiru also feels great and making her a bridge between races is a great way to end the show… were it not for a few hiccups.

The biggest issue I have is how inconsistent the plot can be! Allan’s drones only attack rampaging beastman.. but how is he going to succeed then?! There will be a few beastman left.  The Machine only attacks rampaging beastman.. yet still attacks the non feral police. Flip who is firing rocket launchers I can understand might be deemed rampaging.. but still the way it is set up it feels a bit plothole like. Allan being a beastman with no beastman scent also felt rather forced. It’s because he is a pure beastman and he wants to end hybrid beastmen.. so he rather changes them to human?!  That feels a bit iffy to me. It wasn’t needed. You could have just written that the morphing thing what he gave to Michiru was perfected and he found a way to amplify humans without having them turn into beasts.  I guess Shirou learned to forgive saying he already is a hybrid but that feels a bit pedantic again. “We are closer to humans than I thought .. let’s begin to accept them’   The final battle could also have been against technology or whatever.. but a beam firing cerberus fox/wolf with Ginrou turning into a jet wolf firing a Kamehameha.. felt poorly set up.. though it looked amazing! I just feel that power-hike was unearned and not needed.  I was engaged throughout the episode but if you think about things they do fall apart a bit. Clearly style was favoured over substance for this episode and to an extend the show needed that to let go of some broken promises it also is a reminder of what the show could have been.

I enjoyed myself, with this episode but also this series as a whole. This episode had a few pacing issues, logic problems and kinda took that finger pointy no no racism analogy stance ..but then doesn’t flavour it very well. It had the exact same issues as I had with the entire show so far..but it also left me with the same overall experience as the show did. Positive and quite amused. This isn’t a high-flyer of an episode but it was 20 minutes spend quite well still.

What ..just happened?! Was that Real? Surely it must be some sort of fever dream right? If not.. omg that is amazing.. if it is OMG this amazing!  What the actual heck!

This episode shows Samurai Flamenco and the Flamenco Girls having an effect on the city. Crime is at an all time low and their patrols are becoming boring.  This causes  both Masayoshi and Mari to have their own mental breakdown. In a search for answers Masayoshi visits his grandfather’s grave and later discovers his parents were murdered.. the greatest hero background he could wish for.. but he doesn’t seem to care.. the case went cold.. he never knew any better so now he begins to wonder if he is actually a hero and Goto convinces him .. he is a freak fighting for justice.. he likes freaks more than heroes. In a PR stunt Samurai Flamenco gets  asked to help raid a drug lab, which Goto only accepts after seeing Masayoshi at earlier low. While there he serves a ceremonial position.. when suddenly one guy transforms into a creature called Guillotine Gorilla, which decapitates three policeman and tosses them out of the window!  Samurai Flamenco and Goto team up using the drugs to blind the Gorilla and then toss him out f the window! Is this real?! That came out of nowhere?! Oh and right an evil overlord speaks through them from the sky.

I assume this is Masayoshi getting really drunk from tequila at the beginning of the episode or maybe he breathed in some drugs, but wow.. having actual sentai monsters that explode could be awesome.. having Masayoshi go completely delusional so that he imagines these to to some mental breakdown could be just as amazing. After all I really loved Hikonin Sentai Akibaranger. Since this show was recommended to me based on my review of season 1 I suspect that is the case here. Also since Goto in their fight with Guillotine Gorilla called him Flamenco! I am not sure a real Goto would say that.. but then again who knows. My favourite scene was the monster exploding after it was defeated.. It just fell out of a cop car.. got up and exploded! Just like in the real deal!  I am really  confused right now but I really do love that I am so confused. This came so out of the blue and is such a tonal shift. Since the opening is also vague and shows him as an actual Sentai I have really zero clue! Other than those hunches I just mentioned.  Then again I also have clues for this not being true such as his Samurai’s secret weapons not working at all.  I also really start to enjoy the Morita Moe as a character being in love with Mari, she just reminds me of me somehow.. just more into kisses and such. The build up with this coming out of left field was something truly amazing as well. I can’t even begin to describe how much I loved this episode.

My least favourite moment is Mari eating flowers because she is so bored and disillusioned by her real life wanting to go on tour. It feels weird that  that someone who owns a Hummer and can drive anywhere she wants can not find a single way to fight crime.  Her petty behaviour is becoming increasingly annoying to me. In order ot do what she did I feel you must have a strong character that truly believes in their ideals like Masayoshi even if that value she chases is more superficial.. but with every minor setback she just gets so dejected.  I don’t think it fits. Another weird moment is Goto coming over to Masayoshi where he shares drinks with that Stationary Guy that give Masayoshi his gadgets.. apparently he had been sitting there for a while and Goto only now asks who he is. I get why you not introduce yourself to anyone but at a party of 4 with a single new guy..while discussing your friends super hero activities I’d think you would introduce yourself.  It’s not that bad but it is a a writing flaw I think. For the rest I am to scared to say if there are flaws I can only tell after the next episode.

I loved this experience, while it might not consistently be the best episode as it starts out really slow that acceleration in the end truly made this into something so amazing. Regardless if this turns out to be real or not, this episode will probably go into the books as one of my favourite episodes… unless they really mess up this landing.. but for that I have to wait two weeks.

I love how this show handles time! They really take advantage of the fact that Rimuru is a slime and use it to propel the world making this series feel so alive. They did a lot of clever things again with this episodes and a lot of things I did not see coming.

We see Rimuru a few days after his quest to find artisans ended. The Goblins have adopted other Goblin clans and after exerting all it’s magic Rimuru goes to sleep for days on end once more. Once he comes too he finds Rigurd to have advanced even higher as he is now a Goblin King and the town now starting to look like an actual village.  Four human adventurers stumble onto his demain , including the three adventures he saw once Rimuru’s journey started and Shizu.. another Isekaid girl.. but where Rimuru was reborn she was summoned, lacking the ability to defy those who summoned her. We see a lot of background on the three adventurers and their somewhat cruel guild master. Rimuru is a good egg and he feeds them and he bonds with Shizu a bit who turns out has been here since World War II or something. We also find out she is possessed by an Efreet!  Plus there is some amazing subtext here I think… or a mistake. 

The best part of this episode was that subtext line. Shizu laughed when Rimuru referenced a line,  from Dragon’s Quest… but Shizu said she is from World War II, in fact we have seen that this is true. So Shizu CAN NOT know about Dragon Quest.. but a friend told her! That means there is another Isekaid character there! Which also explains why she was so aware of Rimuru’s situation.  The organisation that summoned her seems quite evil, so perhaps they have summoned another character.. but she also seems familiar with being reborn so perhaps not! There is is so much there to discover! I am so curious to find out. Like I said in the intro I also really like how the time flows in this show.. there are bigger time gaps so there is bigger advancements made. Since Rimuru’s followers build their own little village I really like  this pacing. By putting RImuru out of commision it also does not feel forced and keeping his questions legit! I also really like the snarky tone he can have.. like when he is proud that Gobta learned and summon spell and says..  “Gobta rising quite a few points in the esteem of Rimuru”  and then as he watches the lesson that is mostly Gobta saying you have to go “nghnghngh”  he adds.. his teaching skills made him a few point lower in the esteem of Rimuru”  I love that type of humor!  It also had a few nice action moments.

On the negative side I don’t have a lot to say this week. I personally do still not care for all the girls holding the slime against their breast and him going all crazy over it but I can see why it’s in there! I still think not having those hormones should make that less appealing..but hey creative differences! What I am unsure about is the human trio. I think her name is Ellen.., or Eren not fully sure my sub is a bit off, Gibdo or Gido and Kabaru. They feel a bit  odd to me. I am not sure on what to think on them. I don’t think their appeal is to great and when Shizu kicked some group of giant’ ants their butts. I feel at least they could have supported her a bit, they are incapable sure .. but before they did not seem cowardly. Now they are just sorta there.. like Gobta was in the previous two episodes. I am not sure why the show feels the need to have these sort of characters around but it uses this a lot. The story so far could have been completely told without them , but like how Gobta gained an ability I am sure this will be good for something at least! Just right now.. they were a bit of dead air and I would have rather learned more about Shizu or see live in the Goblin village a bit more.

This is a set up episode done right more things are to come and this needed to be told!  There are some amazing implications that can be drawn from the dialogue that went on and I think the show is clever enough for this not to be a mistake a lot happend but it feels like a few thing did not matter that much.. so this episode is just good! Had a great time but on its own not THAT special but this doesn’t show always needs to be! For what this is, this is consistently a delightful watch.

Could it be possible that I will not love this as much as I think I would? I found myself asking this in the first act of this episode. Then I was quickly shushed and had to spend the next 5 minutes trying to get my heart shaped sparkly eyes to go back to normal again.

Cocona tries to pick up her school live again after her first adventure into Pure Illusion. Papika however thinks she found her partner and keeps trying to coax Cocona into a new adventure to find more of the wishing shards. Magical items they can bring back from Pure Illusion. When Corona’s pet Uexkull.. a green somewhat shiftable bunny comes with her to to school and flees from Papika Cocona’s trouble grow exponentially larger and she tells Papika to get lost she doesn’t belong in this school. So Papika enrolls and keeps stalking her. When Uexkull gets sucked up by a giant Vacuum hidden underneath a statue in the park Cocona and Papika get sucked into Deep Fantasy once more and they split up. Papika goes to get the wishing shard while  Cocona pursues the search of her bunny. When Papika accidentally activates a death trap that nearly burns Cocona and Uexkull  by dropping them in lava she unlocks magical powers much like her not so willing partner did in the previous episode.  After saving everyone both of them return to the real world and Cocona decides to join the organisation called Flip Flap and help Papika with these fun adventures. Dr Salt  a mysterious man with a fancy hairdo and a bit villainous shades tells them to see a certain person..and after getting locked up in what almost seems like one of those diver depressuring chambers..they seem to move into Deep Fantasy again ending the episode.

I LOVED the visuals of this deep fantasy setting! The colours were amazing! The Alice in Wonderland similarities were plenty yet it was still fresh at the same time.  I loved how Uexkull was almost a Jojo character in deep fantasy and protector. I love how this world building has no rhyme or reason, yet due to visual clues it has some machinations. There  world is incredibly zany but it does work.  That on-switch that Papika hits that puts Cocona out of trouble was there all along.. it makes no sense that it is there.. but it’s there long before it becomes a problem . The fact that the group ends up in a tunnel with a giant crushing metal object chasing them and a meat grinder in front.. comes out of nowhere but there is a logic to how the thing operates characters can use. Thus solutions and events are foreshadowed in a bizarre world as a result we get this fever dream sensation..but it is a few dream we can to an extend make sense of .we can still comprehend it. Both Cocona and Papika learn a lesson in this episode that brings them closer together. Papika learns to take responsibility for her actions and releases actions might have consequences while Cocona lets go of the idea of being always in control or having to be. Sometimes you just have to go with the flow!  Of course the visuals…I can’t say enough in praise of.. this thing is my jam!

I disliked how cold Cocona was in the first part of the story, again I get where she is coming from  but the whole will they/won’t they team up thing is a bit done to death and if you look at any cover art for this series.. which I am pretty sure you can’t escape from doing.. you will know exactly what the answer to that question is. I get her personality is uptight and I do get why she is annoyed at Papika it makes sense I just do not feel very invested in that part of the story because there is no tension.. of course they will go on more adventures.. their adventures is what the show will be about! Another thing I did not like.. well more in the sense that it confused me is the whole Bitey Bitey thing. Papika feels the need to bite in everything because she is a bunny now I guess and Cocona resists but I don’t really see where the bitey bitey comes from.. I mean why would she mind so much her bunny instinct tells her to bite something hard?  Why would it? I don’t see any other bunny instinct triggering either so is it a thing or is it actually something deeper.  Also why does the school have that vacuum cleaner?  As much as I love the surreal world building in the Deep Fantasy I would like the real world to be at least a bit of a counterpart to it. If Japanese schools have subterranean trash cleaning vacuums please let me know!

I saw some minor flaws with this episode but nothing I could not overcome. The highs it send me trough blow the lows out ot the water completely. I love this show so far. I really do! I like it enough that it might get a very high ranking amongst the anime I have seen.  So with that it gets it’s second highest score possible.. and is 2/2 for that!


Hikaru no Go has had a few rough set-up episodes before. It isn’t always as strong  when it’s not centered around Go and while the matches are all hits.. set up , really swings a miss quite often for me! This set up episode however is great. It accomplishes so much.

We begin the episode with Haze high School, the one Hikaru goes to. TsuTsui, Mitani, Hikari and to lesser extent Akiri prepare to go to the Go Tournament. Well Akiri makes lunch and cookies and takes some more verbal abuse from Hikaru  but hey she is there! We see a tension front between Tsutsui and Mitani because the former things that cheating in the games final phase is very low. Akiri will also only give him cookies if he stops cheating. Their story is mostly about convincing Mitani to participated and  showing these tensions. The perspective then switches to Touya who finds out Hikaru is the third board.. oftenly the weakest player in Igo of a team. This means Touya wants to become third board as well.. a strategic thing he needs to face Hikaru or as Hikaru notices at the end of the episode.. it’s not him who is Touya here to play ..it is Sai. Posing an interesting Dilemma for Hikaru in the battles to come. Some dramatic stuff happens in between but it is all of no consequences. Touya defeats a fellow student, gets assigned first board… cries .. gets third board. Sees Hikaru at the tournament.

This episode once again is insanely strong at character building, Hikaru has his reasons to play but also reasons not to play, Tsutsui has his reasons to grow and we see Mitani develop a new negative trade. He can not handle being provoked or looked down upon. After hearing he was not good enough to face I think it’s Kaizo high school ? not sure.. those names don’t stick to me very well, he flips right around and wants to play in a tournament while earlier he would not.  I foresee this giving trouble and I think they need this trouble. I see this end in two ways.. Hikaru’s highschool gets eliminated early or maybe even Touya’s by a surprise force or Hikaru loses to Touya using his own strength and the latter is upset that Hikaru did not play his normal game. I do not think Hikaru can beat Touya here .. nor do I think Touya can accept a win here. It would ever those ties or even a character.  So I think what happens here sets up plenty of options. Maybe the school gets disqualified because Mitani cheats.. maybe Tsutsui gets distracted because he is watching Mitani to much , the show gives itself a lot of options and this is very clever. I also like how Kaizo/Akira’s School is depicted in much more grey shades than Hikaru’s .. it seems to depict their different mindset. Where Hikaru wants to experience things.. grow and come into bloom Touya is much more narrow minded.. focussed on a single goal his world is a lot gloomier Something that does seem directly reflected by their environment. The use of the main theme throughout this show when Akira talks to his father was very strong as wel showing his zeal is close to that of Sai’s. Strong stuff.

What I liked less in Touya’s duel with the now first board. It happens somewhere in the middle of the episode but it has zero consequence other than establish these two are miles apart and that  Akira does indeed deserve first board. I would have loved this duel if it actually meant Akira had to play first board and that he did not get to play Hikaru but a good cry invalidated this math. There was little at stake here too. What do we establish here that hasn’t already been established. I am also not sure if I as a teacher would allow a student to join a club just to play a single opponent then quit the club.. a person who causes that student so much stress he completely breaks down at  every single thought of said person. I think as a teacher I would rather protect my student from himself. He also has to protect the schools reputation or so he says so why would you pit your unbeatable player against possibly the one foe that can defeat him?  What if he loses! So I do get why he made him first board.. I do not get why he relented. Aikra just joined this school so they haven’t bonded that much yet sure time passed but this favouring the boy is exactly what causes him to be “bullied” I think for a teacher  that should weigh heavier than an obsession.. So again this show makes me question the gravity that is given to Go and honour. In a way I sometimes feel this story is written by a huge Go fan who gate-keeps that fandom by tying some super heay Go related emotions and honour to it. It just feels off.

Regardless of what that we got a pretty good episode on our hands here! I was engaged most of the time and I wasn’t sure if Akira would get his third board so the reveal felt quite shocking still. I honestly expected Akira to quit the team. I dont think we are ready for their next face won yet.. it’s top early. If Touya loses here I am not sure where they would do.. so I think they need an out.. lucky this show has written characters so well they have plenty! This episode really helped. 

So that concludes another week! The upcoming week will be something special where we celebrate the Blog’s .. and Pinkie the Character’s Anniversary! With something nice on Thursday, the actual Birthday and on Sunday when we conclude the week! Other than that we shall mostly be exploring what this blog means to me and what this community means to me!
On a personal description on this week for me! It started out with a low as toxic person in my life has been revealed to even more toxic as I thought they were. Devaluating me behind my back to make our mutual friends appreciate her more or talking bad about me just to have a conversation topic. It resulted in a major somatic stress induced stomach sickness that kept me very weak until Friday. Missed my tabletop-roleplays ..luckily since Friday more good things happend to me! I got closer to another friend, got invited to a party, and went out for drinks yesterday with a few friends. After the toxic beginning of the week I really needed this!
Now that party is about to start so I gotta work on my head a bit! See you in my Birthday week! Make sure to at least check out Thursday and Sunday’s posts.. but also all the other cool content!

Pinkie’s Saturday Anime Adventure 11

Hello again Island Guests it is time to watch some anime again! Last week we dropped Tower of God that really felt like a nothing show to me and replaced it with Flip Flappers this week! Karma must have been with me on that call because I think I had the best Saturday yet!

I loved this episode of BNA , I really did I am actually beginning to feel some sense the story may be a bit salvaged for me yet! While I previously thought it would  end up going nowhere with a super rushed ending I feel like everything falls into place a bit more naturally than I had first anticipated.

The episode begins with Michiru going to see Nazuna, who is throwing a big Live event where she can be the idol she really wanted. She and Michiru even decide she will sing “their song” .. that is the one that is on ending of each episode.  Apparently Allan has told Nazuna to confess she is human so that Beastman can see they are not that different after all, and that their symbol of hope can transcend species. This should relief them off the stress between human and beastman relations and should prevent the virus. Meanwhile Shirou tries to prevent Nazuna from doing exactly this.. aided by Flip that mafia whale we saw in the first few episodes.  Shirou beliefs that seeing their idol is a false one will actually trigger Nilvarsyl-Syndrome and allow Allan to force the beast man cure onto people. So he and Michiru face off as things become increasingly clear and agenda’s all fall into place. We even see characters from episodes that I deemed throwaway make a return to at least make these episodes a bit more digestible in hindsight as well. For example the major is rescued by Pinga. Nina flip is at the concert so that might deliver some tension still as well.  When Michiru stops Nazuna from confessing after a tense episode the weird priest dude unmasks her and triggers the mutations in beastmen causing them all to go feral. We see this plunge Shirou into a deep despair and he too succumbs to the syndrome as he becomes a giant wolf mutation. When Michiru tries to knock some sense in him she seemingly gets killed and that’s where we end the second to last episode of this show.

This episode did a great job of putting everyone into the mix for the final fight, nothing felt to forced or convenient unlike earlier episodes. It finally feels like the show is paying off and that results in a very satisfying and tense build up to a conclusion. I think this episode featured every single named character at least for a bit. Most plot points have been revisited and the sequences felt properly tense. The twist on the main character slapping sense in the deuteragonist was great! My favorite ..but most feared scene as well! I really did not think he would “kill” Michiru.  Of course her state is most likely not dead but I am genuinely worried about her! All tools at the disposal of the series seem to be used in this episode and I felt almost completely satisfied by this episode. I still think this series could have been a lot better if it had more time to tell this tale but with the allotted time left.. I was pleasantly surprised how dense yet manageable this episode felt. It didn’t use as much cheap gimmicks as some earlier episodes but instead banked on plot treats without forcing in a ton more exposition unlike the past two episodes. I loved the some of the fight moments now that there was more at stake. Shirou’s immortal body made some of the earlier fights a tad dull. 


The episode did not really have a lot of negatives, Pinga being there to rescue the major felt a bit forced, and water purifier boy was a bit obnoxiously present in the first part but all in all this was an episode I really enjoyed a lot. I do hope that Michiru isn’t actually dead or it will really sour the last episode for me , because I don’t really care about most people’s fate but Michiru I really want to live. I also noticed how a few beastman look a bit weird like Flip’s Killer Whale form. Finally I am not sure how I feel about how the ending is used in so many episodes as a relevant song. On the one hand I really like that the anime score matters to the series itself, on the other hand I find it a tad lazy since most of the times when Night Running plays characters just sit down.. or in this case just fly over a crowd it feels a bit like “dead air” with a mellowness that doesn’t really fit what Nazuna wants. As an Idol I expect her to sing something a bit more peppy. I get a vibe the singer really wanted the song to be made into a plot point for some reason.

This episode gave me faith back in this series and I hope for a conclusion that I can at least great as fine-apple. This series will probably not make any list of favourites for me any time soon but overall I had a great run so far. This episode makes me look at the final episode with hope instead of despair and I did not think it would be able to do that. If I had to change anything I might not have let Shirou change .. I am unsure if his Immortal Body blessed onto him should actually be prone to this. I liked it for now it build tension but whether I love this episode or think it is fine shall be only revealed to me next week.

This show continues to surprise me! I loved this episode a lot! I’d say this is my second to favorite viewing of the day due to the incredible progression the story makes, the development of all characters and the overall world building. This show is great.

In this episode we see how Samurai Flamenco and Flamenco girls move on after their separation in the last episode.  Mari has recruited her fellow idols into two new Flamenco Girls, Ruby and Sapphire and is teaching them the art of dickstomping. She is also trying to make moves on Goto who blows her off. Meanwhile the promotional guy whose name I can never remember puts out a bounty for 10 million yen for the reveal of Samurai Flamenco so everyone is after him. Luckily some Office Supply store decides to sponsor him and makes some office supply secret weapons for him.. like a Pencil case that can launch eraser that work like riot bullets or stapler Nunchucks which which he can staple enemies together or to the floor. Him getting silly sentai weapons is once more, advancement towards his journey to become an actual sentai. Mari recruiting two more magical girls makes it so that she is well on her way as well.. and when Goto saves Samurai Flamenco now even he seems very deeply involved.

The best moment in the episode to me .. is basically.. the entire episode where Samurai Flamenco is being chased by fans and social media people trying to unmask him. One Salaryman in particular seems to be riding his ass quite heavily and despite the danger to his own identity and safety Masayoshi says he has to take these risks because there is a small chance people actually need his help and that is his entire purpose! He is such a great hero at least when it comes to mindset.. he is aware of his flaws and embraces these  and we really see that model just trying to do right by the world! I love it so much! The way how the characters design slowly evolves is reflected by how Masayoshi evolves but that goodness in his heart is the one constant that keeps him the same character nonetheless. He grows but he doesn’t change. He simply adapts which makes him into a much more respectable character than some Shounen heroes who learn a new technique and suddenly act all heroic and noble out of nowhere at all.  Masayoshi has his zeal and it seems unwavering. The one constant element in a show where a lot can happen and it just feels really really strong in this episode! I got so much respect for the man! His new gadgets are hilarious as well! Bless him and bless this show!

The element I liked a bit less was Mari, she threw herself at Goto and failed because text-girlfriend showed up again. While she seems head strong and has her own sense of justice she got so bummed out from a simple rejection that I thought it messed her character up a bit for my taste. She manipulates her fellow idols with kisses, can flirt and manipulate everyone.. but she isn’t that much of a spoiled princess. She had more important things to do.. this made her a bit more shallow… now  don’t get me wrong she always had shallow traits but still this whininess she has to it seems contradictory to how Samurai Flamenco left her and how head strong and determined she is.Text-girlfriend annoyed me a lot less her text were kinda cute this weak but darn that woman can type fast. Also I am unsure how the Flamenco Girls dye their hair in a lighter shade, do they use spray on hair paint?  I am not sure but that  would really limit story options when a character is held up a bit.. it might result in a bit iffy moments later on.. though I think this show is clever enough to make it work but in a show this sensical that stood a bit out to me. And yes I know this show is weird.. but everything that happens makes sense within the confines of the world at least.

I really loved this episode , it introduced so many new elements to the story and nothing felt rushed. It is funny how each episode also follows the structure of famous sentai tropes but takes it in a very low key real world way. The episode with Red Axe for example was the fake Ranger while this episode reflected  the hypnotised innocents.  It’s a cute way to see that not only Masayoshi is a big sentai fan but the creators too. It feels satisfying on all levels and I was happy I saw this! This is better than just very good! So this episode gets my highest seal of approval!

This was another good episode of Slime! It was a lot of talking which was new for the show, but I was surprised how well those talks paid off! I was quite invested in them. 

The story picks up where we left it of in the last episode with Rimuru still being in the host club!  He’s being quite cute with the ladies when suddenly Vesta/Bester the minister steps in. He is surprised Kaijin  finished his order revealing he set him up to fail on purpose. When Rimuru gets a prediction from a Roma like woman who shows an image  of a woman he is allegedly meant to be with , Vesta interupts by trying to ban the slime from the club and pouring his beer on it. Which makes Kajin punch the guy and a trial starts.. which of course has been bought. The hero king Gazel Dwargo who watches the trial however intervenes and instead of a life working as slaves the dwarf artisans get exiled and adopted into Rimuru’s community instead. Vesta gets fired for his antis.. because he also faked injuries and the king orders a mysterious hooded figure to follow our beloved slime!  It’s very powerful. 

I liked this story better than the last episode! This one had some weight to it, yet still showed a lot of charm. This story reflects Rimuru’s life on the other side, where his life as a salary man had him suck up to his boss, be the one to entertain and not be one that is entertained. He was a guy that was afraid to step up for what is right.. while Kaijn does it without a second’s hesitation. It polarises these worlds and once again it reminds me of D&D. As a Dungeon Master myself I see a lot of these people who are oppressed by the shackles of daily life, who break free in the world of fantasy and just are unleashed. Kaijin represents that a bit for me while Rimuru of course kind of depicts the real life aspect of it. I really like world building like that! We flavour our fantasy worlds like that.. so stuff like this would happen in fantasy worlds! My favourite scene would be the speech of the king, he cares for his retainer and helps the dwarven blacksmith make up his mind.. using the trial to make him stick to the oath he made to Rimuru. The talk with Vesta afterwards telling him he severed bonds with a potential powerful ally using the potion as an example was very satisfying and him  fearing the slimes power asking it to be shadowed made me excited for the next episode.  The teasing with the mystery lady was also kinda clever.. how will a slime be with a girl?  I was intrigued!

This episode was great, though the talks could go on for a bit long. While we establish a trial is unfair it just kinda drags on, the talk about recreating the swords was given in the last episode so I find it unlikely that they would discuss it again. I see why you want to bring that element back and remind people but it felt a bit expositiony. The episode feels a bit like a setup episode and those usually aren’t the strongest in a shows lineup though this one had a strong twist at the end. My least favourite scene is when Rimuru gags Gobta in jail and tells him to call out for his tempest wolf partner to free him. As he did not want to get him involved in this trial.. which makes Gobta completely useless in this story.. he came for no reason at all other than a few gags on how much he sleeps. Now not everything has to be destined so I do not mind him doing less than Rimuru but taking him for nothing felt a bit silly. He could at least have woken up and had a bit of story or character added to him. Now he’s just there!

I liked this episode better than the last one , but I can see people easily being a bit bored by this one as well, so I would not be surprised if people would put this up as their least favourite episode so far. For me it reminded me of the D&D trope of the trial for misbehaving in a town .. that  I oftenly see happen. I liked that it was more narrative and less slapstick than the previous episode. While the episodes get the same grade this one is very close to being a grade higher while the last one was very close to being a grade lower..so within the grade they are about as far apart as they be .. an amazing episode regardless.

Eeeeeeeeek! Oh my Arceus!  This show has pink trains/street cars!  Also that art-style that surrealism … I think I might be in love! Forgive me if I use some terminology wrong I am afraid to google the correct one because I would not want to spoil myself but my! I loved this first episode.

We are introduced to our main characters Cocona and Papika. Papika seems to be some sort of witch/magical girl that flies around on a surfboard followed by her robot with a brain in it called Bu-chan. She apparently is looking for a partner and tries to find one manually while an Organisation tries to stop her from being silly but she escapes and quickly finds Cocona. A run of the mill schoolgirl who has to make a big decision  for a follow up school or something.. I could not quite  get what was going on.. but something like that! Stuck in her choice on where to go, she is bothered by her one friend who is a lot looser than she is.. picking a handful of schools including a boys school . She decides to seek out some peace and tranquility and finds a concrete sewer pipe thing in the wooded area near the school.  Papika had been sleeping in there waiting for Cocona to show up.. suddenly the organisation activates Bu-Chan and he takes them into a blackness.. using the concrete pipe to dive into Deep Fantasy.. I think that was what it was called.  Transported to a snow world the two discover this new magical world with sweet snow. Having snowball fights and making snowmen! At night when they try to camp in an igloo they are attacked by some big creatures that cause Cocona to lose her glasses. Chasing the creatures Papika ends up in a deadly situation when suddenly a power awakens in Cocona that allows her to save Papika.. the two then are returned to the real world where Papika returns the glasses of her presumed partner who refuses to go on more adventures with her.

That plot seems to make no sense but that is basically what happens! Darn I loved this! The way how Papika flirts with Cocona was cute but forcefully making it funny as well. I dislike the lewding stuff,  but this felt innocent even if it might not be! I liked how managed to display so many of the tones it might have in a single episode. We saw the cute slice of life stuff from Cocona, the weird CGDCT stuff from Papika with the snowball fight with her and her robot, the Yuri stuff between the two girls and of course surrealism that reminded me of Kyousougiga blended with Madoka. Kyousougiga as in it felt very much like a world that was “designed” to be weird like how the world behind the painting was created.  The Madoka elements came from the monsters, the way the powers are used and also the implied darkness when Papika is being whipped and seriously injured by these attacks.  Visually I got some Liz and the Blue Bird vibes, that picture book, casually coloured in aesthetic.  I really like that they do with the eyes, they felt super unique and particularly crazy and surreal contributing to the whole atmosphere. The harder colours and brighter colours on the characters really makes them stand out and like it  feels genre wise I also feel design wish it is a bit of a mishmash of styles.. which I really could appreciate. My favourite scene is the one where Papika tries to seek some closeness with Cocona in a build igloo. She knows  why Cocona is there even if Cocona doesn’t know herself yet and she just runs with it!  Having had that one meaningful gaze. The school-girl however is much more uptight and shoves her off. It was cute and unlike some other shows it did not feel  to forced Tsundere or something. Just cute and funny!

Negatives are up next, but I already told you I have fallen in love with this first episode so there isn’t a whole lot for me to tell here. I guess my least favourite scene was the cliffhanger of Cocona telling Papika she won’t be going on more adventures. Which isn’t really bad but  that was a bit of a generic ending.. it makes total sense for the character to say it but we all know she will have a change of heart or be dragged in anyway. So  I always feel this rejection bit is somewhat pointless. There would not be a whole lot of show if she never saw Papika again or went on an adventure with her nor would they reveal her powers if she isn’t going to use them! So while I totally get it  and in character it makes sense I don’t think they will fool anyone into saying ‘OMG did she just reject her.. will they not go on adventures?’  So I might have appreciated it if they just went…”well obviously these two are going to do stuff together let them just accept it so we can focus more on the stuff you want to watch this show for’.. but that really is a nitpick here!

I LOVED this! I almost had anime girl eyes sparkling while watching this! There was something there that just caught me and from the first scene I already knew.. okay this is one of those shows you are going to love! Love at first sight! Everything so far tells me I am going to love this show, the animation, the world building , the themes, the tones. It all sang to me. Having read Mari’s review of the show and having seen GalvanicTeam’s  YouTube video I knew I was going to like it a lot.. but this first episode made me sad… sad that I put it in my Saturday morning lineup and that I am going to have to wait 13 weeks to be able to finish it! But it will be weeks that I will cherish because I love this! Highest Grade obviously!

Oh my I did not expect THAT to happen. Hikaru no Go manages to give me one of my favorite episodes so far, after perhaps “the beautiful battle”. This episode was intense, heartbreaking and really made me warm up to Hikaru again whom I had begun to cool of a bit too over the past few episodes. Man this shows creators are good at dragging me back in when I am about to fall out!

In this episode we see Hikaru and Sai rush to the Go-Lounge to stop Mitani from cheating any longer, but when they come in they find Mitani already dueling a drunkard for 10.000 yen. Believing he is an easy target, Mitani forgoes any handicaps and plays the man, seemingly to easily win over him fair and square. Yet then the man suddenly reveals he is not that drunk and it was a ruse to win the bet! He switches hands and suddenly starts playing seriously, cheating himself to claim a swift and harsh victory over Mitani!  Revealing he has been hired by the lounge owner to teach the boy a lesson , crushing the boys spirit in the proces. So now Hikaru and Sai turn on this man.. trying to win Mitani’s money back for him.. losing his money briefly and being betrayed by the few people he trusted should be a lesson enough! It turns out plenty of people were aware of Mitani cheating, but when they made small bets, the’d happily sponsor him  knowing how poor he actually was. Like a grandparent would sponsor their grandchild in need, simply because e played with them. However when bets grew bigger the lounge owner could not stand for it anymore and hired this guy..who brutally took all his money.  Sai and Hikaru face off against the man hoping that giving him the money back would let them join their club.

Jeesz what talk about a lucky stroke on episodes! This episode was incredible as well. The whole Sai/Hikaru Dynamic is enforced here! This really felt like a match for Sai in the end, while in the last episode I’d say both would have a stake in defeating Mitani. This subverts the problem of either underusing Sai or not letting Hikari fight any relevant battles on his own the duel with Mitani would have caused.. either way would have left something to be desired but this way.. I was 100% on board. Such a great call!  It also made Mitani a lot more human  simply by facing himself a sort of “adult version” of himself.. a “if you keep going on this track you become this guy”  vibe so much narrative room has been given for the character to develop. It also shows how the main character does not drive the plot.. it happens on it’s own like an actual living world. Without Hikaru , Mitani would still have learned his lesson.. just quite possibly harsher. In Yu-gi-oh or Beyblade or name your sports/game anime bad characters usually are only redeemed by losing to the main character, they stand still when the protagonist isn’t involved in their live. Both Akira and Mitani so far have not been bound by this. While Akira wants to face Hikaru and get strong enough to face him it is not as if he can’t grow without Hikaru. The  world lives without the main character and this episode highlighted that with the duel between Mitani and the cheatbusting guy!

Sai’s duel against this guy was a bit of a let down as most of it is skipped. Now this comes with the sport so it is perfectly understandable but I would have liked to see the main gain some despair during the duel not only after, I would have loved to see the forfeit happening rather than the pan the camera to reveal a shocked face but like with most episodes today that is just a preference rather than an actual gripe. The only true negative I had was the shopkeeper using an exposition thing to ruin a beautiful scene.  When Mitani loses he comes up 20 yen short of having the full amount of 10.000 yen and Hikaru wants to lend it to him ..but Mitani wants nothing to do with him lending it from the shopkeeper.  When he finds out it was the shopkeep that set him up however he puts back those 20 yen and asks it from Hikaru.. making him the lesser evil of the two. Also stating that Mitani now plans to never return to this place after finding out.  A bit later when Mitani left the old man more or less explains this and it took the shine of that amazing imager that really represented Mitani’s character.

That could not ruin this episode for me though! It was beautiful!  The clever twist solved narrative problems and also made me embrace Mitani in case he does end up joining the team. While I still feel this shows pacing is a bit off, resulting in a bit of an up-down-up-down-up episode structure.. in terms of enjoyment this episode was definitely an up. In fact it was one of the biggests ups I have had with this series to date. I was really engaged with the matches and the stake being something more than “honour” this time really made me relate to it a lot more. It wasn’t just about the love for the game or the honor of a match, Mitani plays to be able to enjoy his life a little, to not be so dirt poor! Hikaru played to redeem a guy.. and to win him over, while Sai had his code his memories involved.
Highest praise! Highest grade! 

And with that another is done! I had a great week! Thursday I had lunch with Fatima Minusima (Fake name from an earlier blog) which was great to see her again! We had a good talk and it was nice to catch up in this social distancing time! Friday I went to the zoo and head diner for a friends birthday! One of my best friends I shall name Hub-Hub Pilana. I saw plenty of weird types of ducks at the zoo and I had delicious tapas and a pink cocktail! So it was a good day! Yesterday I saw the movie Unicorn shop with my lady friends.. we had a girls night with some wine, snacks and this delightfully odd chick flick. At the moment of writing though I had a big fight with a friend! I will probably have to cut her out my life! She gossips about my health situation, both mental and physical behind my back and tries to force me to adhere to a standard I am unfit for. She literally gives me nightmares when she is like this and last night after I found out she has done this.. it was the same. So I offered her a chance to apologise because she really hurt me but those calls have gone unanswered.. so next week I think I will start with a friend less, but a brighter cleaner future ahead! May your next week be clean and bright as well!

Pinkie’s Saturday Anime Adventure 10

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

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

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

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

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

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

Episode Score

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

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

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

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

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

Episode Score

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

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

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

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

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

Episode Score

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Episode Score

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

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