Every few days recently someone named "Harucho" decides there isn't enough diversity on Gelbooru, and he (I assume its a guy) dumps 50 or 100 pictures of naked men into the image stream in close succession.
They're about as realistic as the women whose pictures I like to look at -- which is to say, not very damned much. But I admit it; I'm hetero and I'd rather look at a homely girl than a handsome guy. Looking at a naked picture of a muscular guy hung like a horse is just a squick to me.
And... it was a satisfying ending. Very satisfying. It doesn't wrap up the whole story, by any means, but it wraps up a lot of sub-stories, and there was some wonderful combat, and it ended on an upbeat note.
Tyuule seems to have Stockholm Syndrome, and it couldn't happen to a nicer bitch. I was hoping she'd get shot, but I guess the author needed her for some other mischief later. (Perhaps
Delilah will eventually find her and have a showdown.)
Rory and Lelei make a great combat team; it's a perfect match up of skills and powers. They complement each other beautifully. It was awesome watching both of them going all out against a worthy opponent. (Not all that worthy, though; they wiped him out in about 45 seconds.)
I hope Italica has a red-light district, so that Mizari and Tyuwaru have somewhere to go. They sure can't go to Arnus and there is probably a warrant out for Mizari in the capital after the previous episode.
Anyway, the second series had a slow center section, with too much politics and intrigue and not enough Lelei. But the last two episodes made that good. It leaves us feeling good and looking forward to an announcement of a third series, when and if.
As long as there's plenty of money around, I would guess that one city is about as good as another for prostitutes like Mizari and Tyuwaru. And Italica is very prosperous recently, and any city that size is probably going to have a red light district. Besides which, the JSDF owes them both. So I suspect Mizari and Tyuwaru probably won't have any difficulty in Italica.
Princess Pina
has a lot of debts to pay, eventually. She isn't in a position to do anything about it yet, but she isn't going to forget. (It isn't in character for her; she's quite honorable.)
I can't really think of anything she could do for Rory except maybe make a huge contribution to Emroy's temple, or to decide that henceforth Emroy will be the official god of the empire. Or maybe pledge that Rory herself will be the official god once she ascends 40 years hence.
As for the JSDF, what they want is peace and prosperity, which is about what she wants too. So that part's fine.
But she's got a huge debt to Lelei, Tuka, and Yao. I wonder what she'll do for them come the day.
And she owes Countess Myui big time. I wonder if she'll exempt Italica from imperial taxes eventually.
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About Lelei:
I wonder if those were the new attacks she developed after studying Earth science? About which she wrote her thesis? If so, that explains why they were so effective.
Good, but not great. You're quite correct about that fight scene... would like to have seen more of Lelei's 'Gates of Babylon.'
There was a moment at the end, when
back in Tokyo, Itami mentioned "...one year ago...." I thought that was the hint the Gate was going to close I expected the rug to be pulled out from under me, but it didn't happen.
Lots still to wrap up; the looming 3-way Imperial civil war (recall the other brother skedaddled some eps back), no hard data on when the Gate will close - what if it unexpectedly did when some combination of Pina, the Emperor, and Rory were in Japan? - and both the Pied Piper and Tyuule's teleports-in-the-shadow's orc still at large.
First season was a '10.' Putting a third of second season on rails was annoying, so an '8'. Much re-watch potential, esp the fights. My wife has become a HUGE Kuribayashi fan. Thanks for covering this one, Steven.
Posted by: Clayton Barnett at March 25, 2016 03:15 PM (lU4ZJ)
In the most recently translated manga issue, her sister spills some funnels out of her bag--she had brought them along as a simple way to demonstrate the Munroe Effect. Clearly, she was inspired by the Panzerfaust 3s that the squad used against the Flame Dragon.
Posted by: BigD at March 25, 2016 11:40 PM (VKO9N)
This came out a while ago and I didn't watch it then, due mainly to a feeling of "been there done that". But a couple of days ago I got curious and downloaded it, and now I've watched two episodes.
Anyway I'm always a sucker for shows about super-powered girls, and not usually too bothered by harem shows. And as of the first two episodes the harem is forming nicely. We got the stacked student body president who seems too good to be true; I think there's something sinister about her. We have a red headed princess who is a tsundere and can't make friends. We have Our Hero's childhood friend, Saya, and she's already my favorite.
The art is good and the story telling isn't bogged down with "As you know, Jim" exposition, at least so far. And we have a suspected bad guy who almost certain isn't really a bad guy.
And we've already had one girl die. Probably. She might still be alive.
Anyway, Our Hero isn't a potato; he's got character and Saya seems to think he's extraordinarly powerful. Since they trained together as kids she is in a good position to know. It's nice if the hero isn't a nebbish, and equally nice if he isn't an arrogant SOB. And so far he isn't either. He's nice and he's pleasant and he isn't trying to impress anyone. But I'm sure he will; it's obvious that the Princess is the chosen one, if there is a chosen one.
What got me interested is that there's going to be a sequel in the next season. That doesn't always mean a show is any good (see for instance, Queen's Blade) but it does mean it was popular enough so that the studio thinks it can make more money off it. So we'll see how it goes.
UPDATE: Ep 5: One thing I don't really like is harem shows where the harem keeps growing. We're up to 4 now and depending on how things develop, maybe 6.
And "Our Hero can become ridiculously strong but only for a short time" is getting dusty and moldy. At least it's 5 minutes this time instead of 1 minute. I don't know whether either of these shows is imitating the other, but there's an uncanny resemblance between this show and Rakudai Kishi no Cavalry.
For the life of me, I can't keep the two straight for more than a day at a time.
And that president isn't totally trustworthy. Some of the weapons are cursed, and hers is dangerously so. Plus, as is usual with these shows, she's effectively operating on a level equal to a government minister, so she's got other things to worry about than the school budget. Remember, the corporation controlling the magic/technology is the world's government now, and Claudia is the daughter of a high executive. "Absurdly powerful student council" indeed.
It's not totally obvious yet, but this world is considerably dystopic. Notice that there's no major enemy that they're being trained to fight...
I debated putting more under spoiler tags but decided against it. It gets into the world-building, and the anime didn't go that deeply into it. Though if I recall accurately, there will be a hint given by Claudia. It's the major reason I call the world a dystopia.
4
The comparisons with Calvary were unavoidable, what with the limited but powerful hero and the equally powerful pink haired main female character.
I went back and forth about which sow I liked better, but it was under the umbrella of "good enough is the new good". Both stories were worth the time, at least.
Posted by: topmaker at March 24, 2016 04:01 PM (6stZH)
5
I've lost interest and I'm not going to watch any more of it.
6
You know what's ironic, I do not share any of your complaints. The harems seems fine, it a sacred cow type like in Ai yori Aoshi. But the whole setting seems too much of an unpleasant re-enactment of Railgun, only with a romantic element this time. So, I don't think I'm going to watch any more after the first arc.
Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at March 25, 2016 03:44 PM (XOPVE)
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I would add in the 35th Test Platoon and (especially) Bladedance of Elementalers to the list--harem mahou shojou sports stories with deeper conspiracies lurking behind the curtains. Most of the harems contain exactly the same elements, just shuffled into different combinations across each set of girls.
I really enjoy the concept; it's like Nanoha/A's with a decent (usually) male lead, with the "fetch quest eipsodes" replaced by "training/match/each girl's individual crisis" episodes. 35th kinda blew it on that end; each girl had exactly a 2-ep arc, often involving them saving the city (or more) yet never earning any points for it, to the point where it became boringly predictable.
I hesitate to mention it (for the obvious reasons below), but a similar series that *doesn't* get caught in the template is Devil Sister New Testament; despite the embarrassingly-needless, gratuitous, blatantly-censored (buy the BDs!) fanservice scenes, it managed to have a solid plot both seasons, and even the late additions to the harem didn't feel forced. The only gripe I had (other than the ridiculous fanservice) was that it clearly was based on a LN or something, and clearly must have cut out or crammed in awkwardly some of the key plot points in the source material for time.
Posted by: BigD at March 25, 2016 09:29 PM (VKO9N)
8
Sorry if I spoiled it for you. They do a good job of not messing with the mood -- most of the time -- but the hints are there. And, I forget his name, but the grossly obese president of the other school is a total ass. I dislike any of his appearances.
I finally found a spoiler online explaining what's coming in Musaigen no Phantom World, and it's about what I expected. Or at least what it described was how the first light novel ended and how the story proceeded in the second light novel.
If that's what's going to happen at the end of the anime (and I believe it will be), it's going to be a great big FUCK YOU from Kyoani to the audience, even worse than Endless Eight. It'll put the ending of Mahoromatic to shame in terms of pissing off the audience. It's going to rival the ending of the Venus Versus Virus anime. (Which didn't have the same ending as the manga.) I expect to see fan art of Mai abusing a KyoAni logo (if there is such a thing).
UPDATE: If that is really where the novels went, then the real mystery is, why would anyone want to make an anime out of that novel series?
UPDATE: So ep 12 is out, and it isn't the end of the series. But, it looks like KyoAni decided to do something else entirely. I think we're going to get a happy ending after all, but it'll be next week.
Maybe. A "FUCK YOU" ending is still possible.
UPDATE: I should make clear that I didn't watch this episode. I just dipped into it a few places for a few seconds, and watched about the last 30 seconds. I'm not going to watch it until the next (and last?) episode comes out.
There's a different answer that occurred to me:
Maybe KyoAni liked the story concept but decided to change the ending.
Ruru isn't in the books. Kyoani added her. She comes and goes. Maybe she comes in from outside, and maybe she'll turn out to be a deus ex machina that permits a happy ending. In other words, they'll do something like Petite Princess Yucie. In that one, after I watched the second to last episode I was ready to travel to Japan to shoot all the writers, but after the last episode I forgave everything.
Well, we probably find out today. (Unless this is a 13 ep series, or 2 cour.)
3
On PPY:
You could actually read the ending of PPY as a restoration of Asuka. The design similarities are WAY too striking to miss. Though what was more amazing was that it was a very watchable series.
This series is another of the KyoAni owned ones, and all of those, so far, have gone very differently from the base LN. So, while I knew about some of the 2nd LN and beyond, I highly doubt they'd go that way. Their LN division exists to give them wholly owned properties to exploit, but not fans of the LN to appease. Fairly sizable difference in approach.
Posted by: sqa at March 23, 2016 04:51 PM (KzmmE)
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Which Asuka do you mean? It surely has nothing to do with NGE!
5
In reply:
NGE's Asuka. The magic user from the other dimension that was destroyed and her friends lost in the process. I didn't say it was a hard relationship, but a lot of people commented, at the time, that there was a lot of both look & theme to her story that they used.
One of the funny fan things, but a lot of the staff was from NGE still, so some of the themes peculating up wouldn't be too surprising.
It's bad and it's going to get worse. As always in a situation like this early reports are confused and contradictory; it'll take a couple of days before we can see an accurate picture. But what we already know is that this was big.
And as always in these cases, what most concerns lefties is anti-Muslim backlash. Their sympathy is with the perps, not the victims. It brings to mind this joke headline from a few years ago:
"Muslims Fear Reprisals for Tomorrow's Train Bombingâ€
It's amazing (no it isn't) and tragic (for sure) that this joke is still timely.
Oh, for crying out loud. I abase myself. My deepest apologies. I have committed multitude sins. And so on.
Pete used the word "titular" correctly. It just seemed strangely appropriate to use it to refer to a character whose defining characteristic is huge boobs.
I wasn't trying to make fun of Pete for ESL errors. He makes them, sometimes, and I just let them go because I know that the fine nuances of English usage are really difficult to pick up. It wasn't anything like that.
I would have posted the same thing in response if Pete had been born and raised in New York City and had made that post.
Good grief. Maybe I should do a cheesecake post featuring Galko-chan, even though I think she's gross looking.
6Pete used the word "titular" correctly.
INDEED. His discourse was delightfully deft. That is the sublime beauty of the situation. I wasn't mocking him either.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at March 22, 2016 09:42 AM (/4jFR)
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I am reminded of Stephen Jay Gould's essay on Nicolas Steno, "The Titular Bishop of Titiopolis."
Today's search keyword is "Cat_Cutout". As usual, Kancolle and various flavors of IdolMaster dominate the selection, but this time Dagashi Kashi makes a respectable showing.
1
Do we know that Dagashi Kashi is a single cour? It's not a show I have any particular interest in watching (one ep was enough), but I get the impression it will be a fertile source for plunder.
