The Return of the Recap 43

I have a feeling anyone who says this girl is the worst will have missiles launched at them from New York.

In recent days, I’ve thought about changing up the design of this blog. Basically it’s been about 2 years with this current look and I have a constant reminder of how unpopular this place is every single time I look at it. Unfortunately, the one thing I can’t seem to change is this dumb title that pretty much inhibits any potential growth (and the writing – self ed.). I wouldn’t really be starting over if I moved this to another .wordpress.com address would I?

There’s this small little convention going on somewhere on the east coast of the United States this weekend. I went to it last year, but the person I went with last year seems to have fallen completely off the face of the Earth. There have been any number of people that I’ve mostly just followed on Twitter or in this particular sphere of blogs that have withdrawn or simply moved on with their lives. That’s just something that tends to happen with the passage of time; people get lives, girlfriends, spouses, children and spend time with new groups of people. I don’t think a conscious choice is made to cut people off in situations like that, but this is the era of the declining social community. Yes, people can communicate with each other online, but how long is that going to last between nations?

Currently Airing Top 5

The World God Only Knows

I can safely say this is the only series this season that I consistently look forward to. It’s consistently entertaining, and odd choices in adaptation aside, is very well produced. Also, I’ve been rather impressed by Keima’s character especially given the latest chapter of the manga.

Keima is a knowingly-flawed character who found himself sucked into a world similar to the dating sims he played prior to the story beginning. He comes to the realization that he doesn’t love any of the girls he is trying to help. It’s that classic trope of having the male character who doesn’t covet any girl having them fall all over him for his affection. Now, he is questioning what good that does for him and for anyone close to him. This isn’t your typical harem show.

Genshiken Nidaime

Is there any more typical shot of life as a new office worker than Madarame sitting around in his apartment drinking by himself and wondering why his life has changed. He doesn’t get as excited about Comiket anymore for the obvious reason that Saki isn’t there anymore. He has a group of people close to him that want him to move on from that relationship that won’t happen, but it’s complicated.

I think Madarame is the sole consistent bright spot in this franchise and the episodes he features in are by far the best. I say his situation is complicated because he’s the most vulnerable character of anyone. Angela’s role in this episode was really to make this obvious though they all want the same thing. He has to get over his unrequited love of Saki and/or find someone else to fall in love with. Angela’s aggressive actions have noble intentions, but with Madarame getting increasingly uncomfortable Sue and Hato step in. It’s simply not going to be easy for him to get where they all see he needs to go.

Monogatari Series

The first few minutes of this week’s episode could not have been cheap to produce. It felt sort of like that scene in Clannad where the teddy bear that was destined for Kotomi made its way around the world only with real emotion behind it.

This was the conclusion of Hanekawa’s arc and it began with that desire to become a person who doesn’t want to be pure. It ends with her moving on with her life after Koyomi’s rejection of her confession. The process just felt right to get there and I can’t really say much more than that.

C³-bu

I’m really not entirely sure what to make of Yura’s sudden transformation into airsoft killing machine this episode. I would note that she has yet to actually be hit in an episode to date. Is that more a function of her imagination at play or is it simply luck? That’s the big question I have going forward for this series. Sudden character development doesn’t feel real without it being challenged at some point.

There’s context to this shot? I think?

High School DxD

This week’s episode is really meant to show how different a leader Rias is from the other demon leaders. She consoles those who need it and punishes those who need it as well. Actually that’s really just Issei, but the point is that the issues never linger that long after they get themselves into trouble. The story is heading to a chaotic battle on the school grounds now with virtually the entire city under threat and this show has done a good job in keeping me interested so far.

The Rest of the Week

6. Love Lab – The chemistry in the Student Council is growing rapidly. There conversations are getting ever more entertaining, but Riko still feels like an outsider in this show.
7. Watamote – This wasn’t a bad episode by any means, but it just stayed way too loyal to the source material and didn’t feel like anything new as a result.
8. Kiniro Mosaic – Another group where the group of characters is starting to work well together. They still can’t shake the fact this is obviously a 4-koma adaptation, but I think the combination of simple characters works at least half of the time.
9. Fate/kaleid liner Prisma☆Illya – I was close to dropping this show after last week, but I found the contrast between Illya and Miyu when it came to flying was genuinely funny. I think I can stick it out for 6 more episodes.
10. Uchouten Kazoku – For an episode that involved lots of explosions and alcohol fueled hijinks, this really was sort of dull. I just think the rivalry between these families is not the story I want to see.
11. Senyuu. – This was pretty much an episode devoted to advance the plot. Only the character design change for Februar Zwei (This demon naming scheme is ridiculously easy) was funny.
12. Silver Spoon – Suspense of disbelief is gone. I don’t think that much agonizing over pizza is even possible. Done

Free! – No episode this week.

Updated Seasonal Weekly Average Ranking

	Season	YTD
Kami nomi zo Shiru Sekai: Megami-hen	1	1
Stella Jogakuin Koutou-ka C³-bu	2	3
High School DxD New	3	7
Watashi ga Motenai no wa Dou Kangaetemo Omaera ga Warui!	4	9
Free!	5	10
Genshiken Nidaime	6	12
Senyuu.	7	16
Kiniro Mosaic	8	20
Monogatari Series Second Season	9	24
Servant x Service(dropped)	10	25
Uchouten Kazoku	11	28
Fate/kaleid liner Prisma☆Illya	–	–
Love Lab	–	–

My Gatchaman Tweet of the Week

Since I can’t watch Gatchaman Crowds until I’ve caught up with the rest of the series, I’ve been tweeting my thoughts as I watch the episodes of the original series. My most inspired use of 140 characters over the week will go here.

Proper Gatchaman time and holy shit that ancient mecha assembled itself

— Emperor J (@emperorj) August 3, 2013

Terribad

This week’s villain is apparently Darkseid.

Amon Saga

This week’s terribad was directed by the same man who directed the classic Ninja Turtles: Superman Legend. It’s about as typical an ultra-violent 80s fantasy anime can get as far as story goes. Main character meets an ally, then finds a princess, tries to rescue her from the powerful villain and then at the end when she wants to go with him he goes off on his own. Typical man afraid of commitment,etc.

The real reason why this is terribad has to be down to the production quality. Early on when Amon, the protagonist of this piece, is evading punches he disappears from the shot rather than animating him moving. There’s plenty of gaps in animation that have me questioning if they didn’t finish it or they simply ran out of money. There’s still plenty of blood and guts to go around as weird combination animals are killed, though. Even better, this was dubbed into English and very often it sounded like there was one person doing all of the background voicing. Not noticeable most of the time, but in the middle of a bar fight hearing one guy make assorted grunts in the same pitch is noticeable.

In the end, this will go down as one of the more forgettable bad anime. The plot is decent enough to get buy and there’s not enough laughs to make it fun to watch either. It unfortunately seems to be happening a bit more regularly lately.

Time of First Female Nudity: None
Rating: 39.5