Large amounts of text as I cover 3 episodes of a few series this season.
I divided the series into series I watch in general and series I watch just for eyecandy. Eyecandy stuff is at the bottom in galleries while the regular series get themselves a bit less pictures and a bit more words.
I’m doing the recap style because I’m pretty behind and I’m still deciding how to tackle the Summer Series but let’s just worry about getting started here eh?
Shingeki no Kyojin (14-15): Eren is promptly imprisoned and is threatened by a lot more people than he cares to know. He is however, met with some kindness from the Recon Squad’s members, mostly from the labrat-like Hanji. To make another exposition episode short, Eren is brought into court and people argue about what to do with him. Merchants and churchmen fight against eachother and when Eren yells at them to give the burden to him to bear, Levi steps out of line and starts beating the crap out of him. The other Recon Squad member vouches for Levi’s reponsibility and offers that Eren be under Levi’s surveilance. Eren is made a full member of the Recon Squad and he accompanies them out to the wall. Once again, we’re introduced to more characters But before anything serious happens, the cleaning freak Levi orders his squad to purify the old headquarters and they begin to tidy up. On the other side of things, two high-ranked members discuss the plans of how the recruits are going to be deployed to the outer walls. Hanji comes in that night to ask Levi if she can borrow Eren in helping her experiment on the live Titan specimens they have captured. Hanji proceeds to passionately detail her experiments and Eren hears her talk until sunrise. However, Hanji is given devastating news that the two captured titans have been killed and apparently it was done by around 2 other people with the aid of the 3D Gear. Erwin creeps Eren out and signals something much more weird going on.
First off with the opening and endings. Guren no Yumiya is just so stuck in my head that I can’t really admit anything is better than it is. The ending however is pretty damn good though. Moving on: Just more character development going on with Eren now seperated from his friends and now out with the weirdos of the Recon Squad’s Top brass. We see Levi’s obsessive hygiene and Hanji’s already obvious obsessionwith titans. The latter provides some more backgrounds on the Titans and also show a big change in her character. She apparently grew up and started out hating titans but grew out of it and then began to be fascinated by them. A new arc begins when 2 mysterious individuals kill Hanji’s test subjects. For what reason would they ever kill such an oppertunity? Revenge? Religious zeal? Paranoia? Or is something darker at the works?
TWGOK S3 (1-2): By the episodes themselves, Keima gives a quick recap of the skipped girls and then move on to the Goddess hunt starting off with Kanon and then moving on to Chihiro and Ayumi and then even more quickly onto others. Haqua gets promoted to new sidekick why Elsie disguises herself as Kanon (the real currently lies in Keima’s house after she is attacked by an unknown assailant.
I’m a very big fan of TWGOK and I was genuinly excited for the new season this..season. Much to my suprise (and Light’s), S3 of TWGOK here decides to skip around 100 chapters (effectively ignoring around 3-7 girls) in favor of covering the Goddess Arc of the series. While I understand going after girl after girl formula might get repetitive sooner or later, the girls present within those 7 happen to contain a goddess as well. If anything, the series just shot itself in the foot (well, not that severely, more like dropping the ball) for me. I was particularly looking foward to the rest of the girls…By no means am I saying that the skip will prevent me from watching, Haqua becomes prominent so of course Ill watch. But I’ll probably not let this go for a while….hopefully they can make some OVA’s.
Dangan Ronpa (1-3): Bunch of highschoolers who cater to a specific archetype/cliche/whatever you call these damn weirdos are called together in the Highschool of Hope. The odd one out is our main lead Makoto who only got in due to really good luck. We’re introduced to a load of characters who I will address as they will inevitably get their own episodes (it’s like Angel Beats, minus the happy). The students are then greeted by their Principle Monokuma, a small toy bear that tells them that in order to graduate, they have to find a killer amongst themselves and get away with the deed. While trying to clam a situation, Makoto gets punched while trying to avoid a fight. While she is introduced beforehand, we have Maizono Sayaka, an idol who used to go to Makoto’s middle school. She seems rather friendly and the two pair up. Everyone meets up at the lunch room to discuss their findings. When a few days go by, Monkuma gets bored at how passive the kids are and decides to mess up their minds by showing them personalized videos of something traumatizing. The videos work and Maizono seems to be the most affected. The next day, the two decide to switch rooms to put Maizono at ease but the next morning, as everyone meets in the lunchroom, they find Maizono missing. Makaoto then finds her dead in his room. Monokumo then explains the rules. Committing murder is one thing but to survive, they students must either pinpoint who the murderer is in their “trials”. If they match the killer, the latter is executed. If they’re wrong and accuse someoen different, those who accused the innocent are executed. Enoshima Junko, the fashion star calls Monokuma out but when she breaks a rule of hurting the principle, she promptly gets killed. The details of Maizono’s death is published onto their mobile devices and they suspect Makoto due to Maizono dead in his room. Other than finding quick evidence, Kyoko finds a discrepancy with the room’s nameplates between Maizono’s and Makoto’s.
The trial begins and to put the case short: Everyone thinks Makoto is the killer but Kirigiri, the mysterious one more or less defends him. Evidence of the thrown crystal ball, the burnt jacket sleeve, the broken doorknob, and the sign written next to Maizono’s corpse reveals the culprit to be Kuwata Leon, the star baseball player. Apparently Maizono was the one who tried to kill him in the first place but she ended up getting killed out of Leon’s self defense. Even so, Leon is taken to the execution room where 1000 high-velocity baseballs pelt him til his death. Kirigiri comes to
I thorougly enjoyed these episodes and I keep hearing that a lot of the things are rushed here. I can definitely feel the rushed aspect of the series but if the anime was enough to keep my attention, I think I really want to play the games. That being said, this might end up being the inferior version of the game but nonetheless will bring new fans into the series. Fat dude and the bookworm girl are pretty annoying and Sayaka, Junko, and Leon are the three dead this week, and we’ll see who else gets offed next time. I already miss the girl D:
Free (1-3): So four guys reunite together in highschool to renovate the swim club. Haruka and Makoto (they’re guys) have been the two members who stuck with eachother and they meet up with their old teammates Rin and Nagisa (Also guys). Haruka is the guy who only seems to care about swimming, Makoto is the nice guy, Nagisa is energetic, and Rin is the deviant (with shark teeth no less). Nagisa switched schools while Rin moved away and comes back. The beginning episodes clearly show the guys’ love for swimming and mostly cover their efforts to revive the club. The money problem bombs the plan and for funding, they decide to enter in on a tournament to prove their worth. They go look for another member and they find Rei (Still a guy) who’s is pretty much a brainiac (if you didn’t figure out from the glasses). He’s the type of guy who calculates everything he does and finds Track to be the most mathematical (I wonder if this dude knows about water resistance, swimming forms, and the like to consider track over swimming to his standards). He finally gets convinced by Nagisa to actually try, but it turns out he can’t even swim at all. Haruka’s actions of saving his sorry ass gets him thinking and it inspires him how Haruka swims. He later formally inquires to join the club.
I’ve been hearing a crapton about this series and how it basically was meant to be the counter-action to how male-oriented the fanservice business was going down in anime (ahem, DxD). While I can adamantly admit that the male demographic has been getting it good for a while, so I won’t complain that the fellow female demographic need their fanservice. The series wastes no time in showing off well-toned male bodies. It’s either a typical school scene or the guys are half-naked/in the process of getting half naked. The only other complaint that the guys seem rather feminine (they resemble K-On, which is not a good thing in my case). Their names, ALL OF THEM, are usually what I expect on girls and But, as a anime-watcher who agrees that we males have been getting enough moe for a while, I’ll see if this series has anything other than female fanservice. I’m certainly not expecting something like Slam Dunk, hell I even feel bad for comparing these two right now.
Fanservice Corner
DxD + Neptunia
In Neptunia’s case, the series itself is one huge fanservice show. In a sense that it’s big parody on the gaming industry. Just for reason alone is enough for me to just watch it without any expectations. Kana Hanazawa might show up in the show so we’ll see what happens. If you’re wondering about the plot….well there really isn’t too much. I’m legit just watching it for the magical girl transformation that the main girls are doing.
I’ve basically grown tired of the girls in DxD. Rias is now a Protagonist groupie, Asia has always been one, Koneko is slowly becoming one, and Akeno is still teasing. Kiba is soon to become genderswapped and fall helplessly in love with Issei sooner or later (yes it’s a spoiler, but did you really give a damn?). The only reason I’m watching is so I can just ogle at the pretty new girls. Nothing more, nothing less.
Lair of the Idle 