Hello everyone. This episode of One Piece was long anticipated, so I wanted to give my quick thoughts after watching it. If you’re not up to date on the One Piece anime or manga, please do not read this, it is basically just one big spoiler. I will also keep it short since I’m tired and I wasn’t planning to upload anything today. Once again: big spoilers coming up, leave now if you do not want to read these.
Here’s your protection from the spoilers down below.
With that out of the day, I wanted to take a quick moment to address two things. First, the pacing. I was incredibly excited for this episode, knowing what was coming, and for the first couple of minutes I was sold completely. But then the pacing slowed down to a crawl, scenes were being repeated and the entire thing felt off. The second point is the animation quality itself. This was fire. There’s no way about it. You can argue if you like the Looney Tunes style that Gear 5th brings with it, and there are definitely some moments that made me question the decision making, like the flashing letters spelling gear for no reason, but the actual animation itself was incredible. Everything was fluid and bouncy and when I first read this scene in the manga this is roughly the kind of chaos I was expecting. Luffy bounces like it’s the most natural thing in the world and Kaido’s understandable confusion at Luffy’s sudden revival is understandable.
I am hesitantly positive about this episode. Pacing issues aside, I think it conveyed the Gear 5/Joyboy moment quite well. I’m still on the fence on if I like this reveal as a whole, and a lot of the stuff that’s happening in the near future has me a bit more hesitant about upcoming moments, but it’s definitely an interesting ride. With One Piece being such a fantastic story for such a long time, I really hope that Oda manages to stick the landing with this final saga. And that’s really all my thoughts. I’ve been on team Manga for years, so whenever One Piece has a good anime episode it’s more a welcome surprise than anything else. Thanks for reading!
The random guard reporting everything to the mainland and making Akutagawa and Atsushi look worse to the general public really is a kick in the balls to Atsushi after he really didn’t want the man to be killed. Of course, it makes sense for him to be against the terrorists even if they did spare his life, but from a viewer’s perspective it feels like a bad move in hindsight. With Akutagawa bleeding out on the deck of the ship, Atsushi is at least able to get away from certain death. Things could be worse. Not much worse, but there’s still room for it. The overlapping of the guard talking to the mainland and Atsushi escaping does make it difficult for Fukichi to go back in time. The guard apologizes to the dying (or dead) Akutagawa for not being able to do more for sparing him earlier. Perhaps there’s more to it than there seems.
I don’t know if this guard knows more than he lets up, or he just feels bad about seeing Akutagawa dead after being spared, like he says.
Let’s take a proper look at the opening this week. We see a lot of silhouettes of the important cast for this season, which are a lot of people. I will always be reminded of Kuroko no Basket when I hear Granrodeo, even though they’ve done many more openings since. Seeing people reflected in Fukichi’s sword is a nice touch. The clock is also represented here, like it was on the ship, to hint at the time cutting mechanic that Fukichi has. The song is a banger, although it probably isn’t going to be amongst my favorites. It’s a bit too heavy for what I listen to on a daily basis, but it gets you amped to watch some detective mind games nonetheless.
Moving on, Atsushi makes it to shore safely and reunites with Ango. After that we finally get the final member of the Decay of Angels. Bram-kun, the undead king. This has to be Bram Stoker, famous for writing dracula. We now know every single member of the terrorist group. Fukichi is their leader with the other members being Fyodor, Nicolai (seemingly now a former member), Sigma and Bram. So theories I had – and I’ve seen from others – that there was one more Decay of Angels member amongst the hunting dogs were false. These hunting dogs are going to feel really stupid when all is said and done. Oh, and Bram is voiced by the massively talented and instantly recognizable Kenjiro Tsuda (Kento Nanami from Jujutsu Kaisen, Leroro from Tower of God, Yonji from One Piece and many more roles).
It’s Dracula TM.
Bram seems opposed to helping Fukichi which pisses the man off. This is the most emotional we’ve seen him so far. And thus, Akutagawa is turned into a vampire. I wonder if the plan is to create a vampire scourge through Akutagawa. And sure enough, all of the executives we know and love, barring Tachihara, have been turned into mindless vampires. Remember how earlier I said things could be worse. They just got worse. But knowing this show, I’m sure most of these characters will come out on the other side alive. Meanwhile the utterly incompetent hunting dogs still think the Armed Detective Agency is responsible. Fukichi not allowing Tachihara to search for an alternative villain shows that he’s getting a bit more careful. But Tachihara is annoyingly good at being in the way. This is forcing Fukichi to talk to Bram, who is kind of out in the open. I wonder if this will end up coming back to bite him somehow. And sure enough, Tachihara was on Fukichi’s trail already. Mori-san isn’t the leader of the mafia for no reason. He’s ruthless when he needs to be, but he treats his people well because he values the results they can bring him.
Mr. Blind guy knows something is up for sure. I wonder if he’ll pursue this.
And then it turns out that Mori gave Tachihara some intel on how to defeat Fukichi. He already knows about this ability and sword. Tachihara’s metal manipulation comes in clutch here. It’s a good thing for Fukichi that he still has his superhuman strength and agility, but things are lookin dire. It would be one hell of a plot twist for a double agent to be the one to take out the villain’’s leader. But I doubt that’s going to happen. Either something is about to go horribly wrong for Tachihara, or Fukichi will be presumed dead and then return later. And just as I’m typing this out, Tachihara gets stabbed by Ame no Gozen. There’s a T carved in the stone, which he left in the past to be aware of Tachihara’s appearance. This man gets more and more frightening every time we see him. He then blinds Tachihara, making him more or less useless as a fighter. Tachihara trying to kill himself to avoid becoming a vampire and a danger to the people around him is hadcore. I don’t think things have ever looked this dire on such a large scale in the history of this story. The vampiric disease is spreading worldwide at a high rate. Fukichi’s goal of eliminating the world’s rich and powerful looks all but certain now.
Ouch
I’ve been reading through the comments on this episode and although they seem to be mainly positive, people are asking how the T warning and stabbing through time makes sense. In short, I don’t think it’s a watertight thing. It’s just a cool story with cool powers that mostly make sense. I personally watch this show for the spectacle and the plot twists. Powers this wacky don’t always make perfect sense and get a bit ridiculous. I did think Bram being a weapon and thus being 100 times more powerful when Fukichi is involved was a fun moment. All in all, I can’t wait for next week’s episode.
This can’t be good. I wonder what the agency has been planning while all this is going on. They are more or less completely reunited, after all. Perhaps there is hope for Yokoyama and the rest of the world.
Dazai and Akutagawa meet before all of the current season transpires in a hidden place in the forest. That’s right, we’re diving straight in, just as the show seems to do. I doubt we’ll get an opening today if the credits are showing on top of this. Dazai asks for Akutagawa’s help with an upcoming disaster: The Decay of Angels problem. He asks Akutagawa to be neutral in the upcoming fight and be Dazai’s eyes. Akutagawa is such a Dazai simp. And just like it seemed last week, Akutagawa is here to help out Atsushi against Kamui/Fukuchi. And it doesn’t seem like he’s come to just play either.
How Dazai had all this foresight is beyond me, but I’m glad he did, since Atsushi would have died already if not for Akutagawa’s intervenience.
We saw a flash of young Akutagawa before and it seems to be confirmed that this forest spot is where the two of them met, a long time ago. Dazai gave Akutagawa a reason to live, which is why it’s that much more painful for the young Port Mafia executive that his friend and mentor left the organization and joined the Armed Detective Agency. It seems like Dazai has long planned to create powerful people to fight against a Demon. Maybe that’s Kamui, but I’m guessing it’s left vague enough to allow the author for another villain to appear after this that could be this demon he speaks of. I always like how this story continues to up the scale but somehow still feels grounded enough – in a sense – that it raises the stakes even more. Maybe less so after this arc, but not every arc needs to see the cast in terrible danger all the time to be intriguing.
Even with your entire body covered in armor, that can’t be pleasant.
Kamui’s power is crazy and Akutagawa is strong but struggling. Being driven by the idea that Dazai didn’t actually abandon him makes him incredibly powerful. I wonder how much Dazai actually cares about the people around him and how much of it is pure manipulation. Either way, Kamui is far too much for the two of them to take on. Akutagawa struggles with Dazai’s intention too. This duo is so interesting, and it’s not the first time we’ve seen it. They both have very different mentalities in how they fight. Akutagawa has no qualms killing people, but the influence from both Dazai and Atsushi is definitely changing him. Even though it might just be a promise he made for now. He’s still pretty dumb though. Luckily for us, Atsushi has a good head on his shoulders. Unfortunately for us, so does Fukichi.
Honor is a big thing amongst the mafia and Akutagawa is good for his word.
I know it’s probably more for aesthetic choices than for realism, but the fact that there’s a giant clock tower on a ship is just so funny to me. That’s beyond extravagance. It does make for a great set piece though. Fukichi blames his PTSD for becoming a villain in the way that he has. Maybe he just needs therapy like the rest of us. Unfortunately for us, we’re aware that there’s another half a dozen or more episodes to go, so the likelihood of Atsushi and Akutagawa defeating Fukichi here is very small. Using a coat to put your bones back in place is metal as fuck. But despite the insanity that is Akutagawa, this fight looks bad. Fukichi summons a sword out of nowhere, which probably means he’s a Hexblade Warlock (that’s a D&D subclass, in case you’re unfamiliar). As is tradition with this show, I am worried about what is about to happen. And sure enough, Akutagawa goes down in an instant. Before Atsushi can figure out what happened he gets stabbed. Both fighters are down and Fukichi doesn’t even have a scratch on him.
Scary Stuff.
I think Atsushi often mistakes himself for a coward, but that’s far from true. He’s reasonable in most of his fears. Trusting someone like Akutagawa might make sense to us as a viewer, since we know how much he cares for Dazai’s approval. But Atsushi could just get killed by Fukichi and everything would be over without Akutagawa ever really caring. I think Fukichi is making a grave mistake here in underestimating Akutagawa’s obsession with Dazai. He’s absolutely planning to work with Atsushi here, right? I’m glad Atsushi is catching on too, since he’s dense. It’s kind of crazy that Fukichi didn’t catch up in time, but it makes for an amazing moment. Wait what? Why does the clock so ominously strike when Fukichi gets cut down? I’m scared of what that means. Fukichi appears dead, but I do not believe it for a moment. I would like to say I figured it out before the show panned back to the clock, but right as the clock started rewinding was when I made the connection. He cut time. That seems illegal. Is there anything this man can’t do? Here’s the answer. Ame no Gozen can cut through both space and time. So he has the physical enhancements from being in the Hunting Dog program, he has a crazy power that makes his weapons much stronger and he has a legendary sword that allows him to cut through space and time.
The ultimate combo attack. Probably enough to catch any fighter off guard.A relentless, undefeatable opponent that can seemingly reverse time at will. I guess the story just ends here. That’s unlucky
Fukichi just killed Akutagawa. He sliced open his neck, I don’t think even he can come back from it. But I’ve also watched enough anime to know that someone who dies at the end of an episode has a pretty good chance of survival. So we’ll see, but I for one cannot wait for next week. Thanks for reading!
Bullying sucks. I was bullied back in high school. I don’t remember all that much of those years, mainly because I blocked out a lot of the bad memories. I only realized this pretty recently, but what can you do about it? For a long time I was really sad about how I’ve wasted so many of my years being miserable. If only I had some good friends. Well, I did get some good friends later on in high school, one of which I still speak with regularly. So the importance of good friends is not lost on me.
This poor kid thinks so little of herself that the idea of someone wanting to be friend with her is almost alien to her.
That brings me to the first anime I want to look at today; My Clueless First Friend. Nishimura Akane is a bit of a gloomy child, who gets called The Grim Reaper by her mean classmates. She has no friends at school until a young boy called Takada Taiyou transfers from the countryside. He thinks being a Grim Reaper is the coolest thing ever and immediately wants to become friends with Nishimura. The friendship that quickly develops between the two is a joy to watch. I normally don’t like shows that go too deep into misunderstandings, because it gets frustrating to watch. In this case, the main misunderstanding is that Takada does not understand that Nishimura is being bullied and is instead just super nice to her. The series has a couple of other fun characters and is all around just enjoyable. There’s very little drama at all, and when things do get a bit sad it makes sense for the story and gets resolved rather quickly. All in all I recommend this show if you’re looking for something comfortable to watch without too much substance but also with nothing irritating about it. I’ll definitely remember this one fondly.
Jigokuraku
I think that this show is probably the one that surprised the most people. I’d never heard of the source material at all before the anime started, but I was very pleasantly surprised. Jigokuraku follows Gabimaru the Hollow, a ninja who has been betrayed by his village and is about to be executed. Except the shogunate has a different plan. Alongside quite a few other death row prisoners he is being sent to a dangerous island to retrieve the elixir of immortality. If he can manage to do that, he will earn back his freedom. Gabimaru’s motivation is to go back to his wife afterwards, as he’s only recently discovered how he’s not as hollow of a person as he always thought he was. Joining him on this journey is one of the famous executioners. Each prisoner is assigned an executioner, and Sagiri is the one who is assigned to Gabimaru.
Gabimaru definitely isn’t going to trust you without you earning that trust.
The island they arrive on is not your average island. Strange monsters walk the forests and they’re unable to return once they get to it. What is the secret that lies deep in the center of this island and is this elixir even real? Not to mention the strange mix of religious statues and things that don’t seem to match up. There’s a lot going on, and with a second season already announced I highly recommend you to check this one out for yourself, before a new season starts. It’s very good.
Heaven’s Delusion
This one is a slow burner, but it definitely burns with a fiery passion. The show follows two different plotlines from the start. One part of the story is about Maru and Kiruko, who are looking for a place only known as Heaven. We know very little about this place and we find out as time goes on that the two of them don’t know much more about it either. Kiruko is hired to be Maru’s bodyguard. Maru seems to be looking for someone as well. Kiruko has a complicated background as well and they are looking for some people from their past as well.
Me whenever I try to predict in which direction Bungo Stray Dogs is heading. I swear I’m getting dumber by the year.
At the same time, we get a storyline of a group of kids growing up in a strange facility with robots monitoring them. They seem almost superhuman in some ways, where they recover from some wounds strangely, but we also quickly learn that they can get sick and die, and things can happen to them. The adults in the facility seem shady from day one, but we’ll probably find out more about that as the show goes on.
The story writes itself at this point, doesn’t it? The kids are inside of a facility, I wonder why and how they got there?
This show is well written. And it’s so well written that there were many clues to how things eventually develop. Having said that, I’m clearly not smart enough to catch on to them, so there were many moments where I would read the weekly discussion threads afterwards and learn more about the episodes I just watched. But even without fully grasping every part of the story immediately I still found myself heavily invested in the fates of Kiruko and Maru, and their story was very interesting. I didn’t care for the facility kids for the first two thirds of the show, but towards the end I felt much more invested in their side of the story as well. It’s a show that really makes you think and has a lot of heart.
The opening theme is a work of art. The song is Innocent Arrogance by Bish, and it’s a banger.
If you are choosing to watch this show, I will put some trigger warnings here. There are some scenes that have to do with trauma and non-consentual sexual acts. That’s putting it mildly for what happens, but I want to make sure that I don’t send someone who doesn’t want to see those kinds of topics to this series. If you have no problem seeing these things depicted in fiction then I do recommend this one.
And that brings us to the end of this season’s quick reviews. I watched quite a lot of shows this season, but not as many as before. To add to that, there were a lot of shows I just didn’t have much to say about. You can still expect me to talk about a few more shows on their own though. To give a sneak peek, I am planning to talk about both Vinland Saga and Skip & Loafer at a later date. And next season we’ll have to see. I’m only watching one new show, the rest is just sequels, so there’s probably not a ton to talk about. But either way, if you do check out any of the shows above, let me know in the comments down below what you think and as always, thanks for reading.
Bungo Stray Dogs dispelling the idea of ACAB right now, one grand conspiracy at a time. This is how it should be in the real world though. If cops are doing bad things, the good cops should stand up en masse. I’m sure it’ll happen any day now.
This is what good cops look like.
I promised last week that I’d talk a little bit about the opening right now, so let’s do that. It seems to be a rock track called ‘Tetsu no ori’ by Granrodeo. Granrodeo has made some banger openings for shows like Kuroko no Basket en even Nanatsu no Taizai, but this song isn’t quite hitting for me. The intense imagery looks fine, with an interesting looking background, but it’s not really telling us anything. We do still get to see yet more of Akutagawa in this opening, I wonder when he’s finally going to show up because we got pretty much baited last season.
Reflected in his sword is something that was crucial about his past.
Moving back to the show itself, the gang reunites inside Lucy’s ability and Atsushi is beyond happy to see that both Ranpo and Kunikida are – at least – alive. Kunikida’s unwavering beliefs are back, although they were definitely shaken up for a while. And with even Yosano being safe, they can heal Kunikida’s hands as well.
It’s good to see them back in action.
We switch perspectives to the Hunting Dogs headquarters where Fukichi is being asked to help create a counter terrorism organization. Having a strong military police has never gone poorly in life, hasn’t it. Fukichi immediately calls it a dream and doesn’t like it. Quick interjection, I saw the Dutch flag at the UN meeting, so we’re being represented by this. The idea doesn’t seem to be perceived very well. At least not initially. Fukuchi’s appearance moves them enough to definitely change a few opinions. The people are literally weebs for a real person. One thing I’m starting to learn is that the hunting dogs probably aren’t bad guys at all. I thought a lot of that throughout season 1, but I feel like I was misunderstanding what they were doing. Either way, Fukichi speaks to the UN about this new defense force.
Fukichi has built such a great reputation for himself. He’s almost universally loved and respected.
It’s easy to forget that this universe that the story takes place in is extremely fragile. Fukichi points out the coins in people’s wallets but there’s many people out there who could do massive damage if they so desired. Even some of the less prominent members of the Armed Detective Agency could probably take out half a city if they wished to. Can I just say that Fukichi calling this new organization the Army of Mankind has to be up there with the worst names for organizations? It sounds like someone a five year old would call their imaginary army with which they’re fighting aliens. He does seem to convince a majority of the people in attendance at least, so that’s good. Oh, did I mention that Ranpo is there too?
Sometimes a little bit of trust is all it takes.
Ranpo and Fukichi first met at the founding of the Agency, where Fukichi was – you guessed it – also drunk. But he was close to the Agency’s leader, and that’s why Ranpo has been sent here. He asks Fukichi to be on the same team, but his arguments seem to not work. They smuggle Fukichi out of the country. I love how Atsushi has fully figured out Ranpo and the way he thinks. Ranpo figures out who Kamui is just in time to try and escape him. I literally just said that I finally trust the Hunting Dogs, can I catch a break. I really ought to stop doing these posts because I’m simply embarrassing myself and showing that I have no skill in predicting mysteries. Next thing you’re going to tell me is that Akutagawa will show up in this episode as well. That’ll really make a fool out of me. Although as of right now it still feels weird to me that Fukichi would be the leader of this massive terrorist organization just to get Fukuzawa back on his team. Maybe there’s still more to it than we’re shown at this point.
Sometimes to restore old friendships we do a cheeky little bit of global terrorism.
Now the big question becomes, what will Atsushi do here. Fukichi even lures him in with the page, which is obvious bait. Atsushi has to run here, but he realizes that if he does manage to fight and win he’ll be in a great spot. Even though Ranpo tells him to run, Atsushi leans towards fighting but is immediately crippled. He has the tiger’s ability, of course, but he is in a very tight spot right now. I also really think that this would have been a better spot for the first season to have ended. This feels like such a pivotal moment while at the end of season 1 we really didn’t know anything yet. Also, make sure to watch until the very end of this episode, because things are about to get very interesting.
Guess who’s back? Back again. Akutagawa’s back. Tell a friend.
I don’t want to imply that I’m still half awake, but I just tried to title this document by editing the url and not the post title. I caught it in time though. Crisis averted. Speaking of crises, when the previous season of Bungo Stray Dogs ended, things were not looking particularly well for the cast. Even though I wasn’t going to do these weekly episode discussions any more, due to needing to focus on writing other things, I did promise I’d cover the rest of this series when it came out. So that’s where we’re at right now. I’m pretty excited for what’s to come, if I’m honest. So if you’re like me and you want to dive into this world once more, please join me in these weekly threads, which will probably be the last ones I’ll do for a while. Let’s get started.
I have heard about people writing and drawing using their feet before, so it’s technically possible
Now I would be remiss if I didn’t give you a small recap of what happened last season, since we do kind of jump into the middle of a story arc. An organization only known as V or Five has been terrorizing the Armed Detective Agency and just the general population. One of their members and presumed leader, Fyodor, is currently in jail. Dazai is also in this same sci-fi looking jail. In the meantime, his organization – which officially goes by The Decay of Angels – is working out some grand conspiracy with the help of a powerful book that allows you to write things into reality. Using this book, they’ve made the world think that the Detective Agency is a group of terrorists which has led the military police group The Hunting Dogs to chase them. Fights and chaos ensue and the members are on the run. All of this culminates in a showdown in a flying casino where Sigma – a member of Decay of Angels – rules. Tachihara of the hunting dogs now believes that the Agency is innocent, so things might be changing sooner rather than later. That was a lot, but if you’ve seen the show it should be enough of a reminder.
Sigma is still around, I’m actually happy about that since I feel like his character’s story isn’t done yet.
I honestly don’t remember if Kunikida was confirmed to still be alive in the previous season, but it’s good to see him either way. He gets asked to join the hunting dogs so they’ll heal his missing arms. Turns out he didn’t get out of it unscathed. Since I’m already going long on this post I’ll save the opening sequence for next week. We also learn that it’s about time for Yosano’s execution and on top of all of that a sniper is aiming at Kunikida. Things still look just as bad as ever, I’m sorry for my earlier optimism.
Speaking of things that look bad, Sigma awakens, being saved by Nikolai from almost certain death. These Decay of Angels folks are really hard to kill. Nikolai explains the trick to his fake death, but Sigma doesn’t quite understand why he didn’t die right there, as the plan was. Friendly reminder that Nikolai is completely insane and is apparently now planning to kill Fyodor. Silver linings, I suppose. Atsushi has collapsed in the middle of them planning their next step and it turns out he’s basically poisoned at this point. When he gets back up he confesses to knowing where the page is. Sigma seemed to have imprinted the information into Atsushi. Whether he did this willingly or not is another question. It turns out he might not be poisoned but just overwhelmed by information. We learn where the page is. It’s in the hands of the Angels’ leader, Kamui.
The final boss
We move back to Kunikida who luckily sees the sniper in time. The sniper wasn’t alone though, and here we see Kamui for the first time, gassing Kunikida. They’re wearing a gas mask though, so who knows who they are. The voice at leasts sounds masculine. According to Atsushi, his goal is to kill everyone in the Agency, but Kamui walks off with Kunikida still alive, and someone targets Yosano while she’s already on her way to being executed. It doesn’t seem to tell the full story. Either he wants to do some sort of ritualistic execution or he has other plans. Fukuzawa is the next big target, but he seems to know who Kamui is. Tell us then, don’t leave us hanging like this. Meanwhile Fyodor and Dazai are playing games in the prison to stifle their boredom. It can’t get more laidback than this, although I’m sure there’s more to it.
Really making great use of their time here.
Some small part of me was hoping this Kamui figure was someone from the agency, but I didn’t dare have hope after having my hopes crushed so many times in the previous season. It turns out that Ranpo had been planning some things behind the scenes and has now freed Fukuzawa. Is it really comeback time? But if Atsushi felt like Kamui was in the middle of an assassination who was he assassinating? Or was Ranpo’s plan so good it even tricked Atsushi’s sixth sense. I have questions, but I’m sure we’ll get answers as time goes on. It makes me wonder if Kamui really does look like how Ranpo looked here, or if he’s different. And of course Poe was involved. I did think the phone looked suspect. Their friendship – or lack thereof – will always be a joy to watch.
Poe with the “please notice me, Senpai” energy.
We then switch to a completely different scene. There’s a press conference about to be held by the son of KS Company’s president. No clue who that is, but I’m guessing they’re about to be important. The people attending are talking about how big of a deal the terrorist attacks by the Armed Detective Agency are. And this lady brings up a good point, what would their motive be? We see Ranpo at the conference, probably instead of whoever was supposed to be here. Now the question is if this is real Ranpo or a fake. Seeing as he’s defending the agency, it looks to be the real Ranpo. Ranpo finally reveals the truth to the public in an over the top manner, like we’ve come to expect from the guy. He asks the people to think for themselves and not from the position of being a cop. That makes sense, knowing how the text on the page would work. I am kind of sad that this was a split cour. I think this episode would have hit much harder had it been right after episode 13 of the previous season. But maybe that’s just me. I ended up writing a lot, I hope you all enjoyed my ramblings and you’re just as excited for this show as I am. Thanks for reading.
It’s summer. The season of sunshine and being outdoors. The season of eating ice cream and reading on the nice chair. It’s the season of, you guessed it, code red weather alerts. When I woke up this morning I heard the rain – it’s the 5th of July as I’m writing this, by the way – and after I went back to sleep my phone started making a noise that will wake up even the deepest of sleepers. I suppose at least I should take solace in having my alerts for national emergencies set up correctly. But we’re not here today to talk about the dreadful weather, we’re here to talk about some of last season’s anime. And I have thought. Most thoughts are positive ones. So prepare yourself for a lot of strong recommendations. I already talked about Ousama Ranking last week, so check out that post if you’ve missed it. And without further ado, let’s look at three anime that may or may not be worth your time.
A galaxy next door
For some reason this show got the song Numbness like a gingerstuck in my head. I think it’s to do with the name of this show being Otonari no Ginga. ‘Ginga’ and the way the lead singer of Unison Square Garden pronounces “Ginger” are very similar. Sometimes it’s just that simple.
I’m no expert in biology, but I don’t believe I’ve ever met anyone – man or woman – who has a glowing stinger sticking out of their body.Oh my bad, it’s not a stinger, it’s just a G-pen… Yeah right!
Speaking of simple, this show is a very simple show at its core and I wish it was a little bit more simple than it is. Ichiro is trying to support his two younger siblings while working as a manga artist. His parents passed away and he’s been taking care of them ever since. Then one day, Goshiki Shiori arrives at his doorstep, wanting to be his assistant. He accepts, since he needs an assistant, and the two start working together. Then, completely accidentally, he touches her stinger and they’re now bound in a contract. You see, Shiori is a princess from a strange island tribe and they have a stinger. They also can contact each other telepathically over short distances. Besides that they just seem like a bit of an odd group of people, but not that different from humans. The two develop a relationship over the course of the series and then wonder if the stinger is partially responsible for their feelings.
I see that Japan is still hard at work trying to convince a generation of otaku that children are adorable and a good idea to get.
I think the subplot of the stinger was my least favorite part of this show. I’d much rather have the same story but her parents disapproved purely because she is a princess or something. I don’t think the fantastical elements add enough value to take me out of the realism of what is at its core a very tender and fun romantic show. Ichiro is an extremely kind person and Shiori is a force of personality in her own way. And the kids are adorable. Fumio and Machi are Ichiro’s younger siblings and they’re both very thoughtful for their age, but not in a “I’m 10 but I’m written like I’m an adult kind of way.” They’re much more just very patient, which is likely due to the cards they’ve been dealt in life. Fumio is very quiet, but he’s kind and attentive. Machi is much more open about her emotions and often speaks for the two of them. To make a long story short, I really enjoyed watching this show every week. It’s fun, romantic and wholesome and I’m glad I watched it.
My love story with Yamada-kun at level 999
We’re all gamers. We understand what it’s like to be at our computer all day talking to someone’s avatar or profile picture. Then we meet them, or see their picture, and they are different from their icons. I for one like to play as female characters in MMOs a lot. That’s always been my preference. But I also like people calling me by my real name, makes it easier and more personal, and there’s nothing wrong with sharing your (first) name. I haven’t ever randomly ran into a guild member after getting broken up with and then realizing that; oh no, he’s hot.
I’ve been watching anime for almost 15 years at this point (man, I’m getting old) and I don’t think there’s been a single Kana-boon song in front of a show that hasn’t been a complete earworm. I don’t know they do it, but every song they produce is just a banger.
Well, Akane has. She meets Yamada at the perfect moment and wakes up in his room after he helped her home when she was drunk. Yamada seems more annoyed by her presence than anything else and you can’t blame the guy. Some drunk woman grabs on to you and won’t let you do what you wanted to do. They quickly find out that they are from the same guild and although Yamada was raised well and he’s a polite young man, he doesn’t want to deal with the hassle that Akane brings. But she’s a very social gal and doesn’t let him get away. The two do become friends pretty quickly as the show goes on.
‘Why won’t this annoying drunk leave me alone, I just came here for a gaming event, not to deal with this crap.’
Where this show shines is on two fronts. The first one is how funny some of the side characters are. Eita is an absolute joy to watch in every single frame he’s in and Kamota-san reminds me of some of the older people I’ve played games with throughout the years. Kind and supportive. Akane’s friend Momo is great too in how self-absorbed she can be at times. Not every person is always there for you, but that doesn’t make them bad people. We all have our own lives. The second thing is a particular scene which I won’t go into too much detail in, but if you’ve seen the show you’ll understand. There’s a little bit of a devious bait and switch in one of the early episodes that puts Akane in a dangerous position. The way the rest of the cast properly deals with this and has respect for the sort of scenario it is, without exaggerating any part of it for drama made me really happy. It just takes itself seriously in a good way.
You’ve nailed it, Yamada.
This show was not as good as some of the others that aired this season, but it was still extremely enjoyable from start to finish. Would recommend it, just like the first anime we walked about today.
Otaku Elf
There is one more anime I want to talk about today. And it’s a show I almost didn’t give a shot. I saw the premise of an elf being a god that’s been prayed to and taken care of and is also an otaku, and didn’t think it was going to be any good. But I wasn’t watching a lot of shows yet, so I figured I’d give it a watch for at least one episode. I’m glad I did because I was immediately hooked. Let’s start with talking about my favorite thing in this show, which is something I’ll be listening to for a very long time: The opening theme.
I wonder who this lovely woman who comforted Koito on the day of her mother’s funeral is. Any guesses? Are there any mature blond women in this show? There’s a blond woman, but mature…. maybe not.
The song is called Kien Romance and it’s by Nanawo Akari. It’s an absolutely fantastic track with all sorts of interesting instrumentals that I’m not knowledgeable enough about to point out. But there are flutes and what I would guess might be a shamisen? I don’t even know, but I do know that this song lives rent free in my head. Every time the episode would come up I’d be happy just to hear the opening.
No one’s allowed to enter the inner sanctum. Except Koyuzu because she’s kind. And the Amazon delivery lady because at this point it would just be silly to pretend you don’t order twelve packages a day.
But an anime is more than just its music, even though it is a vital part of it. The anime itself tells the story of Elda and Koito. Koito is a young shrine Miko who is taking care of Elda, who is housed in this temple. Elda has been around for centuries and she’s always been taken care of by the shrine Mikos here. But she’s also a big introvert and has become a bit of a slob and an otaku over the years. Despite all of this, Elda is kind and caring and when she really needs to be serious and mindful, she definitely is.
Koito is your typical young teenager. Worried about her looks, busy with school and she has a bubbling personality on top of all of this. She comes from a complicated family structure and is very mature for her age, seemingly due to necessity. We meet several other characters throughout the run of this show and by the end of it we have a solid supporting cast. The highlight of this show is definitely the relationship between Koito and Elda. In the absence of parents, Elda has almost taken on this role herself, even though at times I wonder if she has the proper maturity. But like I said earlier on in this post, Elda is very kind and caring. She consoles Koito when she needs to and she makes sure the young girl is doing okay. And whenever Elda is going through something difficult – which is generally just relative to the life of an otaku – Koito is there to repay the kindness. If I had to use one word to describe this show, it’d be pleasant.
I’m unsure what to call the animation style used in the ending song, but I can tell you I really like it. For an ending sequence, at least.I wonder if they’re sponsored by Red Bull
And there you have it. Three shows from the Spring 2023 season that I thoroughly enjoyed. I realize that these reviews are a little bit longer than some of the other ones I’ve done for this format, but these shows were all excellent and deserved a little bit more attention. I’ll try to keep the next round a bit more short and sweet, but for now I hope this will give you something to watch in the upcoming summer months. If you enjoyed these recommendations, please leave a comment down below and as always; thanks for reading!
Anime: Ranking of Kings: Treasure Chest of Courage Studio: WIT Episodes: 10 Genres: Fantasy, Adventure, Disability
Remember him? Of course you do, how can you ever forget this lovable little royal.
When I made my top 10 series of 2022 I put Ranking of Kings at the very top. We’re now halfway into 2023 and looking back on it I think I still stand by this choice. The artstyle, the music, the characters and even the story itself were all fantastic and I still remember how I spent every week waiting for a new episode to come out. So when a “sequel” was announced I was immediately excited. This excitement dimmed a little bit when I learned that it consisted more of side stories and extra content instead of a direct sequel but I was still pretty excited. Then I forgot about it for a little while until it started airing recently. Today, let me give you my thoughts on it. This review will contain spoilers, but no major spoilers. If you are planning to watch any sequels to the first season I suggest you watch this show since there are enough important events that you’d be missing out on. With that out of the way, let’s dive in.
This episode – as well as some others – was great to fill in some of the gaps in the first season. We all know that Queen Hilling suddenly appeared with Anne at her side but we never got much of an explanation as to where she came from. Now we know.
This series definitely starts off slow. We dive into some side stories about things that the characters from season 1 went through that didn’t quite make the cut. These stories range from encountering strange creatures we’ve never seen before to Boji and Kage living their lives in the underworld with Despa. We get a little bit more Kage being happy with his mother, which is heartbreaking knowing what will happen later and we get some silly competitiveness amongst the big four. My favorite stories are the ones that are more emotional. This show has always been about disability representation and seeing these characters being loved and cared for is just such a joy to watch. The cast have reprised their roles again and everything from start to finish feels just as polished as the first season does. I do prefer the original season, especially when it comes to the opening and ending themes. They’re fine for this series, but they’re not as amazing as Vaundy’s Hadaka no Yuusha. We do get treated to Aimer’s Atemonaku as an ending theme which is a great nostalgic sounding song, but I feel like using Aimer for your soundtrack is unfair at this point. I firmly believe she’s one of – if not the – best singers currently making anime themes.
Okay, I’ll be honest. I cried when I realized that Daida had learned sign language so he could communicate with his brother. His character was so incredibly complex in the first season, with trauma and expectations, and watching him grow has been a joy.
Moving on to the final episode. If you haven’t seen this show, this final episode seems to pick up the story in a more serious tone than some of the previous ones. We ended season one with Boji giving up the throne to his brother and going on an adventure to find Kage. The two reunite and start a journey to go “wherever they want.” But there were more things happening at the end of season one. One major thing that happened was that Desha won the Ranking of Kings. His goal has been to save his brother, Ouken, from the curse that’s made him into a soulless, immortal warrior. He seems to be successful in his task in this episode and we get Ouken back. Everything seems to have a cost though. Ouken deals with a god who was going to harm the people inside of the building where the winners are taken. Who they all are isn’t really explained yet at this point, but I am very pleased we’re getting a sneak peek at a potential second season. A second season might still be far away though, looking at the source material. When Ouken finds out that his brother has lost his memory, he immediately starts preparing to fix this. What a good man.
Guess who’s back? Back again! Ouken’s back! Tell a friend.
All things considered, I’m very happy with what we got. It wasn’t a full sequel yet, but to fill in the time between seasons this was a fantastic way to flesh things out a bit more that didn’t have me bored one bit. I hope you enjoyed this season as much as I have and thank you for reading.
Man oh man, did I think I was going to just pretend this wasn’t happening. But unfortunately we live in a world where a One Piece live action is happening and there’s nothing we can do about it. Live action adaptations of anime have a pretty bad track record, I personally can’t think of a single good one, but I can think of several bad ones. When I heard how closely Oda was working with the project I had a little bit of hope but now… I’m not sure. Either way, let’s look at the things this trailer tells us.
First things first, we see a shot of the Going Merry, presumably being worked on or built at that point, and Luffy is aboard. I think the guy who plays Luffy looks fine, but it all looks a bit too much like a cosplay. I’m also curious – and this is just a small nitpick – if the strap on the straw hat is there from the very start or not, since I’m pretty confident Nami attaches that for him after Buggy steals the hat and damages it during their encounter. Also, if Buggy doesn’t sound like a dying seal in the first arc that’ll be disappointing, his voice actor is fantastic at portraying how unstable of a character he is.
Luffy tells us he wants to be the king of the pirates, the usual. We then get a nice shot of Luffy sitting in his iconic spot on the sheep head of the Going Merry while Baratie pans up in the background. Up until now I have zero complaints about this trailer if I’m honest. It looks about the way you’d expect and you can even see other ships next to the Baratie, which is a nice detail. I do wonder if the Baratie had that many floors in the manga, but it’s ultimately irrelevant.
We move on to a lovely shot of a town with the big navy building where Luffy Meets Zoro central. I like the touch of blue in the building, it really makes it immediately recognizable. I feel like the ground around the fort was much more flat in the manga and anime but again, that’s just a difference from the source material and not a bad thing per se. We’re 21 seconds into a 103 second video and so far I have no real complaints. That’s a good start – especially for a live action adaptation.
Zoro is introduced and he looks about as edgy as you’d expect. I’m not sure I like the look of this fortress all that much, but I wonder if they should have given his hair a more muted color. It looks like a cosplay wig, and keep this comment in mind since we’ll get back to it later on. I’m not sure who the guy with the red mohawk is that is fighting Zoro. He’s not from one of the first arcs, maybe they’re introducing a different character for the story? I also can’t tell what island that is supposed to be. None of the early islands had bamboo forests like that as far as I know. Having said that, aesthetically that’s a pretty good scene. So far my biggest worry is that they’re going to be faithful to the manga in some places and go their own way in other players and they’re not making the right calls for which is which. I don’t think I like the fact that they’re sticking to very ‘anime’ hair colors. Make Nami a more natural redhead and give Zoro a darker green haircut and they look much more like real people.
Going back to my nitpick, it seems like Luffy has the strap on his hat before he meets Nami as he has it when he’s fighting the big sea monster. The CGI here looks fine, I have no issues with it. The pink ship we see next is Alvida’s I believe, and there’s even a barrel in the water which might be what Luffy is in at the start of the story. We don’t see Alvida here but we get a shot of Buggy the Clown on meth. Holy crap he looks so weird, I don’t like it. Buggy to me is a goofy character. He makes some very funny facial expressions and is one of the earliest characters to go completely wacky. His power also requires a wacky character, I think it would look far too eerie on a more psychotic clown. In the manga and anime he has no white face paint and although his lipstick goes past the lips, it looks very deliberately applied where he now just looks terrifying.
Zoro and Nami’s bickering makes sense this early on but Luffy picking up on social cues??? That’s just weird to me. I hope I’m not insulting any actors, but Sanji looks older than the rest so far. The actor is 27 after a quick google and he does not pass for a teenager. Usopp on the other hand looks great. I was worried about him the most since he’s such a unique looking character but they’ve decided to not go with the nose and I think that was a great decision. Out of the cast so far I think he looks the most believable.
We then get a shot of Luffy’s Gomu Gomu no Pistol, which he even yells out definitely not sounding suspicious or anything. He fires it at, presumably Alvida, who instead of looking like an ugly old hag, is just some woman. Her entire thing is that she’s this large, unattractive woman but I feel like they didn’t want to go there, so they just made her look normal. But I had to go frame by frame to get a good look at her character, so it’s hard to say.
All things considered I don’t think this trailer looks terrible. I don’t think it’ll be good, but I have some level of hope. Just not a lot. But maybe you disagree, I’ve definitely seen different opinions on the internet. I just think that the things that make One Piece so good don’t translate well to live action. It’s too goofy, but the goofiness works because of its format. That’s why it can get away with being goofy while talking about extremely sensitive topics like dictators, death, poverty, health care etc.
But yeah, let me know what you think of the trailer. I know I’m for sure going to watch the show, and I’ll let you know my thoughts when it comes out in late August. Until then, thanks for reading!
I’ve talked about Japanese musicians on this platform a decent amount already and I even did so recently when talking about strange band names and song names. You can check out my post Numbness like a ginger for that. In that post I talked about a couple of groups, one of which is a band that goes by the name Bump of Chicken. They’re one of my favorites – among a few others – and after hearing a song of theirs again today I felt like I really wanted to talk about them a little bit.
Bump of Chicken is a band with four members who have their origin in Chiba Prefecture, Japan. Apparently they’ve been performing since 1994 when they were still children. Their alternative rock sound is quite popular in Japan with most of their singles charting in the top 10 whenever they’re released. They’ve also done the music for several anime, games and other media projects. Because I’ve been a big fan of them for quite a while, I’d like to just quickly talk about a few of their songs.
And what better place to start than with Hello World, the song through which I discovered them. I think what drew me into this song the most – and this isn’t really that much praise for the song itself – is the visuals of the Kekkai Sensen opening theme. This song played at the start of this anime for an entire season and the visuals are stunning. I remember just being in awe at the slow sunset that opens up the song only to reveal a bunch of photos. And then the photos turn into a much bigger image that shows the entire city??? Brilliant. I fell in love with every part of this song very quickly. How the rips in the different imagery reflect the pictures used before and then we get a collage of pictures of Leo getting ready for the day as well. The catchy part of the song plays in front of the main character spinning around as the supporting cast dances around him. And for those who didn’t quite catch it, the sign does say Nightow, which is a reference to the author of the Kekkai Sensen and Trigun manga. But this is only the start of our journey into their music.
I wouldn’t hear much more about them until I watched what became my favorite anime of all time: 3-Gatsu no Lion. The first opening to this hauntingly beautiful story of a depressed shogi prodigy is preceded by Answer, another amazing song by Bump of Chicken. Because before this anime ever aired, we had a music video called: March comes in like a lion meets Bump of Chicken. The song itself is called Fighter and was inspired by the original manga by Chika Umino. The author then wrote a short story for Rei Kiriyama to accompany the song and that’s how this video was born. It’s a fantastic project and it only makes sense that when the manga eventually got adapted into anime it would be accompanied by the sound of Bump of Chicken. I’m guessing that the four guys that Rei walks past on the bridge are representative of the band members of Bump of Chicken. This show would go on to get a few more amazing opening songs that definitely match up and even surpass Answer, but thematically I think this was the best one.
Let’s move on to December of 2020. We’re now knee deep in the pandemic and any hope I had left for society to become normal has long gone. After having struggled with my content marketing course and not bothered with finishing it my outlook on advertisement has gotten pretty bleak. I think that there are people who can create art while also trying to sell a product, but they’re exceptions. Look at people like Sam Riegel who does entire stories that take several ads in a row to get to a conclusion and sometimes even have unmentioned B-plots of him slowly turning into a sunflower. It doesn’t make much more sense if I give you more content, trust me. We also have the hosts of podcast The Yard who just come across completely unhinged when talking about any product they’re advertising, making the ads much more enjoyable to listen to than they would be otherwise. But there’s only one advertisement that has ever made me tear up. I know that sounds insane, but hear me out. Shinsekai is the song that is used by Japanese candy brand Lotte. The song and accompanying music video is an advertisement for the candy brand where a young boy and girl both grab the same chocolate and the girl lets him have it. He then comes across her again and gives it to her after which she snaps it in half and they all share the chocolate. Of course our young man is head over heels for the girl immediately but this opening just has so much style. Who knew advertisement could be so enthralling. I’ve watched the music video dozens of times and I spot some cool references every single time. If I lived in Japan I would 100% buy this chocolate and I wouldn’t even feel bad about it for a moment. One quick thing I want to mention is the characters in the advertisement behind the young boy and girl being invested in what’s happening in front of them, all leaning in to see. Like, are you kidding me? That’s absolutely brilliant. This ad is single handedly restoring my faith in the market. I’m sure that won’t backfire.
I recognize that I’ve been talking for far too long already so I’m going to wrap things up. If I go through my spotify there’s a ton of songs that I’ve liked by them and I could recommend each and every one to you but that will just be overload. So instead let me recommend one final song: Acacia. Just like with the Lotte advertisement, we have another advertisement here. This time it’s for Pokemon. Bump of Chicken is far from the only artist who’s made a song for Pokemon, with Ed Sheeran and Post Malone also coming to mind, but like with much of their music, it’s extremely pleasant to listen to, and the animation is fantastic as always. Bump of Chicken has worked with many other projects and seems to be deeply entwined in other media for years now, assumingly because they enjoy the media as well. Just indulging in a trip through some of their best music videos as I’m writing this blog post has been an absolute joy and I recommend you do the same. Thanks for reading.
