Yesterday I reached 400.000 words for the year which I think is pretty impressive. I was aiming for 500.000 at the start of the year but due to life being busy lately, I think I’ll aim a little lower. I’ve been taking it slow lately to make sure I don’t overwork myself and a lot of the writing I have been doing is aimed at stuff that’s not coming out anytime soon. I’m still in the process of figuring out exactly how to tackle the Hesitant Hero from here on out, but more on that soon. For now, let’s watch our favorite catlike apothecary stumble through palace politics.
Nerdge.
I’m reminded each week of how good the music used for this show is. Both the opening by Yorushika and the ending by Eve have been playing on repeat during my commute. One thing that just caught my attention is that the book that the opening focuses on is not the one about insects – which Maomao had been searching for – but instead one about plants. I wonder if that will end up becoming relevant later on in the season. It looks like this opening has a ton of symbolism and little bits of foreshadowing, so I doubt it was put there without a purpose. Perhaps the wound on Jinshi’s cheek needs to be healed – as we see it scarred over – with a plant that they can’t find easily. We also see several characters in a garden later on. But first, the episode is titled after the white snake which means we’ll likely get to see more of the albino woman we saw last episode.
I am lowkey obsessed with eyes with strange colors. A big part of my early stories also included characters with special eyes. I want to bring that back at some point, but someone with white hair and red eyes just activates all the right neurons for me.
Maomao gets a visit from Lahan, who is her cousin and the adopted son of Lakan. Lakan’s subordinate is called Rikuson and he is sent instead of Lakan who is busy falling in love all over again. Either way, it’s time to go visit a show. And the only way to visit a show is by wearing a mask, because it would be weird if people recognized you. Now obviously with a mask like that on in real life it would still be relatively easy to recognize people – especially ones that you know – but I barely recognize people without a mask on if I meet them outside of the places I expect to meet them, so I’d probably be totally lost in a place like this. Then again, I wouldn’t go, so there’s that.
Yet you still listen to your dad and let the snake go.
There’s something to be said about the allure of something or someone being different from what you’re used to. This is going on a tangent, but I remember when a boy joined our class whose family came from Afghanistan. I grew up in a relatively small town, so it was somewhat rare to have people of color around us, although we did have a few kids in school with roots in other cultures. Still, I remember this being a very big deal because this guy was so different from us in how he looked. Obviously it wasn’t a bad thing and although I wasn’t close friends with the guy, he was just one of the kids in the class. These people here have never seen a woman with white hair and red eyes before, and are enthralled by her beauty. It does help that she’s putting on a show.
Is this your card?
Of course Maomao gets chosen to partake in the show up front and when she remarks that the ink she’s given to write with is thick and grainy you know that this is going to be part of the trick. I am a little bit disappointed that this woman is essentially doing a Penn & Teller here. There is a lot of showmanship and there are a lot of sounds that distract you from the other things that are going on. Either way, the woman knows exactly what Maomao wrote on the note. Not only that, she also knows exactly which of the spots she put the note in. Of course Jinshi assumes Maomao would figure out how it was done but Maomao hasn’t been able to quite figure it out yet. There also seems to be some trickery of the senses going on while on stage, as Maomao gets hot and a headache while on stage. I wonder if there’s some sort of drug being dispersed throughout the air. Perhaps everyone’s just getting stoned while in there.
Snack.
Maomao has it all figured out, but I, dear reader, have not. I know it’s trickery, of course, but I am lousy when it comes to figuring out magic tricks. A lot of it has to do with alchemical reactions. This stuff has layers. What makes the entire thing dangerous at the end is that she takes in mercury. It looks like she left some people seriously ill but none of this seems to have been done to any clear and particular effect. With the white lady once again disappearing from the public eye, we’re left to wonder what was truly going on.
It’s been almost a week since I last wrote something that isn’t for work or an essay for uni. I handed in a big essay this morning after more or less finishing it yesterday. I’m pretty nervous about it because I’ve had a lot of failures in the past few years, but I’m very close to graduating which would turn my contract into a permanent one. I’ve talked about this before, I won’t bore you with it any longer, but today I want to get back into the habit of writing every day. And it’s JoJo day so that shouldn’t be too difficult.
Symbolism
Jesus jumpscare. We learn that Joseph drew a map of America before it was discovered. It was also the lost map that was the only thing that survived the fire and it looks like the stars might match the different legs of this journey. Is all of this in the bible too? I never knew. And somehow all of this led to Johnny’s hand being scooped out of his skin. Or not? Rule of thumb when you can’t explain something in this story is that it’s probably the work of an enemy stand user.
me when I try to get that irritating little pimple from the inside of my nostril.
After the opening finishes we get to learn a little bit about how badly things have been going for some of the racers. Over 500 of them have dropped out – many of them at the same location – and there are already 68 casualties. It is very concerning that a ton of these people are currently racing through the devil’s palm and many of them will probably pick up a stand ability while traveling through it. “The devil’s palm chooses people.” And it looks like a lot of people are about to be chosen. And despite all of their encounters, Gyro and Johnny are still ahead. And Mr Steel possibly knows something about Gyro and his situation, since he thinks Gyro is picking something up on the road. Does he know about Zombie Horse?
It’s kind of insane how in 2004, Araki wrote an American president that looks like a short, fat weirdo with obviously fake hair. He’s a prophet.
We meet two new characters that look like Ibaram from One Piece. They are probably from Italy – I was wrong, it’s the president of the United States – and they were the ones that sent Oye after Gyro. These people are after a corpse that is supposedly here in the desert. How does this link back to Jesus and Joseph from the start of this episode? Whose corpse is it, why are these men looking for it and why do they believe that Gyro might have it? It looks like we’re digging into the core of the story now and I’m curious to see who these people are and what their deal is. My very early guess is that the hand that just went into Johnny’s skin is the first part of this corpse. Why it did that, no idea.
Japan invented react content.
I do like these quieter moments where the duo are just having fun with each other. It makes sense that if you’re traveling the entire continent on horseback there will also be times where you’re just talking about silly shit instead of having active life or death situations going on. Don’t you agree, Gyro? Gyro? Where did you go? Johnny must be a gamer, because gamers don’t look up and even though we just saw a bunch of birds fly over, he isn’t looking up at all. Even the birds could explain what is going on, why did both Gyro and his horse disappear without the gear, while the gear disappears afterwards. Whatever it is that took Gyro and his horse, it’s not currently visible and seems to be attacking Johnny with a different power. One power makes things disappear, another power can cut into things.
nope, nope, nope, absolutely the fuck not.
Whenever I cycle to work, there’s this little tunnel that goes along the water underneath a bridge. Sometimes there will be people there that are fishing and one of my fears is that one day they will swing back their rod to cast out a line and hit me with the hook on their fishing rod. It’s not a very realistic fear, but I feel like that would be a terrifying experience. So I can only imagine the terrifying feelings that having a steel hook piercing through your face would bring you. Absolutely awful to even think about. It looks like these feathers have the ability to send out hooks that grab onto people and then take them into another dimension. Something seems to be around here, invisible, guiding the feathers. They stop at a certain distance after all. Using his own stand powers, Johnny does manage to get to relative safety despite his disability.
This reminds me of a game I played as a kid where you would use magnets to fish inside a big square, let me see if I can find it online.
This stand is definitely related to the president we met earlier as it has a clear goal. They want something that Gyro and Johnny might have and Johnny puts the pieces together. Oye and Stroheim were also after this mummified arm. We now meet the stand user that did all this and it’s probably the weirdest person we’ve seen in this series so far. Even though this guy has access to the things he stole from Johnny and Gyro, it seems he was also able to take out Gyro in the process. His ability looks like it works like a weird form of fishing. The weirdo fishes into a bowl of water and catches whatever is on the other side of the ability, be it through feathers or insects. So my fear of people fishing might be more accurate than I thought.
I couldn’t find a picture of the exact game I had – it’s probably ancient at this point – but this is similar enough to show you what it reminded me of.
And ladies and gentlemen, if you thought this show was weird before, it’s about to become even weirder. Some weird labubu just came crawling out of Johnny’s arm and started talking to him. Is this his stand ability or the stand ability of the corpse that seems to be fusing with him? Next thing you’re going to tell me is that this labubu is actually the new body of Jesus Christ. That’s what was hidden here, right? The body of Christ? I can’t think of another logical explanation, if it was Joseph that went on a pilgrimage and buried something. We’ll have to wait a while to figure out if I was right, but as always I think this was a very interesting episode. Thanks for reading!
No cold open for this one but we’re jumping straight into the opening. After waiting far too long, I finally got the song for this on my Spotify playlist. Glad they finally released it, Yorushika is one of my most listened to artists. Other contenders for that spot are Bump of Chicken, Greenday and Counting Crows, but all of them pale in total listens when compared to Fall Out Boy. I digress, let’s talk about episode 4!
Ah-Duo says to not mind her, but she’s totally just going to sit there and listen in. Suiren and Maomao talk about the books and Suiren says one is missing. When she says this, we see a shot of the two of them with the focus actually being on Ah-Duo’s hand in the background. I wonder if that is alluding to something or if it’s simply there to remind us that she is listening closely. We learn that the apothecary at the Shi family home used the resurrection potion to get out of there. Unfortunately for Maomao, the side effects of the potion hit him as hard – if not harder – as they hit Chou-u. Again we see Ah-Duo’s hand in focus. These shots feel intentional, so she is probably going to at the very least add something to this conversation.
I’m trying to pay more attention to the way shots are framed, especially in anime that seem to be doing a good job at this stuff, in hopes I can get a bit more information out of them. Here it is clear that Ah-Duo will have something to do with what is being discussed.
And of course, Ah- Duo is immediately catching on. Shisui might have left something important behind and it takes a reminder of the most impressive of the women in the rear palace to figure out what is going on. Maomao does a little happy dance when she finds out where the book was and then promptly gets Jinshi to retrieve it for her. It is interesting to think that in a world without the internet – or many copies of books in libraries everywhere – having access to a series of books can make a huge difference. You can be clever or knowledgeable to an extent, but having the research and clear drawings of someone who actually knows their stuff is a big deal. Maomao and Jinshi finally have to accept that a large locust plague is on its way.
I lowkey really like these drawings, they’re super well done.
We learn here that the betrayal of the Shi family hasn’t shown its full damages yet, as they’ve taken out the forest that was supposed to be protected by the previous empress. With no trees there, not only do they have no wood to sell in exchange for food but there is also no place for the birds to thrive, leaving their natural enemies few and far between. Maomao has a bunch of ideas to deal with it, but none of them are particularly good. It’s just like her to feed grasshoppers to a royal like Jinshi. He doesn’t let her win and instead lets her feed him one of the grasshoppers and some porridge. I guess anything is game if it’s fed to him by Maomao.
Maomao reminding her why she is named after a cat, showing some very catlike qualities.
With how involved all of the women at the Verdigris house are with relationships, romance and sex, it only makes sense that they’re all very perceptive when it comes to these things. Everyone’s caught on to Maomao’s fondness of Jinshi, Maomao herself is of course no exception to this. It is kind of sad to think that these women are considered too old when they look like they’re probably still younger than me. Maomao agrees. The rumors they’re talking about when it comes to a strange girl spotted around that the people are into is likely the girl that has been going around feeding drugs to the people.
Alright, but maybe we should just hear her out, she seems lovely.
This sorceress seems to be doing some pretty big manipulation among the upper ranks in the city. She’s gathering a crowd by claiming she can bring immortality. Surely this won’t become an issue in the long run. We saw her briefly at the very start of the episode, but we see more of her at the very end. In a crowded room full of officials and incense, a young woman with red eyes and bright white hair drinks something that looks metallic. Something fishy is definitely happening. A shorter recap this week, but I hope you enjoyed it nonetheless. Thanks for reading.
I spent way too long this morning figuring out if I had somehow missed an episode or where I was going wrong only to realize after several minutes that I had simply gave last week’s episode the wrong name. I named it episode 4, but it was in fact episode 5. I have of course changed it since then but it is a sign that even though I’ve been sleeping a ton the past few days, I might still need more sleep. Luckily the time change is this weekend and we get an extra hour between Saturday and Sunday. I’m not a big fan of the time change in general, but most of my dislike is aimed at the change in spring where we lose an hour. Anyway, you’re here for more JoJo.
The enemy stand user could be anyone in this desert.
Last week we dealt with a creepy assassin named Oye who tried to kill Gyro and take the large bounty on his head. Despite having a very dangerous stand ability, he didn’t quite make the cut. Now our duo are on the road to find this zombie horse that a letter to Gyro was talking about. I’m curious if this will end up being a horse with a stand or something else. Spoiler, it was something else. Apparently it’s just some thread that is turned into a mural and when you stitch it into your wound it should help with the healing. A gift from the king. I’m not quite certain if they’re alluding to this king also being related to Gyro as family or not, but we learn at least as much that his father was a doctor. Gyro also doesn’t believe either the string or the steel balls have anything to do with stands.
I get that the spin is probably some hamon-related power that the Zeppeli family are masters over, but I reckon this zombie horse is the stand of someone back in Gyro’s home.
I get my answers quickly – as usual – and we see that a young Gyro opens the door for a visitor, who summons Gyro’s father to the castle. This takes place in the kingdom of Naples, and although there is no link between part 5 and part 7 from what I know, it is curious they’re going back to Italy. And here we learn a little bit about the power of spin. Gyro is a Zeppeli after all and if you remember in part 1, it was Zeppeli who taught us about Hamon. These people have been special in each part of Jojo they appeared in. So Gyro’s father teaches Gyro how to use the power of spin so he’s ready by the age of 13. It does seem incredibly cruel to have a 13 year old join his father for the day as the king’s executioner. And of course this is all done for effect, but at least prepare the boy for it beforehand.
When violence isn’t solving all of your problems, you’re not using it enough.
Let’s actually take a step back and look at the real world for a second. We’ve probably all heard about the botched execution taking place in the United States recently. A woman who murdered someone quite brutally has been awaiting her execution for decades only for the person administering the injection to not quite get the vein right. What they bring up in this anime is the fact that an executioner needs to be very familiar with how the human body works, which makes sense. But in the modern world, doctors swear an oath to never harm someone on purpose. This does tend to leave the type of people who do end up administering lethal doses to prisoners to be the less scrupulous people. If this is you, I’m sorry, but I don’t have a high opinion of you. When Araki talks about this being a reality and someone having to do it, I can understand the concept in an older society, but it’s 2026 here, most modern countries have long since outlawed capital punishment and for good reason. Not only is it apparently very expensive because it takes a lot of prep and expensive drugs, but it’s also botched more often than you would think. And finally, sometimes they get the wrong person. That last one is the big reason why I’m fully opposed to the death penalty. I don’t want to go into too long of a tangent about the prison system in general, but I’m of the opinion that most sentencing should be focused on rehabilitation. I’m not naive enough to believe that there aren’t people who cannot rehabilitate, and I also do not believe I’m smart enough to know what we should be doing with those people, but I don’t think killing them – when the chance is there that we got the wrong person – is the way to go. But enough of that, let’s go back to our fictional ball-wielding gentlemen.
Excuse me…. but what the fuck?
It looks like I’m not the only one who has second thoughts about this whole thing. A young urchin named Marco is sentenced to death for treason, which is probably just a way to get rid of a nuisance. Gyro is a kind soul. The spin is not meant for hurt but for peace. He will not put an innocent boy to death just because the king tells him so. We see the difference between someone who chooses to follow orders and someone who chooses to think for themselves. I can empathize with Gyro’s father’s way of thinking. You have a job to do and doing it well causes the least suffering. But you can’t change the system that way.
You’re not wrong, but what value is a life where your heart is permanently closed off?
I knew this was going to make me like Gyro, but I’m glad I wasn’t wrong. We get his motivation here. I thought when this backstory started that he would just save the kid and run, but instead he is running to save the kid. If he can get the king to give out a royal pardon after he wins the Steel Ball Run, then the boy can be saved. He will still have to go back to Naples afterwards to become an executioner, but we’ll see how that pans out as the story continues. For now we have to deal with legally distinct Stroheim from JoJo part 2. Fortunately this doesn’t take long and we go back to finding out more about Gyro. He doesn’t tell Johnny a lot about himself, but at least he shares a little bit about himself here.
The nazi is back! Kind of crazy that in part 2 we had a character that was a literal nazi from the nazi party that actually seemed like a fun dude. Sometimes fiction is…… strange. Fuck nazis.
Before we leave and go to the next episode we get a pretty creepy visual of what is undoubtedly someone’s stand ability in which Johnny’s hand gets opened up like a zipper (shoutout to Buciaratti from part 5) and his meat and muscles fall out. That’s some pretty creepy stuff to end an episode on.
There are few things that are more annoying to wake up to than a loud knock on the door. The only things that spring to mind are gunshot wound and the sound of a mosquito buzzing around your head. I’ve not decided yet which of those is worse. Who am I kidding, it’s definitely the mosquito. The person knocking has good reason to be upset early in the morning though, as it seems like someone they care about has fallen ill. Despite Maomao’s kind nature that comes through her harsh demeanor regularly, she’s not about to work for free for someone she doesn’t even know. Especially not if the first thing they present as a reward is their bad attitude. Of course when the person calms down a bit and becomes more reasonable in their request, this lets Maomao agree to more of a compromise. She does bring up a good point here where I want to draw a small parallel to the real world. I think providing charity – be it monetarily or in the form of free labor – is a good thing in general. But it shouldn’t be expected of others. For the same reason I will often end up annoyed when I donate to a charity every month and they keep pestering me for more. I understand that they need more money, but this will just chase people away.
There’s definitely some trauma left in Chou-u as well as a drive to protect the person he cares about. Maybe it’s because Maomao is all he has now.
At least she has the common sense to bring Ukyou with her to the poor district. I understand that these people are rightfully tense about this situation, but Maomao understands the dangers of interacting with a sick person. Considering how well hidden this special package of food was, I’m guessing this has something to do with what that strange woman we saw in earlier episodes was handing out and I bet it’s not exactly good for you. We quickly get to the core of things and it’s even a bit darker than I would have thought. The reason the dad is upset is much more because one less person around means less people who are able to make money for him. He’s abusive and gambles and his family hid their valuables from him. What a shitty situation. I feel bad for everyone involved, the dad included, but he needs to do some serious soul searching for me to properly feel bad for him beyond a basic “this situation sucks”. I do worry that this strange food is the reason the mother died as well, which will probably hit like a truck for these kids. It seems harmless enough from a quick smell and taste test. Despite that, Maomao seems to have caught on to something.
Damn. This was only a month ago. They were already underfed, but they look so happy despite their situation.
So there is something called ergot in this candy that is seriously harmful. It stops blood flow to the body’s extremities and combined with the malnutrition this girl is going through that is causing some serious damage to her body. Speaking of things that do serious damage to the body, getting beaten up by an abusive father is definitely one of them. When the older sister arrives at Maomao’s place it doesn’t take more than a glance for our apothecary to catch on to what is happening. What an awful situation. The slight pang of sadness I felt for the father is fully gone now. Despite how much trouble you’ve gotten yourself into, beating your children is evil. Abolish the prison system as we know it, sure, but bury this guy below the jail before we do so.
Under. The. Jail.
Here we have the Maomao in her natural habitat. Ragebaiting a child. She’s just like me for real. She talks to the older sister about payment and the conversation quickly shifts to having them work at the Verdigris house to make a living. Although I am all for the concept of sex workers, training a young girl to go into the profession – as safe as the environment might be – is rough to watch. It’s for a good cause and the people there seem to be trustworthy but it’s awful that it has to be this way. At the very least it looks like these two young girls can escape poverty to a tiny extent.
Here’s your weekly dose of Jinshi. I know you wanted some.
But back in the rear palace, politics are stopping for nobody. Where Maomao sees the direct effects of these drugs appearing in the street, Jinshi gets a message from the Mi family about similar things happening there. The woman in question is now known as the white lady. Jinshi also admits how much he values Maomao’s opinion on important matters. Despite their efforts in finding these books, they unfortunately do not have the information that Maomao is looking for. We also get a great scene of Pairin doing what Pairin does best. Sazen is pretty bad at sharing important information. He left out the third book or the woman who might know more.
Girl, I’m pretty confident he will do literally anything you ask of him.
Where Sazen once again fails to deal with a problem, Ukyou steps up. The father of the two girls who came to Maomao at the start of the episode is here to collect his girls. Looking at the girls’ faces, the writing’s on the wall. They’d much rather be clean, well fed and being taught to become courtesans than poor, filthy and being physically abused by their father. It makes sense, at least as courtesans they have a decent chance to go up in the world, even though you are selling your body. Then again, some of us are so radicalized that we believe every form of work is selling your body in some way. I digress. The poor father has to go home alone, who will earn his gambling money for him now?
Piss off, abuser.
With how lost in thought Maomao is when she gets into the fancy carriage that comes to pick her up it’s not hard to predict who is about to already be present within this carriage. Or so I thought. I would have bet good money that Jinshi would be waiting for her there, but we will have to wait until the next episode to find out if I’m right or not. If I am, I will call it out next week and if I wasn’t right, I’ll just hope everyone else forgets about it. Either way, things are ramping up and Apothecary Diaries is still doing a fantastic job in turning smaller stories into a part of something bigger. We have the locust plague, the drugs being handed out and the possible link with people from a foreign country through the rat cloak. I’m still enjoying every second of this season, and hope the same is true for you. Thanks for reading.
Last week’s episode genuinely feels like a month ago to me. Not because of anything to do with the show, but it’s been so incredibly busy these past two weeks that I’ve felt exhausted for days on end. Now that I have some sleep under my belt and a full week of fall break ahead of me it’s time to sit down, relax and enjoy some strange desert adventures. This is probably my brain activating way too late, but was Robinson a reference to the Simon & Garfunkel song? It has to be a song or band because Araki, but I didn’t make the link until I heard Johnny call him “Mrs Robinson”. Anyway, the point here is that he might have also been after the bounty on Gyro’s head and I hope we learn some more about what that is all about so that we can get this tension out in the open and dealt with. I will say – seeing the opening again – it is slowly growing on me. I doubt I’ll like it nearly as much as some of the classics, but it’s not a bad song by any means. I wonder if we’ll get any alternative versions of it.
Is this going to be a nurse Joy/officer Jenny situation where there are a billion of them that all look the exact same?
It looks like the gambit to go through the desert paid off as Johnny, Gyro, Mountain Tim and this weirdo named Oye are currently a day ahead of the main pack, at a town built to serve as the halfway point for this leg of the race. The episode is called “a terrorist from a faraway country” and I’m curious if that refers to this new guy or if it refers to Gyro. I think my question gets answered pretty quickly. Oye finds a note in Gyro’s belongings talking about a zombie horse that the king has prepared for him. Meanwhile Oye is here to kill Gyro. They’re presumably from the same country which I believe we learned in an earlier episode is Italy? Either way, Mountain Tim gets blown to bits – or escapes – by Oye’s stand ability while Gyro and Johnny are doing some shopping. And I’m sorry, but are you telling me that Johnny has been lugging that wheelchair around all this time? That or the Steel Ball Run office is kind enough to provide one for him, which would be incredibly based of them.
Me when one of my students changes the subject on me so they don’t have to engage with the work they’re supposed to do. Still, I fall for it every single time even when I see it.
Speaking of being based, Tim literally tore his body apart with his stand ability to survive the blast of the explosion, but it looks like it did some serious damage to the cowboy. This fight looks to be set up wonderfully by Araki. We get Mountain Tim to figure out how the ability works by getting hit by it, then we get Gyro disabled by the power because he now knows not to open his hand, but that also means he can’t do anything which probably means that this will be another chance for Johnny to grow and perhaps discover more about his newfound abilities. Oye’s voice sounds really familiar though, let me look it up. Ah, it’s Noriyaki Sugiyama (Sasuke from Naruto and Ishida from Bleach). Wait, Ishida and Sasuke have the same voice actor? These people are talented, I never realized this. I hear Ishida in his voice here a lot more than Sasuke. Either way, he’s a terrorist who killed up to 5 innocents back in Gyro’s home country.
You wouldn’t explode a guy in a wheelchair, would you?
This bombing ability is weird as hell. It looks like Oye leaves his skin behind on other people to make it explode. When it mixes with sweat it gets slippery and the pins start to come loose and while under the effect of this ability you also start to sweat more. The stand name is “Tic Tac Boom” by the way, or at least in English it is. It’s probably different from the Japanese name because they don’t want to infringe on any copyright laws here in the west. In Japan everything is blatantly named after artists and songs which I think should be allowed, it’s not harming the income or popularity of those songs and people and everyone with even the slightest bit of awareness can separate these characters from the artists they’re named after, but historically they didn’t want to take that risk over here. But enough yapping, we need to chase after Oye who is trying to get the zombie horse after blowing up Gyro’s leg.
Cool guys don’t look at explosions.
I will say, for someone who has only had this stand ability for about four days he knows how to deal with it quite well. Using the water to distribute the pins is a smart move and it probably would have worked on any lesser jockey than these two. They speed through the explosions in a very cool segment. It’s good to see that Johnny is starting to learn how to use his ability and can apply it to things around him. He uses it to take out the wasps that are attacking them but somewhere in the confusion Gyro gets hit. It looks like this guy can even attach the pins to cigarette smoke. Although I doubt this is just a normal cigarette with how much smoke is coming out. It’s looking pretty dire for the boys. But of course they had a plan. Johnny uses his nails to spin some spiderwebs around and in the moment of distraction, Gyro manages to hit Oye with both of his steel balls. Terrorist down and out. I just hope Mountain Tim is already, he seemed like a cool dude.
Although I do not put any big spoilers for the latest seasons of these shows in here, I will be putting in some pretty big spoilers for season 4 of Re:Zero, so if you haven’t seen it yet, skip that part of the review please.
Go listen to the ending of Polar Opposites by season 2. It’s one of the catchiest songs I’ve heard in a long time and it’s made me an instant fan of Mega Shinnosuke.
A little look behind the curtains for you all, but when I know I’m going to have a busy day at work, I try to schedule a piece of writing that’s a little bit easier to get through and requires less of my brain to still be functioning. Quick Reviews are a great outlet these days because I think they’re fun and interesting enough for people wanting to quickly see what the season was about while not being particularly deep, so writing them feels like a breeze. A win-win situation for everyone. I’m writing this one after I spent the entire day doing a training for mentorship in school. I might become a mentor at some point in the future so I figured I might as well take the training for it ahead of time. It’s free after all. Anyway, you’re not here for that, you’re here to see my lukewarm opinions on some anime sequels. So without further ado, let’s get into it.
Ascendance of a bookworm
I feel like this is what he ends up saying throughout this series the most. It’s got to be hard dealing with an adult in a child’s body who often just behaves like a child anyway. Not like he’s any easier to deal with himself.
And let’s start off strong with the now fourth season of this lovely isekai series about a book lover who died and reincarnated a sickly young girl. Where season 3 of this show felt a little bit slow and unassuming to me, this fourth season really managed to pull me back in with an interesting storyline, some more time spent with interesting characters we met in the last season and even a pretty interesting ending to the season. We continue to follow Myne – now Rosemyne – as she navigates her new life among the nobility. The subtitle for this season is the adopted daughter of the archduke after all. Rosemyne is trying to make a Jureve this season, a sort of elixir that will harden the mana in her body and – after a lengthy slumber – should turn her into a healthy young girl. She needs several hard to get ingredients for this elixir, but nothing is impossible if you have the head priest and several royal knights on your side. Still, getting all of the ingredients for this elixir does take some time and things even take a turn towards the end, causing the situation to become much hairier than it should have been. Still, throughout it all Rosemyne continues to love books, develop new technologies and stuns everyone in her surroundings with her vast amount of knowledge and ideas. If the third season made you wonder if this show was still worth your time – like it did for me – know that this fourth season has picked up the pace and is probably fun enough. A small bump in the road was the use of AI in the making of the first opening of this season which rubbed fans – myself included – the wrong way, but they have since then changed it. Up to you if that’s enough for you to turn away from the series or if you don’t mind. I’m fine either way.
Saga of Tanya the Evil
I think she’s mad.
How much time between seasons is too long? Attack on Titan tried to figure out just exactly how much time they could get away with and it resulted in the show feeling a little bit more confusing and chaotic than it could have been. I’m sure they had good reasons to take it slow – catching up to the manga being one of them – but the damage was still there. For me, the Saga of Tanya the Evil felt similar. In this second season of the bizarre show about an alternate world war 2 after nine years without it felt rather jarring to me at times. I remember liking the first season – in big part because of how strange it was compared to other series on the market – but I didn’t remember much beyond the basic plot. A ruthless person on earth is pushed under a moving train – Gantz style – and reincarnates into the body of a young girl. There he starts a feud with god – being X – about what it means to exist and if God truly is real. All of this takes place in the aforementioned alternative reality world war 2 where the empire is still going strong, but not without costs. In season 2 the fighting continues and we spend more time on the frontlines while others are getting involved. Fictional allies, fictional Great Britain and Fictional Italy all have a part in this war and things get dicey for the Empire at times. With Tanya wanting to find her way out of this predicament, she seems to have no luck so far and we end the season in a very similar position as we started it. I don’t know, I’m not convinced I’ll watch a third season of this if it arrives, but if the setting excites you, I have no real complaints about the execution. It looks and sounds fine and there’s lots of army battles. Just not my cup of tea.
Grand Blue Dreaming
Preach.
This is a show about diving. I think. Anyone familiar with this anime or manga will know that this is technically true but also a meme. Grand Blue Dreaming is about a college club called Peekaboo that goes diving. Iori has been living with his uncle and cousins above their diving store for a while now, and has fully embraced life in college away from home. Their club does more drinking than diving, although they are truly passionate about diving too. In this season, we finally get a bit more romantic development between the characters but also a growing feeling of responsibility as they all get a little bit older and their seniors are even trying to get jobs because their time in school is almost over. The atmosphere changes although there is still room to return to the silly toilet humor we’ve come to appreciate throughout the earlier seasons. In this third season we see a return to Iori’s home where we meet some strange foreigners, some hijinx with Iori and Kohei’s classmates, a stint into becoming influencers and we top it off with a trip for just Iori and Chise which doesn’t quite go the way they expected. Throughout it all, the series is loud and proud of its humor and there’s even jokes in there about the censoring having grown by a certain percentage to keep up with the rules and regulations. There’s honestly not too much to say about this show. If you like dumb comedy shows this one will be great for you and even if you’re not big on comedy in anime – which I really am not – you will still have a good chance of enjoying this one. The jokes definitely land at times and the show can be surprisingly tender when it wants to be. At the very least do yourself a favor and watch the first season, just to get a taste of how silly this show is.
Re:Zero
You’re basically just a squatter.
When it comes to Isekai anime, Re:Zero has always been an interesting one to me. At some points in the story it feels rather generic in its plot and worldbuilding and sometimes I get the feeling that the story is a little bit all over the place. But then the core mechanic of how this world works and how Subaru’s suffering eventually makes him grow as a character is really interesting. Not only did he suddenly find himself in another world, but he also keeps returning to an earlier point in his life within this new world every time he dies. This is obviously quite traumatic and with Subaru not being the bravest person to begin with, this is tough for him to deal with. In this fourth season, we leave the city of Priestella behind us and start making our way towards the tower where the sage is located. We still haven’t found a way to get Rem back, and the same is true for Julius. Both of them have been forgotten, but at least the latter is still conscious. I personally thought that the first half of this season was rather weak and had some jarring tone shifts. Subaru’s behavior was off throughout and it wasn’t really explained why this happened. One thing – and this is where the spoilers come in – that really got me curious from this part of the story is what happened to Emilia at the top of the tower. I still remember how she introduced herself as Satella in the very first loop, which then made her very shocked when Subaru called her that in the next loop. This is a question that set up the mystery at the start – which I think was a great hook – and seems to be built upon here. The dragon Volcanica refers to her as Satella as well but gets angry when she mentions the witch of Envy. Maybe there is more truth to the fact that Emilia and Subaru were in the tower somewhere in the far past. But then again, Shaula only recognized Subaru and she would have recognized Emilia too if she had been there before or if Satella had been there before. After all, the few visions we get of Satella tell us that the two look very much like each other. I’m definitely back to being hooked on this series again and can’t wait to learn more. Hopefully we get a fifth season somewhat soon.
You and I are polar opposites
I love all of these silly little goofs. But most of all I want each of these fictional characters to be happy.
When I talked about this show after the first season finished airing, I already made it very clear that I loved this show. The characters are great and the pace is very solid, making for an enjoyable experience. Although I think some of the early episodes of season 1 as well as the opening theme and its beautiful animation added some depth to this show, I think the second season kept going strong. Where much of the first season was focused on Tani and Suzuki, we spend a larger part of this second season on the relationships between Taira and Azuma as well as Yamada and Nisshi. This gives us three relationships with very different dynamics that each play out very differently. It reminds me a little bit of Horimiya with that, because in that show we ended up focusing on a lot of different characters as well and it really made the show a lot better. A relationship can be very complex and we see some of that in the different ways these kids develop their feelings. There were some moments where I was a little bit worried about where the plot was heading, but by the end of the season, I felt completely satisfied with everything I’ve watched. I have a soft spot for the Taira and Azuma relationship because it comes from a place of hurt for both of them, but evolves into something very healthy. I bought the manga after the end of season 1 but specifically waited for the anime to finish before diving into it, so I still have that to look forward to.
This poor guy can’t catch a break.
And with the exceptions of Bleach and Yomi no Tsugai, I have now more or less said everything I wanted to say about this past summer season of anime. Those two anime will get their own dedicated post in the near future because I have lots to say about Yomi no Tsugai and I don’t want to talk about the Bleach season yet with 2 episodes still not having aired yet – as of writing this. And then it’s time to start looking ahead again to the future. I better start thinking of things to write about. I’ll go do that, so thanks for reading.
One thing someone brought up in the comments – I don’t remember where exactly so apologies random person on the internet – is that the symbolism in this opening is strong, especially with Jinshi being represented by the moon. Early on in this opening we see him standing in front of the moon, which is large in the background before later on we see Maomao try and grab the moon from the sky. Metaphorically of course, but the metaphor still stands. I think that’s an interesting way of portraying their relationship because although Maomao clearly cares for the royal sad boy, there hasn’t been much in the way of progression of feelings. Romance is a part of this show, but it’s more subtle than it would be if this were purely a romance anime. I wonder how much development we’ll get this season.
This is like those terrible reality TV shows where they do a wife swap for a week or something like that?
We also see several characters throughout this opening – including the emperor himself – steal glances at the moon. Some seemingly become more aware of its presence while others look on with a prideful look on their face. I wonder if this is supposed to represent their feelings towards Jinshi. Speaking of Jinshi, we see him being almost swallowed up by the locusts that we saw in the first episode. Perhaps alluding to the fact that dealing with these locusts will take a lot out of him? One can only speculate and I often speculate incorrectly.
The symbolism with this one isn’t exactly subtle but that’s perfect for me.
I wasn’t planning on going into it this deeply, but we also see two women exchanging moons. One of the moons then promptly dims, signifying something we’ve been hinted at repeatedly throughout the series that I don’t think has been explicitly said yet about the situation in the royal family. Besides these things, there is a lot more imagery that probably has a deeper meaning as well but it’s either beyond me or it reveals something I don’t know about yet. Either way, just seeing this opening is getting me excited to dive deeper into this story and read the novels in the future. Let’s move on to the episode proper.
Cruel.
What we get today is a story from a shop owner. Of course, the story will undoubtedly be a way to set up upcoming plot points, but let’s not worry about that this much. Boy meets girl, girl gets homesick but agrees to marry the boy anyway. Unfortunately it’s not that nice of a story as the budding love quickly turns into a kidnapping. The girl – who wants to go back to her family – is now being cleansed in the lake. As a final act of resistance she sets herself on fire and vanishes into the lake, only leaving behind the garment. Either the culture this girl was from, the fabric used in this garment or the type of oil she seemingly poured over herself will end up being important. And it looks like this garment is the one that’s important. It is fire-retardant. And in demonstrating so, Maomao earns both of them some free clothes. The revelation that the writing in the pattern was probably a message crying for help is pretty cool and also really sad. The family that appeared to pick her up must have known she was most likely there, yet couldn’t actually get to her. Kidnappers are evil. Does this mean that the girl didn’t actually disappear into the water but instead she managed to escape. The connection Maomao makes between her and the two emissaries means that this is probably important.
This is completely and utterly irrelevant but I now say the word “suspicious” in a slightly French accent due to a Vtuber I watched for a bit.
We return back to the locust story when Jinshi visits Maomao at the Verdigris house. She tells Jinshi about the warnings that she has seen and received about a poor harvest coming up. The timing of it all couldn’t be any worse. The Shi clan being destroyed is an omen and the locusts are the proof. With the books that are being sold around the stronghold holding some information on locusts and grasshoppers, we can start slowly working on a counterplan. But putting aside some pretty big problems currently exhausting Jinshi, it’s time for a break. The two tease each other and things are probably about to turn pretty awkward for Jinshi as what he thinks he’s getting is not what he will be getting.
Surpriseeeeeeee
I’m pretty confident that he thinks Maomao will be spending time in the same room, but instead she has just gotten him an all inclusive package with the women from the house. Poor Jinshi. I know that 19 year olds are considered adults in modern society and definitely a world like this where that line of being underage is much more blurry, but working in a secondary school where the oldest kids walking around are about 18 or 19 years old I can tell you that they can still very much be children. Jinshi has had a fairly sheltered upbringing during which he has not been able to really express himself or spend much time being a child. I think that although libido plays a role in his current feelings, he also genuinely wants the companionship of someone his age that treats him like a normal person, a child even at times. It’s quite sad to see this play out as it shows how much young men in this world get neglected and aren’t given the time to experience their feelings properly. I know we’re keeping it light because we’re enjoying an anime, but there’s very clear parallels to the real world here in how in many cultures it is valued to be manly and the idea of wanting a girl to sing you a lullaby before going to bed would be frowned upon by your peers. But it is such a sweet want to have. It’s harmless, it shows respect and love to the other and it’s gentle to its core. Jinshi is a gentle soul and we are reminded of that fact in this scene. I wonder if Jinshi has ever received kindness that is this gentle and small in scale. And with a song from Maomao we go to sleep. Of course Pairin sees right through what is happening and pesters Maomao with it. Maomao knows too, but is she ready to admit it?
Singing a sweet lullaby to one of the royals of your country while he’s taking a nap in the local whorehouse. Probably the most unrealistic thing about this show.
Finally let me make the connection that some of you undoubtedly already made. I was complaining about Psyren being way too obvious in its addressing the reader to the point where it was grating earlier, to some friends, yet it looks like my media literacy still has a ways to go, but the girl distributing drugs in the poor districts of the capital likely has something to do with the woman from the cloak story. Perhaps they are one and the same, returning to take vengeance on the country that treated her so poorly. We have two major stories set up right now, with more likely soon to follow. I’m excited to experience all of this with you all each week. Thanks for reading!
Last week we continued our journey into the desert as the second leg of this race had well and truly started. Where most competitors chose to make the small detour to the watering hole – which seems like the smart decision – Johnny and Gyro made a mad dash for the harsh desert and already dealt with a strange character’s attack on their camp before an even stranger series of BoomBooms appeared. These BoomBoom bandits seem to be the ones murdering contestants and although Johnny and Gyro managed to escape their weird magic (stands), the BoomBooms later managed to trick Mountain Tim into believing that the murderer he was looking for was Johnny Joestar. With that setup, we move into episode 4.
They were most certainly not, and it’s kind of messed up to blame the cripple.
It seems like distance from the problem is a good cure for the attack on Gyro as the magnetic effect fades and all the metal releases from his leg. And with their pursuer close behind them, they need to hurry up. What they don’t know is that their pursuer is in fact Mountain Tim. One quick thing I noticed in the opening that I didn’t spot earlier on because I had no context for it, but when it starts out on the hoofprints in the sand, we see that one of the hoofprints has that little indent that is used to figure out who the murderer is. That’s a cool little detail.
I’m sure he’ll end up being fine. It is his father that shot him three times so surely he did that with having a plan, right?
When Mountain Tim catches up to our two protagonists, they should be drawn towards each other by magnetism. That’s why he’s catching up so quickly. This is about to go from bad to worse and on top of all of that, the BoomBoom brothers are still lurking nearby. And neither father nor brother seems to care much that Andre BoomBoom is slowly dying due to the numerous wounds he’s received. At last we get a reasonable character – at least for the time being. Mountain Tim realizes something is up and it probably isn’t hard to see at this point that whatever power is at work, it’s also causing harm to both Johnny and Gyro, so hopefully this will let him be calm enough to turn this into a conversation instead of an arrest. Things are finally looking like they might stabilize. I’m liking this Mountain Tim character much more than I expected.
Thanks for the explanation
This is where we learn more properly where stands come from. Mountain Tim – who is 31 in the present timeline – gained his powers from a place called Devil’s Palm in the deserts of Arizona when he was 16. His military unit got lost and they eventually made their way to wherever stand powers are granted. His rope trick came from this place. Stands are explained here as latent powers or cursed abilities. Tim’s ability allowed him to survive his stay in the desert due to dew growing on his rope and feeding him water. But cutting the conversation short are the BoomBooms who appear to make things more difficult.
Surviving through a desert night by absorbing the dew forming on a rope that is part of your body due to your latent stand abilities is such a JoJo way of surviving.
And with everyone stuck in a pretty desperate situation it is up to Johnny to make a bullet spin and kill their enemies. Johnny is close to learning how to use the power properly after all, he managed to spin a cork in the previous episode and doing the same to a lead bullet is the next step. And he manages to do it. But not quick enough. No, that’s not it. He does it wrong. Instead of just spinning the bullet, he spins his fingernails and the sand around him, killing BoomBoom senior in an instant. And he doesn’t just do this trick once, but he manages to reproduce it only moments later. And instead of learning how to use the spinning power that Gyro has, Johnny instead awakens his dormant stand powers. And to make things even worse, before leaving the last BoomBoom out to die in the desert, he calls them inbred as well. Probably true, but still harsh.
Thanks for the support, friends.
I’d almost forgotten about the snooping that Johnny had accidentally done the previous episode, where he learned that Gyro has a history to him. He seems to be a wanted man with a very high price on his head. But being wanted doesn’t make you a bad person. And Gyro has so far seemed like a good guy. I wonder if this causes issues with Mountain Tim though. Either way, our first truly big crisis is averted and we’re ready to continue our journey through the desert. Thanks for reading!
You know what, maybe I’d rather not get a Stand ability, this looks very painful.
Don’t worry, we’ll get to talk about you soon enough.
With the heat and sun soon behind us, it is time to get excited about fall weather. I love the colder air, the ability to sleep under a blanket without sweating and the earlier darkness. It’s the perfect atmosphere to sit down, relax and watch some anime. But first, before we start looking ahead, let’s look back on a very successful season of summer anime. Because there are actually quite a few series I want to talk to you about this time around, I have decided to split everything up into two different posts. Today we’ll be looking at new shows and next week we’ll be looking at sequels. This is mainly because there are quite a few sequels that aired this past season that I’d like to take a moment to talk about as well. There’s also an anime I watched this season that will get its own dedicated review because of how much I enjoyed it. That anime is of course the work of Hiromu Arakawa: Daemons of the Shadow Realm. That review is scheduled for two weeks from now, so look forward to that! With that out of the way, let’s start with a classic anime revisited.
The Ghost in the Shell
Please don’t look at me like that, I’m shy and don’t know how to respond.
I’m not the biggest fan of Science Fiction. I’m aware that a lot of the political intrigue, drama and personal journeys can be very similar to fantasy stories, but the setting doesn’t nearly excite me as much as one with dragons and magic and swords and bows. Still, I know a good show when I watch one, and when I watched the Ghost in the Shell movie several years ago I liked what I saw. A story about what it means to be human in a world where machines and artificial intelligence are reaching scary levels of believability, that’s an experience so far removed from our present day that it is pure science fiction. Yeah, I only watched this movie like five years ago and look how much things have changed. Enough that watching the new Ghost in the Shell adaptation that aired this season felt like an almost scary look into our future. A future that is flashy, boisterous and loud but has a lot of nastiness bubbling underneath all of that. If you’re new to this story, we follow Kusanagi Motoko, who is this ghost within a shell. Ghosts are people’s consciousness and shells are artificial bodies they inhabit. Together with a squad of misfits she works for Public Security section 9 in an attempt to deal with the rampant corruption and criminal activity in this world. This version of Kusanagi is much more molded after how she was in the manga – from what I’ve been told, I have not read it – and has much more personality than the grittier version we’ve seen in early versions. It makes sense. Even in a dystopia there are still vices and why wouldn’t you partake in those regularly. She’s quite tongue and cheek and I would be too in her position. She’s caught up in the middle of international subterfuge as well as a mysterious cyber criminal known as the puppet master. If you like shows that are loud and boisterous but also say a lot during their quiet moments, definitely give this one a watch.
Smoking behind the supermarket with you
I love these two so much. I wish nothing but good things to happen to these two fictional characters.
If you’re like me and after a busy day at work you might not need all the loudness that GITS has to offer but instead you just want to relax and recharge some energy, then perhaps this next show is for you. Imagine you’re Sasaki. You’re in your forties, single, working a difficult job with a loud and obnoxious boss and all you have to relax is your smoking break. That and of course Yamada-san who works the counter at the local supermarket with her healing smile. One day when Sasaki makes his way home from work he is disappointed that he doesn’t get to see the kind cashier and lights up a cigarette outside the store, to the dismay of the other customers. He quickly scurries to the back of the supermarket to hide his vice in shame where he runs into another smoker. This red-haired woman with a leather jacket and piercings looks a lot like Yamada-san from counter 2 but has a very different vibe about her, so it must be a different person, right? This is how our romantic comedy between exhausted office worker Sasaki and friendly supermarket employee Yamada – I mean Tayama – starts. I said this was a romantic comedy, but a lot of this show is much more focused on the comedy part of it. There’s a lot to like about the banter between Tayama and Saski, but due to their age difference and their relatively recent friendship, there aren’t any big developments when it comes to the romantic side of this story, but after a long day of work it’s a very pleasant show to watch. Sasaki is very anxious and socially awkward, but not to the point that it becomes annoying and Tayama’s teasing nature matches him perfectly to create a great dynamic. The supporting cast is great too, and it is quite refreshing to see a romance anime that has some adult characters instead of your standard teenagers. Nothing wrong with the latter, but as someone in their thirties, it’s nice to believe that even at my age there’s still hope to find a cute girl wearing a letter jacket that doesn’t mind a little bit of social awkwardness.
Liar’s Game
She carries this show, hands down. She’s such a fun character with layers to her.
This show was a bit longer that rest, having run for two cours, and I’m glad it did because it gave us the opportunity for some of the characters in the show to grow on us. Kanzaki Nao is a young woman who has a kind heart and is very trusting of everyone around her. The perfect victim for a scam. One day she is roped into playing something called the Liar’s Game. She is given 100 million yen (560.000 euros) and is told to keep it safe from her opponent while trying to get her hands on his money instead. You see, the goal of the Liar’s Game is to make money at the expense of others. After the game ends, the Liar’s Game Office will seek to collect the initially 100 million yen from the contestants once more. If you’ve lost some of the money, you are now in trouble, but if you’ve managed to get your hands on some of your opponents’ money you can now get away with a nice bit of cash. How does that work legally? Don’t ask too many questions or this show’s believability falls apart. There are two rules. Don’t question if the core plot could actually work and don’t question why Nao is so ridiculously stupid. Both of those are purely because it moves the story along. As everyone expects, Nao is immediately conned into giving her money away to her opponent, an old teacher of hers who she really liked, and when she finds out that he does not plan to safely return it to her by the end of the game, she needs a plan fast. Luckily for her, there’s a young man named Akiyama who has just been released for jail. What was he in jail for? Conning a massive corporation until it went bankrupt. The perfect person to help her out with this game. He will only do it if he gets part of the money from Nao though, and not for free. Thus the two set out to get Nao’s money back from her former teacher so she can safely get out of these games. Without going into the spoilers, the two quickly reach a common goal within these games and start working towards a better outcome for everyone involved. Along the way they meet several characters, the most interesting of which is Fukunaga Yuuji, a trans woman who uses her ability to appear both feminine and masculine to her advantage. She is by far the most interesting character as she acts the most like a real person and is kind of a scumbag. The reason I said earlier on that this show having 2 cours was a boon is because we get to see more of her character journey and it elevates the show. If you like the first few episodes of this show but aren’t sure if you want to keep up with it, definitely consider sticking it out for the second half is much better than the first. And outside of the anime itself, please do yourself a favor and check out the music video for the first opening “Abuku” by Yorushika. It’s fantastic.
A witch’s life in Mongol
A young Sitara, still full of life and wonder.
For some people, conquering others without regard for their welfare isn’t just a goal, it is a way of living. It is in this part of the world we are dropped as Genghis Khan is at the height of his power, conquering his way through the steppes all the way to Persia, where our young protagonist Sitara simply wants to live her life with the people she lives with as a slave. Despite being enslaved, Sitara’s life is relatively decent here. Of course, there is no freedom, but she is being treated well and even taught a fair few things about life, including being able to read some books. That ends when one day the son of the Khan – Tolui – comes into town and ransacks the place. Sitara and the lady of the house hide in a shelter under the house, but are found by Tolui who is looking for a book for one of his wives. In the scuffle for this book, the lady of the house is killed in front of Sitara and she is then enslaved into the Khan’s following. Having lost everything, Sitara – who has now renamed herself to Fatima to appear more important as a slave – is hellbent on revenge against the people who killed her found family, took her books and took her freedom away. But a simple slave girl will not have a lot of chances at revenge in such a dangerous place. Luckily the balance shifts after Genghis Khan dies and his son Ogedei becomes the new Khan. Fatima (Sitara) finds her way into the employ of queen Toregene, who is also hellbent on revenge against the Mongol army for similar reasons. Together, the two plot out a way to destroy the kingdom from the inside while other forces are hard at work to either destabilize certain factions within the army or attempt to improve their own position. All of this political intrigue is accompanied by a gorgeous art style that is unique. The character designs are kept very similar to how they are in the manga – having the one downside that it’s really hard to guess how old characters are – but it allows the show to catch your eye from start to finish. If you like historical drama shows then this one is a must for you and even if it’s not normally your genre, I would still recommend you watch at least the first 2 episodes to see for yourself. It has been likened to shows like Apothecary Diaries and Ranking of Kings, both of which are shows I have put in my personal top 10, so that is high praise.
If looks could kill, there would be a massacre on the steppe.
One Piece Heroines
I love One Piece and will enjoy most things that are even remotely related to it, but as you know from my opinion on the live action series that has not stopped me from criticizing the series when it’s deserved. Whereas a while ago we got an absolutely fantastic special episode titled “Fan Letter” that any fan of the show should watch, we now got another special called “Heroines”. This time we do not focus on the pirating side of being pirates but instead on the fashion side of being pirates. Yes, it feels mismatched to me too, but sometimes these strange sidequests work out well. Unfortunately in this special, that is not the case. What One Piece is trying to do with this special is tell a story about strong women being able to come out of their shell and be the bad-asses they want to be. What ends up happening instead is a kind of half-assed attempt at this, with some of the women coming out much less competent than they are in other parts of this story. Nami is somehow completely unable to function as a pirate due to her shoe not fitting her perfectly and doesn’t even manage to then get a refund for the shoes without having to do far more work than the shoes are worth. Essentially, the women end up being exploited more so than becoming powerful role models. If I were to give this one a compliment it would be towards the art style. This special looks very different from the rest of One Piece and I think the style they chose for this special works well for the story they were trying to tell but unfortunately I do not think this one stuck the landing.
Just getting to see Robin in uniform makes it all worth it.
And that is all for this season’s Quick Reviews. Except not yet, as there are still a whole bunch of sequels to talk about. And we will do so, next week. For now, thanks for reading!
Me when the kids give me their dumb excuse for why they didn’t do their homework.
