We’re starting off strong. Kyoraku has been named the next Captain Commander after Yamamoto’s passing. Unsurprisingly, he’s not happy about this. He has a meeting with Central 46 who are still as useless and annoying as ever. I wonder if they’re modeled after the US Senate. His plan is to make Zaraki Kenpachi learn Zanjutsu, basically making him unreasonably powerful. And he’s picked someone to do this for him. Captain Unohana from squad four; The first Kenpachi. This reveal was crazy.
I’m avoiding having the preview picture be a spoiler, so have this guy for starters.
After healing in the bath, Ichigo and Renji move on to the next island. I know some people were complaining that last week we didn’t get to see buff Kon, but luckily they didn’t forget about him. After a good bath it’s time for some food. Itadakimasu! Bleach is now Shokugeki no Soma. Hikifune Kirio explains that they’re getting ready for the upcoming three rituals. Next up: The man who created Zanpakuto. How long have these people been a part of squad zero?
I want her secret to losing weight
We jump back to Soul Society itself, to the lowest level of the underground prison where Zaraki Kenpachi is getting ready to face Unohana Yachiru. Kenpachi vs. Kenpachi. Unohana without her iconic braid looks terrifying. I remember seeing this in the manga as well, she’s way more intense than Zaraki. It also turns out the braid was hiding a scar that Zaraki once gave her. She in turn is responsible for the scar on Zaraki’s face. Kyoraku laments that one of the two will have to die in a clash between Kenpachis. Both lieutenants have been handed a will of sorts and are now awaiting the return of their captains.
I don’t know who’s scarier, Äs Nödt or Unohana
For a moment they’re evenly matched and they cross blades, even though Zaraki is definitely on the defensive, he’s holding on pretty well. For a moment, that is. Unohana very quickly has the upper hand. She disarms Zaraki and puts her blade to his throat and tells him he’s gotten weaker. Without mercy, Unohana cuts his throat. When he blinks for a moment, he’s suddenly back, without a cut throat. The fight continues. Unohana is absolutely merciless and will heal him whenever he’s about to die in an attempt to make him stronger.
Lambs to the slaughter, what you’re gonna do when there’s blood in the water.
All in all, not a whole lot happened in this episode. At least it feels like that. We have a new Captain Commander, two captains are fighting to the death and it is more or less revealed that all the people thought dead (Byakuya, Zaraki, Renji and maybe Rukia) are perfectly fine either last or this episode. At this point I started getting confused about what Kubo wanted to do with this arc. It felt like he was going to start slaughtering named characters but then immediately reeled it back in. It felt a bit weird at the time and that sentiment hasn’t changed. Having said all that, I’m still excited to see more Bleach every week.
Poor Isane, I wonder if she knew this day would come.
Official anime streaming websites have historically been sparse in my country. Even with the rise of Crunchyroll there were always large amounts of episodes missing. To give an example, I got an account there once to watch One Piece again, only to realize the middle 70% or so of episodes were unavailable. Because of this, I’ve had a long history of watching my anime basically wherever I can find them. I will be quick to defend this, as I would gladly pay for my anime if they were reasonably available. This is what I do with manga for example, which is why my room is slowly looking like that of a hoarder. Debating morality aside, this explains why I watched Summertime Rendering on a weekly basis while a lot of people might not have. It’s been stuck in Disney jail for a while and although it could be out by now, it wasn’t airing weekly in the west. This is a real shame because it’s a very good show. So without going into any major spoilers, in case readers of this post haven’t had the chance to watch it yet, let’s talk about Summertime Rendering today. There will be spoilers for the first two or three episodes, but nothing past that.
And so it begins
Name: Summertime Rendering
Manga by: Yasuki Tanaka
Studio: OLM
Runtime: April 2022 – September 2022 (25 Episodes) Genre: Mystery, Time Travel, Thriller, Action
Our protagonist, Shinpei, returns to his home on Hitogashima Island. He is there for the funeral of his childhood friend, Ushio. He left the island to move to the big city and she unfortunately drowned trying to save a young girl from drowning. The girl survived but seems emotionally unwell. Even before he gets to the island, things are strange. He has a weird dream where he hears his childhood friend plead for him to find her. When he wakes up he jumps forward landing face first in the bosom of Hizuru, another passenger on this boat and an important character in this story. He gets promptly slapped in the face for his unintended assault and arrives on the island proper.
And so the mystery starts
While Shinpei is on the island, things slowly start getting more and more strange. Ushio’s neck shows strangle marks and it’s not long before he figures out that she was murdered. Not only was Ushio murdered, something supernatural might be going on. Soon after, Shinpei finds out, through going through the motions of it, that he has some sort of time travel ability. Think Re:zero but slightly different. With this power and limited knowledge, Shinpei and his friends slowly try to uncover what is actually happening on this island and how to save as many people as possible before it’s too late.
Something, Katy Perry song, Something
Summertime Rendering is a neat package that fulfills on all the basic promises of a good anime. The artstyle is solid, nothing mind blowing but definitely above average. Same can be said for the animation. The action scenes are amazing when they want to be and the animation throughout is always solid enough that I never noticed any problems with it. The characters in this show are very fun and well written, to the point that we find more depth in them as the show goes on. As someone who doesn’t like time travel in general, I found myself not bothered by it at all in this show. Hizuru is one of my favorite characters and I also appreciate that the cast is more diverse than just a bunch of teenagers. If you like a good mystery show that has the full package, then I highly, highly recommend this show. It’s great right from the start and as the season continues it just gets better and better. The ending is satisfying and although it’s not particularly important to the review, the first opening absolutely slaps. You won’t want to miss this show, so if you can find it anywhere, definitely give it a watch. I’ll be trying to find a good place to buy the manga, because I can definitely see myself wanting to experience this story again. Thanks for reading.
Edit: These shows need to stop having names the size of that one Welsh town, because putting three of them in one title is barely possible at this point.
The summer season had a lot of shows that I have a strong opinion about. For that reason, I only ended up with about three shows for quick reviews. The rest I either don’t want to talk about at all or want to devote a full post to. Before I dive into this, I quickly want to mention some of the sequels I watched this season, in case anyone is still on the fence about those.
Firstly, Danmachi season 4 was very solid. Just like every season before it, it doesn’t overstay its welcome and because of the long break they even did a neat recap.
Overlord on the other hand did not do a proper recap and I found myself kind of confused about what’s going on for the first few episodes. Besides that I never managed to care about the characters much for this season and I don’t know if I even would watch season 5 at this point. Then we get to the big one; The Devil is a part-timer. I look back on the first season of this show extremely fondly. Which makes it all more of a shame that when I started watching this season I found myself uninterested. I didn’t remember the cast beyond the main four and this part of the story was incredibly boring to me. I hate to say it, but this was not a great season in my opinion. Maybe it’s the long time between seasons or maybe it’s because it feels like this season didn’t conclude anything properly, but I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone. Now with that out of the way, let’s dive into three shows I want to look at specifically.
The Yakuza’s guide to babysitting
Kirishima is a violent member of the yakuza. He works for the powerful Sakuragi family and is fairly high up its rankings even. He’s doing a lot of hard work, but he often goes too far in his violence and has always been kind of a wildcard. When he crosses the line one too many times, he’s basically put on leave. But not by sitting at home twiddling his thumbs. Instead of that, he’s put in charge of babysitting the boss’s daughter, Yaeka. Yaeka’s mother got into an accident when Yaeka was very young and because her father is very busy leading a family of Yakuza, she’s been a bit neglected at times. Having a proper babysitter would be good for her, but Kirishima isn’t exactly the type of person that’s perfect for this job. Or is he?
Poor Yaeka, she is around a lot of very eccentric folks.
The story watches as the two slowly grow closer while problems do arise here and there, but Kirishima really starts caring for the young girl. The joy of this series is in their interactions and we get more than enough of those. None of the side characters overstay their welcome and this show really makes it feel like a close family of people. I’m sure real life mafia people are also super nice and caring people. It is interesting to see the duality in Kirishima slowly fade as he becomes a kinder person overall. I found myself enjoying this show a lot more than I expected and if you like a good slice of life with a bit of drama mixed in then I’d highly recommend you give this show a watch. It’s short and sweet and bundles everything together nicely at the end.
My stepmom’s daughter is my ex
Because of course she is. In defense of this show, it is a lot more tasteful than a lot of other shows that thrive off of the thrill of incest. It’s still crazy to me how this genre got so popular both in anime and… other media. Yume and Mizuto’s parents remarry to each other. This makes Yume and Mizuto siblings. What neither parent knows, for some reason, is that their children used to date each other, before they were a family at all. They broke up at some point but never quite really forgot about each other and now they suddenly have to live in the same house. The story revolves around their relationship as siblings and former boyfriend/girlfriend, and how they often fail to thread that line. The two still deeply care about each other and the show explores those feelings throughout. I enjoyed this show more than I expected to, which I feel like I end up saying about a lot of the shows I watch on a whim, but I don’t think it was worth watching unless you’re really into high school drama. The production was pretty nice on this show and it had a good atmosphere throughout. I also think, for what it’s worth, that it has a fairly realistic take on this kind of situation. Obviously I have no way of knowing what a realistic take on this situation would look like, but it never feels like the show does anything weird and the characters are very aware of the strange predicament they’ve found themselves in.
neeeeeeeeeeeerds
Harem in the labyrinth of another world
This show could have been something great. It’s bordering on being a hentai and every scene has been animated amazingly. But why does every single ecchi Isekai show insists on glamorizing slavery? It irked me in Shield Hero, it’s irked me in several shows since then and I believe after all this time this show is the worst offender. The slaves basically immediately fall for their owner, which is just the most messed up message to send into the world. I think there’s a tasteful way to go about slavery in a fantasy setting, a way in which the person buying slaves can still be a good person doing a terrible thing. There’s always a hint of grey in any story you write, but to just take slavery and make it so that if the master doesn’t treat their slaves horrendously it’s automatically something good leaves an awful taste in my mouth. On top of that does the opening show a whole bunch of the girls that don’t show up until literally the last five minutes. Nothing happens in this show. I’m serious. There is absolutely zero substance. This could have been a hentai if it had actual nudity and it would have probably been pretty great. But now you just have an ecchi show with well animated sex scenes where none of the characters are likeable, no one is a good person, nothing actually happens and there’s no real plot progression at all. It’s just a blatant advertisement for the source material that adds absolutely no value. It’s probably the worst anime I’ve seen in a very long time that I didn’t outright drop. If you like well animated sex scenes and do not care that this is the only thing the show has to offer then I suppose you could give it a watch but honestly you’re better off watching a compilation of it somewhere and skipping this colossal waste of time.
I found the one frame I could still post here with a clear consciousnes
There are a bunch more shows that came out this season that I want to talk about so I’ll be doing that over the next month or two. A lot of these shows I have more to say about than I could possibly cram into one large paragraph so they’ll each get their own post. For now, I hope I cleared up a bit about these three shows and you can decide for yourself if you want to watch them or not. In summary; watch the Yakuza babysitter, skip the rest. Thanks for reading!
I say I’m looking back, but it’s obviously not done yet. Before I even consider approaching any publisher at all I need to edit and proofread a bunch of stuff. Having said that, I don’t think there are going to be any massive differences between this version and whatever a final version will look like. Main things on my mind currently are characters referring to things too vaguely because I hadn’t fully developed those ideas at the time of writing them. So changing “the kingdom up north” to what it’s actually called because the characters would know their names.
But once all of that is done, which I’m putting off because I’ve deserved a short break from this story, I hope to get it published somewhere. I’d love to have physical copies of a book I’ve written someday, that’s been a lifelong dream of mine. I don’t even care if they don’t sell, I hope they do, but I’m writing this story as an outlet for me and as a hobby. If other people like it, that’s just a bonus.
Today I’m not going into plot points per se, I did that in the first draft of this post and I realized halfway through that I’d written four full pages of ramblings, so let’s spread this out and milk it a bit. (because I really don’t have anything else to fill Fridays with for blog posts). I first got this idea maybe around April of 2021. I’d been playing with an Isekai story in my head for a while, but after watching the spin-off season of Tensura I really started honing in on the kind of story I wanted to write. Now anyone who’s seen that spin-off and read my story will realize that they’re not alike at all and that’s true. But the pacing of that show is what inspired me. I wanted to write an interesting story that felt calm and never rushed. I hope I somewhat succeeded at that.
I started writing some concepts on paper in October of 2021, in preparation for NaNoWriMo. This is a yearly writing challenge where you try to write 50.000 words in the span of a single month. I chose this story for that challenge since it was the one I had the best idea of what I wanted to do with. It ended up being a success, to my surprise. I finished the entire draft for this story, at 50.009 words total. I still have the draft version separate from the updated story. I was technically slightly short when I wrote the final sentence, so I had to find a spot in the story where I could add a couple of words, which I did.
Then when January of this year came around, I started editing the story, one chapter a week. Most of the early chapters were pretty good and didn’t change much except for filling in the story and the world a little bit with more context and more life. As the story progressed, I realized the original draft lacked a throughline and an ending. I’d written the magical circles into the story with the idea of bringing them back in the second volume, but it felt pointless. I wouldn’t care about this storyhook if it took too long to return either, so that’s why I had to change it and bring it back towards the end of this volume.
Speaking of which, almost every chapter after the crew got settled in Dionil’s house has been completely rewritten compared to the original. There’s a high chance I might change some things here and there. The council’s personas were very spur of the moment and I might go back and adjust them a little bit, to make them feel more like real people. But overall I’m pretty happy with how everything turned out. After a bit of a break from this story I’m going back in to fix some things up. I also still need to think of a throughline for the continuation, which I’m hoping to write this November and then post weekly in the new year. But obviously I’m not promising anything about that, because I’m very good at breaking my promises. Either way, I hope you enjoyed this story, I sure did. If you have any feedback or constructive criticism I am very much open to it. I’m only one person and I tend to think what I write to be pretty good because I wrote it, that’s kind of how our brains work, right? It’s the reason why you have someone else proofread your texts since they pick up on mistakes we don’t. Either way, a massive thank you to all of those who read this story, or even just a little bit of it. It means the world to me if I could just entertain even one or two people with the things that bring me so much joy!
I feel like Linkin Park’s “Burn it to the ground” is playing through my mind throughout this episode. Belaf explains to Nanachi that this signals Faputa’s return and that the dreams she had were sent to her by Belaf. He gave her his value and memories and is looking for a place to rest. Poor Belaf, he’s suffered so much while being such a decent person at heart. Nanachi learns that Mitty unfortunately cannot travel past the boundaries of the village and she’s about to lose her good friend again. Being Nanachi is suffering. These scenes also hit a lot harder in anime form with animation and music. Kevin Penkin and his team did a fantastic job with this show. The sad music while Mitty dissolves is haunting. I feel like that’s the correct word to describe most of this show; haunting. That’s probably why I use it so much in these reviews.
Down here in the abyss are only fundamentally broken people. No healthy person could ever survive down here.
Inheriting everything that was once Belaf’s, his memories, his resolve and his companions, Nanachi sets out. We jump to Reg waking up after his power nap. The interference unit has been protecting them. He learned from Kuma, didn’t he? After a quick warning from Riko, Reg turns the corner to watch Faputa absolutely destroy the villagers limb from limb in a fit of violent rage.
There she is, there’s my little sleep paralysis demon
The villagers all try their best to fight back against Faputa but they’re no match for her. The combination of her insane strength and her deep rage makes her extremely powerful. We see Wazukyan and Vueko look on from a distance. What’s the creepy weirdo planning now? Speaking of weirdos, Reg decides to stop Faputa which feels weird after him being the one to enable her to do what she’s doing right now. Unfortunately for Reg, Faputa sees right through his lies. Poor Faputa, she’s been suffering for so long. We jump back to the past again, but it’s a different past from before. We see Reg and Faputa’s first meeting. It’s a short but sweet flashback. We see Faputa use the village itself to heal her wounds and restore her teeth. She then goes on the attack pretty heavily.
Moments before disaster
I feel like now is a good moment to point out that the animation for this episode has been pretty stellar. I don’t know if Faputa fisting Reg’s mouth is the part of the series where I would have sent the budget, but who am I to judge? We get more flashbacks after Reg comments on Faputa not being a princess. Her name means a combination of “noble maiden” and “immortal one” and look at how happy the three of them are, like a little family. This flashback makes me wonder who Reg’s master is. More white whistles have been through here since Faputa speaks of travelers with stone people on them who are scary. The fight continues and more of the villagers die. Reg is starting to get desperate.
When we try to see things from Faputa’s perspective, they show a very different picture.
He has Riko use her whistle to turn him super saiyan, which angers Faputa even more. She’s angry because Riko uses the kind stone person against her. She reveals that she was responsible for taking Prushka to the person that carved her into her new form. She can feel the discomfort of the person in the white whistle and is frustrated that Riko and Reg can’t do the same, leaving Prushka to suffer. Reg is thrown out of the village with Faputa in tow. I am so impressed by the voice actress for Faputa, she sounds so tortured. Wazukyan covers the village in vines to protect it and we get another sweet little flashback to Reg and Faputa in the past. She explains that she wants to kill her mother so she can find rest. She’s spent her entire life having to watch her mother suffer. She’s long made up her mind to eradicate the village regardless of the people who are living there.
And thus a promise is made. An important promise you shouldn’t forget, Reg.
We see such a kind version of Faputa in the past, she’s truly just a young girl who’s scared and lonely. They promise each other to leave this place when both of their businesses are done. And the iconic track for the Abyss from season one plays again and I can’t help but tear up a little bit watching Faputa sit there on her own, waiting for Reg to return. This poor girl and her family have known nothing but suffering. And those flashbacks aren’t just flashbacks, they’re signs that Reg is slowly remembering some of the past. Unfortunately, Faputa is not backing down.
Faputa won’t back down.
This anime is speeding up fast and it looks like they do plan to adapt the entire thing this season. I don’t quite know what to think of it, I think it could have probably done with one or two more episodes so far, but it’s also not so rushed that I think it’s bad. I’m curious to see the conclusion of everything that’s playing out right now. I have good hope it’ll have a strong ending. But that’s me and my opinion, and perhaps you think very differently. Let me know in the comments down below if you do and as always; thanks for reading!
Today we’ll look at more Hueco Mundo shenanigans. This recap covers episodes 190-212. The end of this arc includes a look into the past of Soul Society which is definitely a highlight for this arc. We ended last part with Ichigo defeating Grimmjow. Now Nnoitra shows up and attempts to kill Grimmjow for losing. Ichigo defends his fallen foe. Nel, or Nelliel Tu Odelschwanck, turns out to be the former third Espada. She has a past with Nnoitra, who fought with her repeatedly until eventually him and Szayelaporro devised a plan to defeat her and throw her, Pesche and Dondochakka out of Las Noches. Nel eventually reverts back to her old form and gets beaten by Nnoitra who then turns his ire to Ichigo. When all is dire and about to go horribly wrong, the captains show up.
Nelliel in her prime, hello lady.
Byakuya and the Seventh Espada both show up at Rukia’s body, who is still alive but just barely. With controlling abilities the Seventh Espada holds a decent fight but eventually loses to Byakuya. Unohana heals Sado and the Privaron Espada that Sado was fighting before.
Here’s Kenny!
Renji and Ishida have been struggling against Szayelaporro who uses his abilities to make little voodoo dolls of them. In these voodoo dolls are body part tokens he crushes to deal severe damage to his opponents. While the fight is going on, Pesche and Dondochakka combine efforts to shoot a combined cero at the Espada, who they clearly have beef with. It unfortunately fails but who shows up but Kurotsuchi Mayuri. Mayuri and Szayelaporro have a battle of wits and Mayuri is by far the more insane one, almost sacrificing Nemu, but winning eventually, leaving the Espada stuck in a permanent state of suffering.
This guy is still extremely creepy.
Elsewhere, Zaraki Kenpachi and Nnoitra are fighting. Both are beasts and have a very animalistic approach to fighting. After being put on the ropes, Kenpachi eventually decides to use both arms to hold his sword and demolishes what is left of Nnoitra, bringing an end to the angry Espada. Now the fifth, sixth, seventh, eight and ninth Espada are out of commission with only Grimmjow and Szayelaporro still alive. As the captains are regrouping and explaining that plan that Soul Society has, Starrk shows up and kidnaps Orihime again, bringing her to Aizen’s tower. Ulquiorra is left in charge of Las Noches as Aizen, Ichimaru and Tosen make their way for the fake Karakura town to fight the captains gathered there. Joining them are the first, second and third Espada. Ichigo and Ulquiorra clash. I’ve kept this part as short as I possibly can, because it’s just people fighting without a ton of substance. There is some, of course, but you’d have to (re)watch the show for that and not read a recap. What comes next is more interesting, so let’s dive into the past of the Soul Society.
It’s the fascist gang! They are pretty hype though.
Urahara Kisuke is an enigma. We know he is important to the plot, we know he is able to fend off two espada, albeit not ones trying their hardest by any means, and we know he’s been living in the human world for a long time. The question is why. The answer, we’re about to find out. The story takes us back in time, 110 years before the current timeline and into a different Soul Society with different yet recognizable captains. The main difference is all of the visoreds. They’re either captains or lieutenants. Rojuro (Rose), Love, Kensei and Hirako are all captains with Lisa, Mashiro and Hiyori are lieutenants. The Soul Society is at a turning point here since Zaraki just recently replaced the previous squad 11 captain by killing him and the twelfth squad captain position is also empty. Yoruichi, who is the leader of squad 2 at this point, recommends her third seat; Urahara Kisuke for the position of Captain.
When I was a young boy, Yoruichi turned me into a captain.
After being promoted to captain of the twelfth division, Urahara and his lieutenant, Hiyori, who doesn’t respect him at all, head over to the Maggot’s nest. The Maggot’s Nest is a prison on the grounds of squad two. This is where they keep anyone who could be a danger to society. Not people who’ve committed a crime, but people they think might post a problem in the future. Pretty fucked up stuff. One of the people there, locked up all alone in a cell in the back, is Kurotsuchi Mayuri. Urahara convinces him to come work for his squad and eventually he accepts. Squad 12 is promptly turned into the department of research and development. An important bit of information here is that at this point in time Aizen is Hirako’s lieutenant.
Evil dickheads.
We once again jump to a different time period. Nine years ahead, which makes this 101 years before the current events of Bleach. Urahara, Kurotsuchi, Akon, Hiyori and their squad are fully in charge of the department of research and development at this point and Urahara has been working on a new type of gigai. Meanwhile, people have been disappearing in the Rukon district and Kensei and Mashiro go to investigate. There they are ambushed by Aizen Sosuke, Ichimaru Gin and Kaname Tosen, who had been a squad member of Kensei’s. When Urahara is warned, he sends Hiyori to help out. The captain commander then sends over Lisa, Rose, Love, Shinji and Hachi. He demands Urahara stay behind. When they all get there, they find that both Mashiro and Kensei have been hollowfied somehow and are much more powerful than they were before.
Urahara and a younger Tessai
The fight is going poorly and all of the current day visoreds are eventually infected by this hollowfication. Urahara and Tessai show up at this point. Tessai was the leader of the kido department and Hachi’s superior. The two of them manage to subdue all of the visoreds while being taunted by Aizen and his crew. Aizen leaves and Urahara and Tessai spend all night trying to stabilize the visoreds’ condition. They succeed somewhat, but are promptly arrested by Central 46. They believe Urahara and Tessai are the ones behind the hollowfication project and not Aizen. To be fair, Urahara has been working on some crazy stuff, including the Hogyoku that he uses to stabilize the Visoreds. The two are sentenced but not before the real protagonist of Bleach; Shihoin Yoruichi shows up. She knocks out a whole bunch of guards and helps the two of them, including the visoreds who were going to be executed by Central 46, escape to their underground lair. How can anyone say Ichigo is the main character when Yoruichi is such a boss? Urahara did predict he might have to flee at some point, so he has gigai prepared for all of them. Yoruichi doesn’t even need one, she’s confident enough she can escape on her own. They all make their way to the world of the living where they have been staying until modern day. Speaking of modern day, the captains aren’t the only ones getting ready for battle. The visoreds acknowledge that they owe Kisuke big time, and although they don’t like the Gotei 13 for abandoning them the way they have, which is extremely fair, they obviously have a debt to pay to Aizen. Man the visoreds are so cool, which makes the fullbringers later on such a bigger disappointment for being boring. And just like that, we start the big fight for Karakura town, Soul Society and the Ouken.
I remember the first time I saw this back in the day, such a cool moment.
With this season of Made in Abyss having 12 episodes that means that after today’s episode we’ll be three quarters done. I wonder if they plan to cover the entire arc in the remaining episodes. Episode 8 covered the remaining content in volumes 7 and 8. That means 8 episodes covered the first three volumes of this arc. There are two volumes left until the arc is completed. If the anime wants to cover both of them they have to seriously rush it, but if they don’t want to cover both of them, I don’t know what their plan is. Save part of it for a movie, or perhaps have the final episode be an hour long special. If they do the latter, they might be able to fit everything somewhat decently. Enough about that though, let’s start the episode and see for ourselves what the pacing is like.
Faputa ominously stares at Reg, Riko and the villagers.
Reg is holding Faputa’s detached arm like it’s about to be a snack for Luffy, the bone sticking out and everything. Faputa is now living rent free in, I mean on top of his head. We’ve learned so far that Faputa never had a parental figure and was born with a hatred for everything around her. Somehow she seems to have become friendly with Reg at some point in the past although Reg doesn’t recall it. Faputa notices Riko’s whistle and comments on how nice Prushka looks now. We jump into the opening theme.
You’re playing a dangeous game, little robot.
The villagers freak out about the appearance of Reg with a part of Faputa. Not just the villagers, but the village itself is upset as well. Tentacles similar to that of the balancing appear and a distressed Vueko explains to Reg that it’s probably not a good idea to bring this directly to Belaf. This is because she knows how upset Belaf got at the knowledge of eating Irumyuui’s children. Perhaps he still feels that way inside. Apparently Reg has the power to let Faputa into the village by using his incinerator. At least Faputa seems to believe he does, and he’s now promised he would do so, allowing Faputa to wreak havoc on the society that wronged her and her family so much. And of course this is the moment Wazukyan decides to show his face again.
Reg’s the prince to Faputa’s princess. Also, he recognizes Vueko immediately even though she tried to hide.
We learn once again that Riko is a total psychopath by treating Wazukyan fairly normally as opposed to acknowledging he’s a total psychopath too. Everyone who’s made it to this part of the abyss isn’t fully sane, I suppose. Cat’s out of the bag almost immediately. Riko figures out Wazukyan’s motives almost immediately and sees through him completely. Wazukyan isn’t done traveling yet. My favorite part of Wazukyan’s manipulative personality is that the keeps saying the others will make the choices for him, pretending he has no responsibility in the matter. And then a monster appears at the center of the village.
The beast is back in town, beast is back in town!
Juroimoh, the beast, is back and they’re after the piece of Faputa that Reg holds. Wazukyan doesn’t like Vueko sharing this information and nabs her. I do love that Wazukyan says Vueko is quick to give in to despair, as if the situation they’ve gone through isn’t something unthinkably insane and she’s just being a drama queen. Vueko’s life has been more horrific than any of us can imagine and Wazukyan seems to have no respect for that. Vueko uses the opportunity to ask why Juroimoh is named after the guy who mistreated her. I don’t think it was revealed to us in the anime yet that Juroimoh has been active as one of the three sages, in place of the locked away Vueko. Apparently Irumyuui created him from thoughts she found in Vueko out of loneliness. Things get pretty abstract in this half of the arc, but he’s basically there to protect the village from outside threats, which includes Faputa’s arm. In the manga we learned he was one of the sages through the info page in volume 8, before we got to the flashback arc. Here we learn it a bit later, apparently.
Oh boy, it used a shadow stone to evolve. Is this the new legendary from the upcoming pokemon games? Looks gnarly to say the least.
Juroimoh, now harnessing the powers of the balancing shadows, locks up all the exits. Reg now has to decide what to do, with Wazukyan gleefully looking on. Luckily Vueko still informs them of the proper situation. The balancing shadows also attack Riko and the villagers, which is a problem. I can’t help but feel like the raging Faputa has the moral high ground here. Her family has been exploited for 150 years just so the village can prosper. Reg’s decision to shoot a hole through Juroimoh and blast away the barrier protecting the village is correct. Sorry Riko, I know you like this place, but it’s time for the village to meet its maker, literally.
Sayonara, Juroimoh
I completely forgot that Reg would pass out from using his incinerator. That’s a problem. He asks the villagers to keep him and Riko safe in exchange for the part of Faputa. Speaking of Faputa, someone just blew a massive hole into the protective layer around the village and Faputa is angry. She’s been angry for a very long time and she finally has a way of aiming that anger at some of the ones responsible for her pain and suffering. With her interference unit at her side, who quickly disposes of what is left of Juroimoh, she is ready to go. Faputa does not forgive.
I know I’m a pessimist at heart, but I think even most optimistic folks would look at this and say “that’s bad.”
Can I just say, the soundtrack for this episode is absolutely fantastic. From the low bass filled sounds that accompany Faputa’s walk into the village, to the almost more ominous music accompanying Nanachi’s dream of being Irumyuui. And with that, we jump into the next part of the story next week. I can’t wait to watch more of it. I definitely think the anime makes a lot clear that I didn’t quite understand when reading the manga, and it’s improving the story a lot. I wonder if I should have read the manga twice or even three times to get a better understanding of things, but it’s too late for that. This episode was haunting in many ways, and we didn’t even see Maa’s cake this week. All in all, one of the better episodes so far, and I hope you all enjoyed it as much as I did. Thanks for reading!
Let’s keep it short today as I’m still in a heatwave. Hopefully the last one of the year but I feel like I’ve been saying that for weeks now and it’s never true. And just like that we’re back in the present day with Reg asking Faputa to help him get Nanachi back. Faputa tears off a limb to give him what he needs because she’s willing to do everything for the promise that Reg made to her that he’s apparently forgotten. Faputa is definitely unhinged and I think we’re all starting to see why. We get reminded of Wazukyan and Vueko’s talk at the end of last week’s episode. Oh, Kevin Penkin tweeted something about a song, so I’m going to keep my ears open for something extra cool.
Belaf is suffering
After the opening theme we go back to the past. We see Belaf suffering with guilt because he ate one of the children of Irumyuui. Wazukyan on the other hand seems to have no issues with any of this which horrifies Vueko. Irumyuui has turned into what can only be described as a terrifying monster at this point, suffering permanently as her babies are being taken from her over and over again. Let’s not forget that although they are bound to suffer and die, Wazukyan is happily cutting up living babies. Yeah, did I mention that this show is messed up? Vueko laments the fact that she’s not going insane like the others. Irumyuui still loves Vueko and in the embrace she still feels Irumyuui’s heartbeat. It’s tough to watch.
Wazukyan using another one of these really solidifies him as a horrifying villain
Inside of Irumyuui’s…. Birthing scar, Vueko finds a secondary cradle of desire that Wazukyan apparently put there. Maybe Irumyuui wasn’t the one who wished for this after all, and Wazukyan is the one behind it. The entire village follows Irumyuui to a strange place, not knowing what’s going to happen. Several of them get snatched up and die. Even though these people had no place to live before they went here, I feel like this was definitely not a good place to go. Irumyuui is now a borderline eldritch horror. I really feel for both Belaf and Vueko, they have such horrible regret for their actions. And it wasn’t even their actions, it was mainly Wazukyan. But unfortunately life in the abyss isn’t always fair. Irumyuui warps once more and Belaf steps inside her, turning into the serpent form he has in the current timeline. Vueko attempts to end it all, but is thwarted by Wazukyan. Vueko is now locked up where she’s freed by Riko in the modern day. We finally see Irumyuui’s wish come to fruition. A final child, one that doesn’t die immediately. This is how Faputa was born. And this explains the rage that Faputa has towards the world, immediately killing the interference units that approach her.
Poor Faputa.
As I mentioned, let’s keep it short. I didn’t find the particular song that might have been special for this episode, but I was also fully enthralled by what was going on. The story is still incredibly sad. Riko now knows what happened in the past. Faputa wants to destroy this village. In my opinion rightfully so. Wazukyan sacrificed so much and so many for the village to become what it is today and seems to have very little regret about any of it. This show is messed up. It’s also going at a lightning fast pace. I’m starting to think it can adapt this entire arc into one season. I don’t know if that’s a good thing, but the first 8 episodes have been very solid in my opinion. But that’s my opinion, I’d like to hear yours too! Thanks for reading.
I’ve read this manwha and its sequel manwha; The Breaker New Waves twice now. When I recently found out that not only another sequel started on the Webtoon app, but there’s also physical translated volumes published by Ablaze, I was very happy. I’ve ordered the first three volumes and as of writing this I’ve made my way through two of them. They’re omnibus sized so they’re thick volumes as well which I’m very pleased with. Seeing as it’s a manwha, which does tend to be lesser known sometimes than manga from Japan, and it’s never received an anime as far as I’m aware, I figured with the new season starting up now would be a great time to review it and let people know my thoughts. So let’s dive into the manwha by Jeon Guek-Jin and Park Jin-Hwan: The Breaker.
Shiwoon is a high school student who is being bullied really badly. He’s also our main character and a complete weakling. One day a strange substitute teacher shows up; Chunwoo Han. Chunwoo is also known as the Nine Arts Dragon (Nine Doors Dragon in the official translation) or Goo Moon Ryong. It’s a martial artist of the highest regard and someone feared in the world of martial arts, Murim. The story follows Shiwoon as he gets taught by Chunwoo, who is by no means a good person or a good teacher, as well as gets help from the new school nurse Shiho Lee, who is also involved with the same people that Chunwoo is involved with. Shiho feeds Shiwoon a strange pill that gives him almost unlimited Qi. With his weak body he needs a lot of help controlling this power and it’s extremely self-destructive early on. The story follows his growth as he slowly gets sucked into the world of Murim that is a lot more complicated than you’d think.
Shiho and Chunwoo
This manwha shines on three fronts, in my opinion. Firstly, the art style is fantastic. The artists for this manwha were talented from day one, but as they gained experience it kept getting better and better. Their other work that they recently did while they were on a break from The Breaker; Trinity Wonder, has some gorgeous artwork that could be a wallpaper. The second thing that I like about this manwha ties into the first one. The character designs are amazing. Although some of the characters, which includes the main character, are a bunch of high school kids, some of the side characters are adults and some of them are extremely attractive. I love Shiho’s design, for example, and although I’m not into men so I’m a bad judge of this, I think Chunwoo looks attractive too. There’s a variety of well designed characters like this, and their outfits are often cool too.
The third thing I like about this manwha, and it’s something that a lot of my favorite long running series have in common, is the worldbuilding. There are many families within the world of Murim and they all have different rules, codes and ways they work with other families. There are alliances and hostilities and there’s even organizations completely separate from the Murim. It’s a complicated mess of people and it’s fascinating to watch the politics behind the scenes as well as this inexperienced kid that knows nothing about all of this and just goes at his own pace. The Breaker is captivating from the first panel to the last, and the same can be said about the sequel. With the physical edition available now I highly recommend getting into this manwha series. If you do catch up, you can even read the latest season on the webtoon app! I haven’t read this yet, so no spoilers please, I want to re-read all the old seasons first, since it’s been a little while and it’s incredibly fun. Let me know if you’ve already read The Breaker or if you got into it after this post. I’d love to send people towards cool stories like this. As always, thanks for reading!
It’s time for more Made in Abyss. We jump back in time to the three sages and their party reaching the Golden City. They meet up with several interference units who wish to learn more from the humans. It sounds like they’re a perfect match. Vueko reminisces about the things they learned and how cruel of a place this truly is. Friendly reminder that all of this stuff happens in Volume 8. Using the hollow that they found they tested if the elevator could go back up again and boy oh boy do we know the answer to that. They’re now stuck in this golden city at the bottom of the abyss and as we’ve all learned, they never did manage to leave this place. The interference units can come and go though, but since they’re not affected by the curse they also don’t know how far humans can go up and down. This is also a reminder that kind seeming Belaf turned into the weird snake like creature that’s eating Mitty’s brains for a snack. Irumyuui, the little girl they picked up on this island, knows a little bit about this place, but not much more. They find a strange animal and decide to keep it.
What a lovely, adorable duo, I’m sure nothing terrible will happen to either of them.
As time goes on, the humans slowly start to adapt to their environment, procuring water and food. Irumyuui recounts her traumatic childhood to Vueko because she can’t have children. Neither can Vueko apparently. As if to make matters worse, the cute animal they found only recently gets eaten by one of the dragonoid creatures. Remember folks, this anime is suffering and nothing but suffering. Not long after this, Irumyuui gets very ill and she’s not the only one.. A bunch of people start pooping small eggs and one person’s foot looks like it’s melted. When it rains it pours. The food survey team dies, only three of them make it back, looking like part trees and dying soon after coming back. Turns out the water is also unhealthy for them. They’re still putting some level of faith into Wazukyan even though he’s clearly lost it at this point. Things are looking dire for the sages. Their drinking water is a living organism that doesn’t die when boiled. To top it all off, one of the members of the food survey team comes back with a strange relic that even the interference units have never seen before. They learn it’s the cradle of desire and it grants a wish. A juvenile is needed to ingest the egg and wish with it. As the people are getting more and more ill, the sages start getting desperate.
I know it’s because I’m rewatching Bleach, but that strand of hair makes me think of Aizen’s manipulative nature.
And there we have it, Wazukyan’s face is showing his desperation and his lack of sanity clearly now. They decide to have Irumyuui use the cradle of the desire to fix the people living in the village. Having absorbed the egg, Irumyuui starts feeling better immediately although her hand still looks very messed up. More people die and they start wondering how the wish will turn out. And oh man does she not turn out well. She’s starting to hollowfy and looks like a mess. Turns out the cradle of desire has a monkey paw effect to it. Who would have guessed a relic from a cruel place like this would have a cruel effect on those using it. Irumyuui gives birth to a strange creature that literally burrows out of her chest. At least she finally has a child, oh wait, never mind, it dies the next day. Remember how I’ve been saying repeatedly that this manga is ridiculously messed up. Not long after a second baby gets born and dies. And a third, and many more. This is where the story went from sad to beyond cruel for me. Everyone’s in pain and dying. What did Wazukyan see that makes all this suffering worth it? Here’s where we thank Kevin Penkin once more for a hauntingly beautiful soundtrack to accompany all of this misery. While Vueko is in dire straits she gets fed a delicious meal by Wazukyan that helps her recover. Finally things are going well for the people. What do you think was in that meal? What strange meat could heal people from this disaster? Oh, of course it’s Irumyuui’s dead children.
Haunting.
I think it’s now safe to say that this is the most messed up story I’ve ever read to the point where I considered dropping it several times during this arc. It’s haunting, it’s gruesome, but it’s also extremely gripping and I feel that I need to know just where it will go next. As strange as it is, it’s so rare for a story to be unpredictable to such an extreme that from page to page I have no idea what to expect. After this episode I’m extremely curious what people think about the story so far? Are you still continuing to watch it or is it getting too much? Let me know in the comments down below.
