In this week’s episode…
We bid farewell to the BEST SHOW OF THE SEASON and Flag proves nothing says gag comedy like going to an alternate universe where all your friends are dead.
The Roundup is a weekly guide to all the “other” shows we’re watching this season. Check out our full coverage of:
Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders
Ping Pong
The Kawai Complex Guide to Manors and Hostel Behavior
One Week Friends
Hunter x Hunter
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Nanana’s Buried Treasure Episode 7Thursday 1:30 pm EST on Crunchyroll |
Jel: In light of this weekend’s tragic events I have no tolerance for an episode that centers on a strong, powerful woman being physically forced to submit until she offers her body to placate a spoiled brat. At best it’s an ignorant and lazy method to draw out Yukihime’s personality. If it wasn’t so out of character I might think Juugo really is the villain, but Nanananana is not nearly smart or subtle enough to pull that off. Remind me, why am I still watching this? |
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Date A Live Season 2 Episode 7
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Lifesong: Miku can control other spirits?! I didn’t see that coming. I’m happy to see Kurumi and Mana finally make a formal appearance. Shido teaming up with Kurumi also caught me off guard though in retrospect that seems like an obvious turn of events. I am curious to see Kurumi’s motivations laid out far more so than I am with Miku. I going to go out on a limb and guess that Miku is actually like Kotori and all her friends betrayed her when she became a spirit. I hope that when she is defeated we will learn more about Shido in the process. That might make her ultimate reveal much more interesting. |
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Jel: This was a solid episode that really only supports my theory that |
Riddle Story of Devil The Devil’s Riddle – Best killing declaration, hands down
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The Irregular at Magic High School Episode 8
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Lifesong: The amount of things Tatsuya is good at reached critical mass this week. He invented magical flight? I was literally in tears laughing at that reveal. I’m not even having a hard time buying Tatsuya’s character, in fact I actually kind of like him on a certain level, but solving the mystery of magical flight? I’ve compared Tatsuya to Doctor House before and that analogy seems to be holding up pretty well. Magical imouto take off wasn’t even the best part of the episode however. Erika wears bloomers early on the episode and all the boys recognize it not as a symbol of purity, but a trademark of “ancient” Japanese porn. That joke probably amused me a lot more than it should have… |
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The World Is Still Beautiful Episode 6
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Marlin: This episode really liked to reemphasize the fact that the Sun King is a child, didn’t it. Once again, this show seems like its going to go in the right direction and then takes a left turn into horrible plot developments. The date was cute if improbable, and at the end it was nice to see Nike call Livi by name, as a bit of continuity from episodes prior. Unfortunately, the rest of the episode is ruined by the stereotypical overly forward pretty boy character. It is literally everything terrible about the bodice ripper genre in a single episode of anime. It doesn’t help that Nike just stammers at the end instead of Idno, maybe explaining that nothing happened? This show is on some seriously think ice. |
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Brynhildr In the Darkness Episode 8
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Lifesong: This show can be frustratingly slow sometimes. I am starting to worry that it won’t go anywhere by the time it reaches the end of this season. The harem antics are a step above average, but the mystery itself is coming out at a snails pace. I am hoping for a breakthrough of some kind next week. Sadly my expectations for this anime are dropping by the second. |
Tonari no Seki-kun: The Master of Killing Time – The most exciting scene of the week
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Tonari no Seki-kun: The Master of Killing Time Episode 21
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Jel: This was probably the best ending we could expect as the belongings check essentially meant Judgement Day for Seki-kun. Using the Robot Family to cement Yokoi’s choice to be complicit with his antics was pretty much the perfect way to wrap things up. I’m going to miss this little show as it delivered more than I could have hoped for out of it’s simple premise, but I am also satisfied with ending it here. |
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Black Bullet Episode 7
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Lifesong: When Black Bullet brings the drama it brings it good. I have a soft spot for comic book villains and theatrics. We didn’t get both on the same character, but evil guard man sure brought the theatrics and Tina’s employer is certainly comic. Ayn Rand, you are reading that right… Ayn Rand is one of the three super genius inventors of the Black Bullet universe and HE apparently has a hobby of creating super powerful cyborg lolis like Tina. I was pretty amused by all of this until someone explained the premise of Bioshock to me. Honestly I’m still pretty amused, but now I’m left wondering if the author realizes that the real Ayn Rand was actually a woman… Not that it matters I guess. |
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No Game No Life Episode 7
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Lifesong: The old king actually did something useful? I love this anime, if you have been reading my recaps you know that by now. The real draw this time was in how the drama between Steph and Sora set the stage for future events. I loved the casual reveal from Jibril that Sora only made Steph fall in love with her, he never commanded her to stay that way. On some level her feelings toward him are of her own make. I assumed it was something like that anyway, but it was nice to see any potentially awkward developments removed from the picture so early. Next week maybe we will get some beastkin conquering games? I can’t wait! |
If Her Flag Breaks – Lighthearted, easy going fun!
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Chaika –The Coffin Princess– Episode 7
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Lifesong: The animation got better from last week! There was a bit of development between Chaika and Tooru, but not really. Hints at potential romance are better than nothing I guess? Our crew scored themselves another body part. I’m starting to feel sorry for these “heroes” who beat the old emperor. The story is not kind to them at all. This show is steadily becoming more interesting. I’m glad I’ve stuck with it. |
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If Her Flag Breaks Episode 7
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Marlin: I’m a bit worried about this show. The more it dips into this weirdly dramatic undertone the more I’m not enjoying it as much. I think this show is absolutely fantastic at playing with and subverting Visual Novel tropes. It’s been able to use a really wide variety of scenarios well, but it’s really only good when they’re used for comedy. The sudden tonal shift from gag show to “HERE’S WORLDS WHERE ALL YOUR FRIENDS DIED” is too harsh. Unfortunately, it seems that the show is intent on making the intrigue the focal point. I imagine we’ll still see a lot of gags, it just means they’ll have to give away to the drama more often than I’d like. |
The Glorio Blog 
Chaika 07 was good.
Fredrica: are you killing each other? no fair let me in! lol she’s a real sadist that dragoon girl.
Poor Simon though, that’s some pretty shitty things that happened to him, damn you Marco!
“why am I out of the question?” haha oh Akari, so great. hoping we get to see some more of Chaika Bohdan. I suppose some development is better than none but was kind of surprised at how angry Chaika got towards the end. good episode looking forward to the next.
No game no life 07: beautiful episode. 10/10 would watch again.
good to see some development between Stephanie and her grandfather’s relationship. It turns out the previous king wasn’t as much of as a fool as everyone thought he was. It was for the sake of giving a chance to his people to win against their enemies. also need more Kurami pls!
Sora and Shiro did well adding Jibril to the harem, also dem Touhou Yukarin references.
Akari is so far from being an imouto character I find that I don’t mind her jokes at all. At first I thought she wouldn’t be into her “brother”, but by the time they revealed that she is into him and that she also isn’t his sister their gag routine had already become funny for me.
Was there a touhou reference in NGNL? Where was it? I must have missed it. Jibril is great, her lust for knowledge fits her role in the story so well.
haha yes, Akari’s jokes are easily one of my favorite things about the show
Maybe it’s just me, but Jibril in NGNL seems like a parody of Yukarin (Yukari Yakumo of TOUHOU) with her “gaps” being kinda similar to Yukarin’s manipulation of all boundaries, I’m sure there’s other references but that’s the one that I noticed, those facial expressions of hers though, drool.
Oh okay, I see what you mean with Jibril. Her powers are pretty similar to Yukari’s boundary manipulation.
I’m going to miss Seki-kun so hard. That and Ichiro Mizuki singing “Robot Family”.
I am a bit behind on No Game No Life, but despite its fan service, it really stands out as a great, and even intelligent, series. I’d say it’s probably the most pleasant surprise of the season for me. It’s also fun to spot all the references.
The World is Still Beautiful took an uncharacteristic bad plot turn, but despite how stereotypical the new character is, I still like him – and I think he may end up bringing more to the plot than his antics imply. While it seems out of character for Nike to be reduced to a stammering mess, and that does really bother me, it looks like things get cleared up by next episode, and if that means they’re getting back on track, I would be quite happy with it.
Oh Mahouka, I don’t even know anymore. I stopped taking this series seriously at episode 2, and I knew the moment someone went, “My school assignment is solving this seemingly impossible problem!” that Takuya would have it solved by the end of the episode. Erika might be favorite character of the series, though, and the “bloomers are a symbol of Japanese perversion” moment was great.
Going entirely off the series, I can’t possibly see why anyone would view Mahouka as “good”, but while I can’t call it “bad”, it’s also not “average” or “meh”. It might be bad after all, but it’s that special, entertaining kind of bad.
(Not to be confused with the Barristers and Valvrave Horrible Trainwreck kind of bad, where you just can’t look away)
dunno if you’ve seen ep. 08 of no game no life, but there’s an amazing Jojo reference where Sora and Shiro shout KING CRIMSON!! and skip time and warp just like Diavolo, this is obviously a reference to his stand and ability. Sora even references Cioccolata’s petting of Secco after he did a trick with a huge text bubble full of よし ; and more Jojo SFX effects too, good episode.
The interesting thing with Mahouka is that I don’t feel like calling it bad is accurate. I also hate to say that I am enjoying something ironically. The truth is that I’m laughing at the show almost every episode. I can take it seriously, but I find the presentation hilarious. The magical flight stuff in the latest episode just did me in. Mahouka isn’t very great, but I’m enjoying it a lot anyway. It’s smart with what it is doing, it just isn’t going anywhere particularly interesting. There is a degree of suspense waiting to see what ridiculous(but actually incredibly sensible) thing Tatsuya will do next.
Also yes, No Game No Life is amazing. I feel like I am underselling it when I don’t rant about how awesome it is. I also know it is the exact kind of thing I love.