In this week’s episode…
Riddle Story of Devil The Devil’s Riddle skips the gay dads, If Her Flag Breaks increases its figure marketing opportunities, and No Game No Life finally gets a header image!
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 8Thursday 1:30 pm EST on Crunchyroll |
Jel: Adding a new antagonist gives Nananananana a much needed fresh sense of direction, and it was cool to see Shiki get a fight scene. Still, there are just way too many characters as the Three Skulls kids conveniently transfer into school and there was a lot of philosophical nonsense to sit through, particular Hiiyo’s speech at the arcade that made ZERO sense. On a final note, come on Juugo, you say you’re tough but you can’t stay up past 2:30 am to play video games with a cute girl? I don’t care if you can casually jump out of windows, that’s just lame. |
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Date A Live Season 2 Episode 8
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Lifesong: Kurumi is everything I’ve been missing from this show and seeing her creepy abilities in action almost made me forget about Miku entirely. I assume we will learn exactly how Miku was betrayed next week. I will do my utmost to care. My current theory is that she is actually like Kotori and was human before becoming a spirit. Maybe her boyfriend turned on her when that happened? Or maybe it was just all of her fans and she hates men for some other reason? It seems obvious she will be joining the harem before too long. I don’t think I will mind her antics so much once she isn’t the focus of the story. And hey while I might not care for Miku I can understand why she is falling for Shidou. He has been particularly cool this season. |
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Jel: This episode was kind of entertaining on a surface level as there was a fair amount of action, but the tension is seriously undermined by Tokaku and Haru’s ultra thick Plot Armor. I was also seriously disappointed we didn’t get to learn more about the two killers, who seemed to have more interesting backstories than Tokaku’s own “mommy didn’t want me to grow up to be a killer too” scenario. We only learn about Isuke’s gay dads through last week’s bump card and we’re given zero explanation on Banba beyond some vague flashbacks of abuse. It makes me wonder if the manga might be a much better experience, but that doesn’t excuse the anime from failing to tell their stories. |
Nanana’s Buried Treasure – Make sure you ALWAYS pay your rent
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The Irregular at Magic High School Episode 9
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Lifesong: Mahouka remains amusing for me, but at this point I feel like we should be calling Tatsuya the Ubermensch. I compared him to Doctor House at one point and I think there are some similarities, but House still has some notable flaws. Tatsuya is like perfection personified. The funny thing is that it all feels intentional. Tatsuya isn’t an accidentally god like creature. He is robotic perfection personified. I’ll be the first one to say that you can’t find an authors intentions in their fiction, but I can’t help imagining Mahouka’s author as someone who is looking down on his entire audience and laughing all the way to the bank. My inner cynic is probably getting the best of me. |
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The World Is Still Beautiful Episode 8
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Marlin: Well, it was good to see the horrible plot development get resolved so quickly this episode. This show has a weird track record of delving into stupid shoujo tropes only to have them instantly reversed as soon as they’re brought up. The rest of the episode was one of those classic “no one understands what the other is really thinking” problems. Cue the parties in question inevitably getting locked in a room to deal with it. This show has got itself back in my good graces, but it’s becoming increasingly obvious that it will never amount to anything special. |
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Brynhildr In the Darkness Episode 9
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Lifesong: So many death flags. Tokou is practically doomed. Even without all the flags she wouldn’t stand a chance. She is simply too powerful and would upset the balance with the other witches. She is going to die and I find myself cringing at the thought of finding out how. The biggest thing that stands out to me from this episode is Tokou’s hint that Murakami’s memory might be some kind of magic itself. I wonder where this show will end up… There are so many elements I can’t see it being tied up in any sort of satisfactory way, but I am hoping for the best. |
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Black Bullet Episode 8
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Lifesong: Rentarou sure has moved up through the ranks quickly. Now he is responsible for building a team to defend his city while a new pillar is built to keep the evil bug things out. I’m a bit confused by that. I guess the government doesn’t have much control over it’s civil servants since Rentarou has to build a team instead of being assigned one, but the fight that came as a result was fun at least. I’m curious to see just how dark things will get before this arc is through. |
If Her Flag Breaks – How long before we get an actual nendoroid with a bra hat accessory?
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No Game No Life Episode 8
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Lifesong: What better way to beat someone at games when you can’t cheat than by playing a game where cheating is part of the rules? Sora was brilliant again this week and watching him pinpoint the lies of the beast tribes and drive them into a corner was fantastic. It will be interesting to see some video games for once. Of course the most interesting part of this episode was Sora’s vanishing act at the end. He said he went to get the last piece he needed, but what did that imply? Was he challenged by one of the old gods as the shifting artwork seems to imply or was he abducted into a match with the beast tribe? I’ve been dying to find out since the end of the episode. The changes to the ED itself? Chilling! |
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Chaika –The Coffin Princess– Episode 8
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Lifesong: I’m not going to lie, this last episode of Chiaka did nothing for me. I can understand what they were going for, but the whole thieves shtick just irritated me. Chiaka is a wonderful heroine, I get it. I really do like Chiaka and I don’t need to see her rescue and forgive some thief to prove it. Maybe I am being harsh. I did like the general feel behind this weeks story, I just found the jokes to be flat I guess. These bumbling thieves have a limited ability to make me laugh. Hopefully they won’t be coming back any time soon. |
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If Her Flag Breaks Episode 8
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Marlin: Flag is going down a dangerous path if you ask me. Once again, the show starts off with a good bit in order to contrive everyone being together again. Ruri was queen of the jokes this week. I loved the terminator shades when she just up and grabbed him, and the nendo version was a great way of playing on robot tropes. Unfortunately, we get into serious business and it just feels really cheap. It’s one of those chase scenes that makes no sense considering their pursuer is a robot that we have clearly been shown can move faster than they can. I’m glad nendo Ruri at least popped up for one more joke before it got too bad, but then the rest of the episode was just a slog. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. More gags. Less story. The show will be better off for it. |
The Glorio Blog 
So I’ve just realised that I’m now watching a grand total of one of the shows being covered in The Roundup (Isshuukan Friends). Everything else I’ve either now dropped or else never watched to begin with. *fails*
I don’t blame you, it’s been that kind of season. Ping Pong has been pretty stellar, but it’s obviously not a show for everyone. I enjoy every show I watch enough, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to recommend most of em.
The only other shows I really, really like this season are Mushishi and Sidonia. Since the start of the spring season I must have tried and out dropped nearly 10 different shows. Not that I think it’s a bad season – far from it. It’s just not one with a lot of titles that personally appeal to me.
NGNL: A-le-le~
Detective Conan reference halfway through, not to mention the hyouka yugioh and jojo ones as well, lol. Miyukicchi as the kemonomimi Izuna pleased me greatly!
I like how Blank pretty figures out the Werebeasts whole mind reading shtick, They can read a person’s body and find out if they’re lying that way, but they can’t actually read minds. Waging their race piece was pretty risky because if you lose you’d no longer be protected by the ten commandments and most likely die, but if the Werebeasts ran away from this they’d pretty much be saying Sora’s “imagination” was right. Just wanna say I really love this show!
Later on the screen began to tear as magic (?) ripped the world asunder and toyed with its very fabric, hence those King crimson like time skips. It was likely Kurami’s elf friend, Fi but still not sure about that. sad Shiro made me sad as well ;-; I suppose everyone forgetting Sora was an effect of magic as well…though I guess I’ll find out in due time. that was one hell of a creepy ass ending song, especially with no Sora, thank you madhouse for such an amazing LN adaptation!
DAT mind-screw
few things bothered me about Mahouka episode 09 like the clapping scene, It could have been animated better and shown the upstairs as well not just Tatsuya’s friends, Kanon’s hair color (thought not really), the mood on the bus, though hanzo getting flustered by Mayumi there was hilarious though.
Anyway, at the end there it seemed like the students were going to activate at the same time! this definitely won’t turn out well, it will probably be similar to Tatsuya’s activation of two CADs and interfere with each other, causing some serious injuries or possibly worse. I’m curious how they will show Mari’s explanation.
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand fuck Aoki, that guy really overestimates how important he is.
tl;dr: NGNL is the bees knees and I’m still enjoying Mahouka even with some of the flaws the anime has shown.
Madhouse are really pulling out all the stops with No Game No Life. They had become a studio I really don’t expect that much from, but they are blowing my mind here. I just hope they plan to continue this series. I will be sad if it ends at episode 12.
Ya I’m only watching Brynhildr on that list. There’s going to be loads of blood next episode. You can just feel it!
I was getting ready to watch the new episode last night and because of the anticipation of what was to come I took a good 15 minutes to press play. The new OP did wonders to make that feeling even worse.
I may be in the minority in saying this, but given the nature of Brynhildr, it seems appropriate for the second song to be as intense as it was, still like the first one more though.
i think they changed the OP here also because this is where the anime deviates from the manga? not too sure but that’s most likely it.