In this week’s installment…

Marlin finally pulls the plug on Yona, Garo gets into some pantsless shenanigans, and seriously guys the Game Gear was great as long as you had the car adapter. At least Shirobako is still okay?

The Roundup is a weekly guide to all the “other” shows we’re watching this season. Check out our full, weekly coverage of:

Amagi Brilliant Park – Gundam Build Fighters Try – Gundam: Reconguista in G – Fate/Stay Night: Unlimited Blade Works – Kamen Rider Drive – Parasyte: The Maxim – Rage of Bahamut: Genesis – Your Lie In April

Marlin: Okay, that’s it. I’m done. This show is way too slow and boring for its own good. Doesn’t help that this week was just straight up BL bait if I’ve ever seen it. Combine that with the fact that it’s been like two and a half episodes and the MCs just now left the same spot in what is ostensibly an adventure story, and we have finally come to an impasse. If I’m falling asleep in the middle of the episode I think that’s a sign to leave it alone. So long, Yona, I barely knew ye.

Seha Girls – Game Gear is so emo

Jel: This episode went real deep on the references, way beyond my slightly above average Sega Fanboy knowledge. It was also a bad episode, as they barely even bothered to animate anything. Most of it was just the girls talking over character portraits. Needless to say I didn’t enjoy this much, but the references I did get about Genesis, Game Gear, and Master System were pretty amusing. Making Game Gear all dark and brooding and throwing in that she gets tired a lot made perfect sense, but while the jokes were funny why didn’t they have them make an actual Cameo? That would have given the show a nice boost that it needs desperately, but honestly I don’t think there’s anything they can do at this point to improve my overall opinion of it.

Gee: I’m not really sure what else there is to say about Argevollen at this point. Every event that happened this week was merely another cog in the overarching narrative. And considering how boilerplate said narrative is, anything I say about the episode would either just be summarizing it or stating the obvious. The mass produced Argevollens are super good, Tokimune has found his resolve, Jamie witnesses the U-Link system, etc. It’s about everything you’d expect from a mecha anime of this caliber. I assume the final episodes will go through the necessary paces to see this story to the end.

Garo – Metal Garo Solid 2: Dads of Liberty

Aquagaze: After a somewhat failed experiment, Garo returns with a much stronger companion piece to last week’s León-focused outing. Pervy shenanigans work best when they are at the expense of the pervert, and Germán could have easily starred in an episode of Space Dandy with all the hilarious skeevery going on here. Luckily, Garo peppers this mostly comic relief episode with some interesting tidbits about Germán’s origins and his rivalry with the Black Knight, as well as a look at a far more healthier-looking Anna, who seems to be topless aside from a corset that squeezes her breasts so tight her nipples must have popped off for all I know. Weird. Anyway, there’s a monster of the week as well, of course, though aside from gobbling up the episode’s budget surplus, the fight doesn’t bring a whole lot new to the table. Nevertheless, this comedic aside managed to be highly entertaining without relying too heavily on the franchise’s somewhat sketchy reputation for its jokes. A nice example of how it’s not impossible for a show to be both mature and totally wacky.

Marlin: Now that I’ve confirmed that Lenessia had pupils last season, that strange character design change becomes more jarring every time I see it. It’s just one part of the tragedy that is DEEN, but it is one that is constantly front and center, and thus is really distracting me. Otherwise, this was a pretty solid episode. DEEN was able to actually give this fight the dignity it deserves, well at least when it comes to their animation ability. I still think getting rid of this one weirdo wasn’t quite worth jeopardizing the entire city, but up to this point the invincibility of the Adventurers has forced their conflicts to be philosophical, and with the marked absence of Nureha there hasn’t been anything big to shake things up. Now that the city has lost the Royal Guard, it will be interesting to see how the Round Table addresses establishing police order in a lawless land.

Psycho-Pass – Is that a completely harmless gun against my head or are you just happy to see me? 

Aquagaze: I… honestly don’t know what is going on anymore. I don’t think it’s me. I’ve been rewinding several times, carefully reading every line in all of its nonsensical glory, but I simply can’t make heads or tails of any piece of this smoldering train wreck anymore. It’s not the “Kamui is made up of 160 corpses which somehow makes him immune to Psycho-Pass scans” thing that baffles me. That’s the sort of stupidity even the original Psycho-Pass dabbled in. It pales in comparison to all the hogwash that comes after. Mika waltzes into the National Archives to look up some very much publicly disclosed information on Kamui that no one else bothered to check before because of reasons and find out that it was Togane’s folks who turned him into Frankenstein Jesus. Indeed, Kamui’s motives are nothing more than revenge against his ‘creators’, as it were, despite the stuff they did to him harming him in no imaginable way. Furthermore, Mika finds out that Togane was genetically modified to develop “AA”, a trait he apparently shares with Kamui. Of course because this is Mika we’re talking about, she doesn’t tell Akane about this shocking revelation. No, instead, she pins all the blame on Akane in yet another attempt to get her superior officer fired while ignoring the actual threat. What a heroine!

Chief Kaisei summons Mika to her office to “congratulate” everyone’s favourite rookie on her flawless reasoning, only to reveal that the “AA” Mika found out about is… Well, either it means that both Kamui and Togane are criminally asymptomatic, which makes no sense because Togane has a Crime Coefficient of over 300, or it means that the “AA” was simply a code to lure in people who are criminally asymptomatic, which is so stupid I won’t even delve into it. Anyway, outraged by this revelation, Mika makes a run for it, only to end up bumping into Togane, who calls Kaisei his “mother” and aims his Dominator at Mika’s freckled head, which also doesn’t make sense because, as we learned literally five seconds ago, Mika is criminally asymptomatic and therefore, immune to Dominators. Because she’s a woman and this is Psycho-Pass, Mika gets dragged around screaming and ends up back on Kaisei’s desk, where the Chief tells her she’ll be a perfect guinea pig for when they’ll… wait for it… reveal the Sibyl System’s true nature to the world. Yeah. You know, that thing they did everything in their power to prevent up until now? That’s their goal. The Chief announces that she’ll reveal the Sibyl System’s true nature to Mika, but I’m honestly not certain whether this means she’ll tell Mika the whole “brain in a jar” thing Akane already knows, or something even more secret. Whatever it is, though, I am absolutely certain that it will be very stupid regardless.

Shirobako – Damn feminists even got their hands on Cooking Mama now!

Aquagaze: After last week’s PSA on why you definitely should not aspire to be an animator, Shirobako briefly dives into the only Japanese work environment more depressing than the anime industry: The salaryman office. Luckily, Aoi’s sister saves up her energy for her visit to Tokyo, dragging Midori out of her semi-shut-in status to spite her sister with a torrent of selfies. This is the kind of stuff I dig about Shirobako: witty, recognizable and adorable levity interspersed with genuine drama and strong character writing. While Aoi’s busy life at work continues with all due day dreams and car races, Ema manages to get out of her rut thanks to some lovely advice from Iguchi, though it remains to be seen if she’ll remain content with her generally crappy situation for long. The resolution to her little arc came a bit out of left field, so I’d love to see Ema’s angst be fleshed out a bit more. Shirobako has more than enough episodes left to make it work, so here’s crossing my fingers it’ll keep up the roll it’s been on these past weeks.

Gee: Shirobako keeps up the wit and nuance with the conclusion of Ema’s mini-arc as well as some musing about the nature of dreams. I suppose at the end of the day, Sugie is an old man with old advice, and it was wise of him to pass on the role of mentor to Iguchi, who offers some equally valid advice from one artist to another. We often lose sight of things in our desire to create something. Sometimes intense focus is the exact opposite of what we need when we’ve run into a wall. While Ema’s struggle is over in less than 30 minutes of run-time, it’s an effective way to conclude it. As a personal note though, let me tell you: Sometimes when you’re in the dark, walking aimlessly in a park doesn’t do jack shit, no matter how many times you try it. I appreciate the thought though. Overall, it’s nice to see these various professionals talk about their dreams and goals, it’s something we often lose sight of in the hustle of daily life. While Aoi hasn’t exactly settled on her long term goal, it looks like all of our young female professionals are finding some direction in their life.