In this week’s installment…
A bit of a slow week for School Live and Classroom Crisis, but Ushio and Tora has a fight on an airplane and Miss Monochrome has a bizarre, vaguely inappropriate relationship with an anthropomorphized battery. ANIME!
Favorite show missing? Stay tuned for the Late Edition of the Roundup every Friday, with coverage of:
Durarara!! X2 Second Arc, Working!!! (Season 3), Gatchaman Crowds Insight, Gangsta, Snow White with the Red Hair, Non Non Biyori Repeat, My Love Story!
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School Live!
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Jel: This was probably one of the worst episodes yet as it was kind of slow but there was still a lot to like. Having the girls take a moment and gather some positive thoughts in their letters was a nice break after last week’s hard reveal about Megu-nee and Yuki’s near breakdown this episode. Like Miki, I do have to wonder if it’s a good idea for the others to keep playing along. Maybe it’s for the best since none of them are really equipped to deal with what might happen if Yuki ever did come to her senses, but it still seems kind of wrong. I guess it’s just a bad situation either way. In the bigger picture I’m finding it odd that nearly half the show has now been dedicated to this flashback, which doesn’t seem like it happened very long ago to begin with. At this point I have to assume we’ll just keep going and that we’ve reached or maybe even passed the events of episode 1. It also feels like after this week’s kind of sweet moment we’re due for something really bad to happen, so we’ll see next week.
Euri: I just want to point out that this show is totally worth your time, even if you do know what the twist is.
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Ushio and Tora
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Euri: Do you know what’s cooler than fighting on a boat? Fighting on a plane in mid-flight, that’s what. I must say that I found myself a little confused about the situations in which regular humans can see youkai. My impression, based on episode two, was that you would need to be within some kind of ‘field’ to be able to notice them. No one seemed to acknowledge Tora until the flying youkai showed up, and only the people on the plane noticed it at first. It didn’t show up on radar until it was knocked off partially, so did it break through this field? I feel like I’m missing something, but to be honest it’s just minor nitpicking because this show continues to be pretty great. They’re taking their sweet time in getting Ushio and Tora to acknowledge their bro status, and that’s fine by me. I’m happy to coast along at this pace for the time being.
Miss Monochrome Season 2 – R.I.P. Battery-kun, we hardly knew you
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Miss Monochrome – The Animation 2
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Jel: I’ve been complaining about how straightforward Monochrome’s path to idol recognition (I think stardom is a too strong a word) has been, so this little detour into weird and disturbing territory was great. Battery dude just shows up with zero context or explanation, takes Monochrome off on some ridiculous, also unexplained adventure, and dies a comically unnecessary death. I don’t even know if it was funny, it was just so refreshingly odd that I liked it. I’m sure next week life will go on as if nothing happened, which is fine. So long as we keep getting little bizarre side stories like this Miss Monochrome will be in good shape.
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Prison School
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Marlin: Everything is building nice and slowly. Shingo is slowly losing his grip over the others as Kiyoshi and Gakuto make sacrifices to make up for their selfishness. At the same time, Shingo is finding himself increasingly attached to his new role. I wasn’t expecting this romance angle, but considering this show I’m pretty sure it’s a trap. Shingo is probably the most handsome of the group, but she was coming on way too strong from the very start to be natural. I wonder how things will be once his secret is revealed. More and more he’s slipping, and at some point he’s going to let too much information out. As for Meiko, I kinda wish the show would stop focusing on her. I know I just said I don’t want to see more of Hana either, but Meiko is a completely different kind of gross. I can’t even tell if that’s supposed to be sexy or if the writer thought the weird sweating scenes were as uncomfortable as I do. With the focus shifting to Andre, I wonder what play the girls are going to make to break his spirit. It’s pretty obvious Meiko is also a masochist, so I wonder if she’d actually find a bond with Andre as the president pushes him to the edge. Either way, it’s about time we got some development from the other boys, so I’m sure it will be a fun, dumb, needlessly sexual time.
Classroom Crisis – Clearly the work of a cold blooded business man
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Classroom Crisis
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Jel: Classroom Crisis lost a little momentum this week as it bogged back down into heavy handed politics and Nagisa’s character development has been less than subtle. I can’t emphasis enough how little I care about whatever political party and labor union nonsense is going on in the background. It’s cool that it’s there but I feel like the show has spent too much time detailing it, as if it was trying to make some kind of bigger statement in a very simple, clumsy way. If you want to watch an anime that makes you think about those kinds of things, go watch the far superior Gatchaman Crowds. As mentioned, Nagisa’s development has been nearly as clunky but it’s the far more interesting part of the show. Seeing him warm up to his classmates is nice payoff for having to put up with his cold, Machiavellian methods early on. I can’t deny I find his relationship with Mizuki and Iris kind of cute. I still can’t say I’m super excited to watch this every week, but it’s risen to a level of competency that I at least don’t mind it now.
The Glorio Blog 