In this week’s installment…
We’ve trimmed the fat and the Roundup is looking a bit leaner, but we’re making up for quantity with quality. Steins;Gate 0 hits us with some major twists this week, Last Period delivers its usual hard hitting social and political commentary, and Amanchu! continues its baffling descent into madness. Oh and of course, Hinamatsuri is still REALLY GOOD.
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Real Girl
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Jel: I appreciate Igarashi realizing the Ayado situation is no one’s fault and her continuing to not give Takanashi the time of day. Her line about never forgiving him because he keeps defending what he did was fantastic. Other than that though, I was not crazy about this episode We’ve had dumb misunderstandings like Tsutsun and the doctor way back when, but so far Real Girl has kept those short and sweet. Everyone talks it out within an episode and we feel good moving on to the next story. This Ayado thing is taking way too long to play out. They’ve got poor Ito waiting on deck here, we know what’s going to happen, let’s just get it over with. It’s making me frustrated with Tsutsun’s cluelessness for the first time since the first episode. On top of that, the actual technical quality of the show continues to tank which is never a good sign. Now we’re going to have to raise a red flag anytime Hoods Entertainment has a new show.
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Last Period: the journey to the end of the despair
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Jel: This episode was both a Kemono Friends parody and a bitter commentary on the effectiveness of political protest??? I love this show. I can’t comment much on the Kemono Friends bits since I skipped that show, but I suppose going that route for the crew’s trip to the animal people kingdom makes as much sense as anything. More interesting were the protests that were carried out for frivolous reasons in the show, but sent a clear message to the audience. After everything worked out, watching the self-aware Choco look at the camera and lament this isn’t reality was a tough pill to swallow. That’s right folks, come to Last Period for the gacha jokes, stay for the biting social and political commentary.
Steins;Gate 0 – She didn’t opt in to Amadeus’ GDPR privacy policy
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Steins:Gate 0
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Jel: I guess everything I was going to say about this episode went out the window with the big twist at the end, which I must admit is pretty welcome. I’ve been enjoying the new series but it has felt somewhat predictable. The earlier reveal that SERN aren’t the bad guys this time (for now) was a nice touch and I’m assuming will still be a factor, but that was just swapping one nebulous evil organization for another. Doing a full on timeline shift is much more interesting and now I have no clue what is going to happen next. If I had to make a prediction, I’m going to say Okabe and Kurisu’s reunion is going to be very short lived and basically poor Okabe is going to get his heart ripped out again. At this point though I’m just glad they’ve found a way to get me guessing again.
Marlin: Glad I have Jel watching this show with me, I keep forgetting that Steins;Gate is the kinda show that hides cliffhangers after the EDs. I loved the turn from the first series, having Mr. Braun become the enemy of their enemy. This show knows how to use Okabe’s future knowledge in a smart way, first with how he opened up to Maho about Kurisu, and now here with his gamble to keep Braun on their side. I can’t imagine they’d have him do all that legwork just to have it completely wiped out by this timeline shift, but I suppose it’s not outside the realm of possibility considering how the story started in the first place. Now here’s another question: What is the relationship of this Kurisu in the S;G timeline? Are we assuming a continuation from when they were romantically involved? Given the semicolon franchise’s track record I’m happy to say, more than halfway in, Steins;Gate is still a good show.
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Hinamatsuri
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Jel: This concept felt like the obvious choice for how the series would end, given a little more time to build it up. So I’m glad they went ahead and got it out of the way now as a sort of throwaway gag and presumably they’ll have something more creative and interesting ready for the actual finale. Even as a one off mini-plot arc though, I still think it felt a little rushed. The middle section with Hina’s classmate discovering her powers flew by particularly fast. That probably could have taken up an episode on its own. I’m not going to complain too much as the episode as a whole was still hilarious. The final joke and Hina’s deadpan reaction were so perfectly on brand for this show that I wouldn’t want them to do anything different.
Marlin: This show is brutal and I love it. Having this come off the back of two mostly serious episodes makes this one even funnier now that we have this complete reversal in expectations, first from comedic to heartwarming and then straight back to some good old fashioned deadpan. I was a bit disappointed in the middle segment, I don’t get why it wasn’t put at the beginning. It was certainly funny, but its insertion between the two parts of the main plot seemed completely jarring, as if the production team realized they couldn’t stretch Hina leaving for a full episode too late. Still, Hinamatsuri’s comedic timing continues to be top-notch even when the overall execution isn’t perfect.
Amanchu! – This is a show about scuba diving
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Amanchu! ~Advance~
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Jel: I’m sorry but my brain just can’t make this huge transition Amanchu is asking us to make. We’re being asked to get invested in this supposedly tragic story of Peter and Mato’s relationship and yet we’ve been given nothing to build this up besides about 2 minutes worth of flashbacks. Everything the show has done to build its world and characters for a full season and a half are meaningless now. Even if we go back to scuba diving after this arc ends, are we supposed to just pretend none of this ever happened? I guess it’s kind of cool to think of Teko as some kind of dream master and there would be some room to explore that angle, but that’s not what has made Amanchu good up to now. With at least one more episode in this arc, I have no idea what to expect but I’m not really looking forward to it.
The Glorio Blog 
I can’t be the only person who’s forgotten the finer details of the original Steins;Gate series from lo these many years ago and feels almost totally out to sea watching this new one, can I? I feel like you need a decoder ring from a cereal box that I lost a long time ago…hence, I’m not really enjoying the current series at all. It just seems like a heap of empty portentousness.
I realize I must be angering the anime gods, however, by putting this sacrilege in writing!
They did a recent re-airing of the original series with a different ending, which is what this series is continuing from. So it is a little different. I must admit I forgot a lot of details myself and I’m trying not to feel old remembering the original was 7 or 8 years ago.
I never even bothered starting to watch this one because of that exact reason.
I mean, my memory is pretty good, so I don’t really have that problem. Granted, I rewatched it with friends about 5 years ago, so it is also somewhat fresher in my mind. Sure, the fine details I may not have remembered, but I’m not quite sure what you’re not taking from the last series that is absolutely vital for you to enjoy this new one.