Angra Mainyu, All the Evil in the World, the corrupting spirit that lives with in the Grail. As its name is invoked in the title of this episode it can only mean that the true essence of the Grail and the Holy Grail War itself begins to unfold in this episode. Kirei has had his awakening to the true darkness that dwells within him so he has no hesitation in bringing and end to the Holy Grail War. The questioning priest at the beginning of the war is gone. Only a monster who wishes the most cruel ending to the war remains in his place. And so the challenge to the remaining participants goes out. Kirei wishes for them to attend his banquet of blood. The Grail itself is only to eager to see his dream come to fruition.

There is a certain unbearable tension that comes with a prolonged silence. After several days of fighting a night where there is no combat breeds a certain uneasiness. Rider, Berserker, and Saber and their Masters are all running on empty as each of them has lost significant resources and made innumerable sacrifices. Their emotional and physical wounds are many and deep. So with this scenario in place Archer sends out a challenge to the remain Servants that signals the beginning of the end. All the while the darkness in the Grail looks on and awaits the remaining sacrifices.

Rider and Waver finally trudge back to their hideout for a quick breather after losing to Saber. Unexpectedly there is someone waiting for them. Glen Mackenzie asks to have a little chat over coffee with his “grandson” on the roof as the sun comes up. Glen admits that he has recently discovered that Waver is not in fact their grandson but since the boy means them no harm he has actually be glad he and Rider have been here to add some excitement to their lives. While they have been happy they have also been a bit lonely since they moved to Japan. A pretend grandson is better than none at all at their age. Glen then gives him a last bit of advice. He tries to convince Waver not to throw his life away. Surprisingly enough Waver seems to take these words to heart. Of all the Masters he has the least focus. Kirei maybe hollow but his drive is focused like a laser beam. Waver just wants to be respected. That is hardly something he needs the Grail for. In a way that becomes acutely clear to him here without that ever being said out loud. Like in the story of the bluebird of happiness he realizes that everything has had wanted was within himself the whole time.

Kiritsugu is clearly a man at the end of his rope. He is clearly mentally and psychically drained. He has never been extremely emotive so he is hardly one to break down crying but everything from his dialog to his animation shows a man who is only a shadow of his former self.  Everyone who was supporting to him is gone. Maiya is dead. Irisviel is captured and even if he saves her then he is only going to wind up sacrificing her to bring forth the grail. He is haunted by the women he sacrificed in the past and present. All he has left is Saber and they get along like oil and water. He is basically camping Ryuudouji Temple hoping that Kirei will come there since it is the optimal site for the ritual. Kiritsugu notes that if he had Maiya he would have her staking out the Fuyuki Citizens Building but he just find himself able to work with Saber even under the best of circumstances. So he waits and lets Saber do what she will. Now he is mostly fumbling toward a conclusion. He is still a strategist and committed to winning but his earlier drive has mostly evaporated. But it does not matter what his condition is. He is stuck playing the Thermodynamics game.

If you did not know the rules of the Thermodynamics game are:

Zeroth: You must play the game.
First: You can’t win.
Second: You can’t break even.
Third: You can’t quit the game.

So all he can do is march forward.

At the same time Kirei proves himself better at playing the “I know, that you know, that I know” game and is hiding Irisviel at one of the few places he knows no one is likely to look, Caster’s old hideout. Since it is not one of the nodes for the completion of Heaven’s Feel it seems an unlike place to store the vessel of the Grail. But Kiritsugu does not know this place exists and everyone else has no reason to come back here. So Kierei takes some time to talk to Irisviel. In a way he wishes to confirm his assessment of Kiritsugu. He wants Irisviel to tell him that Kiritsugu is a sadist like himself. Someone who just wants to watch the world burn. Kirei wants proof that both men are two sides of the same coin. Irisviel is only too happy to shatter his delusion. They are both men who have drifted though hellish existences soaking in the worst that life has to offer while living in the most morally dubious parts of the shadows. But where as Kirei has decided that he will revel in the pain of existence Kiritsugu dreams of ending that pain. Both lives despite being similar have created two men with polar opposite views with the universe in-between where they stand. They are in fact diametric opposites. This clearly infuriates him enough that he snaps Irisviel’s neck. With a rival who is no longer on the same path as him the only option left is to destroy his opponent’s dream. Especially when that dream would crush the new path he has chosen to walk down.

With Kirei’s path set in stone he issues a challenge. He declares victory and dares anyone to stop him. Everyone knows this is a trap but they just don’t have the ability to play cat and mouse games any more. When Rider gears up to enter the last night of battle Waver does something unexpected. He uses up all three command spells at once. When you order a Servant using a command spell they are given a stat boost in order to complete said task. The simpler the task the more powerful the boost is. But even a long-term and complex task gives a slight edge to the Servant. Normally with an extended battle this is not a casual decision but since tonight seems to be the last night there is no reason to hold back. Waver has effectively taken himself out of the war. Rider is an independent Servant with about a day’s worth of energy left. But he will be fighting at his peak with the time he has left. And so Waver tries to exit stage left. But Broskander is not having any of that. While Waver is no longer his Master he will not ride into his final battle without his friend. They started together and they will end this journey together side by side. So Rider, Waver, and Bucephalus ride off for the final battle. At the same time all the bara fans and fujoshi rejoice but know in their hearts that only tragedy await them ahead (which only makes some of them even happier).

As everyone gather for the final battle around the Fuyuki Citizens Building we see Gilgamesh and Kirei discuss what they have put into motion. Gilgamesh is most interested in how his student in the way of hedonism has grown. While Kirei’s ultimate wish is still unknown to him he has certainly galvanized himself philosophically. He now merely awaits the Grail to show him where his decisions have led him to. Why was he chosen for this battle? What was his soul crying out for that can only be provided by the Grail? Gilgamesh seems pleased that his Master has embraced the most selfish path. All Gilgamesh wishes now is to confront Saber who he considers the only prize worth having. So the puppet masters waits for the marionettes to arrive so the curtain can lift for the final act.

Speaking of the Grail we see that while Irisviel’s body is dead her spirit remains tied to the Grail. Inside the Grail is no pleasant sanctuary. It is merely a corrupt sea of fears, regrets, and sorrow. In the darkness Irisviel is trapped in dark dreams as she is merely reminded that the Einzbern family will sacrifice as many homunculi as are needed to win the Holy Grail. If she fails then Ilya will just be the next one offered up to be the Grail. But slowly the foul corruption of the Grail absorbs her and drenches her in the vileness of Angra Mainyu. The episode then ends on a disturbing note. The end is coming and the Grail hungers for it. A wish will be granted but not by a kindly or neutral force.

In a way this whole episode was everyone’s final chance to take a quick breath before the final push. But despite the almost sedate pace the episode still manages to kill someone off. But death is no escape. Irisviel still has a role to play even if she is no longer as a member of the land of the living. But even those who still draw breath are perilously close to death. Broken and battered they stumble towards the conclusion of the 4th Holy Grail War. But in the end there can only be one.

I know what you’re hoping but Saber and Kiritsugu to fight the Kurgan as the final secret boss. But that is only in your fanfics.

Plus that only encourages them to make Fate/The Source. And NO ONE wants that.

I had the pleasure of playing a bunch of games of Penny Arcade: Gamers VS. Evil which is a deck-building card game. As an ex-Magic player, I have a high interest in games like this. It takes out the more expensive and sometimes difficult aspect. Plus, from the few I’ve played they are very fast paced as you build your deck on the fly. Gamers VS. Evil was all that with the bonus of being hilarious.

Using a dungeon-like component, you and the other players build up a deck of creatures and abilities which you use to attack the bosses. Boss loot and some other cards have point values which is how you win the game at the end.

There are different strategies to the game, but there are two basic types of cards: tokens and powers. Since tokens were green and so was the boss character of Gabe as Cardboard Tube Samurai, I decided I wanted to use tokens as my base. It took me a while to figure tokens out but I was determined to get them to work for me. From my experience they are a slower build as you start making your deck. Powers were strong going out of the gate.

Each character you play as some neat ability and it is one way of figuring out your strategy for the round, too. I had a blast playing as Gabe (since he helped my green deck hopes) but the best was Rex Ready! Because he is Rex Ready. He actually let me purge cards from my hand which is really helpful in a game like this.

Games flew by which I loved! With a rule that once six card stacks run out the game end, you are on a tight schedule to make your points count. Highly recommended and I can’t wait to play the expansion.

I have always enjoyed CCGs but hated the immense cost involved in playing them. There is a certain joy in buying booster packs but if you want to be in any way competitive you need to throw down a considerable investment. Anyone who has played Magic: The Gathering can attest to that. But with some good friends and a solid library you can have games that are radically different each time you play them. This makes the deck building game is a wonderful child of the CCG. While it is not as flexible and its parent it is far cheaper. You simply buy one box and you have a complete game and you have a game that plays much like a sealed booster match. A great compromise for those who like CCGs but also like eating regularly.

I recently played the Penny Arcade deck building game called Gamers VS. Evil. It is a solid version of the deck building formula with cards based on the various silliness from the web comic. You have everything from the Cardboard Tube Samurai to Pax Pox. Each player chooses an avatar that determines their starting hand and molds their play style with their special ability. You then take turns buying card to put in your deck. You can buy either red cards that mainly revolve around attacking and green cards which tend to have more indirect effects. Certain cards are worth points for buying them but mostly you want to build up your deck so you can buy from the Boss character piles. They have the cards with the best abilities and highest point values. The game ends when either types of cards are all sold out or one of the boss piles is empty. The player with the deck with the highest point value is the winner.

The game itself is lots of fun. We had 4 players and after 2 learning games we played several games in quick succession. If you know what your doing you you can play a game rather quickly. Since the cards you can buy are random much of your strategy comes from which Avatar you have and what is available to purchase. As with any deck building game or CCG deck control cards are worth their weight in gold. Any thing that lets you discard cards from your deck or draw more cards is powerful. Other than that most of your decision come down to how do you most effectively use your Avatar’s special ability to get boss cars as quickly as possible.

I did notice one oddity. The game is rather passive when it comes to other players. Despite the fact that there are PVP cards that let you give players negative points there is little to do to interfere with other players. In fact the most active and powerful strategy you have against other players is buying out the cards they need for their strategy. But the PVP cards do earn you a bit of ire anytime you play them none the less.

The game was really fun and each round felt slightly different. Apparently there another version called Rumble in R’lyeh. It same the same mechanics but all new cards. You can play that as a stand alone game or combine both sets together. That is a great way to keep the game alive but keep the price sane. I can’t wait to play it again.

I read my first manga on JManga! I finally decided to try it out with est em’s Apartments of Calle Feliz (aka Happy End Apartments) a one book series of short stories involving different people in one apartment building.

It starts with a writer ending up there and getting a room. His editor wants him to write a happy ending to his story but he is having trouble. His new roommate suggests telling stories about the residents. And in the end he finds a little happiness himself with a little bittersweetness that is quite honest.

I also enjoyed the couple, one a fashion design, and the other an artist who hasn’t worn a stitch of clothing for three years.

These are simple, artful with touches of humor character stories as is what I’ve come to expect from est em’s BL.

I have made some serious progress in Sekien No Inganock recently. I remember reading that there is some serious repetition as the game goes on. They were actually being kind. When I first looked at the game I had only read the first two chapters. But 11 chapters into the game I have a much more intimate view of the game’s writing style.

If you read the first 2 Gosick light novels in English you will notice that author loves to reuse certain descriptions. Victorique must be described the same way at least 3 times per book. The author of Sekien No Inganock does the same thing. Certain things like Gii fighting or the scenes of the Golden Staircase often use the same phrases again and again. Some times this is used for effect. The repetition is there to reenforce an idea so that it makes a difference when the lines are subtly changed. The problem is there are better ways to do get that same effect that don’t make you feel that the author is just very fond of the copy and paste shortcuts. At this point I have to wonder if it is an aspect of Japanese writing or an odd quirk of otaku writing.

The reason it stands out all the more is that 11 chapters into the game I feel that while I have gotten a good deal of answers there are still 3 times as many unanswered questions. While I still have the last chapter to finish I know they are not going to wrap that all up. Plus the game likes to imply things and give you many of its answers via inference. This is hardly a horrible thing but it makes the repeated material stand out even more. It seems even more superfluous when you are craving solutions but only getting half hints buried in repeated scenes.

Unless she has some major importance soon Ruaha was a cool character but I’m not exactly sure what her relevance to the plot was. If she were a walk on character for a single chapter it would make sense. But she stays around past when she was relevant for no real reason I can see other than to get involved with Kerkan. That not-a-sex-scene but so-totally-a-sex-scene between Ruaha and Kerkan was also sort of creepy but I suppose that was the point.

Sekien No Inganock is an interesting game with some serious flaws. It has some very interesting ideas, and imaginative setting, uniquely stylized graphics, and some strong characters.  And that is nothing to scoff at. But the execution of these elements could have been unfolded a bit neater. As I understand the accompanying web novels do quite a bit to clear things up but I will judge the game on what is presented to me in the game itself first. I will probably give my final thought on the game next week after I finally finish it and have some time to think of it as a whole.

A double does of BL this week! I finally finished up the second season of World’s Greatest First Love.

I had stopped because I was feeling a little frustrated with the progress of Ritsu and Masamune. Luckily when I returned we move to looking at other characters in the series.

I enjoyed the one off about Isaka, who we’d only met briefly, and his assistant who met when they were kids.

I was also immensely pleased that finally we got to see more Yukina the bookstore guy and Kisa the editor who were my favorite couple from the first season. Kisa’s insecurity was really felt. But it didn’t go on for too long so it didn’t drag down things.

I thought the main story also wrapped up nicely and with a bit of humor that was sometimes too absent in the middle of the season. Overall, I ended up really happy with the show.

Saint Seiya Omega says that schools out forever with episode 9. Saint Seiya started out going down the normal “go to super hero school and learn to be super” path that modern shonen seems to love. But then in the middle of a tournament arc it decides that both the school arc and tournament arc are lame and decides to blow both of them up at the same time. And then introduce a ninja saint. These were all very wise ideas.

Other than that Saint Seiya Omega has been fairly serviceable. Not the best shonen fighting series but also hardly the worst. The plot has been moving froward at a decent pace and the characters while a bit stock and generally enjoyable. The new-found love story between this mysterious new girl and Koga is amusing in how instant it is but such are shonen shows .

Aquila Yuna actually be an effective female saint is pretty neat. She seems like an equal member of the team as opposed to the low tier girl party member. I will say here whole ripping off her ancient legacy bound mask incident seems rather easily accepted after it happens. AS A FEMALE SAINT YOU MUST WEAR THIS MASK AT ALL TIMES . . . unless you have some important character growth in which case you can forget about all that jazz.

Saint Seiya is hardly a show I rush to watch every week but it entertains me when I get around to it and that is often the best you can ask for in shonen fighting. Hopefully now that the are no longer fighting students we will have more people being punched directly in the heart like the original Saint Seiya.

The Ongoing Investigations are little peeks into what we are watching and reading outside of our main posts on the blog. We each pick three things that we were interested in a week and talk a bit about them. There is often not much rhyme or reason to what we pick. They are just the most interesting things we saw since the last Ongoing Investigation.

This is certainly the calm before the storm. I expect that this will seem like a blessing when the con season rolls in and there are nothing but announcements after announcements. I hope that the next few months bring us news of Mawaru Penguindrum or I am going to be very disappointed.

The Line-Up is a monthly rundown of newly licensed in the U.S., newly streaming in the U.S., and newly announced anime and manga projects.

Newly Licensed in the U.S.

• Hetalia Axis Powers (manga) – Right Stuf
  I don’t care about Hetalia but I’m very curious about this new partnership of Right Stuf and TokyoPop. This could save a bunch of titles that were unfinished but I won’t get my hopes up too high.
  I know you just hoping that the Right Stuf will save Steel Angel Kurumi. We all have that same hope.
• Mr. Mini Mart – Digital Manga Publishing
• Ninth Life Love – Digital Manga Publishing
• Priceless Honey – Digital Manga Publishing
• Ray’s Days – Digital Manga Publishing

Newly Streaming/Broadcasting in the U.S.

• Kadokawa Niconico Ace added Strike Witches: The Witches of Andorra
• JManga added Taverna Dark Cooking Club of St. George’s Girls’ School, Mo’Some Sting, Gee the Wiz-Cat, Doukyusei, Digital Nostalgia Original Illustration Works, Nagomi Club, Records of the Three Kingdoms, Miku-4, Kimi no Tamenara Shineru, Moehime, But I’m a Maid!
  
• Viki added Koutetsu Sangokushi, Don Dracula, The Three-eyed One, Marvelous Melmo
• Shonen Jump Alpha added Rurouni Kenshin: Restoration, Barrage
  I am very curious to see how this Kenshin revival turns out.
  
• Toonami added Deadman Wonderland, Casshern Sins
• Digital Manga Guild added Itadaki! Panther, Obakeyashiki e Irrashai, Panic! Jin Jin, Shinku Chitai, Vampire ni Goyojin, Erementar Gerade: Flag of Blue

New Anime/Manga Projects in Japan

• +Tic Elder Sister Gag Series Getting More Anime
• Butt-Biting Insect Kids’ Song Gets 5 20-minute Anime Episodes
  Alrightythen! Every once and a while you really do see that “wacky Japan!”
• Highschool Water Polo Comedy Manga Mizutama Rindo Starts
  Someone obviously heard that no one had made a water polo manga yet and had to get to work on this. Next month except to see a Tchoukball and Sepak Bola Api manga.
• New Thriller Series Rain Code from Read or Die Manga-ka Begins
• 3D Evangelion Short Being Included with Smartphone
• New Weekly Shorts Series from Studio MADHOUSE
• Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai Disc to Include Unaired Episode
• Project 13 a Collection of Animated Music Videos Announced
• Manga Editor Series Mangirl! Getting Anime
• And Yet the Town Moves Manga-ka Working on Adaption Comic Hoshi Shinichi – Neratta Kinko
  This story is about “a thief and a mysterious safe,” needless to say I’m interested! Sadly, it is a only a one-shot.
• Narihirabashi Denki Shoten is A New Series From Saturn Apartments Manga-ka
  I hope this appears on the Sig IKKI site!
• Young Adult Sci-fi Novel Nerawareta Gakuen Getting Anime Film
• Driland Game Has Manga and Anime Adaptions on the Way
• Zetsuen no Tempest: The Civilization Blaster Anime Green-lit
• A 7th Volume of Gundam Unicorn Has Been Announced
  Yet another announcement to upset Gundam fans.
• 009 Re:Cyborg Getting a Manga Adaption
• Tokusatsu TV Show Ryujin Mabuyer Being Manga into Manga
• Animeka A Series of Anime Robot Shorts Being Made
• Studio Ghibli Co-Producing The Red Turtle with French and Dutch Animators
• Robin and His 100 Friends Getting a Second Season
• Basalisk Manga-ka Working on Cutey Honey Remake
• Girls & Tanks Anime Announced
• 4th Iteration of the Otokogi Manga Launching
• Pro Wrestling One-shot from Riki-Oh Manga-ka
• Animated Film Windwalkers: Chronicles of the 34th Horde Will Be a French/Japanese Co-Production
• P.A. Works Series Tari Tari Getting Manga Adaption
• New Zettai Karen Children Project On the Way
  I reluctantly admit I am curious to see what it is.
  
• Detective Opera Milky Holmes Getting Summer Special
• Kanaei Hazuki’s Manga Sukitte Ii Na Yo Getting Anime
  This is by far my happiest announcement for the month! I just talked about this series in my shojo most wanted list.
• The Monster Seated Next to You Anime Green-lit
• Light Novel Series Onii-chan Dakedo Ai Sae Areba Kankei Nai yo ne— Being Made Into Anime
• New Digimon Game Digimon World Re:Digitize Getting Short Manga
• 1001 Manga Coming from D.N.Angel Manga-ka
• Figure Line Busou Shinki Getting New Anime Adaption
• Novel Fuse Gansaku: Satomi Hakkenden Getting Manga Version
• Fantasy Series from BL Manga-ka Tooko Miyagi Starting in Asuka Magazine
• Akazukin Cha Cha N Getting Ongoing Monthly Manga
• New Fantasy Shojo Series Idea no Hana Beginning
• New Manga Uso Toki Rhetoric Launching in Hana to Yume
• New Manga Girl Love Variation Debuts Online
• Persona Manga Adaption Devil Survivor Out this Month
• Girls’ Generation Idol Group Getting Manga in Online Magazine Club Sunday
• Bodacious Space Pirates Becoming Manga
• ‘K’: Memory of Red Manga Based on ‘K’ Started
• Mushi Productions Working on Biographical Anime Film
• New Anime from Strike Witches Director Vivid Red Operation Announced
• New Hometown Manga Collection Features Works from Monkey Punch, Leiji Matsumoto, Hirumo Arakawa
• Josei Manga Clover Getting Sequel
• New Manga From Ping Pong Club Creator Started
• 4-koma Detective Manga Neko Tantei Announced
  Well, I do always want more detective series, but I’m not sure this is what I had in mind!

I already said a few thoughts about the new Toonami block over at the Organization Anti-Social Geniuses. That said it is always fun to play fantasy programming director. You get to pick shows without having to deal with the real world hassles of corporate politics and licensing nightmares. I am sure if I was actually in charge of the new Toonami block I might not be able to get some (if not all) of these shows for various serious and/or silly reasons. But that is not the point of this exercise. The point it to have fun and pick some shows that just might work if they could only get a TV shot in the U.S.

Tiger & Bunny

Tiger & Bunny seems like a no-brainer to me. It was one of those shows last year that many us said immediately, “this needs to be on TV.”

It has flashy action and I think the riff on reality TV would go over well. The melodrama is paired with a healthy dose of humor without one undermining the other. A colorful cast and the odd couple rapport between Tiger and Bunny rounds it all out. And it is already in the dub process.

With superhero movies being big at the moment, Tiger & Bunny would fit right in.

Astro Fighter Sunred

Back when Astro Fighter Sunred first came out I can’t remember how many people said that it would make a perfect fit on Cartoon Network. It has a very Adult Swim style of humor (and they good kind like Venture Brothers not 12 oz. Mouse) while still retaining a distinctly anime feel that sets it apart. Power Rangers has been an institution long enough that the basic premise is familiar enough to anyone watching but the humor other than that is broad enough to attract a general audience. The animation is hardly the second coming of Akira but it is not the type of show that needs that slick look. As long as the dub Americanized the show enough to be accessible but kept the spirit intact it actually could be a very strong moderate hit if it were lucky.

Jormungand

Arms dealers. Guns blazin’.

Don’t know if I need to say more than that. Jormungand fits in with the idea of what anime “should be.” Plenty of bloody action and a high body count in a corrupt world. The good guys are really just less bad bad guys.

Funimation is known for its dubs and this is streaming with them already so it wouldn’t be a far leap to get it out and on TV soon.

Black Lagoon would also be a good choice.

Future Diary

When choosing a show for something like this you often have to choose things with a “cool” factor. So you not choosing the best show or your favorite show. You choosing what gets eyeballs. I think in that regard Future Dairy works perfectly. It has a intriguing plot that grabs your attention with plot structure that demands you watch every week. There is lots of violence and gore to make it “not for kids” but nothing that can’t be edited so it can still be on TV. It has a Death Note feel which is a good marketing hook for it as well.

Arakawa Under the Bridge

I was trying to think of something a bit more unexpected and thought of Arakawa.

Absurd and bizarre are words that readily come to mind when thinking of the comedy shows of Adult Swim and they are also words that are no stranger to Arakawa Under the Bridge.

I don’t think the humor is too Japanese or too otaku which can be a pitfall. Even things like the Kappa which comes out of folklore, you don’t really need to know that to know that guy is an odd one. With Kou as the straight man to all these crazies it just might work.

Fate/Zero

At first I might have assumed that my blind Type-Moon love made me suggest this but after some reflection (and outside consultation) I think it makes a nice fit. It is solid urban fantasy with a baseline shonen structure that tends to be popular in the U.S. Slick animation at keys points leaves a good impression from each episode. Morally gray characters with cool powers killing each other is a staple of mass market anime. I was a little worried that a prequel might not be the best thing to throw on TV but I have seen a fair number of people who have never touched anything else in the Fate universe go straight into this series with no problems. Plus the more Type-Moon fans the better I always say.

I promise you this post will be more than just pictures of Saber on a motorcycle with flowery prose about female knights on 2 legged steeds ruling the kingdom of the highway. I’m not exactly sure WHY you would want more than that but you will get it anyway. I have hyped up this road warrior battle since the first season so it is fairly sweet to finally taste the payoff from those expectations. There are also some other politics and betrayals going on in the background but those are only of minor consequence. Hardly even worth mentioning. Oh. Due to personal matters you might notice that I got this post out FAR earlier than I usually do. My normal Saturday engagement fell through so I was actually able to watch the stream BEFORE the raw even came out. I don’t think there is any way else to prove how amazingly fast these simulcasts are.

Saber peruses a Rider doppelgänger who just kidnapped Irisviel through the busy streets of downtown Fuyuki City. Kirei and Kariya have made an alliance which leads to the actual Saber and Rider having deadly race on the mountain roads outside the city. But it is really a good idea to trust an evil priest in any sort of fantasy setting? Kariya learns this lesson the hard way when he gets exactly what the thought he wanted out of this deal with Kirei.

As a side note: Zouken still just being evil.

Saber starts off hot on the heals of the kidnapper but due to traffic she soon loses sight Rider and Irisviel. Conveniently enough reaches out with her mind and is easily able to locate Rider flying in his pimp chariot. While Saber is not as skilled as even a mediocre Servant of the Rider class she certainly has enough skill to keep up with someone from that class and she shows it here. Since Rider was hoping to settle things with Saber he is more than willing to play a game of tag with the King of Knights. So he decides to head to the mountains to engage in a downhill race. Sadly the “Ghost of Fuyuki City” does not appear to challenge them both.  But wait just a second. Rider is now on his chariot and has Waver instead of Irisviel. Me thinks there is something wrong here. But Saber is not in the position to do a detailed analysis of the situation right just yet.

If Initial D wanted to do better in the US it should have had more magical powered face offs during its street racing. It would have done it a world of good. Since this is Fate/Zero we get all the lucrative construction contract generating combat alongside our race. A bit of Twisted Metal on the mountainside. Rider engages in a bit of Ben-Hur styled chariot racing by tearing up the surrounding scenery and having it fly towards Saber. But that is more just a friendly prelude to the actual battle than anything else. I have to say Saber uses Invisible Air more in Fate/Zero than she ever does in Fate/Stay Night. This time she uses it like magical nitro and a bit of vehicle upgrade as well. Her Yamaha V-Max becomes the  magical Motored Cuirassier so she can keep up with Rider when he really puts the petal to the metal. But also kicks in the Knight Rider approved turbo boost to perform some multi-track drifting that even Takumi would be impressed by and catches up with the King of Conquerors so they can finally cross swords. But when Saber finally catches up to Rider she notices a distinct lack of sickly girls in the chariot. But it is too late to back out now.

We don’t see much of Kiritsugu this episode but he is still playing Lieutenant Horatio Caine as he investigates who took Irisviel. He very quickly deduces that it was not in fact Rider behind everything and begins to shake down the remaining suspects. This brings us to a character we always knew existed but have never really seen before: Shinji’s dad. He is dead before Fate/Stay Night starts and only mentioned in passing a few times elsewhere. We don’t get to see much of him here but he does seem the sort that would father a little Joffrey Baratheon like Shinji. Kiritsugu inflicts some Jack Bauer interrogation techniques on Byakuya and while he does not learn where Irisviel is he did learn that Kariya has an unexpected partner from the church. Clearly Kiritsugu knows that his rival is back in action and doing what he does best. And what that priest does in not pretty.

And we have confirmation of the alliance. Apparently one of Berserker’s hidden talents is not only the ability to hide his identity but also to assume the identity of others for the cost of a command seal. But the two command seals Kariya used to pull off this deception are quickly replaced by Kirei as a sign of their new-found partnership. Kirei also says he has set up a confrontation with Tokiomi at the church at midnight. Kriei has promised Tokiomi’s head on a platter. Like an evil genie Kriei gives you exactly what you asked for but not in the way you would ever want it. But Kariya is clearly wrapped up in his own little revenge fantasy and therefore is not really thinking anything through. If he was me might have noticed the uninvited visitor who was listening to their whole conversation.

Rider does not just want to win. He wants to break Saber of all of her illusions, all of her preconceptions, and crush her pride completly. That is a true victory for the King of Conquerors. He does not take an area or defeat armies per say. He crushes the spirit of his enemy so they know they are beat for all time. Sort of like Monkey D. Luffy that way. Plus he has an amazingly fast Nobel Phantasm unlike Saber’s slow Excalibur. What could go wrong with this. Unless …  Excalibur has a powered up version and a fast cast variation.

It seems that the always reprehensible Zouken was the one watching this deal from the shadows. All that is left on the rooftop is two men who live for the suffering of others. Zouken already revels in the pain of those around him but Kirei has still not yet full realized who he is. But Zoken senses someone who is just as twisted as himself.  It appears that for all plotting and manipulation Zouken would just be as happy to see his son fail as an utter heartbreaking travesty the he would see him win the Grail. Plus he knows that he has the much more promising Sakura waiting in the wings so he might as well just have fun with the 4th Holy Grail War. The only major obstacle would be if his pawn developed reasons not to fight. Then he might have to settle for a much less reliable pinch hitter.

Chariot! Or at least that is what gets vaporized by Excalibur’s holy light. Apparently you have to destroy the vehicle before you can start doing direct damage to the driver. Some one should have informed the other Rider of this fact. While Waver wants to break out the Army of the King his Servant knows that it is his only chance in a fight against Archer. But Saber has bigger fish to fry. She has to get back her hetero-lifemate from whoever actually made off with her. So Saber rides of on her bike and Rider and Waver are forced to hoof it back on foot. They might have been able to hitch a ride that they not run roughshod over the countryside.

Kariya gets a valuable lesson about how you should be careful what you wish for because you just might get it. He storms into the church filled with storm and fury to confront his nemesis only to find that he new-found ally has already taken care of it. Worse yet the one person he does not wish to be there comes upon him at the worst possible time. Aoi comes in and makes the logical assumption that Kariya has killed her husband. All of Kariya bravdo instantly drains from him. Clearly in his imagination he always assumed he would come back with Sakura and present her to Aoi after he won the Grail. But when confronted with nothing else but a corpse he realizes the utter stupidity of his dream. In a way he must have always assumed Aoi hated her husband as much as he did. That was clearly not the case. As she screams at him he snaps and inadvertently triggers one of his button. Before he knows it he starts to strangle her. Maybe all of his romantic ideals were nothing more than lust and bitterness. There is an unsettling sexuality top the whole scenes. A more generous fan of Kariya can assume that part of his quick to violence reaction might have been his Berserker’s affinity taking over. A harsh critic might assume that his goals were never pure in the first place. Not matter what the truth is Kariya walks out of the church a directionless mess. This two main goals are now gone in the worst way possible.

Like a demonic Statler and Waldorf it seems this little production has some hecklers in the balcony. Some people go to the opera to revel in schadenfreude, and other people watch Internet videos, but Gilgamesh and Kirei just stage tragedies in real life. While Gilgamesh always enjoyed these moments of suffering Kirei finally has his revelation. He truly knows what it is like to unashamedly bask in the pain of another. The birth of the Kirei we know from Fate/Stay Night is here. He has finally stopping running from himself and embraced the monster inside. It is not as if he was not already well on the way to this point before. But now he has taken the lowest path and has burned away any conscience he might have had before now.

Kariya is not completely out of the fight. While he may have lost two of his goals he can still save Sakura and that is still something worth dying for. The question is how effective can he be this broken? While Saber and Rider did not take each other out they both expended a good deal of energy and resources fighting each other. And Gilgamesh has mostly been sitting back and drinking wine. Things are not looking good for the three of the four remaining Servants unless they are from Babylon.

Random end note. I only just noticed that Irisviel is wearing Arcueid Brunestud’s outfit when she is in Archetype：Earth mode. No real point to anything on this episode. Just thought I would point that out.

Rurouni Kenshin has been getting a strong revival recently. The manga ended in 1999, and other than the slightly infamous Reflection OVA, the series was fairly dormant until last year. Then a PSP fighting game and the Kyoto Arc movies heralded a Renaissance for the series ushering in the upcoming live action film. Even more surprisingly than any of that is the newly re-imagined manga of the original series. Seeing that the Kenshin name still has a good deal of cache with western fans Shonen Jump Alpha announced that Rurouni Kenshin: Restoration (aka Rurouni Kenshin -Cinema-ban-) would be the one of the titles they used to replace the recently finished Bakuman manga.

Like any good reboot Restoration is immediately familiar yet feels new at the same time. Clearly Nobuhiro Watsuki has changed and improved his art style since he last worked on Kenshin. But at the same time it ins unmistakably Kenshin.If you have ever seen the character redesigns for the covers of the Rurouni Kenshin Kanzenban reprints then you have a good idea of what to expect.

The first story combines the original introduction of Kenshin, Karou, and Yahiko with elements of the first Aoshi story. Like the art the story feels familiar but it is still its own beast. It starts during Bakumatsu with flashes of some iconic battles between Kenshin, Jin-e, and Saito. It then moves forward to the relative calm of the Meiji era and Kenshin once again gets mixed up with Kaoru trying keep her dojo from unsavory scoundrels. It is a quick little story that unites the main trio and shows off Kenshin’s skills. The chapter end with some cameos of villains from throughout the original series including Sanosuke, Saito, and Inui Banjin. A good introduction to the cold-hearted assassin of the revolution who becomes a pacifist who carries a revered blade sword so he can defend the weak without killing. But at the same time it reminds you that there is still a bit of the beast still in Kenshin.

It is an interesting trip back to the story of Himura Kenshin. I think it has the distinct ability to draw in new fans while reminding older fans what they liked about the original. I am curious if they are going to make Kaoru anything more that a damsel in distress most of the time. This would be a good chance for her to live up to the initial promise she had in the original series.

I myself am mostly just sitting back and waiting for Misao to be reintroduced.

I wasn’t really all the interested in the online magazine Shonen Jump Alpha. I had nothing against it, I just wasn’t keeping up to date with any of their offerings. But then they announced Rurouni Kenshin: Restoration and I folded. So here I am, reading a comic weekly which I don’t think I’ve ever done before. I’m pretty excited!

From first glance I was happy with what I saw. The art is top-notch, very sharp and crisp. The action is swift and bold.

We start with bloody battles featuring Kenshin as Battosai and then jump forward to the period after the war. This set-up works, you don’t know too much about Kenshin and his abilities but you know enough to be aware of his badass status. He makes it pretty freakin’ clear to a lot of people that he is indeed Battosai from the first chapter. It feels more aggressive, instead of trying to live out a humble life, Kenshin is ready to jump in the fray for a purpose. He hasn’t lost the rejection of unnecessary violence, but he also isn’t hiding from who he was. At least, that’s how it seemed in this chapter.

I wasn’t really kidding when not too long ago I joked that if they were redoing Kenshin they should have forgotten about Karou. Blessedly, she is already not nearly as annoying. I believe this can continue!

I feel like Gundam Unicorn 5 is beginning to show a bit of a dip in animation quality. The first few episodes have been gorgeous. You can tell that almost every scene was A Team animation through out. In episode 5 anything with the camera focused on the foreground is still amazing but when you get long shots you start to notice the B Team being brought in. It happened enough that even someone like me who does not normally notice such details of animation was keenly aware of it happening. I wonder how much that has to do with them having to stretch their budget now that Bandai announced an additional 7th episode that is rumored to be over an hour-long.

Unsurprisingly most of this episode has to do with the Black Unicorn, its pilot, and how Banagher deals with them both. There is also a good deal more Audrey Burne in this episode which I always appreciate. Nice bit of double-dealing in the episode as everyone tries to move things forward for their faction with the upcoming prisoner transfer of people who are technically not prisoners.

Riddhe’s job is technically ace pilot for the Federation he seems to be much more a professional cock blocker. And he tries his best to do his job in this episode. But by the end of it he seems to be going towards being cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. I guess that is what happens when you get both the political and romantic “Lets just be friends” speech.

I do find it slightly odd the Bright constantly talks to a picture of Amuro. They were close and even had a bit of a father son relationship but they never seemed THAT close. When Bright gives Banagher the pep talk about those who pilot Gundams that snaps him funk it makes sense. That is the sort of leader Bright is. But I never saw him being that sentimental about Amuro. Maybe I am just thinking of Bright as too much of a hard ass.

Thankfully the centerpiece around Banagher trying to talk down Marida Cruz is better done than the Tomino crazy town speeches he had with Loni Garvey in the last episode. Banagher and Marida have a far more established relationship, Banagher has a bit more heft to his arguments, Marida has been legitimately brainwashed, and she is not killing civilians while they have their conversation. The whole scene with Loni last episode was clearly to set this up but there was clearly some Tomino logic going on in episode 4 that is thankfully not present here.

There are two cameos in this episode. One that everyone talked about that I am sure that Narutaki could care less about. The other was one that surprised me a little. Sadly we probably won’t be getting anymore Sayla Mass so I will make due with what we get.

While the budget has dropped the story is still compelling. I still had a great time with this episode. I hope that the money they saved here is going to be poured into that last episode. Maybe they only spent a little money on this episode because Full Frontal only shows up at the end. Speaking of which even in death General Revil never catches a break.

I finally finished up watching The Earl and the Fairy anime since I was waiting for more of the manga.

Sadly, it ends up being sloppy. They try to cram in so much story in that it feels rushed and disjointed. I assumed that we would be following Edgar and Lydia attempting to get Edgar his earldom for the duration of the story. But that actually resolves itself rather quickly. Most of the series is them dealing with various fairy business and plots. This isn’t inherently bad, but like I said Edgar’s journey to becoming the Earl is too rushed. It doesn’t feel earned.

Some of the other stories are good like the moonstone ring and the final story with Banshee is also strong but everything just needed more time to develop. The idea of the Prince who is after Edgar also remains rather amorphous throughout the series.

Edgar and Lydia’s relationship seems to get nowhere by series end, too. It has a lot of one step forward two steps back moments. Lydia flat-out refusing to believe Edgar is in love with her even a little is a frustration. I’d much rather watch Lydia deal with her own changing feelings.

I really liked the setting, the characters, and the lore but it just doesn’t come together. Now I’m worried how the manga will fare.

When I caught up with Hayate I also got the new Excel Saga 23. It is as quirky a manga as it has ever been. There is a lot more collusion between the Municipal Force Daitenzin and Excel. In fact most of the book is both forces of working together while keeping their superiors in the dark. Of course this being Excel Saga things all go horribly wrong at the worst possible time. In reflection I can’t think of too many other series in which the manga is so utterly different from the anime in anything other than the core premise and charaters.

I think it is nearly impossible not to notice that Excel Saga has gotten much sexier as the series has gone on. It is not devolved to constant panty shots and shower scenes but there a quite a bit more “choice” camera angles and serendipitous costumes then there were at the beginning of the manga. But I am fine with that because it got Elgala out of the bargain. For some reason I find her incredibly alluring. But that the same time she also plays of Excel rather well. You need someone who is just as crazy as Excel but in a different manner to bounce off her at times. I am a but sad this means we don’t see Hyatt as often which is a shame.

With only 4 more volumes to go I am a little surprised Viz has not canceled Excel Saga but I am glad they have had the commitment to the series to finish it. I look forward to owning volume 27 whenever they release it.

I read the romance one-shot collection Sono Kuchibiru, Itadakimasu. Each story features an unlikely couple coming together. Each are sweet and cute sweeping you up in their simple stories.

My favorite was unsurprisingly the second tale about a girl who accidentally invites a delinquent boy to spend the school festival with her. She got the e-mail address of the class president wrong.

They end up working at a class cafe together and she gets to know him so when the truth inevitably comes out she realizes it was a happy accident.

That was my personal fav., but all the stories are good. Close second was definitely the title story about the guy with the mole on his lip. A very nice little collection.

The Ongoing Investigations are little peeks into what we are watching and reading outside of our main posts on the blog. We each pick three things that we were interested in a week and talk a bit about them. There is often not much rhyme or reason to what we pick. They are just the most interesting things we saw since the last Ongoing Investigation.

Drink #004: The Pink Lady,
Invasion of the Beautiful Boys

RSS Feed     -     iTunes Feed

Various people start watching the latest show for manly men who live and fight for manly things. They notice the men in this show for guys are pretty handsome. Some of them are even gorgeous. Parts of audience cheers with delight,  most of them continue to watch without batting an eye, and the rest run to their computers to rant at the injustice perpetrated against them.

In this episode we begin to examine this phenomenon. Is there anything wrong with throwing some service to the females watching a show theoretically for guys? Also what makes the male fans go nuts over this phenomenon in the first place?

(Listen)

And now your helpful bartenders at The Speakeasy present your drink

The Pink Lady

*1 1/2 oz gin
*1 tsp grenadine syrup
*1 tsp light cream
*1 egg white

Shake ingredients with ice, strain into a cocktail glass, and serve.

Drink #029: Red-headed Stepchild,
A Macross II Discussion

Every long-running franchise has its shinning stars; those parts of the larger series that are held up as the pinnacles of what the franchise has to offer. At the same time, every franchise also has its low points that everyone tries to sweep under the rug and forget about the best they can. Macross II is definitely not in the highly regarded category when it comes to Macross in general. It was enough of a shame on the House that Hikaru built that it was barley recognized as anything but “a story from an alternate timeline.” Andrew from the Veef Show on Collection DX joins us to discuss what Macross II did to earn itself the reputation it has and in turn what it did right.

RSS Feed     -     iTunes Feed

(Listen)

And now your helpful bartenders at The Speakeasy present your drink:

Red-headed Stepchild

• 1 oz DeKuyper Watermelon Pucker schnapps
• 1 oz Jagermeister herbal liqueur
• 3 – 4 oz Minute Maid fruit punch

Shake ingredients over ice in a cocktail shaker. Pour into a chilled whiskey sour glass, and serve.

This is an episode with an inordinate number of dying women resting on floors. And Waver is also resting on the floor. Draw from that what you will. But since Kiritsugu‘s flashbacks are done it means that the normal opening and closing have returned. And so have the deadly battles of the Holy Grail War. You can feel the tension as each Master and Servant is eliminated as the remaining teams know that they are fighting the best of what remains will less and less resources. It is quickly becoming a question of who can survive the long game. As soon as you run out of aces up your sleeve you are done. And it is clear that some teams are running low on everything while others are just getting started.

There is no rest for the wicked and Kiritsugu is trying very hard to prove that. With Irisviel no longer being strong enough to act as Saber’s Master is seems that Kiritsugu is forced to try a two-pronged attacked simultaneous against Rider and Archer. But as Kiritsugu soon finds out the situation in Fuyuki City has changed more than he knew. Tokiomi is dead and the safe house is nowhere as secure as the thought it was. At the same time Rider and Berserker marshal their strength for the final four Servants.

Irisviel has finally deteriorated enough that she can no longer even pretend like she is able to function normally. She calls over Kiritsugu to say her goodbyes. Unlike with Kiritsugu and Natalia Kaminski no one here is pretending that Irisviel will be OK. They both know she is doomed to die to bring forth the grail so Irisviel merely gives her husband her last wishes for their daughter and returns Avalon so that me might make it through this dangerous end game. Like some people with a terminal diseases she has resigned herself to the inevitable. Irisviel is more concerned about tying up loose ends as that is all that she has left. With little he can say to comfort his wife Kiritsugu continues forward. He plans to have Saber attack Rider at home and he plans to kill Tokiomi directly so that the overpowered Archer no longer makes himself a nuisance. Before he goes we see a rare smile from Maiya. As someone who considers herself a part of Kiritsugu she detects a change in him. While it might seem to an outside observer that Kiritsugu is the same she clearly has detected a change in her companion.

As Saber looks for Rider she is just a bit too late. Apparently inspired by the final Harry Potter book Waver decides to go on a little camping trip as he waits for Rider to regain his strength. Waver is now apparently aware that Rider has been holding back in taking mana from him so he is much weaker than he should be. It does not help that Ionioi Hetairoi is an immensely draining technique and that he can only conceivable use one more time given that they cannot just rest out in the woods forever. Someone is eventually going to attack them even in the middle of nowhere. As they rest Rider and Waver have a good heart to heart here. Waver is showing his growth as the Holy Grail war has definitely toughened him up from the whinny prissy boy that he was at the start. At the same time we get the first signs that Rider is beginning to suspect that not all is right with the Holy Grail War. It seems he wonders if there is even a Grail in the first place. As someone who knows about chasing dreams he knows that there are some sacrifices you do not casually make no matter how wondrous the potential prize. At the same time it seems Rider’s first priority is to beat Saber. In a way it is almost a paternal interest in her. He does not want her to lose as much so he can win as that he wants her to see how is unfairly torturing herself with her current way of thinking. Sadly all the Waver/Rider fans do not get the mana transfer scene here they hoped for. I think just as many guys were disappointed as women. Oh well. That is what doujinshi is for.

While Kariya may be alive her is hardly doing all that well. For the first time we get to see Berserker speak in anything other than a guttural scream even if it is just in a dream. But even in a coherent conversation we see that Berserker is just filled with an all-consuming desire to snuff out the light. Kariya is just his path to his true goal of killing Saber. Everything else is just a side mission. But if being strangled by his Ghost Rider like Servant in his dreams were not terrible enough his waking life is actually worse. While Zoken’s magic is patching him up he is clearly at the end of his rope. But to prove that Zoken is still trying to win the worst human being in Fate universe competition he pulls a final putrescence filled rabbit from his hat. He implants a worm that has fed off Sakura to turbo charge Kariya for these final battles. It is doubly torturous because not only is the worm physically painful but Kariya also has to deal with the knowledge that said worm is the first monstrosity to defile Sakura. Zoken is just a monster.

Maiya you silly woman. You are the veteran of countless battlefields. You should know by now that the heart to heart reveal of motivations is the ultimate death flag. But a dying Irisviel is curious about the mysterious woman who is her husband’s shadow so she is able to pry out some secrets. Both of them are slightly perplexed by the other and their loyalty to Kiritsugu. Maiya was utterly dead inside when Kiritsugu found her. Kiritsugu gave her purpose so she hooked her dreams to him. It is not that they share they same dreams. In Maiya’s mind they are so one in the same that there is no way they cannot have the same goal. She is only as conflicted or divided as he is. No more and no less. At the same time we get the shocking revelation. Irisviel is really only pretending to be as devoted as she appears. It’s not that she does not want to believe in Kiritsugu ideals. It is just that she is so sheltered that the full ramifications of Kiritsugu’d ideals will always be beyond her. She was raised as a girl in a box who is doomed to die. Her real wish is just for her husband and daughter to live on in a world untainted by the Grail. If this continues she knows that Ilya’s life will be just as horrible as hers. And it then becomes clear why she so easily tolerates Maiya relationship with her husband. She wants someone to be by his side when she is gone. She knows that Maiya will unquestioningly support Kiritsugu and her daughter without question. But their soul-searching is cut off mid sentence by a deadly intruder.

At the same time Kiritsugu arrives to a Tohsaka mansion that is far too quiet. As soon as he notices the elaborate defenses are down he begins to suspect something is up. Rather than find that Tokiomi has changed his base of operations he discovers that the owner of the house was murdered here. Using some magical Holmesian deduction he learns the murder was clearly someone Tokiomi knew. It is fairly obvious that the only person who could get that close is everyone’s favorite psychopathic priest (who is not Alexander Anderson). But his investigation is cut short by the attack on his base of operations.

Maiya is able to call for help (with her massive 80s cellphone) but it is too little too late. Even Saber’s emergency teleport thanks to Kiritsugu using a command seal only get Saber in time to see the aftermath of Rider’s intrusion. Irisviel has been kidnapped and Maiya is gravely wounded. Saber heads off in pursuit as Maiya waits for Kiritsugu. Maiya hols on just long enough to say her last goodbyes. She knows that this war is tearing up Kiritsugu on a physical and spiritual level. She only wishes to give him the strength to finish the war with her passing. And so she dies happily know her role is done. I think they mention it more in the novel that Kiritsugu is surprised he ends up crying for Maiya. Only at the end does he realize she was nowhere as disposable as he though he has compartmentalized her.

In the end Maiya was just far to squishy to survive much more than this. But sadly her death was not even a speed bump in the course of a Servant’s rampage. But observant people will notice two things wrong with the kidnapping. The first is that Rider was still should resting while the kidnapping took place. The second is that killing the far too human Maiya and then taking Irisviel is not Rider’s style. So the question is who did attack the Emiya compound? We will just have to see as Saber takes off on her motorcycle in hot pursuit.

Next time on CSI: Fuyuki City: The Magical Magus Killing Gumshoe investigates another arcane killing. Someone also probably gets raped with an inanimate object.

After getting lost in the mail the first time, I finally got my copy of Young Miss Holmes (casebook 1-2). I was already aware of this series in Japanese and had looked at a few volumes previously so I was looking forward to actually reading it. Unfortunately, the book doesn’t really get good until the last case in the volume but perhaps that will lead into a better continuation book.

Christie is the niece of Sherlock Holmes a man she admires and therefore is constantly trying to impress with her own stunning intellect. She inserts herself into cases where ever she can leading to some annoyance on the part of her uncle. But Christie is quite capable as are her maids so it isn’t annoying having her rush into danger. Christie notices details and observes people in classic Holmes fashion.

The only problem is, Sherlock Holmes himself is already in the first three mysteries. Christie comes off as rather frivolous to the plot since Holmes also figures everything out. This leads to lots of over explanations about what occurred in the crime. In fact, in the third (and worst) story Holmes gives his assessment of what has happened but Christie is somewhere else completely so we hear it again as she tells it to another person.

Speaking of the third story which is about a vampire, the entire thing felt out of place. In a Holmes mystery, you expect a supernatural phenomenon to be disproved as the culprit in a case and it is. However, vampires are shown to truly exist in the world. Also they give terrible advice. But worst is the final solution to the the conflict of telling the family the truth about what had occurred in their home. The entire thing was just dumb and happened to be the longest story of the bunch.

Despite all that, the last case in the book is good! Holmes is away so it falls to Christie completely. This one involves a cypher, a secret past, and a murder. It has a good twist and allows Christie to shine as an individual.

The main problem with Young Miss Holmes (originally titled Christie High Tension) is it that is comes off more like odd self insert fan fiction that anything else. Each of the five stories in the book are classic Sherlock Holmes mysteries. They don’t even change the names so you know exactly which ones they are. The set up for the cases is even exactly the same. So if you have read the Red-Headed League you know the story in advance. The only real question is how does Christie get involved and what does she do in the background.

So in many ways it just comes off that there is the random niece of Sherlock Holmes that pops up in cases but then does not do THAT much because you know it has to be Sherlock who solves the case. It is like the whole time in the background there was a little girl who was ALMOST as smart as Sherlock Holmes but you just never heard about it. And in the end it never really mattered. So at least in the Adventure of the Dancing Men it might be just a copy and paste of the original story with Christie in the place of Holmes at least Christie gets to shine in that story. In all the other stories she comes off as vestigial.

Which is a shame because she is a delightful character. She has an adorable spunk that makes her very charming balanced with a good amount of competence and panache. The main problem is that she is right next to Sherlock Holmes who is pretty much the pinnacle of the genre. The brightest candle does not seem as impressive next to the full force of the sun. I know that Narutaki wanted to like her so much. I mean she rides an awesome dog as her faithful companion. That is Narutaki catnip.

Her servants are also quite charming. Nora is always delightful whenever she is around. Her relaxed whip-smart sass is just dangerous as her actual whip.  The extremely religious Ann-Marie is the prim and proper maid who also duel wields pistols as an interesting dichotomy to her character. Miss Dunbar becomes her governess during the course of the first book. She quickly realizes that there is nothing can can teach Christie as she is already operating on an intellectual higher than most adults. Her main mission is to teach her student to be socially functional without trying to repress the unique qualities that make Christie exceptional.

The person who is not a delightful character is Mina Tepes who appears in a cameo in the third story. Thankfully she is not the super sexualized character she is in her own manga. I don’t think it would have been fun to read this book after Narutaki had puked all over it had they used the canonical Mina Tepes. But this really makes her a bizarre character to use in a cameo. She is distinctly written as a Young Miss Holmes character so she has none of the appeal to a Dance in the Vampire Bund reader but as an actual vampire she distinctly takes away from normal setting of the story. She distracts the reader far more than anything she might add to the story.

I think Young Miss Holmes would work far better if Christie were solving her own mysteries instead of being in background of classic mysteries. The connection to Holmes is great but she need to get out of her uncle’s shadow to be her own character. It would let her and her companions stand out more and really come into their own. There is a strong framework there. They just have to have the confidence to let it stand on its own.

The Earl and the Fairy vol. 1 basically covers what I’d seen of the anime. Fairy Doctor, Lydia, is an anomaly in the world as people have stopped believing in the wee folk. But her services are an asset when she gets whisked off by beguiling criminal Edgar who claims to be the Earl of the fairy realm in need of help. Oh, he is handsome and charming but incredibly hard to read even when he talks of his past you aren’t sure if you can really trust him. In true romantic fashion, Lydia can’t help but get caught up in his quest.

I enjoyed it a lot. Edgar is pretty irresistible but more than that I’m quite curious about the fairy realm, so far we’ve mostly just heard about it and seen tiny glimpses of fairies. The journey to getting his earldom has captured me.

I don’t have much disposable income but whenever I get a little free cash I make sure that I catch up on volumes of Hayate the Combat Butler. A coupon to Forbidden Planet finally let me catch up with the US release when purchased volumes 18 and 19. I know that Hayate could be doing better in the US so I always see it as my duty to help it out whenever I can.

Getting book 18 means I have to deal with more Athena but thankfully her story ends quickly in this book giving us a bit of a reprieve from her for a while. I think I am learning to tolerate her much more but that might be partially due to her now being connected to Ayako Kawasumi. The story with Hayate and Maria phony date is great if for nothing else we get more Maria and Linn Regiostar. They are both characters who do not get enough time in the spotlight. But as always Maria is an extremely refreshing character. I cannot read a chapter with her and not feel better. This book also marks the point where Hata really starts to promote Chiharu Harukaze from a very minor secondary character to a member of the main cast. She is a great character when Hata starts to delve into her and she makes a great person for Nagi to interact with as simultaneously an equal and someone who is a bit more mature. There is a reason picked her as woman of the year in 2011.

Book 19 is just as fun. The two Nagi stories are classic goofball comedies where Nagi and Hayate’s relationship is always at its strongest. The story of Nagi waking up early is delightfully tender and plays to all of her strengths. The story about breaking out of the “boredom stage” is in contrast wonderfully high energy. This also marks when Hata REALLY starts pushing Wataru and Saki as a couple with their trip to Las Vegas. He had been pushing it since the beginning but it really comes to the forefront here. Then again I have a feeling this was always been the plan. All the way back in the early books he stated that if he ever made a spin-off series it would just be about Wataru and Saki.

The best part of the official releases is the fact that you get the little inside flap stories. It is the only place you get to see Orumuzuto Nadja. The part where Maria asks if Hayate has any boyfriends is amazing. In fact both books are sort of amazing. I never regret buying a Hayate book. They always make my day a little brighter.

We finally completed the Broken Blade movie series with the final film Bastions of Sorrow (movie 6). It is a much better follow up than movie 5 but it doesn’t hold up all that well as an ending.

The bulk of time is taken up by a major battle so we get very little in the way of conversations or character development. That being said, the battle is quite well done.

Though it is strange that Rygart doesn’t feel as much a part of it, there was some disconnect. Still his fight with Borcuse is cool but I was disappointed in the final outcome because it seemed a bit of dumb luck.

It feels wrong that Zess is pretty much completely absent from the final films, too.

I realized early on that they weren’t going to complete the story with these movies but at the same time I felt a bit like, “Then why make SIX of them!” That is quite a lot. They ended at a definitive point in the war but nothing is resolved between characters.

The Broken Blade movies are an odd little project. If this were the 80s this clearly would have been an OVA but today it is a series of movies that they then sell on disk which essentially just makes them OVA’s with a theatrical release. I say this because while the movies have a definitive ending point it feels more like the end of act one of a play more than then end of a story. I know that these are mostly supposed to be a treat for the fans of the manga in Japan but us dirty Americans don’t get the manga anymore. Maybe JManga can pick this title up. Would mecha manga to better with a digital distribution? I’m guessing that is not the case but it might be worth looking into.

This is one big siege battle. In the end if you are going to go out on anything in a mecha series this is not a bad choice. We get the final showdown between Rygart and Borcuse. I’m glad they did not keep Borcuse around too long. Borcuse was a bit too much of a mustachioed villain to keep around past this point. The rubber-band shuriken that Rygart fights with in this movie is somewhere between completely goofy and totally awesome. In that regard it would be very much at home in G-Gundam more than Broken Blade.

As a side note I really like Narvi but she distinctly suffers from the classic “vaginas make you low tier” syndrome you see in far too many mecha anime. She is supposed to be such a great pilot but whenever we see her she is stinking it up on the battlefield. She is not Cleo but overall that is still a pretty backhanded compliment. In contrast while Captain Sakura could not take out Borcuse at least you felt like she was a captain for a reason. She was taking down grunt soldiers like a pro.

I know that Zess comes back later in the manga but that is because I did a little research on my own. As it stand with the movies Zess is this huge part of the first half of the movie series and then he seemingly disappears due to his injuries. It is clear that he is still connected to several very important plot threads but as it stands it feels like they forgot about him. In the manga is much clearer that he is merely on the back burner and that he will be back in the thick of things again. But the movies make it seem more like sloppy writing.

Overall I had a good time with the Broken Blade movies but I feel they could have been so much better. They initial promise is so strong but the final movies have great fight scenes but lack any of the character punch that the first three movies had.

The Ongoing Investigations are little peeks into what we are watching and reading outside of our main posts on the blog. We each pick three things that we were interested in a week and talk a bit about them. There is often not much rhyme or reason to what we pick. They are just the most interesting things we saw since the last Ongoing Investigation.

On August 31, 2011 the U.S. shuttle program was officially ended. Due to high-profile shuttle disasters, increased results from unmanned space research, and the overall humongous expense the US decided that the money invested in the shuttle program is not worth the dividends. Now with one of the main pieces of the Space Race being the Cold War is long over the zealotry behind sending people in space is long gone. There are no dirty Commies to beat to the moon. The America that dreamed of sending a man into space, creating lunar and martian colonies, and extending its reach beyond the solar system is no more. Growing concern over domestic issues and a perceived notion that space travel is frivolous and dangerous has transformed modern space travel from a high concept to a farcical joke. Look at the reaction to Newt Gingrich’s proposal for a lunar colony. He might have well suggested throwing money into time travel research and cloning dinosaurs for a gigantic amusement park. In America, the dream of space travel is dead or at least in a fairly permanent coma for the time being.

At the same time Japan still seems oddly optimistic about manned space travel. I remember being slightly shocked that Sumire Kanou from Toradora! legitimately was studying to be an astronaut. I also remember Orihime Inoue off handily mentioning she wished to grow up to be an astronaut. While it is foolish to assume the aspirations of fictional characters are a one to one  correspondence to the desires of a nation the fact that Japan still writes popular stories in which people dream of exploring space in their fiction is remarkable.

You have the anime and manga for Planetes and Moonlight Mile both of which involved characters who wanted to explore deep space. Even the recent Kamen Rider Fourze has a space travel motif with Yuki Jojima being a hardcore space otaku and the rest of the cast having various levels of interest in space. You don’t get three space travel anime every season but they do appear frequently enough. Two series that we have recently beeen enjoying exemplify this infatuation with the hope for cosmic exploration: Twin Spica and Space Brothers. In their own way both of them revolve around a passion for celestial exploration.

Having just finished the Twin Spica manga and starting to watch the Space Brothers anime in the new season, I’ve become very emotionally attached to the dream of space travel again. These two series show so much hope and promise to the idea of becoming an astronaut and taking that first trip to space.

This was once a big dream in the U.S., too, but in the last decade excitement over current space exploration seems to be drying up. I recall one of my elementary school teachers being way into space and she worked it into lessons as much as she could. We built moon colony dioramas and I wished for space camp. I never did but I maintained a fond attachment to the idea of space travel.

I don’t know about you, but I can’t help but believe in that impossible yet incredible dream of space. Putting a face to the hope that traveling out past our atmosphere is what makes it resonate so strongly. Maybe in the U.S., we need our own Asumi and Mutta.

Twin Spica has pure and innocent temperament in its dream of space travel. I would go as far as to say it has an almost child like passion. The main characters in Twin Spica all have various reasons they wish to go into space. Asumi, Shu, and Marika probably have the purest desire to become astronauts solely for the earnest desire to explore the galaxy. All the students have a major handicap that stands in their way but all of them do their best to overcome that hurdle and make their dream come true. Asumi and Shu even more than the others have a naked passion for space that they cannot hide. It peppers all their conversations and influences many of their decisions. But the whole cast must make sacrifices and hard choices to peruse their goals. While it is never easy they move forward with no regrets. That is how intoxicating the dream of being an astronaut is.

That is not to say that Twin Spica is totally lacking in adult themes or considerations. Several chapters deal with the fact that the revived Japanese space program is being besieged by protestors from the outside and political squabbles from the inside. Many people see the project as a waste of time and money for a potentially dangerous project. They would see the money spent on the program put toward terrestrial projects. At the same time Takahito Sano tries to kick Asumi out of the program merely to punish her for the perceived sin of her father. While the cast’s dreams may have a child like intensity the obstacles they face as very nuanced and adult.

The clear-sighted dedication of Asumi in Twin Spica sweeps you away instantly. Despite her tragedies, wanting something so badly, knowing it for so long is in many ways enviable. Some people never find that passion in life. She isn’t bold in her desires for space, it just inhabits her very being.

Twin Spica presents the final frontier but it feels within in grasp because of characters like Asumi. Even in the face of the real world conversations that space exploration is a waste of money, Twin Spica shows that it isn’t always about the practical but about building the human spirit.

I always felt that Asumi’s small stature exemplified how small a part of the universe we all are. I can only imagine how humbling an experience it must be to be up there looking down on earth.

If the passions for space in Twin Spica have a child like innocence than the desire for stars in Space Brothers is an adult’s dreams. Mutta starts off with an equally intense and pure dream like Asumi but life gets in the way. He soon finds himself making many of the compromises we all make over the years. His dream of being and astronaut soon gives way to the more obtainable goal of a working as an engineer in the auto industry. All but a few lucky adults know the pain of having to let go our your passions and settle for a more sustainable lifestyle.

But Space Brothers is not about the banal death of the soul. It is about reaching for the promise of the final frontier. While Mutta’s ambitions might have been buried for a time when all seems lost he finds his way back onto his true path.  We see him rekindle the Asumi-like passion he had as a child and focus it again in an adult fashion. The lure of the stars proves to be unshakable even if the path toward the heavens is not a straight line.

But Space Brothers is not all broken dreams and a path of thorns. We see Hibito go on a more unclouded path towards space exploration as he steamrollers over anything that would get in his way. Serika Itou also seems to have a fairly uncomplicated path with all the enthusiasms of any character from Twin Spica. Space Brothers is a series that shows us that for some people that path to the stars is a destiny, and for others it is a twisting journey, but it can be a irresistible call for all of them.

Space Brothers presents us with a different side to a goal: the forgotten, given up dream. It strays away from sentimentality, maybe that is why it resonates so acutely. Mutta is so familiar. In a way, it feels like where we are in the real world in relation to space; we’ve forgotten why we wanted to go in the first place.

While I never doubted that Asumi would fulfill her dream, I don’t know what path Mutta will take. I certainly want him to recapture his youthful passion, but I don’t know if he will fully succeed. Yet, I feel as though the pursuit of space itself will still prove to be amazing. Believing in being able to get there is inspiring for Mutta and for me.

Space represents hope, achievement, youth, and the bond between brothers in Space Brothers. It is much greater than a physicality, space itself isn’t so faceless.

While the government might be shelving manned space flight projects but that does not mean they are completely off the table. Private companies are increasingly looking at the potential of space flight. The well publicized X Prize proved that commercially backed space programs were a distinct possibility and the recent interest in asteroid mining has opened a world of possibilities. The dream of space may be different then we thought it would be 20 years ago but it does not mean it is forgotten. As long as shows like Twin Spica and Space Brothers keep the dream alive space will be waiting for us.

The journey of making a dream come true is desperately moving when presented with so much sensitivity and detail as it is in Twin Spica and Space Brothers.

Pursing a dream is an immense undertaking, it is brave. Asumi and Mutta are underdogs and their dreams become your dreams. Big, space-sized dreams.

And we enter into the second part of Kiritsugu‘s back story. He clearly already started down the road towards being a complete unfeeling killing machine when he killed his father. But a gentle hand could have easily pulled him away from his monstrous path if he were placed in an environment where he was immersed in the positive things in life. But this is a Gen Urobuchi novel. That is not going to happen. By they way, It seems like Gen Urobuchi has a fetish for murdering children. I know that infant immortality is sometimes a strong trend in fiction and people like to play with it for shock value. But this goes a little above and beyond.  With Caster is was a little creepy but made sense for the historical character involved. After this episode I think it might have passed into the minor fetish category.

After surviving the fiery slaughter on Arimago Island a young Kiritsugu finds himself under the apprenticeship of Natalia Kaminski. As Kiritsugu walka further and further along the path of a mercenary so does he abandon a bit more of his humanity with every step. But a routine assassination of a sorcerer involved with some dark research quickly becomes a stage for another tragedy. One that will seal the destiny of the future Magus Killer.

We start with an expanded scene from the first season. In season one we saw the scene were Natalia Kaminski presented Kiritsugu with his origin bullets. She was present there without any explanation to give a quick run down of what the unusual ammo did. But now that we know who she is the scene goes into a bit more detail now that we have more context of what was going on. We learn that Kiritsugu was getting his magic circuits implanted the same time she took one of his ribs to make his bullets.  I do have to say that people are really obsessed with the fact that Natalia and Gilgamesh have similar facial structure. Boy that is going to lead to some really odd doujinshi.

Since we are still in flashback mode we get another episode without an opening. During the initial credit crawl we see a simple assignment where Natalia and Kiritsugu are working together. They have clearly built an effortless working relationship. You see how they very easily slowly entrap their target and then mercilessly move in for the kill. There is a mechanical nature to their assassination. Kiritsugu finishes of his target even though the man is unarmed and pleading for his life. There is no noble hero seemingly left in the young man. This man kills as effortlessly as he would brush his own teeth. Assassination has become a job and a way of life.

We flash back a bit farther. At first Kiritsugu clearly did not having the training to go out with his new mentor. While he had the determination and cold-blooded potential he did not have the technical skills. And so he trains in the artd of murder. We see quite a bit of emotion from Kaminski even if she mostly plays her cards close to her chest. She seems a little put upon to teach this punk kid her trade and at the same time a little happy to be able to pass along her skills. I think there is also a lingering bit of regret as he obviously take so well to such a horrible profession.

And we see how the year strip away any hesitation in Kiritsugu. Like a young Shiro it seems that he had aspirations of being a hero. But the more he guns down people in cold blood for a supposedly greater good the less it seems that any hard choice phases him. When a random boy and his guardian get gunned down so very casually in a war zone  Kiritsugu seems to have a realization that surviving is a noble fight. Or at least a more practical one. We see him develop his moral calculus that allows him to make the sacrifices required so that the good of the one can foster the good of the many.

And his next mission clearly puts his training to the test. It seems like a difficult but mundane mission. Od Volsack was creating bees whose poison turned people into ghouls. So the Mage’s Association wanted him understandably removed from this earth. Kiritsugu will take out Od’s associates that have access to his research while Natalia will kill Od when he has his guard down on the plane. The theory is attacking him anywhere else will give him a chance to unleash his unholy bees. It seems like a simple enough plan. But like anything else with Kiritsugu and vampires it quickly turns sour. (Good things he never interacted with Arcueid. The result would have been devastating.) While Natalia is able to kill Od and destroy his bees in the cargo hold almost effortlessly she makes a fatal oversight. It seems that Od had a hidden cache of the bees inside his body that were released when he died. Soon Natalia is trapped on a plane filled with an undead plague.

Kiritsugu and Natalia’s conversation is slightly heartbreaking. On the surface they talk about how they are going to rescue Natalia. But they both know that there is only one actual solution. The plane has to be destroyed. So they make pleasant small talk and pretend like everything is going to be OK. They are both too stoic to have a teary goodbye but it is also clear that they would not normally talk about their relationship with each other outside of a situation like this.  In a way this is the only way they know how to say goodbye. And so a surface to air missile ends their working relationship. Only at the end were they able to admit they had become a family.

And the normally stoic Kiritsugu snaps as if all the emotions he had been repressing over the years finally bubbled to the surface. We watch as he expels his pain and then hardens his heart. The full on stoic killing machine that is Kiritsugu has been born. With everyone he loves dead he can only move forward with cynical world view. As long as he can convince himself his actions are for a greater good than he can talk himself into any act. If he was willing to kill the people he loved for the greater good than the dead of a few strangers is child’s play.

I was a little surprised we never got so see Maiya Hisau but I suppose her connection to Kiritsugu will come in another episode. For now it is time to catch up to the present. If for no other reason I think the Rider and Waver fans are beginning to try a warp time space to get their favorite duo back on-screen. Also the next episode title strong implies that Kirei will be on the move which is never a good sign. With only a few pieces left on the board things are only going to get uglier and with Kirei‘s dark side fully unleashed it is going to get very horrific very soon.

In a most unexpected turn of events the Master Keaton manga returns to the pages of Big Comic Original in the form of Master Keaton Remaster. I guess at least some of the rights issues around the original manga have been cleared up because I know for awhile the original manga series was quite expensive due to it being out of print. But now Taichi Hiraga-Keaton is back! He is still an amusing mixture of a loveable loser and an amazingly competent superman all in one package.  The series starts not long after the end of the original manga. Keaton is notably more entrenched in his academic career after his recent archeological discovery. But just when he thought he was out of the insurance game for good it draws him back in for what he is told will be one last job.

Of course this being Master Keaton we know that will not be the case. Soon he is investigating ruins, redeeming the honor of a man in a coma, and fighting slaver traders. All for one insurance case. It has all the mature elements that you expect from this manga. The story has a well researched history, a steamy underworld, and characters that show their complexity even if we only know them for a chapter or two. There is rape and sex slave traffic but there is nothing graphic or salacious. It just happens to be a story with the disgusting parts of the sex trade as a piece of it. All the bite of an adult story with none of the guilt.

One of the most interesting parts of any Master Keaton story is the fact that Taichi usually comes is for the climax of a story. He is presented with a case, does a good deal of research to find out what is going on, arrives at the critical moment during the ongoing story to help someone out, and then leaves before the falling action is over. This could be amazingly frustrating if done poorly but Naoki Urasawa does this in a way that merely makes you feel like the stories are and organic part of the world. Taichi does his part, and then leaves, and that is all we see. But we get enough of the story from Taichi’s perspective that it always feels satisfying.

I’m am really glad to see the manga running again. Master Keaton is some of the best bite sized seinen you can find. Hopefully they will work in his daughter soon as she is always a refreshing character. Maybe this renaissance of the series will help get both parts licensed for English. That would be masterful.

I watched the first two episodes of Motorcity, a new Disney DX animated series. It showed a lot of promise and sported some cool animation.

The story revolves around a futuristic Detroit with two levels to the city; the old, underground, and free area known as Motocity; and the modern, controlled, upper Deluxe.

Mike leads a group of car fanatic rebels known as the Burners who are trying to bring down the leader of Deluxe. Mike is pretty interesting as he isn’t a kid, but a 17-year-old who was once being groomed by Deluxe’s leader. Now having defected, he is putting all his skills and some sweet modded cars to use.

Also of interest is Jules a resident of Deluxe who is actually helping them secretly. And she just happens to be the daughter of Deluxe’s dictator. But even the rest of the Burners and Mike don’t know that about her.

Both episodes revolved around some sort of threat being sent down to Motorcity. There was lots of cool machinery and robots and whathaveyou to keep things interesting.

These were great episodes and I can’t wait to continue. Definitely something I’m going to attempt to keep up with. The episodes are streaming on Disney DX’s website so far.

I finally decided to sit down and finish up Guilty Crown. Oh boy. This anime’s bus for crazy town clearly had a bomb planted on it by Dennis Hopper and therefore could not go below 50 miles per hour or everyone on board would have died. It is best summed up by the fact that during the final assault on the massive enemy strong hold the remaining heroes are all in either massive mecha or armored personal carriers. And then the main character is on a segway. That is the logic that constantly propels Guilty Crown forward. And it is all done with complete earnest. None of this is The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra style of being goofy on purpose. It is done straight faced because everyone thinks they are doing Shakespeare. And that gives it a bizarre charm. But never mistake that for honest ability.

Not that all of that crazy means that everyone makes it out of Guilty Crown alive. Near the end we get to some Zeta Gundam levels of character death. Main and secondary character start dropping like flies.  In fact I was somewhat shocked that they ended on such a downer of an ending. It is hardly Space Runaway Ideon but you could not call it a happy ending either. Certain characters who you would assume have plot armor are actually quite vulnerable and most everyone who lives does so at the cost of a great sacrifice. I will say that Segai could not die quickly enough. When he finally was removed from the board it was a blessing. I was surprised another bad guy got off complete scot-free without so much as a slap on the wrist. Still there is no “boy gets girl and lives happily ever after” ending.

I can’t say that I would recommend Guilty Crown. Most of the reason I enjoyed watch it was how silly it was. It is a great show to watch with some sort of I Don’t Even crowd or for a few nights of personal MST3K but beyond that is is pretty lame.

I started watching the second season of the Story of Saiunkoku. The first season was incredibly strong so it is a hard act to follow. And so far this new part of the story (eps. 1-8) isn’t holding up very well.

It may just be the animations obvious quality drop that is stopping it from being as dynamic. Characters expressions are awkward, timing is often slightly off, and there is tons of talking without anything going on.

Despite that, the last few episodes have had some interesting developments including finally getting the story behind Eigetsu’s dual personality. We’re also learning a bit more about Shurei’s father’s past and his split with the Hong family.

For the love of Oyashiro-sama please stop making any more Higurashi anime. The original story was magnificent. The Rei OAVs added some additional clarification of story points while telling a compelling gaiden story. There were even 2 hysterical comedy stories. Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Kira 3 and 4 on the other hand just continue the trend of horrible Kira episodes. When you do a Mion and Keiichi story that I have absolutely no interest in then you are clearly doing something terribly wrong. They are just the same jokes from earlier arcs only done without any spirit. I know the Higurashi characters are popular. I love them too. With all the tragedy and redemption they go through it is hard not to love them. But it is time to let them go. There story is over. There is no more to tell. It ended on a great note. Let us remember the good times we had together and not try and milk anymore from this setting.

Vol. 31 of Kekkaishi is exactly what every training transition should be. Yoshimori is learning new techniques from a really surprising source and the audience is seeing all these new complexities to the story thanks to this additional character. Also Tokine is also training; it is a great relief she will be working towards something in these final volumes and not just showing up at the end. 

The Ongoing Investigations are little peeks into what we are watching and reading outside of our main posts on the blog. We each pick three things that we were interested in a week and talk a bit about them. There is often not much rhyme or reason to what we pick. They are just the most interesting things we saw since the last Ongoing Investigation.

I said it was a good title for this post last week and I stick by that fact. But it seems the lesson of why Kiritsugu is a ruthless assassin apparently is going to take more than one episode. But I guess you don’t turn into a mechanical murder machine from one incident in your life. It takes a bit of time and wear to fully kill a person’s soul. You have to be involved with the deaths of all the people you have ever loved for one reason or another. We flash back to Kiritsugu’s origins that made him into the Mage Killer of the 4th Holy Grail War. And so the journey of a thousand miles begins with a few significant steps in this episode. Interesting note: They did not use the standard opening in this episode. They just play the credits over a conversation while driving to get the maximum story in this episode.

It seems that life is good for young Kiritsugu Emiya. His father is a genius sorcerer. He lives in a tropical paradise with good friends and a simple life. There is even a possible blossoming romance with an older girl who has become his father’s assistant. But magical research can be dangerous and often the bigger the risk the bigger the reward. But at the same time when you take big risks the fallout of a mistake can be apocalyptic. One such mistake will change Kiritsugu’s life forever.

We start with Kiritsugu surrounded by friends playing by the water. Since this is based on a work by Gen Urobuchi you know those kids will go on to have wonderful productive lives filled with joy and success. Or they will die in flames. You know. One or the other. But those doomed children aside Kiritsugu is picked up by the effervescent Shirley. We learn from Shirley that the Kiritsugu house used to be a shrine which probably means it has an abundance of leylines. We also learn that he was bullied for being a stranger but Shirley helped him integrate with the locals so he is an accepted member of the community. She is even the one responsible for his nickname of Kerry. They have an extremely close relationship but not a romantic one. Kiritsugu clearly has a crush on Shirley but she likes to use the dread phrase “like a younger brother” and not in that Akiha Tohno manner.

But Shirley is more than just a friend to Kiritsugu. She is also Kiritsugu’s father’s apprentice and assistant. Noritaka, who looks like the missing link between Kiritsugu and Tokiomi, has been researching how to stop time as a method of immortality. Like so many mages Noritaka is seeking the Root but is convinced that only an immortal mage would have enough time to reach the ultimate discovery. So  it is the Emiya family’s job is to discover the path to immortality so an immortal can find the answer to the greatest mysteries of magic. So far they can sop the aging of flowers but humans seem still be a long-term goal. But then Shirely whips out a little surprise. She has become skilled enough to create her own timeless flower. She claims it is not as good as her instructors but it is an accomplishment. This prompts Kiritsugu to want to join in on the research but he is quickly shot down by his father. You can see the rejection of his face. It is not one of jealous of Shirley but more of questioning why he is not good enough to help as well.

But is seems that life is not all sunshine and roses for Shirley. While the villagers might be afraid of the Emiya house the town priest realizes there is magic afoot there and seems to be trying to stop Shirley from continuing her apprenticeship. He even goes as far as giving her a minor talisman knife if she gets into trouble. But none of this phases Shirley. She sees an amazing potential in Noritaka’s work that could change humanity. That is why she is willing to stand up to any adversity to help. We also learn two other things. As much as she might seem to be accomplished magus it seems that Shirley is only an assistant. Her flower has already faded unlike Noritaka’s 100 samples. The second is that both Noritaka and Shirley see Kiritsugu as the true heir to his father’ research. It is clear that Shirley wishes to support Kiritsugu in whatever he does leading to a cute little romantic scene by the lake. But if we read between the lines it is also clear that Shirley is a bit desperate for progress. Between being hounded by the local priest and Noritaka’s recent conservative attitude she see seems desperate to prove that this research is actually beneficial. This hunger for acceptance leads to a foolish mistake.

When Kiritsugu awakes the next morning something seems to be very off. His father seems a bit panicked and tells him to stay home. When sunset comes it seems that no one has come home and Kiritsugu begins to worry about Shirley. So Kiritsugu sets out to see what happens and stumbles upon an undead Shirley. She apparently uses the prototype of one of the drugs Noritaka made that have turned her into a vampire known as a Dead Apostle. She has enough of her mind left intact for conversation but she cannot control her hunger for blood. She begs Kiritsugu to kill her before she feeds on more people but then proceeds to kill herself when her friend cannot end her life. Kiritsugu is understandably shaken and goes to get the one author figure that might be able to help, the town priest. But Kiritsugu seems to not be aware of the common horror movie tropes as he quickly get the priest killed and set himself up in a Resident Evil situation.

While I doubt she was Yumizuka Satsuki levels of powerful (No Depletion Garden for her) is seems Shirley feared better than the rest of the islanders who are infected by his curse as they are just shambling ghouls. Just as the ghouls start to overtake the church where Kiritsugu is hiding some executors and Mage’s Association assassins arrive and start laying waste to everything and anyone in their path. While they don’t seem to be racking up any civilian casualties but it also seems neither group is overly worried about helping survivors either. They are just clearing up the mess. And in the Mage’s Association’s mind that also means destroying any evidence of what occurred here with fire. Garden of Sinners fans will notice a familiar face in, Cornelius Alba, although without his trademark piece of haberdashery. He is laying waste to everything and everyone with his trademark fire spells. It is good to see he was always a ruthless jerk.

As neither agency is looking to help anyone Kiritsugu soon finds himself surrounded by the hungry dead. When all look lost it seems that someone who also made a cameo in a flashback is here to save the day. Natalia Kaminski, bursts onto the scene in wonderful Blade like glory. After some glorious gun fu she lays down he situation for the young man she just saved. While she is clearly not the most empathic person (mercenary life does that to you) she is also distinctly the only person willing to help anyone out. It seems that Natalia was hired to find out who was responsible for this travesty and take them down. As it turns out Kiritsugu knows all to well who is behind this all so he agrees to help.

Kiritsugu goes back to his house and confronts his father. He now realizes his dad was not simply researching time and immortality but the distinctly forbidden creation of a dead apostle. The veil over Kiritsugu’s eyes is lifted as he sees exactly how ruthless his father is. Noritaka sees Shirley’s death as a mere stepping stone to his greater research. His father’s inability to see not only what he did wrong but to continue his research somewhere gives Kiritsugu proof of what needs to be done. Kiritsugu stabs his stunned father and then finishes him off with his own gun. Kiritsugu’s path to the man he will become has been set. While the event has clearly traumatized him it has also removed a vital piece of hismorality. Once you kill someone you loved like that you cannot go back to being the same person.

Natalia and Kiritsugu leave the burning island together now that their task is done. With nothing left for him on the island he can only move forward with his new-found guardian. Like the opening sequence we do not get our standard ending. We instead leave the episode with another Kalafina song. But the flashback does not end here. Kiritsugu still has much to learn from Natalia and much to lose before he is the Mage Killer we met at the beginning of Fate/Zero. There is more to come with Kiritsugu is Forced to Murder Everyone He Ever Loved, Part 2.

The unlikely and unconventional friendship between Tsukimi and Kuranosuke was the crux of the series as far as I was concerned. I was invested in their interactions; Kuranosuke’s brash desire to pull her and her friends into some sort of new life; Tsukimi’s slow progress to opening up to and seeing possibilities; and all of these things happened organically without them even realizing it.

These are two characters with a lot of complex issues to work through from their current and former selves. By the end they had both taken a step forward in their lives with the certainty that there were more to come.

Kuranosuke only began to recognize his romantic feelings for Tsukimi by the end of the show. Again, he only just realized that he had started falling in love with this girl. He didn’t fully comprehended or come to terms with it.

As for Tsukimi, she already had one suitor, Kuranosuke’s brother, another complication. But more than, Tsukimi wasn’t in love with Kuranosuke. Yet.

There was no way to conclude these romantic inklings that just started without feeling disingenuous. At least to me.

The problem isn’t the show’s ending, it is that the show ended.

Oh my Good Golly Miss Molly this is a lot of news this month. Have Anime Boston and Sakura Con always been big licensing cons like this or have I just not been paying attention?

The Line-Up is a monthly rundown of newly licensed in the U.S., newly streaming in the U.S., and newly announced anime and manga projects.

Newly Licensed in the U.S.

• Alice in the Country of Hearts: My Fanatic Rabbit – Yen Press
  
• Anything and Something – Yen Press
• Baccano! (Blu-Ray) – Aniplex
• Bakemonogatari - Aniplex USA
• Battle Angel Alita: Last Order – Kodansha Comics
• Berserk (movies) – VIZ
  Drat. Viz is without a doubt the slowest company in releasing anything on DVD. Glad it got picked up. I just wish it was someone else who picked it up.
  
• Blood-C - Dark Horse
• Blood Lad – Yen Press
• Bunny Drop – NISA
• Captain Harlock (TV) – Discotek
  A space pirate that does actual piracy! How quaint.
• A Century of Temptation – Digital Manga
• Cluster Edge – Sentai Filmworks
• Crayon Shin-chan – One Peace Books
• Danza – Kodansha Comics
• Deflowering the Boss – Digital Manga
• Demon Love Spell – VIZ
• Dusk Maiden of Amnesia – Sentai Filmworks
• Emerald and Other Stories – Dark Horse
• Eureka Seven AO – Funimation
• Evangelion: Comic Tribute – Dark Horse
  I am vaguely interested because Mine Yoshizaki is involved.
• Fractale – Funimation
• Future Diary – Funimation
• Galaxy Express 999 (movie 3) – Discotek
• Hakuoki Shinsengumi Kitan – Sentai Filmworks
• Hidamari Sketch x SP – Sentai Filmworks
• The Incredible Kintaro – Digital Manga
• Intrigue in the Bakumatsu ~ Irohanihoheto – Sentai Filmworks
• Kids on the Slope – Sentai Filmworks
  I am impressed they got Blu-Ray right out of the gate. There is no excuse not to pick this up now.
• King of Thorn – Funimation
• Lovely Complex – Discotek
  An unexpected license for them and I couldn’t be happier about it!
• Mahoromatic: I’m Home – Sentai Filmworks
• Medaka Box – Sentai Filmworks
• The Misfortune of Kyon and Koizumi – Yen Press
  I am waiting for The Hairballs of Shamisen manga.
• Missons of Love – Kodansha Comics
• Mysterious Girlfriend X – Sentai Filmworks
• NightS - Animate USA
• Oreimo – Dark Horse
• Paradise Kiss – Vertical, Inc.
  I’m very excited about this rescue and have high hopes for beautiful books.
• President Momoi Kun – Digital Manga Publishing
• Queen’s Blade: Rebellion – Sentai Filmworks
• Saint Seiya (movies) - Discotek
  YIPPIE!!!
• Sakuran - Vertical, Inc.
  I have heard nothing but great things about this title and it is a one book series which is always nice.
• Shangri-La – Funimation
• See Me After Class – Digital Manga Publishing
• Strobe Edge – VIZ
• Thermae Romae – Yen Press
  What an unusual license. I am very curious how this does.
• Triage X - Yen Press
• Tsuritama – Sentai Filmworks
• Umineko When They Cry – Yen Press
  I really want to read these now that I have played all the games. It will be like watching Fight Club a second time.
• Upotte!! – Sentai Filmworks
• Viewfinder: Hard-Working Cameraman Akihito Takaba’s Romantic Life as an Indentured Servant – Animate USA

Newly Streaming in the U.S.

• Crunchyroll added Yurumates 3D, Rock Lee and His Ninja Pals, Sengoku Collection, Polar Bear’s Cafe, Saki – Episode Side A, Upotte!!, Kuroku’s Basketball, Kid’s On the Slope, Mysterious Girlfriend X, Tsuritama, Queen’s Blade: Rebellion, Dusk Maiden of Amnesia, Phi Brain Puzzle of God S2, Medaka Box
  
• VIZ added Zetman, Accel World
  
• Funimation added Is This a Zombie? . . . Of the Dead, Lupin III: The Woman Named Fujiko Mine, Jormugand
• Sugoi Books added Peacemaker, Elemental Gelade, Ilegenes
• JManga added Kirara, I am a Cat, Apartments of Calle Feliz, Muyonosuke, The Witch of 2-A, Chitose Get You!!, Observation Diary, Tale of the Crescent Moon Dragon, Working Kentauros, Bono Bono, Black Borders, Harukaze Biyori, Doukyusei, Tactics, Monochrome Factor, The Good Witch of the West, Your & My Secret, Animal Academy: Hakobune Hakusho, Yurumates
  

New Anime/Manga Projects in Japan

• Oreimo Getting a Second Season
• Cyborg 009 Finale Manga to Launch
• Unaired Episode of Yurumates Bundled with Manga
• Kimi to Batsu Gag Comedy is New Series of Excel Saga Manga-ka
  Koushi Rikudou is always an unusual author so I am curious how this will turn out.
• New Magazine Bessatsu Shonen Champion Launching in June
• OVA of Eureka Seven AO to be Bundled with PS3 Game
• Detective Conan/Excalibur Crossover OVA Available Through Mail-Away
• The Rest of NisiOisin’s Monogatari Novels Getting Anime Adaptions
• Accel World DVDs to Include New Actual World Anime
• Light Novels Sakurasou no Pet no Kanojo Anime Green-Lit
• In Addition to an Anime In the New World Also Getting Manga Adaption
• Crayon Shin-chan to Crossover with Kamen Rider Fourze in Special
  Apparently someone thought that Fourze was not crazy enough.
• Comedy Manga Spin-off Attack! Titan Junior High Begins
• New Manga from Final Fantasy Franchise Starts
• NG-Shuu Being Animated as Extra for DVD Release of Kuroko no Basuke
• OVA Coming for Web Manga Hori-san to Miyamura-kun
• Food Manga Series Coming from GTO Creator
• Norwegian Children’s Book Block Makes a Museum Being Made into Anime
• New Manga Series Starting from Yasuko to Kenji Artist and High School Debut Writer
• Spin-off and Parody Manga Uta Hen Begins
• GTO and I no Head Gargoyle Get Crossover 1-Shot
  A nice bit of cross promotion between Tohru Fujisawa manga.
• Production Designers from Puella Magi Madoka Magica Working on Shojo Manga 
• To Love-Ru Darkness to Bundle DVD with Manga
• 3DS Game Senran Kagura Burst Has Anime in the Works
• Natsume Ono Drawing Web Manga 1-Shot
• Short Manga by Stepping on Roses Artist Started
• Shojo Manga Inspired by Idol Group Fairies Announced
• Steins;Gate Game Drama CD to Include Manga
• Crying Freeman Creator Releasing Short Ninja Manga
• Webcomics Starting of Namco Bandai’s Rolling Thunder and Wonder Momo
• Mixed-media Franchise Khronos Gear Getting OVA and Manga
• More Stitch! Anime On the Way as a TV Special
• A Chapter 0 of Rurouni Kenshin Will Be Coming Out
• Hopefully this will be better than the new OVAs.
• Josei Manga Karneval Receiving an Anime Adaption
• Mecha 1-shot from Bokurano Manga-ka Announced
• Count of Monte Cristo 1-shot in Grand Jump Premiere
• A Spin-off of Ikoi no Sodom -Bishōjo Impala- Started
• New Series Landmark Fieldworker -Toaru Machi no Genius Loki- to Being in Super Jump
• Yuri Manga-ka Milk Morinaga Starting New Series
• New Steampunk Manga Kikaijikake no Merudiina Beginning
  Maybe steampunk panels at anime conventions can start being about steampunk titles like this.
• Accel World OVA to be Bundled with Game
• Kamen no Ninja Akakage Remains Manga Based on 60′s Series Getting Revival
  I’m not familiar with the original, but it was by the creator of Giant Robo and Tetsujin so I’m quite curious to check this out!
• Remake Manga Kaen Majin ~Oni Harai~ Starting Up Soon
• The Incredible Zorori Children’s Book Getting Feature Film
• Manga Adaption of Re: Cyborg 009 and Fairy God One-shot in Next Issue of Monthly Big Gangan
• Dusk Maiden of Amnesia BD/DVD Release to Include Unaired Episode

SPOILERS FOR RUROUNI KENSHIN

You know what you’re wanting to see in a Rurouni Kenshin OVA, fights. You know what this is missing, you guessed it, fights. This is a shonen fighting series that the staff completely forgot half of. I’m not saying that the characters and backstory aren’t interesting in Kenshin, but those things aren’t executed with much grace either.

This OVA is like the reverse of a clips reel. Instead of showing all the cool fights and intense moments, it is a collection of people talking to each other in between all the awesome things that go on during the (arguably) best arc of the Kenshin series. Note, most awesome things not included.

I’m going to admit it. I was not so secretly hyped for this OVA. When I heard they were going to remake the Kyoto Arc from Kenshin I thought that was pretty amazing idea. Take what is one of the strongest arcs of the manga and animate it with modern techniques and a decent sized budget. (Note: Debates over the superiority of the Remembrance or Revenge arcs can be saved for another day.) It seems like a recipe for awesome. Then they announced the OVA would be from Makimachi Misao’s perspective. That was a bit puzzling. I love Makimachi Misao. She is my favorite character from the series. A spunky kunoichi who is a wonderful sidekick for Kenshin during the arc as she adds a much-needed dash of comedy and drama to what would have otherwise been a less engaging solo journey for Kenshin. But as much as I love her she is still firmly a side kick character. So I was a bit worried that a story too much from her perspective would be claustrophobic and miss some of the most important parts of the arc due to their choice of perspective.

So I went in hoping for the best but prepared for the worst. In the end I had nothing to worry about in that regard. They did not do any of the things I was worried about. They botched the OVA is so many other more egregious ways that my initial fears seemed laughably quaint. It takes a special talent to do everything incorrectly. A bad anime will usually be broken in several places. The worse it is the more places it tends to have major flaws. But usually there are some bright spots that lift it out of being a complete train wreck. The thing is this Kenshin OVA does absolutely everything wrong with its plot and characterization it can.

  It should be said that this OVA seems made only for fans of the series. It is nay impossible to follow the plot otherwise. I’m not sure if is a good bet or not that everyone is already familiar with the story considering how old it is now though. And unless you are a Kenshin expert you might have forgotten some of the finer details. Even though this is a story seemingly made for fans of the series, that doesn’t mean there needs to be zero set up to events. It throws you in the middle of things so quickly you are never allowed to sink into the pace and emotions of the story.

But as a fan, we certainly remember what stands out in this arc. Things that are important in the first half: Kenshin catching up with Shishio and coming face-to-face for the first time, Kenshin’s sword getting broken and then getting a new one, Saito and Kenshin working together. All of these things happen but without any real emotion coming from the OVA. It’s as if it’s just another day in the neighborhood when Kenshin finds Shishio in the village. Saito questioning Cho in jail originally showed off Saito’s sly skills and made him and Sanosuke work together. Now it was just a throw away scene, which Sanosuke wasn’t even in!

Furthermore there a few new scenes which don’t do anything. There is a sex scene, why? The surprising thing is it is actually all in shadow and there is no nudity. Even then it was still awkward. So they couldn’t even throw in a fan-service scene properly?

And fights? Rather important in Kenshin-land. I was exaggerating when I said there are no fights, but they are over so quickly as to be practically nonexistent.

The Kyoto Arc starts in volume 7 of the manga and does not end until volume 17. That is a good deal of ground to cover. Sacrifices have to be made to condense such a sprawling tale into a short series of OVAs. You have to have a good eye for what to cut, what to shorten, and what to combine to keep the spirit of the original while still telling a coherent story. The problem is, as Narutaki said, the story is a mess. With too much ground to cover Kazuhiro Furuhashi and Mari Okada tried to cut out the extraneous parts of the original Kenshin story and only give the viewer the vital high points. They seem to know what the major beats of the story are but they don’t seem to understand what makes any of those key points work.

The perfect example is Kenshin first meeting with Shishio. They cut the fight with Senkaku which while adding slightly to the story can be cut with almost no consequence. But at the same time there is no build up to anything else that happens. Most of the meeting is Kenshin and Shishio talking at each other. The problem is that half the conversation makes no sense unless you read the source material and the other half has no impact. In the manga it was a struggle to get to Shishio and so there is a weight to the conversation. But since they effortlessly find him the conversation consequently seems cheaper. Also without any build up Kenshin’s fight with Sojiro ends in a flash without giving any menace or depth to Sojiro.

By the same token without all of Cho’s gimmick swords his fight is over before it beings. It takes away from exotic fighting styles that made him a unique character. Also Arai’s son never seems to be in too much danger making the fight toothless. In the original fight Kenshin not only had the handicap of not having his signature sword but he also he also had to constantly keep Arai’s son from harm as Cho would attack him to distract Kenshin. Likewise we only see the last blow in fight between Aoshi and Okina. That is the most important blow but since we practically have no idea who either of them are the scene is more confusing than meaningful.

It might seem like I am nitpicking the fights but they are the biggest weakness in the OVA. This could have been at least partially entertaining in the had only condensed the fights from the manga as opposed to reducing them to a single sword swing or two. The dialog and plotting was already an unrecoverable mess. It would take a major overhaul and a great deal more time to salvage anything from this current adaptation. But fights don’t need that much set up to be understandable. Most of the time the little setup they got was sufficient. Some gorgeously animated fights would have made the bad parts go down a bit better and let you fill in the gaps in story a little easier. If you can’t make a dish taste complex you might as well throw in some strong sugar and spice to make it go down easily.

The characters are rushed through relying too much on the audience’s familiarity. Despite what this studio thinks, characters don’t stop developing (hopefully) after you know who they are. You learn more as time goes on, you learn nothing in this OVA.

Misao is introduced in this arc so we theoretically need more explanation of her yet even she has little in the way of presence and development. Her seeking out Kenshin comes off more as “well, we had to start this story somehow” and it is so unclear about why she joins up with him. Her master Aoshi shows up briefly to tangentially kill someone. This is a pretty good scene, I admit, but doesn’t seem to go in the flow of the show.

Familiar faces like Yahiko, Karou, and Sanosuke come off as random rather than everyone leading to the confrontation in Kyoto.

As I mentioned before Sanosuke is actually cut from a scene. While Karou and Yahiko are actually added to one that seems to waste time. They stumble upon Kenshin’s master Seijuro without Kenshin being there. Seijuro is crazy bad-ass for sure but there is no reason for this scene. Karou and Yahiko look at his pottery, chat, and Seijuro chops some wood.

This OVA just had no idea who or what to spend time on.

If the fights were weak than the only thing that was weaker was the attention paid to the characters. Everything about the plot comes off like someone reciting off a set of cliff notes they glanced over before a test. We see the most of Kenshin and Misaso but we don’t learn much about them. The characters are all too willing to say things like Kenshin is a gentle warrior who refuses to kill or that Misao is a spunk ninja girl but we don’t see that much to back up those claims. Also most of the time you are asked to remember character relationships from previous material more the plot giving you any details involving them. There is no gravity to Misao’s quest to find Aoshi so it makes much of her motivation seem pointless. If they were going to have so much talking they should have at least built up the core characters.

At the same time the side character pop up to equally vapid cameos few of which even properly introduce their characters. Yahiko, Karou, and Sanosuke all appear but you never really learn that much about them. They would be instantly recognizable to fans of the original but to everyone they are mostly enigmas.  Even the one member of Shishio’s henchmen that gets any development (including a scene during an oddly tame OVA sex scene) is killed off earlier than he was in the manga. Why bother to develop Uonuma Usui if you are just going to kill him before he gets to do anything really interesting?

I can at least say that this OVA renders backgrounds, land- and cityscapes, and the sky with loving detail. Light is used well throughout, too. And even in taking stills for this OVA, I realized that it might look better than it truly is.

The few moments of action we were privy too also looked good. That is why it was doubly disappointing that they were so few and short. I feel they could have made a good action OVA. Perhaps they are saving it all for the second half.

If I have one complement to pay this series it is that the production values can be high at times. The original TV series by Studio Gallop was usually adequate with it came to animation but it clearly had the budget of a long running TV show from the 90s so scenes were very often done on the cheap. The new OVA clearly has a bigger budget as befits an OVA. That means crisp modern animation, wonderful backgrounds, and some choice animation at key points. But at the same time pan shots and long-range shots often cheat and use a more sub par animation when they assume you are not looking a closely. Also considering the fact that so much of the series is people walking or talking it is not like they were burning through money in about 90% of the time. The fights are often extremely smooth but they hardly last long enough for you to appreciate the quality. The oddest change is that while most of the cast looks exactly like they did in the TV series they oddly enough radically redesigned Misao. You can tell who he is if you watched the original but she looks more like Misao’s long-lost cousin wearing her outfit more than herself.

The soundtrack is mostly made up of new versions of most of the old soundtrack from the TV series. Most character’s leitmotifs are unchanged or slightly tweaked along side a good deal of the more iconic themes of the series. It more than anything helps fill in the gaps missing from the OVA by invoking memories of the TV series (if you had them at all.)

I don’t understand why they bothered remaking this arc in the first place if not to do it any sort of justice. Trying to imagine a production meeting where it is suggested they take out all the fights is laughable but somehow it occurred.

As for the Misao element, I really wouldn’t have known this was supposed to be Misao-focused if Hisui hadn’t informed me beforehand. If it was, it could have accounted for some of the oversights, but it just didn’t do enough to make me believe we were seeing this through Misao’s point-of-view.

This may be one of the most disappointing things I’ve watched in a while.

This OVA made me physically mad. It is just such a wasted opportunity. The Kyoto Arc still has such a strong reputation with fans. With the new Kenshin manga coming out and the live action movie coming out it seemed like the best time for the franchise to put its best foot forward. But instead they have squandered their opportunity. Had this been successful they could have thought about adapting Revenge Arc or make a rebooted series as they are want to do recently. But with a product like this I doubt that will be the case.

We get mother flippin Saber in a mother flippin suit on a mother flippin motorcycle in this episode. While we have not see the best of Saber on a motorcycle we have at least been given a taste of the wonders that are yet to come. That aside I guess there was that B plot of betrayal and corruption in this episode as well. I suppose I shall spend the bulk of my post going into the details of the events that are not Saber riding around on a sweet chopper. I will say that I was slightly amused that Kiritsugu’s rather Machiavellian dispatchment of Lancer and Kayneth almost universally won the Mage Killer a dedicated fan base. I was slightly surprised by the number of people who were sympathetic to Kayneth and conversely by the lack of people who condemned Kiritsugu. But the one character whose death did not seem to effect most people at all is oddly enough the one that triggers everything that happens in this episode.

Kirei discovers his father’s body in the Church. Risei’s death soon spawns a chain of reaction from the people allied with Tokiomi and Kiritsugu. Alliances are formed, partnerships are dissolved, and a Servant changes allegiances in the most brutal way possible. In the background the true nature of the Holy Grail War is revealed as we learn the shocking truth of the bloodthirsty ritual and the sacrifices needed to fuel its terrible engine.

The discovery of Risei’s causes an equal mixture of anger and panic in Tokiomi. His seemingly untouchable ally is dead. All his carefully laid plans are crushed as he was unable to get an extra command deal for killing Caster and his ability to manipulate the flow of the Grail War is severely impeded. Kirei on the other hand is as seemingly dispassionate as someone who found a dead stranger. His father’s death seems to have provoked no emotional reaction in him. But Gilgamesh knows better. He knows that not only did Risei’s death trigger a transformation in Kirei but it effected him in way that most people would not assume the death of a father would change his son. Also Gilgamesh clearly knows that there are parts of Kirei’s report that leave out important details. In fact the most important things in this conversation in the hallway is not what is said but what is implied and what is left hanging in the air.

Irisviel is still falling apart and it is only getting worse as the number of servants is decreasing. This time she had to be rushed home to her healing circle as opposed to give a little time to rest. But this gives all the yuri fans a little “Saber X Irisviel OTP” action which I am sure they appreciate. But Maiya arrives with an unexpected message. It seems that Tokiomi wishes to meet at the neutral ground that is the church to discuss an alliance. He wishes to call upon the old alliance of the Einzbern and Tohsaka families. This is obviously less because he wishes to put aside old grudges and more because he sees Team Saber as the weakest of the four remaining participants. Irisviel is less interested in dealing with Tokiomi as she is in removing Kirei from the battlefield. She realizes that he is the greatest threat despite the fact that he is seemingly neutered. Irisviel knows a nemesis when she see one.

If anyone played the Fate/Stay Night visual novel they will recognize this scene immediately. In the prologue for Fate/Stay Night this event is the first thing Rin describes. It is the final time she sees her father. In the game she recalls that while neither of them say it they both realize that this is probably the last time either of them will see each other. And so Tokiomi leaves his remaining daughter a few words of wisdom and heads off to face his destiny. This is clearly a moment that would stay with young Rin and shape much of her thinking in the 5th Holy Grail War. But it is also very clear that Tokiomi no longer has his same bravado and assurance that he will win this battle. He is closing up loose ends if he does not come back much like a man with a terminal illness would try to leave with a clean slate. Compare this to the attitude of a man just going on an extended business trip like he had before. Of course this means he has tripped the biggest death flag of them all: the heartfelt goodbye for now which is always the goodbye forever.

There are no permanent alliances in the Holy Grail war unless you are a crazy idealistic person named Shiro. What you have a ceasefires to deal with troublesome mutual enemies. Tokiomi proposes a temporary truce as they agree to not attack each other until Rider and Berserker are taken care of. Irisviel agrees under two conditions. The first is largely unimportant. It is sharing information about Rider. That hardly a concession. The faster either of them get rid of Rider the better. I’m sure that Tokiomi would love it if Kiritsugu could but a bullet in the back of the head of Waver Velvet as it would save him an immense amount of trouble. The other part of the agreement is the real concession. Irisviel wishes that Tokiomi break ties with his evil little church assassin. The hope is that it would make Kirei pack up his things and go home. Tokiomi agrees but it hardly has the desired effect for anyone involved. Also if you were not aware the three families they mentioned are the Einzbern, Tohsaka, Makiri families that created the Grail system in the first place. The Makiri family would go on to become know as the Matou family and all three family would participate in the war after that with a ever shifting series of alliance and betrayals. So this dysfunctional dance has been going on for decades.

After the meeting Irisviel collapses as she is strong enough to put on an unaffected front for short negotiations but she does not have much energy beyond that. And she proceeds to open up quite unexpectedly to Maiya. She reveals to her that she is the vessel of the Holy Grail, that the energy of each dead servant is tearing her apart, and that it is only Avalon that keeps her functional. We as the audience knew all these things but it is a bit surprising that Irisviel would be so open with her husband’s mistress. Irisviel knows her time is short so the keeping secrets no longer has much meaning. Irisviel merely wants confirmation that when she is gone that Maiya will do everything she can to support Kiritsugu. It is clear that both women are fanatically devoted to Kiritsugu and his ideals. If that means their deaths then so be it. And so both women reassure each other that they will die for this dream. And so they drive off into the night as devoted allies that otherwise might be enemies.

It seems at first that Kirei is ready to pack up his stuff and head back to the Executors for new orders. But Gilgamesh knows that these recent events have severed certain restrictions Kirei has placed on himself. He not only has his three new command seals but he also has all the extra seals his father left him after he died. So if can kill another Master he can easily take his Servant as his own and Gilgamesh is all too willing to be that Servant. But it seems the greatest change is that Kirei has thrown away whatever ties he had to his emulation of humanity. Kirei has always been a psychopath. But bonds with his wife and father made him keep up a facade of normalcy as he questioned why he would be born with such a soul that would only take pleasure in misery. But now three things have come together to destroy any reason he had to hide his true self. His ties to humanity are gone, he has the power to seek a new path, and now he has the opportunity to seize that new path. But before they seal their alliance Kirei reveals how the Grail War truly works.

The Grail is not activated by the death of six servants but seven. A master who understands the proper function of the grail will sacrifice his servant to completely fill the grail and hopefully open the door to the Root of all Being.While a servant might get his wish at the end he would soon find himself dead as his Master orders him to commit suicide. It is now clear that if Tokiomi were to win the war Gilgamesh would soon be a sacrificial lamb. It is no secret that Tokiomi’s goal has been to reach the Root so it is hardly surprising that he would sell out his servant to reach this goal. And so the innuendo of an alliance is finally make real. Amusingly enough the only time that Gilgamesh admires Tokiomi is right before he sets him up to be murdered.

Tokiomi gives his student two final parting gifts. His will and a dagger. Both of these are incredibly important to Fate/Stay Night. His will states that if he dies that Kirei will become Rin’s guardian and teacher. Kirei uses this apprenticeship to set up a great deal of his plans in Fate/Stay Night. The dagger Azoth on the other hand becomes an almost cursed dagger from this moment on. Originally a symbol that is passed from a master of the Tohsaka school to their graduating apprentice it becomes the weapon that Kirei uses to murder his teacher. While the irony of giving your student the weapon he uses to kill you is quite clear but it does not end there. When Kirei finishes teaching Rin he passes along Azoth to her. In turn Shiro uses the dagger to kill Kirei letting the irony go full circle. A poetic cycle to say the least.

But the betrayal that Fate/Stay Night fans knew was coming finally occurs. Kirei stabs his master in the back when Tokiomi assumes he was at his least vulnerable. Now Irisviel’s greatest fear has come to fruition. The most dangerous Master is back in the game and has one of the most powerful servants at his command and with a sickly amount of power to back that up. Everyone one else is now a target. But it seems next week will be a little break from this major game changer. It seems that the next episode will focus on Kiritsugu’s past. We get to learn how he became as cold-blooded killer he is now. You can call the next episode, “Kiritsugu is forced to murder everyone he ever loved in his childhood.” It sums it up quite nicely.

The premise of these reviews is simple: watch the first episode of a series and then immediately sit down to record a review mini-podcast. The reviews are five- to ten-minutes long and entirely off the cuff. As always we only review new shows (so no sequels or continuations) and try to avoid anything that just looks outright awful. Here are the last two from the new season:

RSS Feed     -     iTunes Feed

Listen – Episode 1 of Arashi no Yoru ni from Group TAC with the opening ”Friendship Birthday” by Sea☆A.

Listen – Episode 1 of Hyouka from Kyoto Animation with the opening ”Reason of Kindness” by Chouchou.

SPOILERS FOR FATE/STAY NIGHT AND FATE/ZERO

While there is a good deal of Sayre’s law styled controversy surrounding the Aniblog Tourney, I do find that it can a show you a previously unseen segment of the anime and manga blogosphere if you let it. While perusing sites that are participating in the tournament, I came upon a curious phenomenon surrounding Fate/Zero. There were several blogs that were reviewing Fate/Zero without ever experiencing the original material that Fate/Zero is a prequel to. That sort of blew my mind. But then again, it is not that hard to imagine. The Fate/Stay Night anime came out in 2006 so there is the distinct possibility that a good number of current anime fans have neither watched the original anime or played the visual novel but at the same time are interested in watching Fate/Zero cold. Like many things that fascinate me it is not that the phenomenon is that hard to imagine. What caught my attention was how it changed the way the bloggers looked at the show.

Imagine someone watching the Star Wars prequels without any knowledge of the original Star Wars trilogy (also let is not bring up the quality of the Star Wars prequels because they are irrelevant to this discussion.) This person could be theoretically shocked by events that seem run of the mill to someone who is a Star Wars veteran and conversely moments that have amazing gravitas to an old school fan might be rather run of the mill to someone who does not know what is going to come later on. Anakin Skywalker turning to the dark side might be a shocking twist to this fresh-faced viewer while the experienced fan considers this a forgone conclusion. At the same time, the introduction of R2-D2 and C-3PO is nothing more than arrival of two new characters to someone how has never seen them before. And these people exist despite the ubiquitous culture saturation of Star Wars in our culture. They tend to be very young fans when you see them at all but they do exist.

While Type-Moon hardly has the cultural presence that Star Wars does it is hardly an unknown title in the anime community. The fact that Saber is in fact King Arthur is hardly considered a grand reveal to anyone but the most die-hard spoiler guardians. That said I remember one blogger speculating on an alliance between Kirei and Gilgamesh while this is just an inevitability to anyone who has seen all of Fate/Stay Night. This alliance is now a surprise as opposed to a mere piece of back story. In fact the overall victor of the Holy Grail War might be in question to a new viewer giving this series a very different form of excitement. There is a certain amount of tension present when you think that all the horses have an equal chance to winning the race. At the same time seeing Illyasviel make the magical circle in the shed at her temporary hideout has a tremendous weight that would be completely lost as they have no knowledge of Shiro’s adventures. Likewise there is no cognitive dissonance between Shiro description of Kiritsugu and who he is in Fate/Zero. While two people may enjoy Fate/Zero with foreknowledge or lack thereof of the orignal work it still changes the way you experience the series.

I would quickly like to state that I am not some horrible elitist about this. I don’t feel you have obliged to read the original visual novel before you are deemed worth of watching Fate/Zero. In fact this whole incident has only made me more curious about how new fans feel about the series when this in their entry point. I would love to see someone watch all of Fate/Zero and then follow through to play the visual novel and see how they react to that in turn. Their reaction to Sakura and Rin’s storylines alone would be fascinating. A whole conversation about that would make a great podcast. That said if anyone is watching Fate/Zero cold I am curious what your reactions are when the season is over.

Drink #028: The Portal Two
A Talk About Sequels, Re-tellings,
and Extended Universes

Inspired by the new season of shows that include a new Lupin III, more Eureka Seven, and newbie-friendly Saint Seiya, we jump into a discussion about anime which expand their settings or characters over time. Not every series is written in a way to extend it into an ongoing franchise so when a series is ridiculously popular the creators usually have to work some major mojo to be able to create new material. The simplest way it to create a sequel or a prequel but you can’t always do that especially when a story has a very hard beginning, middle, and end. Sometimes they must find a way to retell the same story with a new twist. Other times they explore different parts of the universe they created away from or only tangentially related to the original story. This podcast focuses on what works and what does not when you expand on a story. Also we give our secret wish list to what stories we would love to see more of.

RSS Feed     -     iTunes Feed

(Listen)

And now your helpful bartenders at The Speakeasy present your drink:

The Portal Two

• Blue Curacao
• Vodka Lemonade 
• Cointreau Rum 
• Orangina

“This drink is, of course, designed to resemble the two coloured portals from the excellent sci-fi puzzle game. For the blue version, get a small tumbler and pour in 10ml of Blue Curacao, 10ml of vodka and top up with lemonade. For orange you’ll need another tumbler, this time filled with 10ml of Cointreau, 10ml of rum and Orangina. If you fancy, you can jazz the glasses up with coloured sugar rims. Simply pour some sugar into a sandwich bag with the relevant food colouring, shake them up, pour the resulting mix into a dish and dip your tumbler in. “You can mix the portals together if you like,” says James. “It’s a very orangey flavour, which we thought tied in with The Orange Box, the compilation in which the original Portal appeared.”

This is an episode the brings home the true nature of some of the major players in Fate/Zero. It will solidify your opinion of some characters. If you thought certain people were horrible, cruel, naive, and/or noble than all doubts will be cleared away. Other people who you maybe have been sympathetic towards or felt conflicted about their motives will no longer give you a feeling that is quite so on the fence. And other people you admired might not have you looking at them the same way after this episode. But no matter what your opinion you see what happens when push comes to shove, and all the chips are on the line, what these characters have inside of them. No matter what you will find that you will have an opinion about the members of Team Lancer and Team Saber.

Can some one give Sola-Ui a hand because she sure needs one? OK. Bad puns aside we see that Sola-Ui is clearly a bit unhinged. As she revels in Lancer’s victory the obsessive nature of her twisted love for Diarmuid is all too clear. Her love is a sickly green flame that burns bright but is toxic. But she is so wrapped up in her bliss that she does not see that Maiya has found an unprotected Master. And so Maiya proceeded to lob off her arm and takes an extremely valuable prisoner. Maiya is careful to obliterate Sola-Ui‘s remaining command seals and uses the arm as a message, “We have your woman now Kayneth.” If nothing else you have to admire the ruthless efficiency of Kiritsugu and Maiya. My only question is how did Maiya get a woman with one arm recently chopped off out of the building while she herself is covered in blood. But I suppose that is a question that we mainly ignore for story convenience. I am sure you could come up with an answer but is it really worth going into?

This is a rather short scene but one that provided a major revelation for me (but not necessarily anyone else). Kirei simply drops off Kariya, who he just healed, and heads of into the night with nothing but questions in his head. That in itself is simple enough. Kirei is curious as to why he has helped someone who is more than likely to be a major nuance later in the war when up until now everything he has done has been ruthlessly efficient. Up until this point I always assumed that Kirei was the ruthless monster we see in Fate/Stay Night with his true ambitions laying in wait to be revealed. But this incident clearly shows that he is still not that man yet. He is ACTUALLY someone who thinks he is on the side of the angels but wonders deep down what is wrong with himself. The seeds of the monster that would be the true villain of Fate/Stay Night are all here but that have not yet matured as he still keeps many internal restrictions on himself. The Holy Grail War is the trigger that sent him into a larval state that will let him transform himself into a corrupted butterfly by the end.

It might have been possible to have some amount of sympathy for Kayneth before this point. Sure he was full of pride, arrogance, ruthlessness, and even some sickening prejudices but there were things that made him have flaws you might be able to relate to. His unrequited love for Sola-Ui or his recent gilgul and permanent paralyzation might engender people to feel sorry for him. But any points of sympathy me might have earned quickly disappear in this episode. After he gets his new command symbol for Lancer’s role in defeating Caster he murders Risei in cold blood so the priest cannot give out any more Command Seals. He then returns to his base and tears into Lancer blaming anything and everything on his servant. He is clearly taking out his feelings as a worthless lover and Master out on his only remaining ally but this rationalization does not mean it is any less pathetic. But his tirade is ended by an unexpected intruder.  As a side note: In the novel it is mentioned that an unnamed master of puppetry magic was hired to get Kayneth moving around. Hardcore Type-Moon fans will recognize this as a subtle reference to Kara no Kyoukai’s Touko Aozaki. I assume they will mention that in an extra scene when they release the season two box set. I do wonder if we will get a quick glimpse of owner of the Garan no Dou if they add that scene.

Saber and Irisviel arrive to challenge Lancer. At first Lancer is perplexed. Saber should be spent with her power is mostly drained from using Excalibur. But as Saber explains this is exactly why she came. Everyone is drained after the fight with Caster. Lancer is equally drained so they are on a level playing field and anyone who would normally interfere is resting up so they can finally truly fight one on one.  And so they fight with almost a gleefully joy. When Lancer notices that Saber is not using her left hand to honor Lancer’s sacrifice during the battle with Caster he is moved by her chivalry. Though they are fighting to the death they are both fighting a person they respect and admire. They are honorable souls engaged in a glorious duel. The type of story that epics are made of. That is what makes what happens next even more heartbreaking. I suppose the upcoming tragedy is also what epics are made of.

As we saw from the last episode more than any other Kiritsugu is a master plotter and expert schemer. And so his real plan in unveiled. While Lancer is distracted he offers Kayneth a deal. If he commands Lancer to kill himself he will promise to allow his opponent and his fiancée safe passage. He even adds in the safety net of a magical pledge to not harm them on top of everything. Kayneth is clearly conflicted but in the end a mixture of cowardice and concern for Sola-Ui win out. He is trapped and no matter how painful it seems to take the dishonorable way out it is his only remaining option. Kiritsugu devil’s deal has a sinister sweetness to its horrible betrayal. But it also has all the tragedy you associate with a deal with the devil as well.

Lancer’s death is clearly one of the most tragic events that has occurred so far. Lancer was the most poplar character in recent polls. His charm, honor, and class won him a legion of fans. And that is what makes his betrayal all the more heartbreaking. He participated in the war for a chance to regain his honor but all he was given was betrayal. Betrayed by his Master, his Master’s fiancée, and seemingly by his one boon companion. He dies like a dog with a mixture of madness and misery engulfing his soul. And so he dies cursing everyone around him. Then the final betrayal comes. While Kiritsugu can do nothing against Lancer’s Masters that does not mean that anyone else is not free to act. And so a sniper rifle quickly finishes off the two injured Masters. Kiritsugu proves that he does what needs to be done no matter what the cost. I do have to wonder what this impact will have on a meta level. Will Lancer’s tragic end cement his place in fandom? Will this throw either fuel or sand on the fires of Lancer/Saber shipping? How many people will love Kiritsugu for his ruthless efficiency and how many people will not forgive him? How many people will see Saber as justified and how many will see her as childishly naive? This sort of reaction for fandom always interests me (although it often also perplexes or infuriates me as well).

Saber and Kiritsugu hardly got along at the best of times but at least they had a crude but dysfunctional working relationship with Irisviel playing peacemaker. But Kiritsugu plan has turned a bad situation to one in critical meltdown. Kiritsugu is clearly a pragmatist that clearly believes that the end justifies the means and that the good of the one is outweighed by the good of the many. Saber clearly believes in honor and compassion above all else. The problem is both of them have so encased themselves in their ideals to protect their hearts that they can no longer understand anything else. But Kiritsugu is clearly playing the long game and has long since decided that any and all sacrifices are acceptable. Everyone is a tool for his ideal (and what Saber does not realize is that includes himself). All Saber knows is that her Master is a ruthless man who crushed the honor of a brave man and slaughtered a pair of despicable but helpless dupes. Neither of them is really listening to the other. They are just shouting their philosophies at the uncaring world hoping that something makes sense. And so the gap between their hearts only grows wider. I will mention this does mark one of the three times he talks to Saber not using Irisviel as a note passing service.

Once Kiritsugu leaves we see that Irisviel did not play mediator as much in the argument not because she had nothing to say but because she was barely standing. It seems that the death of two more Servants in one night has hit her hard. If the energy of one servant greatly weakened her than two more has surely torn her asunder. The beast known as tragedy ate well this night but it has only whet his appetite as opposed to satiating it.

The most interesting thing about the philosophical battle at the end of this episode is how much it will go on to influence Fate/Stay Night. The few glimpses of Kiritsugu we see from Fate/Stay Night show that he clearly regrets his emotionless ruthlessness from his battle here. In many way he spends the short amount of time he has after the events of Fate/Zero trying to repent for the cold calculus he enacts here. In fact Shiro only seems to embrace the most fanatically idealistic parts of his adoptive father’s search for redemption. At the same time Saber seems to embrace much of Kiritsugu pragmatic stone hearted nature when she returns in the 5th Holy Grail War. The conclusion of this argument and the lessons learned are highly dependent of the path chosen in the Visual Novel. But it is clear not matter which path you choose that both Saber and Kiritsugu are both too fanatical as they are here. The paths they currently embrace dogmatically cling to ways of thinking that crush their options and their dreams.  As they cling to these paths Lancer’s final curse only creeps closer and closer to fruition.

From well-known documentary filmmaker Morgan Spurlock (you’ll probably know him best as the guy who did Super Size Me), comes a look into the biggest geek convention in the U.S., San Diego Comic-Con. A Fan’s Hope follows a few different people through the convention which wasn’t abundantly clear in the trailer I saw but now after seeing it, the title makes much more sense. There is a lot more of a personal journey to this documentary than a real focus on the con as a whole and its development and history. While that wasn’t exactly what I was hoping for, the film isn’t a disappointment but more an incomplete tale.

Unlike some other films, Morgan is only behind the camera for this one, which is a shame since he would have been the perfect person to give us tidbits of information and bring context to scenes. The people we do follow are generally interesting if not experts on the con. Two artists trying to go pro, a comic book dealer who hasn’t had a good year for profits, a costume sculptor wanting to show off her skills, a toy collector on the hunt, and a couple where the guy is going to pop the question make up our merry band.

Equal attention wasn’t given to everyone, sometimes this was good (the couple), sometimes this was bad (the artist from the military), but most of all it felt like they should have cut back on the group as a whole or make the film longer. Though the public proposal I could have done without altogether, it makes me so uncomfortable! And I had gotten a little worried about the guy since his girlfriend seemed attached to his hip. Interspersed between these stories are celebrities saying a line or two or telling a story about the convention and these were a lot of fun. Kevin Smith does an especially good job while telling a story about what would happen if his now self could travel back and visit his 11-year-old self.

This film is a celebration of fandom, it is not an expose, but it really needed to be a bit of both.

I did not realize that this was a Morgan Spurlock documentary until after I saw it. Or I should more precisely say that I did not realize Morgan Spurlock was also the same director as Super Size Me until after I watched the movie. As a long-term nerd I can’t say that I learned anything particularly shocking about Comic-Con as a whole. It is distinctly more of a celebration of Comic-Con and a look at how it affects certain people rather than an in-depth expose of the grand mechanisms behind the convention.

If you’re looking for parts on Twilight fanatics vs. Comic nerds or the sickly side of the cosplay community you won’t find it here. They do touch on the fact that the convention had become much more of a general media con than a solely comic focused event though the eyes of one of the oldest remaining comic sellers but even that is mostly played as a positive. The real meat of the documentary was the experiences of the people who attended the con. You had the collector, the cosplay girl, and the dealer among others. Their stories were all interesting. The Mass Effect cosplay group was undoubtedly skilled. That animatronic Krogan outfit was a marvel. You cannot see that outfit and not be impressed. (You can but your mostly just a jerk who likes to pat themselves on the back for how “worldly” they are).

But the most interesting stories were the two men trying to get professional jobs in the comics industry while attending Comic-Con. It was a good look at someone who makes it and someone who was clearly not ready. I wish they had focused a little more on the artist who got a job through the event. As a married man in the military I felt he really contrasted the image of the lonely super spaz you associate with comic fandom. He was clearly seriously into comics with the skills to back up that love but I felt he was a fascinating example of the diversity of the community. The gentleman who was rejected was also compelling. As someone who has never taken rejection well his story hit very close to home even if he dealt with his setbacks with a good amount of grace.

The real question this documentary answers is why do people go to Comic-Con. It is a wonderful examination of what makes people come back year after year and why the convention has become the phenomenon it has. I am coincidentally listening to the Freakonomics audio book. Since Spurlock worked on the film based on that book I might give that a look soon as well.

Kekkaishi vol. 30 sets us on the road to the finale. Yoshimori comes face to face with Karasumori and begins the training needed to seal him away. It has a very melancholy feel since getting to this goal means leaving other things behind. It is also really disappointing to imagine Tokine not appearing in this arc as pivitol character so I’m hoping that will change. While Yoshimori’s mother has appeared, we still know little about her, and if you thought Masamori was a suspicious character, their mother is even more so.

The Moon Moth is strange by the fact that how the book presents itself and how it reads are very different.

The book is billed as a science fiction murder mystery and none of this is incorrect per say. It takes places in a future with interplanetary travel and ray guns. There is an assassin and the protagonist has to discover who he is. But the book plays out much more like a fantasy book that is about a stranger in a strange land learning to play a very alien game of manners. The world building just has a vibe that is more consistent with a fantasy novel than science fiction. The masks, the games of manners, and the musical elements to conversations all feel more at home in a fantasy story than anything else.

It’s not that science fiction could not toy with any of these tools to tell a story but the presentation feels like something I would see from George R. R. Martin rather than Robert Heinlein. Also the story is much more the story of a foreigner making many mistakes with an extremely formalized culture where the wrong bit of social faux paux can lead to your death.

When Edwer Thissell discovers who the assassin is it has less to do with you solving it along with him and more to do with the story demonstrating how he is getting a hang of the complex rules of this Byzantine social hierarchy. It was a very odd story. I can’t say I loved it but I do feel it was an unusual read. I think the uneven pacing does hold the story back a bit as the engaging parts of the story sit in between slower parts that seem to spin their wheels. But it is a story that translates well into a comic and does not feel like a story you have read before.

That unusual flavor alone might be why you check it out. Just realize what sort of story it is.

I will admit to knowing nothing of the source material on which The Moth Moon is based. I agree with Hisui that the description of this book is rather misleading especially the mystery element. If you’re going to call it a mystery, I expect to be able to follow along and make some sort of at least mild deduction.

In the Moth Moon, all of Thissell’s research is done off page or in a montage without words so we don’t know what he learns. His big reveal is equally difficult to follow because despite his evidence we don’t get to know the characters or their masks much prior to it. Thissell himself has just come to this planet and is slowly learning its very foreign customs, but I really couldn’t tell you much about him. He is either a genius beyond measure or the luckiest man based on the final conclusion.

I talked about the bonus stories on the Fate/Zero Blu-Ray Box 1 last week but not the actual content of the show itself. The other big selling point of the box set was that each episode had unaired footage. I guess the real question is what does this new footage add. Well for one thing I can say that I almost always noticed the bits they added so it is not like additions were so inconsequential that if you blink you miss them. They definitely have substance.

They come in three types. The first are scenes they were edited for gore. Usually a scene where a kid was being murder was edited in the TV you can now see in full graphic detail. The second type was a bit of expanded dialog to certain scenes. The third were a few minor linking scenes.

The problem is they all feel like too much like the minor scenes. While they often add a bit of additional flavor or emphasis but none of them add any major revelations. You distinctly get the idea that all these scenes were cut to move things along. If you are one of those people who gets very angry whenever an adaptation removes even the smallest amount of nuance you will love these cut scenes. But at the same time if you already thought the show was a bit too talky than these scenes will only add to that feeling.

I liked them but I have a feeling for most people they are hardly something they need to hunt down with extreme prejudice.

The Ongoing Investigations are little peeks into what we are watching and reading outside of our main posts on the blog. We each pick three things that we were interested in a week and talk a bit about them. There is often not much rhyme or reason to what we pick. They are just the most interesting things we saw since the last Ongoing Investigation.

The premise of these reviews is simple: watch the first episode of a series and then immediately sit down to record a review mini-podcast. The reviews are five- to ten-minutes long and entirely off the cuff. As always we only review new shows (so no sequels or continuations) and try to avoid anything that just looks outright awful. Here are 7 more from the new season:

RSS Feed     -     iTunes Feed

Listen – Episode 1 of Natsuiro Kiseki from Sunrise with the opening “Non stop road” by Sphere.

Listen – Episode 1 of Kids on the Slope from MAPPA and Tezuka Productions with the opening “Sakamichi no Melody” by YUKI and is streaming on Crunchyroll.

Listen – Episode 1 of Eureka Seven: AO from Bones with the ending “Stand by me” by Stereopony.

Listen – Episode 1 of Tsuritama from A-1 Pictures with the opening ”Tsurezure Monochrome” by FUJIFABRIC and is streaming on Crunchyroll.

Listen – Episode 1 of Jormungand from  White Fox with the opening “Borderland” by Mami Kawada and is streaming on Funimation.

Listen – Episode 1 of Dusk Maiden of Amnesia from SILVER LINK with the opening “CHOIR JAIL” by Konomi Suzuki and is streaming on Crunchyroll.

Listen – Episode 1 of Ginga e Kickoff!! from TYO Animations with the opening “Across my world” by knotlamp.

I told you there would be a new version of Sword of Promised Victory and I was correct. That can only mean one thing. It is time for Excalibur to get busted out in this episode. While we have had some great fights before this and even saw one Servant taken down this really feels like the first time things have gotten serious. We are solidly in the third act. When Assassin went out it was more to show that Rider was a serious threat. This riverside battle is where we really get to see the nitty gritty of the remaining Servants and Masters competing for the Grail. There is no turning back now.

The three way battle continues as the heroic trio continue to lose ground to Caster’s towering mass of corrupt calamari. At the same time a magical Top Gun plays out in the sky on one front while an experienced master goes up against a powered up neophyte on the other. As these battle intersect the first true and derisive battle (that is not utterly one-sided) in fought in the 4th Holy Grail War. Another servant will fall bringing the match closer to its bloody conclusion.

Try as they might Caster’s summoned creature cannot be killed with poke damage. They soon realize that then need some way to magically nuke all of Caster in one shot or else they will all lose. At that point two people step up to the plate. Rider calls everyone together. He can trap Caster in his Noble Phantasm for a short amount of time in hopes that everyone left outside can find an answer because it is clear that if they keep doing what they are doing they are going to be slaughtered and anyone who survives will have to deal with an even more powerful Caster. Soon after that the Leon Silverberg of Fate/Zero whips out a plan via cell phone to end this battle once and for all.

There is something to be said for experience. Kariya might have a righteous cause and sacrificed so much to gain to gain power in a short amount of time but in the end it is all for naught. Tokiomi’s experience just puts him of a level that is too high for Kariya to reach. He might have also done better if he played some Pokemon and knew that bug types are weak against fire types. Much like the Assassin beat down this fight is over almost as quickly as it began. After Tokiomi shields himself as he effortlessly sets his opponent on fire and watches him fall off the building in agony. Tokiomi swatted away Kariya as he would a troublesome mosquito. At first it seems that Kariya is done for but he still has a little life in him but clearly no more fight.

Kiritsugu relays his plan to his allies via an awesome brick like 80′s cell phone. In this plan everyone has a role to play. Kiritsugu himself will go out and position himself on the water to show Rider where to drop Caster in the bay. This will set the stage so Saber can unleash her trump card that will vaporize this menace once and for all. But that requires Lancer to break one of his Nobel Phantasms to lift the curse on Saber so she can use both hands again. Saber and Lancer have a bit of a tit for tat with their honor but the greater good of stopping Caster wins out over their pride. Goodness. Any pixiv search will show that people were already shipping Lancer and Saber like crazy. This little scene is surely on going to throw rocket fuel on those flames. There is the grand reveal of Excalibur as she drops Invisible Air but before she can get into position a certain interrupting cow decides to stop on in even though he is uninvited.

While all of this was going to Berserker and Gilgamesh were having a dogfight on the highway to the danger zone. Gilgamesh has quickly positioned himself on Berserker’s six and it seems that the mad knight has little to let him fight back as he cannot easily attack anything on his rear. But when Kariya is down for the count it seems that Berserker quickly stops working on the mission his Master gave him and immediately tuns his attention towards his favored target of Saber. When Gilgamesh pops up right behind his obsessed opponent he gets a face full of enchanted chaff. I suppose Berserker had a remaining trick up his sleeve. But that means the Black Knight is now free to interfere with Kiritsugu’s plan. Thankfully an unlikely duo step in to provide Saber cover. Lancer logically steps in and trashes the possessed F-15  but that is not enough to stop the determined Berserker. As he falls to the earth he grabs an intact Vulcan cannon and is about to open fire when the King of Heroes provides the more unexpected back up. I have to say as much of a bother as he is Berserker is always cool in what ever he does.

While the crazed servants runs roughshod by the water his Master is in mortal peril.  At first it seems that Kirei is going to step in and finish the job his ally started. But then almost in-spite of himself the church assassin finds himself healing the helpless magi. It is clear that more and more Kirei is unsure of his motivations but is clearly on the road to his ultimate path of betrayal as the man we know from Fate/Stay Night. But for now his transformation is still in the larval stages. Still the amusing irony of Kirei’s infinity for healing magic is in clear view when we see his technique for patching up his patient. Kirei was clearly never taught that palm strikes to the chest are not a part of good beside manner.

With all obstacles cleared Saber can finally end this boss fight once and for all. She gathers up the energy for her anti-fortress attack as all the participants comment on this divine strike. It is a little cheesy but it put a good deal of weight on the power of Excalibur. I have to say I enjoy the new vocal component to the Sword of Promised Victory. I am very curious what the lyrics are to the remix. But chorus aside when Caster is hit by the light of the lake even his eldritch abomination cannot regenerate from the deviation. Just before Caster is vaporized he sees Joan of Arc welcoming him. Dedicated Type-Moon fans will notice that Joan’s character design is the same as when it first introduced in Fate/Apocrypha. While they unsuccessfully try to give Caster a bit more of a sympathetic light in his final moments I was glad he at least was struck by the immorality of what brought him to this place.

And so we shall see another visitor to the Einzbern Consultation Room soon enough as Caster joins the fallen. The episode ends with Rider and Archer exchanging words on the battle they have seen. Rider’s opinion of Saber has not changed. While he still thinks she is powerful and honorable he notes that she has still not moved off of her path of self-destruction. But to Gilgamesh that only makes her more attractive. After a bit of mutual poking both Servants decide to call it a day as they are both quite worn from their respective battles. And so Gilgamesh proves that he truly is the King of Creepy Non-Consensual Sex more than King of Heroes. Ick.

A nice conclusion to the promise made last season. Caster is finally down and out and the Church and the Mage’s Association will surely have their hands filled trying to cover this all up. While most of the participants in the battle parted on good terms that truce they had is surely over now that this is done. If nothing else Gilgamesh will show no mercy for anyone else who crosses his path. At the same time Irisviel is getting weaker as more servants die. If she was not feeling well after Assassin died she is surely going to start falling to pieces now that Caster has been dealt with as well. So while it seems that things are looking up for Saber it seems that she might be losing as much as she gains. Plus as much as it was Saber who dealt the finishing blow on Caster it truly was a group effort so I assume there will be a bit of conflict over who gets the additional command seal. Sometimes winning a battle means more than you have staved off losing the war than you have moved towards a final victory.

My roommate bought the hideously expensive Fate/Zero Season 1 box set. For this I am very grateful as there is no way I could afford that. So we sat down to watch the special features the first of which is the Please! Einzbern Consultation Room. I was super excited because these were written by Kinoko Nasu himself just for the box set.

We were in for a rude awakening when we discovered that the $369.98 box set did not bother to sub the Consultation Room episodes. That was certainly aggravating. But eventually we were able to find some subs of the skits but those REALLY should have been included for the price the set went for.

That bit of anger aside the Please! Einzbern Consultation Room is a pleasant little distraction along the lines of the science lessons from Gunbuster. Irisviel and her amnesiac student Zeccchan (who clever people just might recognize as a younger version of someone they know) go over little details about the Holy Grail War that fill in details that might not have been clear in the TV series proper as well as expand on some ideas only hinted at in the show. The Consultation Room proper only starts in the third episode were they talk to Assassin and get a bit of back story on him while they “help” him with his psychological issues.

The part where the two consultants circle around Assassin like in the infamous scene where Risei and Tokiomi stroll in a circle around Kirei was priceless.

The end of the third episode clearly indicated that the next box set would have more consultation sessions with the Servants to die in the next half as well.

Overall it was a fun trio of omake episodes. It was really only for the hardcore fan who wants all the little details but that is why you put episodes like this on the collectors edition box sets. Still Irisviel is filled with a warm charming grace so the more we see of her the better. I cannot wait to step into the consultation room again. It is just a shame that I had to go to less than legitimate means to experience that fun.

The eagerly awaited second season of Game of Thrones has finally started.

The first episode starts with a seemingly huge recap of the previous events proving just how much happened in ten episodes. Our story restarts closely to the end of the last, everyone reeling from upsets in power and the arrivals of a handful of self-proclaimed kings. The introductions of Stannis, Davos, and Melisandre The Red Witch are welcome. But I find the actress of Melisandre is not what I pictured at all and she doesn’t exude the intensity of the character.

With new characters also came new pieces of the opening map which is brilliant every single time you watch.

The first episode is brief in showing some of the most interesting pieces of the story, sadly, like Jon on the Wall, Arya traveling the road, and Daenerys seeking out for land. There is plenty of Tyrion though which is nothing to be sad about.

The story starts to change in episode two, I can really see a lot of decisions being made to make the epic more linear for ease being brought in. The second episode was full of surprises thanks to it. Sansa hasn’t appeared much which is a blessing since she spends most of this book being beaten down. They also seemed to have reined in Arya a bit on her violent tendencies, not sure how I feel about that.

While I am the huge Type-Moon fan my roommate is the real Persona fan. That means that we watched the Persona 4 anime every week without fail. It is a fairly dedicated if slightly truncated adaptation of the original game. Most of the time they go out of their way to at least summarize all the events of the game. Other times they combine events to streamline things. It works about as often as it fails but you can’t say they were not faithful to the source material.

I will say they play their red herrings pretty well with the overall major mystery. The big culprit is subtly hinted at without every making the answer too obvious. The only problem is the killer’s grand motivation is a bit random and evil to be evil. But the mystery is solid and that is what counts.

There are three endings to the original game. A very bad ending they skipped and a normal ending that they ended the TV series on. But as I predicted half way through the TV series if you want the true ending that explains all the details and reveals the ultimate mastermind you have to buy the box set for the extra episode included. It is clearly an effort to sell the DVDs and one that I just KNEW they were going to do when I learned there was a more complete ending.

The ending of the TV series was fairly satisfying but anyone who played the game and got the true ending clearly is waiting to see that. Considering how closely they stuck to the formula of the game (sometimes to the shows’ detriment) they clearly made the anime with people who played the game as their target audience. When the bonus episode is cheesecake or a little extra is does not feel as much of a money grab as when it is the finale of a series. I understand their decision to make the real ending separate but that does not mean I have to like it.

I must mention how much I am enjoying re-reading Sailor Moon. With volume 4 we finally have the reveal of who Chibi-Usa is and everyone travels to the thirtieth century in a beautiful sequence. As always time travel is something you can’t think too hard about. We also get the introduction of one of my favorite characters, Sailor Pluto, who is unique in her guardianship. Since we are missing Rei and Ami who have already been kidnapped by the enemy we get to see more of Makoto. Sprinkled at the end is the foreshadowing of Black Lady.

Someone finally subbed the full release of the Hayate no Gotoku! Heaven is a Place on Earth +99 movie. I watched the original cut when it came out with volume 31 of the manga but the official Blu-ray release has 7 minuets at the beginning that provide a little extra set up.

Overall they were a few cute bits mostly with Nagi although you actually get to see Ruka speak in the extended footage as opposed to just performing on stage during the opening credits. As opposed to Persona 4 true ending I think this is what extra material should be. Good extra elements enriches the original material but does not fell like it was solely cut to get a bit more of your money.

I will mention that watching the movie again in Blu-ray  was nice and let me appreciate the little moments of the film more including one MAJOR but subtle plot point I missed the first time. I totally did not fully understand who the ghost was the first time I saw the movie. I actually felt slightly foolish that I missed that reveal of her identity the first time I saw the movie but I am glad I noticed it this time. In my defense they never name her outright in the movie but it was still a little embarrassing. Still it was nice to be able to go back at catch it the second time. It distinctly made re-watching the movie worthwhile.

The French short animated film Frangin follows the story of a young boy trying to send messages to his brother who has left the family house for the battlefield. The style is more fine illustration giving the edges a soft quality while incorporating brilliant colors where needed. I enjoyed how the memories intersected with the present. However, the film has a shocking sad ending that I wasn’t fond of.

The Ongoing Investigations are little peeks into what we are watching and reading outside of our main posts on the blog. We each pick three things that we were interested in a week and talk a bit about them. There is often not much rhyme or reason to what we pick. They are just the most interesting things we saw since the last Ongoing Investigation.

The premise of these reviews is simple: watch the first episode of a series and then immediately sit down to record a review mini-podcast. The reviews are five- to ten-minutes long and entirely off the cuff. As always we only review new shows (so no sequels or continuations) and try to avoid anything that just looks outright awful. Here are 6 more from the new season:

RSS Feed     -     iTunes Feed

Listen – Episode 1 of Saint Seiya Omega from Toei Animation with the opening ”Pegasus Fantasy ver.Ω” by MAKE-UP w/ Shoko Nakagawa and is streaming on Crunchyroll.

Listen – Episode 1 of Lupin III: The Woman Called Fujiko Mine from Po10tial and TMS Entertainment with the opening “New Wuthering Heights” by Naruyoshi Kikuchi and is streaming on Nico Nico.

Listen – Episode 1 of Polar Bear Cafe from Pierrot with the opening “Boku no Invitation” by JP and is streaming on Crunchyroll.

Listen – Episode 1 of Gakkatsu from Fanworks and the NHK.

Listen – Episode 1 of Kuroko’s Basketball from Production I.G with the opening “Can Do” by GRANRODEO and is streaming on Crunchyroll.

Listen – Episode 1 of Accel World from Sunrise with the opening ”Chase the world” by May’n and is streaming on Hulu.

Anyone who keeps up to date with anime and manga news knows that the last few years have been rough. The anime and manga bubble both burst and we have seen several major companies as well as dozens of minor companies go under in the U.S. Even the companies that survived have become a good deal more selective in their offerings.

While they still take chances they are mostly sticking to what they know sells. In the manga world Vertical, Inc. operates a bit outside the norm with licensing decisions. It tends to pick up older prestige titles and newer off beat titles than the other manga licensing companies. But with a careful selection process and effective niche marketing they turn titles that would be utter failures into money makers. They do not sell like Naruto but they often make a tidy little profit. It might not seem that impressive but to most people it is like turning straw into gold.

We here at the Reverse Thieves often wondered in the past could an anime company take the same strategy and use it in the anime market. There are some older series that still have a small but dedicated fandom that would happily buy an English release of vintage titles. You would just have to be smart in which titles you pick up and how you release them. It turns out that Discotek is that company in the anime market.

While licensing the unexpected aligns Discotek and Vertical, Inc., their strategies when it comes to the market are different. Unlike Vertical whose eclectic library is not (generally) aimed specifically at manga fans, Discotek seems to have their sights set on old school anime fans in particular. Sure old school anime fans are a niche in a niche, but they also seem to be the ones willing to put their money where their mouth is. Everyone’s practically pledged allegiance to the empire that is Discotek already; people only half-joking there should be a subscription service because they’d buy everything Discotek are releasing.

It seems that Discotek is the most exciting company currently releasing anime!

When Discotek first came onto the scene their strategy seemed rather off beat. When everyone else was trying to get the new big thing and avoiding anything over a decade old they seemed to be mining the back catalog. In the past with a few very notable exceptions this strategy seemed to be nothing more than a guarantee for failure. Picking up titles like Animal Treasure Island and Taro the Dragon Boy seemed like a crazy scheme to make money by going out of business like the The Producers. But over time their strategy became clear.

They picked up cheaper older titles that had successful legitimate releases back in the day. A movie like Animal Treasure Island had a theatrical release when it first came out years ago and a series like Fist of the North Star still has a small but dedicated fan following. They are selling shows to older fans who already have a history of paying for the show they are interested in.

This built-in fan base for their licenses with a boutique shop sized print run helps make their choices a success. Backing up their catalog with some Japanese B-movies and pink films helps them maintain a solid base of small but constant output. That is what makes their most recent acquisition even more usual.

To call Fist of the North Star fans “dedicated” is rather an understatement! Still its history in the states has been less than stellar, but here comes Discotek making it work! (Now if only we could get the manga.) And their willingness to pick up long series is another piece of elation. Things like Galaxy Express 999 and Captain Harlock TV series seemed impossible dreams.

So once we were all on board with the strategy, Discotek surprises us again with their most recent license. While any other company picking up a mid-range title like Lovely Complex would be just any other day (though I’d still be totally stoked about it!) when Discotek announced it I thought “that is a weird show for them.” Just look at their recently catalog, all things banking on nostalgia and/or a love for the classic and retro. Sure, Love*Com is one of the best romance comedies in recent memory, but how will it fare with their goals?

Perhaps the answer is Discotek has proven themselves to the older fans, now its time to grab the attention of others.

I have to say that Lovely Complex in an unusual direction they have gone in but I think it might determine the future direction of their licenses. So far Discotek has picked up titles with either a shonen or gender neutral quality that have a long-established fanbase. This trip into both shojo and with a modern title is an interesting approach. This is an excellent test to see if they can expand their business model to accommodate other types of shows.

Their license rescue of D.N. Angel was definitely a step towards this but Lovely Complex is the full plunge. If this is successful it might open up the doors to other niche shows getting released. Especially since shojo anime is generally considered sales poison expect for a small handful of exceptions. But then again that is what everyone said about older titles.

That ability to defy conventional wisdom is what makes Discotek a fan favorite.

I had forgotten about D.N. Angel and goodness I don’t know why they picked that up. Still if there is a company that is going to turn its attention to the wide range of shojo anime that is virtually unlicensed, then I’ll be even happier with them than I am already!

Discotek is combining the lower price / stripped down release strategy but making it work with a different collection of titles than other companies. I think NISA is the other company doing really interesting things with anime titles, but they are releasing higher-end sets of newer shows; and Nozomi is willing to take on a select amount of classics.

Now it is time for Discotek to be the hero of the ages, never to be forgotten, and license Legend of the Galactic Heroes.

It is good to be back. I have enjoyed the little break from episode reviews but I am now ready to start writing about Fate/Zero again. Season 1 ended just before we could dive into a grand set piece battle on the river so it is good to be back. Now that we have passed the half way mark all bets are off. The immunity people had is slowly falling away as the number of episodes go down. Someone like Rider or Tokiomi is not going to go down easily but we know they are going to die. So their battles are a bit more tense because you are not sure when they are going to die. In fact Gen Urobuchi eliminates one major character in this episode and has set up some characters in very perilous situations at the end of the episode. People will die when they are killed. The kid gloves are off. Now it is on to the beginning.

As Caster and his pet baby Elder God head to shore to kill 1d4 people per round the heroic trio of Rider, Lancer, and Saber do their best to prevent the seafood abomination from making a buffet of Fuyuki City. At the same time Team Archer and Team Berserker face off with Master vs. Master and Servant vs Servant battle royal. And while everyone is trying to kill each other Risei realizes things have gotten out of control as he has to cover up the chaos. This might soon become larger than just the Grail War.

A new season means a new opening. The new opening is by Kalafina which is a group that should be familiar to anyone who has watched the Garden of Sinner’s movies. The song is a bit more upbeat than the work that they did for the Kara no Kyoukai films but Fate/Zero has more of action than its more contemplative sibling. The new opening reflects the current status of the remaining participants of the 4th Holy Grail War. We see how everyone has either grown or suffered set backs. The most interesting thing is that we see a good deal of young Kiritsugu. This clearly means we are getting an episode about his back story as there is a lot to tell there. I wonder if we will get a similar flashback to what made Kirei who he is. That just might mean we could get a Caren Ortensia cameo. Other than that it is good to see Saber on her motorcycle in the opening. They seem to like to play that up in promo images for season 2. And I don’t mind one bit. Also the opening makes it very clear that there is a reason you don’t see Irisviel anywhere in Fate/Stay Night.

It seems like everyone’s plans are coming apart. First of all those silly pilots and their foolishness in thinking they stood a chance. They should have gone with their instincts and realized they are monster movie fodder. By the way the Giant of Light reference they make is of Adam from Evangelion. At the same time the three Servants fighting Caster quickly realize this will be harder than they thought. While they can cut the monstrosity that Caster has encased himself in easily it regenerates so quickly that they cannot cut a path to Caster’s Noble Phantasm quickly enough to make a decisive blow. While they are keeping Caster from coming ashore they are mostly stalling for time. As the battle continues more and more people are beginning to take notice and Risei knows that he cannot easily cover this up like the other incidents he has swept under the rug. I will mention that this is hardly the WORST thing that has happened to the Holy Grail War under his stewardship. He is the person who let the Grail get tainted during the 3rd Grail War which leads to all sorts of trouble. But I suppose Risei is blissfully unaware of this fact. In the sky above Fuyuki City Tokiomi is trying to get his servant to join in the battle rather unsuccessfully. His original plan to sit back and have Gilgamesh casually deliver the killing blow seems impossible and the longer he waits the more the situation is spiraling out of control. Tokiomi idea of gentle manipulation is only infuriating his servant. Not only is he in danger of losing the prize of a command seal, and getting the Mage’s Association involved, but he is also infuriating his already temperamental Servant. Another incident that only further solidifies an alliance between Gilgamesh and Kirei.

Thankfully for Tokiomi someone decides to give him a chance to end this argument when Berserker appears out of nowhere and launches an attack by turning a F-15 in his newest Nobel Phantasm. One could wonder how Berserker got up there but I just chalk that up to a simple fact that a Wizard did it (and in this series that is a valid excuse). So Archer enters a magical dog fight with the mad knight. Gilgamesh has his ancient Indian Holy flying machine  and Berserker has powered up the remaining piece of flying cannon fodder. There is some nice CG as Gilgamesh throws around weapons from the Gate of Babylon for offense and defense while Berserker throws some juju on the already impressive weaponry of his hijacked jet. Both sides seem to relish throwing out projectiles and then using telekinesis to get them to move in new directions. If we continue to get fights like this then I have no problem with the season break between episodes. Sadly this dog fights only starts to warm up in this episode.

At the same time on the ground Kariya finally gets his grudge match. Face to face with his rival he calls out Tokiomi for giving away Sakura. But Tokiomi shows nothing for disgust for this opponent. Not only does he see Kariya as a coward from running away from his responsibility as a mage but an ignoramus who does not understand how the magical world works. In his opinion giving Sakura to the Matou family was the best thing for both daughters. His choice lets both girls grow to their full potential as they grow up as rivals who each have the undisputed backing of a magical family. If Tokiomi is unaware of the depraved practices of the Matou family is unclear. He is either uniformed of the dark practices of the family that took in his daughter or is lying to himself. But it is clear that his pride as a mage will not let Tokiomi see his choice as anything but proper no matter how uncaring it might be. Either way Kariya does not care. He will never forgive a man whose foolish traditionalism would allow him to sell his daughter no matter what the reasoning. Both men only see dangerous mongrels as their opponent and will give no quarter to the other. So begins a fight between flames and insects. Kirei is watching this fight from the shadows but for now he seems all to willing to let it play out how it will.

Kiritsugu is not one to just sit on the side lines. With almost everyone participating in the fight he decides to see if he can find any targets of opportunity and he find quite a juicy target. An undefended Ryuunosuke is a simple target especially since he is the only non-magical participant in the battle. We see a little reflection from the serial killer after he is shot through the chest by the Mage Killer who then gets rid of the first Master with a brilliant head shot. I know that they want Ryuunosuke to be slightly sympathetic but it does not work. I find him far too detestable to earn him any forgiveness. Good riddance to bad rubbish. But for the Heroic Trio this has not really helped their cause. Even though Caster’s Master has been killed he is a servant that can act independently for a long time. And as long as he can consume some people with his rampaging tower of tentacles then he can remain physical indefinitely. If anything it has only made Caster more committed to his rampage now that he no longer has a soft target to protect.

The new ending song by Haruna Luna seems a bit generic to me. It is not a bad song but it seems much more like a choice to put in a singer that Sony want to promote than an effort to match a singer to the show. Also the new ending does not focus on the whole cast like the last time. This time it only focuses on Irisviel and Kiritsugu. It seems to be various scenes of their time together before the Holy Grail War as seen in the Drama CDs. It is a nice little montage that shows quite a bit of how they came to know each other without saying a word.

I have to admire the show for hitting the ground running. They could have been tempted to do some recap but with the cliff hanger they left the show on before it was wise of them to skip that. I will say that I am slightly jealous of the people at Sakura-con that got to see the first two episodes there. But I suppose there is something to be said for spreading out your happiness. I cannot wait to see these fights ramp up. Three simultaneous battles is the way to start a season right. And of course we will clearly see a remix of a certain song in the next two episodes if Kiritsugu is correct in his predictions. Excalibur!

When they finally announced a SGFiguarts Sky High from Tiger & Bunny, I was poised and ready for that pre-order; I had been waiting none too patiently. It finally arrived last week.

This is my first Figuarts purchase and I’m very happy with what I see. This looks dead-on like Sky High, I’m a real stickler for that authenticity. The paint job is flawless without a bad seam to be found. Somewhat like a Revoltech you have many hand options and other little details such as jet pack blasts as well as number of points of articulation. The possibility is good, though I did have some trouble getting his shoulder armor to stay on, after I settled on a pose I was really able to keep it. This is also thanks to a sturdy stand.

Even though this figure is on the smaller side for me, the craftsmanship makes me really happy with my choice.

I watched Another with my roommate partially because he likes horror stuff and partially because someone recommended the series as a good mystery. In a way, the series is both a horror anime and a mystery so I can discuss how those parts work individually and together.

As a horror series the plot works much like a Final Destination movie with a classmate dying every episode in some gruesome manner with an absolute bloodbath in he final two episodes. Not everyone dies like a Final Destination movie but the body count is high, the deaths near the end are gruesome, and some serious sacrifices are made. In that regard, the series pretty much gives you what you want.

The mystery is decent. I have a feeling that some people are going to find the identity of the ghostly classmate as brilliant and others are going to pass it off as a bit of a cheat. I think parts of the reveal have clues pointing to them and other parts are pretty much a surprise. The show does not cheat by say making the extra student someone you never saw but it is a bit of a major misdirection. I was glad they brought up and then quickly disapproved most of the super common twists you would have expected about the extra student early on.

My only real complaint is that one person essentially has a ghost detector and does not mention it to anyone until the last possible second.  That was a plot convenient bit of withholding information.

Overall all it was an enjoyable little show. It is very much more a horror show than a mystery. The show revels in its deaths and mostly just plays in the detective aspect. Watch it for a horror show with a mystery element and not the other way around.

I watched the first of three documentary/commentary mash-ups of the original Star Wars trilogy, Star Wars Begins is obviously about A New Hope.

What is great about the format is that it plays like the actual first film so you are getting to watch that wonderful familiar story but interspersed are interesting tidbits, audio interviews snippets, alternate takes/audio, etc. taken from all over the place and from different stages of production and times in fandom. I learned quite a lot from the first film, for example for many drafts of the script even after they hired Sir Alec Guiness, Obi Wan was not going to be struck down by Darth.

It was a great watch so I’ll be starting on subsequent Star Wars films and I believe the guy is also working on Indiana Jones ones.

I finished the first half of Lagrange: The Flower of Rin-ne. I enjoyed it as a fluffy little show. I can’t say it was a great show but I also can’t hate it as much as other people seem to.

It delivered what it promised. Pretty girls getting in robots and fighting with some comedy and intrigue mixed in.

I am disappointed that it never delivered any more than that.Some of the intrigue with the human’s aliens allies being distinctly self-serving, the enemy being misguided but ruthless none the less, and some of the back story could have been expanded upon to give the series a wider appeal.

Instead they spend more time examining how cute Madoka, Lan, and Muginami are. They are cute. But I was fairly convinced of that fact early on. You did not have to spend so much time proving that. Also Array in the maid outfit was a joke that was worked the episode it was introduced. It sort of just becomes odd after that point.

I will probably watch the next season unless my schedule becomes really crazy. I just hope they focus a bit more on the solid bits of the plot now that they are past the half way mark. But I am not going to assume that will be the case.

I read the second issue of Justice League Dark this is one of the New 52 that has a supernatural/horror bent to it. These types of stories can easily go too far horror and then lose my interest which unfortunately I felt with Swamp Thing.

The second issue of JLD holds my attention though, it is toeing the line nicely. It also is pushing a character driven story so far which excites me. Our group has yet to form into the JLD but they are getting closer and closer to each other, I can feel the tension of it.

Last Exile: Fam, the Silver Wing is more tonally consistent than the original Last Exile but not anywhere near as innovative.

I think time has helped people forget the fact that the ending of Last Exile is slightly insane and somewhat out of nowhere.

What they do remember is the how different in execution the show was in general compared to anything that came before it.

Fam, the Silver Wing on the other hand takes this world and tells a much more conventionally standard anime story and uses the popular universe to couch that story. The problem not the Last Exile universe is not as shockingly unique anymore.

The show ends well if it does borrow a bit from the “Zero Requiem well” like anime does currently. The main problem is as much as other characters grow Fam is always Fam. So if you hate her then she is not going to do anything to win you over later on.

Much like Lagrange I enjoyed Fam, the Silver Wing but I felt like it could have been more. They had all the tools there to be better but they sadly did not use them. Also what is up with Claus permanently with absolutely no context to how that happened? I guess that has something to do with the Last Exile: Travelers From the Hourglass manga but it is a pretty big shock to drop in the show with no explanation.

The Ongoing Investigations are little peeks into what we are watching and reading outside of our main posts on the blog. We each pick three things that we were interested in a week and talk a bit about them. There is often not much rhyme or reason to what we pick. They are just the most interesting things we saw since the last Ongoing Investigation.