Category: Reviews

Fate/Zero S2 TV #005: Kiritsugu is Forced to Murder Everyone He Ever Loved, Part 1

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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.

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Manga of the Month: Yamada and the Seven Witches

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Yamada and the Seven Witches (山田君と7人の魔女)
by Miki Yoshikawa

As I don’t read Japanese it is extremely hard for me to be any sort of taste maker when in comes to manga. By the time I usually know about a series it is fairly in the thick of things in its run. The rare exception comes when I know to check out a series because I have enjoyed something by the author in the past so I know to keep an eye on their current work. In a previous Manga of the Month I talked about Miki Yoshikawa’s Yankee-kun to Megane-chan. It is a great comedy series but it can be hard to recommend because you are asking for someone to commit to reading 23 books. But with a new series you can read a handful of chapters and be up to date. Since Yamada and the Seven Witches started in February it is a great time to start a Miki Yoshikawa manga.

Ryu Yamada and Urara Shiraishi are as different as night and day. Ryu is a rough a tumble delinquent while Urara is the class brainiac. One day the accidentally kiss as they fall down the stairs and discover they can exchange bodies by kissing. When the student council vice president get involved with their little secret they learn that they can exchange bodies with other people as well. So the three of them restart the school’s supernatural club to figure out why this is happening. But how long can the three of them keep this under wraps?

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Rurouni Kenshin Shin Kyoto-hen Pt. 1: Battosai the Funslayer

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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.

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