Tag: Summer 2018

Summer 2018 Week 6

Summer 2018 Week 6

Island

This week, Setsuna and Rinne go on a date, and because of this, Sara and Karen decide they aren’t going to let Rinne “win.” Sara then goes on to make up some space-time distortion excuse as to why Setsuna and Rinne shouldn’t be romantically involved, but we know she’s just jealous.

Rinne also reveals to us that Setsuna isn’t the real Setsuna. While she appears to be fine with this, we were just previously told that there’s a legend that says Rinne will kill herself when the real Setsuna does happen to show up because she accepted the fake Setsuna instead.

Since this is a legend that Rinne is apparently aware of, it doesn’t really make sense for her to accept that Setsuna is a fake. I’m sure some sort of technicality will come up later on which nullifies the legend, however, so it’ll all end up fine.

Hanebado!

A badminton tournament begins this week and most of the girls seem to be on edge about their match-ups. But more importantly, the girls got new uniforms! Back to the tournament nerves, Izumi is the most concerned about her matches because this is her final year on the team.

In the first round Izumi is playing against an old middle school friend of hers who just so happens to be one of the best players in the tournament. After failing to gain the lead in the first half, Izumi comes up with a game plan for the second half.

She knows that while her opponent is highly skilled, she doesn’t have very much endurance. To take advantage of this, Izumi focuses on returning all of the volleys in order to prolong the match and wear out her opponent.

Unfortunately, despite her best efforts, Izumi loses to her friend, Nozomi.

Attack on Titan season 3

Despite how Attack on Titan episodes generally work, this week had a surprising lack of action and instead focused on two different character backstories. At the beginning of the episode we learn about Historia’s past, and honestly it didn’t make that much sense to me.

Apparently Historia never knew she was a member of the royal family until this point in time. That means that throughout all of seasons one and two, although she was in hiding and referred to her past as something important, she never actually knew why she was in hiding.

In season two there’s an episode which focuses on the relationship of Historia and Ymir and in that episode she asks Ymir if her (Historia’s) family has anything to do with why Ymir is protecting her. This interaction alone implies that Historia knows how important she is, but apparently that wasn’t the case.

The second half of the episode focused on Commander Erwin. During the episode he steps down as the commander of the Scout Regiment and appoints Hange as his successor. I would have expected Levi to be his successor, but I’m sure he has his reasons for doing things this way.

Erwin’s plan is to rescue Historia (and Eren I suppose) and make her the new Queen since the current King is just a fake. By doing this, he believes he can achieve a bloodless revolution, but that simply doesn’t seem feasible to me.

Just because Erwin, someone who has been designated a criminal by the crown, says that some random girl, Historia, is the new Queen, doesn’t mean that everything is suddenly going to be okay. Why would the people in charge accept that? Why would the civilians accept that?

Clearly all that would do is make the fighting even worse because the civilians would split up into different factions backing the opposing sides while the branches of the military continue to fight each other as well. There’s no reason to think the current regime would give up power willingly.

Erwin Smith and Dot Pixis from the anime Attack on Titan season 3
Erwin Smith and Dot Pixis

One Room second season

Yui’s arc is over and now we’re introduced to Minori Nanahashi. Before I get into what happens this week, however, I’d like to point out that I think we’re a different protagonist now. We seem to be living in a new place (without Yui) and we’re flirting with a new girl.

That said, maybe we just dumped Yui and moved away.

Anyway, Minori is the daughter of a family that owns a bathhouse that we apparently live above. I guess since that technically makes her our landlady she has access to our apartment, but the fact that she comes in and wakes us up seems like an invasion of privacy to me.

Later in the episode, Minori gets rained on and then decides to hang out in our apartment while she waits for her clothes to dry. The nerve of this girl. She then declares that we’re going to take a bath with her in the bathhouse below, so that’s probably what’s going to happen next episode.

I suppose we can accept Minori’s invitation. We did get rid of Yui after all.

Overlord III

The army of the Giant of the East attacks Carne Village on Ainz Ooal Gown’s orders. During the attack, the main force smashes their way through the front gates while a single troll comes into the village from the rear and chases Enri and Nphirea as they search for straggling civilians.

After Enri and Nphirea distract the troll for a decent amount of time, Lupisregina appears to kill the troll just before it’s able to kill Nphirea (because Lord Ainz told her to). Meanwhile, the goblin army defends the front of the village from the rest of the attacking force.

In the end we learn that the Giant of the East seems to have already been dead when the attack began. This suggests that Lord Ainz used some sort of resurrection spell on it to make it do his bidding, likely because the Giant of the East refused while still alive.

Enri and Nphirea then profess their love for one another and are invited, along with Enri’s younger sister, Nemu, to visit Lord Ainz in the Great Tomb of Nazarick.

Since Enri and Nphirea know Momonga as Lord Ainz and not Lord Momon, it will be interesting to see what part they’ll play once the world knows that Lord Ainz is planning to take over. Typically Momonga has used his Momon persona to interact with the human settlements instead.

How Not to Summon a Demon Lord

This week the gang visit a slave market in order to ask the slaver to teach Diablo how to release the enslavement collars. The slave market is a surprisingly appealing place despite it being, you know, a slave market.

However, the magic circuits holding the enslavement collars together are too tangled up for Diablo to release. This is likely due to his own magic being too complex for him to understand at this point in time. He knows how to use his magic by reflex, but once he has to think about it, he’s stumped.

We also meet Shera’s brother, Prince Keera and it seems that he used some sort of magical music that’s going to make Shera want to leave the town with him next episode. Meanwhile, Rem still has a demon lord sealed inside her and the imperial knight is sticking around too, although she doesn’t share a room and bed with the others.

Maybe one day she’ll become a true part of Diablo’s harem and join them, enslavement collar and all, but not today.

Harukana Receive

Haruka and Kanata win their first match of the tournament by tiring out their opponents, Ai and Mai, much like Izumi attempted to do in this week’s episode of Hanebado! Unfortunately for them, that’s as far as they got in the tournament, as they lost their next match off-screen.

Claire and Emily won the tournament as expected and afterwards the four girls decide that they’ll all compete together at the next year’s nationals. It’s doubtful that the nationals will take place during this season of the anime.

The end of the episode hints at the next rivals Haruka and Kanata will have to take on, and we see the pair practicing their strategies for future matches. Overall it was a pretty standard episode, but it was still a good watch.

Haruka Oozora and Kanata Higa from the anime Harukana Receive
Haruka Oozora and Kanata Higa

Angels of Death

The poison Zack injected himself with last week turned out to be a drug that makes his impulses take over. This means that although Rachel still has her dead eyes which make Zack not want to kill her just yet, he can’t help himself.

He attempts to kill Rachel, but is then shot (not fatally) by Catherine. The next room the pair proceeds to is the firing squad room which is fitted with machine guns on the ceiling because I guess Catherine doesn’t know how a firing squad works.

In this room, Rachel is given a handgun by Catherine and she and Zack are told to fight to the death. Rachel refuses to shoot Zack (although we later learn her handgun had no ammo) and then Zack decides to stab himself with his scythe because he’s crazy and drugged up.

This causes Catherine to enter the firing squad room with them, no longer shielded behind her bulletproof glass. At this point, Rachel pulls a second handgun out from her purse and shoots Catherine. Zack then finishes her off with his scythe and the pair proceed onward.

At this point I’d like to point out that Zack is taking being stabbed through the stomach by a giant scythe surprisingly well. Also, it’s unclear why Rachel was carrying around a handgun in her purse, and even she doesn’t seem to know the reason behind it. Seems like a deus ex machina to me.

Once in the elevator to move on to the next floor, Zack finally passes out due to blood loss. Good thing too, because all of his and Catherine’s maniacal laughing this episode was really getting on my nerves.

Cells at Work!

The first half of the episode was a wholesome story about Red Blood Cell’s childhood. It seems she was always the one to get lost and as a kid the other future red blood cells would make fun of her for it. She was also chosen to be a red blood cell because of her hair color.

She gets attacked by a germ after getting lost during a lesson about running away from germs and hiding, but is saved by the child version of White Blood Cell. Though it’s clear to us who he is, she apparently doesn’t remember his face once they’re grown up.

The second half of the episode has to do with cells being infected by an unknown virus. We meet NK Cell for the first time, whose job it is to deal with infected cells. NK Cell and Killer T Cell don’t get along with each other and end up having a Dragon Ball Z style fight.

Once they’ve calmed down, they go with White Blood Cell and a Normal Cell to find where the other infected cells are. Once on location, the four split up into two teams. Killer T Cell and White Blood Cell go one way while NK Cell and the Normal Cell go the other.

Once alone, NK Cell confronts the Normal Cell about knowing his true identity, a Cancer Cell.

The Master of Ragnarok and Blesser of Einherjar

Yuuto teaches Ingrid how to blow glass at the start of the episode because of course they needed to include a scene of one of the girls blowing on something right from the beginning. Later on, the Wolf clan will be mass producing glass objects for sale.

The girls tell Yuuto that he needs a day off and suggest going to a hot spring in the mountains. That’s right, this is the obligatory hot spring/beach episode! Obviously they suggest this location because they all want to get closer to him an compete with each other.

All of the girls join Yuuto in the bath, much to his surprise, and begin tormenting him in the usual tasteless harem anime ways. If he just acted like an actual leader and put the girls in their place, then he wouldn’t have these kinds of issues, but I guess that’s asking too much.

Once back in town, it’s business as usual. After seeing his new slave girl read (I don’t know her name yet), Yuuto decides that he’s going to open a free school to teach all of the Wolf Clan’s children between the ages of 7 and 15. I assume this extends to the children of the clans under the Wolf clan as well.

His reasoning for doing this is that if his population is well-educated, then he’ll have more capable people to choose from when he needs a job done. It’s at this point that we also learn he’s been in this world for over two years.

How has his girlfriend back home not given up on him yet? Or, the better question is, how has he not given up on her yet and accepted his new life as the leader of his own harem?

Conclusion

That’s everything that happened this week in the Summer 2018 anime season. If you enjoyed this post click the heart button down below to let me know. You can also leave a comment to let me know your specific thoughts on any of the episodes I mentioned.

Subscribe to my blog via email or follow me on Twitter or Tumblr to be notified every time a new post goes live. Since I don’t always upload posts at the same time each day, this is a great way to keep up to date with everything anime has to offer.

Summer 2018 Week 5

Summer 2018 Week 5

Island

The episode starts off with a dream Setsuna has about Sara being burned alive. While this seems like a prophecy now, later in the episode we’re lead to believe it’s all just a misunderstanding, but I’m still not no sure about that.

Then, not in a dream, Sara needs Setsuna to capture some venomous sea snakes because she believes the venom can be used to help cure Soot Blight Syndrome. She also apparently believes Setsuna will be immune to the venom, should he get bitten in the process.

Not that this next part was very important for the episode, but breaking from the norm, Setsuna doesn’t freak out in any way when Rinne walks into the bath he was using. Maybe you’re new to anime, but that’s not usually how these things work, at least one of them should have caused a scene.

After this shocking development, however, we get the weekly Island “montage while someone sings in the background,” which as some of you know, I’m not particularly a fan of.

But, moving on with the actual plot of the episode, Sara believes that she’s supposed to go back in time, have a child with Setsuna, and then that child will grow up to be her. Basically it’s a never-ending loop of her being her own mother, so I don’t really see what that solves in itself.

Sara believes she had the power to stop Soot Blight Syndrome from occurring, but as it turns out her family had actually just been killing off all the babies born with it, making it appear as if the disease was dormant for roughly 10 years. It also turns out that Sara isn’t her own mother, they were just both branded in the same spot.

While this is a convenient explanation for now, it technically doesn’t disprove Sara’s belief that she is her own mother, but apparently it’s enough proof for her. I have a feeling this will come back later on in the series.

Hanebado!

After losing the first match against Connie, it seems Ayano still doesn’t fully understand who her opponent actually is. For the next match, Ayano and her partner, Izumi, try a new strategy to defeat Connie, who still isn’t allowing her partner to play.

However, Connie’s teammate joins in on the last point of the match to win the game for their team, much to Connie’s chagrin. She does this because Connie appeared to have injured one of her legs during the match, and probably would have been defeated otherwise.

After the match Ayano tries to make excuses as to why she lost, and refuses to admit defeat.

We later learn that Connie doesn’t actually seem to be that bad of a person, which is a strange development considering how she was originally portrayed. That said, after the scene of her getting along with all her teammates in the bath, she suddenly goes back to being evil.

My assumption is that Connie isn’t actually evil, but rather it’s still Ayano’s mother who is the primary antagonist. Connie and Ayano both just happen to be competing for the attention of the same person, so they naturally view each other as rivals.

Also, while I didn’t explicitly mention it yet this week, Connie is the student Ayano’s mother took in after abandoning Ayano and the rest of her family.

Ayano Hanesaki from the anime Hanebado!
Ayano Hanesaki

Attack on Titan Season 3

To start off, the action animation for this series is just as flawless as ever. It looks like we’ll be getting an even greater emphasis on these kinds of scenes this season compared to the previous two, and I’m completely okay with that.

One thing I have mixed feelings about, however, was the wild west style saloon in the middle of town. I get that Kenny’s character design is based on a cowboy, but the world of Attack on Titan is supposed to be set somewhere in Europe (most likely Germany) so why is there a wild west style saloon in the middle of town?

Moving on from that inconsistency, it would appear that Kenny has some sort of personal reason for fighting against Levi which is more than simply because he’s getting paid to do it. For some reason I feel like he’s actually doing it as a mentor and wants Levi to grow from the experience.

Also, in a previous week I mentioned my lack of understanding about how the guns which Kenny’s squad use work, but they were explained in a bit more detail this time around. Each barrel carries six shots, so when they replace them, it’s kind of like replacing a revolving chamber.

But now, onto the story of the episode. Armin kills his first human in order to save Jean, leading to him having an existential crisis. It’s then revealed that the other titan shifters are planning to either eat Eren themselves, or more likely, have someone else eat him.

We next see Levi and Hange using both physical and psychological torture to get information out of the first interior squad, the ones who did the same thing, but for the crown. And finally, Eren and Historia are taken to the true king, Historia’s father, who seems to be in hiding for some reason.

At the end of the episode it’s also revealed that Levi’s last name is Ackerman, just like Mikasa’s. I’m predicting that he’s her half-sibling because although he also has black hair, nobody has ever mentioned that he looks “oriental” like they do with Mikasa.

One Room Second Season

We went to an inn with Yui this week and she ended up inviting us to go into the outdoor bath with her. Now, this next part may surprise you, but we accepted. Do you know what that means? We’re not some standard, spineless, anime protagonist!

However, after that she appears to be embarrassed about sleeping in the same room, because that’s somehow worse? I’m not really sure I follow her logic here, but whatever, you do you, Yui. We then go outside with Yui to look at the stars because we have to do at least one cheesy thing.

Overall, this felt like a good episode to end Yui’s arc on, so hopefully that means next week we’ll be getting a different girl. Yui’s great and all, but she doesn’t really have much of a personality so she’s not the most interesting character.

Overlord III

Momonga has to come up with an explanation for his subordinates as to why Carne Village is so important to him. I was pretty sure the real reason was because he didn’t want the humans to die, but from the explanation he gave that doesn’t really seem to be the case.

He explains that Nfirea is creating a new potion for him and so must be protected at all costs along with his grandmother and Enri because it’s believed if he has those two, he’ll continue to put out good results. However, the rest of the villagers’ lives don’t matter to Ainz Ooal Gown.

Next there was an uncomfortable scene about the size of children while Ainz Ooal Gown was making his way to visit the Giant of the East and Demon Snake of the West with Aura. I don’t remember whether Aura is the boy or girl of the twins, but either way this scene was pretty awkward.

In the end, Lord Ainz subjugates both the Giant and the Demon Snake, neither of which are actually a Giant or a Demon Snake. It then appears he’s going to send his new subjects to attack Carne Village in order to test Lupisregina’s resolve in protecting the village from harm.

Fights involving the Pleiades Battle Maids are some of my favorite of this series, so I’m looking forward to seeing Lupisregina in action next episode.

How Not to Summon a Demon Lord

As we saw at the end of last week’s episode, Diablo is tasked with preventing a war between the city he resides in, and the Elves who wish to take Shera back to their homeland. Diablo and the gang then meet the lord of the city, who used to be a famous hero and will likely become a more important character in the future.

Next, we were introduced to a new member of the group, Imperial Knight Alicia Cristela, who has been tasked with working alongside Diablo to stop the war. However, Diablo doesn’t like Alicia because he thinks she’s too perfect, which makes him uncomfortable.

Ever the concerned Demon Lord, Diablo then buys a new weapon, a giant scythe, which is such a weak weapon that he’s able to go all out against his opponents without fear of killing them. Considering he’s a Demon Lord, I really wish he would just not care about the lives of those he fights.

Shera is then captured by some bounty hunters and the white knight Emile Bichel Berger comes to her rescue, because he’s a defender of all women. We learn that he won’t execute the kidnappers, but instead simply beat the appreciation of women into them, something I found amusing.

While I liked this episode and like this series overall, it moves at an extremely slow pace. Hopefully it will be greenlit for a second season, because I don’t really think it’s going to get very far story-wise this season.

Harukana Receive

The beach volleyball tournament the girls have been training for is officially underway and appears to be taking place at what’s basically Sea World. The place is referred to as a “marine park” so I don’t know what else that would be.

In the first round, Haruka and Kanata goes up against Ai and Mai, the girls who got the pink swimsuits Haruka originally wanted to wear. So, as you can see, right off the bat the stakes couldn’t be any higher. Haruka and Kanata were already embarrassed by these girls once, and they won’t allow it to happen again.

We learn (or maybe we already learned this) that Ai and Mai are actually indoor volleyball players. Because of this revelation, I also learned that indoor and beach volleyball aren’t actually played the same way, maybe you all already knew that though.

Ai and Mai don’t even know what a pokey is. What a bunch of amateurs, even Haruka and I know what that is now.

Haruka and Kanata manage to win the first match due to their use of the pokey, but their opponents are able to quickly adapt for the next match. We didn’t get to see the end of the next match this episode, so that’s likely where the next episode is going to start off.

However, we did see the end of Emily and Claire’s match, which they won by the way. As it turns out, Emily and Claire are kind of a big deal considering they placed second at nationals. Will they end up being the final hurdle for Haruka and Kanata at the end of the season?

Angels of Death

The episode starts off with Rachel worrying about dying once again for some unimaginable reason. In case you don’t remember, her one wish is to die, so there’s literally no good explanation for why she’s worried about dying.

The pair is still stuck in the gas chamber from last episode, but a ceiling tile has fallen out, revealing a potential escape route. Now, here’s my first problem with this particular episode (Rachel is a problem with every episode), the ceiling tile looked metal and heavy, so how did they not hear it fall?

Rachel then finds a keycard in the air vents and brings it back down to Zack, but not before smashing the gas mask which would probably still have been useful. Zack then proceeds to bend the keycard so it can’t be used to open the door. What a team.

Rachel then decides to blow up the entire room they’re in by igniting the gas with some batteries and a piece of wire. Sometimes Rachel has an IQ of 5, and other times it’s 200. She’s really all over the place and doesn’t make any sense.

After they escape the gas chamber, the pair fall asleep in a hallway and we see Zack dreaming about his time in an orphanage when he was forced to bury the other children who died. The next room has a puzzle involving a doll house which looks like the orphanage from Zack’s dream.

Now, I found this next puzzle to be way too easy to solve, and so did Zack, but that was kind of the point. The doll house has to be set up in a way that matches the dream we just saw Zack having. I thought this was a fairly interesting way to bring up his back story, so I’ll admit this show did a good job there.

Moving on to the final room (or what appears to be the final room), there are two mystery substances which must be injected. One is harmless, and one is poison. Zack decides to inject them both into himself because he doesn’t want to rely on Rachel, or so he says.

After this episode, I’m beginning to think that Rachel is actually just pretending to be helpless and ready to die. I think she’s acting that way in order to get Zack to help her escape, and then she’s planning to get away from him somehow. It’s the only way her insistence on being killed by him makes any sense.

Catherine Ward from the anime Angels of Death
Catherine Ward

Cells at Work!

This week’s monster is Cedar Pollen which enters the body through the eye. As usual, Red Blood Cell is near the danger zone and has to be saved by White Blood Cell, but even after killing it he isn’t sure what it is. So what does he do? He tastes it like any White Blood Cell would.

We also meet the Memory Cell this week. He’s like the crazy conspiracy theorist of the body that causes everything to go wrong. He has a book of prophecies which describes an allergic reaction to Cedar Pollen, but everything in it is written down to cause the most amount of panic possible.

In reality, Cedar Pollen is harmless, but it’s the body’s overreaction to it that causes the symptoms we associate with it. B Cell sprays the Cedar Pollen with too much antibody, so in response the Mast Cell releases too much histamine to combat it.

This chain reaction continues until an emergency allergic reaction begins, causing sneezing, itchy eyes, and various other symptoms. In the end, Red Blood Cell delivers a steroid medicine to relieve the symptoms, but that in itself is a huge catastrophe for the body.

The steroid is shown as a Terminator-like killer robot which goes on a rampage, destroying everything that was involved with the allergic reaction. In the end, the cells all decided that although everything went wrong, there was no other option, thus explaining how the body reacts the same way next time.

Out of all the episodes of Cells at Work! so far, I think I actually learned the most from this one.

The Master of Ragnarok and Blesser of Einherjar

The episode opens with Yuuto getting beat up by one of his subordinates, Siegrune, in what appears to be a training session. Yuuto never actually has to fight anyone in this episode though, so it’s unclear exactly why this scene was added here.

The war between the Wolf and Lightning clans is now under way. Siegrune fights the enemy commander (whose name I’m not even going to try to spell) as seen in the OP of the anime, but this fight doesn’t last very long. Yuuto then retreats his army to lay a trap for his enemy.

Let me also take this time to say that the fights in this anime are so boring. The setup to the fights aren’t all that interesting, and the fights themselves aren’t visually stunning by any stretch of the imagination. I would have preferred the series focus on the politics of this world rather than the wars (kind of like Overlord).

The enemy leader and his army are eventually defeated by luring them to a river which had previously been dammed by the Wolf clan and their allies. Once the enemy is in position, the dam is broken and the floodwaters wash the Lightning clan away.

Although this doesn’t kill the leader of the Lightning clan, it’s assumed that he won’t be posing a threat again any time soon if at all. All of the Lightning clan’s land was also taken over by the Wolf clan, but it was never said what became of the clan itself.

Conclusion

If you’re watching any of these 10 anime this season, leave a comment to let me know what you thought of this week’s episodes. Also let me know if there are any standout series I’m missing this season. Since I’m only watching things streaming on Crunchyroll, I’m sure I’m missing out on a few.

Scroll down a bit below this post and click the heart button if you enjoyed what I’ve written today. Likes give me an idea of what kinds of content I should produce more of.

Also, if you’re interested in my future content, consider subscribing to my blog via email (in the sidebar on PC and down below on mobile devices) or following me on Twitter @DoubleSama to get notified every time a new post is uploaded.

Summer 2018 Week 4

Summer 2018 Week 4

Island

This week started off mediocre like usual with an episode of Island that didn’t really make all that much sense. Karen, the tsundere, is being forced to marry the island’s police officer, against her will, in order to uphold her family’s name.

As would be expected of any girl her age put into the same situation, she’s completely against this idea and so decides to run away (again). This time she actually succeeds in making it off the island thanks to some help, and heads towards her mother’s last known location.

But, before we get to that part, let me mention when and how she chooses to run away, because this is the part of the episode that didn’t make any sense. Rather than running away at any other time, she plans to do it in the middle of her wedding ceremony.

Further, it seems that everyone on the island, including the would-be groom, is on her side against her father, so she would have had nobody standing in her way no matter when she decided to leave. This scene made no logical sense and only appeared to be included to add a bit more drama.

Once off the island, Karen learns that her mother died a year earlier and that her brother had kept this fact hidden from her, presumably because she wouldn’t have believed him unless she saw the grave for herself. It’s at this point that we meet a student of Karen’s mother and learn why she left the island in the first place.

Apparently she left because she was offered a job as a university professor and so she wanted to continue furthering both her career and research. Unlike what Karen thought all this time, her mother never forgot about her family and didn’t intend to abandon them the way she did.

At the end of the episode, Karen and Setsuna (who has been accompanying her on this adventure), return to the island like nothing happened. Overall, it was a pretty pointless episode considering it doesn’t seem to have had any real effect on Karen’s character.

Hanebado!

This week, another school’s badminton club wants to have a match against the “home” team as I’ll be referring to them. However, instead of the match happening at one of the two schools, it appears that both schools meet at a neutral location to have the match.

The “enemy” school has a much larger, and more professional badminton club, so in the end it’s decided that there will be three different matches. Two of the matches will be doubles, and one will be singles between Ayano and the star player of the opposing team.

We learn that the reason for this other school suggesting a match was solely because their star player wanted to play against Ayano, but we don’t really find out why until later in the episode.

Before the match begins, Ayano goes on an errand to a nearby convenience store and ends up getting lost. Along the way, she meets a foreigner with blonde twin tails (who doesn’t seem to be a tsundere), who also got lost on her way to the convenience store.

As it turns out, this foreigner is the star player of the opposing team who wanted to play against Ayano to begin with. At the end of the episode it’s revealed that this foreigner is the student Ayano’s mother took on after abandoning her family.

Attack on Titan S3

Before I begin with the real summary/review of this week’s episode, I feel the need to say that I still don’t like the new OP, as stated in my post about Attack On Titan’s OP 4. That said, there are a few other things I already don’t like about the new season, but we’ll get to those in a bit.

So, in this episode, Captain Levi is transporting Eren and Historia to the Trost district under orders from Commander Erwin. Apparently the crown is after these two, and so Erwin believes the safest place for them to be is in plain sight, because who would look there?

Also, Jean is once again swapped into Eren’s place as bait, but this time Armin is also impersonating Historia. Finally, a job only Armin can do.

Oh, by the way, the Military Police murdered Pastor Nick because he began working with the Scout Regiment to uncover the truth behind the titans in the walls. Now, while the MPs deny they had anything to do with the murder, they also don’t come up with a real alternative motive for the death which shows they’re not really trying to hide anything.

This may seem like an unimportant piece of information at first, but as it’s explained later on in the episode, this means that whoever had been controlling the kingdom from behind the scenes is now beginning to work out in the open. It’s about to get a lot harder for the Scout Regiment to move around freely.

We’re also introduced to the character who I assume will be the main antagonist for this season, or at least for this first cour, Kenny. Kenny is a former (and probably current) mass murderer who was known as Kenny the Ripper (because that’s an original name).

Apparently he took in Levi when he was a child on the streets, which is likely how Levi got into the criminal underworld of the capital. In case you weren’t aware, this season is going to focus on Levi, so having an antagonist from his past just seems to make sense.

While Kenny and his group of bounty hunters use 3D Maneuvering Gear just like the military, they don’t use swords with disposable blades, but instead use pistols with disposable barrels. This is one of the things I don’t understand. Isn’t it more efficient to simply reload the bullet rather than the whole barrel after each shot?

Due to the guns Kenny’s group uses, and the fact that this is still Attack on Titan, this season is probably going to be just as action-packed as the previous two. I know I’m looking forward to some midair gun kata reminiscent of the fight between Mami and Homura from Madoka Magica the Movie: Rebellion.

However, at the same time I’m not yet sold on the direction the story is taking. Manga readers assure me that it gets better, but only time will tell.

Finally, at the end of the episode, Kenny killed the new best girl (the one with pink hair), thus cementing himself as a true villain. She could have been the next Petra, but instead her life was cut tragically short (which I guess does make her the next Petra).

One Room S2

As I predicted last week, the reason “we” were so busy is so that “we” could save up enough money to buy a ring for Yui, however, “we” didn’t actually propose to her, so it may have just been a gift. That said, there’s now an important question which needs to be answered.

What about all of “our” side girls? The whole point of harem anime is that no one girl can be chosen over the others, so why are “we” going steady with Yui? Is this season going to solely focus on her? Because that would be pretty lame for 12 whole episodes.

Overlord III

And now, back to real anime. This week, Enri has to travel to E-Rantel (I think that’s the name of the town) in order to run some errands and hire adventurers to protect Carne Village. The reason the village needs protection is because two nearby monsters from the forest have teamed up and are attacking nearby settlements.

But what caused these two monsters of the forest to team up? Our protagonist, Momonga, that’s who. You see, the forest used to have three beasts which shared and divided power, but once the adventurer Momon subdued Hamusuke (that’s probably the name), the balance of power was thrown off.

Thanks to Momon, Enri is allowed entry into E-Rantel, and then further given the support of the Adventurers’ Guild despite not having the funds for the Adamantite class adventurers needed for her request. Upon returning to Carne Village, Enri also learns that she’s to become the next village chief.

I’m interested to see if Momon will protect Carne village himself, and whether or not this is all part of his plan. Perhaps the two other beasts of the forest are already under the control of Nazarick and this is just another setup to make the adventurer Momon look good.

On the other hand, this could be the work of the other group responsible for Shalltear’s brainwashing, or even a natural occurrence due to the shift in power of the forest as is explained in the episode.

How Not to Summon a Demon Lord

While Diablo and Shera are out on the front lines, the white knight (I forget his actual name) attempts to save Rem and Celes from the Fallen soldier who has infiltrated the city. Through this scene we see how much stronger the Fallen are than the normal adventurers of this world.

Meanwhile, Diablo wipes out most of the Fallen army with a single shot. To his surprise, however, the Fallen commander isn’t killed (although most of her clothes are blown away). And, to my surprise, the Fallen commander doesn’t yet become part of Diablo’s harem, so maybe that will come next episode.

After defeating the enemy army, Diablo teleports back to the city and rescues Rem, Celes, and the white knight from the remaining Fallen soldier. He uses his ring to deflect the Fallen’s magic back at him, and then uses a spell which essentially created a black hole, sucking the Fallen into it.

At the end of the episode, Diablo is given a mission to stop a potential war between the city and the Elves who want to take Shera back with them.

Due to the pacing of this series so far, I think it’s unlikely that we’ll actually get through what could be considered an entire story. We’re already one-third of the way through the season, and yet not much has really happened. Hopefully this means a second season will follow.

Harukana Receive

This week, the girls bought new, matching swimsuits, because that’s the “uniform” for beach volleyball. However, Haruka and Kanata have different tastes when it comes to swimsuits which makes things a bit tricky.

To everyone’s surprise, Kanata agrees to go with Haruka’s choice in swimsuit, but then before they can purchase them, another beach volleyball pair gets to them first. This results in a game of rock-paper-scissors for possession of the swimsuits, which Haruka loses.

In the end, the girls go with Kanata’s choice, but Haruka still adds her own touch to them by sewing on a special pattern. Other than that, the rest of the episode just involved Haruka and Kanata continuing to practice for their upcoming tournament, which the girls who got the swimsuits they originally wanted will also be taking part in.

I didn’t really know how an anime about beach volleyball was going to include even more fan service than it already does, but the inclusion of an episode dedicated to picking out new swimsuits managed to do it. Every episode is already an “obligatory beach episode” anyway.

Angels of Death

The next floor Rachel and Zack make their way to is the prison-like floor we saw at the end of last week’s episode. This floor is run by a deranged prison warden/game show host named Cathy. It’s a weird combination, but somehow it works (kind of).

Out of all the floors we’ve seen so far, this one is most like the SAW movies. Each room of the floor has a different puzzle that must be solved in order for the “players” to progress onward without dying. I actually wouldn’t mind if the rest of the series was set up in this way.

The first room the pair enter involves a puzzle with an electric chair that’s controlled by the eyes of a bunch of mannequins in the room. As expected, Zack is stupid enough to sit in said electric chair and proceeds to be shocked until Rachel solves the puzzle and beheads the mannequins.

The second room the pair enters is a gas chamber with a body in the middle of the room (much like one of the SAW movies, although I can’t remember which one). There’s also a single gas mask in the room despite there being two “players” and so they need to work together if they’re both going to make it out alive.

Zack wants to live, and Rachel wants to die, yet somehow they come to the conclusion that Rachel should be the one to wear the gas mask. I understood Zack’s reasoning, which is that he won’t solve the puzzles without Rachel, but this seems like a perfect opportunity for her to die, which is what she wants.

At the end of the episode, Rachel seemingly figures out the puzzle, but the gas doesn’t stop flowing into the room, hinting at there being a second, hidden puzzle which must be solved in the same room next episode.

Cells at Work!

The “monster” of the week this week was food poisoning and came in two different varieties. The first type, a bacterial food poisoning, attacks a new character, a pink, female white blood cell who I’ll refer to as tsundere-cell (she even has blonde twin tails).

Luckily for her (because she’s weak against bacterial infections) the normal white blood cell comes to her rescue and defeats the bacteria. We also meet another new character shortly after this, Basophil, whose job it is to signal allergic reactions. Basophil reminds me of Shino from Naruto Shippūden.

However, the bacteria food poisoning was only the first wave of the attack! Next came a parasitic food poisoning, which the regular white blood cells can do nothing about. Who could possibly save the body?

That’s right, it’s time for tsundere-cell to shine! Apparently her specialty is killing parasites, which nobody else seemed to know until she does it (except for the one main white blood cell). All the other cells just thought she was a useless, weak white blood cell.

Unfortunately, this episode included a very small amount of platelets. I really wouldn’t mind if there was a spin-off of this series which exclusively followed the platelets. I need more wholesome platelets in my life.

Tsundere White Blood Cell from the anime Cells at Work!
Tsundere White Blood Cell

The Master of Ragnarok and Blesser of Einherjar

Finally, it’s time for the worst anime of the season, The Master of Ragnarok and Blesser of Einherjar. This week, Yuuto is going to visit the town of Gimlé with the loli twins. Turns out this is also the town the pink-haired girl (best girl) is also currently visiting.

The twins have runes which deal with wind. The first one has the ability to cancel out headwinds, and the other has the ability to create a tailwind. While these runes are helpful for travel, they’re impractical for combat because of their limited radius of effect.

For a majority of the middle portion of this episode, we see Yuuto being the standard isekai anime protagonist (that’s an insult by the way). Like most isekai protagonists, he’s too much of a white knight and rejects the advances of the girls who make up his harem.

Just accept that harems are a natural part of the world you now live in and stop thinking about the girl who you had a crush on back in your own world. You’re not ever making it back, you’re an isekai protagonist (although I feel like she’ll be coming to the fantasy world at some point).

Finally, the Lightning clan is preparing for war against the Wolf clan and its allies. After this is discovered, it’s also revealed that the twins are actually master assassins and intel gatherers. These two were then sent on a mission to scout out the enemy army.

Summer 2018 Week 3

Summer 2018 Week 3

Island

This week started off with Setsuna, Sara, and Karen attempting to lure Rinne out into the sunlight by pretending to have fun on the beach by reading from scripts. It worked, and it turns out that Rinne won’t disintegrate if she comes in contact with the sunlight.

Next, the group finds an abandoned shack on Rinne’s property under some cliffs near the beach which triggers Rinne to have a flashback. On an unrelated note, later on, Rinne breaks into song for no apparent reason while taking a bath and we cut to a montage of the gang doing Summer activities.

This sudden breaking out into song with a montage of seemingly unrelated events reminded me of when the same exact thing happened in Children of the Whales. Being compared to Children of the Whales typically isn’t something you want to happen to your anime.

At the end of the episode, Setsuna and Sara conclude that Karen doesn’t actually want to leave the island, but is instead simply rebelling against her father.

Rinne wearing a space suit from the anime Island
Rinne

Hanebado!

Next we have Hanebado!, one of the few anime this season for which I still don’t know any of the characters’ names. At the start of this episode, the badminton prodigy still doesn’t want to play badminton, but that’ll change soon enough.

Her friend, the one who has been pushing the prodigy to play, bails on her and goes to watch a movie instead. Then, the pink haired girl from the end of last episode shows up and demands to play a match against the prodigy girl. Pink hair wins easily.

Despite how I usually feel about girls with pink hair or twin tails, she’s the most annoying character of the series so far. We later learn that the prodigies mother was a badminton pro who left her family after pink twin tails girl beat her daughter in badminton, because that’s the reasonable response.

Oh, also after leaving her family, she apparently took on an apprentice and started training her in badminton instead of her own daughter. It seems as though the mother is going to be the primary antagonist of the series.

In the end, the sporty girl and the prodigy’s best friend get the prodigy to begin liking badminton again.

One Room S2

Apparently we have a lot of work this week and Yui thinks we’re ignoring her. That’s basically all that happened in this week’s episode, but it seems like our reason for working a lot is probably due to us going to propose in the near future. How will this affect our relationships with the other girls?

Overlord III

The Great Tomb of Nazarick has begun moving forward with their apparent plan for world domination. Meanwhile, the goblins are helping out some of the villagers who Ainz Ooal Gown saved in season one, but I’m afraid this will turn into another lizardmen arc.

From this episode it seems like we’ll finally be connecting all the content from the first two seasons as the Great Tomb of Nazarick make their move across the underworld of the kingdom, and announce themselves to the public at the same time. This could be the best season of Overlord so far.

How Not to Summon a Demon Lord

This week’s episode of How Not to Summon a Demon Lord wasn’t as funny as the previous two episodes, but that doesn’t mean it was bad either. Diablo and Shera head out to fulfill a quest by taking refreshments to the soldiers defending the border.

Suddenly, an army of 100 Fallen (a type of boss-level enemy) attacks and Diablo decides to fight them on his own in order to save the citizens. The episode ends just before Diablo fights the Fallen commander, who will likely join his harem afterwards.

Meanwhile, Rem has been in town while Diablo and Shera have been out on their quest and she’s about to be attacked by a Fallen the last time we see her. Earlier in this episode we also met a white knight, whose name I forget, who attempted to fight Diablo for the honor of Rem and Shera.

Harukana Receive

Haruka and Kanata join the beach volleyball club at their school this week with the twins Emily and Claire. The four girls end up having a practice match, during which I learned that the “Harukana” in the title of the anime is a combination of Haruka and Kanata.

The practice match devolves into a real match when Emily (or Claire, I forget which) notices that Kanata is solely relying on her spike, which isn’t working. By the end of the match, Kanata stops relying on her spike and actually starts to play better, thanks to the other three girls.

During this match, Haruka also learns a new move, the pokey, which is a way to fake a spike, but actually hit the ball over the defending opponent. Finally, Haruka asks Kanata to officially be her beach volleyball partner at the end of the episode.

Angels of Death

The new enemy for this episode is a kid named Eddie (seems to be a monster of the week format for this anime). Eddie wants to give Rachel the death she craves, but for some reason Rachel rejects him because apparently she’s a death elitist or something.

Despite her wish to die, she seems to only want Zack to be the one to kill her even though Eddie would do it now instead of later. It doesn’t really make any sense why she’s so picky, but I’m expecting it to turn into some dumb romance between Rachel and Zack by the end of the series.

In the end, Eddie is killed by Zack after Rachel figures out that Eddie is manipulating the lights with a handheld remote. Finally, Rachel and Zack move on to the next floor of the building which looks to be set up like a prison.

Cells at Work!

This week (in another monster of the week anime) Influenza B has made its way into the human body and infected the normal cells. White Blood Cell rescues a Naive T Cell from the infection, then a Macrophage comes to the rescue of them both.

More White Blood Cells and Killer T Cells join the battle against the Influenza B zombies. The Naive T Cell then transforms into an Effector T Cell and rejoins the battle. B Cell comes to help produce antibodies to fight the infection as well.

After the battle, Influenza A shows up (no longer Influenza B) and this causes a massive panic because all of the antibodies and cells were prepared for type A, not type B.

The Master of Ragnarok and Blesser of Einherjar

The final episode of the week was The Master of Ragnarok and Blesser of Einherjar. The episode started off exactly as I expect an episode of this series to start, with some yuri, incest, loli fan service because it’s complete trash.

A rival patriarch of the Lightning clan appears and shows off his power in front of the protagonist and the rest of his clan members. We then see the twins from the opening scene again and they claim to have come in order to marry the protagonist.

In reality, it seems they have come to be made the protagonist’s daughters, but he suspects they have ulterior motives. In the end, he decides they need to prove themselves worthy of being named as his daughters, and that’s where the episode leaves us.

Summer 2018 Week 2

Summer 2018 Week 2

Island

We’ve got a lot to cover today so let’s jump right into the first episode of the week, Island episode 2! This week the big piece of information we learned is that the four main characters are all reincarnations of people from legends about the island.

While it’s set up so that the viewer isn’t quite sure if this information is true or not, I’m going to say now that it’s true. If it isn’t true, that would be such a shock to me that I may actually like the series more. It’s not everyday an anime has the guts to go against the expected plot.

Karen (the tsundere) also started working as a maid with Setsuna at Rinne’s mansion. I have yet to see what Setsuna sees in Rinne; Karen is clearly the best girl.

Hanebado!

Before actually getting into this week’s episode of Hanebado! I just want to mention how much I love (most of) the OP for this series. I’m sure I’ll talk about this more in my review of the series once it’s complete, but the animation at the beginning and end of the OP is flawless.

With that out of the way, this second episode was more interesting than the first. The two main girls each became slightly more interesting characters once they began to work past their issues. The tall girl (I don’t know any of their names yet) was able to overcome her slump, and the short girl joined the Badminton club.

At this point in the series I’m still not entirely sure how their relationship is going to end up, but something tells me they’ll have to end up being both rivals and teammates, kind of like Naruto and Sasuke.

One Room Second Season

Since last week was episode 0, a recap episode, this week was the first real episode of One Room Second Season. Surprisingly, this first episode was also the obligatory beach episode, something we typically see in the second half of a season.

This series has always been about fan service, which is why it’s about cute girls and shown from a first person perspective, but I didn’t remember just how much about fan service it was until watching this episode. I was quickly reminded that “our” (the protagonists) eyes tend to wander elsewhere when “we’re” talking to girls.

Overlord III

Overlord III started airing this week and I was actually surprised by how much I was looking forward to it. Rather than just playing the ED, Myth & Roid plays the OP for this new season which I prefer over the OP songs for seasons one and two.

As for the content of the episode, it was basically just filler which isn’t necessarily what I want to see from the first episode of a 13 episode season. Despite it being filler, however, I still found it to be an enjoyable watch.

Ainz Ooal Gown decided to give the NPCs under him some well-deserved time off. Unfortunately, as NPCs, they don’t really understand what to do with their time off. I think the best part of this episode was when Albedo was unable to ride her bicorn summon because she’s a pure maiden.

Albedo, Shalltear, and Aura Bella from the anime Overlord III
Albedo, Shalltear, and Aura Bella

Angels of Death

Angels of Death started last week, but I didn’t pick it up until this week because I thought it looked stupid. Well, guess who was right. This anime is the “edge of the season” as far as the anime I’m watching goes, although Happy Sugar Life may actually be more edgy.

The series is kind of like Saw mixed with a death game. Each floor of the building is home to a different serial killer, and people known as sacrifices are let loose on one of the many floors. Our protagonist, Rachel, is one such sacrifice.

After escaping the floor she started on, and escaping the next floor thanks to the help of a murderer named Zack, the pair move onto the third floor (third to them, not actual third floor). In this episode, Rachel looked around the floor, while Zack destroyed a bunch of tombstones.

This episode was even more slow and boring than the first one, but I’ll probably stick with the anime until the end just so I can write about it.

The Master of Ragnarok and Blesser of Einherjar

The Master of Ragnarok and Blesser of Einherjar is another anime which started last week, but I didn’t pick up until now. Originally I skipped it because it looked like a terrible isekai, and I thought I was already going to be watching one of those with How Not to Summon a Demon Lord, but since that turned out to be good, I gave this a try.

While I was wrong about Demon Lord, I was absolutely correct about The Master of Ragnarok. It’s another standard isekai with a wimpy, white knight protagonist in a fantasy world called Yggdrasil, because that’s what they’re always called. Oh, and he has a smartphone so you already know I’m mad.

This week, the Wolf and Horn clans defeated the Hoof clan in battle. Other than that, it was just fan service as usual for isekai anime. The pink haired girl (the best girl) wants to marry the protagonist, but since he’s not a man, he’s afraid of girls.

How Not to Summon a Demon Lord

This week’s episode of Demon Lord was even better than the last. The gang signs up to be adventurers and has their levels checked. While Rem is a higher level than Shera, 40 and 30 respectively, Diablo’s level is so high it can’t be checked.

After becoming adventurers, they go on a mission which looks like a trap, which it is. However, since Diablo is completely OP, he blows up, then freezes an entire forest like it’s no big deal, which for him, it isn’t.

I’m still hopeful that this series will be another great entry into the isekai genre like KonoSuba.

Harukana Receive

Harukana Receive is the other sports anime I’m watching this season along with Hanebado! While I want Harukana Receive to be the better of the two because it’s about beach volleyball, that sadly isn’t the case.

This week we got some of the backstory for Kanata and Narumi and why they no longer play together. Haruka and Kanata also had their rematch against Narumi and Ayasa, and won because of Haruka’s trick play which involved Kanata receiving instead of setting.

I won’t say this anime has no hope yet, but it’s not looking good so far.

Cells at Work!

The final anime of the week is Cells at Work!, yet another that started last week, but I didn’t pick up until this week. Originally this anime went under my radar, but then I was introduced to the memes, mostly those about the loli platelets.

While I did in fact start this anime because of the memes, it actually turned out to be a pretty decent series so far, although the platelet lolis are still the best part. Luckily, this episode the platelets had a fair amount of screen time so it was good.

In this week’s episode an abrasion occurred and the platelets came to the rescue while the white blood cells fought off the germs. This happened in the second half of the episode, however, and the first half was just Red Blood Cell being lost as usual.