Shameful Otaku Secret!

Wolf and Swirling Conspiracy

[Spicy Info here as always]

After a bit of a delay in translation for episode 9, #10 came out soon on its heels, complete with my own delay in viewing. And as I suspected, things really started moving this week. Mind you, not in a good direction for our heroes, but good for story.

Impending badness…

Recap of Doom

Turns out Rubinhagen’s yearly romp to the north to kill heathens has been cancelled this year (hence the mercenaries running rampant on the roads), and the value of armor has plummeted. Uh oh. Last week’s ingenious discovery of the Polson merchant’s attempt to screw Lawrence netted him twice the value of armor than he normally would have gotten — and that means he’s now at twice the debt since no one wants to buy.

Imminent badness…

The merchant guild can’t help him, so he goes to all his connections, who turn him away without a second thought. Now he’s starting to get worried, and we end with him shoving Horo away in frustration, and she goes back to their inn without him.

I tried this with Jehovah’s witnesses, somehow they made it out like I was the jerk.

Now he has no business connections to help him, he’s on shaky ground with his traveling partner, and he has two days to come up with repayment before they shave him, pull out his teeth, and send him to his death in some horrific mines somewhere.

Dark times. Dark, dark times. Dark, dark, dark times. Darrrrrrrr

What We’ve Learned

Lawrence is obviously not flawless in his skills, and everyone who lambasted him for not diversifying last week is vindicated. He put all his eggs in the armor basket and now he’s double-screwed. Seems the crooked Polson merchant most likely knew about the armor crash, and ended up jacking Lawrence in the end anyway.

On the Lawrence and Horo front, we swapped out the clever teasing for some sincere cuteness this week, and I found it really fun. Of course, that was before everything went to shit.

Spicy wolf.

Thoughts

The title of next week’s episode implies a crazy scheme — probably Horo’s — that will work if all goes well, but Lawrence is going to have to apologize bigtime. That means more potential for character development and the furthering of their relationship. So far the interaction between them hasn’t gone the cliché route, so hopefully they’ll continue to stay away from that.

Either way, Episode 10 is usually when things start getting hopelessly dark for protagonists, so that’s about right and I’m eagerly awaiting how they’re going to get out of this.

Baffled Yuji

It’s almost time to take this horse out back and shoot it. It’s not that its legs are broken, it just seems to have forgotten how to use them. I so want to check the category box for “action” every time I write about this thing, until I realize that nothing has happened. And yes, I understand you’re going to get some filler since we’re pretty far in, but I think they’re setting things up for a run way huger than 24. We’re currently on what I hope is the tail end of a really insulting amount of filler. I’m almost wishing the action would just start, and do that Bleach/ Dragonball/ InuYasha thing where a single fight draws out for 8 episodes.

Almost.

Anyway. Let’s get going.

Wait, who’s baffled?

Yuji doesn’t seem baffled at all. He’s singularly determined to fuck shit up, and he’s being given the tools to do it. Margery Daw teaches him how to throw silver fireballs and turn the Blutsauger into a bookmark so he can carry it around with him.

We’re throwing fireballs now? I see. So it really IS that kind of show after all.

Kazumi…. ah, who gives a shit.

If I say that, will you use that thing and kill yourself?

When Yuji’s mom gets sick, Shana starts thinking that maybe Yuji’s not really ready to take on his weight of responsibility, leave town, or any of that nonsense that he’s got roaming through his head these days.

I hope she’s not looking for me. They lost me a while back at the Filler Town off-ramp.

Shana seems to worry about Yuji’s mom far more than Kazumi, which I assume is some kind of value judgment? Either way, I’ll keep no secrets that I learned the meaning of “tsundere” from Shana, and this cemented the fact that they’ve killed off most of her redeeming qualities as a character.

Just my sensory organs, dear. And maybe my intelligence.

And finally we get the new Tomogara — Zarovee the Collation Flux, who sounds like a copy machine malfunction but oddly enough seems to be able to duplicate himself so maybe that’s intentional. He sneaks up depresso-Yuji, who’s wandering around after kind of being told off by both girls.

Yes! Plot! Action! And… cue end credits.

What we’ve learned

Not a lot… not a lot.

Wait… this show… sucks? For HOW long now?

Please, Please, Please

Hello, writers? What? They quit at episode 13?

It’s not just a James Brown song, it’s me begging for things to move. There was the barest hint of development, and I hope they’re setting up the ball very carefully for a big swing. We’re down to the wire, and almost every other show of the season is behaving like it. Knowing this show, I won’t even try to worry about it until I turn it on and find a new OP playing, but a fight between Zarovee and Yuji seems promised in this OP. Next week? Maybe? Please? I’m hardly an action junkie, but like sugar in the cokehead’s stash, the filler is bringing me down.

Everlasting Love

In spite of SNS’s often predictable storylines, or the way it tends to pile on incomprehensible lingo and convoluted lists of characters to make things artificially less clichéd, I keep giving the show credit — mostly for its believable characters and their realistic choices given the situations in which they’re placed. But the show is starting to burn its karma faster than it ever could with just some panning up to the sky (shades of Haruhi), thanks to the giant crack in its character-driven solidity: Kazumi.

Is love blind, or just retarded?

Don’t get me wrong: there are plenty of shy-human vs. magical-girl love triangles less involving or believable than this. And I (usually) enjoy the weird truce that Shana and Kazumi have going on. But the realism of most of the characters’ actions is exactly what gets the show in trouble here.

Maybe Kazumi represents all of us… big-breasted, cute, but unable to compete with the supernatural oh what the fuck

While the stilted, awkward anime-style non-romance in most shows like this is motivated strictly by “we’re a Japanese show,” “main character is a little thick,” or “just for the sake of drawing it out to the last episode,” I have zero problems believing Yuji’s lack of romantic awareness here. Let’s take a tally. There’s Pheles (who I really want to be Phyllis when I hear it, but the subbers disagree), the Silver, Hecate’s seal, Johan, Balle Masque, and Margery Daw’s murderous will to vengeance on the Silver, all living inside the Reiji Maigo. Any of those could kill him at any moment if it weren’t for the fact that he’s essentially already dead. I can one hundred percent forgive him for lacking the motivation to hug puppies and make out with Kazumi all day.

gonna die a thousand death, woh yea- what? Oh, nothing.

So her near-constant whingeing is really starting to chap my ass. Oooh, I’ll never be as close to him as Shana. Ooooh, if I want to participate in this deadly supernatural world and be of any benefit to Yuji I’ll have to kill myself using this Hougu from Pheles. There are things in this world that bigger breasts just cannot compete with, and magical powers or a big sword that help keep your would-be boyfriend alive… I think that’d do it.

The sad part is her transformation from ultra-shy to a little more confident in the first series was really winning. It didn’t seem to win over Yuji, no. But it was exemplary of just how decent these writers are at developing their characters, even through situations that are really silly at times. Sort of like how Margery went from the obligatory American drunkard to a scarred Flame Haze with a buried human soul somewhere underneath. Now is the time that I really hope they’re going to whip out one of their trademark little surprises that make me go “hey, now that’s real nice.” Because the show’s been in a holding pattern for a little while.

Recap?

In other news, Satou and Tanaka never really appeared to get over Margery’s berzerker rage. Tanaka has taken a sieze-the-moment approach by getting together in earnest with Ogata and mostly staying away from Satou’s house. Satou is still running errands for Margery, but he’s real sulky about it. I’d be surprised if something major wasn’t planned for him before too long.

Everyone’s forgotten Konoe, the vessel sent by Hecate to collect human experience. That makes Kazumi sad as well, and while that’s probably supposed to make us like her even more for her naive and unquestioning sense of caring, it just makes me think she grasps the weight of the situation even less than before. The final scene, however, has Hecate seeing a bird and contemplating it. Have her experiences as Konoe softened her? Is she now a wild card?

WINDSCA–sorry. Inexcusable reference.

And Yuji, he’s stepping up to the plate to swing Blutsauger, the massive sword that Tanaka and Satou used to spend their days trying to lift. And watching him practice with it, Kazumi — about to throw the Hougu into the river — almost seems to get the selfish futility of her endless whine. But swordplay takes a backseat to paperwork when Wilhelmina makes him sort through endless useless reports from the Outlaw.

Yuji’s dad leaves again, to go… what the hell does that guy do anyway?

aw shucks, pa

And what’s more…

If the horrendous new opening (they just don’t seem to get any better…) serves no other purpose, it at least seems to show us a lot of action that should be in store very soon. If I recall, the first series absolutely exploded at episode 17, culminating with the Seeking Researcher saying “Wow! This is really starting to get exciting!” or something humorously self-aware like that. Either 17 or 18 saw Kazumi declare her love, and apparently 20-some-odd episodes of non-reciprocation aren’t enough to deter her.

I’m ready for the explosion of rapid plot development, big action, and crazy realizations that marked the last series around now. Are we going to get them? I’m cautiously optimistic, but this show has a way of doing the unexpected just when I’m about to give up on it, so you can bet that I’ll at least be watching.