Shameful Otaku Secret!

Something That Couldn’t Be Said

[What's a Tomogara, you say? Try the Shana info page]

Last week, I said something to the effect that I’d be OK with Shana doing that Bleach/Dragonball thing where a single fight draws out for a whole season, if they’d just get us out of the void of nothingness that the show’s been stuck in almost since day one. Well. I said “almost.” Good thing, too, as that appears to be their goal. Is this going to end up a 200-episode show with drawn-out action scenes and minimal character development? Maybe I just can’t be happy either way, but I was sure glad something happened this week.

Recap, The Summary of Injustice

Turns out Zarovee the Collation Flux is a Jaeger, which sounds like hunter but is really more of a decoy. He’s here to pull Yuji away, thus luring the Flame Haze into a trap set by the Wanderer, a giant slug-shaped cannon. His ability to clone himself keeps Yuji at bay: attack me here and I’ll eat some souls over there. So most of the first half is spent with Yuji’s incessant internal dialog as Zarovee leads him to the designated spot. During this time, Shana takes care of Yuji’s mom while wearing a pink sweater, thus sealing the deal on her transformation from killing machine to useless girl.

Funny, no one takes me seriously when I make that threat

Zarovee is planning to draw her out by taking Yuji to a strategic location. Fortunately, Yuji susses this trap out (easily, Zarovee’s a pretty dumb Tomogara), and when he happens to see Tanaka and Ogata on the street, he starts yelling crazily to signal them. If you remember, Tanaka quit the henchman game, but he can’t let it go — so he visits Margery anyway after about 8 minutes of internal debate, with shame in his heart. Unsurprisingly, the kinder gentler Margery-san forgives him, and her and Satou take off to… do nothing the rest of the episode.

Pan to the sky.

It involves a thousand meangingless terms designed to impart an illusion of depth to an otherwise barely-written show

To be fair, they do contact Shana and Wilhelmina, who do all the slug-fighting after Yuji cleverly casts his own Fuzetsu to take care of his situation and kills the fuck out of Zarovee. I’m sorry, but for a guy who’s never done this before, he sure seems to have no qualms about ramming the Blutsauger through the middle of a human-looking thing begging for its life. He even breaks one copy’s neck with his bare fucking hands.

at the intersection of hopelessly GAR and needlessly cruel, there stands the New Yuji

All seems well, but in the place where the Slug Cannon was destroyed, a huge explosion drowns out Yuji’s attempt to make some apology none of us care about.

What We’ve Learned

Action is back! So is fanservice, apparently. And Yuji understands why Shana and Kazumi are mad at him: he wasn’t ready to leave the city, he was lying to himself, and now it sounds like he wants to stay after all, to protect it.

Oh god I think I just got served

One thing hasn’t changed. When the camera cuts to a new character, that character will have a sweaty distressed expression and will make a small grunting noise. Every time.

Thoughts

As president of the Margery-San fan club, I apologize for that.

Next week, the explosion is revealed to be Sabrac the Destructive Blade, Wilhelmina’s old arch-enemy or whatever, so the time to kill of a major character might come exactly one season after she joined the story. Either way, I say again — the action is back, and hopefully it’s not going anywhere this time.

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.