"Dan Da Dan": If you've been missing something with a gonzo plotline and animation more along the lines of Kill la Kill or FLCL. Here you go.

"Acro Trip" Ep. 02: Seems the magical world in this town is really small. It's just Berry Blossom and Chrome fighting over minor stuff. And the rules are that you can't do magic on the mundanes. So when a robber with a knife invades the convenience store where we last left our characters, The pink-haired girl who is BB is left hiding behind the chips, while Kuroma's natural talent for talking people into evil changes a simple robbery into a hostage situation. Chizuko is miffed at Kuroma for not being able to use his powers (Which are?) to fight back, which is how we find out that magic is limited to the people involved in this world. In the meantime, Chizuko's hero-worship of Berry Blossom shames her into sneaking into the back room and transforming. She comes out in typical Magical Girl fashion, but then takes down the robber with a clothesline to the neck. After untying the two, she excuses herself, saying that she and the police don't get along so well....

In the second half, I turns out that Chrome and Grandpa know each other. They're having snacks when Chizuko gets home (She's in a rush because there's a Berry Blossom special on TV she desperately wants to see). But Chrome teleports her into his lair in order to show off. While showing her around, he leads her into a storage room, and the door gets stuck from the outside due to a suspiciously out of place broom propped up against the sliding door. Chrome then claims that the teleport used up his magic for the month, since it's like data on a phone plan, and he's throttled now. And uses that as a pretext to get Chizuko to sign the magical contract which is conveniently in a box there in the store room. He tries to teach her how to use the magic to remove the obstruction - which is funny, because he explains that he just uses it, he doesn't understand it. (Hello Clarke's third law, or Niven's corollary) He just tells her to grunt and imagine pushing it. But then suddenly the door opens, and... It's Grandpa! What's he doing there? Turns out some time ago Gramps found a dejected villain sitting by the side of the road and decided to take him home, and let him live in the crawlspace (how kind...) although this huge base is a lot bigger than he remembers the crawlspace being. And here Chrome had told Chizuko that it was extra-dimensional, it's actually under the house. So they climb the stairs into Grampa's place and she gets to see her show.

Hide Comments | Add Comment

I've now seen the first three new shows of this season.

Hitoribocchi no Isekai Kouryaku - "Loner Life in Another World": Took a flyer on this because it was mentioned on .clue. It is, alas, a pretty typical "Class is summoned to another world" Isekai. Our protagonist is the book-reading loner in his class that is otherwise evenly divided into easily identifiable, stereotypical cliques (Jocks, Nerds, Gyaru, and Student Government). He's genre-savvy enough that he tried to dodge the magic circle that appeared under the class, but it followed him into the vents. The reward for his evasion is that he gets the last pick of the skills the "God" has on offer, and they're just the scraps, except they serve him pretty well for wilderness survival.

The episode ends though with the four cliques approaching him from all directions with unknown intent (Although I guess we can assume the Jocks are evil.) but any kind of reunification is already ruled out by his assigned class that prevents him from forming a party.

Not expecting much from this one.

Saikyou no Shienshoku "Wajutsushi" de Aru Ore wa Sekai Saikyou Clan wo Shitagaeru - "The Most Notorious "Talker" Runs the World's Greatest Clan": A Fantasy, rather than an Isekai. Demon portals open up randomly over towns and "Seekers" fight them off. Our protagonist's grandfather is legendary, but goes down in a final battle defending their village. He raised him to be a Seeker, but they assigned him the "Talker" class, which basically boils down to being the tactician with bard-like abilities to buff his party by giving them orders, a few weak offensive spells, and a magic revolver (just roll with it). Apparently there's a huge boon in monster leftovers for advanced magic tech, and Seekers are famous. But our hero's four-man team are mere subcontractors to a clan, so they get the short end of the stick. Surprisingly, he isn't the leader, that's their swordsman, and the healer is the leader's girlfriend. They also have a tank with a huge axe, which he has to grind with our hero, while he also crudely hits on the healer. Now our hero of course has the goal to be "The Best" even in the weakest class, and apparently he's rich thanks to gramps (Mum apparently wasn't all that good of a Seeker, which is why gramps raised him). He offers to put in his cash along with the group's funds to start a clan, so they don't have to subcontract any more. They all agree to meet over it in another couple of days.

At the appointed time, the tank busts into our hero's room and tells him that the leader and the healer have taken off with all the money. That's an interesting surprise. We'll see where they go with it. I wasn't expecting much from this one either, but at least there's a bit of a twist at the start.

"Acro Trip": Date Chuzuko is a young girl who gets shunted from place to place as her mom constantly gets relocated for business reasons. We meet her as she's riding with her Grandfather in his Kei truck to his place, where she'll be spending the week while the movers relocate her mom's house. Nothing excites her much. She's considered "Mature" by her folks. During the drive something brown lands on the truck and takes off, but she doesn't get a good look at it and thinks nothing more of it. Later, her grandfather takes her to the mall (Which does not impress her, she's seen malls before) but he has to leave her there because he has to drive a neighbor with a bad back to the hospital. She's surprised when she sees a claw machine at the arcade full of bear dolls that look like the thing that landed on the truck. She surmises that they're not popular since nobody's going for them. And later she nearly sits on a strange cat who makes a very distinctly non-cat sound. Then a girl with long pink hair and an empty cat carrier runs up and thanks her for finding her cat. Not a Circle K anywhere in sight, but strange things are still afoot, and she's barely scratched the surface.

Strange things or not, it's not enough to break through her apathy. She's walking back to her Grandfather's place, along the canal. She wonders if she'll ever find a place she wants to settle down. Whereever it is, it's going to be quieter without these air raid sirens going off. That's when she sees a guy in fancy clothes running along the river with a couple of giant bears running beside him, and a pink-haired magical girl appears on the bridge. A battle ensues, during which the bridge gets totally destroyed. Chizuko watches this with utter amazement. Not even noticing as she gets soaked by the rain.

When she gets home, she is excited beyond belief, and begs her mother if she can keep living with her Grandfather. This is where she wants to live. Naniga City has a Magical Girl!

In the second half of the episode, she's started in the new school. The intercom announces that there's a "Kaijin" alert, and her classmates are NOT thrilled. I guess the ongoing magical girl battles are old hat to them. A couple of girls mourn that this means they can't go to Karaoke. But not Chizuko. She grabs her backpack and rushes off in the rain to try to get to the site of the battle in time. Alas, she can't, but she CAN see the Jumbotron with witness-supplied video of the battle, which is how she learns the Magical Girl's name is Berry Blossom, and the Villain is Chrome. The battle is over in seconds. It was very lame.

Did she say that out loud? Yes she did. Did anyone hear her? Just that still sizzling villain standing behind her. She doesn't even look before she launches into her critique. When she's done, she finally notices who it is, but when he advances on her, she folds her umbrella and whacks him with it, which is enough to send him crawling. But he says he appreciates her insights, and asks if they could talk elsewhere. After all, they both love Berry Blossom....

At an outdoor table at a nearby cafe, Chrome starts monologuing at her about his origin, when he first started terrorizing this town, and their first battle, and how she rose to the occasion to defeat him. Chizuko pegs him as a masochist who just likes it when Berry Blossom takes him down. He ripostes with how she wants her to endure harder battles. She's smart enough to realize that she needs to run. But the bears catch her. She was afraid he was going to kidnap her and use her as bait. He didn't think of that option, he just wants to recruit her to his evil organization, Fossa Magna. She runs again, making her escape. But she's haunted by the offer. She convinces herself it was only a dream, until she goes to the convenience store and Chrome, in his civilian role as Kuroma, is working the cash register.

Surprise!

Hide Comments | Add Comment

From a thread on X:

Hide Comments | Add Comment

Feh, just finished two shows in a row that seemed to end early, with their stories halfway finished. And you know how that goes, IF there is a second season, which is almost never guaranteed, it will be years off and you'll have forgotten the series by then. (AnimeChart CAN alert you to a next season, if they haven't renamed it too differently.)

"No Longer Allowed in Another World" crapped out with 5 of the 8 major opponents still kicking, and no clear plan, and this goofy coffin-car that makes it hard to take seriously. Also annoying to me is that with the addition of the kid sidekick, Tama has been demoted to pairing off with him all the time, and made sillier. It was fun at the start, but somehow it lost that. Although it still was good in that each defeated villain went a different way.

"Failure Frame: I Became the Strongest and Annihilated Everything With Low-Level Spells" also ran out of track halfway to the destination. They made it to the dark elf witch who would be able to translate the ancient spells needed to finish off the evil goddess, and that's where it ended. Not a bad looking dark elf witch either, for the whole minute she was on screen. It turned out to be a fairly average example of the genre, and free from the protagonist rules-lawyering his powers into something greater than they were.

While I'm at it.

"Bye Bye Earth" got nowhere except setting up a potential pairing for Belle.

"The Ossan Newbie Adventurer, Trained to Death by the Most Powerful Party, Became Invincible" was pure Shonen trash, complete with tournament arc and obtaining the first Dragon Ball expy. The dark elf girl was wallpaper.

"My wife has no expressions" ended up kind of trite. With very little in the way of challenges to the relationship, and not a lot of thought or introspection on Takuma's part. Plus way too much of the annoying baby robot.

Ririsa is still going. I stopped watching Suicide Squad halfway though. I pulled down the new Monogatari series and added that to the huge unwatched Monogatari folder. NieR Automata is also stalled. So I can't say how badly any of those ended yet.

Posted by: Mauser at September 27, 2024 03:32 PM (nk1Z+)

Posted by: J Greely at September 29, 2024 04:57 AM (oJgNG)

Hide Comments | Add Comment

As this season slowly grinds to a halt (what with some series ending early, and others running long) I discovered something I should have been watching. That is Make Heroine ga Oosugiru! - "Too Many Losing Heroines". I blame a meme I saw on X of Lemon. I'm going to see how much of it I can power through this weekend. Although I'm not even finished episode 1 at this writing. I have to take it in small doses, but it's funny. Our protagonist is a straight man for a gaggle of girls slowly swirling around him who all seem to be stereotypes of the girls who lose out in romance stories. Just the opening scene lays it out, where he's reading a romance story and witnesses a scene right out of one of those novels involving his classmates.

As for next season....

There are three returning/continuing series. Re:Zero (Which I admit I've fallen way behind on), DanMachi (Likewise) and 2.5-jigen no Ririsa (Which I have not).

Everything else is kind of iffy, largely chosen for a possible cute looking character. That didn't work out too well this past season, as Reanette from "Mid-life Adventuring Crisis" was an absolute cypher who did virtually nothing for the entire show.

Hide Comments | Add Comment

Took ten episodes to deliver on the setup. Belle's sword is Erehwon, and Adonis' new sword is its opposite, Nowhere. And here I was thinking it was a misspelled literary reference to Samuel Butler's Erewhon. Looks like they're steering these two to become some kind of cosmic Yin/Yang.

Hang on, that's the last episode? Seriously?

Hide Comments | Add Comment

It's the kitty slippers that really make the scene....

Hide Comments | Add Comment

Although I swear, Dark Elves are getting lighter and lighter. It's like they're not getting enough sun....

Posted by: Mauser at September 08, 2024 08:37 PM (nk1Z+)

Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at September 20, 2024 07:16 PM (LZ7Bg)

Hide Comments | Add Comment

I think I've figured it out. It's basically applying the Rule of Cool to virtually EVERYTHING on the screen.

But when everything is "Cool" nothing is.

Even applies to injuries, so when Belle gets slit from shoulder to wrist, it only bleeds a little rather than having her take the low blood pressure challenge in under 30 seconds.

Hide Comments | Add Comment

Seriously, Mina is showing more and more aggressive jealousy (Especially since she is the one who got the little health monitor robot who is in serious need of resetting.) She just started wrestling the vacuum cleaner away from Takuma when he asked if she was capable of doing the cleaning too. She answered that she was programmed to cook, but grabbed the vacuum.... I stopped there, but I wonder if she's afraid of him getting yet another robot to clean their tiny 8-mat apartment.

Click to embiggen

Oh god, it's even worse. She starts playing an advertisement to buy the cleaning plug-in, which she says will play once a minute while she's doing cleaning. Then she boots him out of the apartment (He'd been planning to go to the bookstore after cleaning) and continues cleaning.

I guess it's the author's idea to show off the ideas he has for a society with robots, but it is amazingly over-regulated. As Takuma tries to take the little bot into a movie theater and discovers there are four "Classes" of robots that may or not be admitted, and he has to take it to a "Health center" to be evaluated. Takuma trying to educate an AI on his own is just going randomly. Just reset the little fucker. Maybe then Mina won't be pitching it out of bed like a football out of jealousy.

For the second time, the Trolley Problem is used in a robot evaluation.

Hide Comments | Add Comment