April 03, 2024
Spring has sprung
Re:Monster has started with one of the nastiest Isekaiings ever. Our poor protagonist is getting stabbed to death and then some by a crazy girlfriend with a sci-fi knife. OP promises lots of monster girls, but mute it because it has a horrible rap theme song, with a lot of bad English. One advantage apparently about being born a goblin is that he goes from baby to youth in about three days, so that dispenses with one of the more tedious parts of a "Reborn into a new world" type Isekai - childhood.
Shuumatsu Train Doko e Iku - Train To The End Of The World. Cute girls ride an antique (but I imagine highly fetishized by Japanese Railfans) 2000 series electric train from their home town of Agano to Ikebukuro.
Maou no Ore ga Dorei Elf wo Yome ni Shitanda ga, Dou Medereba Ii? An Archdemon's Dilemma: How to Love Your Elf Bride (Short title: Midome). It's a mistake to call the sorcerer with no social skills an Incel, since he's quite fine with that state of affairs. At least until he get a chance to buy an enslaved Elf at auction.
I'll edit this post as I get first episodes.
Re:Monster has started with one of the nastiest Isekaiings ever. Our poor protagonist is getting stabbed to death and then some by a crazy girlfriend with a sci-fi knife. OP promises lots of monster girls, but mute it because it has a horrible rap theme song, with a lot of bad English. One advantage apparently about being born a goblin is that he goes from baby to youth in about three days, so that dispenses with one of the more tedious parts of a "Reborn into a new world" type Isekai - childhood.
Yeah, there are messages when he achieves something, but no hovering status screens, and no divine spirit involved. Apparently this is some carryover from an ESP power he had in the previous world, which is NOT our world, for once. He already has the power of Absorption, where he gains traits from whatever he eats, even metals and poisons. However, anything he had acquired in his previous life has been lost.
It's a unique set-up at least.
And at 6 days old, he's got a goblin girl hitting on him....
Okay, you can tap your head for a status screen, and evolve at 100 points, and he's already up to 86. He'd better evolve quickly though, Goblin lifespans are only about 20 years. So of course he sets a speed record for evolving into a Hobgoblin, and with every new creature he kills (With his two companions) the list of skills inflates incredibly. And soon, he's running the entire cohort he was born in.
Shuumatsu Train Doko e Iku - Train To The End Of The World. Cute girls ride an antique (but I imagine highly fetishized by Japanese Railfans) 2000 series electric train from their home town of Agano to Ikebukuro.
It seems someone invented 7G networking but didn't realize that it threatened the laws of physics. If you thought Flip Flappers was psychedelic, you should see what happened when they turned it on....
Two years later people are living with the consequences, which are different all over. In Agano, it means anyone over 21 years and 3 months old turns into a random animal. Some places everyone turned into trees. The distances between places have expanded enormously. Shizuru and her three friends haven't changed yet (they may still, no matter where they go). Shizuro is determined to find her friend Yoka with whom she had a falling out shortly before the 7G disaster. A chance bit of newspaper has a picture of Yoka, placing her in Ikebukuro only a month prior. And so, after a crash course in how to operate a 2000 Series engine, the journey begins.
Which includes a count of the number of intervening stops, so I imagine each place will be a different surreal adventure. Although there are more than there are episodes, so they'd better get a move on.
Maou no Ore ga Dorei Elf wo Yome ni Shitanda ga, Dou Medereba Ii? An Archdemon's Dilemma: How to Love Your Elf Bride (Short title: Midome). It's a mistake to call the sorcerer with no social skills an Incel, since he's quite fine with that state of affairs. At least until he get a chance to buy an enslaved Elf at auction.
Now, while I'm all in favor of white haired elf characters, especially with collars, even if they're not dark skinned, for some reason my initial impression of her reminds me of Carla from Kono Healer Mendodkusai, and she hasn't spoken a word yet.
Zagan (the sorcerer) Rolls a 1 for Initiative and Nephelia (Nephy) totally drives their initial conversation by asking questions about how horrible he is going to be to her. Despite his denials, she keeps on asking how she is to be tortured and killed. I started getting the feeling she actually wanted it, the way she kept volunteering. Either that or she was playing 4-D Chess. In any case, in classic sorcerer style, he takes the fair maiden up to a tower room and locks her away gives her free rein to do with it as she likes. It's a "Master has given Dobby clothing!" moment.
The first episode felt really short, even though it was full length. Guess that's why they debuted with two. Before I delve into the second, I predict that all the comedy will center around her unspoken assumptions putting him on the spot and leaving him unable to communicate either.
And the opening of episode 2 is exactly that. He can't even figure out how to answer "Good morning, Master." Considering he grew up in the streets of the city, he shouldn't be THAT clueless about human social etiquette.
But he is.
The show takes a turn for the strikingly mundane as he discovers that people can actually appreciate a sorcerer who isn't doing evil shit to them. After he fights off some bandits attacking a Caravan, and the sorcerer behind them, ostensibly to impress Nephy that he will protect her, The cart owner pays him a huge bag of silver (Which the bandits were about to take) to ride with them for security. This solves the plot hole where they couldn't afford to pay for a ride, but were heading into town for shopping. He decides to get stuff for his elf girl, and the clothing shop is clearly a Flag event, since the Harpy proprietor Manuela appears in the OP, and somehow she floats around the shop without flapping her wings.
Hmmm, Manuela appeared to be shocked by Nephy's collar, but then the first outfit she produced for her is a barely-there strappy number that embarrasses both of them. But her enthusiasm for that outfit and the other ideas she has makes it seem like she's really into that herself. Fortunately that enthusiasm forces Nephy to finally express an opinion for herself and she decides that she's happy with the Maid outfit she was dressed in second, before a worse third outfit could have been offered.
I do hope an actual plot kicks in at some point, but the rest of the episode is filled with domestic cuteness.
Flag #2 the story cuts away from our awkward couple to a redheaded knight who also appears in the opening credits. She was actually in the very first scene of the first episode, but unarmored, and unconscious for most of it. But that scene established that there's a religious order opposed to sorcerers, and this one establishes that she's a knight of that order, and conflicted because she was rescued by a sorcerer.
I shouldn't have wished for plot. The backstory for the first scene gets recalled. She had a force of Angelic Knights that were wiped out by the cult of "Face Stealer" sorcerers who had been kidnapping young women in the area. The last of whom was the fellow Zagan had rescued her from. So, we get the standard "Corrupt church leader" who lies to her and says that a search of the Face Stealer's lair implicates Zagan as the mastermind, and he orders her after him, saying that even if that IS a mistake, he's still an evil sorcerer and must be wiped out. And we get her name, which really just rolls off the tongue, even less so in Japanese: Chastille Lillqvist.
I'm following the Ember version. They like to stick a manga panel at the last frame. In this case, we see that yeah, that third, or even fourth outfit would have been FAR worse....
Posted by: Mauser at
08:23 PM
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Posted by: J Greely at April 05, 2024 04:55 AM (oJgNG)
2
Hard to say since the first episode is mostly establishing the set-up, and a lot of time is spent on the adults (animals) in Agano, so it's slow and calm. There's a little yelling where the Gal and the Goth, who apparently always antagonize each other, are fighting, but thar's natural.
Posted by: Mauser at April 05, 2024 06:08 PM (nk1Z+)
3
"Which includes a count of the number of intervening stops, so I imagine
each place will be a different surreal adventure. Although there are
more than there are episodes, so they'd better get a move on."
That bit made me think it's going to be "Kino's Journey, But On Drugs."
Or maybe "On Better Drugs."
That bit made me think it's going to be "Kino's Journey, But On Drugs."
Or maybe "On Better Drugs."
Posted by: mikeski at April 06, 2024 11:59 PM (DgGvY)
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