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So many shows are coming out late this season, it's really frustrating. Either that or the circle I chose can't seem to keep a schedule.

Loser Ranger skipped a week. Ember normally gets out Elf Wife on Thursday and it's still not out (Except by other groups, and I hate switching mid-season, totally screws up my filing system). Several other shows have had late entries.

I know, you shouldn't bitch about free, quasi-legal stuff, but supposedly these guys build a reputation this way.

Posted by: J Greely at May 11, 2024 04:13 AM (oJgNG)

Posted by: Mauser at May 11, 2024 05:49 AM (nk1Z+)

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Okay, that was TOTALLY not was I was expecting from this show. Parallel universes.

The news on TV shows a shot from the International Space Station (and of course, there's a Youkai on the crew) and a discussion is had about the probe they're going to be sending into a wormhole they've discovered. Turns out there's a whole Time and Space ministry, and they also investigate terrestrial incidents as well. Of which there have been a few in town lately.

As an example, Railway workers are startled by an unscheduled train blowing through their work area. It turns out to be empty when it stops at the station, but a human worker finds a woman is on the platform, confused about how she got there. Then she's terrified when one of the Youkai workmen comes up to them, and she runs off down the track, followed by the driverless train.

But it's not a ghost story.

The Kitsune, Yuri, has a brief encounter with her doppelganger from the alternate world at her front door, and they both pass out. Taira and Buchio arrive to visit at just that instant, and the version of Yuri they find seems off, and she thinks that Buchio is a ventriloquist's trick. Or perhaps she's dreaming, but how odd, she thinks, that she'd be aware of that while dreaming. But being introduced to Jiro and his father, the Tengu, turns that into a nightmare. Fortunately the science team is on site as well (They were meeting with Jiro) and they have a gadget that will let them exchange the girls back.

The experience in the all-human world helps Yuri face a familial problem that was introduced in the first act.

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They're So Close, almost, to having a plot. Five whole episodes of leveling, and finally, next episode, they go to war.

I expect, like everything else so far in this show, it will be a cakewalk.

I was expecting more babes, but they barely get any screen time.

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Episode 4 of Tonari no Youkai-san. We finally meet the car-headed fellow from the opening credits. He's a tsukumogami, meaning a beloved object that acquires a soul. In this case, Wagen-kun was a VW Golf expy beloved by his owner for 40 years. But get this, he's showing up at the driving school because he needs a license to drive himself, and before that, since he was a German car, he had to acquire Japanese citizenship.

<facepalm>

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So I was a little surprised by the turn of the plot with the four girls on the train. I assumed with the bulge in the back of her skirt that Akira was starting her village's animal transformation a little early. I was not expecting secret mushrooms. I was not expecting them to work from that end either, but I guess if it was possible in The Puppet Masters, it's possible here.

I wonder if anyone connected that segment to the old Japanese horror movie, starring the lovely Kumi Mizuno, Matango: Attack of the Mushroom People.

This also answered the question of how they'd take up the surplus of stations, some of them were just not safe to stop at.

Now the LAST thing I expected was two of the girls subjected to lilliputian bondage to the rotor blades of a tiny Chinook. That can't be good for them - the rotors, I mean.

Forgot I need pictures the engage people apparently... *grin*

Posted by: J Greely at April 25, 2024 11:03 AM (oJgNG)

Posted by: Mauser at April 25, 2024 03:33 PM (nk1Z+)

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I never made it through all 99 episodes of Ge Ge Ge no Kitaro, although I should at some point. But the main theme was that despite all of Kitaro's efforts, interactions between humans and the Yokai world are rarely very healthy for the humans.

And while the people in the village Jiro protects get along pretty well with their resident Yokai, there is plenty of danger from the transients. This is not quite the idyllic life sort of Anime one might have thought it was.

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Re:Monster Ep 3. Our hero gets laid, 7 times, and does not freak out about it.

Posted by: Mauser at April 19, 2024 04:28 PM (nk1Z+)

Posted by: Mauser at April 19, 2024 04:29 PM (nk1Z+)

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Kaiju 8-gou - Kaiju #8 Is Gou the counter-word for monsters?

If you look at it sideways, there's definitely a Pacific Rim influence when it comes to monster disposal, although so far there's been no indication of a black market for monster bits. Although they do preserve samples for a laboratory.

The characters have been in a world beset by monsters since they were children, so this is normal to them. Nobody is freaking out because there are monsters. Of course they run for their lives, but when the monsters are remote, they watch with curiosity and cheer on the Monster Defense forces. Nobody cheers for the clean-up squad though.

It's dirty, nasty work, especially when you get assigned to the intestines.... Kafka Hibino is our main character. As a child, he and his neighbor, Mina Ashiro, swore they would one day join the Defense Force after a Kaiju destroyed their homes. He, however, failed the test while Mina rose through the ranks to become one of the youngest captains, at 27, and a rising star in the force. Kafka, on the other hand, gave up after his rejection, and stayed on Clean-up duty. One day Newbie Reno Ichikawa shows up, and he's assigned to Kafka for training. He's ambitious, and wants to get to the Defense Forces, and looks down on Kafka for giving up. But after the first grueling day, he actually thanks Kafka for getting him through it, and points out that the age limit for joining the defense forces has been raised. He has a bit of that Tsundere attitude, "Not that I care whether you go for it or not."

Apparently there's a danger of minor monsters showing up at the site of a clean-up, what they called a Yoju. Kafka and Ishikawa are the last ones off the site when one strikes and nearly chows down on Ishikawa, but for Kafka tackling him. Kafka tells Ishikawa to run and call the monster in while he distracts it. Kafka lures the monster away until one of the monster's swipes at him connects and sends him flying, breaking his leg. The monster is about to eat him when Ishikawa reappears and strikes the thing in the head, returning the favor. They are both apparently doomed though, but Ishikawa DID get a phone call in, and Mina's squad shows up in the nick of time and destroys the thing in seconds.

The two end up in a local hospital. And in a scene that was in every preview video, a small flying monster appears in Kafka's room and shoves itself down his throat, converting him into a humanoid monster. They decide they'd better leave when an old man in the hallway starts calling in a monster report.

And at the end, we see Mina remembering the past like Kafka was. So she DOES remember him, even though she showed no recognition any earlier. She holds it against him that he didn't get into the forces with her. Then she gets the call about a monster in the hospital....

This is impressively animated. I'm sure there's plenty of CGI, but it doesn't look like it. Kafka's character design is a bit off the mainstream for anime. But it's cool and flexible, and good for comedic effect. It's not strictly a comedy, in fact, it's mainly serious, but it has its moments to lighten the mood.

---

While that's it for new shows, there are two returning shows, and I guess I'll be getting to them in a bit.

Tonari no yokai episode 2 surprised me, when in addition to all the historic monsters, Hanako-chan, the ghost of the third stall in the girl's restroom appears.

And fortunately, from an obscure webcomic I read called Erma, I wasn't surprised when the teacher's neck extended far enough to cross the classroom when the Kappa girl fell over for lack of water.

Posted by: J Greely at April 13, 2024 09:50 PM (oJgNG)

Posted by: Mauser at April 21, 2024 12:01 AM (nk1Z+)

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Anime Russian Roulette - Sometimes you lose.

In this case, Lv2 kara Cheat datta Motoyuusha Kouho no Mattari Isekai Life - Chillin' in Another World with Level 2 Super Cheat Powers.

Interesting bit: The hero is summoned from another fantasy world instead of ours.

I had a whole write up for this attached to the previous post, but lost the edit. Somehow I closed the tab, but Ctrl-W doesn't seem to be working in Firefox, so I'm not sure what I did.

The initial fantasy world had some problems, and I wasted more time writing about them than when they were on screen. Mostly it was about really inconsistent costume design.

Our Hero is the 198th innocent snatched out of his world the fight the "Dark Army", but unfortunately he has no special stats, and they can't tell what "Divine Gift" he was given as a power. They totally forget about him because a guy with blonde hair, a smirk, and solid 999 stats appears on the next circle. They pay so much attention to the obviously bad hero that they forget to send our guy back, and he's stuck there when the gate closed.

Then the King grants him a place to stay in a forest on the edge of the kingdom (Which is full of toxic demon gas, as we find out later), and has him thrown on a wagon and dragged out there on a 20 day trip. They did supply him with a bag of holding with some crap and some useful stuff (100,000 gold in various coins, I noticed, which is important later). But the bag had a crap sword in it, and apparently an attract monster curse. Still, he managed to kill the three slimes that attacked him, and he leveled up, and all his stats went to infinity, a symbol he'd never seen before and didn't understand.

The status screens and menus come with a voice mode, and make suggestions to him. It stops him from going into the polluted wood, suggests a purification spell, which he casually casts (Turns out it's one of the biggest holy spells ever.), but then he decides he actually wants to go back to town, where he's been banned. Presto, transformation spell. For a moment he chooses to edit his character to female, but changes back with a different look. then Teleports back to the capitol.

Upon arriving at the capitol, he decides to see if there's a guild, because he needs money....

It was at this point, if this were a book, I'd have thrown it at the wall. He had boatloads of money, enough to last years. But he left that bag of holding in the woods. WTeverlovingF?

I  should unpause and continue....

So, he goes to the Adventurers' Guild because he just ASSUMES he can't join the Merchants' Guild without knowing somebody. And look, busty elf guild receptionists. And E through A ranks. "Works just like the guilds at home." Not much of an Isekai if you STARTED in an Isekai world....

At the guild, instead of taking a job off the board, he decides to help this broke little elf urchin who wants to go to the forest he just left. And he mistakenly brags he can teleport her. Which freaks everyone in the guild hall. He then gets an intervention from a female member of the Royal Knights who thinks he's up to no good, (with her three friends, a mage, barbarienne, and an archer (who is NOT an elf, but kitted out like one), also destined to be in the harem I wager.). To allay their suspicions, he offers to take them with.

Pulling it off convinces them he's the most exalted of wizards or something, and there's profuse apologizing and bowing and kneeling.

The little girl is surprised the forest isn't full of the poison gas. And our hero is about to blurt out that he used the purification spell when his status screen warns him that it's dangerous to tell a demon (whups, not an elf) that you can use purification. Considering that Teleportation is a trivial spell for him and it blows everyone away, the fact that you used purification which used a third of your mana pool should be a pretty big giveaway, but mister natural skill at math totally misses this.

Then the future harem step up to attack the little girl, whom they know is a demon now, and demand to see her true form. Be careful what you wish for... she transforms into a giant wolf-beast, and announces her particularly high status amongst the demons. Then she emits the poison gas which incapacitates everyone but our hero. He teleports all the girls back to town but stays behind to fight, with no idea what to do. He's just gonna spam all of his spells. Cliffhanger ending.

Clues from the end credits and the preview, the little girl form is a disguise, she's actually an adult. And he apparently domesticates her as his first haremette. Yay.

Of every Isekai I've seen, this has to be the laziest, and has the biggest plot holes, in spite of taking the easiest route ever. But the girls are cute, if also kind of standard issue.

If you're bored, I guess you can watch it.

Posted by: J Greely at April 10, 2024 07:56 PM (oJgNG)

Posted by: Mauser at April 11, 2024 03:37 AM (nk1Z+)

Posted by: J Greely at April 11, 2024 04:58 AM (oJgNG)

Posted by: Mauser at April 11, 2024 06:20 PM (nk1Z+)

Posted by: Mauser at April 12, 2024 05:32 PM (nk1Z+)

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