Mahou Meido Meganekko

A lot of people dissed this show before it began, citing a lack of originality. I didn’t see it that way, although by the end of the first two episodes, I did see their point; it was a bizarre pastiche of the Matrix, Terminator, Evil Dead II, and B-grade horror flicks in general. But I liked the primary female, Maya. She really is tsundere for the occult. She hates it and denies its existence, but she’s an expert in it. Maya is capable, but she’s in over her head and she knows it.

She’s also wearing the same white dress through the whole show, despite getting green ichor all over it in the first episode. Damn, that Japanese bleach is good!

The primary male, unfortunately, is the major failure point of the show — but far from the only one. I thought we had a cocky braggart who was also finding himself over his head. You know the story; the trope is that they’re the Cocky Arrogant Hero; over-confident in the extreme, and you, as the viewer, just can’t wait for him to get his comeuppance. Once the CAH gets the stuffing beaten out of him, he loses confidence, mopes around, and all appears lost. At the last minute, he gets his mojo back, or maybe really starts trying for the first time. He ends up saving the day with some real bad-assery, maybe a CMoA or two, because he’s a Big Damn Hero. It turns out he really is as good as he thinks he is. All is well, and he smooches the love interest before the final curtain.

That isn’t what is happening here.

(more…)

Holy boing-boing, Batman…. that episode was actually damn good!

In the first season, they followed the manga up until the last episode, and only changed the aftermath of the battle on the bridge. The second season has completely departed from the manga, and the results are far more promising than I expected. It was funny, it was tense, and it ended on a cliffhanger. I came for the boobies, and I’m getting a comedy-harem-action-fanservice thriller. I don’t know who’s writing this, but I’m impressed so far. Even the animation is, if not inspired, at least competent.

The conversation on the roof between Kazehana and Tskuomi was good on both the comedy and personal levels, but they set up a joke during it, and delivered at the end of the scene. Then, anyone who’s ever made a call and gotten a child on the line will be rolling on the floor during Ku-chan’s telephone scene.

If you haven’t followed the first season, you can just go ahead and pick up with ep. 1 of this season, as it’s a recap anyway.

So I’m still finishing off Kali because she cast the Spell of Return before I could bag the rest of her cities. I’m ready to attack her capital, but decided to hold off and hit some of the remaining Myrran mana nodes, just to see what dropped. I’d scouted several that were too tough for me to spare forces for, or I’d bounced.

So I hit a Chaos node with a mixed LB/Magician/EL stack. This is what I got, and I didn’t take a single hit vs 8 Gargoyles, thanks to getting an invisibility spell off.

This is one of my complaints about the AI: it’s stupid. Melee units just sat there, whereas if they moved forward, they’d eventually have found me anyway.

Only problem was, I screwed up when I took the screenshot, and caused DOSBox to crash, which lost the game state — so I didn’t have this when I reloaded. Oh well, lets hit them again! I didn’t do as well the 2nd time, because the node prevented both my attempts at Mass Invisibiilty; I had to duke it out with nothing but a Blur spell to back up my troops. So what I actually ended up with was this.

So this is what Jafar looks like now:

Yeah, I lost the druid when I put it Auto for a battle that I shouldn’t have, and he charged.

You know, there’s three more nodes I haven’t taken yet…. be back in a bit.

Update:
I lost connectivity with the server last night, so my update didn’t go through. An autosave caught part of it,

The first one:

The prisoner was Taki, and I turned him down, since I now had the Resurrect spell to get the druid back.

The second one:

One of the bows was ok, the other was crap.

I have a screencap of the third, but don’t remember what it was. I think it was 140 mana crystals and an axe. I then noticed 2 more nodes and an abandoned keep in Arcanus on a remote island. I decided to hammer them as well, but the drops were, by this point, mediocre at best. So I put Kali out of her misery and went to bed.

My next game is going to be a Myrror start with Dark Elves and all Death magic. I don’t recall ever using it that much, so that will be another learning experience.

“Emotional Incoherence.”

Jun Maeda and Key were made for each other. Honestly, I lost interest around episode 10.

So I was looking through bookmarks for one in particular, when I noticed I had accidentally bookmarked this post by Steven a few months ago. In the comments, we had a back and forth about Mikasa (the “Railgun) Mikoto’s power.

Steven pointed out that Mikoto had probably been holding back during the school tests. Although she had no reason to do so, it’s entirely possible that she was, being less motivated during testing than, say, in the middle of a life and death confrontation.

If that’s the the case then, it belatedly occurs to me, that her ranking as #3 among level 5’s is probably entirely incorrect. She’s likely the true #1; it’s just that her power, in terms of battle application, is weaker than Accelerator’s*. It’s definitely more versatile though, as we see her hack computers with it. Incidentally this explains how she didn’t fry Kiyama’s car’s electronics; she’s got a fine control and when she concentrates on it, she can protect a zone from her own powers.

*edit: On the other hand, not only is there Steven’s point below, I forgot about his computational ability required to support the Accelerator power, which he applies in other places.

Additionally, per the manga, she is a bit short on endurance. During the first half of the Sister’s Arc (alluded to during Index by the bag with the map of destroyed installations) she fights a mercenary team made up of 4 youths, two of whom are also in the top 7. Show ▼

The Railgun manga is not an alternate continuity; we’ve reached the point in the story where Mikoto and Touma meet at the vending machine that she often abuses (in fairness, it steals money a lot, so Mikoto’s thefts are to recover her losses to it). Show ▼

Her entire war took place in the course of only a few days, which is why she doesn’t seem as shell shocked in Index until that storyline, or in the Railgun series — all that is in her future during Railgun.

I still hope they do a movie of the Sisters arc.

I was just rewatching episode 9 of Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou, when I noticed something. When the three part-demonic guys go to assassinate Keina, a blood-spattered badge gets shown briefly.

Then it gets shown again, but not as the badge, just the symbol itself, as a quick cut.

Why? This screams that it’s important in some way. I don’t think it’s the symbol of CIM08, because the implication is that it came off the bad guy that was about to kill Keina. It looks kind of familiar, but I can’t find it in the show anywhere. I think my feeling of familiarity is based on it resembling a real-world badge or heraldry, but I’m damned if I know whose.

Actually, now that I look at it more closely, it’s evident in the second picture that the stylized text at the bottom says “Suhara” which is the name of the god that’s trying to have Keina killed. It’s also the god of Junko Hattori’s family. Akuto is a “follower” of Koro, but the truth is, he’s an atheist at heart.

I wonder what part the gods will play… and what are they, exactly?

Haven’t watched far enough to determine if they removed a lot of the fog. Not sure I want to. Even though I knew, I’d forgotten just how much the first episode sticks the viewer’s nose into the crotches of little girls, and just how rare pants were. As in Miyafuji’s entire class was missing them, not just the Strike Witches.

The liner has notes about the girls, including their “colors.” Not, you understand, their national colors, but their panties’ colors. Helpful shots are provided, just in case you forgot after the episode.

“The War on Pants” indeed.

What’s scary is this actually could have been a really decent show, without the panties and the screwed up ending. It hits the right buttons and pulls the right strings. It’s just….Gonzo. Or rather, it was Gonzo

Of course, given the borderline nature of this show, the caption “Jury Recommended” takes on some scary unintended meanings. I know, they mean the Japan Media Arts Festival, but still…

I did find it odd that there are no trailers and no other extras. There were a couple of inserts about upcoming shows, but that was it.