badger11’s take on anime

This episode ended with a new ending song and visuals. It starts out with the off-line group enjoying their last meal around a bonfire while Hitomi’s boyfriend, Misaki, and Yamazaki race to find and stop them. In the car, Yamazaki states that it shouldn’t be surprising that Satou was committing suicide. He didn’t have a job or a girlfriend. he wasn’t in school and the game that he and Yamazaki were making was basically finished. The most damning piece of evidence was that Misaki was spying on Satou. When Yamazaki asks Misaki why, all she says was that he was important to him. On the island, Satou is still trying to figure a way out, stating that all he wanted to do was to hang out and have a good time with Hitomi, his senpai. While the others in the group reiterate their determination to go ahead with their deaths.

When Samazaki and the others get to the wharf, Hitomi’s boyfriend tries to find out any information about the off-line group, Yamazaki tells Misaki that since she was spying on Satou, she new he was lying about being a game designer. He also tells her that he’s a victim here too because he agreed to make a game with Satou in order to keep up Satou’s lies. All Misaki can say is that she wanted to help Satou who Yamazaki compares to a stray dog. Hitomi’s boyfriend comes back and tells them where the other group is and that he has rented a bout.

The island group starts to walk toward a cliff when one of the members, and ex-medical student, suddenly stops, not willing to go any further. He keeps saying he can see his mother’s face and her pain. A second member decides not to go through it also. This member is a young teenager and he admits to stealing money from his parents. This leaves Satou, Hitomi and the island owner. The medical student starts trying to talk everyone out of jumping by saying that even they have something to leave for, such as family. The island owner tells everyone that his wife left him and won’t let him see their son. This sets the medical student off, calling him irresponsible even if he can’t see his son. Hitomi, dragging Satou along (still unwilling to end it all) continues to the edge. Right at the last second, Hitomi’s boyfriend calls out from the boat below telling her not to jump, he needs her and then he asks her to marry him. This was what Hitomi always wanted to hear, that he needed her. Satou, hearing this decides to jump.

His crush on his Senpai has now been broken. As he starts towards the edge, the others grab him and Misaki shouts that he’s important to her, that she finally found someone lower than herself in life. Finally Yamazaki shouts to Satou that people like them aren’t allowed dramatic deaths. No matter how depressed or in pain they are, they have to stay in their daily routine lives. This snaps Satou out of it and as he starts to step back, the cliff edge collapses under him. Hanging on to the side, he’s saved by the others.

Even though I was sure that Satou would live in this episode, I was half-expecting that someone from the suicide group was going to die, even though Misaki and the others would get their in time. I also wasn’t expecting the cliff to collapse under Satou. I found Yamazaki’s statements to Misaki to be a little weak, especially when he claims to be vicitimized by her too. The thing is, he could easily have said no to helping Satou lie about being a game designer. I can only assume that since Satou was his senpai in school that had a lot to do with him helping Satou. However, Yamazaki totally redeems himself with the smartest lines said in the show. I think Yamazaki telling Satou that people like them weren’t allowed to have dramatic deaths and could only live routine lives wasn’t brilliant, instead it was practical, which is the brilliant part of this episode for me. This part really made this episode my favorite to date.

On a side note, the first manga book, that this series is based on, will be released sometime this month in English. I’m planning on picking it up, but I don’t really intend to compare the show and the manga.

Pumpkin Scissors takes place in a country recovering from a major war. Three years after the end of the war, the recovery effort doesn’t seem to be going to well. The show starts off with a military ceremony where the cease-fire is announced and we catch a first glimpse of Lt. Alice Malvin. The story starts when we catch-up with Malvin and two other soliders spying on a group of renegade soliders holed up near a dam. Malvin and the others are part of a military intelligence outfit called Pumpkin Scissors.

Next we’re see Randel Oland, a huge, scarred-face man eating a salad in a restaurant. Malvin and the others enter the restaurant and when she passes by Oland, she gets a feeling on the back of her neck. When Malvin is about to talk to him, an explosion shakes the palce. The renegades have brought their tank into town to extort supplies. Malvin confronts them and they back off after firing a blank artillery round. Soon the villages fall sick and the team realizes that the blank round shot from the the tank was actually a chemical weapon.

Next we see the Military Intelligence HQ. The head of the Pumpkin Scissors, Capt. Hunks, gets ordered by his superior to pull out Malvin the her team. While this is happening, Malvin, Oland and the team come up with a plan to attack the renegades to get an antidote for the villagers. The two soliders under the command of Malvin act as decoys while Malvin and Oland sneak into the base. Here we start to see why the hairs on Malvin’s neck stood up when she’s around Oland.

He turns on a blue light attached to his built and his eyes start to glow. While Malvin searches for the antidote, Oland opens the floodgates on the dam, making it difficult for the tank to manuver.While the tank is trying to escape, Oland attacks it, taking out everyone except for the renedage’s leader, Graywolf. At the end of the fight, Graywolf taunts Oland into shooting him while he’s holding the antidote. Malvin jumps in and gets the antidote.

This show is put out by Gonzo and Geneon.It looks good. Better than Welcome to the NHK! that Gonzo is also involved with. But the, it could just be my monitor. There’s a bit of a spoiler about Oland in the show’s opening, so that has me interested in where they’re going to go with that. Is there going to be a morality tale somewhere at some point in the show?

Overall, its too early to decide if I’m going to like the show or not, but I’m leaning towards the like side of things.

So this final episode starts off with Rena tricking the teacher and then tying all of the students, except for Keiichi as she considers him on her side. In a phone call to the poice outside, she still thinks that Oishi is still working with her. She sends Keiichi out with Takono’s remaining notebooks and demands that an investigation on Sonozaki family starts or a bomb will go off. Once Keiichi returns, he finds her pouring gasoline in the classroom

Its good to have a back-up plan in place, just in case.

When Keiich was handing over Takono’s notebooks to Oishi, he was given a small, two-way ear pice. While Oishi distracts Rena on the phone, Keichi hears from another police officer about the time bomb. Coming up with an excusem Keiichi heads off and starts searching for the bomb. He finds something in a storeroom only to get cornered by Rena. Surprisingly, Rika saves the day allowing him to escape and find the bomb with Satoko’s help.

Ni-paa Power Strike!

Keiichi gets onto the roof and manages to stop on the bomb in time. Rena pops up again. During a bat against hatchet fight, Rena goes on about Keiichi betraying her and allowing the alien parasites to take over humanity.

Keiichi taunts Rena, using their club’s punishment game. If Keiichi wins, Rena will become his maid and wear some sort of maid outfit. If he loses, he’ll believe her. Rena adds in that if she wins, she still gets to wear the maid outfit…Ummm…oookay.

Hey look! She finally made it through a story arc!

Eventually things come to a head with Rena getting the upper hand. She suceeds where Keiichi failed in earlier arcs. In the first arc, Keiichi bludgeons Mion and Rena, despite their efforts to help him. Here, Rena manages to go avoid going that far. She breaks through whatever paranoia that she’s in and its over.

Yep, still alive

This series, I think, started off pretty good, but then just really failed to maintain. I liked the supernatural aspect of it and really wished they stuck with it more than they did. I really could’ve done without the story arc where Keiichi goes after Satoko’s uncle. It felt like they were trying to do something similar to Poe’s The Tell-Tale Heart and wound up doing CSI Law & Order: Special Over Acting Unit.

While I liked this show, it wasn’t one that I’d recommend with enthusiasm. But it was good enough for me to keep watching it (obviously). As I said earlier, I really think that if they stuck with the supernatural theme more than they did, it would’ve been a lot more enjoyable.

I still would like to know about Oyashiro-sama, the dam murder, the grey suited guys in the van, Takono and her intentions, the drug, etc. Hopefully, there’ll be a second season or at least an OVA or two (preferably two). Overall, good show, but not a great one.

This episode finds Satou and Hitomi meeting up with three other guys from the website Hitomi goes to. They’re here for the “off-line” meeting. They take a train and then boat out to an island that one of the group owns. With the exception of Satou, everyone is withdrawn, barely talking unless they have to. Satou, is the Engerizer Rabbit compared to the rest of the group. Not surprising since he thinks he’s going to start a new life with Hitomi. After getting to the island, they all pretty much hang out on the beach, “having fun during the last day of our lives” as one of the group says. While on the island, Satou decides to end his hikikomori life by trying to talk to each of these guys. He gets shutdown pretty quick and flashes back to his last year in high school where you can basically see the start of Satou withdrawing from society.

Back home, Hitomi’s boyfriend gets off work early and heads to her apartment. Finding it empty, he eventually starts searching around on her computer and find the website and the details about the offline meeting and Hitomi’s mention of basically visiting Satou. Over at Satou’s place, a cute but sad Misaki is walking up to Satou’s apartment (probably to collect the penalty fee from Satou since he cancelled the contract early). Yamazaki comes screaming out of his apartment and banging on Satou’s door because they’re late for the Natsucomi fest. Misaki tells him that Satou took off with a woman. Yamazaki doesn’t believe it until he realizes that Satou would follow Senpai shopping if she asked him to (not his words but then I’m just projecting). Hitomi’s boyfriend shows up and tells them about the offline meeting. Back at the meeting, Satou starts to build a bonfire. After talking with one of the others about “having fun during the last day of our lives”, Satou finally figures out exactly what the purpose of the trip is.

In this episode, we see three groups. Satou, the other islanders, and Yamazaki, Misaki, and Hitomi’s boyfriend. And they’re all trying to end something. Satou trying to end his hikikomori life, the other islander are planning to go offline, and the the last three will probably do attempt to do something to end the paths Satou and the gang are on. I believe that the third group will actually succeed in intervening and stopping Satou and Hitomi from the direction they’re headed in. And that means Satou will still remain a Hikikomori. And I pretty much belive that the off-line group will decide to not go through with it. So everyone wins but Satou. But I reserve the right to be wrong.

Is it just me or do these two go to the same stylist ?

One of the shows that I’m planning on watching is Hataraki Man. Its about Matsukata Hirokko, an editor at Jidai magazine who basically is a workaholic. According to the promo, she’s got a boyfriend who she doesn’t see very often and is basically your normal “conflicted and frustrated” type. At work, she’s surrounded by a laid-back editor, a dependable chief editor, a junior editor whose described as “adorable”, and (get this) yet another editor who has the opposite personality of Matsukata. So if that’s true, then guess who ain’t going to be pulling their weight at work.

The Workers Party new motto: “Live to work!”

Hataraki Man is based on a manga which I haven’t read. I’m wondering if there’s going to be some “Sex in the City” moments. Not really sure why I’m watching this. Oh wait, the promo emphasized Matsukata’s “Naturally Large-Bust”. Actually, that’s not really why. Its her eyes. They scare me. They’re the kind of eyes that hypnotize you into joining a cult or believe that a politician is sincere.

Genshiken is one of the few animes and manga that I really liked and rewatch the dvds and actually hang onto the manga. I even liked the OP and ED songs when I usually ignore or loathe them. I was disappointed when I heard that instead of a second season, they were giving Kujibiki Unbalance its own season. Earlier today I was perusing Anime News Network and noticed the news that Genshiken OAVs will be released.

Heading over to Heisei Democracy, I found more information. The OAVs will be tacked onto the Kujibiki dvds, one Genshiken OAV per dvd for a total of three episodes. The same cast will provide the vocals and Ogiue will be introduced. The first Kujibiki Unbalance dvd will be released on December 22nd in Japan. That being said, it’ll be along wait for it to be released here in the States. Well, at least we get a few more episodes.

Kujibiki Unbalance is on my to watch list, but I’ve got a strong bias against it because I’m such a Genshiken fanboy. I’ll probably watch the entire run since I haven’t found anything on tv that peaks my interest.