#anyway some aqua manga panels coming up!

[aihoshiino]

I'm honestly extremely disappointed at this arc, I was looking most forward to it but got nothing in return other than a made up fanfic that was not even developed anyways. I also am on the camp that Ruby didn't recognize her father, otherwise why would she monologue to this rando who she is trying to kill too

Ruby seems to have chosen to not forgive the person who killed her mother since the panel where she looks back at Hikaru is the same as when Akane was saying "it all comes down if the Ai in the movie forgives..." and in turn the death scene she (as Ai) portrayed her death without smiling (unlike the real Ai)...did Aqua do this on purpose so everyone spites Hikaru by showing how miserable Ai was to be killed? Or Ruby truly fail to understand her mom? Little aqua wasn't on the scene either crying over Ai either

It sucks bcoz we started the arc strongly with Ruby understanding Ai's deepest feelings with the Ai-Nino scene and the pudding outburst...to end with whatever this is. The only part I got curious was one of the last scenes with a Ai & Hikaru confrontation, what was that about? But this movie is a fanfic anyway, what's even the point knowing...

Sorry for this big rant but I'm just so annoyed with this arc, thank the heavens it's over but man...this had so much potential...Aka what were you doing

Could not agree more lol. I was saying to the gang on Discord that a big part of what made this arc so frustrating for me is that it has a handful of really high highs (131 and 136-7 my beloveds) which make the ways everything around them absolutely fails to cohere all the more obvious.

I have a secret conspiracy theory right now that the Movie arc was originally structured really differently (with the past life reveal happening much closer to 143) and that it was pushed up to its current place in the story to coincide with the last episode of the anime airing. As a result, the rest of the arc had to be restructured and it's why things feel so… janky.

I fully acknowledge I have no real evidence for this outside of just how weird and disjointed the Movie arc ends up feeling, but I kind of can't make sense of it any other way. It really feels like there were some kind of behind-the-scenes issues that resulted in the arc being structured in the way that it was just because it's so clunky and so much stuff gets such massive build up with no payoff. It feels like Akasaka was told to just make sure the manga was still running by the time season 2 aired and then got told to just cut the arc short when he was building up to the final handful of scenes because otherwise the way it rips through to the arc end makes no sense to me.

It's a mess!! I meant to sit down and try and re-read it over the break so I could at least start pecking at an arc retrospective but I just don't have the energy to even try yet lol. I'm hoping our next arc will be an improvement but. Who even knows at this point.

[redge]

【OSHI NO KO】 Season 2 Episode 15

When I started consuming this media, I made a Twitter thread while watching Season 1. Now that I caught up with the manga, I'll just put my thoughts here on Tumblr.

The opening song is one of the best parts of this season.

This manga panel made it to anime! 🤣 As they say, desperate times call for desperate measures. 🤪

It's so interesting that season 2 has been using this I'll Go With Sweet Today scene for two episodes now. As far as I know, the only time Abiko-sensei mentioned Sweet Today was when she and Kichijouji-sensei made it through a deadline. It's curious.

Himekawa Taiki, all shaved and clean (this sounds wrong but why not HAHA!)

Abiko-sensei, can we have a Tokyo Blade spin-off where Blade falls in love with Tsurugi? If not Abiko-sensei, then Aka-sensei, can we please have that angle for Taiki and Kana? Yes? HAHAHA

Another deviation from the manga (that I actually like haha). As Aqua is watching Kana rehearse, that's when he started thinking of "memories when I was happy". His thought process here was more emphasized compared to the manga.

My favourite OnK character is Arima Kana and it was in this chapter that I thought maybe Kana and Aqua have a chance? Above anything, I just want Arima Kana to be happy. Please Aka-sensei. T_T

Please give this doctor his peace of mind. For everyone's mental health, he needs to calm down and let Aqua be the teenager that he's supposed to be come on Gorou-sensei.

The other side of the fandom hates Kana Arima for liking Aqua even when he is dating someone else like it's a nasty feeling to have and you can actually do something about it. Well, if Kana was that bad of a woman, she would've run to Aqua and assisted him. But she chose to stand by because Akane was there. And why would Kana run to him? Who is she to Aqua, anyway? Heck at this part of the story, she doesn't have any idea what she is to Aqua (even after chapter 150, I am not convinced. Yes, I have trust issues). She's just a girl Aqua entrusted the B-Komachi members with. Right? Even that childhood boast is just her foolish assumption.

Now let's put emotional acting to use. Imagine you're Kana Arima. You have this crush, you see him often, but you can't do anything about it because he has a girlfriend. When you're suffering from jealousy, he'd state that he's just dating for work. Then he makes a "plan to make his partner happy", then he avoids you, then tells you he's protecting you, then tells you he can't help but have fun when he's with you. And after all those things you still don't know what you are to him. 🙃

Why do some people condemn this woman for having this hopeless romantic love for Aqua? If anything, our enemy here should be Aqua. I mean, Ruby says it all, right? ↓

Kidding. I love Aqua, he's just a broken, lost and confused teenager but I love Kana so much more please give this character the happiness she deserves I beg you Akasaka-sensei. T_T

There's something crucial missing from Gotanda-san's "I'd thought for sure that..." that was in the manga. But then, what importance would other characters' thoughts be if we have no clear proof what (who) Aqua is thinking, from his own mouth? So Aqua, when will I know your feelings, my dear child? 😅

Trigger warning for the next screencaps

This was painful but Aqua's monologue before the execution of that Sayahime and Touki scene was 100 times more painful for me. Actually, Aqua having these last memories of Ai as his mother is torture.

The voice actor of Kana posted on Twitter (X) about this scene. Interesting, right?

TL;DR:

Akasaka-sensei, conclude this manga already please 😅

[skania]

Do you have any criticism about akanes character? Mines is that her character is too tied with aqua’s and not enough of her dynamic with other characters besides kana (I don’t rlly like their dynamic bc Akane loves seeing kana thrive and and kana on the other hand hand …) the fact that akane and taiki are both lala lai genius actors yet they barely interact. I just wanna see more akane

Ohhh definitely! I see this more of a criticism about Aka's handling of Akane rather than a criticism about her character in and of itself, but I'm right there with you on this.

You know, it's funny, because your ask has made me realize just how intrinsically tied Akane is to Aqua; in the sense that Aka treats her like an extension of Aqua himself. Being a fan of her first and foremost, I really do wish we got to see more of her on her own.

Some things I do get. For example, I'm sure we don't follow Akane to set while she's recording because there's no drama there. She's doing an amazing job and everyone knows it, so Aka probably doesn't feel the need to show it. But I want to see it anyway and it sucks that we don't lol

Then we have her friendships. Just like you say, she and Taiki have known each other for a while, but we don't spend any time on them (this is an outright crime and the movie arc better do something to fix this). She told Ruby she'd love to teach her acting, but she isn't the one doing it. Memcho loves her and she's literally the one to thank for Aqua being able to save her life, yet Aka gives that dynamic no panel time whatsoever.

Obviously, this is all because Akane's plan is very plot-revelant and because it would shed insight on Aqua's plan, so Aka can't show her yet. But once again this comes down to Aka treating Akane like an extension of Aqua himself. Ever since TB, we do not see Akane on her own if it doesn't involve Aqua in some way.

Ironically, the metanarrative seems to frame Akane as the "losing heroine", but the issue at hand here is usually a classic consequence of a girl being the love interest but not a main character. So this has given me some food for thought.

All in all, Aka better have a good reason for this. Here is to hoping he makes it up to us by the end of the manga, because we deserve more Akane lol

[silvertsundere]

Silver Talks AniManga (11/06/23)

as usual the * means I don't talk about it under the cut EDIT: ST☆R was late, but to not have to reedit this pic just pretend it has a * too

Anime

Megumin Ep10

we're getting closer and closer now to when megumin joins the party in konosuba, there was a scene in the last episode that coincided with the start of the show and there were a buncha cameos from kazuma, aqua and even darkness in this one. but anyway, the closer it gets the less I care about this show since it's stopping to be a spin off, like I said before it coulda've ended on like ep 5 or 6 and it would've been better than with all these additional eps after that but I'll save most of my bitching for the final ep. only 2 more so not dropping it now obviously

Imas CG: U149 Ep9

another great ep as usual, from the meeting with producer at the start of the ep I figured that they would get a live or something, and that was confirmed, in the form of an original song, at the end. considering we have 3 episodes left but the only girl without and episode is arisu my prediction is that next episode is gonna start with producer telling them about the song, and center on the process of making it and stuff, at the end of the ep they'll learn they'll finally get to do a live concert like they've been wanting too and arisu is gonna get another bout of self doubt. then on episode 11 it'll be her episode and she'll overcome it, for ep12 to be the big finale with the concert

Mashle Ep9

a nice episode, I said next week I had some hope for sakuga in the mash vs razor fight but guess I expected too much.. same old bare minimum animation sadly. was discussing with mega what the next eps are gonna cover and what'd be a good stopping point and things aren't lining up as expected to reach a good stopping point. prob gonna be a split cour announced at the end but we'll see

Pokemon Horizons Ep10

IT'S THE NEMONA EP BABY LET'S GOOOOO good ep anyway, but nemona made it all the better, kitamura eri did a really good job, tho let's not discount nakai kazuya's (zoro) performance tho, he was really good. anyway, this episode felt the most like the old anime, the cast got to a new town, found the gym leader, resolved whatever problem was stopping them from fighting them and fought them. not a bad thing necessarily but I just hope it doesn't become the norm with roy being ash 2

Jigokuraku Ep10

just like I said last week this episode was where they explain tao, not fully yet (with the elements and all that), that'll prob come on the last episode. good ep even if it was mostly exposition I already knew, I was really settling into it when the cliffhanger hit so I guess that means it was very well paced. the way they changed the perspective to between the various groups while they were all explaining the same thing but in different ways was good and helped make the exposition feel more fluid and less like a lecture would feel, ofc it was like that in the manga too but still

Manga

Blooming Love Ch6

cute chap, I figured she'd get to the date in time with grandpa taking over the work but it also went worse than I thought, well "worse" I just expected it to be more on the cute side than comedic. anyway now that we've had the week break I can say that I'm not sure about this series being published every other week. while it's certainly moving at light speed compared to the average romance I'm not sure if the pacing is gonna work with this schedule but we'll see

Dandadan Ch109

well I certainly didn't expect mr shrimp to get a chapter just for himself but it wasn't bad. I know it's basically just buying time to make okarun show up but it did it a lot better than mashle since shrimp has been here since the start of the fight and actively participating in it

Kaiju 8 Ch87

very cool chap, I was hoping to see narumi fight a bit more but it was still good, the final page and the big panel with #1 looked really good and I was surprised by the colour page outta nowhere at the start. I'm assuming the next fight is gonna be hoshina, it's the one that makes the most sense to me but I also just wanna see him fight again

Tokyo Underworld Ch43

??? what? they literally showed the doctor being the impostor before so them trying to make it seem like he isn't now is very weird. I guess they could be like "oh the real impostor is an executioner that can take the appearance of others and they took the dr's" and that's what they're fighting in the basement but...would be still be very weird since there was no hint whatsoever that that could a possibility

Fabricant 100 Ch25

I'm sorry to tell you brother but you ain't got time for that you're gonna get axed. also I was under the impression #100 had left with #1 at the end of the next chap but she was still here in this one, went to check and sure enough she didn't leave in the last chap either, guess it's just bad paneling since it gave both me and mega that impression. but anyway, what's the point of her betraying the good guys by leatting #1 leave when she's gonna stay and fight him again in the future anyway??? very bad writing

Nue's Exorcist Ch5

terrible chap, I don't get what the author is trying to do honestly. it felt really random and disjointed, they just aren't cut out for a weekly serialization at the moment I'm afraid

Kill Blue Ch8

not a bad chap, fujimaki coming up with a way to mix action with the fake dating plot by making it so people will be challenging ogami for duels to try to "win" noren. I thought them showing the pen so much at the start had to have some relevancy later but it happened right away on this chap. anyway, even if it's a bit weird I do like this development, maybe becoming a bit more actiony will help the series

Do Retry Ch6

another good chap, this panel under here was especially impressive, it'd look even better in the magazine because of where the spine division would be, making the effect of the arm suddenly popping out like that even better. the series is doing alright in ratings too (middle of the pack) so prob safe to assume it's gonna escape the U19 club

Witch Watch Ch112

after what happened with them kinda failing to make moi act on his feeling I thought we wouldn't be getting something like this soon but I guess I was wrong. next chap (or most likely the one after) we should be getting nico ACTUALLY confessing to moi. tho considering how recent the moi stuff was there's no way something isn't gonna make it go wrong

Blue Box Ch104

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA IT WAS EVEN BETTER THAN I EXPECTED LET'S GOOOOOOO god what an incredibly good chapter, makes one worried it might end soon since IT has finally happen but I really hope not, there's a lot more things on the magazine that could and should end before bb

Spy x Family Ch82

good chap, for once things aren't going swimmingly for twilight. I also really like the final panel since it works either for the yor panel that preceded it or the gunshot in the page before that. I'm gonna assume that yuri did manage to land the shot but he's gonna escape but be wounded, leading yuri to have even more suspicions about him

Cipher Academy Ch27

another good chap as usual, really liked all the jojo references too. also that one page with the girl talking with her text flipped vertically was VERY nisio, reminiscent of the maniwa speaking backwards in katanagatari

Tenmaku Cinema Ch9

you know I actually never expected himeki to take hajime to one of her shoots but it makes total sense, it's kinda like a training arc. another good chap with a p good cliffhanger

Undead Unluck Ch162

when everyone jumped in to fight shen I was worried we were gonna skip the whole tournament and just have the final fight now but seems that's not the case. very good cause I'm a whore for good tournaments so I'm p pogged up for this

Mashle Ch159

good chap, poor I0 is suffering the same fate as diavolo but self inflicted instead. mash interrupting his tragic backstory was very funny too. supposedly next chap is gonna have a colour page for the end of the final fight, leaving a couple more chaps til the finale as predicted.

Sakamoto Days Ch122

p chill chap just setting up the next arc, teasing the future baddies and having the crew travel, a necessary type of chap sometimes. the scene at the end was funny tho

The Elusive Samurai Ch113

what the hell I expected this chap to be kusunoki getting crushed quickly but it was really cool, really showing off just how powerful he actually was before he gets killed off. very good chap

Akane-banashi Ch65

very good chap, considering kaichi got a 91 score I'm expecting hikaru to get like around a 96. like I said before I don't think akane is gonna win this competition so she's either gonna get a 93 just so she can beat kaichi too or around like 87 and have her lose to kaichi too. we'll see tho, I'd love to see her win obviously, especially since she's doing her dad's story of all things but my gut is just telling me that isn't gonna happen

[theoathkeeper]

With Full Hearts, We Go Onward To Our Destination!!

[ribbonstrawberrysurprise]

Hi! I am a big fan of the Tokyo Mew series, and I was wondering if you could do an analysis on the Mew Mew's projected elements and animals and colors, and how they all tie into their powers as magical girls?? I've always wondered if there is a certain mythology or reason behind it, but it seems like the girls' colors are mostly based on their names(Strawberry- red and pink, Lettuce-green, etc), but what about their powers?

Like you said, TMM colors are much more based on their food names than on their animals. (Although, based on that one 4-panel side comic in volume 1, it seems that the colors came first, then the characters were given food names that matched.) There are two seeming exceptions:

1) Mint, but it is relatively common for mint flavored candy and gum to have blue packaging.

2) Berry, whose theme color doesn’t seem obviously related to her fruit. There are a few plants with white berries (snowberries, white beautyberry, etc.), but none that are very common in cuisine or native to Japan as far as I can tell.

Actually it seems to be the opposite (at least for the manga), with characters’ animal parts being colored as to fit with their food/theme color! Zakuro’s ears are colored much more purple than on an actual wolf, and Berry has pure white ears and tail despite neither of her animals being that color irl.

I guess it’s possible she’s supposed to be based on albino plants and animals? Her Mew form does pointedly have pale blond hair and red eyes…

Anyway, as for their powers/elements…

The Mews don’t really have defined elements, with the exception of Lettuce! They more so seem to have different methods of using generic light/emotion-based attacks.

Lettuce obviously has water powers in both the manga and anime. She’s introduced telekinetically controlling a swimming pool, and her attacks are always drawn/animated as water. (Except possibly in ReTurn? It’s hard to tell if LettuSniping Shot is a jet of water.)

Her power is clearly based on her animal and not at all on her theme color. She’s actually one of the few water powered magical girls who isn’t blue! I guess you could also make a connection with her name, in that Lettuce tends to have a lot of water in it (at least Iceberg does), but I’m not convinced that’s relevant.

Ichigo seems to have the power of love/heart/purification, in that her attacks can purify the Chimera Anima. You could also argue something to do with harmony/friendship, as she tends to get upgrades by receiving power from the other girls. Also, maybe healing, considering she brings Masaya back to life? In a way, it seems like the Mew Mews powers are very analogous to the Mew Aqua. As for her animal…. I guess people do love cats? But again, it seems more based in genre conventions than exclusive to Ichigo. Pink is classic love, but it’s also classic magical girl leader.

Berry seems to have the same powerset as Ichigo (logical, since she’s her replacement), at least at first. Her powers seem to be emotion-based, as she’s able to undo mind control with Ribbon Loveberry Check, but the other girls’ words (plus the fact that they attack her classmates first) imply this is true of all Mew Mew powers, not just hers. In ReTurn, however, she seems to explicitly have healing powers, which does seem like a natural direction to go from purification/love. Same as Ichigo for the animal connection. White does seem very associated with purity and healing (at least via association with nurses/doctors). Plus white mage.

Speaking of healing, Ringo pretty much exclusively has healing powers, plus her ability to grant power to Ichigo. Very appropriate for a Mew Aqua powered character! She also has a little bit of a music theme since her mini attacks are named after solfege and involve music notes. Penguins aren’t really associated with healing or music (really, you’d expect ice), nor are red or apples (really, they’re more associated with poison!), plus Ringo was explicitly designed to be a healer so your party wouldn’t get wiped out in the RPG. So, her powerset came first, then her design…

Next up is Pudding! Her element, as it were, seems to be… pudding! Sort of… It really looks more like gelatin than crème caramel. In the anime, she does raise up the ground to protect herself in her first appearance, and her attack animation does show it tunneling through the ground, so I can see why you’d make the argument her element is earth, but she never really does anything with this again. Even when it could really come in handy, like when she's trapped underground. And her attack is edible, as per the manga, so it can’t be clay or something! As for an animal connection, I guess you could say that monkeys are kind of known for eating things, I feel like this is clearly based solely on her name.

Zakuro…. sort of has an element? Her whip is called a “whip of light” in the anime, and in the manga it’s literally a glowing cross-shaped whip. This plus the “Cross” and “Pure” give it definite holy/purification/light vibes. But, in my opinion, this isn’t unique to Zakuro! Mint’s arrows are also pure light/energy, Ichigo’s attack is also very glowy, and Pudding’s… puddings(?) seem to form from light/energy. It seems like rather than a unique light element, she has the normal Mew powerset but used in a way that can cut or tie up the enemies. I can’t say wolves are particularly associated with light. Really, I’d assume dark, if anything, since they tend to be cast as villains? Same for purple…

Moving on to Mint! I’ve seen it claimed that Mint’s element is sound, but she never really does anything sound-based. Sure, her weapon has “Tone” in it, and her attack has “Echo”, but Pudding’s attack has “Inferno” despite having absolutely nothing to do with fire. “Check”, “Surprise”, and “Pop” are also seemingly unrelated to the attacks they describe. As for her weapon being lyre-shaped, yeah! All of the anime-style weapons are based on instruments!

As a a ballerina, she has an association with music, but she isn’t particularly useful in the fight in episode 6 vs Mary McGuire Chimera Anima, who really does attack with music. When she fights the ballerina bird Chimera Anima in episode 9, she doesn’t use music, or even really dancing! She defeats it with the power of Kicking Really Hard. And she does hear the Mew Aqua swan calling for help, but that’s just an extension of the generic “can talk to animals closely related to their infused genes” power that Ichigo and Zakuro also demonstrate.

Really, it seems like her power is just “arrow”. Like Zakuro, she doesn’t have an element; she’s just the one who’s able to aim the best from a distance. I guess when Lettuce steals her thunder in ReTurn, she's forced to upgrade to “a whole bunch of arrows all at once” and hit everything.

All Mew Mews basically have light and emotion based powers that they use slightly differently, with the exception of Lettuce, who seems to actually just generate water out of nowhere. But her powers are obviously connected to her emotions still (see how they manifest when she first awakens them). Them all having the same base power is supported by the way the manga will often not depict each attack individually, instead having each girl say her attack name and then showing the Chimera Anima exploding in a collective burst of light.

In short, rather than individual elements, I think it’s more like:

Ichigo: big finishing move

Mint: long range precision attack

Lettuce: knocking back the enemy? area of effect? (water)

Pudding: holding the enemy in place

Zakuro: cutting through small fry or holding the enemy in place

Berry: big finishing move, healing

Ringo: healing (music)

So, none of their character traits (color, animal, power) are that related? There’s some stuff that seems linked, but overall it seems like they’re most informed by genre tropes. (Also, a lot of the details of their powers were hammered out by the anime.)

[cynthiaandsamus]

Custom Toonami Block Week 69 (Nice) Rundown

Code Geass: So this episode is kind of a ride, like fuck. We kinda yadda yadda how Lelouch fucking escaped from Nunally’s sinking airship and just have Rolo sitting over him in bed kind of conflicted that he’s still stuck on his old little sister, so therefore he programs the tvs in Lelouch’s train to blast Nunally’s appointment but it’s funny because he probably didn’t even have to do that because directly after that Lelouch runs into the station and Nunally shit is just everywhere, like I get it’s a metaphor but it’s just funny that Rolo had to plan for him to run into something Nunally-related only for him to run out of the plan and run into ten times more Nunally shit. Then we get Kaguya claiming herself, Kallen and CC as Zero’s harem directly followed by a depressed Lelouch hypnotizing a bunch of street punks to exercise, about to do drugs and asking to fuck Kallen, like this episode is fucking ridiculous and parts are hilariously contrived, thankfully Kallen slaps the shit out of him and Rolo’s like “yo bro we don’t need that bitch, come on and live it up in this ridiculously racist system and the one place where it’s slightly less racist with me” and then they go back to school and have the “Happiness is Like Glass” scene which is genuinely amazing and moving, like for all the weird zany stuff that happens in the first part of this episode, this is a little oasis of pure sincerity and quality where Lelouch makes a promise he knows he won’t be able to keep. Inspired by this amazing moment, Lelouch returns to the Black Knights with the thought of “Maybe there are other reasons to destroy an oppressive dictatorship aside from my one ridiculously crippled sister” which he probably should’ve thought of before. And then he defeats Suzaku’s navy with the power of FUCKING BUBBLES, like yeah, this episode is right back to being crazy ridiculous but Lelouch is back and wants in on Nunally’s special zones… okay, phrasing.

Inuyasha: So we open with a scene of Kagome playing cards with Miroku which is genuinely adorable if pointless, but it just makes me laugh that Miroku and Sango seem to know all the rules of the game but are still stumped when Kagome tells them they’re Playing Cards, probably a culture thing. Anyway, Inuyasha has to kill a Barrier Demon to get the power to break barriers, which is a bit of a conundrum because Barrier Demons have, you know, barriers, which Inuyasha currently cannot break. Worse still said demon is a little girl and a half-demon like Inuyasha which understandably puts him in quite a quandary. Inuyasha does his usual thing of “Let’s just go in swinging and figure out the rest later but Shiori’s grandfather deflects the admittedly cool-looking Water Wind Scar Inuyasha throws at them with Shiori’s barrier. Shiori’s mom is all “Gimme back my daughter you said you’d stop attacking us if I let you have her” and he’s all like “Well make me, I have a fucking barrier and can hold you hostage” so everyone’s generally pissed off about the situation and Shiori’s granddad with the long name sends all the bat demons to go destroy the village which makes no fucking sense because the only reason she’s still cooperating is so they won’t hurt her mom, without her she has no reason to keep doing it but I guess he’s hoping having nothing to live for will make her do what he says out of nihilism or some shit.

Yu Yu Hakusho: Yusuke gets to face off against Suzaku, the final boss of the Saint Beasts and the gang get to demonstrate the teamwork lessons from this arc by doing a reenactment of the jumping Bahamut scene from Advent Children so Yusuke can get up the tower to fight him. It’s really pretty cool how they splice in Keiko’s Day of the Dead montage with Yusuke fighting Suzaku, tying things together thematically and culiminating in Yusuke and Keiko both fucking decking their opponents. I also really like how Yusuke’s so confident Keiko won’t go down to a zombie hoard so easily, like she’s not a fighter but she’s smart and has got guts so he’s pretty sure she can last a while while he pretends to punch Suzaku with his shoes. Overall a really good start to the fight that means Yusuke still has to wiggle his way out after using his Spirit Gun already and Suzaku still has a lot of shit to pull.

Fate Zero: So Saber and Lancer do their fight and there’s a bunch of fightnobabble talk that someone who’s actually held a weapon in their life would probably enjoy but to me is just “Oooh cool jabbies, flashing lights” which is still fun. Basically everyone’s watching though, Kirei has his ninja squad on the job, Kiritsugu’s Black Ops is monitoring things and Iskander is watching from the Radical Highway Bridge from Sonic Adventure 2. Eventually Iskander is like “Well damn they might kill each other if this keeps up” and Waver’s like “yeah duh.” And Iskander shows who wears the booty shorts in this relationship by storming into the fight against Waver’s wishes cause he wants to fight everyone anyway. So yeah, giant lightning chariot in the middle of this First Boss battle.

Konosuba: Now that the party’s all formed the group settle into a daily routine of Kazuma being Megumin’s wheels for her Explosion training, Aqua being a waitress and Darkness doing… probably better not to think about what Darkness is doing. Anyway, Megumin bombs the shit out of a Dullahan’s castle and before the Dullahan can call his friend Celty to come kick her ass, Darkness gets hit with a death spell and he issues a challenge to Megumin to come to the tower of the Four Saint Beasts and (wait wrong anime again) but Aqua just breaks the curse on her own and they just don’t bother showing up. In the manga this is really funny because Aqua’s in a maid outfit from her waitress job and just does it like it’s nothing and then they show a panel later of the Dullahan waiting for them like “The fuck when are they getting here…”.

Sailor Moon Crystal: So for some reason even though we only have three of the five Sailor Guardians, Luna decides this is the time to give a recap and reintroduce our protagonists for the first part of this episode. Anyway there’s a big party to celebrate a dated princess Di reference that’s kind of in poor taste at this point and Usagi and friends get in based solely on having fancy dresses and being hot, man I had no idea getting in with rich people was that easy. Anyway, Usagi gets a new tiara because of love and shit and gets an upgraded Ancient Egyptian Laser Beam from the moon. The Four Kings show up to be all “Ha-ha! You defeated my demon but now there’s all four of us and even though we still think you have the crystal and outnumber you and there will never be a moment when you’re weaker than this we will now… LEAVE FOR NO REASON!” like the logic of people in this show oh my fucking god. But of course the dated princess reference’s treasure isn’t the crystal they’re looking for and Tuxedo Mask kisses Sailor Moon while she’s asleep which is definitely sexual assault there was no fucking consent there, I don’t care if they’re moon soul mates or whatever she barely knows who he is and wasn’t conscious. But yeah Luna calls him out on his shit and despite clearly being an ally he has to be all edgy and be like “Well maybe I’m a friend, maybe I’ an enemy, who knows~” because I think he gets his power from how mysterious he is, like he’s going to be utterly useless if anyone figures out who he is, not to mention Luna already knows his identity but for some reason doesn’t tell Usagi. Idk man I just have a hard time following the logic of this fucking show…

Durarara!!: So yeah, this is the “The Yagiri Family is fucked” episode Namie has a weird fucked up brocon yandere thing going on, Seiji’s an asshole that because of having two stalker yanderes going after him has become a fractured manchild that thinks love is everything and pretends he knows shit but knows less shit than pretty much everyone around him and has his sister do all the shit for him. But yeah, Celty sees Seiji with the girl with her head and freaks out, and Shinra A DOCTOR if you remember says “Hey maybe your head just attached itself to a corpse Parasyte style” like either he’s a terrible doctor and really thinks that or this is a smokescreen to make Celty think her head has moved on and she should too which is a fucked up level of gaslighting. But yeah, Mikado takes Head Girl, Seiji keeps stabbing people with pens for some reason, luckily it’s mostly Shizuo so it doesn’t do anything, and Izaya’s just like “oh shit, chaos, I’m down”. Basically everyone is awful in this episode except for Mikado who just wants to help and doesn’t know shit, Celty who’s doing her best, and Shizuo who’s just awesome as usual.