#kalo watches faiz

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faiz 41-50 notes + final thoughts

(also like w/ ryuki i'll watch the supplementary movies when i feel like it i'm faized out)

faiz is a Show.

surprisingly came out of this show as a Kusaka Understander. not apologist i think he's a fucking asshole but if i think like any amount of hard about the ryusei kids and kusaka's specific position within that whole mess i get a bit Miserable. so tbh i get it.

also when i sincerely look at myself this is actually not surprising. it's actually more surprising i like takumi so much i legitimately can't remember the last time my favorite character in anything was the actual protagonist. like i'm the master of Glup Shitto-ism this is terrible for my rep.

so far both of the inoue shows i've watched have followed a similar-ish pattern of slow start, really strong middle episodes that do a lot for character building but don't fit within a conflict structure that is conducive to a finale (ex. agito sticking to either fighting regular lords or each other while the overlord and the apostle piddle around in his hospital room / while lucky clover throwing Every Orphnoch In Tokyo at faiz and co is funny it's not really great for the whole Orphnochs Aren't Ontologically Evil thesis), and then rushed back fifth with hurried plot drops / shit that really should have been seeded beforehand / (ex. Prettyboy Jesus killing massive swathes of humans / the orphnoch king introducing the concept of a higher threat than orphnochs / the idea of orphnochs being terminal)

anyway tldr i think it has pretty much the same structural issues as agito but with a stronger cast / funner general premise for me personally.

the only thing i can think of that doesn't necessarily happen in agito is the large amount of back-fourth focus given to absolute Nothing Characters. given though that faiz (at least seemingly) has a larger cast than agito... it's still bad idk why i'm thinking of making excuses. kaido had potential when he was introduced and was turned into a complete joke for thirty episodes and i'm supposed to take his weird plot with teruo seriously. (notably this plot got better once teruo actually started interacting with characters that didn't have a one-dimensional personality. but it still needed more time in the oven either way whatever). on top of this mihara is such a dogshit tertiary i felt insulted as a viewer whenever the show expected me to give a fuck. his entire deal is "i don't want to fight :( but i guess i will anyways :( even though i'm not providing any new depth or value to the ryusei plot whatsoever :( someone needs to somehow make delta look like a terrible suit... :(" if you don't give that shit back to kitazaki right now djfjfgdfgkd. like it would have been so easy to like give him a plot that introduces hanagata's whole Deal earlier but he literally does NOTHING!!!!!!! how we go from ryou to this i have no clue. like the closest we get to this in agito is omuro being hojo's lackey when he's on his anti-agito bullshit

the stuff with smart brain and the police's orphnoch lab was really interesting. I Wish It Was A Bit Earlier. bc it comes and goes very quick and thus yuka's death and yuji's rejection of humanity also seem very quick because of this.

i'm not going into detail about yuka's death btw all i'm going to say is that inoue should hope we never cross paths. Ever. GET HER AWAY FROM THESE BUMS. ohhhhhh yuka i'm sorry inoue can only handle at maximum two women per series................. (and even then saeko is really a stock-standard femme fatale archetype and mari is arbitrarily limited from using the belts so even then.... lol.... lmao.....)

also i feel i should note this is really the first season where the cgi usage passed the point of "i know its the early 2000s i know it'll look bad" like i fundamentally couldn't understand whether or not people thought stuff like the jetsliger looked good. like at least the cgi hoverbike in agito they had some shame about it. where did that go...

also yuji's death.... i mean it didn't take a rocket scientist to intuit that it was going to happen but like ARGHHHHHHHHHHHH. i get its supposed to be tragic but COME ONNNNNNNN HE CROSSED OVER TO THE SIDE OF HUMANITY.............. AND THEN THEY FRAME THE ENDING SCENE THROUGH THAT HOLE IN THE NET AND HE CAN'T BE THERE AND OUGHHHHHHHHHHH ITS HORRIBLE. i wasn't even that crazy about yuji i'm pissed that this makes me this mad.

okay i feel like i need to talk about the good parts. i'm really bad at talking about the good parts. um. kusaka funny.... takumi and yuji made me want to die..... mari was really cool....lucky clover were really fun..... orphnochs were really cool conceptually even if i think some aspects really needed some more time to cook.... idk. ultimately i think faiz has a lot of really strong building blocks that sometimes aren't in the right order..... or that it just needs better connective tissue...... idk man.

but yeah. i think i enjoyed faiz more than agito. like there are certainly Problems (as you might be able to tell) but overall i had fun even with the stuff that annoyed me. and i was never bored!

now onto blade! i know the general contextless things most people know (bench, various tachibana screencaps, etc) but i am excited!!!

[bykalopsia]

40-50 notes and final thoughts will be upcoming. then its Blade Time

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girl fuck you

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saving the final episode of faiz for tomorrow morning!

inoue writes like someone has a gun to his head forcing him to radically alter the show's stakes in the final five episodes it's almost funny

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faiz 31-40 notes

as we may be able to tell from my liveblogs this set of episodes

that's not to say it's all perfect no. very similar to me 2/3rds of the way through agito thoughts i'm very invested in the main plot and the other stuff is kind of lame. like the amount that delta's been nerfed is baffling to me, mihara is a nothing character, trying to give kaido an actually serious side plot is Not Working, the detectives are suddenly vaguely competent etc etc etc. (the worst offender of these is delta getting nerfed. why would you give me a Cursed Amulet that actually fucking sucks and people get knocked out of it all the time. like mihara doesn't even get the electric powers. BOOOOOOOO) also from the 41 preview them finally taking yuka's plot seriously again after at the very least 25 episodes of nothing. you're going to hell inoue.

tbh this show is very lucky that i can forgive all of this because everything about takumi and mari is standing over me and beating me with a baseball bat over and over so i kind of don't have time to whine about the boring/annoying shit (and tbh all of that isn't /really/ taking up that much time so its whatever.)

also the revelation that kitazaki was actually the one attacking the reunion is lame. like i get we can't necessarily have the protagonist be guilty of the murder of multiple teenagers but like. it was so cool. idk man i just prefer when the guilt and self-loathing is Real. oh well. at least we still have existential self-rejection yayyyy.

i will say takumi being an orphnoch was something i vaguely knew about beforehand but i didn't know if he would get turned into one or if he'd been one the entire time so it still hit (as one may be able to tell.) idk man. that's oomf!!!!!!!!!!!! i don't think i'm getting across the profound meaning of what takumi is inspiring in me it is just so rarely the case that i love a protagonist the most out of a cast of characters so now i'm like overloaded with emotion bc i'm used to only being exposed to my favs for like 3 minutes at a time max. inui takumi it seems i've grown quite fond of you there are no sexual urges i just think we should probably see the same therapist.

the final form is fugly but at least the weapons are cool. like the suit needed the grounding of the black base suit it's so bad to look at.

i thought about what i wanted to say about takumi and yuji for like an hour and i still have nothing. idk maybe i'll start recording the guttural noises i start making during these episodes to really capture the Pain and Torture Vortex they're putting me in (i will not do this) but these notes posts simply cannot capture the unfiltered energy that flows unhindered from my vaguely sleep-deprived brain during these episode binges. mostly bc it's a bit embarrassing to repeat the shit i say.

i knew sawada needed to die. bc of All of the Murder he did (no real wriggling out of that....) but i was still like aww :( i wanted it to work out jgdkjfgsjkdfg

also from the 41 preview...... APOSTLE JUMPSCARE.

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it's really just incredible how like midway through ep 34 i was kind of like "i've been enjoying faiz but idk if it's really had its purported Effect on me i think i'd feel it by now" and like minutes later takumi transformed and i've been writhing on the ground for an hour and a half

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takumi and shinji should have a "how quick can you make kalo want to jump out a window by being self-destructive"-off i'm about to punch a hole in my wall

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i hope more toku i watch in the future have little musical segments the faiz hbv was so funnnnnnnn

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faiz 21-30 notes

they um. really kneecapped yuka's character huh. (tbh this happened in the last batch of eps i think i held on to hope for too long) inoue you will be dealt with. expeditiously. like in orphnoch trio stuff she's really just There and her only relevance is to be a kaido-bot or sometimes keitaro remembers he likes her too and that's it. boooooooo *throwing tomatoes* booooooooooooo

chewing on kitazaki chewing on kitazaki chewing on kitazaki..... for episodes i was like "they keep mentioning this guy and not showing him am i just making up a guy bc i'm having a hard time getting their names down???" and he finally appeared and like eighty gears clicked into place. he was like made in a lab for me. it's real fucking dire.

also i think sawada and kitazaki are the first orphnochs where i'm like "oh yeah wow you are a threat to the general populace" bc the other lucky clover members are so preoccupied with the belts and dealing with nonviolent orphenochs that they don't really seem to be attacking people? comparatively sawada and kitazaki's methods sort of remind me of the grongis but like with less whimsy / established purpose. (the scene in the club? jesus christ?)

kusaka's reaction to finding the underground ryusei academy implies that it wasn't always under smart brain so that makes me wonder how tf it got under there or if there's some memory shenanigans going on (my guess is memory shenanigans)

the stuff about the delta belt is really like "i definitely won't be corrupted by the amulet!" core. also they really keep outdoing how cartoonish these fucking bikes are. holy hell.

ALMOST FUCKING FORGOT TO TALK ABOUT KUSAKA'S. ISSUES. he drops the "she's the only one who can be my mother" and we've just SAT WITH THAT FOR EIGHT EPISODES. LIKE. *looks around* ARE WE UNPACKING THAT AT ALL. like i get that that the president rounded up all these orphans to (probably) do orphnoch experiments on them or whatever and it's really more strange that mari is as well-adjusted as she is than it is that all of the rest of them have Problems but this is A Lot. AND HE STILL LIVES IN THE SAME HOUSE AS THE REST OF THEM. idk man mari needs to start killing people she's a saint.

also i can't believe we got rid of the whole takumi and yuji don't know the other is the horse orphnoch / faiz thing and then immediately replaced it with perhaps an even more annoying iteration of that. like i can't believe i went to sleep on ep 29 thinking "wow i really assumed this whole not knowing each others identity thing would go on for way too long but they knew when to cut it short i'm surprised" only for it to immediately be thrown in the garbage when i pull up ep 30 the next morning. tbf it's my fault for getting my hopes up really. anyways praying this wraps up quick bc while i am usually more than game for kusaka's general assholery this one is maybe toeing the line a bit for me.

also formally apologizing for calling takuma semi-competent in my last batch of notes. it's way more entertaining now that he's just vaguely a nuisance after getting dogwalked by delta. please keep escaping seemingly assured death in the future it makes me so happy <3

not enough smart lady......... crying............. clawing at walls......

current faves: takumi, mari, basically every lucky clover member other than murakami

current curiosities: 1) wtf happened at the reunion (obviously) 2) are we going to revisit the belts the former president was making underground and what those are 3) i legitimately forgot about the whole orphnoch king thing until it was rementioned in this batch of episodes so whats that about 4)

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kind of a #need

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episode 21....... looks around....... gay people.......

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faiz episodes 11-20 notes

i had a whole rant written out about mari's age in here since this batch of episodes drops a whole bunch of Skeevy Romance Plots That Really Didn't Have To Be Skeevy but i deleted it bc it was A Lot and i don't think it's anything that hasn't been said eight billion times already so there. i'm just acknowledging it now. it just sucks because in a normal situation i'd be very much up for it bluhhhhhhhhhhh (i'm cutting myself off. no more ranting!!!!)

i can't help but wonder what my reaction to kusaka would be if i did not have The Stuff Everyone Knows About Kusaka lingering in the back of my brain. bc i don't know if my endeared "oh look at this asshole" reaction is because i Know or not. but so far i'm at the very least enjoying him bc he's making takumi act like a bitch and bitch takumi is my favorite takumi so yayyyyyyy. tldr i love antagonistic fake bitches!!!!

the fact that yuka is the most violent of the orphnoch trio is intensely funny to me. 1) because yuji keeps monologuing to her about not hurting people and she keeps going :] yep. that's definitely what's going on over here! 2) kaido talks the most game but literally hasn't done anything ever

also yuji's obliviousness is getting increasingly funny both re: yuka killing people (which tbf he has no real way of knowing about it's just funny) and. well. he kind of just bungles all of his interactions with yuka it's just amusing to me.

not-hojo's haircut seems to get less flattering by the appearance. fascinating. extremely funny that one of his attacks is just POETRY BLAST. extremely unserious show. anyways he's way more competent than i was expecting i really thought he'd be outta here by the time this set of episodes was over.

increasingly becoming more and more enamored with takumi. like yes he's pissing me off bc he's terrible at communicating but he's also wallowing in his own misery which is lovely. also his hair has been looking really great. (i wrote this and then immediately in ep 20 it looks perhaps the most jank its ever looked)

btw i keep doing the thing where i'm like "i'm gonna take my notes concurrently this time so i don't lose all my funny thoughts" and then i go watch 5 episodes on my tv where i can't be writing shit down. so i've lost all my funny thoughts. but rest assured i am cracking myself up on my couch between the hours of midnight and 2 am.

for the minutes in between episodes 14 and 15 where takumi and yuji were both in the river i thought they were going to somehow bump into each other and i nearly made myself cry laughing

also takumi and yuka are making me want to bite chunks out of my television. oughjafjhgfjgkgjjgf pain pain pain pain suffering

everybody point and laugh at kusaka's mandatory sidecar

the idea that yuji still thinks that faiz is being used by a smart brain agent is interesting

also. these episodes have a critical lack of smart lady. where is she!!!!!! :[

i feel like no one in this show gives a fuck about collateral damage. if i was at this college that got attacked by monsters and once it was fine to leave i went out into the parking lot and i found out my fucking car got exploded bc takumi couldn't step around it to do his finisher i'd go crazy.

this really does bring up the question of what the public thinks about faiz. though tbh it seems like orphnochs have some sort of quality that impacts people's memory of them and they fight generally in secluded places so idt it's all that well known (+ the police are actively covering the whole thing up) but like. they're exploding shit and knocking chunks out of parking garage beams surely someone's got an idea about faiz. he's got a flying fucking attack bot for christ's sake. kusaka just sent a fuck ton of missiles into a completely public area. huh???? (this is not legitimate pedantry going on here i'm riffing bc it's funny but if they actually address this i'd die laughing)

kaido seems to have been downgraded to being a sleaze / jokey character but ultimately this is Fine. Whatever. i'll just ogle him without any seeds of Investment forming it's Fine.

anyway my curiosities for the next batch of episodes are: 1) we still do not know wtf is going on with the underground school???? are those guys just dead now???? 2) what bizarre cult shit was going on with the ryusei academy stuff / how do they relate to what smart brain is doing now 3) i know delta is showing up next ep so i'm curious about that (EDIT: it was not delta i'm maybe an idiot and forgot takumi could get other forms) 4) i need to dissect yuji's brain or something man i feel like i Still don't have a handle on him

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this show. instead of takumi going "hey that orphnoch is yuka maybe we could chillax for half a second" nobody says anything and we somehow escalate to this.

like what else am i supposed to do but laugh at this point jhdshfjdsfjdk

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faiz eps 1-10 notes

let me just start by saying that orphnochs (is it orphnoch? orphenoch? orphonoch? i've seen it spelled so many ways.... but the subs i'm using say orphnoch so i'll use orphnoch) are intensely fucking ugly. whose decision was it to make them all monochrome grey. bluh. like at least most of them have really intricate details but it all being one color really makes it boring to look at even then

on the flip side i really like the suits. especially the kaixa suit..... ourple.....

also out of all the seasons i've watched so far i feel like i know the most about faiz (toku twitter loves talking about spoilery faiz stuff very often... but it's partially my fault bc i'm nosy as hell) so i know a bit more than i did going into this than the rest. hopefully it doesn't effect my enjoyment too much!

smart lady is intensely charming to me. we love annoying women!!!!!!!! also she's so attractive my fucking brain turns off my bad.

i should mention that the amount of time between me first watching the episode where the bike turns into a robot and the second time that happens was so long i legitimately went "what the fuck is that??????????" still not entirely sure i have a grasp on why that happens but hey cool robot.

so far the humor is landing better for me than it did in early agito? maybe because the other 80% of the time it's Real Dire so i need the laughs more. maybe i just like the cast more. who knows

takumi took a bit to grow on me but now i'm like that's oomf...... (i think you all are witnessing my ability to to eloquently express my thoughts quickly degrade....) abrasive adults without a particular passion learning to soften (at least somehwat...) and protecting for others what they can't attain for themselves.... woarghhhhh..... it hurts A Lot....

also..... i think kaido's guitar boyfriend did get dropped so i'm gonna kay em ess....

the idea that the orphnoch trio seemingly share this apartment is entirely funny to me. like i can't even fathom what's going on there.

so far i'm particularly fond of takumi, yuka, and mari. i feel like i need to chew on kaido but i feel like he vacillates practically episode so i can't settle on my feelings on him. i also like yuji but kinda in a "he's there" way. like i still need to figure him out.

the smart brain president is Strange but not in a way that annoys me yet.

also. HOJO. with a way less flattering haircut and glasses. i will cherish him for however long it takes for him to die probably

so far my largest curiosities are 1) what the fuck is going on with the underground school 2) learning more about smart brain besides it being a front for orphnoch stuff 3) more exploration of the divide b/w humanity and being an orphnoch... particularly if yuji's gonna cave and start killing again

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ep 7 was so good. i think i'm finally getting into the groove of this season. (but also they did the thing where music being played in one scene becomes the bgm for another which makes me giddy no matter what so... we shall see)

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i love the metal fingertips on the faiz suit