Spring 2017 – Week 12

Two finales this week, plus all the continuing shows!  Lot’s of thought on Re:Creators too.

Let’s hit the jump and talk about this week, and what’s upcoming with the season change.

Just as a reminder, shows that I am watching are in bold, shows my wife and I are watching together are in bold italics.

Alice & Zoroku – Ep 12 (Finale)

That was…  frankly impressive.  Sana and Hatori worked as hard as they could with the resources at hand to get themselves out of Wonderland, but what caught my eye was Zoroku.  In the finale, they very quietly and very powerfully bring the themes of “found family” and “humanity” back to the fore.  While searching Wonderland for Sana, he has a long monologue…  First about Sana and her relationship with the world, then about relationships between individuals and how important they are for learning and growth.  When he and Sanae find Sana – his first priority is to make sure she’s safe.  Then he give Wonderland a (well deserved) talking-to, and it responds by cutting out the crooked stuff.

This partially answers the question of the relationship between Sana and Wonderland.  Sana said it’s learning from her, and at a minimum it’s learned to listen to and cooperate with Zoroku!  :)

After they return home, we get an epilogue of sorts…  Ha-chan is accepted by her parents, and all three girls are shown heading off to school together, implying their bonds forged in fire have endured.

But it’s the post credit that punched me in the feels.

Once again we see the ‘adult'(?) Sana, this time with a bouquet of flowers – at Zoroku’s funeral (or grave)?  She’s almost ethereal with that odd mix of happiness and sadness often found at memorial services.  It’s strongly implied that she’s thanking him for the example he provided and the kind of person she turned out to be.

A powerful ending indeed.

Atom:  The Beginning

Not watched this week.

My Hero Academia 2 – Ep 13

Something of a filler ep between the Sports Festival arc and the Field Training Arc – where the heroes-to-be of Class 1A choose their hero names.  I was particularly impressed by Tenya Iida – who could have taken his brother’s name, but chose to use his own unadorned name instead.  I’m not sure if that’s because he hopes his brother will recover, or because he doesn’t think he’s earned it.  Either is possible, and both speak strongly to his respect for the name (and his brother) and his strength of character.  Tenya is fast become my favorite of the second-tier characters.  (Not quite background, but not quite a main character either.)

I don’t think they made clear if Bakugo ever came up with an acceptable name or not…  The one’s shown on-screen (and disallowed by Midnight) did reveal the underlying violence of his personality though.  Yet another stumbling block on his quest to be the Number One Hero.  All Might is regarded as Number One not just because of his raw power, but also because of his calm and reassuring manner.

Re:Creators – Ep 12

A lot of talk-talk-talk, but little in the way of action.  Frankly, Re:Creators greatest flaw is the inability to balance the two.  That being said, this was no doubt an important episode…  The first portion fleshed out Sota’s story and his character by completing the second half of his recounting of his involvement in Shimazaki’s death.

Kudos to Matsabura (Selisia’s Creator) for calling Sota on his bullshit.

The second part of the episode basically laid out their strategy for defeating Altair…  She’s becoming more powerful and displaying varied powers because of the flocks of secondary Creators who keep producing new (and popular) Creations featuring her.  The Creators now plan to band together and create a cross-over world where they can trap and defeat Altair.

But I can see a big potential flaw in their plans – the good guys can create a crossover, and likely get their fans to buy into it.  What happens when they bring Altair into their shared Creation?   If Altair’s fans don’t buy off on the crossover, what happens then?  Or worse yet, what happens if they do, but respond by Creating her more powerful still?  They’ve already made clear that hordes of secondary Creators have created her power…

There’s a lot of questions and puzzles coming down the pike in the next few weeks.

Either way, so long as they maintain some kind of internal consistency over how Creation works, I’ll be happy.  Going forward, changing the rules to suit the needs of the plot is a pitfall they’ll have to step very carefully around to maintain the current quality of the show.

Saekano – Ep 12 (Finale)

Megumi gets a date with Tomoya…  Sadly, despite some of Megumi’s best lines and character moments of the season, to me the whole affair fell flat.  There just didn’t seem to be anything on the line, and Tomoya seemed supremely uninterested in the whole matter.

In a scene that deliberately recalls  the first season…  Megumi declares that she’s not giving up on Tomoya or Blessing Software.  Being the stereotypical dense harem protagonist that he is, Tomoya hears the second part but completely misses the import of the first.  After this, we see Tomoya seeing Utaha-senpai and Eriri off as they head to their new endeavour.  Once again, being a dense harem protagonist, he’s nothing but all smiles over the prospects for their future.  The show closes with an epilogue – it’s a new school year and Our Battle Will Go On.  Frankly, gotta give ’em props for avoiding an anime exclusive ending (again).  There’s still more to the LN, and I wouldn’t bet against their being a third season.

Sakura Quest – Ep 12

Once more into the rut again dear friends, once more.  Seriously…  Once more we get an ep where the Furious Five are getting ready to do something, and are actually making progress despite Ominous Signs – and then the cliffhanger.

Tsuki ga Kirei – Ep 11

Riffing off of something Dawnstorm said in the comments last week – it really is hard to review Tsuki each week.  But I do feel I need to say some more than “so good, so sweet” each week too!

That being said this week was good, seeing Kotarou working so diligently to get good grades on the entrance exam so he could accompany Akane  to Koumei high school. (Though his scores on a mock exam do not bode well.)  The sweetest moment comes from an unexpected direction though…

Not Kotarou and Akane’s Christmas date, which was as sweet and well done as any moment between them so far… But his mom making fresh rice balls late at night while he studies. This short scene conveys so powerfully how her attitude has changed after watching him work with such dogged determination.

And other thoughts…

Still not certain how I’m going to handle the next week or so.  We have two finales yet to go,  Atom‘s over the weekend and Tsuki‘s a week from tomorrow.  I’ll probably hold next week’s post from Tuesday (even though it’s usually been on Wednesday) to Friday so I can cover the last two eps and be done with this season’s coverage.  I’ll follow that as fast as I can with a season review post.

Premiers will be reviewed as soon as I have a big enough batch to make a post, and I’ll stick in whatever ongoing shows have aired to that point.  If history is any guide, it’ll take a week or two to figure out where the weekly posting will fit into my watching schedule.  I’ve missed the mark most weeks this season, which I’m not proud of.  But I have managed to post something every week, which makes me feel good.  (Even if a couple were basically placeholders.)