If I had a “Drama Queen Of The Week” award, it would definitely go to Titan this week… Is that a good thing or a bad thing? I dunno. Either way, hit the jump and see what else I have to say this week!
The shows that I’m watching are in bold, shows my wife and I are watching together are in bold italics, strikethrough marks dropped shows and (*) marks shows that are watched but not regularly reviewed.
Akebi’s Sailor Uniform Episode 11
Akebi-chan no Sailor-fuku
Man, Akebi is going to be busy on the day of the athletic festival. Swimming, on the cheer squad, and now it seems she’s on the volleyball team and preparing a dance routine for the closing ceremonies.
Even if the episode was somewhat paint-by-numbers, I still enjoyed it. Akebi and Akebi herself are just fun to watch… And it was nice to have an episode that focused more on the titular character than the friend-of-the-week. OTOH, would this episode have worked so well without all those (somewhat repetitive) previous ones? There was some sneaky plot/character development going on there…
Attack on Titan Final Season Part 2 Episode 11
Shingeki no Kyojin: The Final Season Part 2
Like last week, quite a bit of slow walking to reach the desired ending point/cliffhanger. And a very confusing bit about how it’s somehow faster to sail someplace else (outrunning the Rumbling in the process) to get the flying boat ready to go seek Eren. I get the sinking feeling the author didn’t really “do the math”. I hate it when they don’t do the math. /logisticsnerd
So, yeah. As we get down to the finale, the wheels are falling off.
And what did that Thunder Spear hit? That was blood, not water. But all the Titan shifters are accounted for…
Doing some peeking at the AoT wiki, it appears there’s a LOT left out about Kieth Shadis that might have shed some light on his decisions and actions. (I didn’t read it too closely.)
And Magath… Hand Salute! “His actions were in accord with the highest traditions of the Service”… (A pair of obscure Navy references, but I’m going to let them stand anyhow. I think they’re clear enough.) Sacrificing oneself is an old literary trope, but it was executed about as well as I’ve ever seen.
Lupin III: Part 6 Episode 23
Sooo… What to say here? Turns out that Tomoe is Lupin’s mother, even if it’s unclear if the relationship is adoptive or biological. (Or at least the show wants us to think – I am not familiar enough with canon to evaluate plausibility.) But that fact has been hidden from him by some form of post-hypnotic compulsion… The entirety of the back half of this season, all the varied women Lupin has encountered, are part of complex plot by Tomoe to undo that compulsion.
I dunno. I’m just here for the ride.
It was interesting though – during the dream sequences with Tomoe, you could see Jigen’s hat and Goemon’s scabbard in the background. There’s more going on here than meets the eye, and I’m not convinced Lupin was ever hypnotized (during this episode). I think he’s playing along…
My Dress-Up Darling Episode 11
Sono Bisque Doll wa Koi wo Suru
When it comes to shows with any romance themes in them, I’m all about the Destined Couple getting some time alone together. But this episode… Yikes! That’s about as close as you can get without absolutely crossing over from horny into full blown ecchi.
But I don’t think I’m off base in saying it was handled surprisingly well.
Overall, a fun episode.
Slow Loop Episode 11
Slow Loop is closing out the season with a Yuru Camp-esque camping trip.
The episode does highlight how Hiyori has opened up, and Koharu has calmed down and grown up… But pretty much every female character who ever got a spoken line has accompanied them on the trip. I guess it’s charming enough, the show has never really strayed from that. But the core duo (or trio depending on how you count Koi) are a bit lost in the crowd.
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Note: The Attack on Titan finale is delayed a week, so the Week 12/Finale post will be similarly delayed. But I will get my Spring anticipation post out next week in it’s stead.
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And speaking of Spring: Finally, some decent weather here… actually able to have the windows open for a bit during the warmest part of the day. Overall still cool, but Spring is definitely in the air.
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If you’ve been following the saga of the chair… The proper sized one finally arrived and got set up over the weekend!
But it doesn’t fit under my old desk… So, now we’re trying to figure out how to swap out desks and re-arrange the electronics wall.
I’ll be kind of sad to see this desk go though. Bought it in ’91 for my new PC, so I’ve sat at it most every day for the last 30 odd years.
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Anyhow, enough from me – what’s up with y’all? Anything fun going on with you? Your thoughts on this week’s shows?
Apprentice Mages Lounge. 
@Shingeki no Kyojin: The Final Season Part 2:
I may be conflating manga and anime dialogue but it basically boiled down to, the Azumabito engineers needed at least a half day in a proper hangar to prep the flying boat; the port had no proper hangar, and the Alliance couldn’t defend it for a full half day even if there was a hangar. So Kiyomi suggested a port the Azumabito controlled, with a hangar, that should give them enough time before the Rumbling arrived. Not a great choice but it was all they had.
Yep. But at least this week it’s a beautifully animated train wreck. When the episode before last turned into a Powerpoint slideshow, I was hoping they were at least saving the animation staff for this episode, and I was not disappointed. I like my anime to be, ya know, animated, and Mikasa, Conny, Floch, Cart Titan, and Falco’s new Jaw Titan all got great sakuga scenes.
Consensus is, that was water… saturated with the blood of the Yeagarists that had previously died in or above it. Dramatic exaggeration… sure! This is an anime based on a shounen manga, after all…
Risky click, and you were wise not to read it too closely. The AoT wiki has a lot of good information, but their firewall between the anime and manga pages is a lot weaker than it should be, and even their freaking banner ads in the anime pages have been known to contain manga spoilers. I got spoiled on the Beast Titan’s identity in one such ad, and that was one factor among several in my decision to read the manga to make myself spoiler-proof. But back to your point, I agree Keith Shadis is one of the better secondary characters in the show. He actually got a decent character arc before his exit.
I loved the chemistry between Magath and Shadis in those final moments. Magath got a great character arc, too. Under different circumstances they might have been friends.
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OK, that makes sense. I must have missed that somehow… Despite the “slow walk”, parts of the episode were pretty packed.
Agreed, and this week was a high point in that respect, even without considering last week’s slideshow.
I’m not sure I like the Jaw’s new design, but that’s just me.
I have long ago learned to be very cautious about Wikia/Fandom.com for just that reason. There’s a dismaying number of them that don’t even have a firewall. But it was either that or Reddit… And Reddit is as a general rule even worse about managing spoiler tagging. (I love Reddit, I hate Reddit. Reminds me of Usenet back in the day in some ways – it can be very good. But it can be awful as well.)
But also, I’m not too worried about being spoil proof because I doubt I’m ever going to read the manga. I just need to avoid being spoiled about what hasn’t been aired yet.
As I’m sitting here typing, I realize the Magath/Shadis scenes also put a nice capstone on Magath’s “arc” from the forest (a few episodes back) to now.
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Well, it may not be something you missed. Confession time: I re-read the relevant manga arcs before the season starts. Then I get up Sunday mornings and watch the live episode on NHK with no subtitles. I maybe understand every third or fourth word and rely on my memory of the manga dialogue to fill the gaps. Then several hours later when the Crunchy/Funi release starts streaming… I don’t always pay full attention to the episode since I’ve already “watched” it. So if MAPPA cuts some manga dialogue from the anime adaptation, sometimes I don’t catch it. You can’t miss it if it wasn’t there to begin with.
There’s a neat in-universe reason Falco’s Jaw looks like that, but the explanation will probably have to wait until What Comes After this season, whether it be a movie, OVA, or Finalest Season Part 3. I can’t see them getting to it in the finale.
Yeah, that’s the problem with the AoT Wiki. You can get spoiled on things the anime hasn’t aired yet, in the anime pages of the wiki. If you’re going to go there as an anime-only, to quote Seinfeld, it “is like looking at the sun. You don’t stare at it. It’s too risky. Ya get a sense of it and then you look away.”
I get the sense that when Magath saw Gabi scrambling away while he was breaking Yelena’s arm, it really sunk in for good how he’d screwed up those kids’ childhoods. Even if Gabi never inherits a Titan, she can never get back the innocence she lost, and she’s been a Warrior candidate for so long she doesn’t even realize what she lost to begin with. He’s probably my second favorite secondary character in the series.
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That’s dedication “above any beyond the call”. :) I don’t think I’ve ever re-read anything in advance, but I have gone back a few times and bounced the anime against the manga.
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Ooh, new chair looks nice. Pity it doesn’t fit. (I doubt, I’d change desks just for a chair, but then I have plenty of other places where I could use this chair: TV, game console…).
I have absolutely nothing to say about any of these shows this week. On the other hand, I’ve been watching Kotaro Lives Alone, a netflix one-drop I didn’t know existed until I read the animefeminist review. It’s technically (on AniChart) a spring show, but it’s already complete, so… It’s about a four year old who lives alone, and it’s basically a drama disguised as a comedy. While those aren’t always the best comedies, they’re usually the best dramas. This show balances the two elements with being mostly slice-of-life, but some of the scenes do hit pretty hard. Well worth a watch for those with Netflix. Netflix one-drops, when they’re good, need all the promo they can get, since they tend to get left out of the conversation.
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Yeah… But new chair, new desk, new glasses… all part of a plan to reduce back stress and pain. My physical therapist was already urging me to get a better set up even before I won this chair.
I got an email from Netflix a couple of weeks back, and it’s in my queue… Need to finish up our re-watch of Eizouken first. The episode with the premiere of the giant robo short is on tap for tonight.
I’ve been hearing that’s it pretty good from a variety of sources.
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