A Cyclops Who Likes Anime. A Shameful Cyclops

It’s time for Lelouche and Cornelia, who I guess is the major princess of Britannia, to go at it. BUT FIRST we are treated to Shirley’s paranoid worries of Karen moving in on her man, and she has a chat with Suzaku. Then it’s off to the fighting. Lelouche gets pretty played here, and the rebels not really following his orders doesn’t help. So he’s over his head in Kedge Keep until C.C. shows up pretending to be Zero, distracting the troops and letting him beat feet. Now he realizes that instead of using these ragtag rebel retards, he has to forge them into a single, powerful force to be an even match.

BOTTOM LINE: Not as great as past episodes. Lelouche thinks he’s hot shit and gets knocked down a couple notches. Now he has to start thinking for realz.

I told you it was a good show. So good that I had to download and watch the second episode right away, in fact. In this one the school is preparing for - wait for it - ‘Chocolate Day’, a day where girls give chocolates to the guys they like. Yeah, I…yeah. One could make any number of sarcastic comments about this, but I won’t. I did while I was watching it, but I won ‘t now. That means that Yuki has her hands full making sure everything is orderly and doesn’t fall apart thanks to the Night class’s popularity. Zero would be real busy too, except the vampire urges are hitting him more strongly now, though he’s refusing to use the blood tablets. You can’t fight the vampires if you don’t stay strong, dude!

A bunch of the vampires get together to beat the crap (or worse) out of Zero, with their elemental magical powers and so on, but Yuki intervenes and everyone leaves disgruntled but uninjured. It should be noted that the orange haired vampire tries to get them to knock it off until Zero flips him over his shoulder. Whoops.

BOTTOM LINE: Still good and interesting. I really like the whole Zero angle, that’s awesome. Reluctant monster transformations are awesome.

Sometimes things you expect will suck, well, don’t. And that’s good! I was reminded of this with Vampire Knight, which when I describe it may sound totally lame but it’s actually quite excellent. It’s both a high school show AND a vampire show, but don’t hold that against it. It’s also a Horie Yui show; I know that says nothing about its quality, but I just thought I’d mention!

The main character, Yuki Cross (yes you can roll your eyes at her name, I did), doesn’t have any memories earlier than when she was five and was about to be drained dry by a vampire. She was saved by a different vampire, a classier pureblood vampire who then brought her to her foster father. He’s the chairman of this high school, which has both vampire students and human students. Since the vampire students can only go to school at night though, they’re separated into regular Day classes (which is where Yuki is) and the Night class, which is comprised of quite a few vampires. The vampires have to abide by a set of rules, which include not attacking humans and just staying chill. Totally chill. Some of them are wacky, some of them are serious, they seem to have a pretty good variety of personalities and aren’t all the same “aloof vampire” archetype.

The problem is that not all the vampires are really good vampires. They go along with the rules because the same vampire who saved Yuki is now the head of the Night dorm and kind of the leader of the student vampires. They’re afraid of how powerful he is, I guess, and fall in line with his ‘No Humans’ policy, instead curbing their thirst with experimental artificial blood tablets. To help ensure things go smoothly, Yuki has been recruited (officially) as a Prefect, making sure everyone follows the rules and that normal students stay off the campus once the Night class takes over. Unofficially, she’s really a Guardian, who’s job it is to make sure the vampires don’t get too out of line and protect any regular humans on the campus after hours. To this end she’s got some sweet kung-fu fighting moves and a sweet collapsible staff.

She’s got another Prefect with her, too; another survivor of a vampire attack which took out his whole family, Zero. He was the only member of his family not killed, and was also adopted by the Chairman (although only four years before the series takes place). He hates vampires (HATES em), and says he only took the Prefect position to better understand their strengths and weaknesses so one day he can wipe them all out. He also has an awesome gun that shoots exploding crosses that the vampires are terrified of (they are not so afraid of Yuki’s stick). Clearly he likes Yuki a lot, and also it’s pretty clear (from the get-go really, but it’s spelled out for dullards at the end) that he’s a closet vampire. Somehow he can move around during the day, I’m not sure what that’s about. But that makes him almost a Blade, and that’s good enough for me.

This episode just introduces us to a few of the vampires, the school situation, Yuki and Zero, and puts Yuki into some hot water when two vampires get the scent of her blood while she’s trying to chivvy some regular students off campus. They start hassling her, Zero comes to the rescue with his scary super cool gun, and then the head vampire guy shows up and lets the other two vampires know he’s not too happy! Supposedly she has some super special blood or something that all the vampires want, but I don’t think any of the characters are aware of that yet.

BOTTOM LINE: Like I said, it was actually really good. There was a fair amount of humor, not so much that I thought “this must be a first episode thing, there’s no way they can maintain it” but enough to get by. The action is pretty cool, the animation is quite nice, the characters aren’t straight up caricatures and the story and setting are pretty interesting, although they may sound cliche with me explaining it.

Perhaps it is cliche, but so is all anime. The point is this is a very good series that I’m happy I started watching now (instead of putting it off for months as I invariably seem to do) so WATCH THIS if you like vampires, self-loathing vampires, sweet guns and…high school I guess???

It’s snowing nekos and inus outside, so the Minami sisters have a snowball fight and in general just relax. Then the power goes out, along with the heat and water and planetary atmosphere processor, which leaves our gals in a bit of a lurch. Chiaki notices their repressed next door neighbor Fuyuki watching them have fun, but when they check on him he turns down their invitation. Then Chiaki starts getting pushy, and eventually they all have a big snowball fight and spend the night at the Minami residence.

BOTTOM LINE: Not a particularly funny episode but I still enjoyed watching it.

Kana and Chiaki find a box and, upon forcing it open, find a crystal rabbit necklace. Which they’ve broken. While Kana calls everyone they know in a mad scramble to find a replacement, Haruka arrives home and they begin the process of stalling. And that’s really the whole episode. They stall a little, check with their searching drones, stall a little more, check in again, and finally Haruka learns the truth.

BOTTOM LINE: Absolutely hilarious. The facial expressions, the comedic timing, the way none of the people trying to help them out have any idea what they’re really looking for. Fantastic episode all around.

The classes in this imaginary bullshit school are ranked from S.A. to F, based on test scores. Okay, I can buy that. Now, it seems the A class, and not the S.A. class, is forced to act as the Student Council. I won’t go into the possible reasons why the top-ranking, smartest students wouldn’t be used as the Student Council, and instead this system which breeds terrible resentment and hostility is. I won’t because it would be a very empty rant. Let’s just say that the A rankers don’t like the S.A. rankers. So the President has an idea to challenge the S.A. members to - er, something - because the rule is if an A class member challenges an S.A. class member and wins, they replace that member. Fucking stupid? Yes, very.

So the challenge is … pro wrestling, and the guy (who has a very weak constitution) gets a pair of pro wrestlers to compete. So now the competition isn’t even between the A guy and an SA guy, just between the SA members and random people hired for something. That makes a lot of sense.

There’s something else here about Kei caring so much about Hikari that he tells her not to wrestle, because she’ll be a burden (meaning he’ll think about her too much, but of course she takes it as though she isn’t good enough). No one resolves this, it just festers until in the match someone says she’s holding him back and he flips out and lets her in. Basically take the same exact thing that happened last episode and copy it to this episode phew that was a hard day’s work good job all let’s call it a night!

BOTTOM LINE: If this show were any more choreographed it would be an intricate ballet of mediocrity.

Three different little girls, all level 7 psychics (which are supposedly treated as WMD’s by the government due to their power), are sent out to stop bad guy psychic criminals. The three girls are pretty much standard fare for this kind of thing, although none are absolute outright bitches, so that’s good. Then there’s the young male protagonist, who just came back to Japan as a medical researcher in the same organization that handles the girls. Its name is BABEL, and I assure you even with sometimes using two letters in a word, the acronym still makes absolutely zero sense. I’m not sure if they really tried and spectacularly failed, or if they just leafed through an English dictionary until they found words that would fit the name. Whatever it is, yes, their headquarters is a giant tower that they call - sigh - the Tower of BABEL. I want to go home now.

This episode, there’s just one outrageously gay psychic guy who’s planning to break into the art museum and steal the solid gold muscle man statue. Nothing scary, and taken care of pretty easily (eventually), but it hits all the notes you’d expect: total disregard for property damage, main guy is given charge of the girls’ unit by the end, and hints of a deeper plan at work by an evil mastermind.

BOTTOM LINE: I want to say this show is absolute trash, because for the most part it is. Again, not offensively so, but it does little that’s new. However, I will tell you that I laughed several times throughout the episode. This is partially due to the strong gay angle it hits for this guy; it really seems like a spiritual successor to Inukami, that’s how extreme it is. Some of the animations are absolutely hilarious. If they continue to generate at least a few chuckles throughout an episode, I’ll have to give it my Seal of APPROONVAL. The only thing I’m worried about is the possible pedophile angle. I think I’m just being paranoid, but exposure to KnJ will do that to you.

THE NEW SEASON IS UPON US CHILDREN! BRACE YOURSELVES FOR THE COMING STORM!

Special A is a shoujo series. It is as shoujo as the nose on my face, which has been known to transform and fight evil from time to time. Maybe it’s because I just was recently reading a large amount of a similar series (see: The Gentleman’s Alliance, Ouran), or maybe it’s because this idea is included in every three or four shoujo mangas, on average. I don’t know, but I do know it seems done. Well done, which is the way things should never be done. That being said, even though the idea is tired, stale, some might even say “crusty”, it’s executed well enough that it doesn’t offend me.

Hikari is a girl who’s always been #1. Her dad used to teach her pro wrestling moves and she was the toughest kid in the neighborhood, and she’s super-smart and all that kind of stuff. Then one day she met this annoying little kid, Kei, and he tossed the hell out of her. Ever since then she’s been engaged in a constant game of oneupmanship to beat him at something, anything…and has yet to succeed. She even joined the same school he did, so she could continue her attempts to best him.

Here’s where the shoujo comes to full blow. If we know anything about the world of shoujo school life, it’s that schools love to create societal layers in places of learning. It’s like the governing academic body is all pissed off they missed living in the Middle Ages so they create some wacky-ass arbitrary class structure to keep kids…I don’t know, confused? Maybe they go to all that work and effort just to make some kids feel really good and privileged while making others feel like shit? Whatever the reason, in this school there’s a group called the Special A, which is made up of the top 7 students in the school. Why seven? Because that’s the number of characters + major supporting characters the story writer(s) wanted to begin with! DUH! This group takes their classes separately, eats separately, and is rarely seen except going to and from school. So they’re idolized by the entire student body I am honestly throwing up in my mouth as I type this. The building they have (yes they have an entire building) is made completely of glass and is comprised primarily of a huge garden (IT BURNS THIS BURNS US) and comfortable chairs.

Hikari is in this Special A class; she’s #2. Guess who’s first? That’s right. The other members are, in no particular order: the nice but stern animal-loving guy, the boy/girl musical twins (the girl doesn’t speak she just writes on a pad), the rich girl who loves the main character and is her best friend, and finally, the low-brow, outrageous guy who’s always pulling wacky stunts and getting into fights with the rich girl (who he will invariably end up with). I need to go wash my mouth out with bleach, hold on.

Alright, so basically most of the episode takes the form of Hikari challenging Kei and failing, miserably. They have a huge PE challenge, which like most of the show is taken to outrageous extremes (this is not a very serious series), but apparently they take gym with the normal kids, which goes against what they just said…? Regardless, the crux of the show is that Hikari is trying to beat Kei, but she never does.

Then there are some normal kids who get pissed off at how snooty the Special A kids are (which they are imagining because they’re pretty down to earth), they try to cheat, Hikari catches them, they start battling her with WORDS, THE JAPANESE WEAKNESS, until Kei beats the first one in the face. Then they combine to take down the rest of them. I mean they combine forces, they don’t combine into a robot or something. Although come to think of it, they should…

Then Hikari reveals the surprise party for Kei she set up, which he’s happy and whatever about but he’s realized *SIGH* that he loves her but she seems clueless so he was hoping they’d be alone but the rest of Special A came along ugh.

BOTTOM LINE: All that being said, it’s not a bad show. It goes for the wacky school comedy angle much like Lovely Complex, but the key difference between the two is that Lovely Complex is fucking hilarious whereas this show is not. It’s not bad, it’s created in such a way that you don’t have to laugh at the jokes to enjoy the series, but they are clearly aiming for comedy. And they’re not quite nailing it for me; I’m sure if you took your average Neko-chama off the street and stuck him/her/it in a room with twenty like minded individuals (I was searching for a word other than “mind” but could not think of one, sorry) they would spit out their retainers from laughing so hard.

Being the shoujo douchebag I am, I will keep watching. Other, similar douchebags (I’M TALKING TO YOU D’VINN) would do well to check this show out. It’s not amazing, but it’s inoffensive and a decent way to pass time. All others - STAY AWAY!

A more lighthearted episode, Suzaku enrolls at Lelouche’s school for Briltannian youth on the behest of Yufemia. Since he’s the only Japanese person at the school, and was at one point a suspected terrorist, he doesn’t fit in too well. Nunali and Lelouche are super stoked to be able to hang whenever they want, but Suzaku insists that they pretend to be strangers while at school to avoid questions like, “how can Lelouche be friends with a Japanese kid?” Would link them together, I guess. Lelouche doesn’t like it, and wants to help his buddy, but there’s nothing he can do about it because he knows it makes sense.

Then while hiding his Zero outfit that damn cat puts the mask on its head and runs out the door, and we’re treated to a pretty hilarious sequence where Lelouche is trying to catch that damned cat, and then the Council President finds out about it and puts out a campus-wide search event for it. By the end Suzaku has saved Lelouche from falling off a very high roof, and Suzaku is invited onto the school council once it’s revealed that he and Lelouche are friends.

We’re also shown that Clovis was an avid painter, and had painted a picture of Lelouche, Nunily and their mother. Maybe he wasn’t such a bad guy.

BOTTOM LINE: Nice and easy going, and also pretty hilarious. I ENJOY THIS

On this very special episode of Geass, very special women are introduced into both Lelouche’s and Suzaku’s life. Lelouche is found by C.C., the green-haired girl with the power to bestow super nifty gifts to random passerby, be shot in the head with nary a care, and an irresistible urge for Pizza Hut. Seriously, that would absolutely ruin a lesser series.

Suzaku’s fateful union is a little more predictable. Strange girl falls out of a window, apparently bad people are chasing her, help me help me. So he goes around and bullshits, realizing that it was a lie but she won’t tell him straight up why she lied to him in the first place, and some necessary exposition is exposed and motivations are mentioned. Then, the Purity faction took Jeremiah to task for letting Zero go, so they’ve lured him out into the middle of nowhere and are prolly gonna kill him. Of course the middle of nowhere just happens to be where Suzaku and Yufimia are, and Lloyd has brought along the Lancelot for some reason. Awesome fighting ensues.

BOTTOM LINE: Lloyd is certainly the underrated character in this show. He’s so awesome.