×
  • remind me tomorrow
  • remind me next week
  • never remind me
Subscribe to the ANN Newsletter • Wake up every Sunday to a curated list of ANN's most interesting posts of the week. read more

This Week in Anime
Mostly Blood

by Nicholas Dupree & Michelle Liu,
Previous Weeks in Anime
Week 1 - Week 2 - Week 3 - Week 4 - Week 5
Week 6 - Week 7 - Week 8

Nicholas Dupree got into anime in high school, and manga even earlier. From One Piece to The Promised Neverland, he's the man to talk to if it's Shonen and it Jumps. He counts Den-Noh Coil and Serial Experiments Lain as his all-time favorites.

Michelle Liu got into anime in middle school through Bludgeoning Angel Dokuro-chan and somehow liked it enough to stick around. When she's not loudly proclaiming her love of Sayo Yamamoto, she talks about figure skating and strange children's shows.


Episode 36

Episode 10

Episode 24

Episode 10

BONUS DISCUSSION

KADO: The Right Answer - The Royal Tutor - Rage of Bahamut: Virgin Soul

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the participants in this chatlog are not the views of Anime News Network.


Nick D
Okay, how the hell are there only two weeks left in this season? It was April like 10 minutes ago.

Micchy
That's what I wanna know! Summer's just around the corner. At least a bunch of Spring stuff is carrying over? Except for one particularly gargantuan title.

Yeah, I think somebody forgot to tell Titan there's only 2 weeks left in the season too. Hell, isn't next episode the finale?

Yeeeeeeep, we're in this season's endgame ALREADY. Heck!

The last episode better just be Eren's dad showing up and explaining everything because I refuse to wait another four years.

Maybe the Titan that swallowed Mama Jaeger will have the answers.

God damn though, that episode was a rush of emotional highs. 104th members confronting the people who betrayed them, and then that fuckin cliffhanger.

For reals, the back half of this season has been just mocking me with more questions and mysteries and vagaries.

Hopefully this time we'll get another season in like a year or so. Whenever WIT isn't swamped with work.

Hopefully! But yeah, this episode was intense as hell, especially with Mikasa and Armin confronting Bert. It was something seeing Armin's realization that he'd have to just twist the knife to get an opening to save Eren.

Armin used to be such a pure boy, but the world is a cruel place. Of course the kid has to let go of his human compassion to get what he wants and Mikasa desperately needs. (orz)

Can you imagine the Armin of early S1 lying through his teeth about torturing Annie? Damn son.

Between him and Mikasa this was like, the saddest version of a heroic rescue possible.

The kids are stone cold badasses and it's the Absolute Worst to watch happen. :'D At this point Mikasa's obsession with/dependence on Eren is pretty dang terrifying - heck, I'd argue that watching her clam up emotionally is scarier than any Titan battle, as cliche as it is to say.

It's classic Titan character writing - the one thing keeping her going is also slowly tearing her apart, because she has to cut off everything that could keep her from protecting what's most important to her

Attack on Titan: Irony's a Bitch

It's weird that the self-destructive girls who constantly lie to each other are somehow the MORE healthy relationship in this show.

Ymir and Historia are good girlfriends but that relationship has Issues.


one or two or a million, you know, just how these things are

On the subject, I'm actually a little confused as to what Ymir's goal was here. She's (I think?) lying about needing Historia as a bargaining chip to avoid Reiner's crew killing her, but then Connie tells Historia that's obviously BS. I guess I just don't understand why getting Historia out of the walls is so important.

I'd wager that Ymir is a little more emotionally dependent on Historia than she lets on. She's just not the type to say what she feels upfront. Like, with some prodding she does admit that she's dragging Historia along for her own selfish purposes. She starts out with that bargaining chip excuse but that kinda falls to the wayside. Historia just kinda missed that memo.

I guess. Half of everything the Titan-folk say feels like I'm missing a couple of episodes, honestly. I get it for the most part - like Bert saying he and Reiner had to do all this because otherwise they'd be killed - but it does sometimes leave me wondering if I'm meant to understand any given plot beat.

This part of the story is pretty intentionally confusing, yeah. It's all uncertainty; we're all as lost as Eren and co. TBH. Some of it will make sense as we get farther into the story, but right now yer pretty much supposed to be scratchin your head at Bertie and Reiner's nonsense.

Fair enough. And when the plot at hand's still ridiculously entertaining I guess I can forgive it. Can only be upset for so long when Erwin is flying around kicking ass with one arm.

I friggin' loved how that Titan swung him around by the scruff of his neck like a damn kitten

You know what really broke my heart this episode? Conny/Jean/Sasha trying to talk some sense into Bertholdt. Three very good kids trying their best to reconcile their impression of Bertie and Reiner with what they're seeing now.

Plenty of heartbreak to go around, really. Everybody's miserable and wounded and lying to each other and hey now here's the most physical reminder of your past trauma possible, Eren!

That cliffhanger was brutal, man. Whaddya mean we gotta wait to see how badly this fucks him up?

I kind of expect Eren to start screaming obscenities at the sky after all he's been through in the past 48 hours. It still blows my mind that this is barely two days after all the stuff with Annie.

Dude, I feel you. I constantly forget that too, so much has happened.

There was another moment in this episode that stuck out to me. Bertholdt (I think?) says they can't leave Christa to "rot within the walls". That's not the first time we've heard the walls compared to a prison of sorts. Caged animals or prisoners, they're never truly free under the ruling structure. Ymir's always felt confined within the walls, like she can't be free, but it's really something to hear it from someone else. It's all pointing to their government or religious institutions being Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad. Which will bring us into the next part of the story! ...whenever that happens.

I hope we get more of a look into that for Season 3: coming 2025

[shakes fist] dear anime industry i will gladly sacrifice three light novel shows a season for more Attack on Titan at a reasonable time

Which brings us to our next series that's wrapping up soon. Can't say I'm as upset about this one.

Y'know, I was told this show would have some really shocking twists. Ten episodes later, I'm like... oh.

Can't say "the real monsters all along were HUMANS!" hasn't been done to death already.

Honestly I have to imagine this is SOME kind of red herring because it's the most obvious thing possible. It's also not exactly shocking when we've seen a total of two monsters for little more than 5 minutes in this whole show.

So much of the story has happened offscreen. It's real frustrating!

It's been a problem for a while - the series has tried to capture the emotions of being left at home while loved ones are at war, but the war is so ill-defined that it never feels pressing.

WorldEnd up til recently has been like 80% domestic fluff about raising kids and 20% Big Dramatic Things Happening.

Which I could forgive if the domestic fluff was good but...

You know, I was pretty okay with it this episode. Yeah, I rolled my eyes at Chtholly's expression of carpe diem being to CLEAN and COOK, stereotypically feminine/homemaker things. And I seriously could've done without the other officers making inappropriate passes at her.

I'd settle for them just not leaving their NTR porn around the cafeteria

But Willem's realization that he was in love with her was... kind of cute? Coming straight out of a breakdown it did feel a touch jarring, but what in this show hasn't been that way?

I wanted to like that. In fact, that whole proposal made me kind of retroactively angry at the show, because I realized Ctholly and Willem's relationship is the kind of stuff I usually eat up.

If the show had built up Willem's character to be more than a sardonic arse, it probably would've worked better. As it is I can only appreciate that awkward moment of mutual support they have.

Willem starts out distant and avoids getting close to anyone, but eventually finds somebody he can be honest and vulnerable with. Meanwhile Ctholly's grown from the naïve fatalist to somebody strong enough to support and help him at his lowest! I love that shit!

But the setup and delivery were so awkward and caught up with the mentor/student dynamic shift that it never landed for me. Which I guess has been the story of this show all along, but it's still annoying.

Yeah, to me the Chtholly/Willem relationship is sweet in moments but falls flat once you look at the whole picture. That make sense?

Definitely.

Which is definitely a problem the show's had in spades. Good moments that fail to come together.

Plus it all stops mattering when you remember Ctholly is not living to the end of this series.

Especially not with lines like this

Her visions are pretty neat - I liked how her dream about Lilya cut between shots of her and Elq where you'd expect continuity.

Of course this is instantly undermined by the name Lilya Assplay.

Y'know I promised myself I wouldn't go for that joke going into this, so thank you for stooping to my level when I couldn't.

LIGHT NOVELS

But yeah, I'm also kind of left confused by the whole Lilya/Elq/Ctholly thing as far as what it's supposed to mean for the conflict at large. Like okay, Ctholly is the reincarnated spirit of the human who turned into a monster who...killed Lilya? Was killed by Lilya? What does that mean to her relationship with Willem, or her struggle to keep her own mind together? Or...anybody really?

I'm willing to give Sukasuka the benefit of the doubt for now. Still two episodes left to somehow tie that together. Of course if the answer turns out to be "read the novels" or "¯\_(ツ)_/¯ lol idunno" I'm gonna throw a fit, you can count on that.

From comments I've read, apparently there's 2 novels worth of stuff left after where the anime's set to end. so uh, good luck with that


But yeah, we'll see how Titan and Suka wrap up later.

Meanwhile MHA's just getting started baby.

HELL YEAH

Okay, lemme get one thing out of the way first: how the hell is this child's shirt staying on

Sweat. Between the melted ice and fire he's gotta smell like wet dog.

That's good enough an answer for me!

I imagine Todoroki prooooobably wanted a better outfit when confronting his dad.

Endeavor's all like "so you've finally gotten over your tantrum, eh?" [strokes mustache]

But that's not it. It's neither forgiveness nor acceptance; Todoroki just managed to set aside his dad's toxic influence for a second. I'M VERY EMOTIONAL OVER THIS OKAY.

I really love the fallout from Deku and Todo's fight. In the moment it was huge and thrilling, but the fallout is all a mix of disappointment and confusion. Todoroki may have had a breakthrough, but all his feelings haven't suddenly just fixed themselves.

And Deku's reckless behavior gets him chewed out. His gumption is admirable but ultimately destructive and unsustainable.

Yeah, he's left doubting if he's even worthy of All Might's guidance when he couldn't win the tournament and tore his body to hell in the process.

Which leads us to the revelation that All Might was also Quirkless before gaining One For All. The other kids may have natural talent, but Deku's got a unique perspective - one that All Might shares. Being Quirkless has forced him to rely on his strength of character rather than skating by on talent (see: Bakugo, kinda).

It puts a whole new perspective on when he told Deku that being a quirkless hero wouldn't work out. Dude knew from experience!

Oh damn, you're right!

Which also brings up the question of how All Might came into his power, who his mentor was...


It's a mystery! Though his mentor has pretty damn good Shounen Manga Hair, I'll say.

I gotta keep my mouth shut about that rn

I guess we've got some conflict with the Hero Killer coming up, yea? R.I.P. Iida-bro

That actually brings up a slight nitpick I had with this episode. See, in the manga we never actually saw who Stain attacked - our first introduction is just him standing over a body declaring that nobody but All Might's allowed to kill him. It's not until Iida gets that call that we realize that wasn't some rando hero lying in the alley. Here it doesn't come as quite a shock since we know it's Tensei from the start.

Hmm, I see what you mean but I think it pulled off a different approach really well. Like, instead of shock factor we've got this dramatic irony. The dread weighs on you the whole time, it's a slower burn. It's def a different take on the same thing but I think it works, enough that I would've never thought the manga did it differently.

Fair. I'm generally not a The Manga Was Better! guy, especially with MHA, but it did stick out to me a little.

Seeing Stain in motion was still great either way

Somebody doesn't like posers who do the hero thing for fame or money :'D Should send him back to middle school b4 the reality of student debt crushes him.

I kid, but yikes, this dude is scary.

Bet he'd have a bone to pick with Endeavor.

Sidenote: Can you believe he's voiced by Kaisar from Bahamut?

WAIT REALLY

Where's the lip gloss?!

he kinda needs lips for that

But yeah, I've been waiting for Stain's arrival since S1 teased him at the very end, and I'm only more excited now. Granted, we've gotta wrap up the tournament arc first.

Todoroki vs. Bakugo next, eyyy

Tell me now, who do you think's going to win?

I want Todoroki to win but my gut says Bakugo will. That or Todoroki is forced to use his left side to win. He needs the push, after all.

If anybody's gonna push him it's Bakugo. Dude's powerful, and he's flexible with how he uses his power. Now if we could just work on that personality...

Y'know, maybe he does need to be knocked down a bit. Honestly, I could see it going either way. I'm excited!

If nothing else, nobody should end up skewered and bleeding out.

This week in Re:Creators: somebody get Alicetaria a Snickers bar.

Or a therapist. Or a hug. Or a friend who's not a dead young girl.

Real talk though, her fight scene against Meteora was pretty damn sweet. Summoning a whole legion of knights to spam lasers is kinda cheating though.

This whole episode felt like a delivery on Re:C's promise of ridiculous cross-genre battles. Giant robots, lazers, magic, curses, twitter trends, it had it all.

That last one was pretty great, ngl. Maybe Matsubara isn't terrible after all! Saving Selesia by tweeting a new and improved version of her: the most 2017 goddamn solution possible.

That's how author-audience interaction has changed over the years, I guess. Storytelling in the age of twitter: the memes are now canon.

It's a cool application of the audience-author membrane situation. Matsubara telling Selesia not to give up because dammit he wrote her stronger than that was a cool way to frame the moment.

"'Run away, save yourself' lines are too rote!" says the guy who has probably written "it can't be helped" several dozen times.

Okay, I like dunking on light novel prose, but what Sota says about those stories being meaningful was pretty great.

That speech felt like a really good return to the ideas at the core of Re:C. Stories aren't always just entertainment. They're expressions of empathy and emotion that can transcend typical communication!

Yeah, as escapist as anime/manga/light novels can be, they can also inspire very real emotions in people. Part of me laughs at applying that to some kinds of weebshit but y'know, who am I to judge what people find meaningful? The important thing is that Alicetaria's the one who taught Sota to stick up for what's right, even if she doesn't realize it.

As a Symphogear fan I can 100% relate to finding inspiration from stupid escapist nonsense.

Does that mean you'll admit Monster Musume has some very important things to say?

I'll admit that it taught me which of my friends were irredeemable perverts, which was useful I guess.

now chotto just a minute

Gotta say though, I loved the insight we got into Alice's actions. She knows Magane's full of shit, but she's lost the one person she cared about after losing everything else already. Attacking Meteora and the others is the one thing she can do to exert any control over all this mess. I'm a sucker for self-destructive characters I guess.

She's had so much torn from her that she latches onto the first thing that gives it all meaning. She's a mess and so incredibly sympathetic. Her reality? Fake. Her girlfriend? Dead. What's real? IDK let's just listen to the sharktooth girl I guess, she kinda almost makes sense.

To her credit she still balks when Altair interrupts her fight with Selesia. She may want to kill these people, but she wants to do it in a fair and honorable duel at least!

It's a brutal moment! She's understandably mortified. She's about fighting for what she believes in, not wanton murder. Having someone else forcibly disarm your opponent is so not kosher, yo.

It was a legit shocking moment. The show's fights are all so fantastical that it comes as a real shock when we remember all these anime characters are still flesh and blood.

mostly blood

Gotta say, I wonder where all Selesia's flesh went when she got impaled. Do flesh-holes work that way? I have clearly never been stabbed all the way through by a medieval lance.

She got hit pretty hard. Maybe there's a hockey puck sized wad of viscera two parking lots over.

In any case she gets a moment to be Burny Saber before reverting to her wounded self. Guess that fan excitement couldn't sustain itself.

"Selesia too OP, pls nerf" - some twitter egg probably

They're not eggs anymore, Nick, they're florpy things

Anyway, I'm curious what's up next. Selesia's out of commission for at least a while, Magane has Yuya's power now, and Altair seems all the more determined to burn the earth and leave it behind.

It's a sort-of victory for our protagonists right now. We'll see! NGL, I hope Rui's mech gets some more screentime. It's a good robot.

let Magane pilot the robot

Do Not Let Magane Pilot the Robot

Bonus Discussion

I'm almost scared to ask this, but anything else interesting happen in anything you're watching?

Well, I heard buzz about Kado this week so I caught up and yep, things certainly happened in that show.

Did the aliens eat anybody yet?

Not yet, but you're not far off! So Kado spent its first half asking (badly) What If Earth Was Post Scarcity? But we never got to see what anything meant to people in general. Just dudes in suits talking at each other.

THEN it decides to start fleshing out its characters, several episodes too late. It starts gesturing at q's like "what is human?" and "is accelerated progress good for humanity?" until...

One of the human characters is revealed to have been ALIEN ALL ALONG! Also the alien is evil and has totally been using humanity for his own amusement ha ha.

Wow, that's lame.

It's the most goddamn cliche twist that anyone could've seen coming and completely undermines whatever themes the show might have been going for up till then.

I was expecting at least "Aliens built the pyramids" levels of conspiracy. Like "the pyramids are actually just buried Alien Cubes".

It's more like "aliens are getting bored and think humanity would be more interesting if they weren't stuck on things like the energy crisis."

The really dumb thing is that the show spent several episodes establishing that the Alien All Along character had a family, childhood memories and everything, before going LOL NEVER MIND. To be fair, there might be some amnesia plot device in all this, but DAMN.

So as I recall, this whole show originally started as a fully CG film Toei was doing. And then later got like, retro-fitted into a TV series. So could this be something to like, fill out the run time or...?

Possibly. The show seems so comfortable when waxing poetic about abstract sci-fi concepts and so awkward when doing literally anything else that I can't help but think the sociopolitical stuff was added later. Kado's always been lopsided as hell but this is especially jarring.

There's a lot more dumb shit that I could rag on but there's one thing I gotta get outta my system: Alien gives humanity a device that makes one conscious of their fragmented identity, since what they know as themselves is just a 3D cross-section of a much larger identity. This is a really neat concept! You could use that to explore questions of identity and self! But instead the big gimmick is "what if your other self can sleep for you?" It's the least interesting thing they could've done with that concept, holy shit.

That's also the reverse of what I'd ask. It'd be more like "can my other self do shit while I nap?"

Somehow this is supposed to improve human efficiency? Since they no longer have to spend 1/3 of the time sleeping? I DON'T KNOW IT'S SO DUMB.

Kado is such a wreck and I gotta see where it goes from here. I gotta, Nick, I gotta.

You uh, have fun with that I guess.

At least you're not watching Frame Arms Girl anymore, right?

I cannot believe you would think that

Wait shit, why did I ask about that.

Uh, how bout that Royal Tutor eh? Good boys, sad boys, all kindsa boys.

The boys sure are good! We uh, finally got around to the big reveal: Who Is Heine Wittgenstein? Did you find it as underwhelming as I did?

Kinda? I'm of two minds on it. The backstory itself is a solid enough story on its own, but it does beg the question of why there was so much hullabaloo about it when it's all basically an unfortunate misunderstanding that everyone came out of for the better in the end.

The story's a nice parallel of the princes' thus far - Viktor meets a commoner, learns how people from other walks of life live, while Heine goes from illiterate scruff to respected teacher. But yeah, I'm just sitting here like, that's it?

Apparently this is all anime-original stuff which, uh, yeah it feels like it.

It's a shame since the show has been consistently really good. All this buildup, Heine threatening to leave if his past became known, and... that's it? He got mistaken for a criminal and then pardoned?

Yeah, it's kind of a bummer. The show's has really strong writing for a silly comedy and this feels like a step down.

This is the dramatic final arc and ya flub it this hard? At least we'll always have the cleaning rangers!

On the plus side, apparently the anime's finale made the original mangaka cry, so maybe it can salvage itself? I at least appreciate not getting an inconclusive Read The Manga ending.

At least there was one good flashback this week!

Rage of Bahamut with the hard-hitting truths: Jeanne Gets Mansplained to Hell

If I can be candid for a second, I'm of the opinion that Jeanne's arc in Genesis sucked poopy butt, so I was surprised at how much this episode managed to make me care about her.

You're allowed to be wrong so long as you eventually see the light ; )

I maintain that Genesis' second half ate it pretty hard, but Virgin Soul has so far managed to rectify every problem I had with that first season. Partly that's because I'm a sucker for Sad Mom stuff but this episode really was stellar.

So this episode was all about how Jeanne got kicked out of the Knights d'Orleans and wound up in prison. Predictably, it's mostly Charioce being a butthead.

Gotta love Charioce

oh my god nick

Anyway, fugitive Jeanne immaculate conceives lil' baby angel Mugaro and they're the SWEETEST FAMILY and NOTHING BAD HAPPENS TO THEM.


I'm generally pretty meh on babies, fictional or otherwise, but Baby El made me awwwwwwww pretty hard.

Nick, look at this angel

LOOK AT HIS TEENY ANGEL WINGS


So to save lil' baby El, mom hides him in a pile of demon corpses and gives herself up to capture and it's so goddamn sad.

That whole sequence slayed me. Tears flowed when she was cutting off El's wings. That whole sequence could've gone terribly but they struck the tone perfectly to leave me bawling.

You can see how much it hurts her to mutilate her kid like that. She has to or else he dies.

and El biting into her shoulder to keep from screaming just...gahhhhhhhhh

Even when they first break into the demon prison she covers El's eyes to keep him from seeing the corpses piled around. The tragic choral requiem in the score was my breaking point. Just that whole scene, man. She's doing so gotdang much for the cute little baby I'm CRY.

Now I really want this prison break to happen, so Jeanne and Nina and Azazel can all save El and give him the biggest hugs possible.

and Rita can maybe begrudgingly hug him too (while secretly enjoying it)

and then they can all go kick Charioce in the dick

get this smug asshole off the throne

cuz this'll be me until that happens


discuss this in the forum (16 posts) |
bookmark/share with: short url

this article has been modified since it was originally posted; see change history

This Week in Anime homepage / archives