A Product of Wasted Time

Mobile Suit Gundam AGE 32

2012-05-23T00:28:00.001-04:00

The Diva arrive at the Federation command center to find it under attack by the Vagans.

So... Kio likes older women... where does that leave Wendy?

Summary:
On the Diva, Flit gives Natora another lecture and tells the young captain to believe in herself, but their meeting is interrupted when a crew member alerts them that Shanalua is sending encoded messages to the Vagans. The Diva arrive at the Federation command center of Roustroulam in the rain forest and finds the base to be under attack by a large Vagan landing force. The Vagans located the center in part thanks to Shanalua's intel and Zeheart is sent out for a special mission in an amphibious Wrozzo mobile suit. Zeheart and his escorts dive into the river and break through into the Federation fortress from underwater.

Vagans always have the tendency to jump in front of the Gundam's guns.

Kio, don't come any closer. It'll never work out between us. Our age difference is too much.

Back on the Diva, Shanalua launches in her Clanche without authorization. The rest of the Diva mobile suits launch to help out the Federation defenders, but Kio cannot let Shanalua leave without an answer and goes looking for her in the AGE 3 Fortress. Out in the battlefield, Shanalua is targeted by the Vagans and her Clanche gets damaged. Shanalua is in trouble but Kio arrives to make the save. Kio wants Shanalua to go back to the Diva with her, but Shanalua states that being a traitor, she has nowhere to go. Shanalua reveals that she agreed to spy for the Vagans because she needed money for the medical treatments that keep her little sister alive. Shanalua states that she had no choice and didn't want to lose her sister, and she starts firing warning shots at Kio. Kio's Gundam is noticed by a Wrozzo, and the Wrozzo manages to hit the Gundam because Kio is occupied with Shanalua. Shanalua saves Kio and fights the Wrozzo with her Clanche. In the exchange, Shanalua kills the Vagan pilot but she is mortally wounded herself. With her dying breath, Shanalua tells Kio to survive no matter what happens.

The traitor dies, and so the lesson of the day for Kio is...?

You'd think the Vagan would have remote activated bombs/devices.

In the underground section of the Federation base, Federation mobile suits take down a Wrozzo and leave to defend another position. Unbeknownst to the Feds, the Wrozzo wreckage is hiding a bomb. After the Zeheart and crew set the bombs, they leave the site through the waters.

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Post is a bit late since I went traveling. I might travel some more in the next week or two so posts will lag a few days. As foreshadowed by the previous episode, Shanalua turns out to be a spy for the Vagans and she was (at least partially) responsible for the Vagans knowing the Diva's position and finding out where Roustroulam is. Her back story of needing money for her sister's medical treatment and her whole character aren't really the most compelling of setups, but the situation served its purpose of giving Kio his first scar of war. Kio finds out that the first new person that he looks up to is a traitor because of circumstance and then she gets killed in front of his eyes. That should make Kio realize that war is not just about defeating enemies in battle. Kio has never had any tragedy in his life up to this point, and so we'll see how Shanalua's death will affect Kio, who is younger than both Asemu or Flit when he took over the job as Gundam pilot.

However Kio reacts, he'll probably end up taking out lots of Vagan since they'll be coming after the Gundam. The Gundam will make a difference, but we'll have to see if the Diva forces can save Roustroulam from destruction. The Vagan plan involving Zeheart seems to be planting a bomb (I presume) and using it to destroy the Federation Base rather than for the Vagans to fight their way into the base. We'll see if the bomb is all there is to the Vagan battle plan or if there is more. Zeheart is not in command of the whole attack this time, and that might be a good thing for the Vagans since Zeheart never done well as a commander.

Bleach 492

2012-05-16T16:39:00.000-04:00

Yuki and Shino gets a history lesson about the Quincy-Shinigami war, while Kirge battles Ayon.

That's how you "plant" someone into the ground.

Summary:
Back in Soul Society, Yuki and Shino are dispatched to meet 13th division's sixth seat Hidetomo Kajoumaru. Yuki wonders why the shinigami and Quincy fight each other, and Hidetomo gives Yuki and Shino a quick history lesson about the conflict. Basically, shinigamis purify hollows and maintain the soul balance between Soul Society and the human world while Quincies destroy souls which upsets the balance and can lead to destruction of both worlds. The shinigamis tried to negotiate but the Quincies wouldn't listen, and so 200 years ago the shinigamis decided to wipe out the Quincies.

Meanwhile in Hueco Mundo, Ayon grabs Kirge and repeatedly slams him into the ground. Apacci comes to taunt the downed Kirge but gets stabbed by Kirge for her troubles. Kirge then gets back up and powers up some more.

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Can Ichigo please hurry it up and put an end to Kirge? Not too surprisingly, Ayon appears and gets a few hits in on Kirge, but Kirge is far from beaten and probably is going to power up and wipe the floor with Ayon and the three fraccions. This fight seems somewhat pointless and is taking longer than it should. I rather see the Vandenreich invading Soul Society, but that didn't happen this week either. Rather, we have a short history lesson about the Quincy Shinigami conflict, and most of us know this stuff already. Obviously, the Vandenreich/Quincies are want payback for the previous war, but there is probably a lot more to it since what was told is only the shinigami side of the story. Mayuri and Yamamoto are hiding something from most of the other shinigamis, and it'll be interesting to see why Quincies refused the shinigami's offers so consistently.

Naruto 586

2012-05-16T15:47:00.000-04:00

Kabuto gets thrown for a loop.

A little deja-vu?

Summary:
Kabuto cuts Itachi in half. Sasuke tries to grab Kabuto with Susanoo but Kabuto jumps to the ceiling. Sasuke and Kabuto spit sprays at each other and Kabuto get the better of it. Itachi then appears in front of Kabuto who stabs Itachi with Sasuke's sword, but one of Itachi's eyes becomes clouded and he turns into crows. Itachi gets the sword back and slices at Kabuto, but Kabuto dodges. Kabuto thinks he has the upper hand, but Itachi declares that he is already controlling Kabuto's destiny with Izanami. Kabuto doesn't believe Itachi and goes after Itachi and Sasuke again with the stomach snake technique. Kabuto manages to damage Itachi once again and then stab Itachi in the back, but then Itachi turns into crows, gets the sword back and slices at Kabuto and the slice shaves off the tip of a horn that Itachi should have already sliced off. Kabuto now knows something is amiss but still doesn't believe he got genjutsued, so he goes after Itachi again but the same sequence of events occur. Back in the real world, Itachi stands in front of a still Kabuto and explains to Sasuke that he used Izanami to put Kabuto into an infinite loop that Kabuto cannot escape from.

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Hahahahaha the magic Sharingan strikes again! Despite this being the inevitable conclusion, I am actually happy that Kabuto finally got trolled by the Uchiha magic eyes. The fight was getting long in the tooth since Kabuto had a long flashback (which I was hoping was induced by Izanami but it wasn't) and didn't look like he was going to do anything spectacular to beat the Uchiha bros. I was hoping Kabuto would do something cool like pull out another zombie or something, but he was just going to rely on Sage Mode senses and speed and sealing shut his own eyes to win. Kabuto should have known from his research that Sharingan techniques are beyond reason lol. Kabuto getting stuck in an infinite loop is pretty hilarious, and given this is a forbidden Sharingan technique that cost zombie Itachi one of his eyes (how does that work... I thought zombies can regenerate any part of their body) Kabuto is unlikely to break out of it... on his own anyways. Itachi has Kabuto stuck in a loop now, but does that mean he can make Kabuto recall the zombies?

Eureka Seven AO 05

2012-05-16T00:14:00.000-04:00

Ao joins Generation Bleu and gets a tour of the company's facilities.

Usually when a guy gets kicked hard in the nuts, he doesn't usually jump around in pain. The usual reaction would be doubled over or in the fetal position and speaking in a high voice.

Summary:
Team Pied Piper and Ao fly back to Generation Bleu's headquarters which is a strange structure sticking out of some mountains. The Triton is taken into the landing bay and Ao meets the company's technical director Alexander Boyer who will be repairing/making adjustments to the Nirvash. Rebecka gets the job of look for Noah but instead finds Gazelle's group, and Gazelle demands to see the boss. Meanwhile, Ao is taken for medical testing. The staff tell Ivica that Ao almost perfectly normal, except that his eyes may see a wider spectrum of light than other people. Fleur and Elena then lead Ao into the underground city that houses of the Generation Bleu staff. While at the security desk, Ao sees internal news coverage of Noah on the loose and runs into the underground city to find Noah.

How did these stowaways get jobs so easily?

Gazelle, Han and Pippo are taken by Rebecka to Christopher's office. Gazelle reveals that he and his friends saw Team Pied Piper taking out the cube from the Scub Coral which caused the coral to go dormant, and Gazelle also notes that the cube was similar to the small cubes that infected his FP and led up to the Scub Burst. Gazelle questions what Generation Bleu is really up to, and Rebecka silently reaches for her pistol. However, Christopher decides that Gazelle and friends are interesting and hires them into the company. Rebecka takes Gazelle's group to take a train and they bump into Fleur who doesn't quite recognize the three men from Okinawa. On the train, Rebecka's phone starts ringing, alerting her to a Scub Burst event in progress.

If the team is called Goldilocks, then the big guy must be Papa Bear.

Back in the city, Ao and Elena walk around trying to locate Noah, and they find the sloth with three girl pilots and the leader of another IFO team, Team Goldilocks. Ao and Elena chat with Team Goldilocks, and the team leader Bruno welcomes Ao to Generation Bleu but advises Ao to leave or else he will do something that hurts his loved ones. Team Goldilocks then gets to signal to sortie for the Scub Burst event, and so Ao and Noah follow Elena back to Elena's apartment where Elena leaves Ao outside and gives Noah a shower before tossing Noah out of the apartment. Fleur returns to find Ao and Noah outside the apartment and Fleur wants Ao to think about why he came to Generation Bleu.

This G-Monster is like one of those amusement rides that swing people around.

Gazelle and gang follow Rebecka to the command center where Ivica and Christopher are watching Team Goldilocks in action. Team Goldilocks investigate a suspicious storm cloud approaching the coral. The three IFOs piloted by Maev, Maggie and Chloe fly out to the check out the cloud, and to their surprise they find an UN IFO flying nearby. Giant limbs of a Secret/G-Monster then appear out of the clouds to knock the UN IFO and Maggie out of the sky, and the remaining Goldilocks IFOs are also in trouble. Having lost contact with his pilots, Bruno calls headquarters for reinforcements, and so Ivica and Team Pied Piper are asked to launch.

Suiting up for the first official mission.

Ao is standing in Elena and Fleur's apartment not sure what he is supposed to do when the girls get the call to prepare for launch. Ao reluctantly follows and Ivica arrive to show Ao where his flight suit is stored. After changing into the suit, Ao and the girls grab their IFO keys from Rebecka, and Alexander informs Ao that the "Mark I" will be designated Nirvash from now on. The IFOs and their pilots are then loaded onto the Triton and the Triton blasts off into the sky.

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Late post because I had to deal with what turned out to be very difficult final exam over the weekend, but regardless of how badly I did the academic semester is over, so I should have a little more time to devote to this blog. In episode 5 of the show, Ao gets a taste of his new home at the Generation Bleu city inside a mountain. Not the most dramatic or exciting of episodes, but such transitional episodes are necessary in the story. In his search for Noah, Ao meets another IFO team in the Goldilocks, and the Goldilocks leader Bruno gives Ao some worrisome and somewhat cryptic advice. ao then spends the latter half the episode being unsure about his reasons for coming along to Generation Bleu HQ. Fleur and Elena weren't exactly the most welcoming teammates, but they weren't hostile either; they acted somewhat indifferently and let Ao figure things out on his own. Of course, Ao ends up joining Team Pied Piper on the mission and so we'll have lots of action next episode.

Other than Ao, Gazelle, Pippo and Han also managed to score some jobs at Generation Bleu. Gazelle and friends really didn't plan this thing out very well since Christopher could have certainly silenced them for good, but the Generation Bleu boss decided that the three guys were interesting and let them stay. I'm not sure what sort of jobs that Gazelle and friends got though. Gazelle does raise some good questions about Generation Bleu and the thing they do with the glowing cubes. Christopher didn't exactly give them an answer (or at least it wasn't shown to the audience), but we'll find out soon enough now that Ao is part of Team Pied Piper.

Mobile Suit Gundam AGE 31

2012-05-15T00:23:00.000-04:00

The Diva is attacked in the desert while on its way to the Federation command center.

Every relevant character is going to find a job on the Diva in this generation.

The X-Rounder savior of the world Asuno doesn't need piloting instructions.

Summary:
The Diva is on its way towards the Federation command center and is flying low over a desert to avoid detection. However, the Divas is shot from below by Vagan mobile suits moving in the desert and forced to land for repairs in a rocky area. The crew gets intel that the Feds have lost a lot of units in the area due to three Vagan desert mobile suits known as the "Phantom 3". Flit, Seric and the bridge crew then devise a plan to get out of the situation. Kio is outside the bridge trying to listen in, but he then bumps into his aunt Yunoa who is the ship's medical officer. Wendy is also on the ship as Yunoa's aid and Wendy is seen chasing down the three kids who somehow ended up on the ship as well. Kio then meets Shanalua who gets Kio to go to the hangar for some simulation training. Outside the rocky area, the Phantom 3 pilots Godom, Deymon and Gratt spy on the Diva using their binoculars, and the three plan to attack after finishing deploying autonomous drones in the nearby sands.

Another Gunhale on the Diva... why am I not surprised.

And Wootbit is jelly because Rody wouldn't shake his hand.

At the hangar, Kio takes a break from training and talks to Rody and his helper (and also Dique's grandson) Wootbit, and Rody states that he is getting the AGE Device to make desert equipment for the Gundam. After Rody is called away for some other business, Kio talks to Wootbit but Wootbit is jealous about Kio's "special status" and gives Kio a shove. Kio feels a bit down about this and doesn't perform well when simulation training resumes. Shanalua wonders what's up with Kio and tries to comfort him with a little forehead to forehead, but Kio states that he's alright.

Kio:... uh I don't think I have a fever.

How is physically possible for three mobile suits to create a tornado by moving around in a fast but not super fast speed?

Suddenly, alerts ring throughout the ship as the Phantom 3 are approaching in their Gomel mobile suits. Seric and squad sortie to meet the enemy, with Seric and two members acting as bait to draw out the drones and Shanalua and Obright going out on the ground to pick the drones off. The Gundam's desert pack is not ready so Kio and Flit go out in the Normal form. Upon stepping into the desert, the Gundam is confronted by the Phantom 3 who move really fast around the Gundam in a circle to create a cyclone. The Phantom 3 knock the Gundam around for a bit and go for their combined attack finisher, but Kio dodges using his X-Rounder powers. However, the Phantom 3 prevent the Gundam from escaping and so the Gundam is still trapped. Back in the Diva, the AGE device has finished making the new G Hopper and Wootbit pilots it out. Wootbit blasts the cyclone to get the Phantom 3's attention, and Shanalua provides cover so that Wootbit can get to the Gundam. Kio detaches the Core Fighter from the G-ceptor to combine with the G-Hopper to form the AGE-3 Fortress that can hover above the sand and has four beam cannons. Kio follows Shanalua's advice and leads the Phantom 3's on a run. Kio blasts two of the enemy Gomels out of the sand, and then Deymon ends up jumping onto the business end of one of the Gundam's beam cannons and gets blasted to smithereens. Kio then uses the Fortress' four beam cannons to torch a large swatch of desert to destroy all of the drones. After seeing Kio's awesome performance, Wootbit decides to be nice to Kio and the two shake hands.

Look who's got the big guns.

Jumping down the wrong end of the barrel.

Now that's what I call mowing the lawn.

The two remaining Phantom 3 retreat and vow to avenge their comrade. Back on the Diva, Kio is happy about the victory and thanks Shanalua for her advice during training earlier, but Shanalua doesn't share the enthusiasm and states that war is nothing to be happy about. After Shanalua walks off, Seric tells Kio that Shanalua's family has suffered because of war so she's never happy about it, but Seric encourages Kio to celebrate for a bit.

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We get a desert battle for the first time in this series, and the AGE-3 Gundam gets a new equipment outfit out of it. The AGE-3 Fortress does exactly what it looks like it will do: it has the hover jets to move quickly along a service, and it has four beam cannons that can blast a whole lot of enemies. Perfect against loads of drones that hide themselves in the desert and the Vagan Desert Sharks... I mean Phantom 3. Unlike the previous Gundams, the AGE-3's new equipment packs are actually aircraft in their own right and require a pilot. Is each of the packs going to have an unique pilot like how Flit was piloting the G-ceptor and Wootbit was piloting the G-Hopper?

On to the developments in this episode, the Divas is flying slowly towards the Federation command center, and the ship is flying slowly a low because it wants to avoid detection. Well, that plan obviously failed. The Divas doesn't have cloaking technology, and something that big moving not so fast can't be that hard to spot especially if the Vagans have any sort of spy satellite. I found it funny that the Divas is shown flying through what looks like North America, but I don't recall there being any deserts in the plotted path shown in the episode. Their Earth must have different geography than the real Earth lol. It was also amusing how another Gunhale, a Madorna, and even Kio's aunt Yunoa ended up on the Diva. It must be fate that these families have members that serve on the Divas. I have no idea why the three kids Kio rescued ended up on the ship though. Don't they have parents (or an orphanage) to go to?

Moving on to the characters, any three group of bad guys in Gundam reminds me of the Black Tri-Stars, and the Phantom 3 fits the bill. Like the Black Tri-Stars, the Phantom 3 has a signature combined attack, and also one of them gets killed off by the Gundam first. The sand cyclone attack was pretty ridiculous even by Gundam standards, but I suppose it appeals more to younger target audience that Gundam AGE has. Another new character introduced in this episode was Dique's grandson/Arisa's son Wootbit. Wootbit was pretty upset about Kio getting the spotlight earlier in the show, but he quickly understood that it's destiny for a Gunhale to play sidekick to the main man from the Asuno family. Lastly, this episode focused a bit Shanalua. On one hand it looks Shanalua is going to be a good mentor/big sister figure for Kio, but on the other hand Shanalua's behavior is a little suspicious, especially when she's doing stuff with her phone. Could she be a spy for the bad guys? We'll see.

Queen's Blade Rebellion 06

2012-05-11T00:54:00.000-04:00

Yuit, Annelotte and friends try to rescue Mirim once again, but Mirim doesn't really want to be rescued.

As always, some screen shots are of questionable nature.

Let's all get in on the good vibrations.

Summary:
To counter Mirim's vibration armor, Yuit builds her own versions for herself and Annelotte, but Yuit's products only have the unsettling vibration but not the increased power and defensive abilities of Mirim's armor. LunaLuna returns the abandoned cabins and states that she heard from people that Mirim single-handedly defeated a fortress on her own, and the battleground is not too far away. Yuit knows that Mirim isn't fighting willingly and thus she wants to convince Mirim to go back home with her.

And thus, Yuit and Vante journey to Mirim and Ymir's war camp. Yuit sneaks in and spies Mirim having a meeting with Ymir. Mirim gives Ymir a letter to send to her mother, but after Mirim leaves Ymir tosses the letter in the fire and this is seen by Yuit. Afterwards, Yuit goes out to a field of flowers to make a flower ring for Ymir, but Yuit and Vante appear before her. Yuit tries to convince Mirim that Ymir is only using her, but Mirim wants to continue because she feels that she is doing something good and being appreciated by Ymir. Yuit hears Ymir calling for Mirim and is forced to leave for now.

Normal Annelotte not doing too well against Mirim's bad vibrations.

This is not a good attacking position unless the attack has something to do with passing gas.

Yuit and Vante return to the abandoned cabin to meet up with Annelotte and LunaLuna again. Yuit is bummed that she couldn't convince Mirim, but she refuses to give up and Annelotte agrees to help. And so the group sets up an ambush as Ymir, Mirim and some soldiers leave the war camp on their way back to Gainos. Yuit has Vante toss the cart of soldiers away while Annelotte fights Mirim. Annelotte can't overcome Mirim's armor's power and she gets bashed around a bit. LunaLuna jumps in to tie up Mirim but gets stunned by the vibration. Vante come to Annelotte's aid, but Ymir takes to opportunity to try to steal Vante's controller from Yuit. Yuit gets the controller back to force Ymir to retreat. Annelotte continues to battle Mirim and tries to stab out the vibration stones on Mirim's armor, but she cannot overcome the vibration field and is sent tumbling. Mirim comes in to deal the finishing blow, but suddenly Annelotte's collar activates and she transforms into a sinister-looking form with red eyes, pointy years, black hair, and gold armor. At the same time in Gainos, Aldra senses something is going on. Back to the battle, the sinister Annelotte breaks Mirim's armor with brute strength. Mirim tries to run but is overcome by the armor's vibration. Annelotte then tries to stab out the vibration stones on Mirim's armor. Yuit and Vante try to make Annelotte stop, but sinister Annelotte sends them flying with a wave of her hand. Annelotte then succeeds in breaking Mirim's armor and absorbed the dark red energy expelled from the broken vibration stones into her collar.

Stab'em in the boobs...

What is that stuff coming out of.... on second thought, I don't want to know.

After the battle, Annelotte returns to normal form and falls unconscious. Yuit comes to check on her friends, but she is knocked down by Vante as Ymir has gotten the controller. With Vante in possession, Ymir tells Ymir that she has no need for failed experimental subjects and rips the flower ring that Ymir had given to her earlier. Ymir orders Vante to attack, but suddenly Captain Liliana and her flying ghost ship appears and she steals Vante (and the controller) from Ymir.

Well-deserved barrel in the face for Ymir.

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That was a pretty terrible episode once again, but it was fun especially when the main fight rolled around. The start wasn't too interesting as it featured obligatory and otherwise pointless fan service with two soldiers giving Mirim a bath, and Annelotte and Yuit trying on the vibration armor and getting that funny feeling. The middle was some drama between Yuit and Mirim which wasn't anything special as you would expect. However, I continue to be feel sad that Ymir has become such an evil manipulator now instead of the goofy entrepreneur she was before.

The battle was when the episode really went into the realm of ridiculousness and became fun. Mirim handled normal Annelotte rather easily, but evil Annelotte suddenly showed up and wrecked everyone. The finish to the fight is one of those really hilarious terrible Queen's Blade moments. Evil Annelotte repeatedly stabs at Mirim's boobs (where the vibration stone is located) and then once the armor break the stones (positioned "strategically" on Mirim's armor) emit huge streams of red... "fluid" that gets absorbed by evil Annelotte... you can only see crap like this on Queen's Blade. We don't know about Annelotte's alternate form and why she absorbed the stuff coming out of the vibration stones though, but it may have something to do with Aldra. Ymir, Yuit and Vante also did their part in the fight, and as expected Ymir tried to steal Vante and succeeded. However, it was great that Liliana showed up and then stole Vante from Ymir, and Ymir finally showed some of her goofy side when Liliana had a ghost pirate toss a barrel into Ymir's face to dislodge Ymir from Vante.

So next episode, Annelotte and Vante will venture into Liliana's ghost ship to get Vante back. Let's hope we'll see ~~something decent~~ some more hilariously bad stuff.

Gantz 362

2012-05-10T18:02:00.001-04:00

The end of Cherry, and Kurono #1 tries to reunite with Tae (again).

For Kurono #1, Tae is like a carrot on a string that he can never quite get to.

Summary:
Sakurai's mech gets destroyed by the alien giant cannon. Sakurai wakes up in a badly damaged building and realizes he has teleported, but unfortunately his limbs are all missing. Sakurai then sees two alien children mourning their dead mother just as the ceiling is about to collapse on them. Near death, Sakurai sees visions of Sakata and Tonkotsu who tells Sakurai to come with them. With one last psychic effort, Sakurai saves the alien kids from being crushed by debris and Sakurai dies.

Meanwhile, Kurono #1 and the other mech pilots realize that their mechs are not on auto pilot anymore (since the hacker masterminds got bombed by the aliens). Kurono ditches the super-suit and flies out of the mech with the Gantz flying bike. Tae and Fra spot Kurono and Fra tells her flying car to get closer to Kurono, but the car is hit by a blast from an alien mech.

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So Cherry is dead. Booooooo. He probably should die, but I wanted him to die a blaze of glory, maybe taking out the alien energy weapon with his last ounce of hate and then maybe do something redemptive. Crazy Cherry deserved to die with more than just a whimper. Anyways, Cherry is gone, and so are the assholes that took over the Gantz network which paves the way for Kurono #1 to once again try to reunite with Tae. Just like at earlier points of the story line, Kurono looks like he has a chance to get to Tae but runs into trouble once again as Fra's car is hit by an alien mech. Will this lead to Tae's demise and Kurono snapping and going Rambo? At this point, that's a better scenario than having Kurono chase Tae around all over again.

One Piece 666

2012-05-09T14:46:00.000-04:00

The Straw Hats are attacked by the Yeti Cool Brothers.

Yetis are big, but they are also sneaky.

Summary:
After "killing" Zoro, Brook and Sanji (in Nami's body), the Yeti Cool Brothers contact Ceasar's underlings to collect the pirates. Back in the research lab, Ceasar gets the news and he and Monet (who can transform into a harpy) expected the Straw Hats to put up more of a fight. Ceasar then thinks maybe Law called the Straw Hats to the island, but Law denies it. It turns out that Law came to the island on his own and told Ceasar that if he could wander around freely he would help Ceasar out, and Law knows about Ceasar's relationship with the "Joker". Back to the present, Ceasar and Law talk about the kids Ceasar kidnapped and Ceasar explains that the kids will be back because of the addictive "candy". Law then leaves the lab.

Meanwhile, the Yeti Cool Brothers bombard the cave where Chopper and Nami are watching Brownbeard and the kids. Brownbeard knows that the Yeti Cool Brothers are here and thinks they are here to save him, but one of the Yeti Bros appear in the cave and states that Ceasar had put Brownbeard on the kill list. The Yeti Bro shoots Brownbeard in the face and nabs Nami (in Franky's body). Luffy's group return after finding the giant footprints. The Yeti Cool Brothers shoot at Luffy with their rifles. Luffy dodge the blasts to try and kick the Yetis, but the Yetis are already gone. The Yeti Bros captured Franky's body because Ceasar was interested in Franky's laser. The Yeti Bros then plans to kill every other target.

Meanwhile, Law walks out the laboratory back door and is questioned by some of Ceasar's underlings who are promptly cut to pieces by Law.

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The Yeti Cool Brothers look like they are pretty dangerous adversaries for the Straw Hats. The two of them are giant Yetis, but they are either extremely fast and/or can turn invisible/very good at camouflage since they can come an go without being noticed. They have to be pretty strong if they can take out Zoro's group so easily. Zoro, Sanji and Brook are obviously not dead, but they were knocked out pretty fast since it didn't look like had chance to put up much of a fight. It looks like Luffy will have to go look for his other crew members once again.

Other the the Yetis, this chapter had stuff on the relationship between Law and Ceasar. It turns out Law just wandered onto the island without invitation instead of being told by someone to help Ceasar. Law obviously has some different goals in mind than Ceasar, but it's still a mystery what he or Ceasar are really after.

Naruto 585

2012-05-09T13:28:00.000-04:00

Uchiha bros. vs. Kabuto continued.

What's with Kabuto and growing stuff out of his stomach?

Summary:
After concluding his trip down memory lane, Kabuto goes back to attacking the Uchiha bros with various jutsus of Orochimaru's former underlings. Kabuto manages to trap the brothers with an auditory genjutsu from Kimimaro. Kabuto tries to capture the brothers with Orochimaru's snake form, but Itachi and Sasuke use Tsukuyomi on each other to break free of Kabuto's genjutsu and stop Kabuto's attack with Susasanoo. Itachi states that Kabuto has lost and finally starts Izanami, but Kabuto come through Orochimaru's snake body and slices Itachi in half.

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So Kabuto's lengthy flashback sequence wasn't part of a Sharingan genjutsu? I'm disappointed. Kabuto getting genjutsued into a flashback would be the only plausible reason why his flashback was so long lol. Also, it seems Itachi is just starting to do Izanami, and Kabuto may or may not have stopped him with the attack before the end of the chapter. The fight between Kabuto and the Uchiha bros so far has shown that the Uchiha bros aren't super-invulnerable if their opponent is good enough, but... I'm sure Kabuto is going to get owned by some eye jutsu sooner or later. Maybe Itachi already put Izanmi on him.

Bleach 491

2012-05-09T11:35:00.000-04:00

Ichigo vs. Kirge continued.

Ichigo, it's your cue to power up.

Summary:
Kirge does his Quincy power up and boasts about how powerful he is. Kirge and Ichigo trade insults, but Kirge has the advantage as Ichigo in shikai is not powerful enough to deal damage to Kirge's current form. Kirge powers up by drawing all the nearby Reishi including Orihime's protective barrier for an attack, but before Kirge can launch the attack he gets sucker punched by Ayon (the monster formed by Harribel's fraccions).

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Standard Bleach combat chapter. Kirge is probably a small fry in the grand scheme of things, but the fight is drawn out anyways. Ichigo probably can and would beat down Kirge if he goes bankai, but Ichigo seems to be in no hurry to do so, and now the fight will be even longer now that Harribel's fraccions are back in the fight and have unleashed their monster Ayon. Ayon had a pretty good showing during the arrancar arc where it easily overpowered a couple of shinigami lieutenants before old man Yama barbecued it. The arrancars have fallen pretty far down the scale, so lets see if they can make a little bit of difference. I'm thinking Kirge will still beat Ayon, but of course Ichigo will beat Kirge. I'd rather look at the Vandenreich's invasion of Soul Society at this point then watch this fight however.

Mobile Suit Gundam AGE 30

2012-05-08T00:30:00.000-04:00

Kio, Flit and the Federation forces at Olivernote try to fight back against the invading Vagan forces led by Zeheart.

Federation grunts are still under-equipped and they still suck.

Summary:
Zeheart goes after Kio's Gundam. Kio cannot quite match Zeheart's experience and the Ghirarga's speed, but he hangs tough. Flit tells Kio to hold out until the Diva arrives on the scene. Meanwhile, Federation pilot Seric Abis and his squad is fighting a losing battle against the heavily armored Vegan Danazines. One of Seric's squad mates sacrifices himself in battle, and Seric rescues one of his other comrades and flies back to base.

At the Federation's military command center on Earth, Frederick, now the Federation Prime Minister, along with the staff at the center see the images of Big Ring being obliterated by the Vagan energy weapon. The command center then gets a call from the commander at the base near Olivernote saying that Flit had ordered the Diva to launch. Flit is a former general and therefore does not have the authority to order the launch and thus the commander was going to deny the request, but Frederick orders the commander to comply. The base commander is not happy with the request and being short on personnel, the commander assembles a ragtag bridge crew and picks a completely inexperienced Natora Einus, the granddaughter of a famous commander, as the captain of the Diva.

So this is the crew that's supposed to save the world.... yeah we are in trouble.

Natora happens to be the officer who picked up Wendy and the three kids, and she gets called to the commander's office to get the surprising news. Natora is not ready but has no choice but to take up the job. Seric's squad is assigned to the ship, and Natora and a rag-tag bridge crew launch in the Divas.

A little Red Comet display.

It's not as if the AGE-3's beam "rifle" wasn't big enough already.

Back in Olivernote, Kio stays in the fight with Zeheart as the Vagan main ship starts bombarding the city. The Diva arrive and Seric and his squad launch to back up the Gundam. As the Diva's photon blaster is too powerful to be used in the atmosphere, Flit orders the Divas to use the AGE Device to make a new weapon to take out the main Vagan ship. The Diva's mechanical chief, Rody Madorna state that the AGE system doesn't have enough data to make a good weapon, but Flit tells Rody to adjust the settings to make the weapon quicker. With the changed settings, the AGE factory spits out an amplifying attachment called the Blustia Cannon for the Gundam's SigMaxiss rifle and Rody sends out the new part to Kio. Kio gets the attachment but the cannon charges ever so slowly. Zeheart tries to thwart the effort but is held back by Seric's squad until the cannon finally finishes charging. Kio locates the Vagan ship's bridge via his X-Rounder powers and flies out of formation to make the shot. Zeheart is graced by the blast, and the blast destroys the Vagan ship's bridge and sends it crashing into the nearby sea. Because it was made quickly, the Blustia cannon doesn't have good build quality so it overloads and blows up after firing the blast. Seeing that his ship has been destroyed, Zeheart orders the retreat.

One shot. One kill. One use.

(as the Blustia Cannon attachment blows up afterwards.)

Kio, Flit along with the Diva return to base. Kio meets Seric and squad mates and agrees to fight together. Flit bumps into Natora and tells the young captain to get her act together as every life on the ship depends on her decisions. Finally, Flit returns to hangar bay to talk to Kio, and Kio promises to defeat Ezelcant and the Vagans.

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The Feds still have to rely on the Gundam and the old AGE system and Diva to beat back the Vagans. Despite being 40... 50 year old tech at this point, the Divas is still going to main ship for the series, and once again we are back to a ragtag crew that's put together at the last minute. As for the new crew, Natora is least experienced of any of the Diva captains though, and she has her work cut out for her now that the Vagans have brought the fight to Earth. The bridge crew look like a group of misfits, but usually they are not that important. The mechanics are in good hands with Rody, and at least Seric looks to be competent pilot. Hopefully the new group of Diva grunt pilots will be more useful than the trio that accompanied Asemu and Woolf. Obright is back with a beard and a chip on his shoulder thanks to what happened during the last generation. Hopefully Obright is a better pilot this time around, and the Feds need to give their grunts some better equipment as their beam weapons are not too effective against the heavily armored Danazines.

The episode was mainly to get the Diva back into the picture. Most of the episode was spent on the battle, but there wasn't anything too spectacular. Zeheart had the advantage in his faster and more close-combat oriented Ghirarga over Kio's AGE-3 Gundam, but Kio was holding his own for the most part. The part where Kio had to wait for the Blustia Cannon to charge was a bit annoying. Reason one was that the wait was a bit long and that in itself wasn't the issue, but on top of that Zeheart and his forces didn't make much of an effort to stop Kio from shooting down their ship. The ship kept launching Danazines, but we never saw them in the air going after the Gundam or the Federation mobile suits. I guess Zeheart was never that great as an on-field commander. He's an excellent pilot, but not really a good commander.

So after seeing all the damage that the Vagans caused, it seems that Kio has joined Flit's hard-line camp of beating the crap out of the Vagans. That might not be a good thing from certain aspects, but at least Kio won't have the motivation issues that Asemu had. From the episode, it sounds like Flit retired from the post as the top commander of the Federation military rather than being forced out. Frederick became the prime minister, so probably no one was going to force Flit to quit. If Flit and Frederick had been in charge in the past 20 years or so, they certainly didn't do a very good job preparing or preventing the large scale Vagan invasion.

Neon Genesis Evangelion 91

2012-05-07T19:13:00.001-04:00

Shinji explores his own repressed memories.

Flashback time!

Summary:
Shinji's consciousness ends up in a blank space with Rei, and Rei wants to see Shinji's memories and desires. Shinji remembers the day before his mother Yui's disapperance. It was a hot summer day and Yui and Shinji had just left a swimming pool. Yui carries Shinji for a bit and starts talking about the seasons, and she wants to show Shinji what snow is one day. Shinji's memories then wander to the point after Yui's disappearance where Gendo leaves Shinji to be taken care of by Yui's brother. Shinji's cousin teases Shinji about Gendo being responsible for Yui's death and this leads to a fight between the two that is broken up by Shinji's aunt. Shinji's aunt resents taking care of Shinji, and Shinji overhears the conversation. From that point on, Shinji promised his uncle and aunt that he'll be a good kid and starts to shut himself off emotionally. The memories then wander to a scene of Gendo and young Shinji at the cemetery. Shinji wonders where his mother had gone and Gendo states that Yui has left their world. Gendo then lets go of Shinji's hand and kneels down in all fours in front of Yui's grave.

Shinji's repressed childhood memories are slowly coming back, and the journey goes back to the hot summer day before Yui's disappearance. Yui lets Shinji down and says something to him, but Shinji can't quite remember what his mother said to him.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This chapter came out a while (2+ months) ago, but I think it's still the newest chapter. I never follow the NGE manga very closely since the releases are so irregular. Supposedly the series went on another extended hiatus so not sure when there will be another chapter. Back to the story, the Third Impact has been initiated in the previous chapter, and in this chapter Shinji goes on a metaphysical journey down his own memory lane to recall all of the repressed memories he had. I don't remember seeing something like this in the End of Evangelion movie, so this might be so manga-original stuff. We all know by now that thanks to Gendo making Yui disappear and treating Shinji coldly, Shinji grew up with quite a few emotional issues. Shinji is dwelling on what his mother said to him in that last day before her disappearance. Those words probably won't be too extraordinary on their own, but they may sway Shinji towards saving or destroying the world at this point. It might be a long while before we find out what happens next though.

Rosario + Vampire II 53

2012-05-07T00:49:00.000-04:00

The battle continues near Moka.

Coming back from the dead to get revenge!!!

Summary:
Akua cuts Kurumu into two pieces in front of Mizore and Moka. Akua puts her hands near Mizore's throat and tells Moka to stop resisting or else she'll kill Mizore. Mizore wonders what Akua means, and Akua explains that she has form the magic array on the ground to break Moka's seal, but Outer Moka is resisting and is hurting herself in the process. Mizore wonders what will happen to Outer Moka if the seal breaks, and Akua answers that Outer Moka will be erased. Suddenly, Kurumu pieces herself together and attacks Akua, but Akua manages to dodge. It turns out that Kurumu had used an illusion to fool Akua, and now Kurumu and Mizore team up and get ready to show off their improved fighting skills.

Meanwhile, Tsukune and Ruby are trying to figure out how to leave Kuyou's dimension. Kuyou, who is not dead, gets back up and tells Tsukune that there is no way for them to leave his special dimension. The flames of the world start to get stronger and Kuyou disappears into a portal. The portal closes but Ruby uses a magical tag to keep it from completely disappearing. Ruby then tries to wrench the portal open, but suddenly the floating island she and Tsukune are on are blasted by flames.

Back inside Fairy Tale HQ, Akua has beat up Kurumu and Mizore despite the latter two's best efforts. Akua goes in for the kill but Outer Moka begs Akua to stop as she will agree to stop resisting the unsealing process. Outer Moka states that she has remembered that she is just an artificial personality created to shield the real Moka and so she is not worth Kurumu and Mizore to risk their lives over. Outer Moka is thankful to Kurumu and Mizore for their friendship and think they've done enough, but Kurumu and Mizore refuse to give up and combine for a powerful ice and illusion attack on Akua. Kurumu and Mizore remember that Touhou Fuhai had said that there is a limit to how long Akua can stay intangible and evade attacks and so the two girls keep up the attack. However, their best effort is not good enough and Akua critically wounds both of them. Mizore collapses, but Kurumu makes it the barrier beside Outer Moka and Kurumu tells Moka to not to make Tsukune cry before falling over. The grief of seeing her friends being defeated was the final straw needed to break the seal and Moka's hair turns silver once again.

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The good ol' genjutsu save. So Kurumu is not dead and Akua only cut an illusion in half... as expected of course. The series did give us a little scare at the end of the previous chapter with Kurumu possibly being kill off, but chances were that Kurumu will survive because Rosario + Vampire just isn't the type of series to suddenly kill off an important character without drama. Even Kuyou, an one-dimensional villain, is still alive to pester Tsukune some more even after Tsukune appeared to have beat the life out of him. Now if Kurumu and Mizore died in this chapter after trying their best to fight off Akua then that won't be so surprising, but they'll probably be survive since Akua didn't explicitly slice them into pieces.

In this chapter, Akua succeeds in breaking Moka's seal to make Inner Moka surface again. It's unknown at this point what will happen to Outer Moka. Supposedly she'll be erased when the seal is destroyed, but I don't think this will be end of her for the same reason why Kurumu isn't dead: the series doesn't like to kill off people and therefore it is unlikely to kill off its major harem players so easily. It looks things will be going to hell soon and giant monster Alucard will awaken and Outer Moka "may be" gone forever, but I'm looking forward to Inner Moka's return. In particular, I'm hoping that Inner Moka will roundhouse kick Akua through a couple of walls. Don't know when that will happen, but hopefully it will happen. Kurumu and Mizore's effort to save wasn't anything unexpected, but the girls did the best they could and they are easy to like, and so Moka had better get some payback for them. Akua is also a crazy-ass bitch who needs some sense beaten into her. At this point though, we don't really know when or if a fight will happen between Moka and Akua though. Tsukune will probably fight Akua at some point of time, and there is also Kahlua and couple of other Fairy Tale bigs that need be dealt with. And of course there will be the matter of Alucard. Still lots of fighting left to be done.

Eureka Seven AO 04

2012-05-06T01:16:00.000-04:00

Ao pilots the Nirvash into battle with the giant G-Monster carrier.

You mean those things aren't giant particle beam weapons?

I'm gonna dual wield... oops, forgot I have no left arm.

Summary;
The Okinawan Defense forces send fighters against the G-Monster, but their weapons are ineffective and the the fighters are quickly chewed up by the smaller G-Monsters. Fleur and Elena get to work with Fleur picking out the small G-Monsters with Alleluia's sensors for Elena to shoot them down with the Kyrie's autocannons and specialized missiles. Team Pied Piper then notice Ao approaching in the Nirvash. Ao is in the process of figuring out the controls of the Nirvash and doesn't realize that he is flying into the carrier's ZoA (Zone out of Action?... basically the G-monster's detection range). The G-monster fighters scramble towards the Nirvash, but Fleur saves Ao by nabbing the Nirvash and landing on a beach. Fleur then teaches Ao about ZoA (G-Monsters don't attack out of their ZoA) and tells him to stay put, but Ao wants to fight and protect the island. Ao suggests that Fleur lure the smaller G-Monsters away while the Nirvash sneak in and hammer away at the carrier from up close, and Ivica and the Triton's computer program Georg actually agree to the suggestion. To carry out the plan, Fleur flies near the carrier to get the G-Monster fighters chasing her. Meanwhile, Ao flies up to Triton and receives one of Kyrie's spare cannons to replace the Nirvash's missing left arm. Ao then flies in right above the carrier and puts round after round into the carrier. The smaller G-Monster figure thing out and hones in on the Nirvash, but Ao throws the Nirvash's machinegun into the carrier's vent and shoots at it with the cannon arm. The machine gun explodes and it triggers a chain reaction which destroys the entire carrier. With the carrier destroyed, all of the smaller G-Monsters also explode. Back on the island, Naru and her family along with many residents watch the explosion, and Naru is worried about Ao but gets into a coughing fit.

Strafing IFO style.

Ao and the Nirvash end up drifting to the main island and Ao is saved by a man. Meanwhile, Gazelle, Pippo and Han venture into the quarantine zone around the Scub Coral. Pippo's father Teruhiko is part of the quarantine forces, so Gazelle gets Pippo to extract the guards while he and Han sneak in for a closer look. The two of them then see the Team Pied Piper IFOS extracting a much larger version of the green cube that Gazelle was transporting. After the extraction, the Scub Coral becomes inactive.

Fishing in alien coral for glowing green cubes.

Back on Iwadojima, Toshio is at his clinic tending to Naru when Ivica and Rebecka arrive. Ivica explains that he knows Ao's mother Eureka and Generation Bleu has a program for protecting Ao. Toshio takes out the picture of Eureka and infant Ao and states that Ao's old enough to make his own decisions. Naru then asks Ivica and Rebecka to take her to meet Ao, and Toshio tells Ivica to give Ao a message.

On the main island, Ao's rescuer takes him on a tour of the technologically advanced Capital District. The special district is prosperous and full of FPs, but there are also protests from people wanting the United Nations military to leave the islands. Ao's rescuer then brings Ao out of the city to the less prosperous outskirts and explains that even though the islands have gained independence, the UN military continue to occupy the islands causing tourism and fishery to go down. The man brings Ao to a small noodle shop run by a woman he knows. While Ao and the man are eating ramen, the woman takes a picture of Ao and sells him out to the UN forces but the man and Ao find out.

The man takes Ao to the Trapar particle factory where he works. During the cab ride Ao wonders why the man saved him, and the man states that when he was little there was a Scub Burst event and it was an IFO similar to the Nirvash that saved the day. At the factory Ao and the man are met by Naru and Team Pied Piper at the factory, and Naru already has Ao's clothing packed up. Ivica relays Toshio's message to Ao, and in the message Toshio states that the Nirvash belonged to Ao's mother Eureka. Eureka piloted the Nirvash towards a Scub Burst event 10 years ago and never came back, and Toshio tells Ao to stay alive. Ao has a feeling that maybe if he pilots the Nirvash he can one day find his mother again, and so he asks to join Generation Bleu and Ivica agrees. Ao then has some moments alone with Naru and Naru gives Noah to Ao. The two of them then spot UN IFOs approaching from the distance. The UN had hacked into the cab camera and found out where Ao is and they are after Ao and the Nirvash. Ao goes to the junk beach where his rescuer had hidden the Nirvash. Ao says good bye to his rescuer and Naru and takes off in Nirvash to dock with the Triton. Unbeknownst the crew, Gazelle, Han and Pippo have also sneaked on board, but they are found by Noah.

Not exactly the most convincing disguise.

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This episode... wasn't as good as I thought it would be. I was hoping the giant G-Monster carrier battle would take most of the episode and would at least be as good as the episode 2 battle. We have a freaking giant enemy carrier, and Elena and Fleur are in the mix as well so there was potential there for a spectacular fight. The fight ended up being shorter than I thought, and Ao and company didn't really have any difficulty destroying the G-Monster carrier with just some machine cannons. I guess the G-Monsters just explode easily or the machine cannon rounds that the IFOs use are super-duper-explosive. I was hoping for a more drawn-out battle with more thrill, so I was a little disappointed by the action.

The battle took up the first half of the episode, and the second half had a bunch of scenes leading up to Ao joining up with Generation Bleu. After the battle, Ao ended up on the main island after being rescued by some guy. It was a quick change of pace from the first half, but I understand the episode is trying to fit in some more background material on the Okinawan islands and their distaste for UN (or US) forces who refuse to leave. It's not the best transition, but it was helpful for Ao to see how things are on the main island before he sets off on his journey with Team Pied Piper and Generation Bleu. It was no surprise that Ao joined up with Ivica at the gang, but it seems that Gazelle's little gang has tagged along for the ride. Naru however is staying at home, but maybe that will change. I can't see Naru and Ao being separated for too long as they are the male and female leads.

The second half had some interesting bits. First was Team Pied Piper's extraction of the green cube from the Scub Coral. We don't really know what those cubes are, but they caused Gazelle's FP to blow out and led up to the first Scub Burst in episode 1. Removing the cube made the coral inactive, so it's probably the heart/energy source of a Scub Coral. The second was that the UN forces are after the Nirvash too. There is something going on with the UN and Japanese forces regarding the Nirvash and Eureka, and this important issue will probably be unraveled slowly as the series goes on. The UN forces might be one more potential enemy for Ao and Generation Bleu in addition to the G-Monsters.

Queen's Blade Rebellion 05

2012-05-05T23:12:00.000-04:00

Annelotte, Yuit and Vante venture into Gainos to rescue Mirim, but they get sidetracked.

Unguarded side entrance... how convenient.

Summary:
At a Shaifangese (Shaifang being the Queen's Blade equivalent of China) in Gainos, Shaifangese sisters Tarnyang and Sainyang complain about the food mostly because they don't have money to pay for the food. The restaurateur call up some brutes to surround the sisters. Annelotte, Yuit and Vante are sitting nearby and Annelotte wants to help the sisters, but Yuit convinces her to leave to avoid getting noticed. However, while trying to leave Annelotte gets her cloak caught on a stack of boxes. Annelotte pulls free and accidentally causes the boxes to fall onto the restaurateur and his cronies and the sisters think Annelotte did it on purpose to help them. Outside, Tarnyang and Sainyang catch up to Annelotte's group and overhears their plan to sneak into the Queen's castle. To thank Annelotte, Tarnyang and Sainyang lead her, Yuit and Vante to an unguarded entrance into the fortress and gives them a map of the fortress, and Sainyang puts a protection charm on Annelotte.

Annelotte, Yuit and Vante venture into the Queen's castle. The three try to locate Ymir's research lab to rescue Mirim, but instead they find the gladiatorial arena where people are watching and betting on fights. The betting guy from episode 2 somehow survived from burned by Sigui and is at the arena making money off of bets. The betting guy spots Annelotte's group and overhears their conversation, and so he offers to tell Annelotte's group the location of Ymir's lab but in exchange Annelotte has to fight in the gladiatorial arena. Annelotte agrees for some inconceivable reason and is faced with fighting Branwen the enslaved Dragon Descendant. Annelotte can see Branwen is powerful and seems to enjoy the shock treatment from her master Dogura. Branwen asks when Annelotte is so determined to fight, and Annelotte reveals that she is here to rescue a friend from Ymir. Branwen responds by powering up and she clashes with Annelotte. At the moment, Sainyang's charm activates and damages the arena. The distraction knocks Dogura away, and Branwen tells Annelotte that Ymir's lab is above the arena. Meanwhile, the betting guy sneaked away from Yuit and Vante because he was just using Annelotte to earn a few more bucks and obviously didn't know where Ymir's lab was. Unfortunately for the guy, he runs into Sigui who burns him alive for good this time.

Shady betting guy finally got what he deserved.

Don't let this screen cap fool you. This fight is less impressive than it looks.

Annelotte, Yuit and Vante arrive at the courtyard above the arena and finds Ymir walking around. Ymir pretends to be stupid and states that she has no idea who Mirim is. Annelotte's group hears the sound of guard and decide go looking for Mirim themselves. Annelotte's group run into the hallways again where they are met by LunaLuna who is still tracking Annelotte. Unfortunately, LunaLuna has a group of soldiers on her trail, so now Annelott'e group is forced to escape from the castle. Annelotte's group (now including LunaLuna) find an exit, and Yuit orders Vante to cover their retreat. Vante unleashes her machine gun on the support columns to stifle the pursuers. The soldiers at the exit close the gate, but Vante rocket punches the gate out of the way. Mirim saw the commotion and came to see what happen, and she and Annelotte's group spot each other at the exit. Yuit tells Mirim to come with them but Mirim hesitates and then stays put. The damage of the rocket punch causes the exit to collapse and destroys the bridge leading from the exit, and thus Mirim and Yuit and friends are stuck on opposite sides of the gap.

Using machineguns against medieval technology is cheating!!!

Annelotte, Yuit, Vante and LunaLuna escape to an abandoned cabin outside of Gainos, and Yuit notes that Mirim seems to have stayed on her own volition. Meanwhile at the castle, Sigui asks Ymir about the intrusion, and Ymir states that there isn't much to worry about but she has her eye out for Vante.

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That was a pretty terrible episode. I suppose that's what you'd expect from Queen's Blade, but it's fun to complain about how bad the show is sometimes. First of all, it was funny how badly the Queen's castle was guarded. They happen to have one entrance that was completed unguarded, and most of the castle was devoid of any guards. Annelotte and friends basically went around being unnoticed even though they weren't even trying to be stealthy. Speaking of Annelotte, her stock is starting to sink in my mind. It's not like Annelotte is like Leina who was weak and useless but somehow won through some inexplicable strokes of luck and power up, but recent episodes have shown that Annelotte is a bit too naive and simple-minded. You'd think being a fugitive would make Annelotte a little more wary, but she just blindly trusted the betting guy and went on to have an unnecessary fight with Branwen. If the betting guy actually knew where Ymir was, Annelotte should have beaten the info out of him. If Annelotte was too honorable for it, then Yuit and Vante should have done it. It was obvious that the betting guy was shady. Luckily for Annelotte though, Branwen actually knew where Ymir's lab was and was nice enough to tell Annelotte. As for Branwen, she seems perfectly capable of overpowering her master at any time, but she stays probably for some yet to be revealed reason and also that she likes the shock treatment. The Annelotte-Branwen fight was not that good even by Queen's Blade standards. The scene where Vante was firing her machine gun had questionable animation quality, but at least having a robot backtracking and spraying bullets in a "medieval" type of setting was kind of funny.

When Annelotte, Yuit and Vante finally found Ymir, I was surprised Ymir was suddenly acting all innocent and dumb. I thought she is all evil and calculating nowadays, and Ymir suddenly pretending to be her old self was strange... or maybe it was good tactic since Yuit and friends didn't attack her off the bat. I can't tell if Ymir knew ahead of time that Yuit and friends were at the courtyard. Ymir definitely has her eyes set on Vante though, so look for the dwarf to try to steal more stuff from the mini-elf.

Not too surprisingly, Annelotte and Yuit fail to get Mirim back this episode. Let's see what other hilariously bad things will happen in next week's episode.

To Love-Ru Darkness 19

2012-05-05T12:56:00.000-04:00

When Run's pet alien skunk runs amok in the city, Rito and Yui pair together to track it down.

When Yui's mind goes wild...

Summary:
Yui wakes up having dreamed about a time in elementary school where she tried to get a scared kitty down from a tree near a local temple. Yui's brother Yuu teases Yui about going out on a date with Rito, but Yui denies it. However, soon after leaving the house Yui bumps into Rito who is going home after helping his dad with his dad's manga work. The two of them then spot the alien skunk that Run had unleashed upon the school. Yui tells Rito to grab the skunk, but the skunk notices Rito and sprays both Rito and Yui, turning them into little kids. Rito and Yui try to give chase but Yui trips because of her now too-large clothing and Rito gets a full unobstructed view of Yui's rear end. Rito and Yui spot Peke flying around gathering clothing data for Lala, and the two gets Peke to modify their clothing to fit their current body sizes.

Mea is hanging out with Nana and Momo but she is concerned that her master hasn't called her for a while. Suddenly, the skunk comes by and sprays the three girls, turning them into younger versions of themselves. The alien skunk runs amok in the city and turns many of Rito's friends and acquaintances into little kids including Yami, Mikan and Haruna. Rito calls Run and finds out that Ren had accidentally let the skunk out of their house. Ren felt sorry for the skunk so he kept it as a pet. After learning about this, Yui comments that Rito is shameless in having Run's number. Rito explains that he has Yui's number too and doesn't do shameless things on purpose. Yui starts fantasizing about that time when she and Rito were alone in Rito's room (chapter 4) and if Rito had taken her "offer" and went all the way and Yui eventually becoming Rito's wife. Yui snaps out the fantasy due to embarrassment, and at the same time, Rito spots the skunk. The skunk jumps right onto Rito's face and jumps off, and Rito ends up grabbing Yui and the two fall to the ground in a naughty position. Yui screams at Rito but the two quickly get back to the task at hand. Rito and Yui locate the skunk on a small ledge on top of a tall, steep wall. The skunk almost slips, and Rito is going to climb up to get the skunk. Yui is worried but Rito states that he is good at this kind of thing, and this reminds Yui of her childhood memory:

In elementary school, Yui tried to rescue a trapped kitty on a tree but she can't climb the tree. Yui tries to get boys from her class to help but the boys ignore her. Yui goes back to the tree and finds a boy climbing the tree to get the cat while his younger sister watch, and the boy tells his sister that he is good with these sort of tasks. The boy retrieves the cat and asks Yui if it's her cat, and Yui states the cat might be the cat someone is looking for in the posters on the street. Yui didn't know who the brother and sister were back then, but now Yui realizes that they were Rito and Mikan.

Back to the present, Rito gets to the skunk but he slips, but Yami arrives to catch him and the skunk. Mikan, Nana, Momo and Mea also arrive, and after everyone returns to normal they go to Run and Ren's house. Nana offers to put the skunk in her transmitter phone so the skunk gets taken care of and Run and Ren don't have to be wary of the skunk running away and causing trouble, and the issue is resolved.

The next day, Yui asks if Rito had always helped his dad wit the manga work, and Rito answers yes and adds and he sometimes takes Mikan to the nearby temple to play. This confirms to Yui that Rito was indeed the boy she saw in elementary school, but in her mind Yui still refuses to admit she likes Rito.

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No progress on the main story line this month. The series is still doing the rotating spotlight on the female characters, and this time the spotlight has rotated back to our resident tsundere Yui. The series brought back the alien skunk that Run had unleashed upon the school to create a situation, and so Yui and Rito end up hanging out without Momo's intervention. Of course, without Momo's influence Yui and Rito were just cooperating to deal with a problem rather than getting into an intimate situation. Like most Yui-centric chapters, Yui gains more appreciation about Rito's dependable, helpful side, but at the same time she also gets reminded of Rito's "unintentional shamelessness" (and also the harem of girls around Rito). It was funny to see Yui's mind go wild and fantasize about that time in Rito's room leading her to becoming pregnant with Rito's kid. The childhood memory of Rito saving the cat certainly adds to Rito's stock in Yui's mind, but Yui is not going to admit she like Rito anytime soon and it'll probably stay that way at least until the very end of the story.

The only part concerning the main story from this chapter is that Mea is not geting contact from her master Nemesis. We don't know what that means at this point though.

Claymore 126

2012-05-02T00:57:00.001-04:00

Miria and company search the Organization HQ.

So this is so-called dragon descendant...

Summary;
From the vantage point in the hills, Dae is pleased with what he saw and identifies the apparition as Priscilla. Dae then asks if Rubel wants to see something interesting.

Miria, Helen and Deneve venture into Organization HQ and find the main hall to be completely empty. The warriors had met with Raki earlier and Raki stated that he and the trainees didn't encounter any enemies midway through their escape. Miria wonders if the Organization had planned to abandon the base once the three resurrected no. 1s had awakened. Miria tells her comrades to continue the search and kill any Organization people they find. Once Helen and Deneve had split up from Miria, Miria pries open a piece of stone on the wall to reveal a secret pathway. Miria follows the stairs down to a lab where a giant monster is chained to the ground. Rimuto is in the room and states that the monster is the "awakened form" of the so-called dragon descendants, although the awakening process is not the same process as Claymores. Rimuto then directs Miria to a large humanoid creature hanging from some tubes and chains and states that is the original form of the dragon descendant. Rimuto states that even in their original form, the dragon descendants are twice the size of humans. They are hermaphrodites, live 200 years and get stronger as they age. Facing such formidable adversaries, Rimuto states that his side had to work hard to try to even the playing field. Miria wonders if the two dragon descendants are still alive, and Rimuto answers that they are because dead dragon descendants decay very rapidly. The Organization operates by slowly removing pieces of flesh from the two creatures and somehow combining them into something that doesn't decay so easily. The new living mass is implanted to a human brain as a parasite, and Miria knows that such an infected human is what people call a yoma. Infected people/yomas have an insatiable need to consume human guts, and the Organization uses this fact to run their Claymore program. Miria had known this for years, and states that the rule that warriors are not allowed to kill humans is a lie since yomas are just infected humans. Miria then uses her sword to decapitate Rimuto and cut life support to the two the dragon descendants, and the two monsters quickly decay into a big pile of goo. Miria exits the secret chamber and shows Rimuto's head to Helen and Deneve, but she doesn't tell them anything more.

It ends like this.....????

Outside, Yuma and Tabitha are healing the injured warriors. Everyone then see Miria appearing on a ledge above, and Miria raises Rimuto's head to signify the end of the Organization.

The end...?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The end?

The end?!!!!

Claymore is over? No freakin' way! I thought Claymore would be one of those mangas that'll never end especially at the pace it was going at. Anyways, the chapter did end with a "the end" mark, but obviously the story is far from over. The Organization has suffered a setback, but many of their personnel are still alive. There is the matter of the dragon descendants and the war on the mainland, and of course there is the matter of Clare and Priscilla. Everything in this chapter was about setting up for a continuation in a new direction, and it didn't look like one of those rushed final chapters where you can guess that the series is getting canned. Maybe Yagi will go on break for a bit, but I fully expect that the story will continue, perhaps in the form of a sequel series.

So this chapter puts an end to the warrior rebellion and battles at Organization HQ, and more of the conspiracy that is Organization is revealed. We knew the Organization was behind the Claymores and the Awakened Being as part of their weapons research program, but this chapter completes the picture as even the yoma are inventions of the Organization. Everything stems from the dragon descendants, and the Organization's plan is to develop a way to counter the powerful creatures by fusing their flesh to humans. People directly infected with dragon descendant product became yomas, and then warriors are created by fusing yoma flesh to a female. The warriors are tasked with killing yomas and awakened beings (warriors that lost control), and that creates a live test environment for the Organization to hone their research. It's a rather clever ploy and has most people fooled, but Miria for some reason knew a lot of the truth. How she came do obtain that knowledge though is still a question as most Claymores are brought up to not question the Organization. We don't really know why Rimuto stuck around either. Perhaps as the "leader", Rimuto chose to go down with the ship when all of the other Organization members abandoned the headquarters.

This chapter answered a few questions, but there are of course a lot more questions left in Claymore. The biggest question at this point though is will there be a new chapter of Claymore (or a sequel) next month. Hopefully we'll get more news as to what's happening with this series.

Eureka Seven AO 03

2012-05-01T23:48:00.001-04:00

Ao gets captured by some of the islanders, while a giant G-Monster carrier appears over the island.

This is a kidnapping!

Apparently being detained by the defense forces mean that you have to sing karoake with their chief.

Summary:
After taking Naru to see the Mark I, Ao and Naru return to Naru's wrecked house to dig out Noah whom Naru put in her drawers. Soon after, Ao and Naru are found by Naru's father Mitsuo, popular island figure Kazuyuki Kinjo and two other men. The men apprehend Ao and take him and Noah back to Kazuyuki's house, and Mitsuo takes Naru back to the hospital.

Meanwhile, Pied Piper pilot Elena parks on the island to surf the web but she and her IFO get captured by the Okinawan defense forces. Ivica, Rebecka and Fleur has to go and negotiate for Elena's release, and they are escorted by Teruhiko Niigaki (Pippo's father). While driving through the devastated island, a young girl comes to Teruhiko's SUV asking for help to save her mother from the rubble. Ivica gives Fleur permission to go help and Fleur runs off to get her IFO. Teruhiko comments on only kids being able to pilot IFOs and mentions Ao, and upon hearing that Ivica grabs Teruhiko for a little chat, leaving Rebecka to go to the defense HQ to get Elena. Rebecka talks to the Okinawan defense forces, and the Okinawans tell Team Pied Piper to leave the region because they don't think another G-Monster will show up. Rebecka grabs Elena and tells her to monitor the Scub Coral from the sea. In the sky near the island, an ominous cloud approaches. At the same time, Gazelle and buddies locate the Mark I, but they can't activate the IFO so they plan to go grab Ao.

The woman who fell out of the sky.

Ao is taken to Kazuyuki's home and roughed up a bit by the other two men because he refuses to reveal the IFO's location. Kazuyuki then comes to talk to Ao and talks about how Ao's mother just fell from the skies 13 years ago. Mitsuo pulled her out of the water and Toshio saved her with CPR and took her in. The American forces had come looking for Ao's mother but Toshio had hid her, and Ao was born soon afterwards. Three years later, a Scub Burst happened near the main Okinawan island and killed the families of many, with Naru being the only survivor. Soon afterwards the Americans located Ao's mother and took her away, and the islands had remained peaceful. The islanders believe that Ao and her mother are the cause of the Scub Bursts and have made Ao and Toshio's lives more difficult. Kazuyuki realize that Ao is just a kid but he can't let go of his prejudice. Soon after, Ivica arrive at the house having gotten Ao's location from Teruhiko. Ivica then barges into the house and finds Ao and tells Ao that the IFO is called the Nirvash. Shortly after, Gazelle, Pippo and Han crash into the house in their FP. It turns out that Gazelle is Kazuyuki's son and is really named Jiro, and Kazuyuki and Teruhiko try to grab their sons. The younger generation though push their fathers away, and Gazelle declares that they picked on Ao only because all the adults blamed Ao and her mother for everything, and that Kazuyuki and Teruhiko should do something else to push for true independence of the Okinawan Islands instead of picking on Ao. Gazelle and friends then take Ao away on their FP and Gazelle wants Ao to use the Nirvash to battle American and Japanese forces, but Ao wants no part of that and tells Gazelle to drop him off at Toshio's clinic. Ao returns to see Toshio trying to save his belongings from a fire in the clinic started by vandals. Toshio tells Ao not to hate the islanders despite what happened. Seeing what happened makes Ao change his mind, and Ao takes the picture of his mother and his baby self from Toshio and runs back to Gazelle's gang.

Kazuyuki is trying to torture Ao with bad music.

Ivica doesn't look that built, but he is unstoppable when he wants to be.

Out at sea, the ominous cloud dissipates to reveal a gigantic G-Monster. The Okinawan forces send two fighter planes in but they explode as they approach the G-Monster. The Okinawan defense forces are about to attack, but Team Pied Piper tells them to the Okinawan forces to leave the job to them. Elena uses her IFO Kyrie's auto cannons to hit the G-Monster. The G-Monster retaliates by blindly firing some beams and then sending out three smaller fighters. Fleur intercepts one fighter with her IFO Alleluia, while Elena shoots down the other two. The big G-Monster carrier then sends out a swarm of fighters.

No question who has the size advantage in this battle.

Team Pied Piper ready for a fight.

Meanwhile, Gazelle and gang takes Ao to the seaside cave where the Nirvash is located. Ao is going to use the Nirvash to fight the G-Monster, because despite the islanders' cruel treatment the island is still Ao's home and Ao wants to protect the island. Ao remembers that when he was young his mother had imprinted his signature into the glowing bracelet, and that's why the Nirvash knows him. Ao then blasts out of the cave with the Nirvash and flies towards the giant G-Monster carrier.

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Late post due to these few weeks being the end of the semester, so I have projects and finals to deal with.

This episode was important in that it reveals the reason why the islanders hate Ao and his mother. Ao's mother fell from the sky and was wanted by the American military, and that probably made the islanders apprehensive of her because they don't want trouble. Then, the Scub Burst event happened and killed many, and then the remaining islanders blamed the Scub Burst on the presence of Ao and her mother and spread the rumors to make life tough for Ao and Toshio. From the standpoint of the audience, it's certainly possible that the Scub Burst may have something to do with Ao or his mother, especially if the relationships between turquoise hair and Scub Coral is anything like the original Eureka Seven. The problem though is that islanders don't really know that. Ao's mother might have had some issues with the American military, but for the older generation of islanders to put the blame for the Scub Burst and everything wrong with their lives squarely on the shoulders on Ao is just wrong. It's frustrating and disgusting how cruel people can be when they are prejudiced. At least Gazelle realizes what was wrong with his father and the older islanders' viewpoint. It's probably easier for the younger generation to learn and change. Now Ao will probably ride out in the Nirvash to save the islanders' ungrateful butts once again, but after that Ao will probably be traveling the world with Team Pied Piper and he'll probably be the better for it. I do wonder what Gazelle and his buddies are going to do though if Ao tries do ditch them.

Other than Ao getting captured and finding out why people hate him, the members of Team Pied Piper were going around the island doing various things. I'm not sure what Elena was doing singing karoake with someone from the Okinawa defense forces. I'm also not sure why the defense forces decided to detain Elena to begin with. I guess they thought that everything was over once the first G-Monster was destroyed and wanted the foreigner off of their land. Some parts of the story of this show confuses me sometimes. I'm impressed by Ivica's skills in honing in on a target though. He somehow got Teruhiko to reveal where Ao is and once there not even Teruhiko plus Kazuyuki can stop him from going into the house. The man is not the type to be denied.

On a small note, I noticed that Ao's hair is now turquoise in the OP and ED sequence, so he'll probably keep that hair color for the rest of the show.

Anyways, next week we'll see the Pied Piper girls in action facing swarms of fighters from the G-Monster carrier, and Ao will join the fight. There should be plenty of action to look forward to.

Queen's Blade Rebellion 04

2012-04-29T20:39:00.000-04:00

Ymir puts her newly completed Hyper Vibration Armor on Mirim and sics Mirim on Annelotte.

The outfit is a little weird, but Claudette is still as electrifying as ever.

Summary:
In her lab inside the Queen's castle at Gainos, Ymir completes the Hyper Vibration Armor using the Vibration Stone she stole from Yuit. Ymir puts the armor on Mirim and tests by tossing an axe at Mirim. The axe is bounced back by the Vibration Field, but the vibration is too much for Mirim to take and she collapses. Ymir then brings Mirim in front of Claudette and Elina to show off her work. Claudette hits Mirim with a lightning strike which sends Mirim crashing through a few walls and columns, but Mirim is physically unhurt but unable to stand because of the vibrating armor.

Yuit adapts quickly after finding out "Big Bro" has boobs.

In a village somewhere, Yuit makes a few buck selling her tabloid to the village people. Yuit and Vante are their way to Gainos to rescue Mirim and recover Yuit's gem. On the road, they spot LunaLuna on a tree branch. LunaLuna is looking at Annelotte being surrounded by the Queen's soldiers below the ledge. Annelotte escapes and run up the hill with soldiers on her trail. Yuit and Vante spot Annelotte and chase after her as well, while another group of soldiers spot LunaLuna. LunaLuna uses her tentacles to grope the soldiers into submission but she loses track of Annelotte. Meanwhile, Annelotte, Yuit and Vante evade the soldiers by hiding in a small creek.

Exorcism via spanking... that's a first.

Back at Gainos, Ymir learns that the soldiers have spotted Annelotte with Yuit and Vante and plans to send Mirim against Annelotte. Mirim overhears this and sneaks out into the city. Mirim finds refuge in the church and asks Sigui for help. After learning of Mirim's escape, Ymir comes out to track her down using her remote control for the armor. Ymir gets within range and turns on the armor which vibrates and makes Mirim squirm on the ground. Sigui mistakenly thinks that Mirim is possessed by demons and tries to spank out the evil out of Mirim with her staff, but her spanks are repelled by the armor and this makes Mirim even squirmier. Sigui prepares to unleash her fire purification on Mirim but Ymir arrives and retrieves Mirim.

This isn't going to end well.

At a rural road, Yuit and Vante part ways with Annelotte. Annelotte takes a road above a river and is met by Mirim who attacks with her Infinite Slasher chainsaw sword. Mirim swings blindly, but Annelotte cannot overpower her because of the Vibration Field. Back down the road, Yuit has a bad feeling and heads back to track down Annelotte. On the road above the river, Mirim disarms Annelotte and goes for the finishing blow. Yuit and Vante arrive and Vante launches a rocket punch to help Annelotte. Just as the rocket punch was about the hit, Yuit sees that the attacker is Mirim. At the same moment, LunaLuna jumps above to glomp Annelotte but ends up jumping onto the rocket instead. The rocket explodes and sends LunaLuna and Mirim flying. LunaLuna ends up lodged on a tree, while Mirim is retrieved from the forest below by Ymir. After the incident, Yuit affirms her mission to retrieve her family gem and save Mirim from Ymir, and Annelotte agrees to head to Gainos as well.

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I had a feeling that the Hyper Vibration Armor would act like a giant vibrator. This is Queen's Blade after all, and this episode had some awful but hilarious scenes thanks partly to Ymir's new invention. It's too bad that Ymir is such an evil scientist now and not the enterprising comedian from the first two seasons of the show. The highlight... more like lowlight of the show as when Sigui tried to spank the demon out of Mirim only to make Mirim's armor vibrate harder. Spanking and vibrations tied to exorcism... that was just wrong on so many levels that it's hilarious. You can't help but laugh at how Queen's Blade's seeks out these "fan service" opportunities.

Back to the "plot", despite squirming in discomfort (or is it something else?) and lack of combat experience, Mirim actually managed to overwhelm and disarm Annelotte who looked quite ordinary in her fighting skills for the first time in this series. Annelotte may be holding back because she can see that Mirim isn't really doing this out of her own will, but mostly she just couldn't figure out the armor's power. The battle did convince Annelotte to accompany Yuit and Vante to Gainos and make Yuit more determined to take back her friend and gem and get back at Ymir.

In other news, LunaLuna had a few scenes but she was just comedic relief this episode. We also finally saw Claudette in this episode. The only thing she did was strike Mirim with lightning to test the armor. Claudette doesn't need to charge up her lightning attacks anymore and has a different and somewhere weird looking outfit. We'll have to see what sort of personality she has now that she is the ruthless ruler of the land.

Mobile Suit Gundam AGE 29

2012-04-29T16:21:00.001-04:00

The third generation begins with the Vagans launching an all-out invasion against Earth and Kio Asuno pilots a new Gundam to defend his home.

Unfortunately this is the only father-son moment in Kio's life for years to come.

They really let 13-14-year-olds drive cars. What a scary world.

Summary:
Kio was born 10 years after the battle at Nortram. Just after Kio was born, Asemu participated in one last mission in which he went missing in action, and only the AGE device was recovered and left to Kio. 13 years later, Kio lives on Earth growing up as a normal kid despite his father not being around. One day, Kio and friends are on their way to a mobile suit display when Kio suddenly gets a bad feeling. Out in space, a giant Vagan beam weapon appear and obliterates Big Ring with a blast, and a large number of Vegan landing ships make their way towards Earth to start an all out invasion. Vagans forces that have been hiding on Earth also emerge to start their attack. Back in town, Kio and friends arrive at the plaza for the display, but everyone then notice the big Vegan ship hovering overhead. The Vegans, led by Zeheart in his new Ghiraga mobile suit, launch their attack and start destroying the city. The Federation forces nearby launch, but they are outnumbered by the Vagans. Kio and friends are on their way out of the city and during that time Kio keeps getting X-Rounder visions of the AGE device. Kio spots three kids trapped on a damaged bridge and so he and his friend Wendy stop to rescue the kids. After saving the kids, Kio leaves Wendy and the kids to two military officers who happens to be passing by.

I don't know why we didn't think of using a giant beam cannon to destroy Big Ring before.

The Vagans and their obsession for giant holograms.

For an old man, Flit still has some hops.

Following the X-Rounder messages, Kio tries to seek out his grandfather Flit who appears in a truck just in time to save Kio from being blasted by a Vagan Danazine. Flit tells Kio to pilot the truck which turns out to be the Core Fighter of the new Gundam. Kio and Flit fly the Core Fighter towards another larger truck. Flit jumps onto the truck and activates it as the Gundam's main body, the G-ceptor. Kio and Flit then pilot the two parts into the sky and combine into the new AGE-3 Gundam. Kio finds the Gundam's controls familiar because Flit had been secretly grooming him to be a Gundam pilot by giving him a simulator game as a gift. Kio easily destroys a two Danazines with the AGE-3 beam saber and powerful SigMaxiss Rifle. The Gundam then comes under fire from a Defurse mobile armor. Knowing that destroying the Defurse on the ground will cause a large explosion that will damage a lot of buildings, Kio flies near the Defurse and drags it into the air with the Gundam. With the Defurse in the air, Kio drops back down and destroys the mobile armor with a blast of the SigMaxiss Rifle. Zeheart finally notices the new Gundam and flies in for a confrontation.

New Gundam Time!!!

Training to become a world-saving Gundam pilot must start at a young age.

The Gundam multi-verse never gets tired of the Char clone gimmick.

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I'd say that's a pretty good start to third and final generation of Gundam AGE. I found this episode to be better than most of the episodes from Asemu's arc. I'm always down for a big invasion by the bad guys to start off the show, and despite Zeheart's failures 20 or so years ago and how things turned out at the end of Asemu's arc, things have been turning in the Vagan's favor. I'm really surprised that the writers effectively put Asemu on the shelf by having him go MIA shortly after Kio's birth. Asemu may or may not be dead, but at this point he has been absent from Kio's life, and what happened to him is a major question in this part of the story. In the OP sequence it's hinted that the Vagans will have a Gundam on their side, so perhaps they had captured or recovered Asemu's AGE-2? The OP also hints towards a mysterious "pirate" faction, and we'll see how that'll come in to the story.

Another surprise this week is that Flit seems to have either retired or lost his post in the Federation. It looked like Flit became the military's forefront man at the end of Asemu's arc, and if Flit had his way he would definitely have bolstered Earth's defenses against Vagan infiltration and possibly go as far as launching a space campaign against Mars. Flit is only 64 in this arc and that's not terribly old for a top-ranked military officer, so it's possible Flit was forced out. Over the last 20 years, it looks like the Feds have been doing nothing while the Vagans have been stockpiling weapons and developing new technologies (such as giant beam weapon the used to wipe out Big Ring in one hit). The Federation was caught with their pants down during this large scale invasion campaign, but at least Flit has been preparing for battle all of this time, developing a new Gundam and slowly grooming his grandson Kio into the next savior. With the Federation being helpless as a whole, it'll be up to Kio, the New Gundam, and a new crew on the aging Diva to repel the Vagans. Kio seems to be up to the task though, and unlike his father Kio is gifted with X-Rounder powers from the very start of the arc, and that'll help him against Mr. Red Comet clone Zeheart and whichever other X-Rounders the Vagans throw his way.

This week, Kio gets his hands on the brand new AGE-3 and has no trouble destroying a few Vagan grunts, but a big test is coming in the form of Zeheart. Zeheart's new mobile suit is thinner and lankier to the Zeydra, and it seems to be outfitted for close combat. The AGE-3 definitely takes after the ZZ Gundam from Universal Century just as the AGE-1 resembles the original Gundam and the AGE-2 corresponds to the Zeta Gundam. We'll have to see how separating the cockpit Core fighter from the main body will be advantageous in battle.

One Piece 665

2012-04-29T13:50:00.000-04:00

The kids rescued by the Straw Hats start acting weirdly.

When a giant 20ft kid don't get his daily sugar fix, things can get nasty.

Summary:
Sanji notices that the samurai had wandered off, so he, Brook and Zoro (put on the task by Nami to prevent Sanji and Brook from messing with her body) go out to look for the samurai. Back in the cave, the kids suddenly have a pained look on their face and they want their daily dose of "candy". Chopper figures out that the "master" is giving the kids stimulant drugs as candy so they get addicted and become unable to leave the island. One of the giant kids get angry and punch Luffy out of the way, but the smaller kids explain that the giant kids aren't really giants and they were normal-sized when they came to the island. The kids are getting rowdy, and so Usopp puts them to sleep with a special shot and the giant kids are tied up. Luffy and company then decide to head to lab to find this "master" with Chopper staying to look after the kids.

Inside the research lab, Ceasar is talking with Law who gives Ceasar Smoker's heart. Ceasar has sent soldiers to deal with the Marines and also the Eighty Cool Brothers to deal with the Straw Hats. On the road towards the mountain behind the research facility, Zoro, Sanji and Brook had been laid out amount two sets of giant foot prints. The two giant men then approach the cave where the other Straw Hats are located.

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After being taken aback a bit by the Straw Hat's and the Marines arrival on the island, Ceasar now has permission to capture or kill and is sending some stronger fighters to deal with the intruders. The Eighty Cool Brothers (just the two giant guys) seemed to have laid out Sanji, Zoro and Brook in a hurry. It didn't even look like Zoro had time to draw his sword and he is already flat on his face, so it'll be interesting to see what happened to the three of them. It's not surprising that Ceassar is giving the kids drugs to make them addicted so they can't escape from the island. The giant kids also appear to be results of Ceasar's experiments. All of this has Chopper riled up, and lets if Chopper will play a more leading role in this arc and beat Ceasar up at the end.

Naruto 584

2012-04-29T12:33:00.001-04:00

Kabuto's story continued.

Shaking hands with the Snake-Devil.

Summary:
Orochimaru appears in front of Kabuto and invites Kabuto back to his secret island lab. Orochimaru explains that Danzou had planned for Kabuto and Nuou to eventually kill each other in their missions because they were too skilled as spies and knew too much, and "root" had slowly brainwashed Nuou by letting her see pictures of Kabuto but then changing it to pictures of a different person. Kabuto thinks Orochimaru is there to shut him up and attacks Orochimaru, but Orochimaru survives easily. Orochimaru then recruits to be his helper for a chance for Kabuto to find his true self. Kabuto agrees and helps Orochimaru collect info on Akatsuki and other organizations and also helps in Orochimaru's experiments. After Orochimaru got sealed away by Itachi, Kabuto sought to turn himself into Orochimaru by injecting Orchimaru's DNA/blood into his body.

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The Kabuto flashbacks continue, but hopefully this will be the last chapter the flashbacks take up. As we all figured out by now, Danzou is an ass who will justify anything to "protect the village", and of course Kabuto agreed to becoming Orochimaru's lab assistant and spy. I think this is the time to go back to the present to see if Itachi had cast flashback-no-jutsu on Kabuto or not. There are also Naruto vs. Tobi and Kages vs. Madara that need some coverage as well.

Bleach 490

2012-04-29T12:18:00.000-04:00

Due to the double-issue of Shounen Jump, Bleach, Naruto and One Piece came out on Saturday, so I got some catching up to do. In this chapter, Ichigo continues to battle Kirge in Hollow-Land.

Nice hat?

Summary:
While Ichigo is in Hueco Mundo battling Kirge, the rest of the Vandenreich mobilizes to invade Soul Society. In the sands of Hueco Mundo, Kirge thinks that he hit Ichigo with all of his attacks, but Ichigo catches a blast and tosses it right back at Kirge. Orihime and Chad arrive and Ichigo lets Orihime take care of Nel. Kirge recovers and Ichigo states that Kirge's attack are more powerful than Uryu's, but Kirge let slip that it's impossible. Kirge then realizes that he is giving away unnecessary information and states he's just going to defeat Ichigo, and then he powers up using the Letzt Stil (the Quincy glove power-up that Uryu used against Mayuri?). Nearby, Urahara and Pensche rescue Dondochakka, and Urahara senses something.

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It seems that the Quincies are going to invade Soul Society to exact their vengeance. We'll have to see what kind of mess they cause in Soul Society and how their strong fighter match up with the officers of the Gotei 13. Meanwhile in Hollw-Land, the battle between Ichigo and Kirge is starting to heat up and Kirge transforms using the glove, but we all know that Ichigo will kick Kirge's ass because the laws of the Bleach state that nobody can out-transform/power-up Ichigo. The most interesting bit was when Kirge was talking about Uryu being more powerful than he is. Uryu and his father might not be allied with the Vandenreich, but they are Quincies survivor and so perhaps the Vandenreich hold them in special regard. I suppose Uryu is probably due for a power-up too given how many Ichigo has had. Perhaps Uryu and his dad also know something about the Vandenreich invasion plan too.

Winter 2012 Anime Final Thoughts

2012-04-26T01:01:00.003-04:00

We are couple of weeks into the Spring 2012 anime season already, but I remembered that I forgot to close the book on the previous season. Thus, here is the overdue final thoughts post on the series that I watched and that concluded during the winter 2012 season: Guilty Crown, Mirai Nikki, Nisemonogatari, Rinne no Lagrange, and Senki Zesshou Symphogear. This post contains major spoilers to the shows, so don't read if you don't want to be spoiled.

Guilty Crown

The show is such a mess that they might as well throw in some ballet dancing during the doomsday scene.

At the middle of the winter 2012 season, Guilty Crown was a huge train wreck in progress, and the remaining episodes only cemented its status as one of the biggest anime train wrecks I've watched... probably ever. In the second half of the series, Shuu turned into ruthless tyrant/anti-hero and then Gai came back to become the villain and Shuu became world savior again... all entirely ridiculous and just didn't make much sense. It was mind-boggling how bad the writing was. The developments were way too fast and so random. The final episode was an appropriate end to the series as it was both disappointing and ridiculous. Part of the disappointment was that final battles weren't that great, and part of it was that Shuu and most of the cast somehow survived. In my mind, the perfect ending for the show was for Shuu and most of the cast to die in a blaze of glory, but we got some half-assed bitter-sweet type of ending.

Guilty Crown may be a train wreck, but that's what makes it memorable. Not many shows can go from being a promising action show with good production quality into a pile of incomprehensible molten slag in such a manner. Shuu pulling out the void sword and slicing his first mech in the first episode was such a cool moment, and it's hilarious to see how far the show had descended.

Mirai Nikki

Blocking a bullet, broken shards, a hug, a knife... got a bit of everything in here.

Mirai Nikki was a pretty decent show with a somewhat unique premise of people with phone diaries that tell the future battle each other to become the next God of Time and Space. As I mentioned in one of my mid-season impressions, the story is not super complex or full of intrigue, but there is enough twists in there to keep things interesting. Most of the story was the protagonists Yuki and Yuno tries to survive against the next diary user that comes after them, but the relationship between the two main characters is key aspect of the whole series. Yuno is a batshit crazy murderous yandere, but she is very devoted Yuki while Yuki knows Yuno is batshit crazy but realizes that Yuno may be his best chance of staying alive. The twist in the end was pretty good... if I hadn't spoiled myself before hand. Overall Mirai Nikki was an enjoyable show. There was nothing really too outstanding, but everything from the plot to the characters were pretty decently thought out.

Nisemonogatari

Teenage Shinobu is full of win. Koyomi on the other hand is not.

Nisemonogatari is a show where the conversations dominate, and I think it was even more so than Bakemonogatari due to the fact that there were more story arcs in the first season. There were only two arcs in Nisemonogatari, one for each of Koyomi's sisters, and in each of these arcs there was exactly one action scene of reasonable length, and both scenes were Koyomi getting his ass handed to him. I would have liked to see teenage Shinobu beating up the shikigami instead. Everything else was talk, and both arcs were resolved through talking and not fighting. The power of words, so they say. Some of the banter between Koyomi and his harem of girls (now including his sisters... doesn't seem like any cute girl is off limits to this guy) was quite amusing, but the amount of chatter sometimes gets a bit much. On the plus side, this season wasn't plagued by production quality/budget issues, and Nisemonogatari can look good when it wants to look good. I also liked the fact that Shinobu finally stopped being mute and also Koyomi's awkward and conflicted attraction to his sisters (particularly the toothbrush scene with Karen).

Since I've already watched two seasons of the show, I'll probably watch the next season and the prequel movie, whenever those come out. The Bakemonogatari series aren't one of my favorite shows, but there is enough in there to keep watching.

Rinne no Lagrange

Just some straight-up girl-bonding... right?

Haha this was a late addition to this post because I forgot I had watched this series. Rinne no Lagrange was another mecha show that I was watching during the season, but this show has three main female pilots doing their little friendship-building routine (with a bit of implied yuri). The first season just showed the beginning of the story and introduced the main characters. The "big picture" of the story hasn't been painted yet, so there is not much to say about the central plot. Production quality and the mecha action were decent when fights do happen, but it doesn't happen often enough for my tastes. The girls' friendship routine is amusing at time but kind of boring other times. The second half of the season didn't really change my impressions of the show. Overall it was an okay show. I'll probably watch the continuation in the summer season to see if the central plot builds up to anything interesting.

Senki Zesshou Symphogear

If you are going to spell out your attacks, do it in style like this.

Symphogear, a show about singing transformable armor girls saving humanity from funny-looking brightly colored monsters, was a show that started off with a good impression and remained pretty decent throughout the middle. Despite the funny-looking monsters, the show some potential for more serious plot points by killing off an important character in the first episode, and the fights were pretty good for the most part and there is a musical element inherently built-in by the construction of the show. However, the parts near the end was pretty disappointing. In the end, the main villain wanted to destroy the moon because it separated her from her lover?! If Guilty Crown wasn't around at the same time, this would have been the most ridiculous plot development of the season. The ending also erased all of the potential drama from the flash forward in the future episode. Overall, Symphogear was an okay show. It was decent for the most part, but the ending knocked the show down a notch in my opinion.

Sekirei 129

2012-04-25T18:29:00.002-04:00

I was browsing for manga today and surprise surprise, a "new" Sekirei chapter. The irregular release schedule is such a bother. Anyways, in chapter 129 the battle continues at Izumo Inn.

One handed Kamehameha!!!!

Summary:
Higa's Sekireis are holding their own against Minato's group of defenders. Ichiya sense Musubi flying into the roof, and Musubi gets a demonic warning from Miya for breaking the roof tiles. Musubi gets back to her feet and powers up, and Miya notices the jinki near her is glowing. Musubi unleashes her Bear Palm attack just as Ichiya is charging in, and Ichiya gets hit hard and her cloths shredded. Lying on the ground, Ichiya wonders how Musubi can beat her, and Musubi states that she has love while Higa's Sekireis don't. Outside of the inn, Mikogami states that he'll send Akitsu and Taki into battle if Higa insists on keep fighting. Mikogami then asks Higa to think whether he should lose all of his Sekireis today and get kicked out of the game or retreat to stay in the game.

Meanwhile on the cruise ship, Kusano and Shiina sense each other's presence.

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Things are not going well for Higa's attack on Izumo Inn. At this point, there are only three possibilities. One is Higa still has an ace in the hole, but it seems unlikely that he'll have something that can threaten the combined might of Minato's group, Mikogami's group and Miya. Even if Higa uses Norito, Mikogami is there to counter it. Higa can be stupid and fight until the end and get kicked out of the game, but most likely he'll retreat and brood and think of something a little more clever and evil to do next. As for the fights, Musubi's new attack reminds me of Yume's beam attack, but it's hard to tell in the black and white manga frame whether if Musubi was shooting out a blast of glowing energy from her palm or not. Either way, Ichiya is probably toast.

Hopefully next chapter we'll see Shiina and Kusano reunite again. I hope the author doesn't keep on delaying the moment of the reunion.