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working-review

This was an odd series for me, in the fact that I found out about it regarding its THIRD season. The only thing worse than coming into a show three or four episodes into its run is coming into a show three or four seasons into its run. That is too much background to try and cover all at once and you will lose the catch-up game. So I thought it would be best to see “Working!” right from the start spot. Now, it may also be found as “Wagnaria!”, as that is the name of the restaurant this mostly takes place in.

Wagnaria is a family-style along the lines of a Denny’s or a Cracker Barrel. Although it feels like a moderate chain business and not a solo independent, the show details the trials and tribulations of the rather divergent cast out of this place. We will rock around the clock with the wait staff, as it were, starting at the six o’clock position:

Popura Taneshima
Mahiru Inami
Aoi Yamada
Yachiyo Todoroki
Kyōko ShirafujiContinue reading

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The Disappearance of Nagato Yuki-chan review

Although I like to think of myself as aware and with it and on the ball, sometimes you get your hat handed to you and this show “The Disappearance of Nagato Yuki-chan” (“Nagato Yuki-chan no Shōshitsu”) certainly brought me back to Earth. It took me almost two episodes to realize that this was a spin-off/Alternative Universe approach from the world of Haruhi Suzumiya. Well, it did take me many, many years to realize the cities in “Pokemon” were all colors and Ash came from Pallet Town. (Or course, if they had spelled it Palette Town, I’d have gotten it like that!)

In this approach, Nagato is all-too human and painfully shy. She is still in the Literature Club, and the president of it, but was one of the few members, along with new friend Ryoko Asakura (that’s her between Nagata and Haruhi) and Ryoko’s friend, Kyon (far left). They manage to save the club with the addition of members Tsurura and Mikuru (and if they gave the name in the first episode as Mikuru Asahina, I would have gotten it like that; they are both at the far right). It isn’t until the end of episode two that Haruhi makes her grand appearance. Oh, don’t worry; Itsuki Koizumi shows up as well, although, he too, is a normal student. And therein lies the first concern.Continue reading

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Ace of the Diamond Second Season review

This was another sports show that I gave up on, but some other sports anime fan felt that I didn’t give this an honest run. Since we now have “Ace of the Diamond: Second Season”, I should check it out, as ‘it has gotten better.’

The reasons I left the show were (a) the minute dissection of everything to the point of it being mono-minded, (b) the butt-head nature of all the people involved and (c) the real lack of character growth. My feeling was that any problems that bedeviled the first season would still be part of the second. Not that the second season started out that well. It opened with THREE recap episodes. Crfap, I might as well watch the end of the first season. One recap show, OK, but three? Not a smart call in my book.

So, the team has gone its separate ways, as the third years have graduated, but the Saito baseball team, still smarting from its playoff loss, dedicates itself to the Fall Tournament….with the same cast of nitwits and ninny hammers, plus more. The biggest addition is a new coach, who spends the show tugging at his cheesy chin beard. An arrogant, conceited, self-serving butt-head, I was hoping that four or five members of the team would jump him, hold him down and shave that sucker beard off! You look like an idiot!Continue reading

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It Wrong to Try to Pick up Girls in a Dungeon review

OK, this show has genuinely the longest title of an anime I have ever encountered. I saw it as “Is It Wrong to Try to Pick up Girls in a Dungeon?”(“Danjon ni Deai o Motomeru no wa Machigatteiru Darō ka”), but also known as “DanMachi” for short, and with English subtitle “Familia Myth”.  It is hard to classify this show, as it wants to be both dramatic and comedic and that doesn’t usually work out well for either approach. The initial idea is strange enough as it goes.

The story takes place in the fictional world of Orario whose main feature place is the Dungeon, which contains an assortment of monsters from goblins to dragons. Adventurers visit the dungeon to defeat monsters and take their shards (which look like crystals), and are used to craft magic items, among other treasures, and are also exchanged for the world’s currency. But this dungeon goes both up and down, so it is more like a huge tower (of which you see a bit of it in the back), plus those dangerous lower levels, where the aforementioned nasties reside.Continue reading

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It’s All “Too” Beautiful blog 159
I never felt there was a need to have a second season, but I have to assume that it scored so well with others that we had to cash in on the popularity. So, here we are with “My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU, Too” (”Yahari Ore no Seishun Rabu Kome wa Machigatteir”), subtitled “My Youth Romantic Comedy Is Wrong as Expected” and abbreviated as “Hamachi’ and “OreGairu”. Now, I always have the suspicion if you can’t agree on a title, there are bigger problems afoot. But this show has always been kind of like that.

The show starts off in all-too-familiar territory, as Hachiman Hikigaya is still a Class-A grumpy slacker (in the middle, the Class-A grumpy slacker), but we see a kind of evolution as chinks appear in his armor, so the truth comes out. He seems to be getting pushed around by the other members of the Service Club, Yukino Yukinoshita (left) and Yui Yuigahama (right). It starts out with basic help for people with basic problems, but it is done is a rather ‘let’s get it done’ manner, just to get it done and not to resolve things properly.

The big drag is that it takes about six episodes for a real plot to finally show up and it is at that point the show not only gets interesting, but starts to pick up, both in vitality and intensity. Until then, it is merely going through the motions, unless that is the intent of things. We also start to see that Hachiman is really to blame for how he feels, as he doesn’t really know how to express himself to others and himself, but lashes out at others for these failures and he makes some doozy failures (the love confession episode).Continue reading

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The Magnificent “Seven” blog 163

You knew this kind of series was coming: it’s a magical girl show, set in a school, with guys trying to figure it all out and witches who seem to have an upper hand in things. CUTE witches (none of that old crone with a warty nose junk). But “Yamada-kun and the Seven Witches” (“Yamada-kun to 7-nin no Majo”) at least tries to put a new spin on old things.

Ryu Yamada (Mr. Shrieky in the upper left) is known as a delinquent in his high school; he has become bored of classes after one year of attending school. Wow, life can’t all be “Die Hard” or “The Expendables”, right? One day, he accidentally falls from a flight of stairs onto Urara Shiraishi (blondie in front) the ace student of the school. Yamada wakes up to find that he has swapped bodies with her. The two try to reverse the change and discover that kissing triggers the body swap.

On the suggestion of student council vice-president Toranosuke Miyamura, they revive the Supernatural Studies Club. The supernatural phenomenon-obsessed Miyabi Itō soon joins the club. The club encounters other “witches” with different powers that are activated with a kiss. A transfer student, Kentarō Tsubaki, becomes a part of the club after nearly causing a fire to the old schoolhouse. The show is an attempt to understand the seven witches that populate it, what their powers are and what their actual purpose is.Continue reading

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All You Need is “Love” blog 161
As always, with the conclusion of the first season of “Nisekoi” (“False Love”), none of the original questions were answered, new characters entered and the plot was complicated by Ichiro’s faulty memory, so the real question was how long we would have to wait for the second season. With a couple of bridge OVAs to keep us interested and fill in some gaps, we now have our second season, but it is more of a conduit, as we further complicate matters with, uh, further complications.

We had best run down the now capacious cast.

Upper left photo (left to right): Chitoge Kirisaki and Marika Tachibana
Upper right: Fuu, Seishiro Tsugumi and Paula McCoy
Lower right: Haru Onodera (sister to Kosaki) and Raku Ichijo
Lower left: Ruri Miyamoto, Kosaki Onodera and Shu MaikoContinue reading

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Short Run Series XXV - Another “Log” on the Fire blog 160

This particular comedy “Ane-log” (“Sister Log”, or the complete title of “Ane-log: Moyako Nee-san no Tomaranai Monologue” which is “Moyako’s Never-Ending Monologue”) is strange in that it has a fundamental flaw, but that doesn’t prevent us from having a lot of fun with it.

Many, many years ago, let’s say 10 years earlier or so, Akira told his slightly older sister Konoe that he wanted to marry her. Now, at this very point in their lives, Moyako is wholly, solely convinced that Akira is a grand pervert who wants nothing more than to physically and emotionally subjugate her into being a sex slave. Nothing could be farther from the truth, but Moyako’s overheated imagination runs rampant and even the slightest gesture or comment sends her reeling. SHE is the big pervert and nothing can rein in her unbridled thoughts.

The above scene comes from when Akira spilled coffee on himself and Moyako thinks he is going to use this as an excuse to strip down and flaunt his goodies before her. So what’s the flaw? Why is it now? Why is all of this coming to fruition at this juncture in time?Continue reading

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Short Pull Series IX - What Don’t You “Understand” blog 158

“I Can’t Understand What My Husband is Saying” (“Danna ga Nani o Itteiru ka Wakaranai Ken”) is a brief (about four minutes), episodic show about the married life between Hajimi, a 23-year old otaku who scrapes by living as a blogger and Kaoru, a 25-year old office lady who is adjusting to married life with an otaku husband.

The show starts off a few weeks after they have been married, so we are still in a period of adjustment for them. You get the feeling that they just don’t know all that much about one another and she got married because she was afraid that she would never be married. Aside from having with their interpersonal issues, there are their friends to deal with, and a larger assortment of loonies you have never met or seen.

This show really works well with binge watching. I mean, they are only four minutes a pop, so you can clobber the first season in about an hour. There is a second season out as well, but you get the feeling that the shows are ‘mixed up’. The order they are presented is not the order they should be in, so it flows better, but perhaps that is the comment they are making, that life is rather episodic and that compatibility is difficult, especially when you are just starting out.Continue reading

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Don’t Hand Me a “Line” blog 158

This is one of the more complicated, convoluted shows I have seen, up there with “Mekakucity Actors”, “Steins;Gate” and “Chaos;Head” in that you are not really certain what is going on. The fact and/or problem that it also has to deal with the concepts of time travel, physical possession and grand conspiracies make “Punch Line” (“Panchi Rain”) a rather hard show to follow.

Yūta Iridatsu (the only boy up there) lives at the Korai House apartment complex with four girls (left to right): Rabura Chichibu, Meika Daihatsu, Ito Hikiotani, and Mikatan Narugino. One day, following a bus-jacking incident, Yūta finds himself ejected from his own body and becoming a ghost of some sort. Guided by the cat spirit Chiranosuke, Yūta must learn to master his spirit powers in order to protect his housemates from the various circumstances they find themselves in. However, if Yūta sees a girl’s panties twice in a row, the Earth will be destroyed by a meteor. OK, that sounds simple, but the execution is lumpy. It doesn’t help that we are seemingly trapped within the same time frame (December 21 to 31) and unable to correct or change the circumstances.

Also, with Yuta a ghost for the first half of the show and Chiranosuke really a huge caliber of tyrant, this makes for a confusing situation. We slowly learn the rules and logic of this realm he is in, but also the limitations that he has.Continue reading