Anime Knockout! Fall 2013 Week 7

 

Welcome to the seventh week of the Fall 2013 season of Anime Knockout! Every week, we will review the new anime of the season, rate them, and kick the weakest show off of the queue.

Spoilers ahoy! So, if you don’t want to know what happens, come back after you’ve seen this week’s episodes! We also have a change of format this week.

For the Fall 2013 season, here is our chosen lineup:

Arpeggio of Blue Steel
Beyond the Boundary
Galilei Donna
Gingitsune: Messenger of the Gods
Golden Time
Kill la Kill
Log Horizon
MEGANEBU!
Nagi no Asukara
Samurai Flamenco
Strike the Blood
Walkure Romanze
Wanna be the Strongest in the World


Gingitsune: Messenger of the Gods

 

Briar’s Review:

Plot Score: 3/10

Satoru, Saeki, Gintaro, and Haru go out for a walk to introduce Haru to the lion dogs. On their way, they make an unexpected stop at Amabuki Temple and meet up with Yumi and her boyfriend. One of the monks is panicking, because of ghostly visitors at the temple. Satoru and Gintaro want to leave, but then something catches Satoru’s attention. Unlike shrines, temples are also cemeteries. Shrines can also be inside of temples. The gods and buddhas used to be lumped together. Gintaro notices something at the shrine. Heralds? Saeki runs off to see them.

The heralds are a pair of young monkeys. Haru yells at them like the rude brat she is. Gintaro addresses them and is called “gramps” for his trouble. The monkeys are playing pranks on the humans. Gintaro says that there’s no one at the temple with the Sight. Saeki says that they should tell the monkeys to stop playing pranks. The boy monkey jumps into Saeki’s arms. The girl monkey jumps into Satoru’s arms and starts a fight with Haru. The boy monkey scratches Gintaro. Gintaro announces that he’s going to punish all of the younger heralds, but doesn’t follow through with it. The monkeys make Haru cry and then control the wind to blow Yumi’s skirt up.

Saeki realizes that the humans think the heralds are ghosts. Satoru says that they should talk to the chief priest. The monkey’s shrine predates the temple. There used to be lots of monkeys in the area. The monkeys don’t want to chase the humans out. They wanted to make the humans happy. The temple is a place for funerals. The old monkey herald that used to be there said the monkeys have been replaced by humans. Saeki and Satoru explain that humans can pick themselves back up, so they don’t need pranks. Saeki tells the temple family that the monkey spirits are the ones playing pranks.

So, really, nothing was resolved this episode. The monkeys will likely still play their pranks and terrorize the monks for their entertainment and the temple will have no way to deal with it, other than shrug their shoulders. It’s really strange that an old temple with a monkey shrine wouldn’t already have some old traditions for dealing with mischievous spirits, even if there’s no one there with the Sight. Surely, there would be some way for ordinary priests and monks to deal with this kind of crap?

What was the point of this episode? What the characters set out to do at the beginning was never done, the problem they encounter was never really resolved, and at this point in the series, I don’t know if the monkeys are going to appear again. As for the series itself, it has done nothing and gone nowhere and it’s a twelve episode season. Past the halfway point, we should be into the meat of the story. I know this is a slice of life, but I’ve seen far more entertaining stories from this genre.

Character Score: 4/10

Gintaro is barely bark and absolutely no bite. No wonder the other heralds don’t really respect him. When he makes threats, he doesn’t follow through with them. This is one of the most unkitsune-like kitsune I’ve ever seen. No mischief of his own? Surely the old fox has a few tricks of his own take the monkeys downs a few pegs? Again, I’ll point people to Our Home’s Fox Deity, which has a character that is a divine kitsune, and even includes details like Inarizushi.

Haru is still a shrieking, obnoxious loudmouth. The monkeys don’t need a map to find her buttons. I really want to punt her off the show. She’s a guest at another shrine, yet she’s so brazenly rude?

Speaking of the monkeys, they were obnoxious, as well. They don’t like it when people are sad at funerals, so they’ll scare them to make them feel better? Yes, they aren’t human, but how did they arrive at that bizarre conclusion? Most of their pranks were also mean in nature, making them unlikable little turds.

This entire episode hinges on Saeki butting into another shrine’s business. While she got involved, she was completely ineffectual in dealing with the situation. Instead, we were subjected to screaming and shouting for most of the episode for no payoff.

Production Score: 5/10

The designs for the heralds still bug the crap out of me. They don’t quite fit in with the rest of the world as shown. They’re thick and round and a bit chunky, where everything else is standard slender anime fare with detailed backgrounds. It’s more like the heralds are stuffed animals, instead of the spirits of animals.

Briar’s Total Score: 4.0/10

I’ve been watching Our Home’s Fox Deity as a palate cleanser after this show.

AstralRuby’s Review:

Plot Score: 3/10

I’m not sure what the point of this episode was. This show is going good for making you drowsy and ready for bed at the end of the day. The plot of this episode was both boring and lame. When it wasn’t being either of those, it was annoying because of a couple prankster money’s laughter and Haru’s constant bitching.

It appeared to either be a summer weekend or their summer break, so Makoto and Gintaro were going to take Satoru and Haru to the temple of the lion-dogs. They didn’t get to do with and got sidetracked when they met up with Yumi and her boyfriend, Shohei, both of which thought Makoto and Satoru were on a date. Shohei lives at temple and shrine with a bunch of sisters that fawned over Satoru since they’re all boy-crazy, and Haru disliked the attention he was getting. They find out about a bunch of weird things that have been going on at the temple and stick around to investigate. Turns out it was just a pair of young monkey spirits that were tried of seeing people sad at the temple funerals and were trying to cheer them up with their pranks. They had never met foxes before and instantly rubbed Haru the wrong way. Both Haru and even Gintaro quickly got sick of their antics and Gintaro was going to punish them, but then Haru got pushed down and she cried while the monkeys laughed. Yeah, this sure is cheering everyone up, uh-huh. Pretty much, the monkey thought of everything as a game, even though it was causing fights between people. I’m not really seeing how this was okay, because in the end, it was. All the kids did was tell the people of the temple that it was the monkey spirits and suddenly everyone was like, oh okay cool, if they believed it at all.

This series started out nice, as if there was a plan for some innocent character growth and mythological mysteries to be solved with the help of the generations old Gintaro. Nope, it’s just a do nothing slice of life with a paper cut out of a main character. With the introduction of Satoru, it looked like the plot was going to pick up, and while it did for an episode or two, it quickly when back down to doing nothing.

A show like this with these characters had a lot of potential for some really interesting Japanese mythos with many twist options. Not to mention how the humans with the Sight are the only ones that can see the heralds of the shrines, so if they act as the bridges between spirits and humans, they could act a little more Avatar-like. The writers of this show probably had a good idea to start with, that’s how it got produced, but somewhere along the line everything got lost or thrown away. This anime has only lasted this long simply because it’s not offensive and the production quality is pleasant.

Character Score: 4/10

Once again, both Makoto Saeki and Gintaro did very little.

Makoto Saeki still has no personality. By now, we should be seeing something about her. She has yet to make any goals or have any worries outside the brief problem of the episode.

Gintaro needs to just smack some people. So far, he’s all bark and no bite, and he seriously has the authority to start laying to others and smacking some sense into them. This episode, he made like he was going to punish the monkeys or Haru, but he didn’t. He should at least try to be superior a little over all the little brats he’s having to deal with.

Satoru Kamio is loosening up, but at the same time he is fading into the background with an equal lack of presence as Makoto. Like Makoto, he doesn’t express goals, dreams, or desires of any kind. At the very least he’s into kendo and studying, and that’s it.

Haru acted more like a cat than a fox. She hissed and scratched at people whenever she was being overprotective of Satoru when he was getting too much attention from other girls. She also bitched in a very high pitch about everything and also bawled easily. She is mean to everyone and her jealously is a bit strange since we knew the spirits live a lot longer than humans and she’s already gone through at least one priest’s death, so she should know that no matter what she does, Satoru can’t stay hers forever. Not only is he going to die eventually, but he’s going to simply grow up too and if Haru wants to make sure she isn’t left alone, she should make sure Satoru passes on the Sight to someone she can at least watch over until they inherit the Sight, like she did with Satoru.

Yumi, Makoto’s friend, appeared to only be around in this episode to tease Makoto and Satoru whenever they stood too close.

Shohei, Yumi’s boyfriend, was just there, really only to give everyone a reason to be at the temple.

Production Score: 5/10

No change to this score. I think I’ve mention this before, but Makoto Saeki looks a lot like Kotoura from Kotoura-san. While the production value is nice, the lack of energy leaves a lot to be desired and the details could have been much greater with that lack of action. Music was dull, shadowing was nice, and character designs are a bit too simple against the detail of the backgrounds.

AstralRuby’s Total Score: 4.0/10

It was boring and annoying at the same time. Nothing was solved.

Week 7 Total Score: 4.0/10

Season Total Score for Gingitsune: Messenger of the Gods: 4.9/10


Strike the Blood

 

Briar’s Review:

So, this entire situation with the Nalakuvera exists for the lulz? The terrorist boss doesn’t know why the First Progenitor is helping him, but accepts it anyways? The vampire lord just wanted an ancient weapon activated so he could fight it, because he’s bored? Things are happening in this episode, but the reasons for those things are a little thin.

Sayaka is still really creepily jealous over Yukina. Weren’t these girls also taught a semblance of professionalism by their organization? Really, she’s just acting this way to add an element of Les Yay, since they’re going light on the ecchi. However, the character that is the most baffling is super-hacker Asagi. She opened a message with an attachment from someone she didn’t know and followed the instructions? She didn’t investigate where the message came from before she accepted the attachment? The hacker was duped by spam? Having emotions over Kojou does not count as a valid excuse for that failure if she’s some super-hacker.

Plot Score: 4/10
Character Score: 4/10
Production Score: 6/10
Briar’s Total Score: 4.6/10

AstralRuby’s Review:

The only actually cool thing to happen in this episode was when the friend with the headphones started doing stuff and we got a little info about how he’s pretty much a wizard. So there isn’t just humans, demons, and vampires. However, he didn’t get to complete anything and was knocked out of the episode quickly. Will there also be fairies, angels, and mystical nature spirits? Doubt it.

Kojou Akatsuki and Sayaka Kirasaka bonded a little over their mutual connection to Yukina. It was strange since Sayaka hated him for being around Yukina at all. Yukina didn’t do much this episode besides get pushed around. Which is strange because she it normally always jumping into the front lines to fight. Nagisa, the sister, is scared of demons because they caused a train wreck when she was little and she was injured.

Gardos turned out to just be a talking head that isn’t really that intimidating. I don’t think he even really made a real threat yet.

Plot Score: 4/10
Character Score: 4/10
Production Score: 6/10
AstralRuby’s Total Score: 4.6/10

Week 7 Total Score: 4.6/10

Season Total Score for Strike the Blood: 5.2/10


Nagi no Asukara

 

Briar’s Review:

The sea and surface kids have put together the doll and float for the Ofunehiki. Previously, the sea and surface village leaders had called off the celebration. Hikari says that he’ll do something about Shishio to get the Ofunehiki going. Manaka, Hikari, and the two little girls try to get signatures from the surface townsfolk. Kaname sees that Hikari is doing this to compete with Tsumugu. Kaname then charms his way to signatures. I’m liking Kaname’s character more and more. He’s seeing through a bunch of the bullshit put out by his friends and instead works to bring as many people together as he can with his charm.

The men of the villages gather to talk and inspect the doll. The kimono is folded backwards, but that can be fixed. The teacher moderates the meeting between the two factions with Tsumugu and Hikari representing the students. Sakishima, Hikari’s father, doesn’t look like he wants this to happen.The men from the sea ask for an apology from the surface men. They start to argue and Hikari tries to stop them, but gets told to stay out of it. Then the men start butting heads. Akari and her boyfriend also want to see the Ofunehiki. They walk in on a near-fight. The men from the sea try to fight the boyfriend. Hikari tries to stop them, but gets thrown into the doll, which falls and its head breaks off. The leaders in both of the towns are stubborn jerks to be stubborn jerks and I can’t see any other reason for it. The explanations for this animosity are still very thin. We need more answers about where all this is coming from more than we need junior high drama at this point in the story. It also doesn’t seem to occur to the kids to just hold the Ofunehiki as a school event and override the chest-thumping of the village men. It certainly doesn’t cross the mind of that wheedling teacher to tell the two groups to suck it up for a day.

At a restaurant, Sakishima tells Akagi to break up with Itaru. He always changes the subject to the surface and the sea. Akari tells him that she’s going to be Miuna’s mother. At home, she packs up to leave. Hikari also leaves, but I don’t know where he thinks he’s going to stay.

Uroko is a character that we should know a little more about by now. Whose descendants is he protecting? Why? Where did he come from? How does he have these powers? We need to get answers about this very soon.

This is starting to feel like a plot that depends on a lack of information in a bad way. Hikari should have some understanding of what’s going on with Uroko and that end of the story if he’s supposed to be his father’s successor. Even if the story he has isn’t complete or accurate, he should have something to relay to the audience. Instead, we’re stumbling along with only half a clue about the situation.

Plot Score: 4/10
Character Score: 4/10
Production Score: 6/10
Briar’s Total Score: 4.6/10

AstralRuby’s Review:

They’re not really explain what the Ofuniehiki is in their context. It sounds like it might be a festival where both the sea people and surface people attend, but it’s not clear.

Since Hikari is already jealous of Tsumugu again, he puts together a plan to get everyone involved to make the festival happen this year because the adults stopped doing it. He’s doing all this to impress Manaka. During the petition, Chisaki had a Fluttershy moment because of her lack of energy and ability to shout out to people. Tsumugu and Kaname are the more useful kids of the bunch.

Since things didn’t go as planned, the adults fought, the statue they worked on rebuilding was destroyed again, and Akari was put on the spot for dating a surface person. Without any plans, Hikari is going to follow his sister to live on the surface and away from their father. He didn’t put any thought into it, not even about his friends, or even Manaka, who the world revolves around in this story.

When the priest tried to stop them, I thought maybe their Ena was being ripped from them so they wouldn’t be able to come back to the sea village in they changed their minds, but so far, that doesn’t appear to be the case. Looks like there won’t be a Ofuniehiki, even though a lot of people were up for it and the statue was broken again.

Plot Score: 4/10
Character Score: 4/10
Production Score: 6/10
AstralRuby’s Total Score: 4.6/10

Week 7 Total Score: 4.6/10

Season Total Score for Nagi no Asukara: 5.1/10


Log Horizon

 

Briar’s Review:

The Crescent Moon Refreshment Stand opens for business. It’s considered pricey food at fifteen gold for a burger and five gold for tea. However, it smells good and it has flavor! Shiroe oversees the commotion like an evil overlord. The guild has to work hard to keep up with the demand. Suddenly, other guilds want to figure out how Crescent Moon did it. On the first day, Crescent Moon sold out on everything except the Black Rose Tea. However, it will take four months at this rate to make 5 million gold. There are only so many customers they can serve in a day.

Background buildings are now zones for purchase. Soujirou, guildmaster of the Caravan of the West Wind, meets with Shiroe and Nyanta. He’s a former member of Debauchery Tea Party. Soujirou thought that Shiroe didn’t like him because he didn’t join his guild. Shiroe replied that he will only have a place for himself after he makes one for others. Soujirou thinks the game world is now a prison. He’ll help Shiroe without hearing the plan. He’s a front-liner who wouldn’t understand the plan. He helps with the store.

Now, onto the plan’s second stage. Is he going to buy the town of Akihabara and then have control over it like a guild owner over a guild hall? Is Shiroe aiming to be the Mastermind behind the curtains?

None of the characters have talked much about their offline lives lately. Have they been completely sucked into this new life? What will happen once things calm down and law is restored to Akihabara? I’m not too worried about them trying to look for a way out, because there aren’t any clues to start that quest from. Granted, nobody in Shiroe’s party is looking from them. Maybe we’ll see another team who has.

Plot Score: 7/10
Character Score: 7/10
Production Score: 6/10
Briar’s Total Score: 6.6/10

AstralRuby’s Review:

Shiroe had asked the Debauchery Tea Party guild for way more gold than they have, so they’re going help put together his mystery plan. Stag one of the plan was to open a food cart and make people pay good money for realistic tasting food, which they all miss and desperately want. Word spread fast of the food and many want in on the secret. After the first night of business, Shiroe and Nyanta meet up with an old friend of theirs who has their own guild now. This boy instantly agrees to help after just a little bit of talking. It appears that buildings that used to be just background are up for sale, and Shiroe’s master plan involves them somehow. Since this is just part one of Shiroe’s plan, we can expect to see everything else go according to plan as the rest of the plan is revealed in the coming episodes. I am interested in what all it will involve.

I would like to see at least one character check their menu screen to see if the log out option as come back, to at least address that fact it hasn’t.

The burgers they made looked good. It was a simple episode, but still entertaining.

Plot Score: 5/10
Character Score: 5/10
Production Score: 6/10
AstralRuby’s Total Score: 5.3/10

Week 7 Total Score: 5.9/10

Season Total Score for Log Horizon: 6.4/10


Golden Time

 

Briar’s Review:

Kaga confesses her love and then gets caught by the police for stealing a bike. She’s let off the hook with some paperwork and her father picks her up from the police station. He apologizes to Banri for the trouble, but Kaga announces that Banri’s her boyfriend. Then we go into a period where Kaga is acting like by-the-numbers, lovey-dovey giggling girlfriend with sparkles everywhere. That is, until she see Yana, then she digs her verbal knife into her former target. Banri and Kaga have ideas of going to Paris. Nana, who is also Banri’s neighbor, brings Linda over to deal with Banri. They talk and start crying and apologizing to each other.

Plot Score: 7/10
Character Score: 8/10
Production Score: 6/10
Briar’s Total Score: 7.0/10

AstralRuby’s Review:

After the love confession from the last episode and a short trip to the police station, Kaga and Banri are now dating. They are that one really weird overly-attached couple everyone knows. They do all the school-couple things, even though they’re in college. Things got resolved between Banri and Linda, even though he ignored her for a while.

Apparently Banri owns a lot of porn. A lot. Enough to fill a large cardboard box. Not to mention the fact he felt the need to pick up all his porn and gather it all into one box. Was it just laying about everywhere? I understand cleaning up the apartment before the girlfriend comes over, but geez son.

I wonder if anyone is going to start studying again?

Plot Score: 6/10
Character Score: 7/10
Production Score: 5/10
AstralRuby’s Total Score: 6/10

Week 7 Total Score: 6.5/10

Season Total Score for Golden Time: 6.3/10


Beyond the Boundary

 

Briar’s Review:

Sakura hunts youmu with her machinegun spear and feeds the fragments of her kills to it to increase it’s power. A man she doesn’t know gave the weapon to her on the condition that if she defeats Kuriyama, the she will get to keep it. We also find out that Sakura is conveniently transferring to the school. There’s a fight between Sakura and Kuriyama that Kuriyama takes to the sewers. Sakura proves unable to defeat Kuriyama and the weapon turns on her. Kuriyama keeps fighting the glowing tendrils to protect Sakura and defeats the weapon.
Kuriyama tells Sakura that Yui used to be jealous of Sakura. That she shouldn’t lose herself. Sakura refuses Kuriyama and Kuriyama walks away form her. The bell rings. Sakura follows after her and Kuriyama shows her the way home. A man picks up the weapon. He’s going to retrieve the Hollow Shadow. A reflective surface covers the town. The Calm is coming.

Plot Score: 5/10
Character Score: 6/10
Production Score: 7/10
Briar’s Total Score: 6.0/10

AstralRuby’s Review:

Mirai and Sakura fight a bit and we found out that Sakura was being manipulated by someone else since she’s not really a spirit world warrior. After some stuff in the sewers, it’s obvious that Mirai is actually way more powerful. They got over their problems and revenge thing.

Now “The Calm” suddenly came, which is right before “Beyond the Boundary”. Episode 7 and they’re just now bringing in the actual plot? Seems like it’s going to be short series, so I expected it a little sooner

Plot Score: 5/10
Character Score: 5/10
Production Score: 7/10
AstralRuby’s Total Score: 5.6/10

Week 7 Total Score: 5.8/10

Season Total Score for Beyond the Boundary: 5.9/10


Samurai Flamenco

 

Briar’s Review:

Crime is quiet in town, the Flamenco Girls are frustrated with a lack of targets, the Vigilante Unit at the police station has a lot of idle time, and Hazama has been getting more photo model work and sleep lately. The media man tells the manager goodbye. With the city safe and things calm, there’s no entertainment in Samurai Flamenco being a hero. Goto is told that the police want to make Samurai Flamenco chief for a day. The populace is more engaged when they have a mascot. They meet outside the telephone booth. Hazama shows Goto the news clipping about the murders of his parents. Hazama wonders if he would have become a cop if he knew. It’s the best backstory ever for a hero! But he has no anger or desire for revenge. He doesn’t really want to bother. Goto tells him that he doesn’t see him as a hero, but as a freak that helps people. Only human. Having questions is natural. He trusts freaks more than he trusts heroes.

For some reason, Samurai Flamenco agrees to be police chief for a day and goes on a drug bust. And the cops don’t ask his identity? Then we go into full “What the FUCK?!” mode. Is this a dream? A movie? A story within a story? Is the media man behind this? If so, HOW? I’m a little torn on how to score this episode.

Plot Score: 6/10
Character Score: 8/10
Production Score: 8/10
Briar’s Total Score: 7.0/10

AstralRuby’s Review:

This episode… Just, what the hell Japan? Talk about a Plot Twist no Justu that came out of freaking no where. Why does anime always need to pull out the weirdest plot twists? This anime didn’t even need it. It’s exciting and interesting enough without it!

That plot twist better being a set of a movie/show, or a dream, or a hallucination. Come on, they don’t really expect the audience to believe this, right?

The city was getting to be better, so it appears someone wanted there to be more crime so they could get Samurai Flamenco and the Flamenco Girls to work more and draw more attention to the city. There are many ways they could have done this that would have still been in the show’s GENRE. Seriously. WTF?

Not really sure how to handle this plot twist for the scoring. Since the rest of the episode was good, and it might all be a trick, I removed a couple points for poor set up and extreme genre shift at the end of the episode.

Plot Score: 5/10
Character Score: 8/10
Production Score: 7/10
AstralRuby’s Total Score: 6.6/10

Week 7 Total Score: 6.8/10

Season Total Score for Samurai Flamenco: 7.5/10


Ratings (Points out of 10)

Series Name Week 7 Score Running Season Score
Beyond the Boundary 5.8 5.9
Gingitsune: Messenger of the Gods 4.0 4.9
Golden Time 6.5 6.3
Log Horizon 5.9 6.4
Nagi no Asukara 4.6 5.1
Samurai Flamenco 6.8 7.5
Strike the Blood 4.6 5.2

This week, Gingitsune bored its way to the lowest score. It will not return for Week 8 and we won’t have to watch another episode of it!


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