Anime
Sounan Desu Ka? episode 11
Ponytail Shion is Best Shion, but Homare is still Best Girl. Especially since she finally ignored some of Dad’s advice.
Cop Craft 9.5
Spoiler: nothing happens.
Okay, they changed the OP to include English credits, covering up a bunch of the art.
And they added a new ED animation and song.
But it’s just a clip episode with a voiceover, recapping the opening story.
DanMachi 2.9
Decision, action, revelation, action, flashback, action, cliffhanger, action, victory? Next episode: Action!
So, maybe wrap this up in 10, cover the aftermath in 11, and pull in Welf and Lili’s bits from book 8 for 12? Either that, or 10 to escalate the fight and 11 to call in the cavalry, leaving 12 for cleanup?
New character in the game this week is bad/bad-girl Amazon Samira, whose only virtue (anime or game) is her battle bikini. I’ve got plenty of AoE physical fighters, so I’m still saving my Iris.
Smells Like Fox Spirit
Helpful Fox Senko-San is one of those series that I just didn’t manage to watch while it was airing, a failure I’ve remedied this week. Good stuff.
Sounan Desu Ka? episode 10
In episode 10, Shion finally discovers she’s good for something: a cliffhanger ending! On a related note, given the way they’ve handled the fan-service, I was honestly surprised that the jars full of fresh honey did not end up smeared on someone’s half-naked body, then licked off to avoid wasting food.
Surprised, and disappointed.
Cop Craft 7, 8, 9
I was AFK for a week, then busy at work for a week, so it’s catchup time!
Episode 7 starts off quick, with Tirana already undercover as fresh meat in an expensive brothel. I’d have liked to see the awkward fun of getting her into that situation in the first place, but the real point of the story is getting her to make friends with another of the girls, the cute short-haired elf from the OP.
From her appearance with a camera, I’d assumed she was Spunky Gal Reporter. Sadly, Friendly Whore Selling Secrets is not a trope that comes with a long lifespan. Pity; I was hoping for a little grown-up cheesecake to balance out Tirana’s lock on the lolicon market.
It ends with her determined to avenge her murdered friend, so naturally the next episode and a half are spent on Wacky Hijinks and (literally) mindless fan-service after a rogue magic item body-swaps her with the cat.
Episode 9 (after finishing off the cat/girl tale) starts off with Kei being an annoying prick to his co-workers, so, y’know, same-old-same-old, but poolside, with Tirana sporting new and more confusing headgear to go with her school swimsuit. The plot thickens, slowly, until we’re pretty sure that Villain #1 and Villain #2 are both involved. Or is it Villain #2A? Next episode.
And, yes, the headgear and the swimsuit mean precisely what you think: they’re up to book 6. You might ask what happened to all the story material in the middle. Well, better learn to read Japanese and go buy the light novels; last time I checked, all 6 were in the top 20 on Amazon Japan.
DanMachi 2.8
We’ve secretly replaced our usual damsel-in-distress with Folger’s
CrystalsBell Cranel. Let’s see if anyone notices.
Besides Bell, that is, who faces a fate worse than death with all the grace and dignity of a fourteen-year-old boy molested by a hideous troll.
Where is the series going? The first season covered five books worth of story in 13 episodes, which despite the breakneck pace actually worked pretty well, because they had a natural stopping point. Eight episodes in, and we’re not done with book 7 yet, with both Takemikazuchi and Aisha delivering some desperately-needed exposition, plus bonus flashback-y goodness. After refreshing my memory of book 8, there’s some potential there, but they’d have to dispose of Ares pretty quickly to get to the good stuff.
…and by that I mean Lili’s shocking proposal, and Welf demonstrating that he has the biggest brass balls in all of Orario.
Books 9-12 would make a good second cour, with a much flashier finale than padding out the fox-girl reclamation project, but I’m seeing references to this being a 12-episode series, which leaves me wondering where they’re going to end it.
New game character this week is good/bad-girl Amazon Aisha. I’m just going to hang onto my Iris for a while, in hopes that some of the time-limited units I’ve already got a few bonds for will get a rerun soon. Some of the time-limited characters in the current event are interesting, but it would take thousands of Iris to even have a chance to max-limit-break the new Lunor and Asfi, and I’m not going to spend money on it.
Not that she shows up in this episode, but I confess that seeing the name “Cassandra Illion” just makes me want more episodes of The Librarians.
Unrelated, to my surprise they managed to fit quite a bit of fan-service into the “tales of Homare’s dad” episode of Sounan Desu Ka?. It seems our girls are comfortable enough in their exile to worry about washing their underwear and rubbing on sunscreen. Shame they actually spent time on Dad…
