…it would mix footage from Re: Cutie Honey with this song:
From the blog of Muku Flooring comes this charming picture of the statue outside Iwakuni High School Memorial Hall, a kendo dojo. It most likely predates modern anime, but would fit right in…
[Update: It’s Sasaki Kojiro, the opponent in one of Musashi’s most famous duels, the one that gave birth to the popular “carved oar” heavy training bokken. The statue is apparently a bit of a tourist attraction.]
…Shiroe gets Delicious Cake.
(via the mostly-forgettable gallery here, where one of the few others I recognize is LOAD-kun; sadly, no Utsutsu-chan, although it has been done)
A really long clip episode with a standalone Alfheim adventure tacked on to the end, framed by mild fan-service, with a “surprise” announcement of season 2 at the end. Not bad, but not worth 100 minutes of my time; fortunately, I could leave it running in a window while working, and look over when something happened.
I have no intention of watching the second season, however. Gun Gale Online is pretty much a Kirito solo adventure with a new girl, leaving Asuna and the rest of the gang as spectators in the real world. The (still-unfinished after N volumes) Alicization arc that follows that is even more so, although apparently Asuna gets to do one small thing each book.
Well, that’s not how Mom tells it. But at least I can say that they came up with something different, and didn’t waste the entire episode talking about the fight they were going to have (which I more than half-expected). And they found an amusing way to work Elza into it.
It is now obvious how Lam-chan fits into the ending. Also, I was right about Blaze and Klein, Raul’s former classmates that were added for the anime; I didn’t want to say more at the time, but it should be pretty clear now.
They’re definitely tracking the Ecchi manga, despite things being reordered to accomodate the Amada story. They even had Lam flip up Elza’s skirt to show off her sexy panties, although they changed the reason and the audience.
It looks like I was wrong about Shell, though; he’s in it pretty deep.