Mekakucity Actors Episode 10 Notes – Monsters and Humans. A Story of Love Gone Wrong

(Note: Episodic notes are still mostly to be found on the Episodics Notes’ page, but up to a couple every week will have their write-up appear on the main page, when I think they warrant it. For those who don’t know, I take the notes as I watch the episode, and merely re-order them afterwards.)

So, we have a goal – rescuing people, and an enemy, the Queen of Snakes, and The Monster’s mystery, and Mary is her host, set to take over this world, and Ene’s body is still here, and Ayano’s father is controlled by the enemy! What’s going on?! Well, time to see where they go with this, now that we finally have both conflict and direction.

(Screenshot album for this episode.)

Thoughts and Notes:

1) Humans and Monsters – A Tale of Love and Fear:

1) Hm. The Mother-monster, calling her love “that idiot”, and acting all tsundere with worry. Come on anime, we don’t have to do it like that! We do see some facial expressions showing care. Her daughter, the half-monster and half-human, truly reminded one of Mary, didn’t she? And the episode’s title is Mary’s song, where she ends up abandoned in a house in the forest, so could she literally be the monster’s daughter, not just containing her spirit? Or rather, she has the spirit of the Serpent now.

Mekakucity Actors Episode 9 Notes – Red Leader and The Sinister Serpent!

(Note: Episodic notes are still mostly to be found on the Episodics Notes’ page, but up to a couple every week will have their write-up appear on the main page, when I think they warrant it. For those who don’t know, I take the notes as I watch the episode, and merely re-order them afterwards.)

So, last episode ended with Shintaro discovering Ayano is related to the Mekaku-dan, with Mary standing over him, and finally a sense of direction in terms of goals – discover Hiyori and Kokonoe (*Haruka), and trying to find out if more loved ones can be saved from The Serpent.

A lot of screenshots this episode, so here is the screenshot album. I’ll include the most (visually) relevant ones in the piece itself.

Thoughts and Notes:

1) Time with Family:

1) Ayano’s mother is telling her the story of the monster. Considering it’s Ayano’s voice narrating it at the end of every episode, it makes sense. Well, stories also supposedly shape our view of the world – Some humans are monsters, beware loneliness, be careful of what you wish for, and nothing beats time spent with family. Sounds about right.

Mekakucity Actors Episode 8 Notes – These Borrowed Lives of Ours

(Note: Episodic notes are still mostly to be found on the Episodics Notes’ page, but up to a couple every week will have their write-up appear on the main page, when I think they warrant it. For those who don’t know, I take the notes as I watch the episode, and merely re-order them afterwards.)

The last two episodes have done quite a lot of work, first they made us care for some characters, after spending too long with talking heads. Then they showed us how the various threads of fate connect – Momo’s teacher, Takane and Haruka, Shintaro and the Mekaku-Dan. All know one another.

And then we saw the danger of wishes, tying us to the serpent at the center of it all. But the question is where do we go from now? How does this knowledge, or the outside world forces the characters to actually do something?

(I took 39 screenshots. Not going to insert them all, so here is the complete album.)

Thoughts and Notes:

1) Trying To Find Our Way in Escher’s World:

1) “A new girl?!” is what I thought, but then we hear the name “Tsubomi”, which means it’s Kido of the green hair. She left behind her “sister”. This “sister” has red hair, like Ayano, who was also called “Sister” but Kido. And yet, I don’t think they’re the same person. But the fact fate repeats itself and replaces one older sister with red hair for another might not be accidental.

Mekakucity Actors Episode 7 Notes – For The Slain, for Future Pain

(Note: Episodic notes are still mostly to be found on the Episodics Notes’ page, but up to a couple every week will have their write-up appear on the main page, when I think they warrant it. For those who don’t know, I take the notes as I watch the episode, and merely re-order them afterwards.)

So, last episode not only had been a solid first episode, it was a pretty good episode. I even cared for Ene’s emotional state at the end of it! Now we need to see how we got from episode 6 to episode 1, and Ene had left Haruka alone, Haruka who has health issues. This will likely be a sore point.

Another thing we need to see is how and why Ayano died exactly, because it feels as if that is the event everything revolves around.

I took 41 screenshots this episode. I’m not going to embed them all, so here is the album.

Thoughts and Notes:

1) Talking of Ourselves…

Spring 2014 Anime Midseason Overview (Part 2/2: Non-Action)

Mid-season of the anime season of Spring 2014 is upon us, so time to round up how I feel about the shows I’m current on. Due to the length of the list, I split it in half. The first part covered action shows. This part covers all the rest of the shows.

Shows are listed in order of enjoyment. Numbers are order on the list, and in parenthesis the order in the joint list, comprised of 13 shows. The first three shows in this section are my favourite three shows of the season, and they’re all at basically the same spot. They’re all winners.

1 (1) Ping Pong the Animation

This show isn’t all that interested in telling us a story we hadn’t heard before. That’s fine, because there aren’t many such stories. This series is interesting in not merely a well-constructed story, but also in one that is well-told. The acting is solid, and the characters are believable. You can understand what is at stake when every conflict is had, or what its purpose is – such as when they use a conflict in the first episode for a third character to look at it and explain to us what is really going on, which in retrospect shows that the “stake-free conflict”, due to how it’s the same conflict that had been ongoing for a while is merely a character’s never-ending capitulation.

Mekakucity Actors Episode 5 Notes – Tying The Plot-Fate Threads Together.

(Note: Episodic notes are still mostly to be found on the Episodics Notes’ page, but up to a couple every week will have their write-up appear on the main page, when I think they warrant it. For those who don’t know, I take the notes as I watch the episode, and merely re-order them afterwards.)

Somehow, the vignettes don’t stick with me, but the group episode (episode 3) was solid. What I wanted to watch now is late, so let’s give it a shot. Less/no notes? Let’s try.

Thoughts and Notes:

1) Don’t Forget, My Endless Hero, My Forever Friend:

1) First scene, we’re back at the clockwork tower. They meet, and meet again. Scarf-girl tells Shintaro he’s the only one who can see her, but didn’t she speak to Hibiya last episode? Is it perhaps Moorcock’s “The Hero with the Thousand Faces”, and there’s one “hero spirit” that reincarnates in various people? Perhaps she lies, or there are alternate realities? Or perhaps only he can see her outside of this place?

Mekakucity Actors Episode 4 Notes – Life Is Too Short

(Note: Episodic notes are still mostly to be found on the Episodics Notes’ page, but up to a couple every week will have their write-up appear on the main page, when I think they warrant it. For those who don’t know, I take the notes as I watch the episode, and merely re-order them afterwards.)

Well, last episode wasn’t too shabby! It gave us multiple characters, so the chatter wasn’t as wasteful, as it introduced them, and it finally gave us not just context, but a situation. Now it remains to be seen what they do with it.

Oh yes, this episode is reportedly going to be “Heat Haze Daze”, so it’s back to episodic, but this is the story I’m the most fond of from the songs, so let’s go.

Thoughts and Notes:

1) Speaking of Heroes and Reincarnation – Cryptically:

1) “Wow, so you ended up being yourself, huh?” – That has to rank up there with the most crypto-bullshit sentences I’ve seen, and I’ve watched RahXephon ;-) That’s actually not a value-judgment, just a commentary on how… obtuse it is.

Yes, I thought the place where he is with all the wires reminds one of an intersection, and of Steins;Gate. And the first episode opened with something about time-travel or reincarnations, so it sort of fits. But still, crypto-nonsense levels are off the charts.