Summary:

Mirai decides to join the Literature Club after spotting a gardening encyclopedia on a nearby shelf. After school, the group heads to the Nase House where Mirai encounters Azumi for the first time. She temporarily revokes Mirai’s Spirit Warrior License as punishment for disobeying the warnings regarding the Hollow Shadow.

Left without a source of income, Miyuki steps in and offers to help her search for a job and they end up at the appraisal shop where she agrees to work as a model/assistant shopkeeper.

Later in the night, Miyuki and Mirai are left to close the shop while the Lantern Festival is being held. Miyuki is adamant about not going, but eventually caves in the Mirai. There the two meet up with Akiko and Hiroomi just in time to watch the fireworks.

Thoughts:

Hngggggghh… The embarrassed look Miyuki makes when she realizes she slipped out of her usual stoic character is too cute.

Her facade is necessary to maintain the appearance of the Nase Clan, but at heart she’s just a normal girl who longs to spend time with her friends and engage in the normal activities of everyday life.

I personally found it very interesting to watch the progression of Miyuki’s relationship with Mirai as the episode went on: from casual indifference to friends. What spurred this change on was Mirai and her new found perspective on relationships after her ordeal with Akiko. While talking with her, Miyuki slowly starts to understand Mirai’s perspective, but is left conflicted by the words her sister spoke to her when she was a child about being alone.

In the end, a little shove by Mirai is all it took for Miyuki to break out of that paradigm. And Miyuki, for the first time, was able to truly understand the value of friendships, especially in a world where everyone is doomed to be alone.
-exo

[Absolute Territory]

I give up on trying to understand where Araragi’s romantic interests lie. After the most recent Tsubasa arc, I thought, “Okay, so he really does love Senjougahara enough that he is willing to forsake his ultimate ideal girl” and yet in this episode, he still goes out of his way to harass Hachikuji, and get mixed up with Shinobu. I mean really, three kisses with three different girls in one episode? He’d be a dead man if Senjougahara found out.

The first kiss with Hachikuji (I’m not sure if frantically making out with someone’s back can be considered a kiss) was just a matter of Hachikuji’s innocence and the intensity of the situation they were in. Araragi took advantage of the confusion to satisfy his somewhat disturbing loli tendencies. But, I’m not so sure if this can be considered an act of love so much as an act of pure lust.

Ononoki’s kiss was mostly an obvious shot at Shinobu to get her back for beating her in a fight last season. But I get the feeling that she has some sort of an attraction for Araragi.

Lastly was the kiss with Shinobu, the confusing one of the bunch. Did he kiss her purely out of necessity for the situation? Or was there also something more meaningful mixed in there? Personally, I think that Araragi realizes that he will be bound together with Shinobu for all eternity, and while Senjougahara will be his lover for the extent of her lifetime, Shinobu will be his lover forever. This idea had been touched on a bit in season two during the bathtub scene, but has been kept shelved since then.

It’s a really, really weird relationship triangle between the three of them, and I would love to see Senjougahara and Shinobu interact with each other just once to see what they think of each other. But I’m guessing they are deliberately avoiding each other out of an unspoken, but mutual understanding and respect.
-exo

[Absolute Territory]

Summary:

Hime’s little cousin, Kohime visits the town to learn from her relative the ins and outs of being a mayor. While the two are walking around town, Hime is somewhat unsettled by the comparison that the townsfolk make between her and her grandmother.

Later that night, she vents to Akina about this and he does his best to reassure her that she’s doing a good job. But all of his efforts were for naught when Hime finds out that Akina and everyone else has been keeping an important secret from her (the blooming of the Seven Pillars).

Thoughts:

Mostly a filler episode with a lot of poolside fan service, boob licking, and some shots of Chibi-Hime (not to be confused with the less cute Kohime).

The only important event worth mentioning this episode is the imminent blooming of the Seven Pillars, or rather the fusion of the human and demon world. The effects of such an event will obviously be quite catastrophic and thus, it is understandable why Hime was so upset that they kept it from her. But it probably hurt even more that her friends kept her out of the loop because “it didn’t concern her” when it obviously should have.

But, judging from the preview, it looks like Hime will come in to save the day and simultaneously reveal her secret of being a Youkai (as prefaced by Akina).
-exo

[Absolute Territory]

The over-the-top zaniness was in full throttle this week as Ryuuko and Mako endure “NO CHIKOKU” day. Rather than getting a full-on, high-octane fighting scene like in each of the previous episodes, we got to see a ridiculous obstacle course that involves everyone in town trying to prevent the Zero-Star students from making it to class on time. It felt much more like a Panty and Stocking episode than anything else, with a lot of deformed character designs (more than usual) and a lot of Mako screen time. So yeah, I guess it was filler… it was an alright episode in general, but definitely the weakest one so far.

I especially enjoyed Inoue Marina’s voice acting role as the villain, Oogure Maiko. She even got to transform using Ryuuko’s uniform and yell out the trademark “KAMUI SENKETSU” just to let audiences hear what it would be like if, by chance, she had voiced the Matoi Ryuuko. Still though, I feel like animation companies really like to bring back voice actors they like in a multitude of shows. KyoAni was famous for it back in the day with Hirano Aya and Tomokazu Sugita but have since then started spreading the love. But when you think about it, why not; I’d throw buddies of mine on a huge payroll if I could help it.

[Absolute Territory]

Summary:

Touka once again loses control of her powers and accidentally launches a coffee table across the room in excitement after Akina offers to cook for her. Kyosuke immediately reprimands her for her lack of control and sends her home.

On her walk back Touka notices a car barreling down the road, right towards Mina and Kana. She quickly jumps into the car’s path to shield the kids, but her lack of control over her powers causes her to crush the two children in her arms, seemingly killing them.

Fortunately, Mina and Kana are okay, and reveal themselves to be vampires. However, Kyosuke is still upset over his sister’s dilemma and takes it out on Akina.

Akina later confronts Kyosuke and the two battle out their frustrations with each other.

Thoughts:

That scene was pretty gruesome.

Seeing little kids necks getting snapped is never really a good thing. Fortunately they were vampires, but that still had to hurt pretty badly.

Watching Touka lose control of her powers really hits home with the struggles that she and many other Youkai face by living in the human world. This plays nicely into the moral struggle that Akina faces as the sole user of the inherited tuning ability. Should he send the Youkai back to their own world? Or can he leave things as they are?

Akina himself hasn’t come to an answer yet. Deep down, he knows that sending the Youkai off is the logical thing to do, but he confesses to Kyosuke that he’s too selfish to give up on any of his friends, hence the creation of the Hiizumi Life Counseling Office.

Without really knowing what happens to people that get “tuned”, tuning is essentially murder. And for that reason, I can understand Akina’s decision to take the moral high ground despite all the problems that Youkai are capable of creating in the human world. He wants everyone to come out winners, but that probably won’t turn out to be a realistic goal.
-exo

[Absolute Territory]

Thoughts:

I want the OST to this show so bad. The intense cello bgm that hypes up battle scenes is so great, not to mention the OP and ED really grew on me. Even the insert song that played during the Ryuuko/Satsuki fight sounded pretty nice, reminding me a great deal of GL’s “Sora Iro Days” and “Happily Ever After.” Anyway, the animation continues to look astounding this week, especially with the face off between the Junketsu and Senketsu kamui uniforms. Although I like Satsuki-sama’s white kamui design a little better, Ryuuko’s is still more flashy and shows more skin, lol; and that means more battle power, if MMORPGs taught me anything.

But after seeing this crazy display of power, I feel like everyone else in the school literally has zero chance against Ryuuko. Everyone, at most, has only 30% of that life-thread shit while she and Satsuki are the only ones that have 100%. It’s gonna be an all out slaughter. Or maybe Mako will get kidnapped and held hostage again? Who knows… Mako wins for funniest character by far though: the way she just jumped into the middle of the fight and started making hilarious gestures and impressions had me rolling. She’s perfect slapstick for the comedic relief factor.

I knew I’d love this show a lot, but holy crap, I didn’t think it’d be this much.

[Absolute Territory]

Summary:

Akihito continues his efforts to get Mirai to join the Literature Club, but they are mostly fruitless. He finally gets a reaction out of her when he pulls out a 10000 Yen bill, which was the reward for the small Youmu that Mitsuki’s pet caught, and gives it to her.

Akihito later finds out through a secret talk with Mitsuki that Mirai is planning to confront the Hollow Shadow to avenge the death of her childhood friend. Intent on talking her out of it, Akihito rushes over to Mirai’s apartment, but she pays him no mind and heads off in the direction of the powerful Youmu.

As Mirai is about to make contact with the Hollow Shadow, she is interrupted by a Spirit Warrior acquaintance named Sakura. They begin to battle and Mirai is on the verge of losing until Akihito comes rushing in to save her life at the last second.

Thoughts:

First off, I’m glad to see that they are continuing with the Hiroomi finger warming gag (I literally burst out laughing for a good minute and had to pause the video), and I really enjoyed the argument over megane or sisters being superior. The icing on the cake was when Mitsuki came in with glasses on… That look on Hiroomi’s face was freaking priceless.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot to bring attention to something very important. Those shots of Mitsuki with glasses on were probably the first instances of blatant fan service that KyoAni has ever done in recent history (please correct me if I’m wrong). And of course directly after this scene they have a shot of Mitsuki mercilessly biting through a phallic shaped cracker. LOL KyoAni… you funny bro.

Moving on to more serious things… It turns out that my prediction last week was spot on regarding the whole Hollow Shadow possession stuff.

Following the logical progression of this arc and the preview from next episode, it seems as though Mirai and Akihito will face off against the Hollow Shadow. The key to defeating it will most likely lie in Akihito’s immortality. By allowing the Hollow Spirit to possess Akihito, Mirai can safely target the Youmu while it is confined in his body and kill it without permanently harming anyone else.

Well, that’s my theory anyway.
-exo

[Absolute Territory]

Summary:

The girls head off to school while the rest of the gang heads back to the Hiizumi Life Counseling Office. A member from the Senate, Shidare, comes by to pick up the health certificates for the new demon citizens of the town.

Meanwhile, Kotoha and Hime have a sparing contest outside. Lily appears and recites a passage from an old book which causes Kotoha’s powers to go berserk, resulting in her summoning a number of military grade weapons. In order to stop her rampage, Ao kisses her while Yae makes quick work of the lightning hands coming down from the sky.

Thoughts:

I’ve been preoccupied with Pokemon X for the better part of this past holiday weekend (Discover’s Day ftw!), and so I apologize for my lack of coverage on the weekend shows. Stayed up wayyy too late last night trying to find a freaking Eevee only to one shot it with a critical hit. -__- I ended up relying solely on a hoard of Ultra Balls and Thunder Wave to finally nab one. Now I finally have a Jolteon for the electric spot on my team! BOOM. TLDR: Gen 6 is freaking fun and a vast improvement in every way over the past iterations of Pokemon. Go buy it. Now.

Now, moving on to Yozakura…

I really am growing quite fond of this series. The pacing is perfect. So much is going on simultaneously in this episode and yet it never feels rushed. They show exactly what we need to see, and leave the extraneous portions out. The little hints given out here and there are enough for the viewer to discern certain things without explanations or long-winded dialogue.

Examples include:
Allusion to the fact that Kotoha is in a lesbian relationship with Ao.

Kotoha and Touka both went berserk in the past. Touka wears bracelets to suppress her oni powers.

Obvious stuff I know. But we found this all out without someone blatantly reciting it to our faces, freeing up more time for other stuff. EFFICIENCY AT ITS BEST.

I also like the decision of non-linear storytelling in which we get to see from the perspectives of different groups of characters during a particular time span, and see how they all link together in the end. Nothing new of course, but still a cool method of storytelling.

Compared to the first episode, this one was a lot more laid back (understandable considering that last ep. was essentially a complete arc in and of itself) but, it made up for it with a boat load of fan service. Dem boob grabs and panty shots everywhere. The sparing scene between Kotoha and Hime was also a short, but sweet treat for the eyes.

Good shit man, good shit. Yozakura Quartet is currently tied with KnK & Kill la Kill as my favorite Fall show as of this week. It’s a close race, but we shall see how it all pans out in the following weeks.
-exo

[Absolute Territory]

Thoughts:

Well the story isn’t the most amazing and compelling, but goddamn this show fucking entertaining. It’s a little cliche how Ryuuko has a allotted time limit to her “awakened” Senketsu form, but at least gave a medically plausible explanation grounded in reality: she is constantly supplying the uniform with her blood and will eventually get anemic if she fights for too long. In this episode, she uses her new-found power to fight the tennis club captain who was tasked with the mission of taking over the last high school in Hokkaido not under Kiryuuin Satsuki’s rule. It just so happens that Mako is in the tennis club and is getting punished in the most hilarious and brutal way possible in a tennis club for missing practice.

The visuals continue to stand out in this show. Particularly, the mass amounts of tennis ball attacks were really nicely animated; I’m loving every second of it. It’s pretty ecchi though, way more so than in GL, where Yoko’s boobs just kinda hung out there and the audience kinda forgot about it and got used to them ALWAYS being out like that. In both episodes now, we got huge underboob from Mako and Ryuuko, respectively… and this episode took it up another notch with the ridiculous パンチラ. Plus in the 2 scenes where Ryuuko got unconscious, she was more or less figuratively raped. Her homeroom teacher is fucking great though… I couldn’t stop laughing at the random stripping.

All in all, this is shaping up to be a great show and so far, has been living up to my high expectations.

Also, lol I just noticed the voice casting. Nia is Mako’s mom and Viral is Sanageyama.

[Absolute Territory]

Summary:

Akihito experiences a vision where he is standing in front of a corpse in the middle of a giant field, hands covered in blood. He snaps back into reality, just in time to avoid an attack from the Youmu they are currently fighting. Mirai chases the mummy creature outside and after a great deal of struggling, manages to defeat it.

The next day, Akihito takes Mirai to get her Youmu stone appraised by Ayaka, but when they reach her store they learn from Kanbara that she is still sleeping. Mitsuki joins up with them and they head off to school.

During school, Akihito talks to Hiroomi Nase asking about the unusually violent behavior that the Youmu have been exhibiting lately. However, Hiroomi refuses to directly answer the question, leaving Akihito in the dark. After school, he heads to Ayaka’s shop to have her read the card his mother sent him. It turns out that Akihito’s mother is a Spirit Warrior herself, and an eccentric one at that. The rest of the group arrives, and they all gather around to watch Akihito’s mother’s message. She warns that a powerful Youmu called the Hollow Shadow is headed towards him, and she suggests that he stay away from it at all costs.

After the message ends, Ayaka gets on with the main business of their visit, and takes a look at the Youmu that Mirai caught. Sadly, her catch was only worth 1000 yen and so she decides to use it to buy dinner for herself and Akihito at a nearby Gyu-don shop. There, she requests that Akihito refrain from involving himself anymore with her, and confesses that she once killed a person.

Thoughts:

So now we know why Mirai has such a hard time killing Youmu. I guess the guilt of her past always bubbled up during the previous times she hunted, and if not for Akihito’s encouragement would have let another Youmu escape. At this point, it’s probably pretty likely that her killing of another person wasn’t her fault. From Mirai’s flashbacks of an unknown girl, it seems as though she became possessed or something which forced Mirai into a life or death situation, leaving her no choice but to kill her friend. Mirai’s reaction after hearing the name “Hollow Shadow” leads me to believe that perhaps that powerful Youmu has something to do with it as it does have no physical body, making it the perfect candidate for a creature with an affinity for possession.

While Ep. 2 did have a serious side, for the most part it was a light-hearted and extremely entertaining episode. Mitsuki’s comment about Akihito huffing the scent of girl’s glasses was classic, and the onigiri/udon exchange was ちょう かわいい! Oh yeah, and don’t forget about Hiroomi’s affectionate nickname for Akihito: Akkey, or his fondness for warm male chests…
-exo

[Absolute Territory]