As what I hesitantly call the dark-horse anime of the season, Girls und Panzer has managed to remain surprisingly strong in the face of such intimidating competitors as JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure and Psycho-Pass. There are definitely plenty of valid reasons why—the skirmishes themselves are well thought out and animated, the characters are likable (if not terribly memorable), and it has yet to bog itself down with glurgy melodrama; even the most somber of scenes are accompanied by hilariously outdated Nazi helicopters and spunky old women, two things guaranteed to improve any show simply with their combined presence.

But belligerent old women and Nazi aircraft are only two parts of a bigger variable in the “why the fuck is this show so good?” equation, a variable that encompasses that broad descriptor of “novelty”. To put it in other words, Girls und Panzer isn’t just the one gimmick of girls engaging in competitive interscholastic tank battles; it’s a slew of gimmicks thrown at the audience one after the other faster than you can say “Holy shit, it’s a giant aircraft carrier!” It’s only when looking back and examining each of these events with the utmost scrutiny that a startling realization begins to emerge: This is why it’s really fucking good, and Episode 8 perfectly illustrates why with the the inclusion of Katyusha, Pravda’s adorable sensha-do president/reference to old war songs.

Pravda in general is a school that runs on one very specific device, even more distinctive than the others that’ve been shown so far. While a few of the other schools can be slightly difficult to parse in regards to what nationality they’re supposed to represent, Pravda is the most hilariously Soviet school outside of the Eastern Bloc. The interior of the sensha-do clubroom is about what you’d expect to find in the Kremlin at the height of Soviet power; Soviet flags draped tastefully, with the people in charge calmly sipping tea while Tchaikovsky drifts inoffensively in the background. It’s hilariously blatant, but in a more playful sense than lazy. Even better, Katyusha completely belies this dignified and most Russian of auras with how fucking tiny she is.

Characters that do their best to make up for the fact that they’re short aren’t anything new, but what makes Katyusha so great in spite of having a personality that only serves as compensation for her rather dainty form is the way that the show does its best to counter every one of her statements of superiority with an outside contradiction.

The most obvious, and the episode’s highlight, is an impromptu rendition of an old Soviet song bearing her namesake, about standing on the tallest banks and flying high like silver eagles, sung by the 15 tank crews on Pravda’s team (the largest team shown so far). It would’ve been an inspirational moment… were Katyusha’s head not almost swallowed by her helmet, an intentional contrast that added even more to the scene. While that may be what most people remember this episode for, it’s only a part in the whole that is Katyusha’s height complex. Probably the most delicious, yet easy to miss jab in her direction is the use of Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy as her leitmotif, a song that does not conjure up imagery of a deadly, efficient military machine, the intimidation factor lessened even more when she’s forced to meet the opposing team on the shoulders of a taller teammate. It’s small details like this that make Girls und Panzer what it is.

Again, the helmet doesn’t help either

Katyusha’s impact on the show itself is rather minimal when compared to the main cast; if she wasn’t in it at all, it wouldn’t detract from the surprising quality of the overall package. But what she does is add to the experience in a way that only solidifies my prior assessment that Girls und Panzer is made evermore distinct and flavorful by its gimmicks, but is strong enough not to be completely dependent on them. Compare that to Jormungand, which still hasn’t quite figured itself out, and many other shows of the season that fluctuate in quality, and it’s easy to see why I love this show so damn much for delivering such consistency week to week, and all without feeling stale. This week, it’s all thanks to Katyusha in all her pint-sized glory.

There is something so curiously endearing about a show that tries with no shortage of desperation to be the coolest thing since frozen, sunglass-wearing sliced bread. Where most shows would simply have a character make a one-liner before collectedly planting a bullet through an enemy’s forehead, Jormungand painfully draws it out so the audience can fully appreciate just how totally radical it wants them to think it is, because its sense of what’s hip was originally from the dark age of glam metal and Reaganomics and it wants to catch up to what the kids are into these days, like autotuned Engrish.

In what’s probably the only such example in the history of mankind, Jormungand is entertaining specifically because it tries way too hard to impress, with writing that manages to be incredibly boring when it doesn’t revolve around each character’s own kind of psychopathy applied in the goofiest ways possible. So in an otherwise dull second season that revolves around actually developing the characters to the extent that any show would only do if it planned on killing them off, an episode centered on the simple premise of “Wilee likes bombs. Wilee uses bombs well. See Wilee use bombs well,” is refreshing, especially when it actually manages to be organically cool for once. As an ordinary episode, it doesn’t hold a candle to other greats of the fall season, but when compared to the dry fare that Perfect Order has provided us up to this point, it’s a welcome respite to have a man sabotage a British PMC’s bombs as opposed to be monologued to death by living statistic spreadsheets given flesh.

Of course the black guy has grape soda

Going into the first season, I initially thought that it’d delve into the human side of war, with Koko’s position as an arms dealer operating as a sort of middle ground to explore the nature of various conflicts through the objective lens of an opportunist looking to offload as much of her merchandise with as big a profit as possible. And then we learned just how loco Koko was, characters like Dr. Miami and a burly masked guy that kills with hedge trimmers were introduced, and all semblance of subtlety was (thankfully) thrown out without a second thought.

Now that it’s back in the form of a pasty white CIA agent, sitting on what could have been an interesting show with what I thought would be no sign of budging, it’s not entirely welcome. It’s up to episodes like this to remind me that under Perfect Order’s stale shell of stuffy storytelling lays a soft, nougaty center of gleeful one-off episodes and hilarious rap lyrics, ready to be consumed with poorly-stifled giggling. It tries so very hard to entertain and leave the audience with its collective jaw hanging wide open that it succeeds in spite of previous failures. So Jormungand, please, don’t give up being a cheesy slice of arms dealing action. You’re too good not to be.

Not even a week ago, The Cart Driver played host to a long-winded and indirect marriage proposal toward the greatest anime of the season, and I daresay our time: Girls und Panzer. Not even two episodes passed before I was enraptured by its Captain Planet-esque take on including every single tank design and color under the loving treads and well-timed explosions of the gunmetal-grey rainbow. I was hesitant to make my proposal official, because it was just as likely as not that the show that I’d come to fall in love with would catch bubonic plague and spit a mouthful of bloody teeth in my direction before collapsing in a heap of agonizing, twitching death. But then a plane airdropped a tank with a single passenger directly into somebody’s car, and all doubts as to whether Girls und Panzer would make it past the crucial three episode trial period were assuaged.

Surprisingly enough, especially to me, there’s more to Girls und Panzer than a few audaciously stupid bits held together with bits of old twine and prayer. At the risk of ending up on the receiving end of raucous laughter, this series delivers a more compelling environment than nearly anything else this season, specifically because there are quite a few background details that intrigue me.

I’ll admit that there isn’t a bevy of content to latch onto with the ferocity and desperation of a lamprey. However, there’s just the bare minimum of details given about the world that these characters inhabit to make speculation a surprisingly fun, grounded exercise when delaying a post on a borderline interminable show for as long as physically possible. Or when writing a post to delay writing a post on a borderline interminable show for as long as physically possible.

Anyway, the merit of this post may be questionable at best, but I do actually have a point here that isn’t simply cramming as many fun-to-write sentences into a 700 word piece as my fingers will allow me to type. I was watching the latest episode earlier today with a few friends when one pointed out that the show’s superficial resemblance to Strike Witches made the near dearth of fanservice something of an oddity.

Sure, there are a few scenes of blatant pandering to a male otaku audience, like one where the bustiest character is cleaning a recently-salvaged tank in only a bikini. As inexplicable as the detail is, it isn’t lovingly crafted as the focal point of the scene, it’s simply there without being paid much mind, which almost makes its inclusion indicative of some kind of ulterior motive. Is it subverting the concept that these kinds of shows have no qualms about showing underage girls in skimpy clothing? Is it a deconstruction of the “moe girls with military hardware” genre? Or is its inclusion merely the result of the animators saying “fuck it, let’s throw in some underage tits”? The possibilities are endless, and they lead to all kinds of scenarios that paint Girls und Panzer as something that could possibly have deep, underlying themes, if it wasn’t obvious enough already.

Bouncy, sudsy blatant themes

Another object of debate in our little group was a cluster of injured teddy bears in the protagonist Rika’s room. Short of the first episode’s beginning, these aren’t paid any attention to, and simply exist as either a cute complement to the rest of Rika’s stereotypically girlish room, or as a subtle hint that these poor kids don’t know the extent of what they’ve gotten themselves into. Could it be that these bears are symbolic of the many scars that she’s taken in her many years of Panzerfahren (that’s the Ubermensch subs name, and I’m sticking to it), both mental and physical? Given the brief flashback at the halfway point of the first episode and the fact that they use some sort of live ammunition, it’s a distinct possibility, and it hints at darkness underneath the show’s otherwise bright and cheerful aesthetics.

Obviously, these points could just be me reading into the mythos of Girls und Panzer a bit much, but this is one of the rare shows where I think any amount of speculation is perfectly valid as long as it continues to dwell on the characters, rather than their surroundings. So, dear reader, pick your poison and build your own concept of Girls und Panzer’s ridiculous world with the sparse number of details given. Be it a matriarchy where men are all subservient and exclusively bakers, a pacifistic society where disputes are solved through organized tank combat and possibly death, or a culture that coerces little girls to fight to the death with promises of eternal glory and a free pass through high school, there are no wrong answers, at least until the next episode comes out.

There’s been a fair amount of discussion about Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun over the past few days. And, since it’s already established that I’m not averse to joining bandwagons regardless of how smart it is to do so, I’m going to give my two cents on the matter. To get it out of the way now, I’m treading unfamiliar ground here. Most of my writing about anime is in regard to how certain elements fit into the overall picture, and very few of them involve offhand rape threats in what’s supposed to be a comedy, so finding that I actually have something serious to say on the matter is pretty damn new.

I cheated and read some a few other posts before I actually watched the first episode. To say that the response is mixed to negative would be like saying that the sky is very often blue, or that the sun will rise in some part of the world in a few hours. “Rape culture” is a phrase thrown around quite a bit in response, and I’ll be damned if it isn’t (unfortunately) apt. However, a part of me isn’t convinced that it’s all unintentional; Haru is depicted in such an overdone way as both an inexcusable creep and a world-class genius that I have trouble believing that at least one person onboard didn’t think “Is this trying to poke holes in the kind of culture that promotes this kind of relationship as being totes adorbs?” Or, if their grammar hasn’t been shot, “How could there be a more unhealthy relationship than this?”

What we have here is the formula for every “Grr, I’m a no-nonsense female and he’s a diamond in the rough with a penchant for face-breaking and forcing himself on me, but I will eventually set him straight because my personality is often described as icy, like that one time when I was in elementary school and the rabbit died and I didn’t give a shit” story cranked to the logical extreme, where the diamond in the rough is a borderline psychopath, and the girl somehow feels compelled to spend every waking moment around him in spite of near-constant physical harm and verbal abuse coming her way. I hesitate to call it comical, but it’s difficult to think it’s not operating without at least a cursory sense of self-awareness at how clichéd and creepy the premise and Haru are.

Haru is so damn overdone as a character that I had trouble finding him believable as anything but a cold, calculated amalgamation of every single negative trait of male love interests in the mainstream media. In a sense, and it could actually happen later without me being surprised, he goes off and mangles the closest living thing one minute, and frolics with their unidentifiable corpse pulp the next. There’s no way I would want a guy like this roaming the streets where I lived, imprinting himself on the first person to give him any sort of positive attention and following them like a strangely loyal rabid dog that only occasionally mauls innocent bystanders. That may be the intention, for all I know, as an indictment on how many forms of media think this kind of person is desirable because they’re good at heart, and thus “fixable”.

But if that’s the case, would the inexcusability of Haru’s other actions even warrant the necessity of threatening rape in the context of storytelling? Before that, it had been established that Haru is troubled, both a lack of impulse control and social grace creating a volatile mixture, ready to erupt at any moment. And no, unless that line had some kind of ulterior motive for being there elaborated upon later, it was entirely unneeded and left any sympathy for Haru bleeding by the roadside. Again, it’s been established that Haru’s troubled, it doesn’t need him spewing reprehensible shit to confirm that. Yes, it does put his mindset and any further actions into context, but not any more than him repeatedly saying something akin to “It’s the school’s fault for suspending me, not mine! Also, you’re a spy for the school.”

I mentioned that an ulterior motive for that particular, blunt phrasing would be the only reason I could see for it even being mentioned instead of something that didn’t threaten such a heinous act. And while I stand by that statement, I can’t think of it in any way that tied into the rest of the episode. It could have had Shizuku try to call the police or explain to a teacher that her classmate threatened to rape her, but with her unable to get them involved. Hell, it could have just had her freak the fuck out over it rather than seemingly forget that it happened. Or it could have had Haru express regret for saying such a terrible thing, his vehement apology leading to an undercurrent of mistrust in their burgeoning relationship that keeps Shizuku at a distance, but still in contact for a short while. Both of those sure as hell wouldn’t work well with the lighthearted tone, or likely at all, but they would’ve been better than dismissing his threat altogether merely as a joke cementing his lack of social grace. If there was any self-awareness intended, it sure as hell doesn’t show.

It’s amazing how just one simple phrase can change the entire tone of a piece, often against what the director or writer intended. A weighty statement like “don’t say a word or I’ll rape you” isn’t something to be tossed aside like it was as merely the quirky statement of an unstable character without any follow-up, even if the point is to illustrate just how creepy the situation is. It’s a phrase that says a lot about both the character and how the writer handles it, and it sure wasn’t handled with grace here. It hangs over the rest of the show like a dark cloud, a counterpoint to the otherwise fine romantic comedy content. If it was to make a point, which is what I hoped for, there would have been follow-through of some sort from Shizuku, even just her internally monologuing as such. The end result is an uncomfortable watch, but not in any kind of intentional, meaningful way. Even if Haru’s supposed to be depicted as a contemptible individual, it goes way too far in that direction for anybody’s taste.

For better-written, more timely, significantly more exposed explanations as to this particular issue, check out Day’s already well-known rundown on how problematic it is as a work of fiction, E Minor’s similar thought to mines on whether this unease was the show’s intention, and 8C’s post debunking any debate that Haru didn’t actually threaten rape by offhandedly threatening rape. Enjoy.

I remember how I was back in July, my rosy-cheeked, shiny-eyed self untainted by the overwhelming sludge of mediocrity that was the summer season. It was a time when Hyouka was more contemptible and exploitative than Violence Jack, and Jinrui was sitting high on the pantheon of greatest things in all history ever; admittedly, beginning the season in a drunken haze probably didn’t help to ease this strange disconnect.

But then Yuru Yuri Two Eighth-Notes and Muv-Luv Alternative: Total Eclipse aired, and I gained some perspective on things. No longer was I a rosy-eyed, shiny-cheeked youth, but a grizzled blogger who had seen it all, man. It was at that point when all hope seemed lost that something weird happened: Hyouka somehow got better, and Jinrui slowly descended in quality from godlike to merely pretty good. What made this strange is these two results were caused by the same change in focus: from plot to character development.

And gorgeously animated shots of characters looking dumbfounded

I wrote before on how Hyouka bugged the ever-loving hell out of me by padding mundane excuses for mysteries with obtuse deduction and an unfailing adhesion to detective stereotypes; it almost came across as a horrible self-aware parody with the number of times that Satoshi would say something akin to “I’m the database, I can’t draw conclusions on my own” with a smug, self-satisfied grin on his face. Satoshi’s impish self awareness, to me, was the show’s way of saying that it didn’t have a single original idea in its head, and it somehow relished in that fact like someone would an actual achievement. Also, I often perceived the continuous presence of Chitanda as spite toward my very existence, but that’s another tale for another day.

Jinrui, on the other hand, couldn’t have left a better first impression if it offered jelly doughnuts and a new season of ARIA with each episode. Everything left such a strong, if not too subtle impression, and it found a way to deftly weave sentient skinned chickens into the plot without it coming across as awkward; hell, even the usage of Ave Maria was masterful, entirely appropriate silliness. There’s very little that Jinrui did wrong in the first four episodes or so, and it didn’t even share Hyouka’s tendency to drag itself out.

It was at about the time when Jinrui’s manga arc concluded, which was also when Hyouka’s wonderful school festival arc was well underway, that the two decided to go in a similar direction, but in different ways; Hyouka decided to flesh out the characters that we’d become comfortable with into more identifiable people with interesting quirks and weaknesses, and Jinrui went the shitty route of adding goofy one-note space probes, in a sense blowing its load way too early.

Over time, it shifted focus away from the outrageous events that resulted from the fairies’ involvement, instead opting to shed more light on Watashi and associates, in an effort to breathe more life into everybody’s favorite UN mediator. Naturally, this worked out pretty awfully. When it went on these tangents, which became more of a regular occurrence, the show suffered for it. It still had several great moments after the initial high wore off, but it never achieved the same transcendent level of brilliance that it had in its beginning stages.

Hyouka’s greater success in this regard isn’t because it’s more character-driven, or even because Houtaro and Chitanda are more grounded compared to Jinrui’s eclectic roster. Eventually, it learned to weave character development into the plot, rather than keeping the two separate, something that Jinrui couldn’t do all that well outside of the Time Paradog episode. In particular, Hyouka did a fantastic job developing Satoshi from an ever-grinning dispenser of information to a sympathetic character, insecure enough to be jealous of Houtarou’s superior deductive reasoning, yet distant enough to keep everyone else from getting too close. Even more impressive, it didn’t compromise anything that made him so likable in the first place. Though it can be attributed to being given more of a runtime, Hyouka did what Jinrui couldn’t: It made its characters memorable, and actually feel like they were subjected to some kind of growth. While I still think Jinrui was the better series overall, I’ll happily concede that Hyouka’s characters were leagues above Jinrui.

Eventually, the novelty of a pink-haired moeblob smarming and quipping will wear off, as fun a novelty as it is. Diamonds, and the ambiguously gay Satoshi, are forever.

I don’t know what’s been up with these last few episodes of Uta Koi. Maybe something’s circulating in the water that makes writing good mid-Heian period pieces a 100% certainty, but hot damn has it picked up in quality since the Sei Shonagon arc ended. It’s not that Sei Shonagon was a bad character by herself, it’s that her and everyone in the emperor’s court romances like they’ve been huffing paint for the better part of their tenure, making their endeavors more exercises in patience than heartbreaking tragedy. It’s been such a highpoint in my anime viewing these past few weeks that they make almost everything preceding it (relatively) look like total crap.

Episode 11 was so damn good that I don’t feel it’s ever too late to cover  it in addition to Episode 12, something that I’ll hopefully get to by the end of the weekend. So enjoy some more late gushing about how wonderful this was.

As far as I’m concerned, Episode 11 of Uta Koi is perfect. If somebody walked up to me and asked how a same-sex relationship should be handled in a piece set during the Heian Period, either because they know that I write about Japanese cartoons that occasionally touch on these subjects or because they’re complete lunatics, I can comfortably point toward Uta Koi and say “Just like that. Now stop asking such oddly specific questions.” My idea of a well written same-sex relationship isn’t necessarily the same as the next person’s, or the next-next person’s, but Uta Koi nails it by focusing almost exclusively on the fact that it’s two childhood friends that look to each other for security and comfort, without dwelling on the fact that it’s two women. Hell, it’s a valid interpretation that they’re just good friends, but what’s the point in kidding ourselves with a show that prides itself on being a shameless romance?

Here, have this wonderful expression to lighten the mood a bit.

It’s only mentioned once that Shikibu, our blonde protagonist with a predilection for goofy faces, and her childhood friend Fujiko can’t be together due to their inability to be formally married, and even that isn’t strained when taken in the context of the setting. This was still the Heian Period, where marriage was more a means of bonding two families than of consummating feelings of love, so it’s only natural that trysts between Shikibu and her longtime friend would be discouraged come marriageable age, particularly because of their shared gender. It creates a situation that makes their inevitable emotional distancing all the more painful, something that Shinkai tried in his most famous cloud-drenched emotion simulator “5 Centimeters per Second” to nowhere near the same effect.

Very little of Uta Koi approaches brilliance, but when it does, it reaches the pinnacle in no time at all. It’s a rarity, but this is what I’d define as a perfect romance episode from start to finish. Kudos and shit.

In past posts on Jinrui, I’ve flirted with the fact that the show’s strengths lie in its ability to create stunning, bizarre set pieces to revolve each episode around. Aside from Watashi, who’s apparently witness to nearly every strange happening in the post-civilization world, none of the characters are all that distinctive by themselves. Hell, even she doesn’t stand out much, despite her often taking an active role in the events of each episode. She’s a reactionary element, the audience surrogate and pink-haired, snarky life preserver to cling to as the events of each episode increasingly lose connection with reality, and she doesn’t fare well when out of her element.

What the story does best is create outlandish situations that don’t challenge the audience’s disbelief; we’re supposed to consider each episode a strange slice of a larger package, not blindly go along with the zany plot of the week without question. Up until this point, Jinrui hadn’t deviated too far from the formula, for (mostly) better and for worse. So when we finally get an entirely Watashi-centric episode where she plays a pivotal role, it lacks grace when compared to previous outings.

The biggest problem with trying to throw Watashi into a hostile school setting is that it kind of runs counterintuitive to everything that’s been shown so far. Compared to anthropomorphized space probes trying to avoid more space travel and Groundhog Day: Fairy Edition, Watashi trying to keep her head down while fending off other antagonistic students is kind of boring. She isn’t a compelling character without the fairies around to provide a reason for her to crack wry observations at every given opportunity. It’s not like Jinrui didn’t try to explore some themes while it looked back on Watashi’s formative years. Social isolation, bullying, and loneliness are all paid a fair amount of attention to, but the potential is squandered on Watashi instead of another character like K or Watashi’s creepy stalker, both of whom would have better fit the situation.

At its most basic level, Jinrui has a distinct, rigid formula that surprisingly allows for a large number of fluid, distinctive set pieces at the cost of overall character development. It’s hardly a bad thing, but deviating from the norm leaves it wanting for pizzazz that it otherwise lacks. After all, once you start making puns like Time Paradog, it’s kind of hard to go back to slightly disturbing school antics and janitorial robots running into walls.

There’s both a good and a bad side to being so sleep deprived that I actually fell asleep three times while writing this sentence. Counting all the positives, we have boundless creativity and a drive to write as many posts as physically possible before the end of the week. Keeping the much vaster swath of negatives in mind though, it doesn’t mean much that I have ideas when I can barely express them coherently. And that, children, is my excuse for getting this post up nearly five days after watching the episode. So yeah, sorry about that.

Civilizations rise, flourish, and either slowly fade or are forcibly wiped off the map due to either outside forces or the results of their own self-destructive machinations. It’s a story that defines recorded time, and it’s going to be told here in thirty minutes or less, or your money back. The question is occasionally asked about what would happen with direct intervention from somebody who could anticipate and even prevent mankind’s hubris from destroying everything that it’s striven towards? The answer is something akin to the episode of Futurama where Bender assumes the role of God to a group of diminutive space people, except with Watashi, fairies, and a miniaturized version of the birth and destruction of the society whose skeleton surrounds them.

While the world of Jinrui often takes center stage with Watashi taking a side role commenting and not necessarily intervening, this is one of the only episodes that entirely depend on her to drive the plot forward. It could be argued that the time loop arc is similar, but she’s a victim of circumstance and only progresses the plot through the wonder of serendipity. She still grows, but she’s preordained to repeat the same action time and time again regardless of how much she tries to change the result through another action. It’s interesting that she takes center-stage and outright forms a society that, in a way, is based around her worship by the fairies. She’s less on the sidelines and more a molder of lives, which is quite a change. And, strange as it is, it’s for the better in terms of plot to actually have Watashi play a more active role where her actions have consequences for those around her.

It’s not like Watashi takes advantage of the fairies’ unerring devotion, molding their habit of waiting on her hand and foot to fit whatever sick power fantasies she has. Regardless of just how manipulative she was, Watashi wants nothing more than to cheer the fairies up and eventually make her way back to the rest of human civilization. It’s definitely a defeatist concept, that no matter how well things are going and regardless of the intent, everything that mankind builds up will eventually crash down on them. Hoping for direct intervention from a higher power will only lead to unfulfilled wishes, and the fairies trying to do things on their own has the inevitable consequence of building things beyond control. No matter how ambitious they were, they moved long past the point of their capabilities matching their aspirations.

They sure do look cute though.

Fairies being analogous to humanity in this scenario is a bit of an odd concept, but it’s solidified in this episode through Watashi’s inability to prevent their society’s destruction by their own little hands. It proves the old adage of history repeating itself, and in turn the lack of foresight demonstrated by the whole of humanity. Even when there were warning signs that the fairies were headed down a treacherous path toward ruin, Watashi didn’t take notice until it was too late. The fairies acting very human is fascinating, but at the same time worrying. If creatures with their ingenuity and efficiency have such an ability to build a functioning society in a short amount of time, what destructive potential do they have? Are they really the bees of the world, building and thriving off the land in symbiosis, or like locusts that short-sightedly consume everything around them with no concern for the world’s growth? Only time and more hilarious mishaps will tell, preferably with more suicidal carrot bread and dog-related puns. Keep going in this direction, Jinrui, you’re awesome!

There’s a question that kept popping in my mind while I was watching this episode, regardless of how many times I attempted beat it down: Is a nondescript, demure personality completely devoid of recognizable traits something that’s in itself distinct? If you have ten people in a room, nine with vibrant personalities and one without, does the one stand out more than the nine for being the exception to the norm? Or do they fade into the scenery so much that recalling any detail regarding appearance or demeanor becomes a Herculean task?

When I kept asking myself this in lieu of paying close attention to the episode, I realized that it wasn’t a vain search for a way to describe the Assistant; I was trying to pin down my own tenuous thoughts on Watashi. I mean yes, the Assistant isn’t exactly brimming with what would ordinarily be described as distinctive charm, but his repertoire of Hawaiian shirts more than makes up for it.

For all the time that we’ve spent following author-surrogate Watashi on her adventures through the fantastical world of Jinrui, not much time has been spent actually trying to characterize her beyond being an unflappable dispenser of dry wit and wry observations, part and parcel for her narrative role. While the episode does just this, rattling off her observations as she’s sent back through time again and again, ala Bill Murray, to amusing effect, it also goes the extra step and attempts to flesh her out beyond just being a sardonic mediator between humans and fairies.

There’s a rather telling part toward the end where she’s asked by Watashi clones what traits she’d desire to see in the Assistant, somebody otherwise ironically described as “nondescript”. She lists several traits before coming to the conclusion that a strong sense of self is all he’d need to endear himself to her. It hardly rattles the audience’s perspective of her, but in saying that she wants Assistant to have a sense of self, it in turn gives her a greater presence in the world at large than she had at the beginning of the episode. Once again, it’s the small things that really bring this surprisingly cynical world to life.

But what was it all leading up to? What did exploring the components of identity, nature vs. nurture, and a sense of self achieve? I’d like to think that it was all meant to be disregarded in favor of one of the greatest puns to ever be awkwardly shoehorned into an anime.

Also, she was groped by a younger version of her grandfather before having her sundial stolen, then given back to her later by re-age-ified Grandpa. That’s fucked.

Stop smiling, you little fuckers

I didn’t think that Jinrui could shock me with any antagonist that it could conjure up at this point. We’ve had headless chickens, corrupt corporate pawns that care for little more than climbing the corporate ladder, and anthropomorphized space probes, so the level of quirkiness would have to be off the charts to even register with me at this point. That’s why, even considering the simple yet effective fever dream-like quality of the plot and the way that it hinted at their involvement along the way, I didn’t expect that the fairies would finally take an active role as antagonists.

Of all the zany shenanigans that comprise most of Jinrui, very few have been a direct, conscious result of the fairies. In spite of the pivotal role that they play, they’ve been portrayed more as brilliant, if careless creatures rather than manipulative or self-serving; most of their goods are made to help a far-gone, dependent human society on its last gasp, rather than directly suit their own needs. This is the first episode that’s established the mischievous nature hiding behind their perpetual faces of surprised joy, and the effect is only eerier when examined with more scrutiny.

The argument could be made that Jinrui has always hid its darker nature behind the cheerful veneer of washed-out pastels in an environment reminiscent of a fairytale, so seeing the ubiquitous fairies assuming a similar role was only a natural, logical progression (though admittedly I have trouble following the string of logic that connects “suicidal robot bread” to “obsessive boys’ love enthusiast”). Well I say nuts to that, because this was the creepiest episode that I’ve seen yet, through proving that the Uncanny Valley can be an effective means of setting the mood without actively giving away any details or making the viewer feel uneasy. In particular, the color saturation grows to almost agonizing levels as the time paradox continues, which furthers the impression of drifting deeper into a dream-like, surreal, but ultimately harmless state.

Not to beat this dead horse for the millionth time, but it’s somewhat reminiscent of the Cat Town arc of ARIA, where Akari is drawn into the world of Cait Sith time and time again in ways that only get more dream-like and surreal as the series goes on. The world of Alternate-Neo Venezia is certainly alien, but it’s hardly threatening, which is how I’d describe what Jinrui was going for in terms of atmosphere.

Naturally, since this is a show that’s proven to have deeper meaning and a loose grasp on the implementation of subtlety, there’s bound to be some subtext hiding underneath these Groundhog Day shenanigans and eye-blinding color saturation.

Ow.

My argument, admittedly a stab in the dark, is that it’s an indictment against the attempts of organizations, like student loan offices or certain government-run institutions, to provide benefits that seem advantageous at a glance, but only serve to trip up those that it purports to help in order to fit its own needs. There are two reasons why I make this bold claim:

1. The banana does this to Watashi each time that she unwittingly accepts it and regardless of what she does with it. When she starts the trip each time, she remembers just a little more of her past adventure, but not enough to take another course of action simply because there is no other way of finding the assistant in the short term. Her endless trip to the forest bakery is only put to a halt once the fairies have what they want from her, the servitude grinding to a halt once they have their sweets.

2. I wanted an excuse to have a post lead up to a tenuously relevant Tenacious D song.

That’s as good a reason as any, right?