Episode 9s

Pictures are gone for now until I figure out why Japan won't let me upload them :\

NakaImo 9

In this installment of NakaImo we get the Shiratani arc- the blonde haired ojou-sama who's surprisingly not much of a tsundere despite most of her archetypes pointing to that. In order to determine whether or not she is his sister or not Kurusu, ace detective, sets it up so that they go to an amusement park in order for Shougo to get Shiratani alone and "probe" her for information. He ultimately fails at this but gets a hint at the end of the episode where she recognizes a raccoon cell phone strap in the gift shop. He goes home and wonders about why she knew about it and where she might have seen it before and then remembers that Sugiura sempai's voice changer phone that had gone missing had that same strap. He then confronts her about it and then she admits to pretending to be his little sister in order to prevent him from being pressured by another family into becoming their bitch with the leverage of knowledge of him having an illegitimate sister. She also says that she has an engagement with the son of the family that's trying to pressure him thus she had no choice but to help their ambitions. Shougo has none of this though and says that they should date in order to null the engagement.

NakaImo is a bad anime for several reasons and this episode exemplifies some of them. First, Shougo's logic. He just assumes that Shiratani could have only seen that strap on Sugiura sempai's phone and no where else. It's a strap sold at an amusement park, it's not like no one else will have it. People in the episode expressed interest in it, so it's not even that it's unpopular. Second, everybody else's logic. How Shougo was actually able to pressure Shiratani into confessing beats the crap out of me. His argument had weak points left and right making it pretty easy for one of the smarter students in the school to pick it apart, but she just accepts it. Maybe she wanted to tell him? But then she wouldn't really need this pretense. Overall, this anime like most of the others this season is just an ecchi outlet anime with no plot or substance. Still betting on the imouto being Kurusu though.

Sword Art Online 9

This episode we're hit with a few more deaths and some new skills. Last episode was left on a cliffhanger with Kirito and Asuna opening the boss door and seeing just how intimidating he looks. They successfully escape the boss room without getting hurt and conclude that to successfully take him down they'd need a lot of people to help. They then proceed to have Asuna's home made lunch in the dungeon  while they formulate a plan. They are soon enough interrupted by Klein's guild's appearance. Not too soon after we are introduced to another guild, and apparently an old one, that are soldiers of some sort. They request the map of the dungeon that Kirito and Asuna just finished constructing for free. Kirito hands it over but warns them not to go to the boss room, but of course even after the 2 years or so that they've spent in that world, fools are still reckless and don't learn. So they go and challenge the boss and of course get curb stomped. Asuna not being able to watch them get slaughtered attacks the boss in a moment of heat. Kirito knowing that she'll only receive the same treatment rushes in along with Klein in order to make a path for the survivors to retreat through. The boss though does not relent and Kirito then pulls out a second sword revealing that he has a 2 sword skill. He solos the boss, almost dying in the process, and then faints after winning since he has like no health left.

After he wakes up he explains that his 2 sword skill is an extra skill that he just randomly received recently and that they should keep it low key otherwise people would be bugging him left and right about how he was able to get it. Of course though the secret gets out and people do begin to bug him like hell about it. Asuna also decides to permanently party with Kirito to make sure that he doesn't die or almost die like what he just did with this boss. This does not fly well with her guild since she is a valuable vice captain. Kirito is then summoned to their guild and asked to duel with the head with Asuna on the line- oh and of course if Kirito loses he has to join their guild.

This episode of Sword Art Online, while entertaining, really shows that its going too fast paced. Viewers know next to nothing about the world and only really understand that people actually die when they are killed in this world. Other than that you rarely ever feel as if they're in some kind of virtual world and you never really get an understanding of just how big the world is thus everything feels very cramped and narrow. On the topic of pacing though, we don't really know anything about Kirito save that he is a badass, but that isn't something that really would make us try to identify with him. Sure, he's the good guy, 1337 hax0r, and popular with the girls, but just who is Kirito, why should we actually like him. These questions have yet to be answered and I have yet to actually see Kirito as a main character besides his mandatory main character status. I'm sure if SAO was longer, they'd be able to handle this better.

Tari Tari 9

On this week's episode the choir club continues their escapades as the shopping district's heroes for dat money. Just as they're getting used to their job though, ms. stick up her @ss tells them that they can't work, but surprise she already approved it. This segways into a flashback of her relationship with Wakana's mom and why she's so hard on the choir club. It should be a touching development but it's kind of hard to feel that way with the limited background and character development for the vice principal. I understand I should feel sympathetic but I don't really. Tari Tari is usually pretty good about fleshing out each character so that you know where they're coming from, but this time feels rushed. Is it because they're running out of episodes or because the vice principal is just not a main character?

Other than that, Wien catches a thief, sings the song of his people and gets the others to do it along with him. I laughed at this part just because it was so awkward and just imagining this somehow happening in real life is hilarious. Overall this week's Tari Tari is a weak episode with just enough meat to lead to the next episode but not enough to really impress viewers.

Oda Nobuna no Yabou 9

Inferiority complexes and deus ex machinas. That basically sums up this episode. Yoshiharu starts to realize that he changed history and can no longer predict what's gonna happen. He realizes that he's not going to be able to help Nobuna anymore and will most likely lose all usefulness. The episode started like this, so it was natural to think that the episode would be about it, but nope, it's about more conquering and allegiance changes which is actually a good thing. Nobuna is making progress and this way we see her as a true ruler not as someone led by her retainers. The anime itself though is still not very great. Let's first address the deus ex machina in the room.

Remember when Yoshiharu's phone dies in the beginning of the series? Yeah, smart phones usually do not have enough power to reboot to play a song after that. Also, how he managed to even use it when he was tied up and it was just barely reachable is beyond me. Then there's the whole Nobuna squad to the rescue. This can be written off as just poor story telling and sense of time, but after Nobuna is saved from the sniper by Yoshiharu's "clever" ploy, they suddenly appear back at the Kyo palace to stop it from being destroyed along with Mitsuhide. From the way the episode went, it seemed like these two events were running together simultaneously but apparently that was not the case.

I mentioned that inferiority complexes also sum up this episode. Well that mainly is a nod at Mitsuhide and how she feels inferior to Yoshiharu since she basically cheated to win at a contest and still didn't earn Nobuna's favor. The point of the episode was for her to realize her own mistakes and reflect, but she only really was saved by Nobuna without much reflection.

Koi to Senkyo to Chocolate 9

Still trapped in Satsuki's room Oojima plays Shogi and loses a lot. When the coast is clear, they head outside and have a little talk concerning Satsuki's big sister. She wants Oojima to find out the reason why she suddenly left home. Basically in the end, Satsuki challenges her sister to a game of Shogi with the reason why she left as well as Oojima on the line. The game doesn't even finish but her sister still tells her the reason referring to it as a story she heard rather than directly saying the reason. Heartfelt apologies and crying starts after that.

This episode of Koi Choco was nice but kinda felt dragged out. I can't really say too much more about it because that's basically it. I hope they get back to the "Senkyo" part of the show. I still have yet to really see any part of the "Chocolate" part- there's a lot of love though.

Jinrui wa Suitai Shimashita 9

This episode of Jinrui goes back to when "watashi" meets the fairies for the first time. She is surprised by how easily she was able to lure them out- just by putting sweets in the middle of a junkyard and waiting. She captures 3 fairies in order to talk to them and then gives them names and sweets. Soon after, the fairies build their own civilization in the junkyard. By the time they're done, it doesn't even look like some kind of futuristic civilization which just really shows how amazing these fairies are.

This episode also says some interesting things like how the fairies are Humans 2.0 and how the humans now are just on auto-pilot and have basically given up. The fairies represent all of the reasons why humanity has declined, mostly by otaku reasons apparently. Overall the episode is a nice one in giving some background into what the fairies really are and what they represent as well as a deeper look into the humanity of the anime's societal views etc.