As I mentioned earlier, I was working on another First Episode Writeup when I wound up putting it on hold to work on a different one, one that forced its way into my attention.  I received two different e-mails from Robert featuring a show that I knew absolutely nothing about.  Then I bumped into it again somewhere else, and I just gave up and watched it.  And it was perfect writeup fodder!  I benched the half-done writeup and immediately started on this... and now, with no further ado, let's get right the heck to it!

Ladies and Gentlemen, meet Skippy.

Skippy is a boy after my own heart, and I suspect most of my readers will identify closely with him as well.  Y'see, he's a bibliophile.  Indeed, that weird pose above is due to Our Hero being in the middle of a truly stupid happydance.  Now don't get me wrong, I love books and bookstores as much as anybody and more than most, but I've never done a happydance upon arrival at one.  That should tell you what sort of individual we're dealing with here.  Yup, he's a Skippy!

A bagful of hardcovers, a points card, and a cute bookstore employee?  It's exactly how Wonderduck first met The Librarian!  Except for the points card, I didn't have one of those yet.  Or the bagful of hardcovers.  I think I bought a paperback and a magazine.  Cute bookstore employee though?  That part meshes.  Except that The Librarian looks nothing like the employee in the picture.  Okay, can we just say I once met The Librarian in a bookstore?  Cool.  By the way, can you guess what Skippy is reacting to here?  Hint: it's not the cute bookstore employee.

Oh.  Hm.  I'm starting to identify less and less with Skippy.  Hopefully most if not all of my readers are feeling the same.  Our Hero's family moved to the hinterlands of Japan due to father's job, but Skippy refused to leave... out there, new release books are often delayed, and that just will not stand.  So they left him behind in the city, as long as his grades stay high.  Yeah, well, duh on that part.  Look at him!  You think he can't get whatever grades he wants?  He's Skippy.  He can do what he wants!  Except for one thing.

He cannot read the final book of the "Seven Sins" series by Akimaya Shinobu.  Because it hasn't been released yet, and while all of Japan is looking forward to it, Skippy really really wants to read it now.  In something of an unhealthy way, if you know what I mean.  Alas, he can move heaven and earth and it won't hasten the arrival of the book one iota.

So while he waits, Skippy reads everything else in sight every waking minute of the day.  This Akimaya person has never been seen in public and writes everything from rom com to sci fi to any other abbreviation you can think of.  Basically he (if he is a he)'s Isaac Asimov, just without the non-fiction.  Like probably everybody that visits The Pond, Our Hero finds a visceral pleasure in reading in restaurants.  Actually, he finds a visceral pleasure in reading anywhere, but roll with it, huh?  So he's reading in a charming little cafe, though he's dismayed when he realizes he's lost his wallet.  At that moment...

...gun crime is so rare in Japan that in 2006 there were only two gun murders nationwide.  Most guns are illegal.  Air rifles are okay.  Strangely enough, so are shotguns, though you need to take a test, register it with the police, store ammo separately in a locked container, retest every few years, and let the police inspect it regularly.  I have a hunch that hoodyguy up there hasn't bothered with any of that.  Oh, and for the record?  I suspect it's a Mossberg, but I can't find an exact match with any of the major companies.  Maybe one of The Pond's guy folk can figure it out... here's the unresized picture if you want to have a go.

Hoodyguy is annoyed that not everybody is terrified of him... indeed, the lass in the corner doesn't even seem to realize he exists as she writes away.  I get the same way when I do these writeups, except I would react if someone holding a shotgun was screaming at me to stand up and pointing it at me.  To be blunt, it'd just be a good thing that I regularly wear black pants and I leave it at that.

Our Hero, however, is just young and stupid enough to be having none of that noise.  The struggle doesn't last very long, and hoodyguy kicks Skippy to the floor.  He pants and wheezes for a second or two, then starts to get up again.  Our boy Skippy, he's got some fight in him.  Not a lot of brains, but fight.

Are we about to find out just how much brains he's got?  Nah, this is anime.  When was the last time you saw someone shot in the face in anime without being a zombie, android/cyborg, or mook in Gunslinger Girl?  Certainly never Our Hero!

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I've been working on the next First Episode Writeup for the past week after having found a good BD rip of it.  It's been a slog, however, as the episode has a bad ratio of unexplained-action-to-explaining-dialogue.  That makes a coherent writeup difficult to create since I often wind up worldbuilding at the same time.  However, I've made it about a third of the way through, and the second half is flashbacks.  Yay, I guess. 

Have you ever had something force its way into your awareness in such a way that you couldn't ignore it?  Let me give you an example.  Back in 1991, I was driving up to Minnesota to get an apartment and tour the town I'd be going to grad school in.  As I crossed the Mississippi River at La Crosse, a saxophone-led song with a funky backbeat came across the car radio.  Catchy, I thought, but the DJ didn't say the name of either the song or the artist.  Later that night, as I was out driving around the town, seeing the sights (such as they were), same song came on.  Again, no name, no artist.  I woke up the next morning, turned on Good Morning America or one of those shows, and wouldn't you know it?  The live musical guest for the day was a blonde saxophonist named Candy Dulfer, with Dave Stewart from the Eurythmics on guitar, playing a tune called "Lily Was Here."

I bought the cassette before I left Minnesota.  I felt like I couldn't not do so.  What's the point of this story I hear you asking?  Well, it's happened again.  There's an anime series that forced me to watch it, just by showing up everywhere I looked for a couple of days.  Didn't know anything about it, but it kept forcing itself upon me... I felt violated, yes, but it'd be a while since that had happened.   As I rolled through the first episode, I realized it'd be perfect for a writeup.  It was just begging for one.  As a result, I've put the original writeup that I'm a third of the way finished with on hold and will now be doing this mystery show instead.  With luck, it'll be up tonight or Sunday!

Look forward to it.  Or not.  Whichever.

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Well!  The writeup for Black Lagoon's first episode certainly seemed to go well.  I'm encouraged... maybe this can be a thing.  Or maybe it was because Black Lagoon is such a good show and people are just reacting to that quality, as opposed to my digital scribblings. Well, there's only one way to find out, isn't there?  Actually, no, there's many more ways than one to find out... I could just ask my readers, the so-called Pond Scum, their opinion!  Or I could do another writeup and judge the response from that!.  See?  Two ways right there!.  In this case, I decided to go with Option #2, because asking after just one writeup seems... um... needy?  "Please, love me, love me," said the blogger, desperately clinging onto your pants leg.  "Tell me I'm a good blogger!"  Yeah, exactly like that.  Man, that flowed so naturally from my fingertips... nah, I haven't thought of that before, never ever!  So I went through my anime collection looking for the next series to write up.  There's some good candidates in there for sure, but one almost literally jumped off the shelf at me (it actually just fell off, but that was enough to convince me).  Let's just get right to it, shall we?  This should be surprising, I think.

A train races across a cold, snowy land.  Except there's no way in the world it should be able to do this because the pantographs on the motor units aren't actually contacting the catenary wires.  That means no electrical power, and that means our train goes nowhere.  The end.  Well.  That's anticlimactic.  Okay, let's pretend this could actually work and the train races across a cold, snowy land.  Shortly thereafter...

...a young man named Skippy sits on a bench in a cold, snowy land.  He hardly seems dressed well enough for the weather, what with no hat or scarf.  His internal monologue suggests he's been there a while.  The snow on his shoulders suggests the same.  The snow piled on his head suggests that the body heat radiating out of his uncovered pate has cooled substantially.  So apparently this young man is actually dying of exposure and his internal monologue are the final firings of tortured neurons  Terminal burrowing will soon occur, perhaps under the bench itself, bringing this show to a grim and sad end and turning this writeup into the shortest ever. 

As Skippy drifts off into the next world, his brain spasms one last time and imagines a young lady, showing care and concern.  She is someone that he knows, someone named Nayuki that he's not seen in seven years.  Surely she's only a hallucination, dressed as poorly for the weather as she is.  They smile at each other as she guides him towards the afterlife.

They walk off into a cold, snowy land.  Neither notices, as neither can feel the elements any longer.  She because she doesn't exist, and Skippy because he's actually huddled pathetically under a bench, the bonechilling cold freezing his body into a sad parody of life.

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While we're waiting for the Kantai Collection anime to finally come down the pike, I'm going to try something different for a while.  Since there's only a month or so until the Winter season begins, I probably don't have enough time to do a writeup for an entire series worth of episodes... but I can do single episodes with no problem!  Take the first episode of a show, inflict upon it my own special kind of love and kindness, leave it broken and bleeding in the dirt, and move on, laughing at my own callousness.  Unless, of course, there's an outpouring of feeling demanding I do the rest of the series, in which case I'll consider it.  Then leave it, too, broken and bleeding in the dirt whilst I do the evil laugh and twirl my mustache like Snidley Whiplash (kids, ask your parents).  I dunno how it'll work, but I think it has the potential of being kinda fun!  Heck, why not, let's give it the ol' college try.

Say hello to Skippy.  That's probably not his name, but as we've yet to be told what it is, Skippy will do for now.  Skippy is pretty much your average to slightly-below-average salaryman cliche.  He works long hours for a huge multinational corporation in an unrewarding job, has no time for a life outside of work, and tends to wear a lot of gray.

His direct superior treats him like whale snot on the bottom of your shoe, and why not?  That's how his boss treated him when he was just starting out in the company, and if it was good enough for him, it's good enough for Skippy, only doubly-so.  After all, now HE'S the boss and he's got to make sure the underlings know it.  Skippy meekly bends over and takes it, because that's how it's done in Stereotypical Salaryman's Life, and hopes to someday move up in the world, into a position where he might be able to make someone else as miserable as he is today.

His appears to be a crapsack world indeed.  Nowhere in it is there room for things like zombies, bento fights, technomagical girls with kickarse scarves or happy gambling paradises.  All is gray, and that's the way it's always been, and that's the way it'll always be. 

So how the hell did it come to this?

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What the hell, why not?  Back in January when my life was ridiculously busy, I decided that I was going to deep-six the writeups I was working on for the new Evangelion movies.  I wasn't really having much fun with them, and dear god its not like I had any spare time, y'know?  Now though?  Nothing but time, and while we wait for the Kantai Collection anime to debut, I need to do something anime-related, right?  Right!  Sure!  Let's go with that!  And since I left this sitting on the table, why NOT pick it back up.  I mean, besides the fact that it's been sitting out since January, kinda turned green around the edges and may have been trying to acquire sentience in an attempt to escape, that is.  It does look like it grew a flipper.  Well, let's poke it and see what squirts out, shall we?  C'mon, it'll be fun!

See?  Fun!  Who wouldn't want to go to a... whatever this sign is talking about here!  I'm sure it'll be great!  It'll be... um... like a waterpark!  That's what "marine" means, right?  Either that or there'll be an amphibious invasion, one of the two.  That'd be even better, because here's the defenders:

So, we've got Teh Rei, Pen², Shinji's friends Evageek and Facepuncher, and of course Asuka.  Everybody seems to be all excited about the trip to Funderwater World and all, except for Asuka.  And Teh Rei, who doesn't do "excited."  Or any other emotion usually.  It's her schtick, she'll grow out of it.  She's at that age, y'know?  At least, she thinks she is.  Nobody's quite sure.  We'll get to that, I think.  Eventually.  There's so many versions of Evangelion floating around out there, it's hard to remember what's going on.

Greatest waterpark ever!  Yeah, it looks like a repurposed sewage treatment plant, but that's because... um... it is?  See, where you're looking at is an attempt to reclaim the red-stained oceans, caused by the Second Impact, and also act like an aquatic ark if you will.  Because we need to keep tuna alive.  By running them through a sewage treatment plant.  Speaking of which, it's not like the outside world is allowed in willy-nilly.  Oh no.


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1 Hmm, I should go watch some of my Dirty Pair DVDs, now that you reminded me...

Posted by: GreyDuck at November 20, 2014 08:31 AM (AQ0bN)

2 I wonder how much thought Anno or anyone else put into that Tree of Life.  Of course, whatever meaning the viewer derives is based on which interpretation of the Tree you reference.

Also:  Gainax just completely removed subtlety from the Asuka character, didn't they?  She might as well be screaming all of her issues to random passers-by.  Why did Gainax do that?

Posted by: Ben at November 20, 2014 02:48 PM (DRaH+)

3 Ben, probably because they improved both Teh Rei and Shinji's characters.  Can't have THREE good characters now, can we?

Posted by: Wonderduck at November 20, 2014 06:34 PM (jGQR+)

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-Amagi Brilliant Park, ep07

Just a little sumtin-sumtin to tide you over while I work on a surprise.  You like surprises.  Surprises are good.

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And so we have come, not to the end of the beginning as Winston Churchill might say, but just simply to the end.  This final episode of Ben-To! in and of itself is nothing important, just another final episode in a long line of final episodes for a long line of series.  But just as no two snowflakes are alike, so to are no two final episodes the same.  Each has its charms and failings, characters you'll be sorry to see go and ones you wish had disappeared half a series earlier, and the same holds true for our feisty discount meal punch-em-up.  For example, I could have done without Desaturation Lass and her taste for slashfic hardcore yaoi starring Our Hero, even if she does come part and parcel with Shiraume Ume, the obsessive Western Student Council Prez with the zettai ryouiki and the slap that can shatter a planet.  On the other hand, if they felt like spinning off a show starring Shaga, aka "Beauty of the Lake", I'd be perfectly okay with that.  Alas, it is not to be, at least anytime soon. Ben-To! did not sell well in Japan, and with Funimation coughing up a hairball on their release of the show domestically, it seems unlikely that we'll ever see a Season 2.  So gather around, my friends!  Let us remember not the bad times of Ben-To!, but the good.  Let us go forward into Ep12 together in comradely comradeship.  Let us show the production company that we are unbowed, that we are still strong, and that tonight, we are all one united.  I see an entire army of my readers, here in ridicule of bad production staffs, here for the one chance to... y'know what?  Instead of getting all dramatic and stuff, let's just finish this show up, shall we?

"THEY MAY TAKE OUR LIVES, BUT THEY WILL NEVER TAKE... OUR POCARI SWEAT!!!"  It is 6pm the evening of the Summer Solstice, when Supermarket Audrey has their famed eel bento.  It goes on sale at 10pm, and the Ice Witch is trying everything she can to be ready.  Bananas, nyquil and gatorade... sounds like an interesting Saturday night.  As she drifts off to sleep, Our Hero turns off the alarm and leaves a note saying that he'll bring her back eel.  How romantic can you get, huh?  In another part of the city...

...Left is on the verge of a monumental breakdown, just because maybe the Club of Hercules might show up since it's been three years to the day.  Kyou, the closest thing we have to a sane person in this show, does everything she can to calm her down, short of a cattleprod.  I don't know just how much that'd calm her sister down, but it'd be worth watching.  Is there any way we can make that happen?  Somewhere else in town...

...PCB explains what he learned about Orthrus and Club of Hercules last episode.  Needless to say, it's not something the show cares to share with us because why would it do something like that, but Shaga seems somewhat disturbed by it.  Finally, in yet another part of this village...

...Club of Hercules makes contact with Our Hero in a way that Desaturation Lass would find as inspiring, throwing him up against a train trestle support and whispering in is ear what the plan is, and how it guarantees the Ice Witch some eel.  Needless to say, it's not something the show cares to share with us because why would it do something like that, but Our Hero seems somewhat disturbed by it.  There are moments where I want to commit unspeakable acts of violence and cruelty upon this series, and right here is one of those moments. 

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Here we are again!  Much to everybody's surprise, we find ourselves approaching the end of the greatest anime series based on punching people for half-priced pre-packaged meals.  Last episode saw the arrival of Orthrus, aka Kyou and Left, and the associated beating of the Ice Witch via shopping basket.  I'm sorry, but that's not the way I expected the premiere Wolf of the West to go: beaten by shopping basket.  Next up, Our Hero is flagellated by plastic shopping bag tie-shuts.  Actually, that sounds like something Desaturation Lass would enjoy... well, let's see what the Production Staff thinks, shall we?

We pick up directly from where Ep10 ends, with Orthrus standing over the broken and bleeding bodies of all that stood in their way for half-priced boxed dinners.  As the Ice Witch hemorrhages and suffers brain swelling, they taunt the Wolves that are still on their feet, practically begging them to attack.  Nobody does.  Not even Our Hero.

The only Wolf with any energy left is PCB, who follows them outside into the rain, asking who they are and where they came from... and, more importantly, why they're doing this!

Left, in her adorably stupid way, chooses to misunderstand and instead gives PCB their contact information and their itinerary of grocery stores for the next while.  I don't know what to say about that... do you plan in advance where you're going shopping?  Even if it's for food every day?  "Hm, tonight I'll go to the Eagle on North Main... and tomorrow, the Brown Store I think.  After that, let's say the Hilander on Rural, their produce section is decent."  But then, we're not bento battlers, are we?  No, we're much more sane than that.  Though half-priced food sounds useful...


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So we have come at last to the dreaded Ep10 of Ben-To!.  "Dreaded" because it reintroduces the show to the concept of "plot", and as we've learned in the past, Ben-To! is at its worst when it tries to be even vaguely serious.  Ep09, for all of its squicky moments, is an excellent example of what the series does right... namely, fanservice and goofy.  But I'm getting ahead of myself, I think.  No, I should let you experience the sad flailing attempts at legitimate scripting as it comes.  So let us do just that!  I welcome you to the episodic writeup for Ben-To! Ep10! 

It's a beautiful day in East Bento City: blue skies, school-sponsored video games, and a cheese-and-watercress sandwich.  Really, what more could one ask for in life?  Don't ask Shaga, she's too busy reading a manga as a East High club-approved activity.  Really.  When I was in high school, I was in radio club.  I mean, that was cool, don't get me wrong, but as cool as the gig Shaga's got running?  Not even in the same area code.  But this being Ben-To!, it's not like we're going to get an idyllic episode watching Shaga eat a samitch and Ms Fortune wearing a silly animal hat.  No, the production staff is too cruel for that.  What they give us instead is...

...the East student council President and Veep.  They've come to the NES Club to point out that a) they haven't submitted their monthly activity report, and 2) to ask Shaga just what the hell she thought she was doing visiting West High and wearing its uniform to boot.  Ooooh, continuity from Ep09, who would have thought?  Shaga waves it off, saying that she was meeting her cousin "...and the Witch."

Left (on the right) gets all excited about this, fangirling all over the possibility of tracking down the elusive Ice Witch but Kyou, the more logicial of the two, runs roughshod over her sister, in effect telling her to shut her yap.  Wouldn't want to give the Beauty of the Lake a reason to be suspicious or nothin'.  Finally, after chastising her one last time, Left and Kyou take their leave.  Shaga quickly fills out the activity sheet, Ms Fortune falls out the window and causes a major traffic accident, and then...

...Pointy Chinned Bishy makes a reappearance.  This can't be good.

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Arpeggio of Blue Steel: Ars Nova is a series that ran at the end of 2013.  Produced by Studio Sanzigen, it was that company's first full series after having done 3-D work on a couple of others previously.  I watched the first couple of episodes when it was airing, but let it go at the time as it never grabbed me.  On the surface, this is ridiculous... the show may as well have been designed for me.  I mean, here's the plot:

In the near future, fleets of sentient warships that model themselves after WWII-era ships appear out of nowhere.  Armed with technologically advanced weaponry and defenses, they sweep the seas of terrestrial vessels.  The Fleet of Fog (FoF), as it's known, goes on and blockades all nations and shuts down communications between them.  Humanity has one trump card: the I-401, a FoF submarine that is commanded by Chihaya Gunzo, a JMSDF student who wants to change the world.


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I should be asleep.  I should be cleaning Pond Central, which looks like a tornado went through it... a solid year of 12+ hour days will do that.  I should be doing laundry.  There are a hundred things I should be doing right now, but instead I'm doing the writeup for Ben-To! Ep09.  The long awaited sequel to the writeup for Ben-To! Ep08, it is hoped that many questions will be answered.  For example, what is Left's real name?  Why is it called "Ralph Store"?  Just why did the twin sisters think that the Ice Witch was in the hospital?  And why can't the production staff just give us a good episode?

I already know the answer to that last one, by the way.

Morning, and Ms Fortune is looking... well, cute.  Too bad she's a walking disaster area, causing death and destruction where ever she goes.  Without knowing it, even.  If the people of the East high school ever figured out what was going on, they'd have to find a way to end her.  But how do you dispose of someone who causes horrible things to occur around her?  You're just as likely to end up being turned into a turnip than succeed in your mission.  Besides, she's cute.

Being cute (and oblivious), she's got a cute idea... she's going to make a bento for Our Hero!  Shaga wonders what the protocol is for burying a cousin, because dear god, he's gonna die.  That's the only result possible.  If he's lucky, the end will come quickly... though with his uncommonly quick healing factor, he's likely to live through the entire thing.  Ms Fortune skips away to prepare the Death Lunch, and...

...passes the Student Council President from the West high school.  Well.  That's odd... one might even suggest it's totally unprecedented in the world Ben-To! inhabits..   Shaga spies on her as she walks by, as the horrible sounds of a car accident pierce the air.  Later that day...

...Shiraume Ume, the previously mentioned Prez, decks Our Hero and walks away, without even asking permission the way she normally does.  Ooh, someone's pissed.  He gets up and makes it to the Half-Price Association's clubroom...

...oh hell.  The bento is there, waiting, and there's no way he can dodge it.  Still, it looks really good...

Oh the humanity. 

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Posted by: Wonderduck at 11:27 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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These are the times that try ducks' souls.  After the painful experience that was Ep07, it is with trepidation that I sit down and attempt to boil Ben-To! Ep08 down to a coherent and entertaining experience.  Still, it's unlikely that the show will stoop as low as a dolphin-fin "rudder" again, so I've got that going for me.  Which is nice.  I just spent twenty minutes watching youtube videos of alpacas.  That should give you some insight into the way my blogging process works.  So should this.  I've just spent an hour choosing just the right videos for those two links.  Are you not entertained???

Our story for this episode, such as it is, begins on the East Side of Chicago town.  Shaga and Ms Fortune are running in the halls, the way teenagers do, those rapscallions, when from out of nowhere, BAM!  A scolding!  GASP!  It's the twins from last episode's Important Encounter!  It appears that they are part of the Student Council as Shaga immediately apologizes and swears it'll never happen again.

Of course, the second the coast is clear, Ms Fortune heads for the stairs at full speed and... did you know you can fall down four flights of stairs?  Really quite impressive if you ask me.

The Student Council Office.  Dear god, it's better appointed than the Presidental Meeting Room at Duck U, and that's got a hand-carved oak table that's over a hundred years old and a fireplace.  Wait, that's awkward.  The table does not have a fireplace.  Neither does this one, though I suspect offscreen Leni Riefenstahl is just drooling over the place in general.

Of course, our two as-yet nameless twins are President and Veep (left and right, respectively).  Until further information becomes available, I'll have to come with something to call them.  Maybe a physical characteristic that's different between the two?  Hmm... AHA!  I've got it!  I'll call them Left and Right!  Left's the one on the left, Right is the one on the right.  Pure unadulterated genius! 

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It should come as no surprise that things have been somewhat dour around Pond Central of late.  Relaxing, certainly, but morale here is low.  Over the past few weeks, though, I've noted the occasional good vibes being aimed at a currently-running anime named Tokyo ESP.  As is my wont when I'm investigating a new series, I tried to avoid as much spoilerish information as possible.  For the most part, I've succeeded... what I did discover was that it was based on a manga by Hajime Segawa. 

That forced me to pay attention to what I had been hearing.  See, Segawa was the mangaka behind Ga-Rei, the source material for one of my favorite anime, Ga-Rei Zero.  Around these here parts, GRZ is best known as the first series to get an episodic writeup and pretty much the only truly good series to get that treatment. It didn't take me very long at all to decide that I had to watch at least a little bit of Tokyo ESP.  After some digging around to choose a good translation, I downloaded the first couple of episodes.

So why, exactly, is Wonderduck smiling?

^{Note: if you're a fan of GRZ, do NOT read any farther, and DO watch Ep01 of TESP.  Trust me on this.}

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Ha-ha!  I bet you didn't expect to see another one of these for a couple of weeks at the earliest, and maybe not for months and months.  Well, you were wrong, weren't you?  It's okay, it's totally understandable; it's not like I've had a great track record when it's come to the episodic writeups for Ben-To!.  I admit that.  Not only do I admit it, I embrace it.  I cherish it.  I make it my own.  And then I crumple it up into a small little ball and throw it away, because this here, this now, this is the way things'll be done around here when it comes to our little show about food fights!  If you smell what the Rock is cookin' Because Stone Cold said so Whatcha gonna do when Duckamania Dead man walkin' Vanilla midgets Y2J Rabid Wolverine Will somebody stop the damn match And besides, this episode is supposed to take place in a waterpark, and forgive me, but I just don't see any way that that can be bad.  I don't.  I really, really don't.  Which probably means I haven't been reading my own writeups, but let's just go with it for now... I Am The Game.  Welcome to Ben-to Ep07 is Jericho!  Bang bang!

As the episode begins, Shaga shows up with four tickets to "Totally Hawaii", the newly opened theme park.  Seems the conglomerate that runs Ralph Store ("...we do more than just Ralph!") runs the place and gave their employees free tickets.  Macchan gave her tickets to Shaga, and since she no longer has any friends from The East, decided to offer them to Our Hero and the rest of the Half-Pricers Association.  Our Hero, in a feat of mental ingenuity unsurpassed since man first put cheese on a hamburger, realizes this means swimsuits... particularly for the Ice Witch.

Needless to say, he is enthusiastic about this idea, and truth be told, it's kinda hard to blame him.  I was enthusiastic about it when I first heard about it myself, and yes, I know that sounds rather lame of me.  Yup, perhaps so, but then again, I also spend multiple hours typing episodic writeups for an anime about martial artists kicking each other nigh unto death for Happy Meals.  Of course I'm going to be enthusiastic about a swimsuit episode!  And since we're amongst friends here, you can freely admit the fact that you are too.  Because you know the animation quality of the swimming scenes is going to be top-notch, and we're all here because of the animation quality of Ben-To. 

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They say that just claiming to have decided to continue on with a series that you dropped isn't enough: you have to back it up with action.  Well, I did that to a certain extent with the writeup for Ep05, but one episode does not a restart make!  Nope, it's gotta be at least two before you can take my claims seriously.  And this, my good and dear, is the writeup for Ep06... or will be, when it's done.  I mean, yeah, right now this is just the usual opening paragraph that usually has absolutely nothing to do with the writeup itself... it's more a chance for me to warm up.  And by "warm up," I mean in the sense that a pitcher has to warm up before he comes into a game.  Sometimes, I'm like the closer: jogging in from the bullpen with the crowd going crazy and a high-octane theme song blaring, with a rubber arm that needs but a few moments to get loose.  And then there are the days where I'm the fleabitten, mangy old pitcher who needs an hour to get loose and only throws slop, junk and trash, all of it at 82 mph.  But in the end, somebody has to get the outs, no matter how hot or bad the arm is.  Good rule of thumb would be the longer this first paragraph is, the closer I am to being Jamie Moyer than Masahiro Tanaka.  Well, either way, I'm in the major leagues.  Which might be more than I can say about Ben-To!, but perhaps I'm being unkind.

The preceding warmup paragraph was written just about two months earlier.  Much has changed in that time, to say the least.  Yankees pitcher Masahiro Tanaka tore a ligament in his pitching elbow, went on the disabled list, and realistically shouldn't be expected to return this season.  Jamie Moyer is still old.  Your scribe was put on waivers, then released.  Funmation postponed the release of Ben-To! indefinitely.  Heck, even the original viddy I selected for Trevor Hoffman went away.  So yes, much has occurred... and yet, Ben-To! is still in the exact same place it was when we last saw it, just aching for us to return.  And so we shall!

Surprisingly, this is kinda similar to the way I blog.  Except I sit at a desk, use a tower computer, have an incandescent lamp above and to my right, and red accent lighting for the rest of the living room (not bedroom), and I'm a duck.  Desaturation Lass up there is taking the events of Ep05 and making them into one of her yaoi fanfics, and that's just about all the lead-in we get this episode.  It's actually rather disturbing.  Not the lack of lead-in, her writing.  I mean, very disturbing.

OH GOD WHAT DID THEY DO TO THAT POOR RABBIT?!?!?!

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Posted by: Wonderduck at 11:59 PM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
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1)  Rum & 7up is awful.  Since I can only imagine that rum & orange soda is worse, drunkblogging is not going to happen tonight, if ever.

2)  My internet connection is porpoising tonight, up and down, up and down, up and (mostly) down.  In other words, I'm not going to get any serious (or even unserious) blogging done this evening as I use mu.nu to compose my posts.

3) There will be free ice cream tomorrow.  It will be good.  You will enjoy it.  Yes, you will. 
Oh yes... yes, you most certainly will.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 09:22 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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I'm going to do something here on Saturday that I've never done before... I'm going to do an episode review while drinking.  Yes, that's right, there's a fair good chance I'll be drunkblogging Ben-To!.

I haven't had a drink in at least six years... I think once in a while I can have something, eh?  I intend to leave all errors in the post, so in theory it'll get sloppier as the night goes on... and therefore funnier! 

See ya then, fans!

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I appear to have drawn maybe a little bit of interest with my condemnation of Madoka: Rebellion.  To follow on this, I'm going to have to explain myself, it appears.  Unfortunately, I'll be heading north for a business trip tomorrow morning, and not making it back until sometime on Friday.  My explanation will be up Saturday night.

Madoka will have to wait until then.

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I guess I need to explain myself here.  Back in 2012, I began these writeups for a lil' show about high schoolers battlin' for bento boxes, a show I actually really, really liked.  With the way stuff was going at work, though, I just couldn't keep it up... three months between writeups just isn't good enough.  So I reluctantly bid Ben-To! adieu, always hoping that one day, I'd go back and revisit the thing.

And then, a few weeks ago, Robert revealed in his newsletter that Funimation had not only licensed the series, but would be releasing it in July.  He expressed his reservation with the concept of the show... fighting over half-priced meals... but mentioned in an e-mail to me that if I liked it, there must be something to it and he should read my writeups.  Mind you, this was coming from the man who all but confirmed that the licensing of Rio Rainbow Gate! was my damn fault.

With that black mark on my soul, I pretty much have to do something to get rid of it, and what better than to promote a series I actually like?  Ben-To! was a go, once again.  Instead of starting over at Ep01, though, I'm going to pretend that the past year-and-change between the last writeup and this one didn't actually happen... if only.  Here's Ep02, Ep03, and Ep04, for your reading enjoyment and so you won't be completely confused.  I've re-read them a couple of times, just trying to figure out what I was talking about back then!  So without further ado, let's get back to the battlin' bento beat, booyah!

And of course we return to this lovely fanservice/fighting comedy with... a scene with the Pointy-Chinned Bishie from last episode (see, told ya you should have re-read my writeups, but did you listen?  Nooooooooo, of course you didn't.  Kids these days with their know-it-all attitudes and 'just how important could it be' state of mind, I tell ya.  When I was your age, I re-read my write-ups, and I liked it.  Razzenfrazzenmizzenmast...), reporting in to his heretofore unseen superior.  It seems that Shaga, Our Hero's cousin, aka "The Beauty Of The Lake," aka the Wolf who's technically on the wrong side of the tracks at the moment, is causing them no end of trouble.  Not because of anything she's done, but because of what she might do, which is tip off the Ice Witch to the nefarious doings of Pointy-Chinned Bishie's boss.  This sits not well with said Boss.

He too is a Pointy-Chinned Bishie, who's just sitting around playing with his nuts, rolling them around in his hand.  Walnuts, they look like to me, though I suppose they could be gabon nuts or even, if you squint really hard, a hickory nut.  The Borneo Tallow Nut is right out, though.  He tells his Pointy-Chinned Underling  that he must keep observing, or else Da Boss might have to take direct action... no matter how many casualties his side will take.

Being a spineless coward devoted underling, PHB agrees and hangs up the phone.  He then bitches that the group he belongs to, "Gabriel Ratchet," has stooped to such depths, but it's too late to go back now.  Okay, who in their right mind would call their gang "Gabriel Ratchet"?  A bunch of Archangel-fearing Mechanics, and that's about it in my world.  However, in my world there aren't hordes of teenage martial artists fighting over half-priced food.

I'm not entirely convinced that's a good thing. 

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