Now that I've finished Vividred Operation, I've sort of been at loose ends as far as what show I wanted to do next.  Waiting until next season didn't really appeal to me, and currently airing series are so hit-and-miss anyway.  Case in point: Vividred Operation.  If I hadn't've been doing writeups for it, I would have let it go long before. the end.  But something longtime reader Avatar said in a comment for the last episode writeup made me raise an eyebrow (metaphorically... I can't actually do that without duct tape or staples) and stroke my chin pensively.  Then I realized that over in Japan, a particular movie was being released soon, and my course became clear.  The next series I will be doing Episodic Reviews for is...

Evangelion.  Really, it's an obvious choice... a decent show that's more screwed up and broken and just begging for my gentle touch would probably be impossible to find.  "But Wonderduck," I hear you say, which as usual I respond with "How did you get in here?"  "But Wonderduck, what about the 'no 26 episode series' rule?"   Simple... I'm going to do the movie version.  The third film just came out on BD in Japan.  If I break each film into three "episodes", that's nine writeups; I can also make do six, with two per movie if I feel like it.  Depends on the flow of each one, I guess.  I suspect fewer of my readers have seen the movies than the series anyway.

This is gonna be epic.  So whaddya think?

Posted by: Wonderduck at 07:24 AM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
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The final episode of a series is usually accompanied by one or more emotions.  A sense of relief?  A feeling of accomplishment?  Sadness?  Joy?  I know I've felt all of these at the end of shows, good and bad.  However, when it comes to the type of show that I do writeups for, an approaching final episode does nothing but fill me with dread.  "Saving the best for last" is not what Rio Rainbow Gate! or High School of the Dead are known for (Ga-Rei Zero was actually a good show, and therefore exempt from these statements).  And, if we must be honest with ourselves, it's not like we're expecting much of anything out of Vividred Operation, right?  So when last episode ended with Hot Dark Girl Rei and her kickarse scarf being swallowed whole by Croooow!, it's not like there was any feeling of dramatic tension or anything.  Of course Team Aquos will rescue her, and of course there'll be a VividBlack appearance, and of course it'll kick Croooow!'s feathery tail into next week.  None of this is in doubt, the Production Staff isn't creative enough to do anything else.  The only question in my mind going into Ep12 was "Will Gendo Plushyferret be put back into his human body, and how will they manage it?"  Well, let's find out, shall we?  Welcome to the final episode of Vividred Operation!

Huh.  Looks a lot like the end of the penultimate episode of Vividred Operation.  That's Ascended Croooow!, after swallowing Hot Dark Girl Rei and her kickarse scarf, and there's still absolutely no resemblance to one of Evangelion's Angels.  None at all.  Purely coincidental.  Please don't sue us, Gainax.

RHF has gone into mental BSOD, crying about how she couldn't protect Hot Dark Girl Rei, while the other three just look at her like she's gone insane.  To be fair, that's pretty much how I feel about myself regarding this entire show, so I can't honestly hold that against them.  Y'know what?  I just wrote that sentence, and I honestly can't claim there's that much vitriol behind my words.  Vividred Operation doesn't create the sort of WTF levels that, say, High School of the Dead or Rio Rainbow Gate! caused in me.  It's just sorta there, and that's a bad place for a show to be.  It's a dead fish wrapped in newspaper of a series, lying on your doorstep, slowly beginning to smell in the midday sun, and perhaps you need to clean that up. 

MegaCroooow! proves to be even more powerful than the Alones... conventional weaponry could at least whittle away at them, but the Black Bird of Doom proves to be impervious to everything thrown at it, short of N2 mines, or whatever it is they call those here in this Eva wannabe.  But then, just when all hope seems lost and more, Gendo Plushyferret discovers that M-m-m-m-monsterCroooow! has the exact same energy signature as Hot Dark Girl Rei and her kickarse scarf... she's still alive, and inside that thing.

Well, yeah.  Seeing how this show has been more about Rei and less about the nominal main character, RHF, you'd kinda expect her to be alive, wouldn't you?  I also expect to see Vividscarf by the time this is all over.  Heh.  Vividscarf Operation... I'd pay good money for that.

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Posted by: Wonderduck at 11:27 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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Hello, greetings, and welcome to this, the writeup for the eleventh episode of Vividred Operation!  I'm Wonderduck, your host and tour guide through this example of the art of anime.  I have a feeling that this will be an important and exciting adventure in episodic recapping, so please grab a beverage of your choice, settle into a comfy chair, relax and enjoy, won't you?  As you may remember, in the last episode the antagonist, known to us as Hot Dark Girl Rei, had been caught in her attempt to super-dooper-power-up an attacking Alone.  When she realized that those opposing her were people she thought were friends, namely the RHF and the rest of Team Aquos, she kinda went a little bugnutty.  The episode ended with the screen going black and the sound of a gunshot, leading us to believe that the marines had just shot her in the head.  Quite the conundrum!  So where does Episode 11 begin?

From pretty much the same place, except the rest of Team Aquos has joined the party, and they're just as mind-blown as RHF.  Hot Dark Captive Girl Rei has it allllllllll worked out: they really were just playing her for a fool.  Actually, I'm fairly sure it was the Production Staff doing that, but that's just me. 

Anyway, she's bundled onto a waiting tiltrotor and taken away, and while I've been kinda hard on this show in a lot of ways, the one aspect that has rarely disappointed has been the animation quality.  Even on this little throwaway shot of the plane taking off and flying away, they made sure to have heat distortion from the engine exhausts.  I mean, they're no Production I.G. or anything, but A-1 Pictures has absolutely nothing to be ashamed about with this show.

I mean, other than camera angles that would make pedobear blush.  At least we haven't had a "sunrise between the legs" shot in a while.  Thankfully.

But then, it wouldn't be Vividred Operation without them, would it?  I leave it as a study for the viewer to decide if that's a good thing or not.

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Posted by: Wonderduck at 09:43 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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Okay, here we go... we've reached double digits on this show.  I totally didn't mean for that to rhyme; now I feel like I need to make this intro paragraph into a bad song or something, and I think I'd rather saw my leg off with a rusty nail file than do that.  To be blunt, this show doesn't deserve the effort.  It's not as bad as some people have made it out to be, but there's no real way to say it's been good.  Having said that, it's a lot better fodder for one of these writeups than, say, Girls und Panzer.  That was a good, entertaining, well-written series (the OVA I covered notwithstanding), and the recent ending was excellent.  I've not seen the ending of Vividred Operation yet... actually, I haven't even seen Ep10 yet... but I can't imagine it's going to be as good as GuP's.  What I'm saying is "go watch Girls und Panzer, it's really good."  However, I'm not telling you to leave here... we've got to finish this show together.  And we will, before the next Formula 1 race on April 14th.  On this I swear to all that's... um... swearable.  But before we get to Ep11 and Ep12, we need to get through Ep10, and the first step in doing that is this:
I'll admit, there are times that it's easier to do these reviews than others.  Hot Dark Wet Girl Rei is in the shower, providing us with a handy recap as to her motivation to destroy the Phlebotinum Engine: in her "parallel world," it went nuts and destroyed everything.  The infamous unseen THEY promise to restore it good as new, as long as Hot Dark Moist Girl Rei succeeds in destroying this world's Phlebotinum Engine.  Sure.  Makes sense to me.  Then her parakeet starts screaming like a little girl that had her American Girl doll taken away and in this show, we all know what that means.

Croooow! is being a dick again.  It knows that the parakeet freaks out when it's around, so of course it parks its feathered butt right on top of the cage.  Oh, and for the record?  While Hot Dark Damp Girl Rei stalks over, we hear the parakeet screaming and flapping its wings frantically... but there's no movement inside the cage.  Mmmmmm... you can just smell the quality animation!  Croooow! notes some... shall we say disobedience? from Hot Dark Drying Girl Rei, and does that trick with the eyes that it does.

Suddenly, there's a glare of light across the camera and Hot Dark Nekkid Girl Rei is on all fours, making the sort of noises you'd associate with a Japanese porn video, and the towel falls off _^buythedvds.  It's good to be the bird... until it goes too far.  It threatens to kill Hot Dark Towelless Girl Rei if she doesn't swear obedience to it, and she calls bullhockey.

Sure enough, it's just a servant of THEM and can't kill her.  Score one for the Dark Girl.  The scene ends with a standoff... Hot Dark Girl Rei explains that she'd use all her remaining arrows on the next Alone if she could be there when it first appears, and Croooow! prevaricates on whether or not it can tell her.  Sounds like her plan could work, and work big.  She's got this in the bag, yay for her!

Except for that whole "she wins, our world dies" part.  That's kind of... a bummer.

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To be blunt, however, the title of this should be "Ep09 NutSHOTted."  Because, oh my god, that's the least of what the Production Staff deserves.  Episode 08 was, in my opinion, the best of the series so far, full of drama and character development.  I really enjoyed watching it, mostly because it required that Team Aquos to succeed without the RHF, who is really the Kryptonian in the woodpile.  Everything has to run through her, because only with her can they reach the ultimate potential of the Vivid System amd become completely unstoppable.  Just like Superman.  And it becomes boring, just like Superman.  So seeing "The Jordanaires" succeed without her was quite nice.  Now, it's common for there to be a dropoff after such a tour de force, I understand that.  I do, and was actually expecting it.  I mean, let's face it, this is Vividred Operation we're talking about here, not ARIA or some excellent show like that.

What I didn't expect was what we got.  What we got was an episode that honestly made me angry with the pointlessness of it all.  I wanted to inflict deep hurting on the Production Staff.  And they would have deserved it, all of it and more.

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Posted by: Wonderduck at 10:33 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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After looking back at it, I realized that I've been dealing with this bronchitis thing for three darn weeks.  No wonder I'm so bloody tired!  At least the antibiotic has been working its magic upon me for these past seven days... I feel a lot better.  Now, I'm sure y'all are reading this and saying something to the effect of "well, that's nice, Wonderduck, but what, exactly, does this have to do with Vividred Operation?"  A fine question, and I'm proud of you for calling me on it.  Keep the duck honest, I always say.  Well, since I feel better, I'm much more likely to do a good job with this writeup!  I mean, the last two have been done while I've felt miserable, so this one oughta be fantasmic!  Or something like that.  I dunno.  We'll find out.  As you may remember, at the end of last week's episode the RHF had been zorched by a seemingly-defeated Alone and was plummeting from the sky while the rest of Team Aquos watched helplessly and Hot Dark Girl Rei chuckled darkly to herself.  So where do we start this episode?

Ladies and gentlemen, the Production Staff went somewhere that even I didn't go, and it's AWESOME.  I saw this scene, of medical staff rolling RHF down a hall while Team Aquos crowded around her broken body and immediately knew I'd seen it somewhere before... I just couldn't figure out where.

It did eventually come to me, and it may be telling that I was under the influence of a cough medicine that contains a decent amount of codeine when it finally clicked.  We're in Ep09 of Ga-Rei Zero!  The more I think about it, the better VividGaRei OperationZero sounds to me.

Is that what Hot Dark Girl Rei is shooting at the Alones?  Fragments of the Death Stone?  Is RHF going to turn into The Schoolgirl In Black?  When's the pocky eating scene between Rei and Himawari?  Did I really just say that out loud?

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Posted by: Wonderduck at 12:32 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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Keeping up the routine.  Keeping up the routine.  That's what it's all about with my writeups for Vividred Operation.  It's not a bad show at all, it just hasn't caught me the way the other three completed writeup series (Ga-Rei Zero, Rio Rainbow Gate!, High School of the Dead) did.  No, I'm not going to drop it... I'm too far into it to do that.  Besides, it's not like I have anything else to write about right now.  So what the heck, let's take a look at what's going on after the debacle that was Ep06.

It seems like the RHF was out late, defeating another Alone.  How lame must this one have been to not even get any screen-time?  Are there nerdy Alones?  Was this Alone the equivalent of having a bowl cut, coke-bottle glasses and a pocket protector?  Was it picked on by the other Alones, shoved into lockers, tripped in the hallway, that sort of thing?  Finally, it had enough and decided that it'd show all those bullies and took its shot at doing something none of the others could manage: destroying the Phlebotinum Engine!  Then maybe the cute Alone cheerleaders would pay attention to him!  Hope you feel proud, RHF and the rest of Team Aquos.  I hope you're really happy as you drool onto your breakfast.  That Alone was just trying to be loved... is that too much to ask for?  And you guys were just like all the rest, you slapped a "Kick Me" sign on its back, took its lunch money and then disposed of it.  Buncha bullies, that's what you are!  Meanwhile, as "Our Hero" sleeps through breakfast...

...Hot Dark Girl Rei and her kickarse scarf lament their failure to destroy the world.  Again.  Worse, it took another of her powerups, leaving her with six.  More importantly, she's running out of episodes to accomplish her task.  If she ever shows up with a rubber duck, I'm going to just go out of my mind... in a good way, not a creepy way.

Well, maybe it'd be a little bit creepy.  I wouldn't be proud of it, though.

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Posted by: Wonderduck at 10:13 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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Okay, right, here we are, only a week late.  Not so bad, really... at least I'm still keeping up with the show.  Sure, it's not the perfect situation, which would involve the writeup being completed using only the mental power of my massive, pulsating brain, but it's close.  Oh, and codfish.  There would be some nice beer-battered cod with a tasty tartar sauce involved in a perfect situtation, too.  On Friday, after the business trip was officially over but while I was still in Chicago, I had dinner at The Cheesecake Factory with three managers who had their flights cancelled, and I can recommend their fish 'n' chips.  Which is not to be confused with fission chips, which tend to go bang when you dip them in tartar sauce.  They don't mention that in nuclear physics class.  Speaking of not mentioning things in Physics class...

...have these glasses from Gurren Lagann become an anime meme, or what?  After seeing the Red Headed Freak out the door as she heads to summer camp, lil' sister Momo and Gendo Plushyferret chat for a second about "beginning the operation," and out come the glasses.  What's really annoying is that I hated Gurren Lagann, yet it's hailed as a masterpiece of the mecha genre, if not anime as a whole.  I just don't get it.  Oh well, so it goes.

But that's a discussion for another day.  For now, there is Vividred Operation.  Which, I hasten to point out, is not considered a masterpiece of any genre.  Unless the genre is "butt shots of middleschoolers," in which case it's groundbreaking.  And deeply, deeply troubling.  You'll note, of course, that I'm still working on it, so maybe not so troubling as all that.

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Posted by: Wonderduck at 11:21 PM | Comments (10) | Add Comment
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For a second there, I thought about doing a Nutshelling for this episode, too, but I decided against it.  After all, it's the Dark Girl's introduction episode, maybe they'll tell us where to get that great scarf... and perhaps we'll learn her name, too?  Oh, wacky Wonderduck, wanting so much out of your anime.  Next you'll be asking for "plot" and "characterization", too.  Like that'll happen in Vividred Operation!  So, to quickly recap: Team Aquos has been finalized, they've defeated all the Alones that have been thrown against the Phlebotinum Engine, Akane's a redheaded freak of nature... or is she?  I am of the opinion that her superhuman skills are in fact because she's not entirely human, but part Alone.  No, I have nothing to base that on, other than her being stronger and faster than any normal person should be.  We'll find out eventually... or not.  Oh, and Gendo Plushyferret is the bad guy in all of this.  Ooh, plot twist!  Well, he is in my version of the show, and I think I've got a good track record of my alternate versions being much better than the originals, no?  But, speaking of this show right here, Ep05 has already begun!  Let's see what's going on in the City Island of Townsville Izu Oshima, shall we?

As is normal for a morning, the RHF is out delivering newspapers on her flying bicycle; as we catch up with her, she's riding along the dock of the bay, watching the tide roll away, when suddenly... birds!

Well, bird.  Singular.  But there will be more, oh yes, many many more.  And early in the morning, they are very... very... hungry.  Somewhere offscreen, Alfred Hitchcock is rubbing his hands together eagerly. *ahem*  Excuse me.  Bird.  Flying near RHF.  Of course, this delights the RHF, who's probably more chipper about life than even Akari from ARIA.  But then, when you can convert to a magical girl with enough firepower to level very small countries, why shouldn't you be cheery?  And speaking of cheery...

Ohmygawd, it's Dark Girl... and she's smiling.  Yup, that seals it, she's my favorite character in this show, no matter what's going on.  She's currently being swarmed by seagulls, but that's nothing uncommon.  Anybody who's been to Seattle's waterfront and bought some french fries knows all about that.  Somewhere back at the Old Home Pond, there's a picture of me, standing outside Ivar's Acres of Clams Fish Bar ("Keep Clam!") with a french fry in my hand.  To my right, there's a gull swooping in to claim his nummy goodness from the side of the shot, while another gull is dive-bombing in from above and behind me.  And, having browsed Ivar's website, I've just discovered that you can order their clam chowder for home delivery... I think I might just have to do that, oh my heavens to betsy yes.  Many people claim that Boston clam chowder is the best, but I simply can not believe that, not after having Ivar's.  When I was out visiting friends in Seattle for a week, lo these many years ago when I had friends in Seattle, I literally had at least one bowl of Ivar's every single day... and felt bad that I couldn't have more.  When my departing flight was first delayed, then replaced after six hours on the ground (one of the friendly airline employees mentioned that an engine fell off the plane.  I assumed they were joking.), I was quite pleased... SeaTac had an Ivar's, after all!  Oh dear, I appear to have wandered off-topic once again. Let's get back to the story.  The RHF disturbs Dark Girl and her... I'm sorry, I can't not do this... her flock of seagulls, and...

...poof!  The flock of seagulls flies away, Dark Girl disappears from our view, leaving behind only one very confused RHF.  Oh, and an annoyed Wonderduck.  Really, if they wanted to rename this show Vivid Dark Girl Operations, I'd be fine with that.  If they had all the music done by '80s bands, I'd be really okay with that.  If some studio feels like doing this hypothetical series, I promise to do an episodic review.  If there's F1 cars and rubber ducks in it, I promise that the final episode's writeup would be the last thing ever posted here on The Pond.  Pinky swear.

Somewhere, a longtime reader of The Pond has just opened a kickstarter campaign to make that happen.  Hell, I'd kick in a fin or a sawbuck m'self, just because I could.  If you think about it, there's very little that would be cooler than to say "there was an anime made for the sole purpose of closing down my blog."  And by cooler, I mean "geekier".

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Posted by: Wonderduck at 12:02 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Okay, so this project is succeeding about as well as Ben-To!, except now I'm falling behind on a currently-airing series.  Swell.  Ep05 aired a couple of days ago, and I still haven't done Ep03 yet... not the best plan for success ever, I'll admit.  Fortunately for me, if there were two episodes I could give short shrift to, it'd be these.  Simply put, for all intense porpoises, they're repeats of Ep02, just with new girls being added to Gendo Plushyferret's combat team.  I'm going to assume that you remember what happened in Ep01 and Ep02; if you don't, feel free to go back and re-read the writeups.  I think they're pretty clever, m'self, but then I would, wouldn't I?  So go ahead and catch up, why don'tcha?  I can wait... here's some music for you while you read.

You back?  You've got the basic idea in your head again?  Okay, good.  Let's get on with Nutshelling Ep03 and Ep04!


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Posted by: Wonderduck at 01:58 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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It's time once again for everybody's favorite hyperintelligent duck to shamelessly give the business to an innocent, unsuspecting anime.  I'll admit some reluctance to use the term "innocent" to describe Vividred Operation, as it seems very much like the Production Staff's familiarity with the word is passing at best.  Still, that's what makes these things so much fun, right?  I suppose an argument can be made that using the word "fun" to describe these episodic writeups may not be appropriate, but that's not for me to say.  I just write 'em and let you, my intelligent, good looking, well-dressed readers, make the call.  By the way, have I mentioned how great your hair looks?  Because it's flat-out amazing.  How do you get it to do that feathering-and-flip thing?  Seriously, I envy you your hair.

We pick up Ep02 pretty much where we left off in Ep01, with Akane (left) ascended to Magical Girl status amd Aoi (right) gazing lovingly into her eyes.  Just then, Gendo Plushyferret says that the two of them are the only people in the world that can fight the alien invaders, and they've got to prepare for docking.  Docking?  As in "symmetrical docking"?  I've completely changed my mind about this series, I'm all over it now!

Man, Vividred Operation has really moved into the big leagues now: it's got an OP and everything!  Too bad I'll never watch it... I actually (almost) never watch a show's OP, simply because of the spoilers that are usually contained therein.  That is, if I actually care about the series; if I don't, I'll watch once.  Yes, I know there are series where the OP is part of the show (the ARIA franchise) or changes every episode (the most recent HidaSketch); obviously that's different.  But in general, I'd rather be surprised.  Okay, now that I've got that out of my system, where's my docking?

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Posted by: Wonderduck at 10:31 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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So there's really only one show that I'm even mildly excited about this season, and that's this one, Vividred Operation.  As I mentioned in the previous post, nobody has the faintest idea what's going to happen with it: it could be great, it could be stupid, it could be stupidly great!  Well, no matter how it shakes down, I'll be doing episodic reviews for it, probably on Saturdays.  It airs on Thursday, but there's that whole work thing to think about... I'm not as young as I used to be, alas.  I don't have as much energy, as much hair, or as many teeth as I did when I was a kid.  So let's take a look at this here show, let's see what we're being given to work with, shall we?

The City of Townsville! unknown moniker, and something seems a little out of place in it... like, maybe, the enormous tower in the center (thanks for pointing that out, Muppet!) that simply dwarfs everything in the vicinity?  Seriously, look at that thing, it's easily five times taller than the tallest structure nearby, and maybe twice as tall as the skyscrapers in the background.  In an earthquake-prone country, no less.  Can you imagine the number of zoning ordinances that had to be eased so it could be constructed?  Pilots flying into City must hate the thing with a passion, too.  Plus, it's clear that the powers that be are somewhat lax with their security methods.  To whit...

...there's this young woman, standing on the safety railing on the very top of the tower, watching the sun come up.  Completely unbelievable... I mean, there's not a single iPhone or camera in sight, and there's no way one of today's callow yoots wouldn't be recording this to post on myfaceinatube.com... with the camera held the wrong way.  Kids these days, I tell you.

Oh, so it's going to be THAT sort of show, huh?  Technically, she is wearing pants.  Lil' Miss Wallenda up there is, apparently, a member of O2STK, and nothing she does while on-screen clarifies her reason for existing. 

Yup, it's gonna be a good show for me.

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Posted by: Wonderduck at 09:08 PM | Comments (11) | Add Comment
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So, hi!  I bet you thought there'd be another three-month break between writeups, didn't you?  Yeah, I bet you did.  To be fair, I can't blame you for that.     If you're already wondering just what's going on, and let's be blunt here, we are talking about one of my writeups, here's Ep03's writeup, just so you can refresh yourself on the subject matter.  Now that that's out of the way, let's get to the writeuping!  Are you not entertained?  Is this not why you are here?

Or are you here for the hungry prepackaged foodfighters beating each other up for mediocre meals?  We seem to have a new person on the battlefield today, someone intent on smashing everybody in the way of that lovely, lovely bento... bentos?  Bentii?  I'm two paragraphs into this post and I'm already confusing myself.

One with legs that appear to be six feet long, clad in Chuck Taylors... oh look, it's an American!  Probably blonde, too, right?

Yeah, no bonus points for that guess for a couple of reasons.  One, all Americans are blonde in anime, and two, I've seen the show already.  Of COURSE I know the details behind this new bento battler.  I'm pretending not to know what's going on so as to take you on a (simulated) voyage of discovery, so as to better connect with the reader.  It's a standard literary technique, and I'm not ashamed to say that I'm not half-bad at it.  Oh sure, one could accuse me of blowing my own horn, but I know what I'm good at, and I'm good at being ignorant.  Did that come out right?

As our mystery babe makes her way out of the supermarket, hard-won dinner in tow, a sharp-chinned bishie watches her walk away, muttering under his breath "The Beauty Of The Lake."  She doesn't seem moistened, nor is she lobbing scimitars at the rightful King of England...

Whatever you decide to call her, she's apparently important enough for the production staff to change the entire OP to suit.  Not that I'm complaining, heavens no!  It just seems somewhat early to have her take over the show is all.  Oh well, what would you expect from a show as tightly crafted as Ben-To?

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Posted by: Wonderduck at 11:49 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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Well.  It HAS been a while, hasn't it?  Nearly three months since I did the last episode, I'm back with Ep03 of Ben-To!  For those of you who've forgotten just what this series is about, and I can hardly blame you considering how much time has passed, the first episode writeup is here, the Ep02 missive can be found at this link, and here's sixty pounds of bacon on a counter.  Now that you've gotten yourself caught up on our little martial-arts-meets-prepackaged-food series, let's get onto some new content: Episode 03!

As you may remember, in Ep02 Our Hero officially joined the Half-Pricers Club, learned the rules of bento battlin', and took home a miso-mackerel bento for his first victory.  Right, that's where we stand.  Let's see what wonders the show shall bring us next, shall we?

Oh, this can't be good.  The school incinerator, surrounded by police tape and guarded?  What, did Dale Sveum walk by and decide to end it all or something?  Yes, it's a Chicago Cubs reference, even though it's December.  At the time I wrote it, it was interesting and topical... or at least topical.

Oh god, no, it's worse than the Cubs' 2012 record.  Our hero comes charging out of the school dressed only in his skivvies for reasons we're... apparently not going to be let in on, because suddenly the credit sequence begins. 

Well.  Okay then.  If that's the way you want to play it, Ben-To, fine.  I'm game.  And while I'm at it, camouflage boxers?  What, are there Vietcong in your shorts?  Is that what kids are calling it these days?  "What were you and Jill doing, Bob?"  "I had Vietcong in my shorts."  So wacky, these kids.  Next you're going to tell me that somewhere there's a recipe for White Castle Sliders Stuffing... but I'm cheating, because I knew about that one already.  Maybe not as good as 60 pounds of bacon, but it still sounds pretty tasty.

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Posted by: Wonderduck at 10:30 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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So here we are again, at the intersection of 'lack of motivation' and 'sleep deprivation'.  It's been more than a few weeks since I tackled Ep01, which I'll admit was not my plan.  Still and all, "life is what happens when you're making plans," right?  Anyway, let us see where this odd little gem of a show takes us, shall we?

Oh, right, that.  A little bit of research turned up a fetish called "trampolining," where someone gets off on being stepped on and, I guess, jumped on, like they were a trampoline.  I dunno, man... I mean, one person's perversion is another person's turn-on and all, but this "trampolining" thing just sounds too weird for me.  What ever happened to simpler times, back when all you had to worry about was sax on television, or the debate about making Puerto Rico a steak.  Next they'll be wanting a baked potato with sour cream, too!  Wait... what?  It's "trampling," not "trampolining"?  Really? 

Never mind.  Turns out Desaturation Lass had a sore back from a late night of fan-fic writing, and The Ice Witch's legs looked soooo soft and... well, y'know.  Sen, the Ice Witch, gives our two rookies a quick little speech about not sitting at the club table unless they are prepared to become Wolves, and then...

...she tears off the head of our hero and swallows his spine.  Well, she did say that she's the only member of the Club, now we know why.  No, no, no, bad Wonderduck!  BAD.  You promised yourself to be closer to reality for this show, and already you've got The Ice Witch doing... terrible things.  Stop that.  The Half-Pricer Association now has three members, huzzah!

...and Ep02 is off to a rousing start.  Did I say "rousing"?  I meant to say "what the heck is this, soft-core pr0n without the nudity?"  Nope, it's Ben-to!

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Posted by: Wonderduck at 06:33 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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I've discovered that there's always a certain excited anticipation in my thoughts when I start an episodic recap for a new series.  Like a runner in the blocks waiting for the gun, a parachutist standing in the door waiting for the signal to jump, a F1 driver waiting for the lights to go out, a fast-food employee waiting for the french fry machine to go "ding", I find myself wondering in what direction a show will take me.  Will it be serious, like the early Ga-Rei Zero reviews or snarky like... well, like everything else?  So, Ben-To, how will I be watching you?

This is Our Hero... and I think I know which way the writeups will be going.  It's nice when the show makes it easy for you, isn't it?  Y'know, in some ways, this series will be quite difficult to recap because I really liked it.  Heck, I'm on record as liking it before it even started airing, and it did nothing to change my opinion as I watched it.  It's not perfect, though... in fact, there's enough flaws that I should be able to do terrible, awful things to the poor thing.  Probably undeserved, but what the heck, it's what I do.

So enough talk... let's get ourselves into the underground world of martial arts combat for supermarket prepackaged dinners.  Ben-To begins now!

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Posted by: Wonderduck at 10:29 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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You've nominated shows.  I've whittled them down to series I'd be willing to do, then added some titles as well.  And now... you get to vote.  But first, the final nominations:

GUNSLINGER GIRL

Perhaps a strange choice, since it's on my list of favorite series of all time, but oh, is it ripe for the pickin'!  Little girls with terminal illnesses or severe injuries are taken away from their families, turned into cyborgs, trained as assassins and let loose on the enemies of Italy.  That's about as perfect a setup for a Wonderduck Episodic Review ever.

HUMANITY HAS DECLINED

Humanity is fading away.  The fairies have come.  They're weird.  There's skinned poultry running around.  What more do you need to know?  (note: I've gotten all this from reading other reviews, I have no first-hand knowledge of this show)

ELFEN LIED

Happy-go-lucky nuclear family hijinks.  No, wait, that's wrong.  Let's try again...  Dark. Grim. Violent. Cute. This is the way the world ends.  I'm almost SCARED to try Elfen Lied, it could be the greatest review fodder ever... or the worst. 

HIGH SCHOOL DxD

High school guy gets asked on a date by a beautiful classmate.  Woo!  Who then turns into a dark angel and kills him.  Oh.  He gets better.  Yay!  Because a devil brings him back to life as a servant.  Oh.  As far as shows go, it could be fun.  It could suck.  Either could make for good review stock!

BEN-TO

The best show about martial arts combat for half-priced bento you'll ever find.  Fanservice, action, stupidity, cute girls, AND a surprisingly good story... it's nigh-on perfect for a review series!  I really liked it, wouldn't mind visiting it again to savage in one of my patented episodic reviews... I mean, I didn't like it THAT much.  Heh.

UPOTTE!

Girls with guns?  That's for amateurs!  In Upotte!, the girls are guns!  Really, how can this be bad?  It doesn't take itself seriously, except when talking tech-specs or everybody is shooting one another at short range.  I watched the first six episodes or so then let it go, but it showed great promise as a review topic.

So there are the choices.  It's up to you, my readers, now.  Voting closes at 10pm Central Pond Time on Sunday, July 15th.  One vote each, so make it count!  And let the "best" show win.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 10:08 PM | Comments (19) | Add Comment
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Okay, this is against my better judgement, but if I don't do an episodic recap of this OVA, I'll feel like I've left the series incomplete... and I hate that.  Unfortunately, this OVA is also one of the dumber things I've ever seen, so there's that going against it.  In the end, I know that if I don't do it now, I'll end up doing it down the line, but only after its been dangling over my head like a zombie of Damocles.  So, like tearing surgical tape off a hairy arm, it's best to get it over with quickly.  Now that I've set your expectations low, let me explain something about this OVA.  It's outside of continuity, meaning that whatever happens here doesn't really happen.  If I was forced to jam it into the actual storyline from the series, it wouldn't even fall between episodes... the best (and most likely) solution I can come up with would be between 21:10 and 23:00 of Ep12... in other words, during the final credits sequence.  Considering that it came packaged with Book 7 of the manga and never broadcast, I suppose we're lucky it could even be shoehorned in at all.  It's not worth the trouble, though, trust me on this one.  May as well get it over with...

Ladies and Gentlemen, the cast of HSotD is proud to present their version of On The Beach.  The part of the nuclear submarine will be played by a wooden rowboat, Australia is played by a beach, and the fallout is played by zombies... war.  War never changes.  Oh, and the crew of the submarine will be played by a bunch of high schoolers.  Other than that?  Exactly the same. 

On the run from the undead, harried and cornered no matter where they turn, The Fellowship finds a nuclear submarine rowboat and heads for... um... the sea!  Because the sea is perfectly safe at all times, no matter how small the boat you may be in!  Why, there's never even once been a rainstorm, typhoon, tsunami or flock of seagulls that's done in boats or ships! 

But Frodo and Hirano got tired of rowing.  They've ended up on some island near the city... one that these lifetime residents of the city have never heard of!  Wow, what are the odds?  Good news, no zombies!  Bad news, no nothing else either!  No shelter of any sort. 

After all, we can't take it easy on The Fellowship, can we now?  Where's the fun in that?

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Posted by: Wonderduck at 10:51 PM | Comments (11) | Add Comment
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Okay.  Here we go.  The final episode of High School of the Dead's first, and to date only, season.  For those reading along at home, this takes us up through Book 4 of the manga.  Six have been released here in the US, the seventh comes out in a month or so, and then that's it.  There ain't no more, and the two Satos (Daisuke and Shouji, not related) involved in the creation of the series have sort of... well... gotten tired of it, I suppose.  In any case, there is (barely) enough source material to generate a full Season 2, so we can always hope.  But that, my true and dear readers, is in the future.  We, on the other hand, are here in the now, and we've gots ourselves the first season to finish up.  If you remember correctly, at the end of Ep11 all was chaos as nuclear missiles were flyin', Bug-Haired Rei actually stopped whining and acted kinda heroic, and the ORGYBUS had been expelled from Lothlorien... and if ever there was a sentence fragment I never expected to write, that was it right there.  Sounds like really bad Lord of the Rings-Partridge Family crossover slashfic.  As opposed to all that really good LotR-Partridge Family crossover slashfic you can find.  Do not go looking, I don't want to know.  Seriously.  Not interested.  Don't.  Just... don't.

I've never been more relieved by the sight of a nuclear missile.  Oh sure, it's a harbinger of the end of the world, but on the other hand, I won't have to deal with the thought of Galadriel and Reuben Kinkade doing... things.  In more pleasant thoughts, there are four missiles in the air, the last reflexive spasm of a Chinese leadership turned into a merrily glowing parking lot.  We later see that they're DF-21s, which have a relatively short range; they don't even cover all of Russia, and they surely can't reach Europe... but they can hit anywhere in Japan you'd like.  Say goodbye to Akihabara!  No more iDOLM@STER games.  Hello Kitty?  Melted by a heat higher than that of the sun.  Sayonara, Hatsune Miku...

...that is, if there weren't ships of both the JMSDF and the US Navy patrolling off the coast of Japan.  The USS Shiloh (CG-67), a Ticonderoga-class cruiser; the Kongo and Kirishima (DDG-173 and -174), both members of the Kongo-class of destroyers based on the US Navy's aegis destroyers, and finally the USS Curtis Wilbur, DDG-54.  All four ships have Ballistic Missile Defense capabilities due to the combination of the Aegis radar system and the RIM-161 SM-3 missile.  As you would expect, the ships go into automatic mode and engage the incoming Dong Feng-21s.  There is much rejoicing as one by one, the nukes are taken down by the defenders... all but one, Curtis Wilbur's target, and she hasn't fired yet.

It appears that the crew started reading the Meriadoc/Laurie Partridge story.  They dabbled in a realm men dare not go.  God help us all if someone finds a Danny Partridge/Eowyn slashfic... mere military might will not be enough to defend us from that monstrosity.  Oh, or the crew has been zombified, one of the two.  As the crew of the International Space Station watches on in horror, the remaining DF-21arcs over and reaches its target.

Lothlorien, the Fellowship, ORGYBUS, Humvee-kun, Zeke... all of them gone in a single blinding flash, followed by a fireball the likes of which have only rarely been seen upon this planet, and a sad tune by the Ink Spots.  Just like that, in a blink of an eye. 

Thanks for reading.

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Posted by: Wonderduck at 11:52 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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All right, so Ep10 wasn't the most sterling example of the wonderment that can be High School of the Dead.  I'll grant you that, but it was important for all that "characterization" stuff the kids talk about these days.  I'll tell ya, back in my day we didn't cotton to newfangled concepts like that, no sir.  We'd gotten along perfectly well for hundreds of years without fancy-schmancy character advancement or engrossing plots or witty repartee.  We had fanservice and episode-long powerup sequences, and that was all right with us.  But now!  Now, you can't have a show without half the cast becoming fully actualized people along the way.  Sheer folly!  That's why I appreciate shows like HSotD; it's a throwback to the days where we were lucky to have any anime at all.  Just with better art.

See?  I told you it was going to be a 747 of doomy doom!  I think it's safe to say that President Skippy Henderson is no longer amongst the living... but he may be amongst the unliving, if you know what I mean and I think you do.

If nothing else, you've got to hand it to the unnamed (and unseen) pilot of AF1.  Imagine... you're flying along, you've got a jumbo jet full of politicians, media, and the living dead (but I repeat myself), pretty much every airport in the world that's able to handle a 747 is probably full of zombies, if you even have the fuel to get to any of them.  Sooner or later, those that wish to eat your brains, as well as zombies, will be smashing at the door to the flight deck... and the one chance you've got is to put your jumbo jet on the ground.  That he was able to do so at all is pretty amazing.  That the plane is in relatively such good shape is astonishing.  I mean, the plane is still recognizable, the wings are still attached (well, mostly), it's a safe guess that the fuselage didn't break until the post-landing fire consumed much of the plane's spine... for all intents and purposes, that thing is in one piece.  Even the engines are still attached.  That's some mighty fine flyin' right there... too bad the pilot and co-pilot are surely zombiechow.

Yet this guy is still alive and kickin'.  There ain't no justice in this world.  Not that the other people on the bus would agree with me...

...'cause he's got them believing that they're the Saviors of the World, their pure spirits and bodies (particularly their bodies) will guide us all out of the dark.  He is honored just to be associated with them, and their pure spirits (and bodies) will clean the taint of his adult soul.  He's not worthy, blah blah blah.  Of course, they eat it up.  That he turns the bus into ORGYBUS during "rest time" surely has nothing to do with it, heavens no.

Yes, I said ORGYBUS.  This is HSotD we're talking about here, after all...

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Posted by: Wonderduck at 10:43 PM | Comments (13) | Add Comment
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