The Weekly Orbit is a weekly column collecting and refining my more casual anime- and manga-related thoughts from the previous week. Mostly, these are taken from my tumblr blog, and assume familiarity with the works covered. Be wary of spoilers!
The season is starting to wind down, and that shows in some of these episodes. Our first two anime this week are setting up for their big finales.
Anime – Seasonal
Train to The End of The World – Episode 11
As Shuumatsu Train enters its final stretch, we kick off one of the series’ denser episodes to date with our heroines arriving, at last, at their destination of Ikebukuro.
They find Youka in short order, but things aren’t simple enough that just reuniting the separated friends is enough. It’s clear that Youka doesn’t remember them—we don’t yet know why, but Reimi openly speculates that ‘wibble-wobble surgery’ of the same type Zenjirou was subjected to might be to blame—and their attempts to remind her who they are fail. Her reactions are confused and interlaced with her 7G powers, and any time the girls try to break through to her, it clearly destabilizes her already fragile mental state, causing the environment around her to temporarily devolve into an acid trip of digital video flickering and color-burst effects. The girls are chased away by Pontarou’s personal guards, the masked Ikebukuro police force.
Retreating to the train, they receive a phone call—via a phone fashioned from bitter melon, of course, because why not?—from Makoto and Zenjirou. Their conversation here basically confirms what we already knew; if they can nab the 7G button and just turn the network back off, the whole world will snap back to normalcy. (Allegedly, at least.) They’re not alone, though, as an unexpected ally turns up in the form of Mito and her zombie horde from a few episodes back. Her zombies, as it turns out, can sense the presence of the 7G button.
Call me stupid, but the show calls attention to a few parallels I hadn’t noticed up to this point. For one, Shizuru and Pontarou are, in a very broad sense, a bit similar, in that both are actively trying to avoid accountability for their actions. (They’re also very different in a number of ways, which I expect the show to draw attention to in its finale.) Also, the zombies, with their longing for the old world back when times were simpler—and indeed their distraction by simple pleasures like cheap ecchi—are supposed to be, you know, all of us, the people watching the show.
I honestly think that this sort of straightforward lock-and-key symbolism doesn’t really suit Shuumatsu Train particularly well. (And hey, what are you trying to say about your audience, here?) But then again, it took me 10 1/2 episodes to connect two dots with a line, so who am I to talk?
In any case, the episode ends with two things. One; a shockingly well animated and choreographed fight sequence between Pochi (as in, Youka’s odd butler / handler. We still don’t know what his deal is). And two; Akira and Mito slamming the 7G button to turn it off. Surprise! It doesn’t actually work, and in the episode’s closing moments, we get the latest in a long line of incredible what-the-fuck moments from Shuumatsu Train, when our heroines’ final obstacle comes rolling out of a high-rise on a track being constructed as it goes by long, gooey arms made of some kind of yellow substance; a second train, with Youka and Pontarou on it, headed off to parts unknown.
Shuumatsu Train has hardly been a perfect anime, but I’ve immensely enjoyed the ride just for how utterly bizarre it’s been. It’s hard to say what the finale will look like, but I’m interested to find out, and in the end, being compellingly weird from start to finish is all I really wanted out of this show to begin with.
Dungeon Meshi – Episode 23
Senshi’s backstory is another area where the addition of color, sound, and motion to the material gives it a slightly different texture than it had in manga form.
In the manga, this backstory felt like a fairly lengthy aside, steeped in deep shadows to a degree that was nearly gothic. Here, rendered in full color—earthy browns, iron greys, bloody reds—it feels a lot more like what it actually is, a traumatic memory. Bunched up in a relatively brief burst like this, but punctuated with a monstrous illustration of the griffin that hounded the dwarves who were taking care of Senshi, and the eventual screams of Null (the dwarf who Gilin, Senshi’s advocate throughout his backstory, butts heads with, and who Senshi believes Gilin may have in fact killed) renders the entire thing violent and scary. You can really feel how this would shape someone to their core.
The backflips the narrative goes through to eventually prove to Senshi that no, it was in fact not another dwarf that Gilin fed to him when he was young, have always been a bit convoluted for my taste, but they go down easier here. Especially when the payoff is Senshi having a big, tearful, emotional moment, always a nice thing to see.
The tail end of the episode is a bit less serious, mostly focusing on the ramifications of the circle of changeling mushrooms our heroes accidentally step into, swapping their species around at random. (Laios becomes a dwarf, Chilchuck a tall-man, Senshi an elf, Marcille a downright adorable half-foot, and Izutsumi a kobold.) It’s all a fairly good gag, although a bit light for Dungeon Meshi, until it ends up having very real consequences when the party run into a troop of gargoyles. I will say, there’s probably something not-entirely-flattering to be said about the show’s refusal to treat kobolds (dog-like, and thus the least human-looking humanoid species) with any dignity, even if the “go get it, boy” ball-toss gag that Izutsumi is subjected to here is admittedly a bit funny.
The episode ends in true Dungeon Meshi fashion; a brief meditation on the universality of dumplings. The series ends this week, and I’m going to miss it.
Mysterious Disappearances – Episode 9
This episode didn’t leave a massive impression on me overall. The core conceit, that of a VTuber being a sort-of tsukumogami due to how rapidly digital data is deleted and discarded compared to physical objects, is pretty cool, as is the VTuber in question being a pastiche of a couple different popular, actual talents. For whatever reason though, the main thing that stuck with me in this episode was the goofy, animated dance number at its end, which is wholly disconnected from the rest of the episode’s story and is mainly about a catgirl who we won’t properly meet for a little bit, yet. Odd! Compelling, but odd!
Pokémon Horizons – Episode 53
Hatenna episode 😊
Our Heroes meeting a trio of people who look vaguely similar to themselves and even seem to be arranged in a similar trio is really funny, to start off with. The main meat of the episode, where they encounter the ghost alluded to last time and learn that it’s an Annihilape, is pretty great all throughout. The animation team really goes through some effort here to convey Annihilape as a menacing, almost otherworldly force of nature. Conversely, it’s pretty cool how our protagonists work together to stop it in their initial encounter, as it shows off a pronounced coordination, which we haven’t gotten from them super often before.
The horde of angry Mankey is honestly a pretty credible threat. Have you ever seen videos of angry monkeys? They’re terrifying. There are a lot of really impressive cuts here, the majority of which are apportioned to Annihiliape but the main trio’s Pokemon get some as well.
Given Hatenna’s prominence throughout the episode, the obvious tack to take is to have it evolve (especially given that Roy got his Kilowattrel last week, and that Hattrem learns the Dark-type Brutal Swing on evolution) but instead, at least initially, it uses its brains to figure out the source of the Mankey troop’s frustration and the remainder of the episode, complete with an insert song, is about helping the troop recover their food store, emphasizing once again Horizons‘ knack for centering episodes around unconventional problem-solving.
That said, the show isn’t enough of a tease to raise the possibility of a Pokémon evolving without actually following through with it. A stray rockslide causes the Mankey troop to start fighting amongst themselves, and some of the Primeape troop leaders even evolve into more Annihiliapes. Short of any other way to keep the peace, Hatenna promptly evolves into Hattrem, beats all of the squabbling monkeys up, and then heals them while they’re knocked out. It’s a genuinely delightful sequence and a lovely capper to a very good episode overall.
Wonderful Precure – Episode 19
We pick up from last week’s Hamster Garugaru two-parter for a just really, really good episode about Mayu, her fears, and her relationship with Yuki.
We kick off with a bunch of cutely-illustrated Japanese turns of phrase, most of which were new to me, and all of which are animal based. This has minimal relevance to the rest of the episode, but I mention it because it’s cute.
We also meet the evil general for only the second time, though once again he simply encourages the garugaru to Be Angry while giving it some new powers, advice it has no problem taking. The animators deserve some credit here for making a goddamn hamster seem like a credible threat (and for making Yuki seem genuinely threatening in turn when she trash talks it a bit later in the episode), what a feat.
Given that this episode is called “The Birth of Cure Lilian”, it’s no surprise that Mayu’s Cure alter ego debuts here, but we actually get an explanation of that name in the episode itself. Mayu’s mother mentions a lily-yarn that Mayu made for her when she was young as an example of Mayu imparting positive emotions and experiences to other people. Given some flashbacks early in the episode and, really, her entire previous existence in this series, it seems like this is a hard thing for Mayu to believe. She’s honestly so scared of everything that it makes her come off as having an actual anxiety disorder of some kind. Same, girl!
This all makes it that much worse when the garugaru, using its newly-granted ability to shrink Komugi, Iroha, and Yuki to the point that they’re too tiny to be a threat. This leaves Mayu alone against the garugaru when she comes across Yuki.
Standing her ground even in this frankly pretty scary situation—because she’s even more scared of losing Yuki than she is of the garugaru—allows Mayu, through the magic of the Mirror Stone, to become a Precure herself, and with that, our core team of four is complete.
I still like Yuki just a bit better as a character (I have a weakness for bitchy catgirls from this franchise, I suppose), but Mayu’s transformation into Cure Lilian might actually be even more drastic than Yuki’s into Cure Nyammy. It is relatively rare that a magical girl transformation feels so truly transformative. As much as I love them, one gets the sense that Komugi, Iroha, and Yuki are basically the same people as Cure Wonderful, Cure Friendy, and Cure Nyammy. This isn’t really the case with Mayu. With the Mirror Stone’s power, Lilian becomes everything she couldn’t be without it. Graceful, strong, courageous, a protector. It’s fantastic, and her voice actress Ueda Reina absolutely pours her whole heart into her performance in this episode to help sell it.
After the garugaru is defeated and turned back into a hamster fairy, Mayu and Yuki reconcile in a genuinely really sweet moment of teary-eyed reaffirmation. They want to stay together, so they will, no more to it than that.
Anime – Non-Seasonal
Rozen Maiden – Episodes 5-12
Pretty good all around! I don’t have a ton to say about Rozen Maiden, but as an old-school action series with a somewhat shoujo-y bent I think it’s quite a nice ride overall, and I loved all of the characters, especially Suigintou whose death(?) in the final episode absolutely ripped my heart out. Poor girl thinks of herself as incomplete and takes it out on everyone else. Which of course, is a reflection of how Jun, the main protagonist, does the same in an admittedly much less violent way. (Side note here: Suigintou x Shinku is some deliciously classic toxic yuri. Waiter send me more, please and thank you.)
Manga
Witch Watch – Chapters 148-159
I’m not sure what it says about me that, while there are other manga in the publication that are more meaningful to me, Witch Watch is consistently the thing I have the most fun reading in Jump these days.
I think it’s the manga’s combination of a lean but engaging storyline with an absolute ton of off-the-wall goofball shit. I can sense that we’re getting close to the end of this “aged-down Nico” arc, and while it’s been a return to the manga’s earlier, decidedly comedic days, I am glad that a return back to the whole Witches vs. Warlocks plot that continues to tick along in the background is on the horizon. I like the new character introduced in yesterday’s chapter, too. The idea of an apparently ‘chuuni’ adult who just Actually Is involved with a bunch of supernatural stuff but is really bad at hiding it is pretty fun.
On a note less immediately related to the current chapter, Ban is such a fun addition to the cast, I absolutely love her. Rabuka seems like she’s going to be part of the school group in upcoming chapters too, which is also exciting since she’s one of my favorite supporting characters. All around, just a really fun and readable manga that I’d recommend to just about anyone.
And that’s all for this week. While I have your attention, I’m going to go ahead and recommend Yume Nikki fan game / MMO (!) Collective Unconscious, a free exploration game about wandering around and gawking at cool scenery. I may write about it at some point, but if not, consider this an endorsement.
As for this week’s Bonus Thought, you know I have to go with this.
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