Tag: recap

Posted on in anime, Reviews

(REVIEW) To Die Amidst the Azalea Bloom – VAMPIRE IN THE GARDEN and the Modern Queer Tragedy

This review contains spoilers for the reviewed material. This is your only warning.

This review was commissioned. That means I was paid to watch and review the series in question and give my honest thoughts on it. You can learn about my commission policies and how to buy commissions of your own here. This review was commissioned by Wynne. Thank you for your support.

“There must be a paradise waiting for us somewhere.”

The image of a vampire in a garden is a pleasant one. Consider it for a moment; the bloodsucking creature of folklore allowed to sit in peace, the Sun gently lighting her face in the way it does for the rest of us. Throughout Vampire in The Garden, we examine this visual metaphor, jewel-like as it is, from several angles. Some of these are surprisingly literal, others symbolic, but it’s clear from the outset, and throughout the miniseries, that the primary meaning is not that of a greenhouse or anything of the sort. It is of a garden of Eden. An imagined, perfect paradise beyond this world, in which there is no strife, violence, or hatred. In which two people who love each other can be together, even if they are from vastly different circumstances.

Even if the whole world is arrayed against them; arrows aimed at the throat.

I’m getting ahead of myself. Vampire in The Garden is yet another anime this year to focus on vampires and romance, following after the second part of The Case Study of Vanitas, but presaging summer seasonal hit Call of The Night. It has a bit in common with both of those, but its real roots lie much deeper; back in the era of 90-120 minute OVAs. Vampire is a little longer, the five-episode mini-series clocks in at about 2 hours, but it is very much a single, self-contained story. And what a story; this is easily one of the year’s best anime, no mean feat in 2022, which has been absolutely swamped with great shows. As for the production-side of things; it’s a Wit Studio project, helmed by director and series compositor Ryoutarou Makihara, his first time at the helm since the obscure Empire of Corpses.

There are two main things one must understand about Vampire in The Garden in order to properly appreciate it. 1: it is an intensely queer story. While it is true that the themes found within it could be generalized out to apply to other situations, there is a reason that both of its leads are women, and the story simply makes far less sense if you try to rationalize your way into believing that our protagonists, Fine (Yuu Kobayashi), and Momo (Megumi Han), aren’t in love. 2: it is a tragedy. Gay romances that end in heartbreak get a bad rep these days for understandable reasons, but such a thing should only truly be objectionable if it doesn’t have something to say, and Vampire in The Garden has plenty to say. Throughout, it demonstrates a keen eye for imagery and paints a very emotionally honest portrait of life as a queer person in a society that is not very accepting of those.

Consider our protagonists. On the one hand, we have

Momo; a hardworking factory girl with a talent for tinkering, who lives in a massive compound called the Tower, run by her authoritarian, abusive mother. She longs for an escape, and a flight of fancy—fixing a broken music box, forbidden, as all music and art are, in the Tower—spirals into a tragic adventure. Her close “friend” Milana is shot during a raid on the Tower by vampires, the eternal enemy of mankind in the bleak, frozen, post-apocalyptic world that Vampire takes place in. But, of course, if things were as simple as “humans vs. vampires”, we wouldn’t be here. In a combination of panic, confusion, and the urge to seize the chance to escape, she meets–

Fine; queen of the vampires. Flighty, constantly neglecting her duties by choice. She too longs for escape, and it’s a chance encounter with Momo that sets them off, together, on an adventure far from the Tower and far from Fine’s own ostensible demesne, ruled as it really is by her consort/vizier Allegro (Chiaki Kobayashi). Together, Momo and Fine are star-crossed lovers in the most classic mold possible; a Romeo & Juliet of the modern age. You already know how this story ends; amid a field of moon azaleas, somewhere deep within a cradle of earth, all graves, shed petals, and teardrops. But that doesn’t make it a journey not worth going on.

That journey sees Fine and Momo searching for that mythical paradise. Initially, they seek such a thing solely to escape the shackles of the human/vampire war itself, but before long, they’ve grown close enough that it’s clear that the promise of somewhere where humans and vampires can live together in peace, and thus where Fine and Momo can live together in peace, becomes their primary motivator. At the start of this story, Momo loses Milana, who she is clearly quite close to. We learn much later on that Fine lost someone she was quite close to, Aria, a long time ago. Momo and Fine’s relationship, as deeply upsetting as the circumstances it was born in are, is one that springs from mutual loss. They find comfort in each other in a way that feels truly human.

Their first stop is the catacomb-esque opulence of Fine’s manor, where Fine helps a wounded Momo recover. It’s here where they first start to trust each other and their relationship goes from something uncertain and tenuous to something very real and immediate. The good times are fleeting, of course, but they have meaning.

At one point, Momo stumbles into a cinema, and is so rattled by the film idly left playing—probably the first she’s ever seen, mind you—that Vampire itself dissolves into a nightmarish patchwork of loss and traumatic imagery, and it is Fine who must calm her down. For not the last time in the series, Vampire is astoundingly lyrical, a tapestry of images both in the forefront and background that imbue the world with tactility and meaning;

a bath,
a record player,
an opera singer
whose voice, spilling
out of the player
laments the loss of those
she loved

There’s a garden – a beautiful, green, lush, literal garden – where Fine grows all manner of plants, in defiance of the Sun itself. She teaches Momo to sing, to appreciate art and music. For this, she is rewarded by the pursuing humans of the Tower, and then, separately, the vampires, raiding her mansion. Both of our protagonists are pursued–

Momo by her mother’s forces.

Fine by her own subjects.

–and the mansion ends up in flames as they flee, starting a pattern that will repeat several times over the course of Vampire‘s five episodes. Momo and Fine arrive somewhere, settle there for a short time, and then are driven away by these twin forces independently pursuing them. It is worth noting that they never directly do anything we’d understand as wrong, it is simply that the very act of a human and a vampire living together is unconscionable to the people of this world.

Throughout, as these entwined swathes of fire pursue its protagonists, Vampire is able to capture a gripping, rare feeling. On the one hand, you can appreciate much of these more action-oriented scenes for what they are on a technical level, and say that Vampire, especially its first half, is a kickass action-post apoc-sci-fi-fantasy adventure. This is true, but on the other hand, it is also a near-hallucinatory torrent of love and loss; trauma, laughter, music, snow, iron, blood – mixed together, and adjoined end to uncomfortable end, a feeling evocative of memory itself. Much like the music box that serves as a leitmotif throughout the series.

Everywhere Fine and Momo go is a false promise, in a way. The manor, of stability. The segregated two-island vampire / human town they visit in episode three, of unity. The too-good-to-be-true village in the far north in episode four, of community. And finally, the blasted-out ruin of some long-forgotten metropolis in the final episode, an already-broken promise of civilization itself.

This extends somewhat to the supporting cast as well. Momo’s mother is portrayed as disturbingly, realistically abusive, swinging wildly from backhanding and berating her daughter and pleading for her forgiveness and asking for a hug. When Momo finally turns her away near the very end of the show, it’s hugely cathartic. Later in the story, we meet Elisha, the representative of the idyllic / winter horror village in episode four.

In addition to enabling the false promise of community and hospitality that the village itself represents, she’s also quick to attack Momo as a hypocrite when things go south. This is, of course, nonsense. There is a vast gulf between harming people accidentally, or in self-defense, and doing so as part of a convoluted scheme to live a life of privilege, which is what Elisha’s village is doing.

There’s also Momo’s uncle, who leads the human forces that seek to recapture her, and in the final episode it’s revealed that he too once fled from home with a vampire he loved in tow, only for that story to end on a harsh, bitter note. This recontextualizes his earlier actions; like Momo, he longed for an escape from the drudgery of a world defined by petty, pointless conflict. Unlike Momo, when that escape was ultimately denied to him, he turned his anger outward.

Which leads us to Vampire’s conclusion.

Just based on what kind of story this is, it will not surprise you that only one of our protagonists is fortunate enough to live through the ending. Fine’s death is a long, torturously slow process. At first, she seems to die rampaging amidst muzzle flash and rubble, but the truth of things isn’t that simple. A serum that turns vampires into berserk beasts—a plot point back from back in the first episode, and one which I should point out, basically causes them to transform into what humans think they are—can’t be countered so easily. She does save Momo, and her final confrontation with Momo’s uncle actually ends when she stops attacking him. What truly rattles the man is not the notion of vampires attacking him, it’s of them not doing so, because it means that there isn’t anything inherently stopping vampires and humans from living in harmony, it really is just all circumstance; grudges, old wounds, and unsolved problems.

Momo’s own last confrontation is the aforementioned rebuke of her mother, as she carries the still-dying Fine to her final resting place; a warm cave below the cold surface, where the queen of vampires finally dies, amidst a bed of porcelain-white flowers. The very last shot of the main body of the series is –

Momo,
kneeling in front of Fine’s body,
taking a sharp, deep breath;
preparing to sing.

She herself lives on, and Fine is gone, but not forgotten.

The main reason that Fine and Momo don’t both survive is that, unfortunately, that is rarely the case for real queer couples in these kinds of situations either. But we shouldn’t take this to mean that Fine and Momo’s entire journey was pointless. Instead, it is the very fact that Fine and Momo did journey, and journeyed together, that is, itself, the true paradise they sought, however fleeting it may have been. There is a real, resonant beauty in that notion, even if it is a very sad and tragic sort. Something like;

“If we don’t have each other forever, at least we had each other today.”

The series offers a single post-credits scene; a sunlit garden, where Momo cradles a young vampire child in her arms. This scene’s nature—real or metaphysical, future or afterlife—is left ambiguous. A ray of uncertain hope that pierces the gray skies of an even less certain present.

I have to confess, Vampire in The Garden has proven very challenging to “review”, in as much as this even is a “review” of anything. This is a work of uncommon grace and elegance, as even its ideas which sound, on paper, inadequate, or like they’re trying too hard, are executed absolutely perfectly in the miniseries itself. There are several other axes I’ve barely even touched on; the visual beauty of most of the show’s backgrounds, for example. Part of me does feel that I haven’t entirely done Vampire justice, but perhaps that is simply a limitation of my medium. Some things must be seen to be felt.

And of course, all criticism is, in the end, but a reflective prism of the original. Here, for the first time in a long time, I have felt honored to be that reflection; I am but a mirror to moonlight.

Like what you’re reading? Consider following Magic Planet Anime to get notified when new articles go live. If you’d like to talk to other Magic Planet Anime readers, consider joining my Discord server! Also consider following me on Twitter and supporting me on Ko-Fi or Patreon. If you want to read more of my work, consider heading over to the Directory to browse by category.

All views expressed on Magic Planet Anime are solely my own opinions and conclusions and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of any other persons, groups, or organizations. All text, excepting direct quotations, is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.

Posted on in anime, Let's Watch

Let’s Watch CHAINSAW MAN Episode 4 – “Rescue”

Let’s Watch is a weekly recap column where I follow an anime for the course of its entire runtime. Expect spoilers!

What we have here today is a simpler and more straightforward episode of Chainsaw Man than the last few have been. It’s light on (although not absent of) more subtle characterization, and mostly serves to move us between a few key plot points. This is fine, though, because it looks great while doing it, and the fight scene that kicks off the episode proper might be the best-looking in the show to date. Manga-readers will of course be thrilled by the fact that, well, if they’re going this hard for material this early on, who knows what they’ll do later, but these basic visceral thrills are worth enjoying in their own right, too.

And they are visceral. After defeating the Bat Devil, Denji has to contend with his apparent main squeeze (or former main squeeze I suppose. It’s hard to have a gf if you’re dead), the Leech Devil. The Leech Devil is….pretty gross-looking, and the episode in general follows after that beat; it’s very bloody and gory, to an even greater extent than the past few.

Not obvious from this screencap is the fact that she has weirdly detailed udders. Why does she have udders? Leeches don’t have udders.

Denji puts in an impressive showing here, despite the fact that he’s lost so much blood that he’s really less Chainsaw Man at this point and more Man, With a Hint of Chainsaw. And hey, does it all while missing one of his arms, which really seems like it’d be a major plot point but, nope, he gets it back immediately afterward via a “blood transfusion,” somehow. A perk of being part-Devil, evidently.

It’s also worth noting that he doesn’t clinch the win all on his own; Aki, alongside Division 4, a group of characters very briefly introduced here who we’ll more properly meet next week, bail him out. This is notably also the first time we see that Aki is also contracted with a devil, mentioned here as being the norm for devil-hunters. His is the Fox Devil, whom he feeds pieces of his body in order to borrow her power.

Munch squad.

After this, Denji and Aki finally reach something of an accord. Mostly, Aki lets him off the hook in as much as he can because, true enough, Denji did actually save some people. And for not the last time in the series we do see a few members of the public remarking on how grateful they are….and the guy whose car Denji threw with him still inside it being pretty understandably pissed about that whole development. But, hey, nobody’s perfect.

Furthermore, in addition to housing Denji, Aki is now tasked with keeping an eye on Power, too. And he can’t exactly say no, because that’s an order from Makima, who puts in only a brief appearance in this episode but is as excellent and charismatic as ever. The report also contains a mysterious mention of “Gun flesh.” I’m sure we’ll find out what that is in due time.

Power is a predictably terrible roommate, and mention is made of the fact that she doesn’t really bathe, among other things. But, that ends up mattering little to Denji as soon as she offers to let him collect on the deal they made last week. The episode ends with Denji’s trembling hand reaching for Power’s chest, in a way that is truly, transcendentally dumb.

Down bad.

There will be better episodes of Chainsaw Man than this, and consequently this one does feel notably minor. But it is still pretty damn good. When you’re working on this high a level, you don’t really need to worry about hitting any snags. There aren’t any.

And now for the Bonus Power Screencap.

From today’s ED we have Super Shoutin’ Power. Use her to shut your enemies up, or just to cause general disruption in a place where things you don’t care about are happening.

Like what you’re reading? Consider following Magic Planet Anime to get notified when new articles go live. If you’d like to talk to other Magic Planet Anime readers, consider joining my Discord server! Also consider following me on Twitter and supporting me on Ko-Fi or Patreon. If you want to read more of my work, consider heading over to the Directory to browse by category.

All views expressed on Magic Planet Anime are solely my own opinions and conclusions and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of any other persons, groups, or organizations. All text, excepting direct quotations, is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.

Posted on in anime, Let's Watch

Let’s Watch SPY X FAMILY Episode 17 – “Carry Out the Griffin Plan”

Let’s Watch is a weekly recap column where I follow an anime for the course of its entire runtime. Expect spoilers!


Spy x Family returns to form this week after a rather poor showing last week. It helps that the show is here operating in one of its simplest and most effective modes; “Anya tries to galaxy brain a way into Damian’s good graces and fails spectacularly.”

The only real unfortunate thing is that this means that there isn’t terribly much to actually say about this episode. It’s funny, certainly, but there are only so many ways I can commend deft execution of simple jokes like “Anya makes a miscalculation in one of her little schemes and then makes a shocked face and says ‘Gong!’ out loud.” They are legitimately amusing, but at this point they’re fairly expected.

The more interesting material here comes from two specific characters; Damian himself, and Becky, Anya’s little friend whose parents are, if I remember properly, arms dealers? Something like that. In any case, Anya tries to pull this “oops, I dropped a cool picture” trick for the second time in as many cours, and instead what happens is that Becky sees the photo, and instead of being enamored with Bond, Anya’s big cool dog, she promptly falls head over tiny heels for Loid.

Becky reveals herself to have the same taste in men as about half of my Twitter mutuals.

The actual plot, about Anya trying to help Damian make a paper-mache griffin in an arts and crafts class so he can impress his dad, is basically just a vehicle for more gags and funny faces. It’s a decent vehicle, though, and on Damian’s part we get some further insight into just how detached his father actually is from his life. At one point, he fantasizes about his dad admiring the griffin and praising him for “honoring the family name.” Later, after school, he stands visibly apart from his classmates, talking to his butler Jeeves (really) on the phone. He asks his butler what his father thought of what went down during the initiation—you probably remember that episode—and Jeeves audibly struggles to come up with something. It doesn’t really work, because Damian knows full well that his father doesn’t think of him at all. It’s honestly pretty sad! It’s strange that Spy x Family handles this sort of “serious material” so much better than it does any other kind, but the series is pretty good at it, and I hope going back to this well several times means that some resolution is on the horizon somewhere.

After this plot runs its course, the episode again features a shorter B-segment. This is mostly about Sylvia Sherwood, Loid’s handler, and is mostly an exercise in some incredibly stone-faced humor. It’s a pretty fun one, so I’m glad it made it into the episode. The real punchline comes when Sylvia asks Loid for a report on his mission, and….she gets a different answer than what she probably expected.

There’s also an even shorter C-segment after the end credits, but it’s basically just a retread of last week’s Yor Food gags, and is thus not really worth discussing at any length. There’s a Yuri episode on the docket up next; we’ll see what the future holds then, anime fans.

Like what you’re reading? Consider following Magic Planet Anime to get notified when new articles go live. If you’d like to talk to other Magic Planet Anime readers, consider joining my Discord server! Also consider following me on Twitter and supporting me on Ko-Fi or Patreon. If you want to read more of my work, consider heading over to the Directory to browse by category.

All views expressed on Magic Planet Anime are solely my own opinions and conclusions and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of any other persons, groups, or organizations. All text, excepting direct quotations, is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.

Posted on in anime, Let's Watch

Let’s Watch CHAINSAW MAN Episode 3 – Nyako’s Whereabouts

Let’s Watch is a weekly recap column where I follow an anime for the course of its entire runtime. Expect spoilers!

We don’t really use the term “antihero” too often anymore. I think perhaps, collectively, we were a bit burned out on it somewhere around the mid-2000s. But it describes Denji to a tee, so I hope you won’t mind if I pull it out here.

To wit; our boy’s primary motivation throughout this episode is, once again, to touch a boob. This time, Power’s, in exchange for helping her rescue her pet cat (a less easy task than it may sound, given that said cat is imprisoned by a powerful devil, but we’ll get back to that). It’s such an idiotically basic motive that the word “motive” itself almost seems too grandiose. But hey, after god knows how many years of anime protagonists who “want to be a hero” or other similarly abstract things, I at least appreciate a protagonist whose motives are understandable if not exactly noble.

The cat-hunting is more in the latter 2/3rds or so of the epsiode. Before that, the series goes some way toward establishing Denji and Power’s push-and-pull dynamic. Notably, right off the top, Power gets in trouble for killing the Sea Cucumber Devil at the tail end of last week’s episode, and her first instinct is to immediately—and badly—lie and try to pin the blame on Denji.

In general, Power is pretty interesting, and it’s worth pausing here to talk about why. One of the best ways to make a character distinct (South Park influence notwithstanding, go look that up if you’re curious), is to pile on enough small character tics that aren’t notable in isolation but add up to a peculiar whole. Power is rather slovenly, as conveyed by the hoodie that’s often half-hanging off of her shoulders. She’s incredibly violent and prone to lying. But she also intermittently speaks in a screwy, stilted dialect of Japanese that the sub track translates as spurts of weirdly archaic English. (Even in that screencap up there, note that she phrases it as “It was he who commanded me to kill” and not something like “He told me to do it” or what have you.) She also noticeably clams up around Makima, who she is comparatively deferential toward, and seems perhaps even afraid of. All of this sums up as a character who is really pretty unique in the current anime landscape, and, accordingly, she’s a lot of fun to just watch bounce around the screen.

She has one further quirk; a fondness toward cats. As mentioned, this episode’s main plot consists of Denji being convinced to help her rescue her pet cat Meowy. (Or Nyako. They mean basically the same thing.) Power, as a Fiend, is pretty broadly disdainful of humans and, really, most life in general. Cats though, she seems to have a fondness for. Later in the episode we get a flashback about her initially meeting Meowy and it’s genuinely very sweet despite the fact that Power spends the entirety of said sequence naked and covered in grime. (CSM is bizarrely good at putting emotional resonance into scenes that read as ridiculous on paper.)

Denji, ever the gentleman, is openly disdainful of this affection….until Power makes the aforementioned offer to let him touch her chest if he helps her recover Meowy. At which point, he’s suddenly fuming mad about “that fucking Devil” stealing poor little Meow-Meow. The soundtrack even revs up alongside him. It’s pretty funny.

Elsewhere, Makima gets a few spotlight scenes as well, which serve to add some further depth to her character. Also, they serve to sate my endless thirst for this show’s insanely good use of characters’ lines-of-sight as non-verbal tells about how they’re feeling. Aki, in his only real scene in this episode, questions Makima on the wisdom of having Denji in his squad. If you were only listening to the dialogue, you would take Makima’s response as fairly cool and natural. If you look, however, she visibly glares at him (from behind, so he can’t even see it) for a moment before replying. Somebody doesn’t like their authority questioned, is all I’m saying.

I think if someone who looked like this looked at me this way I’d die on the spot. But hey, I’d die happy.

Also of note; a meeting between Makima and her superiors is the first glimpse we get at the wider state of Chainsaw Man‘s world. This particular council of anonymous, vaguely military-types makes mention of “war hawks” over in America and The Soviet Union (!), and rumors of devils deployed for military purposes. How true any of this is, we don’t yet know. But it is worth making note of the fact that even this council refer to Makima’s underlings as “dogs,” in case you were wondering if the people she works for are any nicer than she is.

As for the whole cat rescue situation? Well, Power was lying. She had no actual intent to help Denji fight the Bat Devil or anything of the sort, instead offering him to the Bat Devil as a sacrifice, so that the larger devil might heal his wounds by drinking Denji’s blood. This ‘brilliant’ plan has several flaws.

Flaw 1: The Bat Devil is a dick.

As soon as Power shows up with a half-conscious Denji (who she’s whacked over the head with one of her bloodmallets), the Bat Devil collects his sacrifice and starts squeezing our boy dry in a decidedly unpleasant way. (Seriously, he vomits blood, and the Bat Devil drinks it. Chainsaw Man is not afraid to get nasty; remember this.)

Power demands Meowy back, but, surprise, the Bat Devil thinks Denji’s blood tastes terrible, and he takes out his frustration on Power by eating her cat in front of her. Then, while she’s having the flashback scene described above, he eats Power herself, too.

Flaw 2: There is no flaw 2. Flaw 1 got her eaten alive, what else do you want?

Anyway, this all makes Denji rather unhappy.

As far as battle cries go, it’s not exactly “you shall not pass,” but hey, whatever works.

The final act of the episode is a truly stunning fight scene; easily the best in the series so far. Denji and the Bat Devil tear a cityscape to pieces, ripping up chunks of concrete and twisted metal as they slug it out. And in what is arguably his first act of something vaguely like superheroics, Denji actually rescues a couple people. (He also throws a car at the Bat Devil with the driver still inside it, but, hey, nobody’s perfect.)

All told, this stands as probably the strongest single episode of CSM so far. It manages to keep a pretty noteworthy number of plates spinning, and it looks great while doing it. Here’s hoping to much more of that to come.

And now, making its grand debut, the Bonus Power Screencap, because I know what the fans like. This one is from this week’s ED. A simple Power, but strong, and bold.

Like what you’re reading? Consider following Magic Planet Anime to get notified when new articles go live. If you’d like to talk to other Magic Planet Anime readers, consider joining my Discord server! Also consider following me on Twitter and supporting me on Ko-Fi or Patreon. If you want to read more of my work, consider heading over to the Directory to browse by category.

All views expressed on Magic Planet Anime are solely my own opinions and conclusions and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of any other persons, groups, or organizations. All text, excepting direct quotations, is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.

Posted on in anime, Let's Watch

Let’s Watch SPY X FAMILY Episode 16 – “Yor’s Kitchen; The Informant’s Great Romance Plan”

Let’s Watch is a weekly recap column where I follow an anime for the course of its entire runtime. Expect spoilers!

I don’t like the term “mid.”

Not because things can’t be mediocre—they certainly can—but because I feel like it gets slapped down on the table as an all-purpose “I didn’t really like this and don’t feel like really explaining why” card. When most people say “mid” they can mean anything from “decent but not my thing” to “outright terrible.” Rarely will they bother to explain which they mean or why.

But, you know, I say all this, but sometimes the only adjective you can pull for something truly is “mid.” There were some good parts and some bad parts and the whole thing is kind of just not that great overall. It’s not terrible, certainly, but maybe it’s a sign of bad things to come. Or just an unusually weak spot in an otherwise fine show.

Thus, we have episode sixteen of Spy x Family, the first Yor-centric episode in quite a while and also, unfortunately, easily the least essential since the series came back from hiatus.

The episode’s basic plot is pretty simple, revolving around Yor secretly learning how to cook from her coworker Camille (remember her? She was first relevant way back in episode 2). What the episode wants to be about is the simple joy of home cooking, the knowledge that you’re preparing something for someone close to you and, in a very real way, putting your heart and soul into it.

This is all well and good, and when the episode hits its primary climax at about the 15 minute mark, it does hit well enough to feel roughly worth it. Yor ends up cooking a stew (topped with a fried egg!) of some kind for Anya and Loid, and it’s genuinely pretty cute.

But the problem is getting there. Between the start of the episode and this little story’s conclusion is a parade of iterations on what might be the most overdone joke in the entire shonen format; the classic “oh no, someone is bad at cooking and their food looks like unidentifiable purple gunk” gag.

“Twists” on the trope in this case include Yuri, Yor’s obnoxious younger brother, who of course co-stars in this episode, actually loving Yor’s terrible food because he grew up with it, and….well honestly that’s kind of it. There’s some other stuff where Yor has difficulty properly preparing ingredients because her assassin instincts kick in and she ends up essentially butchering them. It’s marginally more unique, but not really any funnier. A lot of this really just seems far too basic for something like Spy x Family, which has previously demonstrated both much stronger characterization than this and much stronger comedic chops. Why waste time on this?

Yor does, at least, get the jump on Loid in one important way here, in terms of character development. She is the first one to realize that her “fake” family now matters to her more than what it was originally a cover for, and her coming to terms with that is an easygoing kind of heartwarming that perhaps more of this episode should’ve aimed for.

So, we end up with a very weak series of gags leading up to an emotional beat that is nice but doesn’t entirely feel earned. Is that “worth” it? It’s hard to say.

But don’t worry, this is a double episode, because Yor isn’t allowed to be the protagonist of an entire 22-minute stretch of Spy x Family. That would be silly.

No, instead, the latter half of this episode is about Frankie.

Yeah.

Uncle Scruffy here spends his half of the episode trying to enlist Loid’s help in hooking up with a cigar shop employee with the mildly amusing name Monica McBride. Presumably her mother is named Molly McBride and she has two sisters named Matilda McBride and Mary McBride.

Loid’s help mostly consists of telling Frankie to be himself—he tries making a way-too-thorough conversational chart too, but, perhaps wisely, Frankie thinks using that would be weird. There are some decent gags here, like when the two are having a full-on shouting argument and a stage direction pops up onscreen to inform us that they’re actually whispering.

Also, Loid uses his disguise skills to turn into a spitting image of Monica herself. I have to say, holding this against the show is astoundingly unfair of me, but when I’m already a little cold on an episode, hitting me with the dysphoria pangs does not improve my assessment.

On the other hand, it proves that Loid Forger could have tgirl swag if he wanted to.

Naturally, Monica turns Frankie down. (Sidenote here; it would’ve been very funny for the joke instead to be that she likes little awkward fuzzballs, a sort of hairy version of an Android 18 / Krillin situation. But that would’ve put a win in Frankie’s column, which I suppose is unacceptable for some reason.) Loid then closes out the episode by making one of his little speeches about how “people like them” can’t afford to be emotionally attached to others. Sure, dude. Keep telling yourself that.

And that’s where we end for the week! Again, I don’t hate this episode or anything, but a lot of this is just not all that interesting. The more emotional moments are the highlights, but there aren’t really enough of them to bring it above mediocre. Thus, again we must turn to that dreaded descriptor; mid. This is a mid episode. If you put a gun to my head and made me score it out of ten, I’d give it an even 5.

But, hey, next week is an Anya episode, and it’s been a while since we’ve had any episodes taking place entirely at her school. Hopefully that will be fun.

Like what you’re reading? Consider following Magic Planet Anime to get notified when new articles go live. If you’d like to talk to other Magic Planet Anime readers, consider joining my Discord server! Also consider following me on Twitter and supporting me on Ko-Fi or Patreon. If you want to read more of my work, consider heading over to the Directory to browse by category.

All views expressed on Magic Planet Anime are solely my own opinions and conclusions and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of any other persons, groups, or organizations. All text, excepting direct quotations, is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.

Posted on in anime, Let's Watch

Let’s Watch CHAINSAW MAN Episode 2 – Arrival in Tokyo

Let’s Watch is a weekly recap column where I follow an anime for the course of its entire runtime. Expect spoilers!

I didn’t point it out at the time, but last week, Denji’s then-boss described our hero thus; “the good thing about Denji is that he does what he’s told.”

Today, in the first part of its second episode, that point orbits around several times. With Makima, Denji has effectively traded one master he must unconditionally obey for another. One could argue it’s a slight upgrade, since, as we’ll see, Makima treats him materially much better than the old yakuza boss who ordered him around before this point, but his life still isn’t really his own.

He knows this, on some level. A very early scene here sees Makima describe Denji as her dog. This little smidgen of animal symbolism is probably Chainsaw Man‘s single most well-known thematic motif. Dogs, after all, generally do what they’re told as long as you take care of their needs. Denji is briefly angry about being treated like one, but upon Makima promising him a hot meal of whatever he likes, and offering him her coat to wear so he’s not walking around shirtless, his disaffection mostly evaporates. A few scenes later, and he is almost literally eating out of the palm of Makima’s hand.

It’s important to remember that Denji isn’t unique here. Most people will put up with a lot as long as their material needs are being met. Even given the line of work he’s being asked to take up, it is hard to imagine that many people, in his situation, would not do the same. (Some of you will say something like “RIP to him but I’m different” to that statement. We’ll get back to you as the show goes on.)

Not just an everyman, it’s important to remember that Denji is, too, a hormonal teenager. In addition to the obvious food and clothing benefits, Denji goes along with what happens here in part because he thinks Makima is hot. (Hot tip for the younger people who read my blog; you will never get with your boss.) Of course, Makima isn’t even remotely above picking up on and playing to that desire anyway, and it’s pretty obvious that she’s doing so.

Chainsaw Man is very good at subtle facial expressions as silent conveyors of intent. If you’ve already seen this episode and want to look for something neat on a rewatch, I would recommend going back through those early scenes and keeping an eye on Makima’s face specifically. She’s actually quite expressive and there are multiple points where you can almost see the gears turning in her head over various things.

In any case, as much as this episode is about Makima and Denji’s newfound working relationship, Denji doesn’t actually work directly under her. Instead, he’s assigned to one of Public Safety’s many devil hunting units. Specifically, an “experimental” one, lead by a ponytailed chain-smoker named Aki (Shougo Sakata).

King of Spades

Aki’s real introduction is one of the early manga’s most memorably goofy scenes, and for perhaps the first time, Chainsaw Man the anime actually sharpens the bent for crass humor in the original, rather than backing away from it.

The result? Well, Aki takes Denji for a walk, briefly interrogating his motives. What he gets out of this conversation is that Denji is basically only in this line of work to get with Makima. That’s not good enough for Aki, so he takes Denji to an anonymous back alley and slugs him across the face, expecting the ass-kicking to teach the punk a lesson. To hear him tell it, this is his version of kindness; he’s seen people die from getting into the business for weak reasons, and as much as he doesn’t really seem to like Denji, he doesn’t want that to happen to him.

Denji responds to this particularly physical brand of thoughtful consideration by kneeing Aki in the nuts.

Repeatedly.

While a “ding!” sound effect plays every time it happens.

Immature as hell? Yes. Extremely funny? Also yes. Chainsaw Man is rarely afraid to get a little juvenile in order to take the edge off things. Probably a good call, all things considered.

Soon after this, Makima compliments Aki and Denji on “hitting it off” upon hearing what happened (a very dry sense of humor on that one), and then, in the same breath, makes it very clear to Denji that if he is ever no longer useful to Public Safety for any reason, he’ll be killed.

Your last first day.

Denji and Aki’s first mission together, to exterminate a Fiend—a devil possessing a corpse—goes awkwardly. Denji’s able to dispatch the thing very easily, with a single swing of a Public Safety-provided hatchet, but Aki is annoyed at Denji for not using his devil powers, thinking of it as evidence that the younger hunter isn’t taking things seriously. Aki, it’s established, lost his life to a devil attack. So it is pretty understandable that he’d be miffed by Denji seemingly treating the entire thing as a game.

None of that really gets through to Denji though, who begins instead thinking very hard about boobs again.

He’s such a gentleman.

In fact, his entire sequence here plays as a stone-faced parody of the usual shonen-protagonist-hyping-themselves-up internal monologue, albeit an affectionate one. Indeed, in episode two of his series, Denji has truly found his noble calling, the righteous cause he must fight for.

This is, of course, supposed to be silly. But it’s worth again remembering that when you’re this age, one does think of trivial things like “scoring” with a girl (as CR’s subtitles so lovingly render it) as matters of life and death.

In any case, even with this particular goalpost set, Denji’s life gets more complicated one more time in the final few minutes of this episode, when a different girl walks into his life. Introduced by Makima as his “partner” within Aki’s unit.

You probably already know her, but if you don’t, I kind of envy you.

Because getting to meet Power for the first time is fun as hell.

Queen of Clubs

Yes, that wonderful idiot. A fiend, not unlike the man in the apartment that Denji just killed, but one who is—after a fashion—able to be reasoned with, but that doesn’t really make her rational. She’s introduced with a galumphing, ludicrous carnival music backdrop in the soundtrack, and there’s a reason for that.

Ai Farouz, her voice actor, stands out amongst Chainsaw Man’s cast by being a comparative veteran. She hasn’t been in the industry for terribly long—her first role of note was only in 2017—but she’s had a number of prominent roles. (Notable to me personally, she was Cure Summer in Tropical Rouge! Precure last year.) She plays Power perfectly, swinging from a low growl to a smug mid-range conversational tone, to a whooping screech when Power’s really excited. All of CSM’s VAs have been great so far, but Farouz might take first place. Perhaps it’s a case of limited reference pools here, but she really does play the character like a demonic Cure Summer. It works astoundingly well.

Certainly, Power herself steals what remains of the show from the second she appears. We get a small bit of exposition during her and Denji’s first patrol together (and also more of his leering thoughts about titties), but much more important is her catching the scent of devil blood on the wind and sprinting full-force towards the devil in question, fast enough that Denji can’t actually keep up. She literally hammers the target—the Sea Cucumber Devil—to pieces with a massive mallet made out of her own blood. The BGM erupts in an explosion of pulsating techno thump, and as she smashes the thing to smithereens, she positively howls in triumph. On that note, the episode ends.

And normally I’d cut the article here, but I do also want to take a moment to point out that one of my favorite bands, ZUTOMAYO, did the ED for this episode. It’s cool to see them finally getting exposure via an anime.

Until next time, anime fans.

(I haven’t said that in a while, have I? Well, there you go, a nice return to form.)

Like what you’re reading? Consider following Magic Planet Anime to get notified when new articles go live. If you’d like to talk to other Magic Planet Anime readers, consider joining my Discord server! Also consider following me on Twitter and supporting me on Ko-Fi or Patreon. If you want to read more of my work, consider heading over to the Directory to browse by category.

All views expressed on Magic Planet Anime are solely my own opinions and conclusions and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of any other persons, groups, or organizations. All text, excepting direct quotations, is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.

Posted on in anime, Let's Watch

Let’s Watch SPY X FAMILY – Episode 15

Let’s Watch is a weekly recap column where I follow an anime for the course of its entire runtime. Expect spoilers!

“Boof!”

I feel like I’ve been a bit unduly mean to Spy x Family since it came back. Not in a major or intentional way, but more just out of reflex. I made clear last week that I think Spy x Family’s most recent storyline has been hitting kind of an odd note. I more or less stand by that, but part of me feels that I just haven’t been giving the series the attention it deserves. Which is unfair, because while I’m maybe not as keen on Spy x Family as some are, it is still one of the year’s better action anime and one of its better comedy anime. That’s a solid showing twice over, and it deserves credit for that.

Either way, the whole terrorist bomb dog plot comes to its conclusion here with some amount of fanfare, but much to my own joy, this episode dials back in on the comedy that made Spy x Family so endearing in the first place. In the process, it rediscovers its inner warmth. I don’t think it’d be at all a stretch to say that this episode is the best since the show came back from its hiatus.

Let’s start with the basics. If you were worried about the cliffhanger from last week; don’t be. Loid does not shoot the dog, and in fact, he goes out of his way to make sure the dog who attacked him is fine, even managing to somehow get its bomb harness off and tossed into a nearby river, where it explodes harmlessly.

Yor also gets a brief bit of shine here. It’s perhaps not as much as I’d like, but a scene where she spin-kicks the terrorist Keith through a windshield and sends him careening into a lamppost is a pretty solid showing.

But of course, the main focus is about the dog. Not just any dog, the dog who is basically already Anya’s. With the crisis averted, Sylvia, Loid’s handler, tries to confiscate the psychic woofer while incognito as the state police.

And if you can forgive your blogger here for a moment; she looks damn good while doing it.

Anya, in a shrewd moment of using her psychic powers directly for her own benefit, throws a bit of a temper tantrum and threatens to stop going to school. Which is enough to get both Loid and Sylvia to change their tunes. There’s a touching scene in here where Sylvia remarks that Anya is a good kid, and offhandedly mentions that she had a daughter her age. The past tense isn’t remarked upon directly, but combined with her cold-blooded treatment of the terrorists in last week’s episode, this certainly implies some pretty heavy shit in Sylvia’s past. (Not that this is surprising, given her line of work.)

The rest of the episode, though, is concerned with the far more lighthearted but very important work of naming the dog, who Anya has up until this point just been calling “Mr. Dog.” (Inu-san.) Anya even assumes that the simple act of having a named dog might help her befriend Damien at school. Though, in her defense, Damien’s reaction when he asks for her dog’s name and she can’t give it to him is pretty amusing. This episode is actually a veritable harvest of Anya faces in general, which is great news for anyone who’s been missing those.

We have “Imitation Yor.”

“Thonkeng.”

“The Antihero”

“Edvard Munch’s ‘Scream'”, and many, many more!

She does settle on one eventually; late in the episode the Forgers take Anya and her new pet to a dog park. There, her dog retrieves a pair of gloves surreptitiously swiped from Anya by a different dog. Anya is reminded of an episode of Bondman, and this big pile of fur and love is given the most natural name possible; his name is Bond. Forger Bond.

He likes his martinis shaken, not furred.

And with that, the episode ends later that night, with a shot of the two having fallen asleep together. Yor remarks that Anya looks like a “little angel in [their] midst.” She is absolutely correct.

Like what you’re reading? Consider following Magic Planet Anime to get notified when new articles go live. If you’d like to talk to other Magic Planet Anime readers, consider joining my Discord server! Also consider following me on Twitter and supporting me on Ko-Fi or Patreon. If you want to read more of my work, consider heading over to the Directory to browse by category.

All views expressed on Magic Planet Anime are solely my own opinions and conclusions and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of any other persons, groups, or organizations. All text, excepting direct quotations, is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.

Posted on in anime, Let's Watch

Let’s Watch – SPY X FAMILY Episode 14

Let’s Watch is a weekly recap column where I follow an anime for the course of its entire runtime. Expect spoilers!

War, and what people do while waging it, are terrible and depressing. This is known. Armed conflict remains a serious issue throughout the world, perhaps even moreso now than it was just a few months ago back during Spy x Family‘s first cour. Again; terrible, depressing.

The same isn’t true for Spy x Family itself. Even as we get into the meat of a pretty damn serious arc with this second episode of its second cour. Throughout this arc parts, of the story get pretty grim, but Spy x Family still cuts its most serious moments with ones that are more lighthearted. This prevents what is easily the most uncomfortably real arc of the entire anime so far from being outright suffocating, but, nonetheless, it does kind of hit a weird note, doesn’t it?

What actually happens here is pretty simple; the episode is split between a cat and mouse game between Loid’s agency and the terrorists (And eventually, just their leader, the mononymic Keith.) and, separately, Anya and the clairvoyant dog from last week trying to stop a bomb from going off.

That second part is ostensibly the “lighthearted” half of this week’s episode, but even this involves the dog having a grim vision of the near future where Loid dies in an explosion, which, obviously, Anya is desperate to avert. It says quite a bit that this is still the comparatively sillier part of the episode. Mostly due to Anya’s goofy reactions when things don’t go her way.

Loid’s half of the episode is much darker and is almost entirely devoid of humor. Perhaps the most indicative scene being one where his handler, Cynthia, interrogates Keith’s terrorist ring. Things get pretty intense!

And while that conversation is, I’m sure, written from a place of good intention, it does illustrate something of a problem with this episode.

At the end of the day, it’s excellently made, and it certainly deserves to exist in an abstract sense, but cutting so close to the gritty realities of war is dangerous for Spy x Family, which tends to work better when it’s in modes that are a little less reflective of things that actually go on in the world. (Deadly-serious dodgeball games, for example.)

More concretely, it’s a little annoying how yet again Yor is reduced to a bit player in a show she is supposed to be one of the protagonists of. It’s understandable that things here play into Loid’s specialties a little more, given the whole espionage angle of this arc, and I’m not asking Yor to start shanking people in front of her daughter, but surely, she could’ve been given a little more to do? Perhaps next week, it’s hard to say. All in all, this is a well-made but somewhat disappointing episode for me personally. If you feel differently, I’d be happy to hear why in the comments.

Like what you’re reading? Consider following Magic Planet Anime to get notified when new articles go live. If you’d like to talk to other Magic Planet Anime readers, consider joining my Discord server! Also consider following me on Twitter and supporting me on Ko-Fi or Patreon. If you want to read more of my work, consider heading over to the Directory to browse by category.

All views expressed on Magic Planet Anime are solely my own opinions and conclusions and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of any other persons, groups, or organizations. All text, excepting direct quotations, is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.

Posted on in anime, Seasonal Impression Roundups

Seasonal First Impressions: Make Your Own Fun with DO IT YOURSELF!

Seasonal First Impressions is a column where I detail my thoughts, however brief or long, about a currently-airing anime’s first episode or so.

Yua Serufu (Konomi Inagaki, in her first lead role) has a problem, and no, it’s not that the official translation of her show ignores the truly stunning pun baked into her name. It’s that she and her very best friend, the uptight but diligent tsundere Miku “Purin” Suride (Kana Ichinose), have ended up going to different high schools. Serufu is a disheveled space case of a girl, so that fact in of itself doesn’t bother her. But the fact that she can’t hang out with her bestie anymore definitely does. How does she plan to solve this? By building a bench. Obviously.

Let’s back up a moment; Do It Yourself! is the latest from Pine Jam, a fairly low-key studio that usually only puts out one or two projects a year. But they’re consistently visually great projects; most recently the trashy but excellently directed action seinen Gleipnir, and then, last year, the stage girl drama Kageki Shoujo!! Those last two are also by this series’ director, Kazuhiro Yoneda, and it’s his first original project with the studio. (And Pine Jam’s first original period since 2017’s Just Because!)

The point is this; the first thing one will notice about Do It Yourself! is that it just looks gorgeous. The art styles are dissimilar, but the free-flowing animation and school life-but-slightly askew setting remind me just a bit of Windy Tales. And the series makes heavy use of a soft but very warm and inviting color palette. I dislike describing things as “cozy” because the term often gets used to paper over the flaws of anime where not much is going on. (Such as, say, DIY’s contemporary Management of a Novice Alchemist.) But it definitely applies here in a real and positive way. There are, crucially, also a few places where it does feel a bit colder. Mostly, these are the areas that lean into its very near-future setting. Purin, for example, has an eye-scanner on her front door, the swarms of drones that ambiently fly overhead certainly offer a very literal overcast to the otherwise warm setting, and Purin’s high school itself—an upscale vocational/technical school where, Purin brags, that she’s learning how to 3D print body parts for surgery—quite literally overshadows Serufu’s. It’s larger and physically surrounds it, being constructed in a U-shape around the smaller building. Regardless, all of this makes the series’ world feel truly lived-in in a way that’s rare enough to be worth pointing out.

These tinges of darker and more mature concerns—the implied class conflict, the proliferation of intrusive technology—are not at the forefront of DIY’s modus operandi, though, and it’s hard to say whether or not the show will ever address them more directly. Serufu is a traditionally spacey (read, neurodivergent) lead for this sort of thing, and if she harbors any resentment toward the obviously-wealthier Purin, she doesn’t show it. Instead, she largely plays the part of the goofball school life lead. It’s an old character archetype, but done very well here, and Serufu has an unconventional but very much still adorable character design that really makes her stand out; covered as she is in bumps and bruises plastered over with Band-Aids. Not to mention smaller details, like the fact that her color palette leaves the inside of her mouth an un-shaded white when she speaks; minute touches, to be certain, but things that a lesser slice of life show would ignore.

As for the actual plot? There isn’t too much of one, yet. A kindly upperclassman (Rei Yasaku, VA Ayane Sakura) helps Serufu out after the younger girl’s bike chain slips and she smashes into a streetlight. Serufu, on the advice of shy and nerdy secondary character Takumi Hikage (Azumi Waki) goes to find her, to offer her a proper thank-you, and instead stumbles on a small wooden shack behind her school, where Yasaku whittles her after-school hours away as the only member of the DIY Club. As we meet her here, she’s making a bookshelf, which Serufu tries to help out with before promptly pulling the trigger too hard on a power drill and careening into a pile of planks.

(I feel the need to throw in somewhere here the fact that Yasaku is introduced by literally Heelys-ing to the site of Serufu’s bike crash, fixing her bike with barely a full sentence swapped between the two of them, and then Heelys-ing away without a further word. That’s the kind of A+ character introduction you don’t get every day.)

What happens next will be familiar to anyone who has ever seen even a single other series in the school club comedy format. You know the drill, they need X more members or the club will get shut down for lack of activity. Etc. Etc.

But sticking to a tried and true plot formula—at least this early on—shouldn’t be taken as some kind of glaring flaw. Instead, what’s obvious even from this first episode is that Do It Yourself! has an extremely strong aesthetic and storytelling sense. Look at, for another example, the wonderful way the show’s “imagination bubbles” are illustrated. Serufu’s daydreams actively shift the art style depending on their contents, going for a dreamy sort of comfort when she fantasizes about sitting on a cloud, a comedic chibi format when she reminisces about the time her mom banned her from doing arts and crafts because she injured herself so much. (And how this led to her taking up drawing as a hobby. And how she used to literally eat crayons. Serufu is a wonderful protagonist.) Occasionally it will pull an even wilder, bolder shift.

This truly is one to keep your eye on. In a way, Do It Yourself‘s relaxed vibe is deceptive; make no mistake, this is one of the year’s strongest premieres. Consider this article a wholehearted endorsement.

Like what you’re reading? Consider following Magic Planet Anime to get notified when new articles go live. If you’d like to talk to other Magic Planet Anime readers, consider joining my Discord server! Also consider following me on Twitter and supporting me on Ko-Fi or Patreon. If you want to read more of my work, consider heading over to the Directory to browse by category.

All views expressed on Magic Planet Anime are solely my own opinions and conclusions and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of any other persons, groups, or organizations. All text, excepting direct quotations, is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.

Posted on in anime, Let's Watch

Let’s Watch SPY X FAMILY Episode 13 – Project Apple

Let’s Watch is a weekly recap column where I follow an anime for the course of its entire runtime. Expect spoilers!

If it seems like Spy x Family never really left, that’s because for all intents and purposes, it basically didn’t. In practice, this episode marks the start of a second season, but on paper, what the series is doing here is a once-rare but increasingly-common split cour. Two batches of episodes considered to be part of the same “season” even though they air months apart. Confusing! But if it lets the animators rest their weary bones even a little, we should probably be accommodating.

In any case, from a plot and style point of view it definitely doesn’t feel like things have changed. Spy x Family’s second cour opens with dual plots about adopting a cute dog for Anya and preventing not-Willy Brandt from being assassinated by bomb dogs. Naturally, these two things collide into each other when Anya gets lost at a pet adoption event.

Yes.

It’s easy to forget, since the series leans pretty heavily on the “comedy” end of the “action comedy” spectrum, but there is some genuinely harrowing stuff that happens in Spy x Family. The terrorist plot is played pretty straight throughout this episode. Keith, the terrorists’ leader, is a no-nonsense right-wing extremist, and when Anya stumbles into his group’s hideout, he’s the only one who’s completely unhesitant in trying to kill her.

But Anya is nothing if not lucky (and, you know, telepathic). One of the other assets being kept by the terrorists is a living mountain of fur in dog form.

He doesn’t have a name yet, but he doesn’t need one to make a strong first impression here. He has precognitive abilities, and makes his debut in this episode by yanking a child away from a sign that was about to fall, immediately establishing him as a “good guy” dog. (Although, really, with how Spy x Family generally is, I wouldn’t be surprised if the other dogs introduced in this episode eventually turn face also. We shall see.)

Here, our canine friend heroically slinkies Anya down some stairs.

We also learn of the sinister Project Apple, from whence all these telepathic dogs (and apparently a fair amount of other weird science-enhanced animals) come from. It’s not a stretch to assume that this might have some link to Anya’s own powers.

Regardless, the episode ends mid-showdown, with Yor rescuing her daughter from the terrorists, and things setting up excitingly for next week. It’s good to have the series back, foot foot planted firmly on the gas, dead-set on sparking a sense of adventure in your heart once again. And really, for now, that’s all it needs to do.

Like what you’re reading? Consider following Magic Planet Anime to get notified when new articles go live. If you’d like to talk to other Magic Planet Anime readers, consider joining my Discord server! Also consider following me on Twitter and supporting me on Ko-Fi or Patreon. If you want to read more of my work, consider heading over to the Directory to browse by category.

All views expressed on Magic Planet Anime are solely my own opinions and conclusions and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of any other persons, groups, or organizations. All text, excepting direct quotations, is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.