Shonen Anime Discussions

As much as it pains me to do this I might not be posting much of anything on the blog anymore as the semester is coming to a close and the holidays are upon us I have no idea if or when I would be able to update on the series. I may try to come back after to January when things have settled down and I have a more stable life. To those of you that added to the interaction by commenting thank you very much and to the silent masses (bit o’ sarcasm lol) I hope you enjoyed or at least found the information I put out to be of help.

And with that I say Adieu

So Parasyte is progressing nicely. Its got the character development or de-evolvement (depending on how you look at it ) and the story is progressing and a good rate. I love how the Shinichi Izumi went from being the weak underdog that was picked on constantly and now he is a bona fide badass. That being said it is all due to the parasite that failed to take his brain and instead embedded itself in his hand. With the death of his mother and his father being delusional he searches for the parasite that ate his mother when he encounter another like himself. after making aquaintences and becoming allies they promise to keep tabs on one another to find Izumi’s mother’s killer. Soon after the they ally up Uda (the ally) finds the enemy and lures it away after a brief fight Izumi joins and after surprising the murderer Uda re-appear and kills the parasite that had killed Izumi’s mother.

After the death of his mother and after Migi repaired the whole in his heart something changed within him. When Migi repaired the whole and returned to Izumi’s hand something unexpected happened. Particles from Migi’s being were somehow left in the blood stream and have begun to alter Izumi’s physical characteristics. First we notice that his sight is fixed and he no longer needs glasses. Actually what really is first and is brought to attention later on is the fact that he no longer cries. I believe it has to do with how Migi doesn’t have empathy. Meaning that Migi’s particles are changing Izumi more that physical, but also mentally. This is also shown in second to last episode is when Izumi finds the dog dying in the street and brings it back to the park to let it die in peace, but where is shows his lost empathy is when it is dead he just throws it in the trash. One more side effect of Migi’s intervention to save Izumi is that  Migi now has to sleep for 4 hours out of the day in order to be combat ready…. this obviously leaves Izumi in a bind more than a couple of times, but because of the super human abilities that he’s gained he is slightly more prepared to defend himself.

I must admit I had higher hopes for season 2 of Log Horizon. I was hoping that there would be a bit more action to it, but so far its been a fair bit of character development. Not to say that there hasn’t been any action there is definitely the scenes with Akatsuki kicking ass and taking names also the new character outfit she has is awesome though I’m a bit biased there seeing as my favorite color is red. Despite now knowing that there are many more “adventurers” in the world and in different cities Shiroe and the other people of the round table decide to keep to themselves especially after shiroe’s encounter with someone who had also discovered a new magic. After all their efforts they will still need to money to maintain the upkeep with all the buildings so their isolationist ideal has to be broken in order for them to maintain the lives they have started. Should you want a more complete breakdown of what is in all the episodes along with their opinion i suggest looking here: https://geekorner.wordpress.com/episodic-observations/log-horizon-episodic-thoughts/.

Brief review over I notices some changes in the art style of the series itself. I can’t confirm but it seems to be slightly different its got the same energy and color. I don’t know how to explain it… it’s like looking at something you’ve seen your whole life and then one day it just feels different you can’t tell why but it just is.

As for story progression I don’t feel as if it has progressed at all. As I said earlier it seems like the author is focusing on character development rather than continuing where they left off at the end of season 1. Overall however I would like to see how this plays out and what the plans on doing with the story and in the mean while I am going to look and see if i can figure out why the art style seems different.

As promised here is my part two to the overview of IMHS.

After some interesting tests and a little bit of stubbornness from Tatsuya, he finally agrees to join the disciplinary squad of the school and his first week out leads to some interesting circumstances. Primarily the setup of a violent altercation between the kendo club and the fencing club. The first couple weeks of school have fairs that are geared toward gathering freshmen members to join clubs so that way they can train and have a larger budget for the nine schools competition. Durring this altercation Tatsuya breaks up a fight between two members and has to put one of them down hard due to his using a lethal grade spell. Unfortunately for some of that guys fiends they tried to attack Tatsuya and were instantly disarmed by one of his specialty spells. As it turns out this incident turns into a molding point at which a seed is planted in the minds of some of the “weed” students. This seed is cultivated by a member of a terrorist organization that opposes magic, yet uses magic and underhanded tactics to bring down the magic community.

As a result of this and because of plans that were set into motion the terrors cells manages to confuse and turn some students into agents working for them and launch an assault on the school. Between the school staff and the extraordinary students they are able to fight them off and figure out that their main goal was to destroy or capture the magic knowledge stored in the library. Unlike normal libraries this one stored all of the information in one secure place and because of that if it was attacked all other locations would also cease functioning. Tatsuya and Miyuki manage to stop the threat of the download and the other students stop the renegade students from turning into the fanatic terrorists. After things has settled down slightly and the perimeter of the school is secured, Tatsuya takes it upon himself on behalf of the magic community to stop the terrorist from running away and decides to confront them at their base of operations. With reserve one of the students from the 10 master clans, Jumonji,  joins Tatsuya and Miyuki and a few other students to raid the base of the terrorists.

After the initial rush through the main mate Tatsuya and Miyuki make their way inside and after a brief confrontation with the head of this terrorist cell Tatsuya persuese the head while Miyuki, in an all too accepting way, takes on the remaining two or so insurgents. Because of her feeling for her brother and her talent for magic she completely decimates them in an instant letting her feelings go to town with the magic. Tatsuya completely surprises the head honcho and easily defeats him. Shortly after Jumonji and the other bust through a wall and view the carnage laid out before them. In the End they get the bad guys real good and turn others of to the police.

That ends the first arc of the series and is a nice ease in to the whole story. All in all I definately recoment this to anyone who likes a good action anime with a great plot line. Luckily for ya’ll this is already out and you won’t have to wait to watch your episodes. As I told my friend the IV drip of episodes was killing me because at the end of each episode they leave you in a suspense.

So, things are starting to pan out and expound the story of some of the main crew on the mission to mars. They have the American squads, Japanese squads, and Russian squads have all checked in with each other and after either killing and/or capturing the terras have begun to make their way to annex 1 the main ship. After some tense moments of fate where some of the last possible fighters could have died, pulled through and tore up the bugs. After all the remaining teams checking in with each other the Russian team is the only one that has not confirmed anything and while we get to see that they may have other motives for coming to mars. In One particular case its rather dangerous and almost self destructive (maybe literally), But at this point it does a good job of showing off some of the new changes that were made to the combatants of the project. In a slightly earlier episode they get down into explaining that the new crew has undergone a surgery that is fundamentally different that that used in previous missions, possibly allowing the crew to overcome the highest of hazardous conditions.

(Disclaimer there may be spoilers in here I’ll try to put a * and at that location you can go to the last paragraph an read my thoughts there.)

Getting on with it, Irregular at Magic High School (IMHS) is a series that takes place in a futuristic Japan in a world where magic does exist, but due to technology they create devices know as CAD (Casting Assistance Device) that speed up the normal incantations and automatically creates summoning circles. After the first bloody war using magic, the countries come together to create a community to raise students that are gifted in magic to learn the arts and to pave the way for a better tomorrow. Sadly this ends up as a way for the government to manage improvements made for military implemented magic. The whole magic community is overseen to by the ten master clans of magic. These clans have some of the strongest practitioners of magic in all the world. The Story starts with a struggling magic student that has enrolled in the first magic highschool along with his sister. Tatsuya Shiba is a special mage* and his practical uses of magic are almost sub-par and because of that he has a had time with some of the basic spells used, however he does specialize in abnormal magic (I’ll get to that in a bit). His sister Miyuki Shiba is on a wholly different level she has the practical ability to rival that of some of the strongest magicians in the world. So, living on their own* they start off attending the First Magic High School and after the inevitable first encounter with hostile people we see how the system of magic works for combat and how special Tatsuya’s magic is.

After that initial fight Tatsuya, who is trying to lay low, is noticed for his talent by the studen government association. What is different about this “Student” Government Association is that the high school is like its own mini-city and that the “Student Government” is the all ruling power of the entire school because most of the classes are self taught in order to avoid favoritism to any one country or family. After slight questioning they want to bring on Tatsuya as a step towards breaking down the stigma of being a second class student that was decided in the testing to get into the school. The abused party being the Weeds and the favored party being Blooms. Tatsuya despite his special talent is labeled as a weed while his sister is at a bloom level if not beyond that. After being selected and put on the disciplinary committee Tatsuya shows more of his skills and is able to fully distinguish himself and help to settle down the school.

Alright I’m going to break this up and I will be writing a part two to this next week. Also, should there be any questions about the series I will be more than willing to answer them. Another disclaimer is that the anime series has ended for now hopefully in due time they can do another arc.

 

*Tatsuya is almost genetically modified and and his special ability is reconstruction of people, long story short he can bring the dead back to life, in a non-zombie way. In order for this to work he is unable to use practical magic at any higher levels, because of this he has developed the ability to read and cast spell sequences at inhuman rates.

*This is a bit interesting there is a slight sibling love interested mostly on Miyuki’s part, but nothing goes too suggestive.

I’m gonna start off by saying that this is a cruel series. Not an Akame Ga Kill cruel, but a cruelty service to the views of this series. You have been warned! I am still kind of skeptical of the why things happening in the series and I don’t believe that the author did a good enough job of laying down a back story prior to getting into the middle of the series. That aside it was also a very short series with only 12 episodes, but that seems to be the new series length for most animes out there. There are rumors going about that there will be a second season coming soon (http://www.threeifbyspace.net/2014/11/aldnoah-zero-season-2-teaser-new-poster-raises-questions/).

Little bit of back story: So as the story goes, humanity makes it to the moon to find a hypergate. The hypergate leads to Mars and the people of Earth start to colonize Mars and in due time the Martian colonists break off and start a war against Earth using technology discovered on Mars during this conflict the newly formed Vers empire manages to destroy the hypergate and the moon causing a ring of debris to for around earth and from that the remainder of the Vers rebels formed orbital drop-ships of a colossal scale. The series starts after the princess of the Vers empire is killed in a terrorist strike on Earth to cause a war despite her mission for peace.

So If you end up watching this series and really enjoy it I suggest you stop at the 11th episode. As the title suggests there is a spoiler. Just don’t get attached to the main characters much like Attack on Titan people starting dying or are executed in the most anti-climatic way. To be honest I though this was a great series (especially because I’m a mecha addict) and then I get to the end and became so disappointed…. and surprised, but very disappointing in the way it was chosen to end the first arc.

Since the last time I wrote about Argevollen there have been a number of episodes that released and all of which have been intriguing. Tokimune has become the generic badass, and things start to turn in favor of the independent unit 8. Good unit moral and a new member have got the entire team feeling good about their engagements and yet, one day they get the call to mobilize to an area that has been having whole units just being decimated without a trace of the mech or mechs that did it. Tokimune and his old friend from training (the new pilot) train and are pair up for their mission out to investigate the area in which the units disappeared. During their investigation they run into an opposing unit and have no problems dealing with it until a new mech appears. This new mech is very similar to Tokimune’s Argevollen and shakes up his thoughts and moral because it ended with the new unit escaping. After their last headlong battle they have to rest and reinforce but can’t do that so close to enemy territory. When they place the request in to change their position the command responds a bit too quickly for what they have done in the past. Suspecting that it is a setup, Ukyo Samonji, their captain, has their wounded take the fastest route back to a forward operating base.  While they tell command that they are going a different route, planning on being followed by the new mech unit they set up an ambush in a deserted industrial factory city. During this time Tokimune, who was acting odd before the operation, engages with the the new unit and attempts to by time for the trap to be set and detonated. Key problem here he looses his mind pretty much literally causing him to go into a bloodrage type state where all he does is relentlessly pursue his opponent. I’d like to interject here that while watching this particular portion of the series I noticed (kinda hard not to) that he straight up when animal berserker mode, he sounded nothing like a human. To which I tip my hat to the voice actors for being able to put that out there truly bravo. Samonji blows up the warehouse as per their plans with Tokimune in it because by this point he has already ignored orders and shot one of their comrade by accident. Argevollen and the new mech is shredded, but salvageable except the new mech is not found when the unit moves out with Tokimune unconscious. After research and connections made from the past it is decided that Tokimune can no longer pilot Argevollen or else he will literally lose his mind. As it turns out the system that Argevolen uses a system that connects with the mind and body of a pilot its the same system that was used for testing years prior on the prototype mech that Tokimunes sister piloted and died. Major plot twist there to be honest I didn’t see it coming, but it brought back the life into the series because i though it was going to continue on as one of those series that just drags on for while before putting the program down. All in all I like how it’s developing and will continue to keep an eye on it.