The Weekend Anime Post

It's been a bit of quiet week for anime viewing in my neck of the woods largely because I haven't done any marathon sessions through an entire series in a few days time. Still, there was a decent amount watched what with staying up to date on "Say I Love You" and "My Little Monster", also my wife is getting into Gosick, so we've watched about twelve episodes of that. On top of that, I've started watching Blast of Tempest. Okay, maybe it's not been all that quiet a week of anime, but it felt a little less hectic anyway.

Say I Love You

I really don't like Mega-tan.

So, the show has introduced a villain of sort, a girl named Megumi, referred to as Mega-tan, who is some super popular teenaged celebrity model that has started going to Mei's high school. She's a self-centered, manipulative twit who has her eyes on Yamato. At first he tells her to go away because he doesn't like her attitude, and he wants to hang out with Mei. However, Mega-tan manages to convince him to help with a photo shoot since her agency was having trouble wrangling up a male model for it, and he's a handsome chap that would be good to fill the spot.

I find myself really hating Mega-tan, but I guess that makes her a good villain. She's totally taking advantage of Yamato's kindness to get closer to him, and muscle out Mei. Moreover, Yamato is completely oblivious to the fact his actions will hurt Mei. He's a nice guy, but pretty dense sometimes. If he screws this up, he totally deserves to lose Mei. I haven't any sympathy for him given the way he's behaving right now. Gah, so angry!

My Little Monster

This week's episode was good for a few chuckles. Haru is finally learning that his odd behavior can be a bit off-putting to girls, as he tries to find a new way to win over Shizuku. For me it was mostly random gags that made the episode work, like showing how Haru has been bugging Shizuku, some of his conversation with Oshima, Haru trying to help his class get a good spot for the school festival, and Haru daydreaming about Shizuku at the end of the show after she said she was going home. (As you can see, it was a very Haru-centric episode!) Shizuku sorting out her feels is also interesting, and I wonder if she gets her driven personality from her mom, who has not yet appeared in the show since she's always working. Maybe we'll find out in time.

Haru's view of Shizuku does not necessarily coincide with reality.

Also, it looks like Kenji is getting interested in Shizuku, so Haru may have a rival for her affection in the not too distant future. In the end, though, this week's episode was largely lighthearted fun, but then again that's much more this series' strong point, and it makes a nice counterpoint to the heavier overtones in Say I Love You.

Gosick

If you want to make Victorique happy, bring her sweets.

I've watched the first twelve or so episodes in the series so far, which I actually saw when the series first aired. The missus hasn't seen the show before, so she's getting up to speed with it. It's good fun, though. We're both big fans of mysteries like Poirot and Miss Marple, so this series has a bit of a similar feel to it with all of the mysteries that need solving.

Each case is condensed into two or three episodes, with interesting twists along the way. All the while we see the show's main characters, Kazuya and Victorique, slowly falling for each other. It's kind of bitter sweet though because Gosick takes place in the 1920s, and we know there's still a second world war to be fought that will tear the two apart since Kazuya is Japanese and Victorique is European. Even the show hints at this. So for now I watch them solve mysteries and enjoy their time together while they can because we all know it won't last, even if they always care about each other until the end.

Blast of Tempest

I like the way Blast of Tempest goes
about using magic.

So far I'm only three episodes into this series, but it seems pretty fun. I like the quality of the animation, and there's been a ton of action so far. The series is about a clan of mages in modern times that are trying to raise some weird being that will destroy the world. There are a pair of high school boys trying to stop them with the help of a princess mage stranded on a desert island. So far it's mostly been fast paced action with a bit of time spent explaining back stories, and who everyone is.

The way the show goes about using magic is kind of neat. There aren't any fireballs or lightning bolts flying around everywhere. Instead magic is used for healing, protection, and defense, but can be construed for offensive purposes. So, mages will do stuff like build force fields around themselves and their weapons, and use magic to move faster. This causes them to become extremely deadly as their strikes now have tremendous impact.

Where I'm at now, the show's protagonists have just escaped their first encounter with a real mage, and are off to their next destination. I'm enjoying the action so far, but wouldn't mind a little more explanation about the enemies besides them being a bunch of crazed fanatics.

Anyway, that's all I have to discuss for the anime I've watched in the past week. What have you been watching?