Terror in Resonance #6 – This week’s episode is a study in comparing and contrasting healthy vs. unhealthy relationships. On the healthy side, you’ve got Twelve and Lisa, where he shelters her from her emotionally abusive mother and says her voice is pretty, and she tries to help out with the chores and errands. Yes, some of those errands may involve blowing stuff up, but anyway.
On the flip side, there’s the mutual fascination of Five and Nine. Apparently they were very competitive back at the facility, and now it’s reached a whole new level with Five taking control of an entire airport terminal to get a chess rematch. (I expect those control-room scenes worked better for viewers who aren’t fluent in English. Anime English is usually not terrific, but it’s usually not that bad either. Rather ironic after hearing some of the best English I’ve ever encountered in anime last week, from Daisuke Takahashi as Five’s handler.)
There’s an unexpectedly positive relationship between Shibazaki and his coworkers. He’s been made out to be the lone-wolf type who will abandon his comrades to do the right thing, but when the time comes and four of them want to join him for “lunch”, that felt like the most heartwarming scene in the episode.
Now Shibazaki is likely to encounter Sphinx in person. And Lisa too, perhaps? I expect we’ll find out next time if he really is her father.
Hunter x Hunter #143 – If you recall that chart of family relationships from a couple episodes ago, the only pairs of people in the Zoldyck family who truly love each other are Killua’s parents, Killua and Alluka, and… Illumi and Mrs. Zoldyck. So it is that Illumi’s secret ally who allows him to see through all Killua’s tricks is in fact their mother.
Killua saves the day by revealing a little more of how Alluka’s power works, which boils down to the idea that being nice to people works better. Wish for destruction and a destructive curse follows, but ask for someone to be healed and there’s no backlash. You would figure that in a family like the Zoldycks, no one would manage to figure that part out.
In a similar vein, I’d bet that that last rule, the exception to the rule that no one can ask for the same wish twice, is simply that the rules are suspended for anyone Alluka really, truly likes. And that’s why Killua would be put under mind control if the rest of the family knew– it’d be difficult, but easier than trying to get her to like them.
Back at election HQ, the candidates are rapidly being whittled down, but so is the electorate. And Ging, meddling apparently complete, is spending some time as a panda. Okay, then! Go, Leorio!
Sailor Moon #4 – A possible lead on the Legendary Silver Crystal turns out to be a mistake, but it provides Usagi the perfect opportunity to pretend to be a princess and have a romantic dance with her beau. And almost experience something that would light up the blogosphere about harassment again if it happened at a con. Chaperone Cat to the rescue!
Even accounting for this only showing up every other week, it does feel like it’s moving awfully slowly. Here we are halfway through the season, and there are still two more team members to pick up, and they’ll each have to have a whole episode to feature them.
JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure #20 – Kakyōin finally summons the courage to speak up, isn’t listened to at all, and then figures out at the last minute how to defeat Death 13. After he saves everyone’s bacon, it falls to him to take the final revenge on the demon baby, about which all I am going to say is, ewwwww. I don’t mind action-movie humor much usually, but… just… ewwwww.
I’m not actually sure what happened at the end of the fight sequence there. It looked like Death 13 was going to decapitate itself, but clearly it didn’t since the user is still alive. But everyone seems to feel that the threat has been neutralized somehow. Are they just planning to summon their Stands every night before going to sleep now, or counting on the baby’s good behavior now that they’ve figured it all out?
Aldnoah Zero #7 – The latest Kataphrakt is defeated, but only after a whole lot more disarmament (ha!), being run over by Space Battleship Yamato, and finally taking a killing shot from Marito (I think). And then Inaho seems to flip out and decide Slaine is still his enemy despite the help he just provided. Could we finally be seeing a personality develop, or is just the lead-in to another episode of demonstrating that Inaho is the most awesome of awesomeballs ever to inhabit a mecha?
And we still don’t know what’s in the Tanegashima Report. We do know now that someone from the royal family must have been present. So what happened to them? Is this the reason we haven’t seen either of Asseylum’s parents? Could we please, please get the full version of Marito’s flashback next week, at least?
