Anime roundup 10/27/2016: Some Of Us Are Looking At the Stars

orphans-29 Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans #29 – Tekkadan’s star is definitely rising. Both Gjallarhorn factions want to be its friends. Teiwaz wants to help it diversify by handing it the contract for a mine that will someday be a thriving business of its own. This leads to a conversation about how Orga is going to need to learn to handle things in a more political, less fighty manner, nicely juxtaposed against a scene of Orga handling something in a not at all political manner.

The mine presents a new moral dilemma for Tekkadan. The last couple of episodes have emphasized how dangerous the surgery that allows Mikazuki to pilot the Barbatos is. Now the mine has turned up one Gundam with possibly more to come. Tekkadan can’t use them unless more people are willing to risk the surgery – and those people have to be children. If they don’t use the Gundam suits, someone else more assuredly will want to, and Tekkadan will have to either guard them vigilantly or destroy them. Having Orga navigate that choice should provide some excellent drama in the episodes to come.

(Daisuki — AnimeLab)

raising-4 Magical Girl Raising Project #4 – Talk about good intentions gone wrong. Ruler and Nemurin just wanted to encourage other girls to step up and be their best. Unfortunately, Swim Swim learned from Nemurin that she should seize power, and learned from Ruler how to be a ruthless leader. She’s got what it takes to be a major antagonist.

And we still don’t know what Swim Swim’s magic is. Koyuki’s mindreading power is looking more and more useful. It turned out not to matter for fighting Ruler since she’s gone already, but if people keep having internal monologues around Snow White, they’re going to start regretting it.

Koyuki’s biggest enemy is herself. She doesn’t want to fight, she doesn’t want to be fought for if it means someone else has to die, she just wants to do good. That’s great for running up her score, but not for surviving as the game turns deadly.

(Crunchyroll)

cheating-3 Cheating Craft #3 – Testing takes a step back for a couple minutes to introduce the lovely and talented Haku. Ah, but what sort of talent? Mumei says, “She’s an L-type student, the same as me!” when of course he’s no such thing.

Haku’s brilliant performance means one of two things: either she’s an incredibly gifted and hard-working student who is well ahead of the curriculum, or she’s an incredibly gifted cheater. I’m leaning toward the latter, and I think Mumei is in for a nasty surprise.

(Crunchyroll)

bbk-16 BBK/BRNK #16 – Strangely enough, power-hungry Maxim regrets what’s been done to his teammates and apologizes for participating in the zombification experiment. Team Zampaza has gained a new mutual understanding and respect, which lasts for all of a few minutes until they die. Some great work by writer Jirō Ishii and director Daizen Komatsuda there in neither obviously concealing an important fact about the shooter nor telegraphing what was about to happen.

To wind up the experiment, Guy feeds Reoko a lie about how the Zampaza crew died. This almost certainly means he’s planning for her to escape, and whatever he just told her about his ultimate plan is a lie as well.

Meanwhile, Team Ōbu falls through a hole in Siberia and is subjected to some heavy exposition. Yes, the bubuki are extraterrestrial. They were created as a servant race, found their consciousness decaying, and were able to preserve it only by entering into a symbiotic relationship with humans. I’m betting whatever is on that comet that Guy wants to reach is the entity they were created by. This sounds like the sort of evil plan that will wind up going horribly wrong when he goes there expecting a being he can fool or control and finds out he’s just woken up Nyarlathotep or somesuch.

The pathos of the last uncontracted buranki is somewhat impaired by the fact that her speech has to compete with hot spring bathing suit antics. I don’t know whose idea it was to set aside some time every episode to remind viewers that the girl characters have breasts, but whoever you are, I beg you to stop. There is more than enough to carry this show without having to jam in some pointless fanservice too.

(Crunchyroll — AnimeLabADN)

izetta-4 Izetta: The Last Witch #4 – Speaking of pointless fanservice! In this episode, Izetta gets undressed, takes a long bath, and gets thoroughly groped by a fashionista. Because it’s not assault when it takes place between people of the same gender, right? Ugh.

Oh yeah, there’s some plot too. Izetta explains that she’s limited by the amount of power she can draw from nearby ley lines (except she was also able to get a little power from her own blood in episode 2, which I’m sure will be explained again near the end of the show in a prelude to a tragic scene). This means she can’t just blow up all Eylstadt’s enemies and win the war immediately; there’s still going to be a need for tactics.

A little more information is dropped about the political situation in this timeline: alternate Germany still has a kaiser, and the alternate Americas are called the Atlantas, but the US still exists in some form. Not that the latter is going to matter for a while, since it’s only 1940 and US forces didn’t show up in the Alps until 1945.

(Crunchyroll)

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