Anime roundup 8/19/2021: Lost in Translation

Sonny Boy #5 – While discontent builds outside, Nagara, Rajdhani, and their research assistants keep trying to piece together the mystery of the different spaces they keep wandering through. Rajdhani thinks they are on the verge of making sense of it all, but soon they’re all going to have to reckon with some kind of messianic movement that Ms. Aki is trying to start.

Among the new insights is that Nagara isn’t just moving people to new pocket dimensions, he’s actually creating them. So the different sets of rules are, somehow, reflecting something going on in his head. The idea that some dimensions can be “solved” for an artifact reward is new as well, and it’s not clear how that ties into the whole system.

Ms. Aki could be another creation of Nagara’s, in that case. In fact I’m kind of hoping she is, since if the one adult female character we get can be summed up with the traits “has enormous boobs” and “wants to talk everyone into doing something incredibly stupid” then I’m going to be seriously disappointed in this show.

There’s another character (or two?) in the form of the mysterious voices speaking to Hoshi and Nagara. Are they both God? Are they different people? Could the entire class just be under observation in some weird experiment and those be the voices of the experimenters?

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Magia Record: Puella Magi Madoka Magica Side Story season 2 #3 – Yachiyo and Kuroe find themselves back at Mikazuki Villa, experiencing odd things until they finally work out they’re in Iroha’s dream. And then that they’re not in Iroha’s dream, they’re in the Doppel’s fantasy world.

Created to cleanse Iroha’s Soul Gem, the Doppel has gone above and beyond by imagining a world where all of Iroha’s problems are fixed and she doesn’t have to be unhappy anymore. Except even the Doppel can’t magic up a convincing new Ui, although it can replicate everyone else Iroha knows.

Yachiyo says that Iroha is the only one who can remember Ui, and that limitation extends even to the Doppel. Yet it doesn’t include Nemu, whose story about the cherry tree said there were three little girls in the hospital who used to be visited by Iroha. It’s the first clear sign that Ui’s disappearance (and thus Iroha’s mysterious wish) are directly tied to the existence of Magius.

Incidentally, viewers returning from the first season (which is hopefully all of you, because I can’t think anyone could start with this season and expect it to make sense) may be puzzled why the urban legends given reality were called Uwasa last season and are now called Rumors. Well, uwasa is just the Japanese word for “rumor”. There may have been a change of translator or a rethinking of the localization.

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Peach Boy Riverside #7 – After Sōmenki destroys the city-state of Rimdarl in an instant, he is recalled by Sumeragi, who knows that Sally could beat him in a one-on-one fight. Sumeragi has a better plan: collect a whole group of ogres, including Sōmenki and Millia, to fight Sally together, and meanwhile weaken the party by suggesting to Meki, now Carrot, that she use her remaining spiritual power to see the true natures of her companions.

Having seen what’s coming, we already know that absolutely none of this is going to work out for Sumeragi. Pulling Sōmenki away just delays his embarrassing demise, plus the kids that Sumeragi was using for his cover as a priest get eaten, plus this gives the heroes a break for Hawthorn to pull himself together and everyone to really gel as a group of friends. Oh, and this will be how Millia loses her powers and winds up hanging out with Mikoto. So really not a very good plan there.

This also opens up the chance for Sally to catch up with Mikoto again and the two of them to ruminate on the state of interspecies relations. The talk is optimistic but also realistic. Mikoto notes that most prejudice is just unquestioned tradition, and Sally decides she’s going to devote her life to improving the situation… a little. No grand plans here about wiping bigotry off the face of whatever world this is.

As the heroes make friends, we get the not very surprising news that Frau was involved in picking “Carrot” as a name. But the ogre shortly to be known as Carrot says, oddly, that humanoid ogres don’t get to have names. So what’s “Meki”, then?

What the humanoid ogres appear to have are descriptive designations. “Meki” is written with the characters for “eye” and “ogre”, so if translated, she would be the Eye Ogre. Similarly, Sōmenki is the Blue Mask Ogre, Sumeragi is the Imperial Ogre, and so forth.

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Welcome to Demon School! Iruma-kun season 2 #18 – Faced with overwhelming guilt over the fact that running headlong into danger without thinking has left everyone around him in danger from trying to rescue him, Iruma knows what he has to do. And that is to run toward the danger again, but this time, with a plan!

It’s actually not a bad plan, figuring that a ring which can handle a burst of magic from the most powerful demon Iruma knows of might be able to absorb three entire giant monsters’ worth of energy. It just turns out that this clears the way for bigger terrors, like the press of the demon world glomming onto him and then agreeing to an actual date with someone who is almost his actual girlfriend. I sure hope he realizes that’s what he’s done.

For everyone else from Bablys, the aftermath is a chance to unwind and start enjoying themselves again (okay, everyone except Kalego). Very soon, though, they’re going to be learning that Kirio has been sprung from the Utilidors prison and the forces of chaos will be making their next move…

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Higurashi: When They Cry – SOTSU #8 – Satoko amps up both sides of her act, making her uncle believe she’s been attacked and her classmates believe that her uncle’s abuse is escalating. This results in the visit from her teacher where Teppei sends her off without a chance to meet Satoko.

This seems like an awful lot of work, keeping up two fake stories and having to constantly restrain her uncle, but maybe, as Eua muses, it’s not really about hurting Rika anymore. Possibly Satoko is evolving into something else, and all she really wants is to be the center of attention, which she certainly is here.

After pulling the rug out from under what seemed at the time like a masterful display of the effects of implied violence, SOTSU will next be moving on to the part of the arc where Keiichi and friends try to do something about it and eventually succeed. That may be the source of some frustration for Satoko, and I must say I’m looking forward to it.

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