Briefly:
I was reading Slaughterhouse Five earlier today.
No, that doesn’t mean I’m a high school freshman – I read the goddamn thing ten years ago already, and I don’t know why they assign that book in high school anyway. I don’t really know what you’ll get out of Slaughterhouse Five before you learn you’re actually going to die one day, and I’ve never met a high schooler who was fully aware they were going to die. Which is good in some ways, and bad in others – good in that everyone deserves their nostalgia, and bad in that I sure wish someone had told me prior to college that I was gonna die pretty soon, and I didn’t actually get unlimited chances to spend four years hopefully becoming a well-rounded, educated, and articulate adult human being.
Which brings me back around to this present day, where I am slumped in a booth on lunch break eating a slice of pizza and reading Slaughterhouse Five and listening to some drooling, sterilized pop-country dribble through the speakers and thinking about the hopelessness of human nature and how me writing irreverent takedowns of an ineptly written Japanese cartoon probably doesn’t do a whole lot to further our collective struggle for a just and humane future where we no longer spend all our energy killing and oppressing each other or trying to avoid being killed and oppressed.
Story over! No moral. Time for anime!
Episode 9
0:01 – Ahahaha that felt great. Seriously though, connecting through art is sweet and rewarding and absolutely valuable, I just wanted to coldcock you guys with that one. <3
0:55 – Did someone just throw that key through his leg? That was… exceeding helpful of them!
2:36 – Man, screw you guys. I was just sitting here all politely nursing a glass of water, trying to get over Con Plague from Anime Boston… but utter sobriety will clearly hamper my aesthetic, and so I’m going to get a beer instead. I damage myself for you
3:02 – “Lyrical Night Fright.” – HAH! They don’t make actual puns for the title every episode either! I’m off the hook!
Wait, that could just be a shitty translation. Fuck
3:31 – Iwai. What. Iwai. There’s a fucking… you see the key, right? The key. In front of you. Iwai, please. Iwai
3:51 – Iwai, this isn’t the Pokemon movie, your tears ain’t doing shit. Just – look, just take the key, and… Goddamnit Iwai
3:57 – Hurray, he’s alive! Incompetence wins again!
5:45 – “You disappoint us, sharkteeth.” Fortunately for him, if this show’s general methods of brutal assassination are anything to go by (throw a girl in a lake, rescue her, attempt to hypnotize her boyfriend into killing her… invite the target to a fancy gala, put him in a fursuit and his girlfriend in a cage, attempt to strangle him in an elaborately staged supernatural battle), I assume this poison will actually just temporarily turn him into a fish or something
6:10 – Nevermind, they’ve learned! If you want to kill someone in this show, double kill them
6:50 – “Man, these fifty daggers sure do sting… good thing that poison’s dulling the pain. cough It’s a shame they didn’t… triple kill me…”
7:13 – Wait, one of the Killing Goods is just A THOUSAND KNIVES? That’s, like, an ACTUAL weapon! Isn’t there a ruleagainst that? Sharktooth, check your rule… oh. You’re dying
8:14 – Kiri bites his tongue, his mind awash in regret. Sure, they had had their disagreements… like when they met, and sharkteeth tried to kill him. Or the next time they met, and sharkteeth tried to kill him. Or this, their third and final meeting, where sharkteeth tried to kill him. But goddamnit, this was no time for squabbling! He was gonna remember the good times!
8:26 – Apparently Violet Witches wave hello with their boobs
9:30 – Is it just me, or did that explanation not fucking explain anything?
11:12 – Man, you know you’ve got some good worldbuilding on your hands when the more they explain, the less sense anything makes
11:36 – “…and shot by a gun.” Oh, so the key just flew out of his robes, not through him. Also, apparently Iwai figured out what keys do some time during all that exposition
12:09 – Wait, there are actual crime scenes in this world? I thought the police shtick was just to add a sexy uniform to the strangling stuff
12:42 – …see, now that they’ve introduced actual police, I’m just thinking how Gossip is probably the least effective and most obvious criminal organization of all time. Like, what would happen if the police busted them? SWAT team busts in! Authors bust out gardening shears and featherdusters and back-scratchers! “THEY’RE RESISTING ARREST!” BAM BAM BAM.
13:42 – “I thought of him as a troublesome little brother… who I got off on being strangled by.”
16:23 – Why do I think this scene of them discussing the murder scene is, like, basking in sexual tension? What has this show done.
And Done
HOT DAMN. Well. Jeez. I, uh, hope you guys will forgive me for failing to commentate that last scene there! Apparently my prediction was not wrong. Nope. Can’t say that it was.
Cough
Well! Anyway. About halfway through that, I was planning to pause and say “Once again, this show proves it’s at its legitimate best when it’s just the main two together.” But after that…
Yeah, fuck it, this show is at it’s legitimate best when it’s just the main two together. That totally worked. It was weird and awkward and intimate and pretty much the core of the one meaningful thing this show has been thematically striking at the whole time. Nice work! I hope their relationship actually continues to progress and be articulated this honestly and distinctly!
The rest of the episode was textbook Crime Edge, so I have no complaints. That’s kind of the unique pleasure of watching bad but distinctive shows – sure, this guy might not be able to write a competent shonen battler, but he can certainly nail the occasional fumblingly romantic teenage gesture!
Anyway, I’m gonna take a cold shower. Cya guys next week.