Endro~!

That’s certainly a reason to start worrying that after every new season shows about moe girls occupy a half of my completed list. I swear, it used to be different!

Frankly, Endro is a pretty average anime about a group of adventurers who’re destined to destroy the Demon Lord. It’s way far from being as funny as Slayers, the characters are obsessed with Cartado, which made me think that the anime was based on a CCG or maybe on a mobile game (apparently — no), it doesn’t have anything that could be called “plot” without adding, you know, quotes. The trick is that Endro is cuuuute. Its characters are cute. Their dialogues are cute. Their weaknesses are cute! Even the Demon Lord is cute. The opening of this show starts off with “Papapapa, chu-chu-chu, papapapa, chu-chu-chu”! (I feel kind of ashamed just writing that.) Literally. Papapapa. Chu-chu-chu. Eventually, it became an anime for a Sunday morning, when you are still half asleep and turn on something positive and shallow, an accompaniment for the first coffee of the day (the same way as I discovered “That 70s show”). And in this role — it’s almost perfect.

This image found on reddit basically screams “Yeah, we also watched Slayers!”

The Jets were eliminated from the Stanley Cup playoffs yesterday and it’s not the problem by itself. It’s not the end of the world that they couldn’t make it past the first round. The problem that the “do-or-die” game, game 6, was a demonstration of one-sided hockey. St Louis wanted to win and did everything to get the necessary result. Winnipeg… well, after the first two periods they had just 6 shots on goal. So, first the Knights, then the Jets. Now I don’t have any preferences and can just enjoy some good hockey =)

In general, right now I have a chance to be 100% on my playoff predictions. My choices were — Flames, Sharks, Stars, Jets and Lightning, Bruins, Capitals and Penguins. 4 of these teams have already finished they 2018-19 season and 2 are trailing 2-3 in their series. Remind me to never ever bet on sports results =)

Some coaches know what an inspirational speech should be about. Maybe one day it’ll be used in the next “Miracle” =)

My Roommate is a Cat

There are lots of cats in anime. We’ve seen cats who can talk, who can’t talk; smart and not so much; black, white, two- or three-colored; some of them have a crescent moon on their foreheads and some — don’t like Sakaki. However, Haru from “My roommate is a cat” might be the most realistic representation of those purring death machines in anime.

All Haru thinks about when she’s not sleeping is gohan and that matches perfectly with behavior of all the cats I’ve had pleasure to meet in my life, including ours. Now every time he is sitting next to the kitchen I can’t help but hear Haru’s voice saying something like “What the hell are you doing in the living room? The food is in this place, come here, I’ll show you where you can find it”. And quietly adding “Stupid humans, can’t even find any food on their own”.

It’s kind of fascinating that almost all the events of the show you can see from two perspectives — first you’re watching everything as it “should be”, from Subaru’s point of view. And at the end of every episode you’ll see what’s going on in Haru’s head when she had to interact and put up with all that troublesome nonsense Subaru and other people get her into.

I was almost positive that the production studio was the same that made a great but underappreciated anime for perverts “A Sister is All You Need” but turned out that nah, it was Zero-G, that’s actually responsible for another great anime for perverts “Grand Blue”. Talented guys. I enjoyed the story about the Haru and Subaru’s relationships thoroughly, even though, frankly, there wasn’t much going on. But it was cute! And even dramatic sometimes (you know, that cheap drama when authors kill kittens and puppies). Oh, and it has a great opening — one of rare cases when I watched it every time =)

Random Saturday Photos

Liz To Aoi Tori

This movie is a perfect demostration what happens if you really want to make a film but don’t have much to say. Still, KyAni is a studio that may transform even a boring to death plot into something watchable and enjoyable, thanks to their second to none visual and high-quality director’s work.

Liz To Aoi Tori has everything I mentioned above. Its story is… okay, I guess? Basically, we have two girls who should understand what their friendship is about. What I watched Hibike! Euphonium I was mostly concentrated on Asuka-sempai and it took some time for me to realize that the two main characters in the movie played a relatively significant role throughout the second season of the original TV series. The animation is good, as always, although the character design is confusingly different comparing to “Euphonium”.

The real downside of the movie is that it doesn’t have a single “Reina screams from the hill” moment. Yeah, we have references for fans here and there (“You’re not Asuka-sempai” or the Euphonium’s trio showing up from time to time), we have a “correctly made” plot, we have a sort of funny moment with “Here, take it, this is an egg”… but nothing catchy and blowing your mind.

P.S. For some reason I thought that Liz To Aoi Tori was going to be a shoujou-ai anime but nope, it’s very difficult to find even an implication that something’s going on between the girls.

Spring – Blender Open Movie

Mob Psycho 100 II

Let’s let the cat out of the bag from the very beginning. The second season of this anime about the most powerful esper in the world had been fantastic for 8 episodes and as dull as possible for the rest 5.

The first part showed pretty much everything we loved about the first Mob Phycho. Mob’s relationships with Reigen and their crazy jobs, his attempts to improve the body being a member of… the Body Improvement Club, the cult of Mob and, as if that’s not enough — Mob even found a girlfriend! Not for a long time and she went out with him on a dare but still! The two-episodes-long arc about Reigen, balancing on the brink of destroying his own career and reputation was definitely the pinnacle of this anime. Ah, and the visual, which had been kind of cool in the first season became even better.

Here comes the part of the story that gets a little bit sad. Unfortunately, Mob Psycho 100 is a shounen anime. To make sure that no one would have any doubts about that the authors made the final of the story incredibly shounen-ish, up to the point that I wanted to grind my teeth and maybe get drunk a little to make that more bearable. It’s hard to remember anything positive about those long, long 100 minutes. A dumb and pretentious villain, who’s not that bad after all? Check. Tons of speeches on the level “If someone can beat him — it’s going to be Mob!”, “You can do it!”, “- I don’t need anyone. -Oh, I pity you because of your solitude”? Check. Enormously long fighting sequences? Heh, it’s Bones we’re talking about — of course, check. Plus, despite its length the ending feels rushed, sometimes it was difficult to understand what led to this or that.

Overall, I think that Mob Psycho is a must-watch anime for people who like shounen, the insane rating on MAL sort of backs this claim. Personally, I’m going to continue watching it, at least one more season — then it’ll be clear whether there are any ideas left or the story made a turn to becoming just another representative of its genre for good.