Haiyoru! Nyaru-ani: Remember My Mr. Lovecraft - 03

Haiyoru! Nyaruani: Remember My Love (Craft-sensei) Episode 03
這いよる！ニャルアニ リメンバー・マイ・ラブ（クラフト先生）

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis

Cthuko and Atoko go for a walk where Atoko asks Cthuko some personal questions such as whether she loves  Nyarlko and whether they've done various "censored" things, leading Cthuko to become very embarrassed.

Back home, Nyarlko introduces Mahiro to one of the "outer gods," Nyarle.  Despite a house full of (sinister) deities, Mahiro welcomes Nyarle to his home.  This makes Nyarle think that maybe Mahiro has falling for her as he asks Nyarlko about the bat Nyarle is carrying.  Nyarlko plays this down as a flustered Nyarle tries to speak about dating and "explodes" into something censored.

The Borg Cube spaceship is now 56-days away.

Thoughts/Review

This series is such a disappointment.  I know that bleeped jokes can be very funny.  Heck, Cartoon Network did some spots for their Adult Swim block some years ago where strategic bleeping of a clip from The Flintstones, Batman (the 70's cartoon), and Scooby Doo made it seem like there was massive profanity being used but in fact there wasn't.  Indeed, some anime/cartoons with ugly stuff to bleep is actually funnier with the bleeps than without.  Here, Cthuko's and Atoko's walk and apparent sex chat wasn't funny at all to me. I just rolled my eyes.

As to the final deity Nyarle's introduction, that wasn't funny either.  At least she didn't use the bat on Mahiro as I thought she might.

I really hope this leads to a proper anime series akin to something like Shakugan no Shana, mixing comedy, action, and an interesting storyline.  Somehow, I doubt that happens.

Ah! My Goddess Ch. 265 Manga Review

Ah! My Goddess Manga/Oh My Goddess! Manga
ああっ女神さまっ Chapter 265

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Mokkurkalfi is stunned that Skuld can use magic, seeing that she created this giant Banpei-kun in moments using spare parts.  Skuld denies it is magic but Mokkurkalfi can see the magical energies flowing emitting from Skuld's hands.  Skuld assumes Mokkurkalfi's further reactions are ones of pity for a goddess who can't use magic and she has Banpei-kun attack Mokkurkalfi's mecha, sending it flying across the room. As Skuld has Banpei-kun press the attack, Belldandy explains to Keiichi that Skuld is using direct manipulation magic and has always done so to construct things or control Banpei-kun.  As such, she doesn't need an activation like Belldandy and Urd.  However, she only has a low magical capacity at the moment but she could become quite powerful in the future should she mature and grow her powers.

Urd tells Keiichi to not let Skuld know this so as not to give Skuld a huge ego.  Urd gets embarrassed when Belldandy compliments her for looking out for Skuld since both she and Urd want Skuld to mature and not stagnate with a big head. 

Despite having had the advantage, Mokkurkalfi has her mecha grab both of Banpei-kun's arms and use its third arm as a drill to rip apart Banpei-kun's head.  Skuld is horrified by this as Mokkurkalfi gloats about Banpei-kun's impending destruction.  Belldandy forces Skuld back to reality, pointing out that Banpei-kun hasn't fallen and trusts Skuld, therefore Skuld is the only one who can get Banpei-kun's power out.  Urd backs up Belldandy and with Keiichi, they all say they are in the fight with Skuld. Thus encouraged, Skuld picks herself up but in reality, neither Skuld, Belldandy, nor Keiichi have a clue about what to do.

Thoughts/Review:

If I may, I'd like to quote myself from last week.

I know the story has Skuld not using magic to build this new version of Banpei-kun in what appears to be just a few seconds.  However, I would state that Skuld IS using a magic of sorts, just not the kind Urd and Belldandy use, which requires the usage of verbal spells and spirits.  I've long suspected that Skuld might be using magic of some sort going back to the Sentaro arc when she was able to perfectly repair his bicycle.  That's why I think Mokkurkalfi wanted her machine to cancel Skuld's spells but Skuld isn't using spells, thus is not canceled.  We'll see if Fujishima-sensei completely shuts that door down, but I rather hope not.  I'd like Skuld to have the ability to use spells like her older sisters, but her special magic being in the mechanical sciences, which would apparently be a rare gift where they come from.

Excellent.  My theory was confirmed but one never knows what Fujishima-sensei might have done.   Granted, Fujishima-sensei set it up pretty well last chapter but there has always been this insistence that Skuld doesn't use much if any magic.  I've always thought this was wrong but until now, Skuld hasn't had much chance to shine in the last while.  As such, it hasn't come up for a topic I could discuss until now.

Still, I like how it is implied that Skuld could become very powerful in the future and I'd guess even surpass Belldandy.  I think both Urd and Belldandy exclusively use spells or have their angels do stuff.  I don't think either of them can use magic without incantations, otherwise they'd be doing something now.  However, Fujishima-sensei may change that but I rather hope he allows Skuld to win this one before the group moves on.

Beyond that, there's not a whole lot to discuss in this chapter.  At 25-pages (counting the chapter splash page), the chapter was Skuld attacks with Banpei-kun, Mokkurkalfi is surprised, Belldandy explains, Mokkurkalfi counters, Skuld appears defeated, Belldandy, Urd, and Keiichi rally her to fight again.  Hopefully, this sub-arc will wrap up next chapter with an aftermath the following chapter so that we can move on.

Negima! Manga Vol 34 Ch 312 Review

魔法先生 ネギま！Volume 34 Chapter 312 (manga)
Mahou Sensei Negima! Manga Chapter 312

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Quartum-Fate is about to attack the girls on Great Paru-sama when his intentions are overridden by the protocol to not kill humans.  Since Chachamaru is not human, he decides to impale her with a flaming spear since she is a considerable threat.  Haruna sends a telepathic message to the group that she's about to throw the ship into reverse and in doing so, Quartum-Fate is thrown off the ship as the massively damaged Chachamaru grabs Collet from being thrown off as well.  Takane takes the flaming spear and removes it from Chachamaru as the Great Paru-sama continues to retreat in reverse.  However, the ship cannot obtain full speed this way which allows Quartum-Fate to catch up.

Quartum-Fate launches a Apes Igniferae spell, which creates several giant bee-like creatures with a massive explosive punch.  Takane uses her shadow guardian to defend the ship and explode the bees away from the ship.  Quartum-Fate is impressed with their survival and summons a massive, flaming blade as part of his arm, which is large enough to slice Great Paru-sama along its entire length.  Johnny-san races forward in his ship and takes the blow, allowing Great Paru-sama to escape damage though he disappears into petals as his ship crashes.

Quintum-Fate approaches Kaede and company and she knows that they are in dire straights with Kotaro seriously injured and Nodoka unconscious.  Tossing her artifact cloak over the others where it disappears, Kaede charges Quintum-Fate, driving him well away from the group.  She performs the best of her ninja techniques but it is not nearly enough.  Quintum-Fate assumes lightning form like Negi does but Kaede keeps up the fight.  Unfortunately, she's no match for Quintum-Fate and soon begins taking a heavy beating.  As she does, one of her shadow copy bodies brings the Great Grand Master Key back to the group.  She hands them the key and tells the others that her real body is still back with Quintum-Fate as he prepares a lightning spear to end her with a bang.

Thoughts/Review:

Akamatsu-sensei continues to remove characters from the field and I don't expect this trend to stop until he gets it down to what he considers a manageable level.

Chachamaru...man, that's just horrible what is happening to her but it effectively shows the cruelty of Quartum-Fate in a way that could not be done to any human character (were this a seinen title, it would be a different story).  Quartum-Fate is definitely a programmed entity as I see it because when he went for the group with murderous intent, that programming kicked in and stopped him, thus preventing him from killing the humans.  It really would be sweet if the Fates all were somehow based on the technology from A.I. Love You.

Anyway, one more thing about Chachamaru -- she got her other Aliens moment when she saved Collet's life.  Considering the tribute to Bishop from Aliens in the last chapter, I'm not surprised to see this final tribute and in fact, I rather like it.  ^_^  Assuming the Aliens tribute continues, I would expect Chachamaru to be still in half when the group returns to Japan and her mind transferred to one of her other bodies.

Johnny-san was the next KIA.  Considering the joke about him wearing Takane's shadow armor, there had been some thought that he might get stripped.  That didn't happen and since he was a minor character, his departure is not unexpected.

Its funny how Paru can be such an immature troublemaker much of the time but here, she shows real leadership by making the best of a bad situation when throwing Great Paru-sama into reverse to throw off Quartum-Fate.  She's shown this kind of quality before but for some reason, it came off more strongly in this chapter.

Takane gets a chance to shine a little by risking her life to save Chachamaru from the fire spear and then using her shadow techniques to destroy Quartum-Fate's bee bombs (for lack of a better, descriptive term).  However, I don't think she'll be around much longer but that's just a guess.

Speaking of Quartum-Fate's giant bees (they looked more like wasps but whatever), I was reminded of the manga Inuyasha and the villain there, Naraku, who had some sort of bee-wasp youkai.  Naturally, Quartum-Fate's are different as his "bees" are a spell effect whereas Naraku's were actually creatures but I was reminded nevertheless.

Finally, there was Kaede, who's removal would be disappointing seeing as how she's been a major player in Negi's battle harem since Kyoto (starting of course with the Eva arc).  However, she gets to go out with a bang and even steals the Great Grand Master Key back, assuming Nodoka ever recovers to use the bloody thing.

Speaking of Kaede, whom did she cover up with her artifact?  Initially, I thought it was the entire group, but it appears that she may have only covered Kotaro, Asuna, and Asakura.  That's because the unconscious Nodoka as well as Yue and Makie were the only ones visibly seen when the copy-Kaede delivered the key.  It is impossible to predict where Akamatsu-sensei will go, but we do have another opportunity for Yue to rise and do something special.  I tend to suspect that won't happen. I also tend to suspect that Kaede's cloak will remain invisible, thus if Quintum-Fate takes out Nodoka and Makie along with Nodoka, he may assume that Asakura somehow escaped and leave a back door open for when Asuna recovers and decides to kick some arse.

Its sad to see the supporting cast taken down one character at a time but it isn't unexpected.  I think that once these chapters play out in volume form, they will be quite good and the downed characters won't seem to have been down for as long as we weekly chapter readers feel they are down.

Yotsuba&! Manga Volume 9 Review

よつばと！

Yotsuba&!, Manga Vol. 9 <--BUY FROM RightStuf!

Yotsuba, Yotsuba, Yotsuba. ^_^

For volume 9, Yotsuba has a scary dream; learns of schedules; visits a large (outdoor) mall; gets a teddy bear (Juralumin); discovers coffee; goes to a yakinku place with her father, Jumbo, and Yanda; and goes on a trip with her father, Asagi, Tora, and Ena.

While Yotsuba&! has been a series mostly on the joys of being a young kid and the fun of raising said kid, this volume was more about "nothing" than the previous volumes.  This comes forward really distinctly when the group eats at Juujuu.  While we still have the experience of experiencing Yotsuba's first trip to a yakiniku place where you cook your own food at the table, Jumbo, Yanda, and Koiwai end up chatting about things that adults might chat about when gathering for a meal like this from girls to teasing Yanda, to other chatter.  The generous sprinkling of Yotsuba's actions keep this from being boring and it was certainly a very real moment which I'm certainly not complaining about.


Looks like Jumbo has an admirer of sorts in the form of the woman who owns/runs the Juujuu yakiniku restaurant.  The way Azuma-sensei had her appear to be giving Jumbo some special treatment combined with her sly remark about being his wife when she popped by to see them as they ate makes me think that she may return in the future and thus give us a mild love triangle with Asagi, whom Jumbo has a crush on.  That could be fun.

I think this volume marks the first time that Ena has really gotten angry with Yotsuba.  Yotsuba is very much a kid and acts like it.  With that comes certain irritating things that she doesn't realize are troubling to other people, such as when she kept constantly calling Ena's bear (Julietta) by the name "Juralumin." Ena has been seen correctly Yotsuba time after time and Yotsuba never gets it, leading Ena to snap at Yotsuba.  But in typical young kid fashion, that's all forgotten when Yotsuba gets her own bear and thus can have her Juralumin.  ^_^

Yotsuba's first coffee experience was probably the second funniest moment in the manga (the first being Fuuka overhearing Yotsuba's reactions to Koiwai-san apparently losing his boxers ^_^;;;) for me as I recall my own first coffee experience.  I didn't have anything funny to say about the experience, but I do remember my grandfather laughing his butt off at my facial expression to drinking black coffee for the first time.  I remember thinking, "how can anything that smells so good when it brews taste so awful?"  Actually, I still think that.  *lol*

The hot air balloon adventure takes up nearly half of the volume but it is all good stuff.  I've never been up in a balloon myself but I have been to a number of festivals and balloon glow events.  Heck, right near my house, balloons are known to take off and land and it is a cool thing. 

Anyway, I loved Yotsuba's reaction to her balloon flight and her attempts to figure out if they have reached the sky yet.  As usual, Azuma-sensei made the whole story place so that it is almost like we are there.  Indeed, with as busy as my life has become of late, I couldn't help but think of how time moved so slowly as a kid and the smallest of things could create great fun, joy, and laughter.  That's what I love about Yotsuba&! as a manga though -- remembering one's youth.  ^_^

If I had time, there are many little things I could comment on like Fuuka's playing with blocks or Asagi wanting Koiwai-san to give her a helicopter ride, but all of that is just the added fun of the manga which never fails to put a smile on my face.

On the Yen Press side, there isn't a dedicated section for translator notes, but this volume does contain a great deal of "gap notes" where some Japanese jokes or sign translations are placed.  Japanese honorifics are retained and that's always a big win for me.  ^_^


Sadly, volume 10 is nowhere on the U.S. horizon, but that volume only just recently came out in Japan (November 2010 I believe) so it will be quite a while before we see it.  Considering Yotsuba&! is published in Monthly Comic Dengeki Daioh, I expect that it would be next fall before the next volume comes out here (the volumes are release roughly every eight months in Japan, on average).

So, while not as funny as other volumes, I still enjoyed volume 9 of Yotsuba&! very much.  Now, the waiting begins.

NMC Fathom's Forthcoming Event for Gantz Fans.

The folks with NMC Fathom asked me to pass this along and since I'm up to my neck in work, I figured I'd do them a favor even though I've no interest in this personally.

You’ve watched the series, you’ve read the manga and for one night on Thursday, January 20 you can see the GANTZ live-action World Premiere on the big screen.

NCM Fathom and NEW PEOPLE invite you to your local movie theatre for the GANTZ LIVE event. Follow characters Kei Kurono and Masaru Kato on their mysterious posthumous mission to eradicate an alien species bent on destroying Earth. On January 20, find out if the players of this ultimate survival game can save the world and revive themselves. What were originally stunning illustrations translate into explosive action delivered in 5.1 surround sound. GANTZ will be English over-dubbed exclusively for this one night event.

Kazunari Ninomiya and Kenichi Matsuyama, the popular Japanese actors who play Kurono and Kato, will participate in an exclusive live interview following the feature. This Q&A is exclusive to GANTZ theatre audiences nationwide.

Tickets are on sale now. Check out www.fathomevents.com to learn more about GANTZ, find a list of participating theatres near you and purchase tickets.

If anyone goes, do ping me about the event.  Even though I've zero interest in the manga, anime, or live-action version of Gantz, I am curious to see what others who went thought.

Mahou Sensei Negima! ~Mou Hitotsu no Sekai~ Extra - Mahou Shoujo Yue

Negima! ~Another World~ OAD/OVA Extra: Magic Girl Yue
魔法先生ネギま！ もうひとつの世界 Extra 魔法少女ユエ


SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

A girl named Yue has lost her memories after suddenly appearing in front of magic student Collet, who accidentally discharges a memory erase spell at Yue in their collision.  Upon being examined by the school doctor and determined to have nothing physically wrong with her, Yue requests permission to attend school at the prestigious Ariadone Academy to learn magic, history, and more.  She is met with skeptisim by the class president Emily Sevensheep but Yue is undetered and with a passion she feels sure she has never felt before, she is determined to learn and become more powerful.

One day in class, Yue has a reaction to seeing a picture of Nagi Springfield.  After class, she is researching this when Collet proudly reveals that she is in the Nagi-sama fan club.  Emily comes up and shows off her membership card, revealing she is member number 78, one of the earliest fans.  Seeing a clip of Negi as Nagi at the tournament, Yue decides she wants to go to Ostia and the tournament finals as she feels that this "Nagi" everyone is talking about will have some answers for her.  Unfortunately, there's no way to go with classes until the school announces a contest to select members of the honor guard to be in Ostia for the tournament finals.

Yue and Collet train hard and on the day of the competition, they set out with a plan to win the broom race and competition.  They quickly move into second place behind Emily and Bea, causing Emily to stop and attempt to remove them as a threat.  Though she is able to cause Collet to lose her clothing, Yue gets behind Emily and does the same to her with magic.  With that, Collet and Yue race off in first place.  Emily is humiliated as she and Bea take off in pursuit again.  However, they are far behind and Emily decides they need to take a shortcut through the dangerous woods.

Collet notices the card she has been holding for Yue coming to life when Emily and Bea appear in front of them, pursued by a giant Griffin Dragon.  It is too much for them to handle but despite her memory loss, Yue instinctively grabs the card from Collet and helps Bea with a barrier against the dragon's wind attack.  Yue activates her card's artifact and acquires a new clothing set as well as information on how to defeat the beast.   The fact that Yue has not only a pactio card but an artifact card as well stuns Emily.

Yue gets the others to agree to her plan and with Collet and Bea as bait, Yue and Emily set a trap.  With Emily raining ice spears on the beast, Yue is able to get in close and remove its horn, defeating the dragon.  Emily is amazed and impressed with Yue's abilities and as the foursome return to the academy, they are met with cheers.  The Grand Master decides that special dispensation be granted to the ones who defeated the dragon.  The students assume it is Emily, but she confesses it was Yue.  The Grand Master states that all four girls will attend along with the race winners, thus all girls get their wish to be in Ostia.

Thoughts/Review:

I give credit where credit is due and SHAFT mostly does a decent job here. 

For starters, having the various Yue segments from the manga combined into a single episode works quite well.  Indeed, with a small amount of additional work, I can see Yue carrying her own series as she works towards becoming a Magister Magi.  Granted, that's not in the cards for the Negima! series but I have to say that I liked how SHAFT took Akamatsu-sensei's stuff and made Yue the star.

Visually, things look pretty good.  The Griffin Dragon looked pretty impressive and SHAFT did a much better job with it than they did with the Black Dragon that Kaede fought in episode 4 of the Another World OAD.  The battle played out quite well and discounting all of the fanservice panty shots, everything from the race to the actual fight with the dragon looked pretty good.  The anime did what it is supposed to do in an action sequence from a manga and really bring it to life.

The only problem I had with the fight with the dragon was when Yue scored her pactio card.  We had to have a tedious, ecchi henshin sequence so that Yue could change clothing which was bad enough.  Then, the dragon takes a smoke break while Yue explains everything.  To be fair to SHAFT, they simply copied what was in the manga but in the manga, it seemed like a much shorter amount of time whereas in the anime, the explanation seemed to take forever.  As such, one wondered what the heck the dragon was waiting for.  ^_^;

I didn't care for Bea's character design here.  Akamatsu-sensei drew her with a certain look and attitude which just never really came across in her anime form.  The other characters came through OK.

The anime did have to drop a few little things such as Yue instinctively remembering the first spell she learned, the student commentaries on the competition, and a few extra explanations.  While I would have enjoyed seeing them, they weren't horrible cuts.

With this final OAD episode, SHAFT wraps things up quite nicely (having only one bad OAD episode in the entire lot thus far) until the movie launches.  It really is a shame that we couldn't have scored something like this as part of a high quality Negima! TV anime series.

Merry Christmas!

I'm out working today ('cause computers have to stay up) but I wanted to take a moment to wish everyone a Merry Christmas.  ^_^   I hope you all have a good one and for those working like me, hang in there.  ^_^

No idea where this image came from, but it was on a Japanese image board sometime back and the twins looked cute so I saved it.  ^_^

Negima! Chapter 313 SPOILER Images

Negima! 313 SPOILER Images
魔法先生 ネギま！Chapter 313 (Images)

Here's what I know many of you have been waiting for -- the original-sized, sneak-peek SPOILER images for Mahou Sensei Negima! Chapter 313 as brought to you by anonymous Japanese fans (click pic to make bigger, y'all).

CanonRap has the translations here.

Update:  Grabbed two more I just noticed in my haste.
Update 2: First two images are now in correct page order.

It's Christmas Eve so some School Rumble Love (and thoughts)

You know, School Rumble just hasn't been treated very well as a franchise, has it?   In Japan, Kobayashi-sensei doesn't resolve certain plot threads from what I understand (though one could say that there are resolutions made in the 1-volume School Rumble Z).  Del Rey fell very far behind the Japanese releases and ended up releasing its last volume (whether it is the final volume for Del Rey or not remains to be seen) as a three-volume omnibus covering volumes 14, 15, and 16, denying U.S. fans the color cover art for two of the three volumes covered.  Now, there's nothing on the horizon for future School Rumble manga releases in the U.S. with six more volumes still unpublished.

The School Rumble anime scored two TV series and some OVA's but the third TV series was axed in Japan though the final OVA closed things out.  In the U.S., FUNimation's release of the first School Rumble series saw them outsource the subtitles for the first time, making them inferior though the second series was brought back to the normal translators and rescued.  (As an aside, I mark this as when FUNimation decided that subtitles for the hardcore fans were no longer important.) 

Still, despite the uncertain future for us U.S. fans scoring the final six manga volumes legally, I still hope to see them published one day and given a proper treatment along with School Rumble Z.  In the meantime, here's some Christmas love from some of the School Rumble girls.  ^_^

Assuming someone else doesn't learn first, I'll see what I can dig up regarding the School Rumble manga after the new year starts.

Mobile Suit Gundam - 23

機動戦士ガンダム /Kido Senshi Gundam episode 23

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

The crew of White Base attempt to make repairs but to no avail as the don't have enough parts and supplies.  General Revil needs White Base to attack M'quve from the rear and sends Matilda and a squadron of Medea transports to resupply White Base even though General Elran objects to White Base being used since its crew are not regular military.  Revil sends a coded message to White Base to inform them as M'quve receives word of Matidla's mission from a report by Elran but not the Gundam parts being sent.  M'quve sends three Dodai YS planes to ferry three Gouf units to attack Matilda, escorted by Dopp fighters.

Less than 200KM from White Base, Matilda's squadron spots the incoming Zeon planes and takes up defensive positions while sending out an SOS.  White Base receives Matilda's SOS and Mirai decides to send support but then counters herself out of fear of leaving White Base unprotected.  Sayla follows Mirai's first order and dispatches Amuro in a Core Fighter along with Guncannon and Gunperry but then suggests Mirai take the Captain's spot, something Mirai doesn't want to do.  Amuro's Core Fighter provides some much needed support as he's able to destroy both a Dodai YS plane, some Dopps, and even a Gouf but at the cost of most of his ammunition.

Seeing Gunperry and realizing it carries Gundam, the Zeons abandon their attack on the Medea to go after Gunperry.  Matilda has her planes land since #4 with the Gundam upgrades has crashed.  Kai shows up in Guncannon and provides support allowing Amuro to perform a mid-air conversion.  The Zeons are stunned that the Core Fighter is part of the mobile suit as Gundam enters the battle.  Matilda has the G-parts unloaded and Hayato pilot the G-Fighter as Amuro destroys a Gouf but takes heavy damage on Gundam.  Using the G-fighter as a platform, Amuro battles the remaining Gouf on its Dodai YS and manages to destroy it, leading Matilda to praise him, Hayato, and Kai.

Thoughts/Review:

This episode was a little frustrating in terms of purposeful bad writing.  For starters, after Amuro is fighting in the Core Fighter, he wants support badly because he's out of ammunition before the eye catch mid-point (or at least, that's how I heard it).  However, once the eye catch is over, suddenly Amuro has one more missile and one final burst of machine gun fire.  The second happened when Gundam fought the second Gouf and took heavy damage.  Amuro complains that Gundam can't move because of damaged circuitry but then suddenly, Gundam is able to move with no problems to get on the G-fighter.  *_*  That's just bad stuff in my opinion.

Getting past that, things were rather interesting.  We finally got to see General Revil after hearing his name mentioned so many times.  Once seen, he became rather chatty with two messages to White Base in addition to the meeting with Elran and Matilda.

Speaking of Elran, I'd heard M'quve mention him earlier but didn't realize M'quve has such a high-ranking mole within the Federation.  It seems like it wouldn't be that hard to sniff him out since I think Matilda would be the one to do that.

It was interesting seeing Sayla and Mirai work together.  With Mirai still struggling with the burdens of command, Sayla did end up upstaging Mirai and not obeying her counter-orders.  However, it is clear that Sayla has no interest in taking over the operations of White Base and went out of her way to try to build Mirai up -- well, other than the one incident.  Even there, I felt that Sayla was trying to point out that Mirai's first instinct on what to do when the distress call came in was the proper one and indeed, Mirai ended up figuratively standing on her own two feet at the end when she gave the order for work crews to return to their repairs.

Going back to Gundam, I guess the writers wanted some sort of mounted warrior fights with the Zeons having Gouf units "riding" (howbeit standing up) Dodai YS planes.  So naturally, the Federation has to have a new G-Fighter for Gundam to "ride" for those classic cavalry moments.  It seems rather excessive if you ask me.  Having planes designed to ferry mobile suits into battle is one thing but having them be used so that mobile suits can engage in some sort of pseudo aerial combat just seems wrong.

Still, despite some misgivings, there was still good stuff here and it was certainly entertaining.  ^_^

Haiyoru! Nyaru-ani: Remember My Mr. Lovecraft - 02

Haiyoru! Nyaruani: Remember My Love (Craft-sensei) Episode 02
這いよる！ニャルアニ リメンバー・マイ・ラブ（クラフト先生）

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis

The girl in the black kimono introduces herself as Atoko, though her name is really Atlach-Nacha.  Mahiro thinks she may be normal until Nyarlko has her say two words, which translates to English as AV Actress (porn).  Nyarlko says Atoko is a real perv even though Atoko reveals that it was Nyarlko who summoned her.   After very formal introductions are exchanged, Mahiro denies that he has promised to marry Nyarlko after she claims this to Atoko.  Atoko asks to stay at this home (Mahiro's) and in exchange she'll wash his back and go to bed with him, complete with aphrodisiac snacks. Nyarlko completely rejects this suggestion, disappointing Atoko.  As Nyarlko rages, Cthuko comes out and Atoko hits on her, suggesting Cthuko take a bath with "oneesan." 

Meanwhile, the Borg cube is apparently 63-days away.

Thoughts/Review

There's really no change from the first episode as this is again a 2-minute Flash animation crammed full of sexual innuendo.  It has some semblance of a harem anime since Nyarlko apparently has a thing for Mahiro and will get very vocal about it when another woman potentially steps in, in this case Atoko.  Atoko appears willing to "do" anything she finds attractive and Cthuko is into Nyarlko.  Whatever.  *_*

The name Atlach-Nacha is part of the Cthulhu mythos, which isn't surprising as I'd guess all the characters are except for Mahiro.

So, why is the anime in Flash save for the final moment and the OP/ED combo?

At only 2-minutes (2.5 counting the live-action tease for the next episode), its not like I'm losing a great deal to keep watching this, so I shall.

Haiyoru! Nyaru-ani: Remember My Mr. Lovecraft - 01

Haiyoru! Nyaruani: Remember My Love (Craft-sensei) TV episode 01
這いよる！ニャルアニ リメンバー・マイ・ラブ（クラフト先生）

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis

A girl with gray hair named Nyarlko has made breakfast for a teen male whom she addresses as "Mahiro-san" and for whom she makes sexually suggestive statements.  A red-haired girl enters (Cthuko?) and states that Nyarlko should have her while the boy has breakfast.  Nyarlko blows that suggestion off, suggesting that Mahiro eat some sausage.  When a small dragon-creature eats it and collapses panting heavily, Mahiro sees that the food has been spiked. When confronted, Nyarlko acts innocent.  The red-haired girl and a girl in a black kimono eat these spiked sausages and express a positive reaction to them.

In space, a Borg cube approaches Earth, which apparently has 70 days left.

Thoughts/Review

OK.  Well, I guess this is all there is and a massive disappointment it is too.

When I selected this anime as one of the two new ones I would watch, I did so because the description made it sound like Mahiro was being chased by aliens, saved by Nyarlko, a girl who is actually Cthulhu as Nyarlko can take any form she chooses.  To me, that sounded interesting.  Instead, what we got was a 2-minute comedy centering around sexual innuendo and overt sexual references with some characters unnamed and an ending suggesting aliens are coming in a spacecraft looking like a Borg cube from Star Trek: The Next Generation. Meh!  I had hoped that the first episode would actually be the ONA put on TV but I guess not.

Episode 2 is also a short so I guess that's how the series is.  Bummer but I'll watch just because.

Mobile Suit Gundam - 22

機動戦士ガンダム /Kido Senshi Gundam episode 22

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

White Base continues to work through M'quve's territory, destroying mining operation bases as they go.  Bright passes out after the most recent attack due to exhaustion and is taken to sick bay.  After the battle, Hayato and Amuro begin work on Guntank and Gundam to make repairs.  Meanwhile, M'quve receives word on White Base's activities and wants something done about this.  A team of Zeon troops are deployed to wait in White Base's path and as the ship passes overhead, they fly up in rocket packs with bombs, destroying White Base's Minovsky particle emitter and the ECM transmitter but not their radar.  With that, White Base is easily visible to the Zeons, who launch an attack with 20 Dopp units.

Mirai orders Hayato and Amuro to provide cover in their Core Fighters but they are hopelessly outmanned despite taking a few enemy down.  Mirai orders Hayato back to White Base to convert to Guncannon while Amuro is to perform a mid-air combat conversion.  Despite taking out a few attacking Gouf mobile suits, it is clear that Gundam and Guncannon are outgunned and both soon run out of ammunition.  They return to the ship and Mirai orders a retreat, not knowing that she is falling further into M'quve's trap.  White Base soon comes into range of a beam cannon with a massive punch which seriously damages White Base.  Amuro manages to take out the weapon in a resupplied Gundam but the damage to White Base causes the ship to crash.  To fool the enemy, smoke bombs are set off and the Zeon Dopp formation flies past.

Thoughts/Review:

After 20 episodes of White Base pretty much coming through without too much damage, the last two episodes have seen the ship take a serious beating.  To be honest, this was rather overdue since White Base and its crew have been rather lucky plus Zeon forces obviously continued to underestimate the Federation ship and its rookie crew.

Still, if the purpose of White Base is to keep the Zeon forces distracted for Operation Odessa, then it is mostly doing its job though how they survive Zeon forces coming to make sure the ship is destroyed for good remains to be seen.

I wasn't surprised to see Bright fall apart from exhaustion.  Commanding a major warship in a time of war is a daunting task for anyone to undertake, much more so for someone who hasn't been trained for it.  Normally, someone commanding such a warship would have years of command experience and at minimum, training to deal with combat situations.  Bright has done pretty well so far but the combination of Amuro's challenging his authority as well as the death of many crew members including Ryu just sent him over the edge I suppose.  I know he'll recover based on some comments made that indicate Bright is in lots of Gundam series so it will be interesting to see how this is accomplished.

While I'm not surprised that Mirai fell apart when command came to her, I have to say I was disappointed.  I've been saying that Mirai would make a good Executive Officer (XO) and to date, she had been doing a pretty good job.  However, in the heat of combat when she needed to be strong, she collapsed.  Again, I understand this completely but I was hoping that maybe she would have held up better under these conditions.  I guess not having Bright there caused her to not have confidence in herself. Interesting how Sayla kept her wits about her and helped the situation without undermining Mirai.  Mirai seemed to regain her composure once the attack was over so it will be interesting to see what happens next.

Still, was Ryu all that to have your top two commanding officers lose it?

Don't get me wrong, Ryu was a valuable member of the crew with his ability to pilot a Core Fighter and thus a mobile suit.  There's no doubt that the loss of Ryu has an impact on the fighting ability of White Base.  That said, the way both Bright and Mirai kept calling his name as they succumbed to pressures of command, one would think that Ryu did a lot more than I'd seen him do.  Maybe there are cut scenes where Ryu made up battle plans, drew up the duty roster, and made an ultra-tasty chocolate cheese pie.  ^_~

On the Zeon front, M'quve I guess could be said to be good once he got off his butt and did something.  I take it he mainly liked being a behind the scenes commander but the loss of some mines and the destruction of Ramba's platoon meant that he had to take charge.  Question is, will he assume White Base has been destroyed or will he want proof? 

Interesting that M'quve uses Western honorifics such as "Mister Judock," Now I'm trying to remember if he addressed Kycilia as "Kycilia-sama."  I think he does.

Finally, I had previously mentioned the fanservicing of young Kikka and as well as Frau Bow.  I guess in Japan at the time, this fanservice went over quite well because it was taken to the next level in this episode with Frau Bow giving us a GOOD look at the goods as well as Kikka and the boys.  One wonders if Mobile Suit Gundam would be acceptable in Tokyo today with the Youth Healthy Development Ordinance ordinance.  

So, aside from the pointless fanservice, this was a fairly interesting episode where our heroes are in some real jeopardy and the top two commanding officers have lost it.

Mobile Suit Gundam - 21

機動戦士ガンダム /Kido Senshi Gundam episode 21

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:
 
With White Base damaged from Ramba Ral's attack and its crew attempting to make repairs, Hamon takes the sixteen surviving members of Ral's unit along with two Samson units, a modified Zaku carrying a Magella Top gun, and a new mini-Gallop with three Magella Attack turrets attached to attack the Federation ship.  Ryu, recovering from his injuries in the last attack, gets out of bed to pay Bright a visit to discuss Amuro, whom Ryu feels will not fail them again.  Despite the pain, Ryu pays Amuro a visit in the brig, where Amuro says he is no longer angry and understands why Bright is keeping him imprisoned.  It is there that Sayla and Frau Bow find Ryu and attempt to escort him back to the sick bay.

While Hayato and Kai are out in Guntank and Guncannon to guard against a Zeon attack, Hamon's forces make their first assault with the Zaku unit.  Kai gives chase but soon finds himself outgunned with the approaching Samson units.  Meanwhile, Guntank is having serious issues with only hasty repairs done to it after the last attack.  It breaks down without being in position to provide cover fire.  Inside White Base, Ryu asks Sayla to release Amuro from prison on Ryu's responsibility as Frau Bow continues to escort Ryu to sick bay.  Sayla agrees and contacts Bright to make the request.  Bright is not happy that both Sayla and Ryu are taking responsibility for Amuro but agrees to the release.  Once released, Amuro promises Sayla that he won't let Ryu down.

Amuro discovers that Gundam is not ready for launch and the main crew responsible for making the mobile suit ready were injured in the last attack.  As such, Amuro launches in the Core Fighter to provide cover for Kai, taking out a Samson unit in the process.  The backup crew finally gets the two sections of Gundam ready and launches them for Amuro to dock with.  This successful, Gundam now enters the fight and destroys the other Samson unit as the Zaku unit inflicts major damage on White Base.  Before Amuro can take it out, the mini-Gallop appears with the three Magella Attack turrets firing.  Amuro finds the method of attack odd and realizes that this is a kamikaze run on the part of Hamon.  Thus, he uses Gundam to attempt to stop the approach of the mini-Gallop.

Hamon launches the three Magella Tops and has the Zaku attack Gundam from behind.  Amuro manages to use Zaku as a shield from one of the Magella Tops and then tosses the Zaku at the Magella Top, destroying both units.  Hamon is impressed and swings her Megella Top to hover behind Gundam.  Her repeated attacks destroy Gundam's shield and damage the back of the mobile suit but before she can finish it off, the injured Ryu arrives in a Core Fighter, ramming Hamon's Megella Top which destroys both craft, killing both pilots.  Now freed, Amuro forces the mini-Gallop back and destroys it.  With all Zeon units destroyed, the crew of White Base mourns the loss of Ryu.

Thoughts/Review:

I'd forgotten that Ryu had been injured in the last episode.  ^_^;;;   Regardless, while I didn't expect Ryu to be killed, at the same time, I wasn't surprised by it.  I guess it was having Ryu struggle from place to place to talk to Bright and then Amuro that planted the subconscious flag in my mind that Ryu was marked for death.  Unfortunately, his death ended up not being sad, mainly because the White Base crew started figuratively whipping themselves.  That ended up being heavily overplayed and thus minimizing the impact of the very death they were attempting to maximize.  I couldn't help but think of other times a major character has died in other titles and those moments were very sad to me but this wasn't. 

With Ryu's death and the loss of a Core Fighter, I guess that means that one of the mobile suits will be out of action.  Since Guntank is the one with all the problems, I guess it will be that unit which sees no action for a while.

There's always a chance of a resupply though and that has to come into play soon since Hayato made mention of the dwindling supplies and parts.  If that happens, it seems it would have to happen soon since Operation Odessa is about to happen.

I liked how Hamon handled things for her final mission to attempt to avenge her lover Ramba and her former commander, Garma.  I liked her speech and I liked how she knew the names of all sixteen men (or so that was implied) as she shook hands with them before the mission.  My only problem with Hamon was that she never appeared to be part of the official Zeon military in that she never wore a uniform.  Sure, Ramba's men addressed her very respectfully as "Hamon-sama," and she did command the Gallop, but does that make her a qualified Magella Top pilot?  Its just a minor point since she's dead now, but I kind of wish that her exact role beyond Ramba's babe had been defined.  It wouldn't have taken more than a few lines at most to establish her credentials as more than the babe.

I'm glad to see that Amuro appears to have learned his lesson about deserting and stealing Gundam.  Question is, will Bright and Amuro have this chat that Ryu thinks they should have?  Why would Bright be scared of Amuro?  Is it his own doubts about being in command of White Base and all these amateur crew members?

I liked seeing Frau Bow take a more active role in the defense of White Base by manning a weapons station.  I hope we see more of that in future since she hasn't had a lot to do in terms of defending the ship. 

So, we have the end of Ramba Ral's forces and thus move on to M'quve it would seem. Bring it on!