What – you mean that wasn’t the end?  Oh dear – I seem to be making a habit out of getting that wrong this season…

Well, that was pretty dumb.  There are episodes of this series that are pretty hard to blog about, and this is one of them.  I did think (quite sincerely) that the last couple of eps were a step up in terms of coherence and narrative discipline.  But this was a full-on relapse.  Given that Koutetsujou no Kabaneri’s calling card has always basically been “fun in a stupid way”, I guess this is one of those cases where all you can do is throw up your hands and say “to thine own idiocy be true”…

I don’t like to harp on this sort of thing – it’s why blogging stuff like Guilty Crown became a “never again” scenario for me – so this is going to be a short one. The biggest thing I would have to call out for sheer nonsensicality is the way the Shogun ordered his gates thrown open and the Koutetsujou admitted based on what – a virtual stranger’s word that they’d “captured” Biba and his entire army?  Then there was Ikoma’s instantaneous transition into a blubbering anus for plot purposes – that was a close second.  Oh – and did you doubt for even a moment that Kurusu was going to show up at the perfect random place and time?

I get that the Shogun is an evil old bastard who’s afraid of everything and all, but I certainly don’t have a horse in this race – it’s a pox on both their houses to me.  It’s easy to enjoy this show as an adrenaline-charged spectacle when it sort of makes sense, but in order to care I need to be able to take it at least a bit seriously.  In this mode, Koutetsujou no Kabaneri really is a lightweight – a clear attempt to cash in on Attack on Titan with pretty art and good animation (though both slipped this week) and big-name actors mailing it in.  I suspect there’s going to be another season (though with Wit, limited production capacity means even commercial hits aren’t guaranteed an immediate sequel), and I would be really happy if Koutetsujou did something in the finale to make me look forward to it.