Just a reminder: The future of LiA is very much in doubt, and it’s up to you to decide what happens next.  Thank you for all your support!

Soredemo Ayumu wa Yosetekuru – 08

Soredemo Ayumu wa Yosetekuru is kind of the bizarro version of Karakai Jouzu no Takagi-san.  Where development is incremental as hell in the latter, with this show – anime at least – it’s a runaway train.  If Karakai Jouzu is like the sibling you see every day and barely notice is growing up, Soredemo Ayumu is the cousin you only see at holidays and shocks you every time by how tall they’ve gotten.

It was clear Rin’s arrival was going to shake up the dynamic, and in Soredemo Ayumu fashion, did it ever.  In the first place she pushed the shogi club past the post and and got it official status, which made Urushi an official (tiny) president.  In the second she’s actually a good shogi player  – and better than Ayumu – which reshuffles the power structure.  And she’s in love with Ayumu herself (which was pretty predictable).  It’s not so much that Rin loved kendo as that she followed Ayumu into it – ironically she had the same promise to herself he does (and likewise could never keep it).

Rin is a cold one – once she’s convinced she’s better at shogi, deferential sempai behavior for Ayumu is out the window.  She professes to Takeru and Sakurako (old friends) that she’s incensed that Ayumu likes Urushi (she figured that out instantly) and hasn’t been man enough to confess.  It obviously goes a lot deeper than that for Rin, but trying to get him across the line is good displacement therapy for her if nothing else.  I don’t sense anything romantically in either direction between Rin and Takeru, but this is the first time we’ve seen the ever-unflappable Sakurako look like she’s been put on the back foot.

Ultimately this show always comes back to Ayumu and Urushi, so Rin is pretty much out of luck when all is said and done.  Whether it be Urushi trying to tell Ayumu he’s handsome or teasing him with a hug-and-switch, those two are clearly at the “get a room” stage and have been for a while.

Shadows House 2nd Season – 08

Well, we finally got some serious development here on the mystery side.  I’d say the character side of the equation has advanced a fair bit during Shadows House 2nd Season but the plot has been pretty static compared to the first.  No more, though, as Meitantei Kate has fallen gotten to the bottom of one the season’s big mysteries.  And like many great fictional detectives, she’s been keeping a secret or two herself.

It turns out there was a very good reason why Kate seems different from the rest of the shadows, though her calm and authoritative nature was sufficient for the others to defer to her.  She and John make quite the interesting pair actually, as they’re so totally opposed in terms of personality (much like Shaun and Emilico).  John’s late arrival sets Patrick off (anything John-related seems to set Patrick off) but it’s the info he brings that finally gets Kate to the finish line in her deductions.  And with a little help from the map (this series does love its maps) it leads to the clue Master Robe has left behind – a clue in the form of an invitation.

Maryrose being Master Robe is fine – I’ve never thought about the character much, but the hints have been pointing in that direction for a while.  The real news here is the revelation she shares with Kate’s team – that both of them are “morphs”.  A morph, apparently, is the form a shadow takes before it begins to “mimic a human” – and Maryose and Kate are the only morphs who’ve retained their memories of that earlier form (for some reason as yet undisclosed).  Kate having hidden that from her allies is kind of problematical, though the only shadow aware of it for now is John and he’s so helplessly besotted that pretty much no revelation would make a difference to him.

This almost had me thinking of Summertime Render to be honest.  Now that the essential nature of shadows has been revealed the next big question is what their endgame is – that, and how they came to exist in the first place.  Maryrose and Kate may or may not end up being allies, but they both seem to share a hostility towards what Grandfather and the main house are doing to the humans – “kidnappers” indeed – so  we seem to be headed in that direction.