Otonari no Tenshi-sama ni Itsu no Ma ni ka Dame Ningen ni Sareteita Ken – 02

I definitely still haven’t figured Otonari no Tenshi-sama out yet.  It’s such a weird series.  Is it extremely sexist?  I think so – but I’m not totally sure.  I rather like the two leads (Shiina more than Fujimiya, but he’s aight).  There’s a sort of mutual respect between them but again, I can’t quite grok whether Fujimiya is being condescending or not.  The result is a sort of bemusement – I’m fairly interested and entertained, but not really sure where any of this is going.

If one chose to, one could almost call this relationship “clinical”, as witness the exchange when Shiina injures her foot trying to save a cat (are we just going to leave the fate of the cat a mystery?).  But that’s pretty superficial.  It’s hard to imagine a kid in Amane’s position having these sorts of interactions with a girl like Mahiru and not starting to develop feelings – even in real life, much less anime.  Maybe it should be possible for a purely practical (that word comes up a lot here) relationship to exist between these two, but in the real world it’s just not going to happen.

Shiina and how the series views her remains the big variable with this show.  She’s not an angel, as she keeps reminding Fujimiya.  But she does come off as perfect, a kind of modern-day nadeshiko fulfilling Fujimiya’s wishes in an undemanding way.  All these hints about her dark past – sitting in the rain without an umbrella, “I work hard because I have to”, hatred of birthdays – are clearly leading somewhere.  But is the’s “where” that matters – that has the potential to elevate her arc or turn it for the worse.

The birthday bit was quite good, I thought, though it obviously accelerated the process of Fujimiya (and maybe Shiina too) no longer being able to view this relationship with detach.  Apparently Itsuki and Chitose are going to be more important characters than the premiere let on, and there are some overtly sexist elements to their relationship too, so that’s another angle to be a bit wary about.  We’ll see – this remains an interesting show with a lot of potential, but not all of it for the good.

NieR:Automata Ver 1.1a – 02

Well, that was better than the first episode anyway.  The tenor of the story at least makes sense now – human survivors of an alien invasion hiding out on the moon, ordering their android slaves to fight on Earth as a resistance movement.  Androids vs. robots isn’t without some potential as a plot element, and that seems to be what we have here.

One might ask why the androids (the high-rank YoRHa ones) are dressed in goth loli-shota fashion.  Or why androids and even robots are bleeding what looks like human blood.  But it’s a conceit I suppose, albeit maybe with an explanation coming up later.  The alien robots’ fascination with flowers was almost comic to me in its earnestness, but I’m sure I don’t know the mythology well enough to get why that’s a thing.

I suppose the truth is not as straightforward as the humans on the moon are making it to be, and it felt like this episode was the start or spinning the other side of the story.  It’s all sort of interesting in an abstract way, but this still plays like something that’s intended as an extra for fans of the game than something to draw in new viewers.  I’ll give it another episode and see if my feelings shift at all.