Mahoutsukai no Yome Season 2 – 16

Another frankly pretty boring magic school episode of Mahoutsukai no Yome.  It strikes me that this whole arc has the feeling of a series that’s inherently unconventional doing its best to try and be conventional.  In the first place, it fits like a bad suit off the rack.  And in the second – why would you do that?  Why would you abandon what made you special – and popular – in an attempt to be more like the bulk of series out there?  I have no idea how much truth there is in that but it does feel to me like that’s what’s happening.

As usual, an episode of this show is never bad.  If one was unaware of what it could be – and was – maybe this would seem good enough.  It did amuse me to see Violet turn the test of courage into a highly-organized stamp rally like something put on by a local government.  This setting may not be Japan and Violet may not be Japanese, but that’s the most Japanese thing ever.  The “Sharknado” spoof was cute.  And that twist with the ghost at the end was kind of fun.  I’m not sure whether that was intended as a gag or a serious plot twist, but given how easily everyone seemed to brush it off I’m guessing it’s not the latter.

Apart from that, more sad Philomela back story, more Veronica being portrayed as a jerk, and a lot of adolescent navel-gazing.  And like twelve seconds of Elias.  In other words, a typical Ancient Magus’ Bride Season 2 episode.

Tokyo Revengers: Tenjiku-hen – 04

I’ve been close to dropping (for blogging, not necessarily watching) Tokyo Revengers a few times now.  But every time I’ve gotten to that point, it drops an episode good enough to draw me back in.  It happened with Episode 2 this season, and now with this one – we seem to have an alternating pattern so far at least.  This was pretty dang watchable, and actually threatens to send the story in what could be an interesting direction.  Totally implausible – that’s just the stamp on the ticket with this series – but interesting.

The gist of it is that the fifth division of Toman, under the baleful glare of Mucho, is a sort of internal affairs paramilitary that’s licensed to break all the rules in pursuit of traitors.  Except that Mucho is the traitor, the one Kaku-chan warned Takemitchy about.  This is where it gets pretty convoluted, but he’s one of the “vicious generation” – S-62 – and exclusively loyal to Izana.  Koko is a genius at making money (which is why Taiju wanted him in Black Dragon) and Mucho wants him in Tenjiku.  Since Koko is loyal to Inupi and Takemitchy and in the first division, Mucho reasons that by killing them he removes Koko’s other options.  Or by threatening to, he can blackmail him into joining Tenjiku.

Yeah, all pretty silly – but again, stamp the ticket.  This scene is staged pretty well, though I could do without our weekly dose of Takemitchy getting his face bashed in with no lasting consequences.  Koko eventually caves (after Takemitchy and Inupi are both out cold) and Mucho does at least fulfill his promise to let them go.  Inupi takes Takemitchy to the abandoned building he and Koko use as a hangout – which just happens to be Shinichirou’s old garage.  And if Mucho is loyal to Izana, Inupi is loyal to Black Dragon – because Shinichirou founded it, and he loved Shinichirou.  So he asks Takemitchy to become the new head of Black Dragon, and restore it to Shinichirou’s vision of a “noble” criminal gang.

Again – come on.  Why would anybody get it in their head that Takemitchy should be leading anything?  And the whole noble gang thing is ludicrous on the face of it but hey, that’s the fallacy than Tokyo Revengers is basically grounded in.  So in the context of suspension of disbelief I think this is actually a nice development.  It frames the story in a much cleaner way, with the three gangs and their devotees poised in opposition to each other, and gives Takemitchy at least a tangible path forward.  This series is pretty much on probation for me at this point, but for one more week at least I feel like sticking around.