Spring 2018 Anime – Anime QandA

Bubble Girl Is New Best Girl – ‘My Hero Academia 3rd Season’ Episode 24 and 25 (Finale) Review

Bubble Girl Is New Best Girl – An Anime QandA Review of ‘My Hero Academia 3rd Season’ Episode 24 and 25

What’s the show? My Hero Academia 3rd Season, Episode 24 & 25.

Doubling up episodes for this review, eh? Pretty much. I was late to getting to the episode 24 review so I figured I’d lump it together with 25—they’re very connected anyway so it works well enough!

Fair enough, so what happens in this—ahem, these episodes? Basically Midoriya and Bakugo are under “house arrest” for the fight in Episode 23 and are stuck doing chores—after Midoriya is released from the chores a day early (due to the fact that Bakugo incited the fight) we get a 1 and half episode long tease for what’s basically going to comprise a fair chunk of season 4. We learn the first year students will be doing ‘Hero Work Studies’ which is kind of like an on the job-apprenticeship just with hero work. We’re also introduced to the “Big Three” the top 3 students of UA who are all third year students.

More characters huh? For some reason I’d never even thought of the first years as having upperclassmen but of course they do, it’s a high school like any other. I’m surprised it took this long to actually meet some of them but at the same time glad as like you inferred this show has a lot of characters.

Are they any good? I enjoyed what little we saw of them—or in the case of Mirio, the whole ~lot~ we saw of him. We don’t get a sense of what the other two characters’ quirks are but Mirio has a very interesting power called ‘Permeate’ which as the name suggests allows all matter to pass through him—which as you can imagine makes him very over-powered. As a demonstration he takes on the whole of class 1-A—and they lose!

Sounds kind of unbalanced to have such an unbeatable hero? Maybe, but I do like that they made him somewhat down-to-earth and showed that he wasn’t just gifted these abilities and was able to use them ‘straight out of the box’ so to speak but that he had to work hard to hone his powers into something usable. I won’t go into detail because the show does a much better job at visualising and explaining his abilities and shortcomings but I enjoyed his whole deal. Also I’m glad there’s a girl in the Top 3, this show too often neglects women heroes but I’m just hoping her power isn’t some passive ‘support’ ability like so many of the other women are lumped with.

I suppose I could just ‘Google’ her power, but where’s the fun in that?

Uh-huh, I’ll stop you there before you start that old rant again. So what were your favourite things about the final two episodes of the third season? My favourite thing about episode 24 is the first half of the episode, which was almost like a noir-esque monologue from villain ‘Twice’—that fleshed out his backstory and was really moody and serious and different from anything we’ve seen from this show. I’d like more of this kind of thing going forward for sure!

Twice is kind of cooler *without* his mask on.

And the finale? Episode 25 gave us a brief glimpse of what will be coming, not just with the ‘Hero Work Studies’ but also the league of villains preparing something big and that someone belonging to the ‘good guys’ has apparently infiltrated their gang. It was a little bit vague but I liked the mystery of it all—also they briefly (like all of 20 seconds) introduced a brand new character who’s ~totally~ my new best girl—well, if her looks are anything to go off of!

Yeah, and who’s that? Her name’s Bubble Girl and she’s hot as heck!

Should’ve figured it’d be a superficial decision… Hey, I said I only had her looks to go off, didn’t I?!

Wait. She only appears for twenty seconds or so and you named the entire review after her?! Yep. I’m a simple man who knows what he likes.

Moving on, so what did you think of the final two episode of Season 3 of My Hero Academia? Full of interest and promise—which is kind of all you can expect for a finale of something ongoing and long-running. Not to go too much into my full thoughts on the season (as I’ll save that for the QandA Rundown) but I was getting a little bit tired of the testing stuff in this season so hopefully next season opens the world up a little bit more as was promised in the early part of season 3. I’m glad the final two episodes have left me wanting more as I do genuinely love this show and the characters—just hoping for a bit more development and intrigue next time!

Previous My Hero Academia Reviews:

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PERSONA 5 the Animation – Full Season QandA Rundown

What’s the important information? Persona 5: The Animation is a Spring 2018 anime that aired 26 episodes between April and September. It is based on the Persona 5 video game released by Atlus.

What’s it about? Ren Amamiya is a high school student, who, after being in the wrong place at the wrong time ends up on probation. He moves to Shibuya to start a new life under the roof of a family friend but soon finds himself caught up in something bigger and more important than he could possibly imagine. He has unlocked the supernatural power of ‘Personas’ and with it the ability to change the hearts of wrong-doers, with the help of his new friends they become the ‘Phantom Thieves of Hearts’ a group of vigilantes intent on saving innocents from those who abuse power. But things aren’t ever just that simple…

Why did you watch it? I played the Persona 5 game so naturally I’m going to see how much the stuff it up, uh, err, I mean faithfully adapt it for television…

Did you enjoy the show? For the most part, yes I did. It simultaneously made me fondly remember the best parts of the game (the story and the character development) while glossing over the infuriating parts of it (the back-tracking, the repetitive battles) while also wonder why it so faithfully adapted things that could have easily been cut for the sake of a more streamlined experience. Ultimately though it’s interesting and entertaining even for someone who’s played the game so that’s got to be a recommendation of sorts!

Ren’s pretty cool for a video game protagonist.

What was your favourite episode? With so many episodes and none of them specifically distinct the whole series kind of blends together into an amorphous blob but the most faithful episode (at least as far as I’m concerned) was the first beach episode (Episode 18) where Futaba starts coming out of her proverbial shell so I’ll pick that one!

Futaba’s expression is me whenever I see people outside having fun.

What were your most favourite things about the show? Despite the fact that I played the game with English dubs but watched the show with original Japanese voices I still think they perfectly captured the essence of every character (with the exception perhaps being Ryuji who I still prefer in English). Also, unlike Persona 4 the Animation this series feels less like a video game adaptation and more its own thing—which for newcomers is a very important thing.

What were your least favourite things about the show? This show tries too hard to squeeze every little thing that was even ~vaguely~ significant about the game into the show which adds to the narrative bloat and ends up with a lot of pointless asides that while ostensibly ‘fan-service’ for players of the game fall flat for everyone else. Characters like Hifumi Togo the Shogi player and Chihaya Mifune the psychic are introduced and ~vaguely~ returned to, but never in the same substantial way that they are in the game so their inclusion feels like pointless padding in a show already stuffed to bursting.

Who was your favourite character? In the game it was Futaba, she was best girl—but without the adaptation of her romantic plot line the connection feels lost. The character who came across the best in this adaptation was surprisingly Sojiro, the surrogate father figure to our protagonist and all around good guy—bet you didn’t expect me to pick an old dude over a waifu!

Sojiro’s about as deep as side-characters come, so much backstory and complexity.

Thoughts on the OP (opening) and ED (ending) and the soundtrack in general? Not to keep referencing the game too much but its soundtrack was a definite highlight and thankfully most of it remains for the adaptation, the various OP’s and ED’s are all sung by Lyn as they were in the game but in serving as OP’s and ED’s they draw ~more~ attention to themselves and thus highlight the quality of the soundtrack overall.

What’s something unique about this show? It seems weird to say but the fact that we got 26 episodes of a video game adaptation and we’re still not done with the completed adaptation! Yes, that’s right, a ‘special’ episode will air in late 2018 to wrap up the story proper! Maybe this isn’t especially unique but it kind of felt like it for me!

What other anime are most like it for the sake of comparison? It should go without saying that it’s somewhat similar to Persona 4 but this show carries more style and panache than that show ever could muster. There have been plenty of shows throughout the years that focus on the struggle between oppressed and oppressor but none have felt more nascent and timely than Persona 5.

Who would you recommend it to? If you’ve played the game, then obviously this series comes recommended. Just don’t expect a 1:1 retelling of events nor anything that expands upon the universe. If you haven’t played the game the series is still worth watching for those interested in a compelling drama with interesting and charismatic characters.

Sum up the season in one sentence: ‘Social Justice Warriors; the anime!’

Final score? 83 out of 100.

Previous PERSONA5 the Animation Reviews:

Episode 1 Review
Episode 2 Review
Episode 3 Review
Episode 4 Review
Episode 5 Review
(Stopped reviewing weekly after Episode 5)

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The Biggest Villain Is Toxic Masculinity – ‘My Hero Academia 3rd Season’ Episode 23 Review

The Biggest Villain Is Toxic Masculinity – An Anime QandA Review of ‘My Hero Academia 3rd Season’ Episode 23

What’s the show? My Hero Academia 3rd Season, Episode 23.

So, uh, you kinda weren’t too keen on what this episode was going to be about when they teased it last week? Did it live up to your lack of expectations? As much as I hate to admit it… they kinda pulled it off—even with all my preconceived annoyance at the idea of Midoriya and Bakugo “needing” to fight. But that’s a big italicised and underlined kinda… because it’s still all absolutely unnecessary.

Wait, so you say the “pulled it off” but it was also “unnecessary”? How does that work? Well in the direct context of the show I bought it, plus it was well-written enough that I understood the intentions even if I absolutely hate the ~idea~ of it—I still do hate the idea mind you, I’ve just made my peace with it because of the aforementioned ‘positives’ of the episode.

Okay, I think you’re going to need to explain your problems with them having a fight seeing as you glossed over it last week as you pre-empted this week’s potential for a rant. I don’t like the idea that men have to fight each other in order to come to terms with things they’re feeling but can’t verbalise, it’s all under that delightful ‘toxic masculinity’ umbrella that irritates me so. I hate that we have a culture that celebrates being “tough” and negates the benefits of actually speaking about your problems and so whenever characters who are in all respects ‘allies’ and not ‘enemies’ decide that whatever ~problem~ has come between them needs to be resolved with fists instead of words I die a little inside. This is a problem as old as time itself, and perpetuating these negative “masculine” stereotypes is just wrong.

Makes sense I suppose, so I take it this episode at least gave a good enough reason for them to be fighting? Not really, it tried. I mean I ~love~ that Midoriya is open enough with his feelings that he only wants to talk about it, I’m so glad he’s the protagonist and not Bakugo. But Bakugo, ugh… I don’t hate him… but I absolutely pity him. I pity his irrational, violent sensibilities that make him so emotionally inert to any kind of reactions aside from insulting people and wanting to punch things. It’d be funny if there weren’t innocent people suffering at the hands of ignorant people like this in the real world.

Bringing it around to “reality” huh? Sure that’s wise, I mean we’re talking about a superhero anime here… Doesn’t change the fact that Midoriya and Bakugo are in a relationship—and calm down ‘shippers I don’t mean like that. You don’t have to be dating or sleeping with someone to be in an abusive relationship and that’s what it felt like Midoriya was having to deal with here—a “partner” who can’t express themselves verbally so they have to lash out with violence instead.

Do things at least get resolved by the end of the episode between the two? Kind of but not really, after their fight—which Midoriya loses by the way (make of that what you will)—All Might steps in to allay Bakugo’s insecurities and guilt, you know the reason Bakugo’s apparently been acting this way. Which I think is kinda bullshit because the many flashbacks show that he’s always been a dick to Midoriya so all his recent ‘hang-ups’ seem more like an excuse than anything. But as I said it’s still well written and well voice acted and I wasn’t bored at anytime during the episode so there’s that at least. I’m glad this mini-arc is over and we can hopefully get some interesting plot in before the end of the season!

Previous My Hero Academia Reviews:

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Kakuriyo -Bed & Breakfast For Spirits- – Full Season QandA Rundown

What’s the important information? Kakuriyo –Bed & Breakfast for Spirits- is a Spring 2018 supernatural romance anime that aired 26 episodes between April and September. It is based on a Light Novel series by Midori Yuma and has been adapted into a Josei manga series too.

What’s it about? Aoi Tsubaki is a lonely college student who has the ability to Ayakshi in the world, a trait she inherited from her now deceased grandfather. One day while walking past a shrine she meets an Ogre god named Odanna. After offering him some food she kidnaps her to the ‘Hidden Realm’, the spiritual home for all Ayakashi. There she learns her grandfather owed Odanna a great debt and in order to repay it she offered Aoi’s hand in marriage. But rather than succumb to his wishes Aoi negotiates with the Ogre god and decides to pay off the debt at Tenjin’ya an inn for Ayakashi.

Why did you watch it? Every season I watch one or two shows that I have little-to-no interest in but that would be of interest to the irlwaifu—lots of hot Ayakashi boys vying for one woman’s attention—this was the one for Spring, other than that there was no other reason for me to watch it.

Did you enjoy the show? I reviewed about 6 episodes before deciding I couldn’t review it episodically but that’s not to speak of the show’s quality—just that I didn’t have anything to talk about! The show is pretty casual and light-hearted but at times it feels like too little actually happens in the show, it certainly didn’t need to be 26 episodes. As much as I complained about the ~creepy~ aspect of framing a love-story against kidnapping and arranged marriage, Aoi is a strong enough character that she’s never taken advantage of by the “good” characters.

Why is the only thing I can think of what kind of damage those nails would do “in the bedroom”…

What was your favourite episode? The episode that had the most emotional gravitas for me was the finale—Episode 26, with the revelation about the Umi-bouzo’s true nature being particularly touching.

What were your most favourite things about the show? Despite seeming at first glance to be as a show about hot boys and one girl amongst it, there’s actually a lot of other female characters and while Aoi’s interactions with these characters are never ~quite~ as deep as they are with the men they are still interesting character with differing levels of friendship (or rivalry) with Aoi.

You know it’s a show “for women” when the man in the scene has bigger and brighter eyes than the two girls.

What were your least favourite things about the show? Aside from the aforementioned pacing issues the animation can vary in quality at time, never to horrendous levels but it does come off as a little rushed sometimes. Also the stakes in any given episode never really feel all that high—even towards the finale it feels like nobody in the show is taking anything too serious.

Who was your favourite character? While it would be easy (and expected) of me to pick Aoi as I did praise her earlier on in this review she isn’t my favourite character. I’m tossing up between Ginji the white haired wolf-boy who’s just an all-round “good boy” and a lot more likable as a potential love-interest than Odanna. But my love of waifu’s is wanting me to pick the shy, dark-haired beauty of the bath-houses Shizuna, but because of how little screen-time she has I probably should just leave it as Ginji being favourite.

I like how Shizuna’s character design emphasises the fact she works all day in a hot springs, that’s the hair of someone who works in a wet and humid environment!

Thoughts on the OP (opening) and ED (ending) and the soundtrack in general? The first OP “Tomoshibi no Manimani” is a gorgeous and moving song and is actually sung by Aoi’s voice actress Nao Toyama, and when they announced a new song for the second cour I thought nothing could compare but rather than trying to replicate the emotional power and sweeping beauty of the first one they went for a straight up banger; “Utsushiyo no Yume” by Nano. As for the ED’s, well there’s way too many to go through them all as nearly every character gets a character song during the end credits but they’re all fairly decent.

What’s something unique about this show? This show has a large emphasis on food—which is nothing new for anime considering the Japanese people’s obsession with it, what is interesting is how it permeates every aspect of the narrative—at first seemingly like a hobby for Aoi (one she’s very skilled at mind you) but then becoming intrinsic to the overarching plot-line of the final arc of the anime. It doesn’t make the earlier episodes dedicated to it feel less ~slight~ of content but it does justify the existence of it throughout the story as being something other than just a hobby.

What other anime are most like it for the sake of comparison? I don’t have a great basis for comparison with this genre. However while I haven’t watched the show, I actually own Kamisama Kiss on blu-ray (it was cheap, so I bought it) and that show looks very much like Kakuriyo.

Who would you recommend it to? There’s a certain demographic for this show and they’ve probably already watched this show—or at the very least have it on their watch list. That’s not to say people who aren’t a part of that demographic won’t find things to enjoy about the show like I did but the effect will be greatly lessened.

Sum up the season in one sentence: ‘Much like vanilla ice-cream its sweet but kind of ordinary, pleasant but nothing bold and more or less delivers the expected experience.’

Final score? 72 out of 100.

Previous Kakuriyo -Bed & Breakfast For Spirits- Reviews:

Episode 1 Review
Episode 2 Review
Episode 3 Review
(No Review For Episode 4)
Episode 5 & 6 Review
Episode 7 Review
(Stopped Reviewing Weekly After Episode 7)

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Spoiling For A Fight – ‘My Hero Academia 3rd Season’ Episode 22 Review

Spoiling For A Fight – An Anime QandA Review of ‘My Hero Academia 3rd Season’ Episode 22

What’s the show? My Hero Academia 3rd Season, Episode 22.

So what happens in this episode? Maybe this’ll be a controversial opinion—I mean it will if the number of tweets about it are any indication towards its popularity—but I really couldn’t care less about Midoriya and Bakugo having a proverbial pissing contest over which of them is stronger and who’s deserving of what…

So I take it that’s what this episode is about? Well, not as such, I’m jumping ahead as I often do. That’s the end of the episode, setting up for what will no doubt take precedence in the next episode.

Okay, well before you decide to annoy everyone with a rant how about you talk about the rest of the episode first, yeah? Sure. So the provisional licensing exams are over and we get the results, three people that we know of failed. Them being Todoroki and the windy guy from the other school because of their stupid rivalry and of course Bakugo for just generally being angry and unpleasant while trying to save people. Of course the consequences of these “failures” is pretty minor seeing as they’re able to take a 3 month makeup course to get their licenses anyway, so it’s really just a minor setback for those guys.

Is he attempting ‘goatse’? (Kids if you don’t know what that is *please* don’t google it).

I see, then what happens? Well Midoriya tries to find sexy shape-shifting girl Utsushimi from the other school but turns out she went home early also turns out that she was ~actually~ female villain Himiko in disguise! She was there to attain a sample of Midoriya’s blood, which she evidently succeeded in doing. Hopefully Utsushimi is okay! But surprisingly it’s All Might who was arguably the most interesting scene of the episode as he goes to Tartarus prison to visit All For One who is imprisoned there under ludicrously strict precautions. I feel like is this was set in actual Japan and not MHA Japan they’d have just given him the death penalty by now.

Oh? What’s so good about this scene? It’s hard to put my finger on it—I mean not a lot of new or vital information is imparted but it just felt so different from everything we’d seen before. Plus All For One being all immobile in his cell but still managing to be intimidating as heck is very cool—he’s got a Hannibal Lecter vibe and I totally dig that!

And I’m guessing after that we get to the thing you don’t care about and probably want to rant about? Listen, the next episode is going to be all about these two beating the crap out of each other because of fragile male egos or some such nonsense and I’ll save my rant for then, nobody needs to read the same complaints twice. Let’s just say leave it at, ‘I don’t care about the issues these two characters have with each other and Bakugo is a big dumb baby.’

Oooh~ I can just feel the hate radiating from a thousand keyboards around the world reading those words of yours! A thousand?! That’s very optimistic, more like ten.

So final thoughts on the episode? Glad the licensing exam is over—not glad we have to deal with Midoriya and Bakugo’s ~issues~, hopefully we can get to something more interesting before the season is done!

This moment was pretty cute though. He was so excited!

Previous My Hero Academia Reviews:

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Never Meet Your Heroes – ‘My Hero Academia 3rd Season’ Episode 21 Review

Never Meet Your Heroes – An Anime QandA Review of ‘My Hero Academia 3rd Season’ Episode 21

What’s the show? My Hero Academia 3rd Season, Episode 21.

So what happens in this episode? We’re back to our regularly scheduled licensing exam after last week’s diversion into ‘Anime Original/Movie Tie-In Episode’ and boy does this episode sure…

Sure what? Kinda bore me a little… it’s like it took me this long to realise the folly of watching a long-running Shonen series week-to-week, or at least reviewing it. I should retract what I said, it didn’t bore to watch it, it was fine, good, even with moments of greatness but as I was trying to recall the events to write this review I was left scratching my head about what exactly made it worth talking about. Suffice to say future seasons of this show and indeed most, if not all shonen-genre shows coming up (like Fairy Tail) won’t be reviewed week-to-week on the site anymore.

That’s probably for the best, the view counts for these reviews were the lowest of any show you reviewed this season… Don’t bring that up, jeez!

So how’s the episode itself, what happens? Todoroki and the windy guy from the other school have an argument when they’re meant to be rescuing people, turns out Todoroki’s dad, Endeavour, was a dick to this guy when he was a kid—also during the entrance exams for UA High Todoroki was apparently a dick too. And here’s the thing, this was all well-written and well-acted and had drama and ego and depth and I just didn’t really care at all.

Any particular reason why? You know the reason.

Oh shit, he’s going to bring up the— They are underutilising the female heroes on this show damn it! Like I adore this series, I really do, the irlwaifu even bought me a Froppy hoodie which I love so much—but man it pisses me off to see such wasted potential, like stop introducing more macho male characters who are super powerful and instead focus on the actually interesting women you’ve chosen to sideline at every opportunity! It’s gotten so bad that I feel like I can’t even watch the show without getting angry, and I don’t want that! Like I can deal with them focusing on Midoriya and Todoroki and Bakugo and Tenya and All Might, but then to bring in more male characters and give them screen-time, it’s infuriating!

Yes, you female heroes look after the children while the *men* do all the fighting.

All right, settle down, you’ve had your rant, can we move on? Sure sure, whatever. So Todoroki and windy guy get yelled at by Midoriya for bickering when they’re meant to be working together which shames them enough to put their differences aside and help Midoriya defeat Gang Orca. Just as it looks like he’s about to win, the timer runs out and the exam is over and the episode ends with the cliff hanger over who passed and who didn’t.

I really didn’t care for Gang Orca either.

Your hearts not in it anymore is it? Sad to say but not really, I was almost going to just stop reviewing this show all together and try and just enjoy it without the added layer of analysis that having to write a review for it does but I figure I owe it to the nine people who still read these reviews week-to-week. I don’t hate this show, I could never hate this show—it gave me Froppy after all—but yeah, don’t expect long and incisive reviews for the remainder of the episodes this season, sorry!

Froppy learnt a new ability! And the show devoted all of 30 seconds to that, thanks again My Hero Academia! /sarcasm

Previous My Hero Academia Reviews:

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Isekai Izakaya: Japanese Food From Another World – Full Season QandA Rundown

A Full Season QandA Rundown of Isekai Izakaya: Japanese Food From Another World

This blog is something of a test to see if this ‘Full Season QandA Rundown’-style post is a better approach for the end-of-season reviews. Please leave your feedback in the comments on this more structured approach.

What’s the important information? ‘Isekai Izakaya: Japanese Food From Another World’ is a Spring 2018 anime that aired for 24 episodes from April through September. It’s based on a Light Novel series by Natsuya Semikawa called ‘Isekai Izakaya “Nobu”’ and was also adapted into an ongoing manga series of the same name.

What’s it about? The series is about a traditional Japanese ‘Izakaya’ (that’s a pub that serves high-quality food) called ‘Nobu’ whose front door opens to ‘another world’. In this particular instance it opens to the pre-industrial Germanic inspired world of ‘Aitheria’. The series begins more or less as a showcase for animated food porn, but over the course of the 24 episodes introduces more characters and further develops the relationship between its staff and its patrons.

Is that a euphemism? (Spoiler alert, it’s not, this show is wholesome).

Why did you watch it? The series’ premise was initially familiar to that of ‘Restaurant To Another World’—a series I adored and was keen for more of the same. Though aside from the aspect of people eating unfamiliar food from our world (specifically Japanese food) and the fact that it’s got a magic front door—the similarities stop there. Every 15 minute episode spends 10 minutes with the ‘plot’ of the episode and 5 minutes with a live-action segment, which alternate between a cooking/recipe segment in the odd numbered episodes and a travel-style segment involving visiting different Japanese eating establishments in the even numbered episodes. My thoughts on Episode 1 & 2 specifically can be found here.

Be prepared for a lot of dorky dad jokes from this guy as he eats his way ’round Japan!

Did you enjoy the show? The first two episodes suffered from some technical teething problems—the screen was so inundated with text it was almost impossible to read at times—thankfully Episode 3 onward resolved these issues. The show is light entertainment and occasionally comedic with smatterings of character and world building throughout, and yes I did enjoy the show even if it wasn’t a substantial experience it still delivered a reliable good time every episode.

Thankfully this overload on subtitles is only for the first two episodes.

What was your favourite episode? It’s hard to pick because individual moments of greatness a scattered across quite a few episodes, Episode 7 “The Burglar” introduces the adorable homeless girl Olivia who ends up working as a dishwasher at ‘Nobu’, Episode 19 “The Female Merc” touches on some interesting gender issues in this other world. But for the episode that felt the most different and therefore most interesting it’d be Episode 12 “Beauty and the Abura-age” which has the only scene of the whole series that doesn’t takes place either in Aitheria or the Izakaya and also introduces a bit of Japanese mysticism which was kind of touching.

What were your most favourite things about the show? It may seem obvious to say the food, but the attention to detail on the food was incredible. Also the slowly growing connections between the patrons and the staff at Nobu was endearing.

Wbat were your least favourite things about the show? The show can feel very repetitive at times, which sometimes felt comforting and other times felt annoying. The episodes were released two at a time every fortnight and that absolutely worked in its favour as it gave enough time to miss the show but not too little of the show to feel like you weren’t leaving satisfied. I can’t imagine binge watching this show as I imagine it would grow tiresome quickly except for the most patient of viewers.

Who was your favourite character? While Nobuyuki, the owner and head chef of ‘Nobu’ serves as strong grounding figure there’s no denying that Shinobu, the head waitress is the undoubted highlight—not only my favourite characters but one of my favourite Waifu’s of the Spring 2018 anime season!

And best of all, at 23 years old, she’s a legal waifu too!

What’s something unique about this show? While the live-action segments were indeed a surprise, similar things have been done with other shows and so I’d hazard to say it was unique. The fact that these live-action segments were actually interesting however is probably something unique in of itself. Personally though the most unique thing about the show was the fact it was in part sponsored by the Japanese Tourism board which seems both inspired and odd; “inspired” because food is such a big thing about Japan that why not showcase it in an anime but “odd” because the show showcases nothing of actual Japan the place.

I picked up some good recipes from these segments!

What other anime are most like it for the sake of comparison? As mentioned before ‘Restaurant To Another World’ shares some DNA with this show but rather than being a sibling series it’s more like an estranged cousin. Tonally the show is reminiscent of the café set scenes in ‘Is The Order A Rabbit?’ just with less CGDCT shenanigans. It’s also at least passingly similar to ‘Today’s Menu For The Emiya Family’—though I’ve only seen a couple of episodes of that show so bare that in mind.

Pretty fancy for pub food! But that’s Japan for you!

Who would you recommend it to? Anybody who enjoys good food and watching people and eat and get happy about good food, and that kind of endearing food-culture that Japan has should enjoy this show. It’s certainly not a remarkable or life-changing anime but it does fill me with a warm familiarity and nostalgia that’s wholesome and appreciated. If you’re looking for plot or drama or heavy character development you won’t find it here, but if you’re looking for casual entertainment with personality and food porn you can’t go astray.

Sum up the season in one sentence: ‘Like your favourite comfort food, it might not seem anything special on the surface but it makes you feel good all the same’.

Final score? 74 out of 100.

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Midnight Robbery – ‘My Hero Academia 3rd Season’ Episode 20 Review

Midnight Robbery – An Anime QandA Review of ‘My Hero Academia 3rd Season’ Episode 20

What’s the show? My Hero Academia 3rd Season, Episode 20.

So what happens in this episode? It’s advertised as an ‘anime original’ episode, i.e. not based on something from the manga—though what that really means (at least in this case) is that they wanted to air something that acts as a tie-in to the movie as well as not-so-subtle cross promotion.

Oh, so does that mean it’s kind of half-assed? I wouldn’t go that far, the production values are the same as a normal episode—besides it does actually have an ‘original’ tale to tell that’s separate from the movie prologue and advertising book-ends.

Okay then, so what’s the plot of the “original tale”? Well it takes place before the Summer camp stuff that started the 3^rd season and involves Midoriya, Bakugo, Tenya, Todoroki, Ochako and Froppy take part in a special ‘test’ where they have to respond to a ‘fake’ jewellery robbery/hostage situation and find a way to resolve it. But it’s a lot more complicated than it first seems as the villain (played by All Might in a villain costume) ends up dead as they enter the crime scene and then the heroes in training have to work out ‘whodunnit’.

And is it good? It’s a surprising amount of low-key fun—even if it doesn’t add anything of real importance to the narrative. Midoriya kinda hogs the episode though which is a bit annoying, I would’ve liked more for Froppy to do but as usual the female characters are underutilised even in this ‘anime original’ where they could have done whatever they wanted.

I think Ochako is trapped in a glass box.

I’m going to divert your train of thought from that impending rant and return to where you said it was “fun”, let’s roll with that instead, yeah? It’s fun seeing All Might and some of the other teachers play ‘dress-up’ for this mock robbery, there’s some good humour and character moments. I’d say All Might comes off the best out of this special which makes sense as the movie is about his past and so giving him a bit more material from before he was ‘taken down’ by All For One feels like a bit of necessary fan service—sort of like a last-hurrah for how he used to be.

And you mentioned something about a ‘prologue’ to the movies and advertorial bookends? Yeah so the episode starts with All Might and Midoriya addressing the audience directly about how this is a special episode and then ends with them doing the same except plugging the movie and thanking everyone in that endearing and distinctly Japanese way, it’s kind of adorable even if it just a way to get people to pay $20 for something they could more or less see on TV for free. The movie prologue is very brief and basically just sets up that All Might used to have an American sidekick back in his ‘glory days’ and his daughter wants them all to catch-up on I-Island, a sort of technological hero-based utopia. And of course All Might is taking Midoriya with him which makes sense if Midoriya is going to end up as his replacement as the ‘Symbol of Peace’.

I wonder what his quirk is and if it has anything to do with his last name…

I guess the real question is, did it work at wanting you to see the movie? Oh I was planning on seeing the movie as soon as it was announced! I seldom miss an opportunity to see an anime I like on the big-screen (unless it’s a dumb recap movie). I saw Fairy Tail: Dragon Cry at the cinema, as well as No Game No Life Zero and I’ll be doing the same for My Hero Academia: Two Heroes. But if you’re asking if this episode made the movie more interesting or appealing… eh, I guess I know there’s a new cute girl in the form of Melissa Shield so that’s good! Other than that, not really. Am I annoyed that this episode interrupted an arc mid-way through to sell a movie? No, it was entertaining enough in it’s own way. But is it essential to watch this episode? Not really.

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Research and Rescue – ‘My Hero Academia 3rd Season’ Episode 19 Review

Research and Rescue – An Anime QandA Review of ‘My Hero Academia 3rd Season’ Episode 19

What’s the show? My Hero Academia 3rd Season, Episode 19.

So more hero license training? You know it!

And is it a good episode? Mostly so. It’s got quite a few good jokes—even Mineta who’s usually a chore isn’t too bad here. The biggest problem I had with this episode is the stakes—usually something this show does well, didn’t feel quite as high here.

And why do you think that is? Well this part of the licencing exam requires the hundred heroes who passed the previous assessment to rescue actors who are playing trapped and injured bystanders around several different disaster sites and I mean kudos to the show for the idea of making the people being rescued the ones scoring the students but there just doesn’t feel like much emotional or physical stakes in practicing rescuing people.

So real rescues would have been better? Assuredly, impractical of course—you can’t just wait around for a disaster to happen to rescue people, but I don’t know, as interesting as it was to see the different heroes using their different abilities to rescue people the whole time I couldn’t think about how much more compelling this would be if these were real rescues, with real lives on the line. This kinda felt like the stuff these kids should’ve been doing in season 1 or 2 not here at the tail end of season 3.

Anything else you wanted to talk about? Another slight annoyance, I was ~actually~ getting invested in Ochako’s blooming feelings for Midoriya and I thought having Utsushimi being a sort of love rival would spur her on to confess how she really feels but instead Ochako decides to push her feelings down and concentrate on being the best hero… Lame! I don’t want that! I want to see those two dating already!

Do you think they’re setting it up so it can become a plot line later? I get the feeling it’s going to be a long time before any romance happens—the best we can hope for is some of the other Class 1-A students start pairing up and maybe that creates the catalyst for Midoriya and Ochako to start a relationship!

Ochako just wants the D… by which I mean Deku, of course! Minds out of the gutter!

So what’d you think of the episode overall? It’s an entertaining 25 minutes that lacks any substantial threat—even the introduction of Gang Orca to ‘act’ as villains to fight against, making the rescues more difficult kinda felt weak. But hopefully it will improve—though we have to wait an extra week as next week’s episode is unrelated to the main plot and is an “anime original”—no doubt to tie into the release of the theatrical film.

Previous My Hero Academia Reviews:

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