Aldnoah.Zero Season 2 Episode 4 アルドノア・ゼロ Anime Review

WOLF IN SHEEP'S CLOTHING 

This whole episode for the most part had one main objective which is to show us, our main characters' shift or change in personalities compared to the previous season. I mean besides that predictable Inaho saves everyone again scene, the whole focus of this episode was on personality change. Also, Marito returns in this episode, it's really sad they just left him out considering the amount of build up he had and he could've been used in a more appropriate angle with Saazbaum cause of whole drama portrayed between between these two characters and Saazbaum's wife, so I really wonder in which direction his character is gonna develop from now on.

Moving back to our main topic, the personality change. Anyone who saw Inaho in the first season probably thought at some point that he lacks human emotions and now for some reason ever since Slaine shot him, he's showing more human emotions. Right off the start of the episode we get to see him trying to pull the blanket to cover his sister who has been by his side after his surgery, the amount of emotions he shows in this scene alone is twice as much compared to the entire first season! On contrast, Slaine, following the wise words of Saazbaum as shown in the pic, wiped out the entire trident base by himself, I mean whoa, that's really impressive. Not only he outclassed the base but he smartly looked into the security and stuff and caught them off guard. As a result, everyone from workers to other Counts started respecting him and more importantly started trusting him cause only someone on their side could pull off such a murderous act against terrains. Still I for one think he's still hiding or planning something else, like he's a wolf hiding in sheep's clothing and not showing his true colors. Really interesting development here of his character in this episode. 

Besides that, one of the Count is captured, he looked scared to begin with and didn't wanted to destroy the Earth but instead use it's resources as he's shown discussing it with other Counts. Interesting to note how his mech could control or manipulate gravitational waves and use it to create a tornado, that's badass. A good episode overall, music was superb as usual and animation was top notch. Thank you for reading this anime review, have a wonderful day or night wherever you live! Links to this episode are available in download section. Thoughts? let me know in the comments below.

Death Parade Episode 4 デス・パレード Anime Review

Death ARCADE 

A quick theory-crafting regarding those mannequins or dolls shown in the second episode before I dive in. This is something that I should have mentioned in my last review but still, never too late right? So those mannequins, I'm pretty sure those have more meaning to than just being Decim's hobby. So what's the connection here? I think those mannequins are human souls or may have human souls trapped in them. Sounds bizarre but think about it, Firstly, Onna was introduced to us who came outta nowhere and she has few months to prove something as Nonaginta said. Secondly, remember how those mannequins were hanged in that room by strings? now go check the opening video of this series and see towards the end how Decim catches Onna as she falls with strings attached to her. So perhaps, Onna is actually one of the mannequin made by Decim or something similar maybe that's why he seems surprised whenever Onna says something correct but goes against his ideology cause he's not human. Again, this is just a general idea, I might be right or terribly wrong. So with that off my chest, lets move on to this week's episode.

What a emotionally charged episode, like straight out the most emotional episode of this series so far. After watching this episode two things are pretty much clear. Firstly, two people who enter in here may or may not know each other which is something that was confirmed in the OVA as well. Secondly, suicide won't send you to hell or void. So up first is a guy who's pretty much a shut-in otaku and had a tragic life. His real mother who divorced his father hasn't contacted him in years and he doesn't seem to accept his step-mother even though it's her dream for him to call her "mom" and accept her, this is one of his guilty side revealed later. On the other hand we got a lady who is in her mid 30s, though not a lot about her is revealed from the back story but from what it seems is that she really cared about her five children at the same time didn't show enough affection towards them and a lot of men left her, as she mentioned how her whole life everyone has deceived her and so on. I think those children may have different father as judging by her personality she couldn't hang on to one man kinda looked like cheated along the way and those men kept using and abusing her and maybe that's why she had that backlash against her children.

Midway through the episode, Decim pulls out a deice which triggers some form of a problem so that the reaction which it produces from our guests can be used from making the final judgement. Really interesting and mind-boggling at the same time cause basically Decim is actually instigating them or forcing a reaction out of them hence to show the darkness of their soul and it really worked here. When Decim used the trigger on our main male character and that joystick popped out, he pretty much didn't react as much as our main female character. He just covered it up by saying that he purposely started playing good as oppose to their original plan in which he was suppose to lose in the second round so as to make the game more more realistic. On the other hand when our main female character was put through the same test, she drew out her darker side under the fear of losing and lost her patience, the smashing our main male character's face on the screen repeatedly to a point where he was unconscious. Interesting to note how Onna didn't agree with such forceful method to pull out a reaction and threw that device on the floor. In the end, the game ended as a draw.

But the true beauty of this episode sets in towards the end. The male character actually committed suicide cause he was sick of everything and was now in tears as he felt guilty of not being able to even grant such a simple wish as mentioned above though his step-mom tried her best to get along with him. On the other hand, now this is very interesting, out main female character wanted to go back to the real world as she had just found the happiness, which possibly may have sent her to hell or void. The main female character, as a mother should have found happiness when she gave birth to her very first child but she completely neglected her children and just didn't show any affection towards them until their life was turned into a reality series or something which made her popular. I assume based on reaction she is likely to have gone to hell or void and our male character to heaven unless there's a twist. Overall, another brilliant episode, really like how they touch such sensitive and controversial topics. 

Thank you for reading this anime review, I know it's little late as the episode was actually delayed but anyway have a wonderful day or night wherever you live! Thoughts? let me know in the comments below. Links to this episode and 1080p version of the 3rd episode of Assassination classroom are available in download section. 

Tokyo Ghoul √A Episode 4 東京喰種√A Anime Review

CENTIPEDE-CHAN

After watching this episode, the previous episode in comparison definitely had that "calm before the storm" vibe to it. But I'm not surprised to see all the action we got in this episode, rather it is the excellent execution the stood out. If its really true that Ishida-Sensei is actually directing this season unlike the previous one, then hats off to him so far, brilliant job.

The whole focus of this episode was based on the Aogiri tree attacking the Cochlea as mentioned in my previous review. At the start this episode Yoshitoki, the Bureau Director of CCG's main office is revealed to have decided to return to front-line under chairman's order. Besides that we are given Amon's sad back-story. He was an orphan at an orphanage ran by Donata Porpora, a ghoul and Donata basically ate most of the orphans but for some strange reason left out Amon, shocked, when he found out the truth. I really wonder why he let Amon live which is something that even Amon is shown wondering about till date. During Donata's brief stare down with Akira, he says that she looks tastier unlike her father possibly pointing out that Mado and he encountered in the past. 

So moving back to the main topic, Aogiri attacking the Cochlea. A complete massacre, like dead bodies flying everywhere, some of those are of Aogiri Tree's members but most are of humans. That scene where Tatara just throws away one of the ghoul investigator after killing him was plain badass, we don't know a lot about him, sure looks interesting. We also get to see Amon and Akira teaming up to kill all those ghouls who are released, while doing so they encounter the emotionally unstable, Naki. He looked like had the upperhand fighting against Akira while Amon was busy fighting other members but then Akira pulls off another quinque which stabs right through Naki's torso. In the end he gets to eat a part of Akira's leg before he's sent flying away by Amon, interesting build up between Amon and Akira here. Nashiro and Kurona are also inside Cochlea in search for their "brother" Kaneki when they encounter Suzuya who from what it looks pretty much know who these twins are but kinda surprised to see them turn into ghouls, does that mean they were humans like Kaneki before and were turned into ghoul artificially?

We have two more encounters in this episode, firstly Ayato encounters Shinohara, a really interesting point is laid out us in this scene. Shinohara's Arata or that special quinque that covers the body like a armor is made from Ayato and Touka's father! if I remember correctly but that's something which is not mentioned in the manga. Whoa, I mean we know the ghoul from which this was made from was once one of the strongest ghouls out there and that ghoul was their father? Shocking. Now, the second awesome encounter shown in this episode was between Kaneki and Shachi. Apparently Kankei came here to rescue him but he pretty much turned on him. We don't know much about Shachi, all we know is that he knows Rize and he's quick like super fast. During their awesome fight in which he pretty much out classed Kaneki and threw him far away, crashing through walls, Eto, outta nowhere comes there and asks Shachi if he wants to see Rize, what does that mean exactly? Is she referring to Kaneki or is Rize alive and captured by Aogiri tree? So many questions! 

Coming towards the end of this review, we finally get to see Kaneki turn into his Centipede-Chan mode! After Shachi throws him away, he is shown lying there in despair of his weakness and inability to protect Hide, Touka etc, so in order to overcome that, he turns into centipede mode. Though we only got a glimpse of it, I was fanboying all over the place. Hype, pure hype for the next episode, can't wait! Good episode overall, really digging the beautiful artwork of the ending credits. Another thought came to mind after watching this episode, what do CCG feed these ghouls prisoners in Cochlea? What do you think? let me know in the comments below. Thank you for reading this anime review, have a wonderful day or night wherever you live! Links to this episode are available in download section. 

Assassination Classroom Episode 3 暗殺教室 Anime Review

Karma 

My apologies as I was not aware this episode was out. I realized that after reviewing Durarara's new episode as I thought this series was on hold for this week or so due to ongoing ISIS problems. Apparently two Japanese people were taken in as hostages by the terrorist group and the reason why Assassination Classroom's airing was cancelled temporarily in Japan was because of the knife they use in this series being a very sensitive issue and to avoid any further complications. So basically the only reason why we have this episode is because of Australia's Funimation having connections as they got this episode prior to it going on hiatus. It's is really sad and I pray for whoever's family has been affected by the hostage situation and hope everything is sorted out as soon as possible. 

So moving on to this week's episode, we are introduced to a new character, Karma (that name though) and he alone has made this series a lot more interesting that it already has been. Besides Koro-Sensei, he's definitely my favorite character so far of this series. He's probably the closest anyone came to killing Koro-Sensei and the way he is introduced to us just blew me away. At first he looked like a normal student smiling and all and then all of sudden he destroys's Koro-Sensei's hand (temporarily) during their handshake as he had parts of those special knife taped underneath, I didn't expect that and neither did Koro-Sensei, pure evil. Also to note that he is probably the only student so far who really wants to kill his teacher cause of his past.

So besides Karma's psychotic nature display we are given a little hindsight about his past. He once believed in his teacher only to be betrayed when he saved some class-e students from bullies and beat them up. That teacher promised Karma as shown earlier that he will always be on his side if he's doing the right thing and though Karma was doing the right thing, his teacher sided with those bully as one of those was one of their academy's brightest student or something and the injuries he got from Karma could affect his performance and in turn affect the teacher's reputation. The teacher also may have not sided with that class-e student probably cause again, something like that would hurt his reputation as he clearly stated in this episode that he doesn't care about those class-e students even if his students are doing something wrong to them and that's really screwed up cause basically he was putting his priority over what was right.

Besides that morale stuff, Koro-Sensei and Karma get over in the end, oh that suicide scene, Karma does have some balls and creativity which is something to look forward to in the future. So overall, another great episode, I'm really starting to get more into this series episode by episode cause besides the awesome plot, it also highlights the norms in our society. Thank you for reading this anime review, have a wonderful day or night wherever you live! Thoughts? let me know in the comments below. Links to this episode are available in download section. 

Durarara!!x2 Shou Season 2 Episode 3 デュラララ!!×２ 承 Anime Review

Ruri & Kasuka

That opening song (and ending credit's song) is starting to grow on me, I mean, I kinda had mixed reaction after I heard it for the first time thanks to those previous two openings of the last season setting out an ridiculous standards to overcome but now it's definitely growing on me. So moving on, this episode, a lot of set-up, plot building, story retelling from different prospective but it was how all of it was executed that makes this series so unique and well known for.

Basically, the majority of this episode was based on Shinra telling those mafias who he ended up caged in a black ball. We get some development on that murder case as it is revealed that the murderer was Ruri, who is introduced to us in this episode. We also find out that those mafias were actually looking for Ruri and not Celty. At the moment we don't know a lot about her but one thing is for sure, she is somehow like Celty when it comes to supernatural powers and stuff as Shinra mentioned about her healing powers in this episode. Besides that, she is very lonely and that somehow just links up with Shizou's brother, Kasuka who is revealed as someone who is very detached from the human society and takes up all the roles in movies and stuff and literally acts in them like put those personality masks on to feel human emotions which he lacks but when he is not acting he's like a robot, speaking with no emotions whatsoever.

So coming back to Ruri, she was born into a wealthy family but all of their wealth, her parents, their big house and basically everything was wiped out. Then she became a sensational Singing Idol ( Note that the song that she is shown singing in this episode is the same song which played when Mikado, Anri, Walker and Erika were at the karaoke booth. yeah, my ears pay to much attention I guess :P ), an famous make-up artist. Basically she's on roll. Last season, besides our star of the show Celty, we had Saika under supernatural human's list who was possessed by spirit and stuff and now we have Ruri, I really don't know what she is, like is she a zombie or something? I mean it's for sure she is not like Saika being possessed by a spirit or such cause she states that she is aware of what she is doing but she can't control herself, slash that she might be possessed by a spirit, we never know. Another interesting note that she said "them" during Kasuka and her scene so does that mean she targets only specific people? are there similar people like her around? 

I said this in my previous episode's review but I'll say it again, those twins, some of the best new characters I've seen so far this season. They kiss each other, have opposite personalities, create a wonderful atmosphere around them, what else do you want? Oh don't forget they're are ridiculously dangerous. Coming towards the end of this review, we finally get to see my man, Semyon! I missed this guy so much. Apparently Egor, who was an old alley of the manager or the owner of that Russian Shushi restaurant back in Russia was hired by Shinra's father to apprehend a certain woman, Ruri cause he, Shinra's father is shown to have interest in all of such bizarre and mystical cases like that of Celty. We are also shown the return of yellow scarf as they approach Mikado plus, various bike gangs chasing Celty to capture her and get the bounty. So many arcs! 

Overall an enjoyable episode, some might feel it's rushed but this cour only has 12 episode so it's likely to be rushed a bit but again, as long as they can maintain the same level of brilliance last season had then I suppose there's no problem. What do you think? let me know in comments below. Thank you for reading this anime review, have a wonderful day or night wherever you live! Links to this episode are available in download section.