Happy Friday, anime watchers! Welcome to The Weekday Anime Round-up! Today, I’ll be talking about the series I’ve watched this week!
Don’t forget, Jujutsu Kaisen goes on the weekend round-up come Monday since I don’t watch it until after work! However, if you want some of that jujutsu content, I reviewed volume 0 of the manga. MAJOR spoilers for the anime, though, just to give you a heads up.
Tuesday, March 2
Wonder Egg Priority episode 8
Where to watch: Funimation
CW: It’s a recap episode so there are blips of everything that’s been addressed in the series so far. Please refer to this tweet for detailed warnings:
hey! Wonder Egg Priority is one of my favorite anime airing this season, but it tackles some very heavy and sensitive subject matters. for those who are interested but worried about potentially triggering content, i’m keeping a list of major content warnings to help! pic.twitter.com/FQczMBtec9
— Wonder Orb (@orbladys) February 23, 2021
While I definitely gave The Promised Neverland a hard time for its recap episode, Wonder Egg Priority has had a LOT going on, so a recap that explains who the girls are, how the eggs work, what the other world is, and the monsters we’ve encountered is kinda nice. However, what I don’t appreciate is how Ura-Acca teases us, bringing up the fact that we probably want some answers for, well, EVERYTHING THAT HAS HAPPENED SO FAR! Hahaha, you gotta watch the series for that, silly.
Ura-Acca also treats the episode like a recruitment video and even mentions how we obviously have trust issues about this entire operation.
As we should, because Ura-Acca gets more Madoka Magica Kyubey like each episode.
Thursday, March 4
The Promised Neverland season 2 episode 8
Where to watch: Funimation
On the surface, this is a very emotional episode of The Promised Neverland. We do, indeed, get to see how Norman ended up at Lambda, how what was waiting for him when he got shipped out wasn’t a demon, and how he turned into someone who was willing to eradicate all demons, no questions asked.
The problem for me personally is that it doesn’t feel like we’ve earned this moment.
Let me explain.
The first half of the episode is fine. We meet a man named Peter Ratri who is conducting experiments on Norman and several other children. He’s working with demons to do this, constantly testing the intelligence of Norman and every other child at Lambda, hoping to be the one who controls the children across ALL the farms. He doesn’t want James Ratri (William Minerva) to be the gatekeeper anymore, and since they share the same last name, I’m gonna assume they’re related.
Norman figures out a way to communicate with the other kids by passing notes through Rubik’s cubes, which actually feels like the level of creativity we got in the first season. We don’t get to see how Norman gets parts to a detonator, though, or if it was even him who caused the explosion. We do, however, see him get the pen from Smee (we aren’t told it’s Smee directly, but from what Norman’s told Emma and the others, I definitely think it’s Smee). Norman escapes with the only children who survived the experiments, leading to where we are right now.
This is all fine, even if I still feel some kind of way about Norman being back already, and arguably, I feel like we could’ve had an entire episode to really drive home how bad Lambda was because, once upon a time, we had an entire season of the slow burn of how messed up Grace Field House really was. Like yes, seeing that image of the horror Barbara faced is bad, but why not an actual scene? This girl EATS DEMONS as a way to flip them all off, just… sigh, like I said, it’s fine.
Emma, Ray, Don, and Gilda continue searching for Mujika and Sonju. Unbeknownst to them, Norman is still carrying out his plan to use his drug on the nearby village even if the kids make the proposed deadline. The group realizes this when they find Mujika and Sonju (who save them from one of those wild demons) and see an explosion in the distance. We see the effects of the drug and how demons have degenerated instantly. There’s scenes of demons turning on their loved ones, children crying for their parents, and as impactful as this is supposed to be it just feels so… unearned. Like on the surface, of course you care that families are being hurt, but when I saw the blind demon searching for his granddaughter I just kinda rolled my eyes and said, “Ah, that’s why he was introduced, huh?”
We don’t KNOW these demons, not really, and the characters REALLY don’t know them. They ran into the blind demon once and got chased by two demons who were killed by Norman and his group. Sure, WE see the home lives of those demons, but Emma and the others do not. Honestly, all the time spent with Emma and the others getting to know Mujika and Sonju? We needed that with this demon village instead of a time jump where the kids are just… there. Emma mentioned the demons having families and needing to eat to survive in the previous episode, to get everyone to realize that killing off all the demons is bad, but if this village is Norman’s big breakdown then why not actually show these kids seeing how similar the demons are to them?
Especially if a chunk of the manga was cut to get there. I’m assuming it was cut to get to this plot so… take time to really explore this plot.
I wouldn’t be so hard on this series if it didn’t have such a GOOD first season.
Also, I am just flummoxed at HOW Norman stops his attack. You honestly couldn’t think of anything besides “the blind demon’s granddaughter is also named Emma” like… I just…
Oh, and the blind demon’s blood is able to heal his granddaughter. I’m fine with that twist, I’m just…
Emma. The demon girl’s name is Emma.
Wow.
2.43: Seiin High School Boys Volleyball Team episode 9
Where to watch: Funimation
Listen:
-Does your episode start with your amazing sports anime rival boy in a hospital flashback, reflecting on life?
-Is that rival boy scheduled to have a, quote, regular check-up at the doctor close to the date of the big game?
-Does he lie about the devastating results of his check-up to his best, most shippable friend, to keep up the dream of winning the tournament?
-Does he carry on like nothing’s wrong, only to be tripped up by a mundane activity?
If any of these are true, you’re setting yourself up for angst, or it’s just another day for 2.43 Volleyball.
So my wife and I jokingly talk about how this anime always has to have something that makes it go from “cute volleyball boys living life” to “OMG HERE COMES THE DRAMA!!!” I mean, the ending theme alone is full of apocalyptic, grim reaper-esque imagery.
This week’s “can this series ever chill” moment goes to Fukuho High, the team that our lead characters are going up against, because their ace, Subaru, checks all them boxes I laid out earlier.
While that’s going on, Seiin is preparing for their match, Chika coming up with new strategies for them to try, and the team even coming up with a fun challenge for each other in the middle of practice. In hindsight, I should’ve known this cute moment was to try and lower our guard for the upcoming angst. But you can’t fool me 2.43 Volleyball, you THRIVE on angst, I knew it was coming!
Um… kinda.
Before I get to that, quick sidenote about Misao admitting to Chika that after he’s done in high school he has no plans to play volleyball anymore. This surprises Chika, who loves volleyball with his whole heart, but Misao’s basically like, “It’s just a sport.” We get to see that the entire reason he started playing was that Shinichiro convinced him to. Up until that point, Misao didn’t really see the benefit of being as tall as he is, but Shinichiro inspired him to go for it.
Shipping goggles are pleased with this, especially since, once high school is over, Misao’s basically like, “Eh, that was fun, liked doing this with Shinichiro but I’m done now.”
Now to the angst, which has the nerve to start with more cuteness, this time of Fukuho having a snowball fight before the game. I knew something was gonna happen to Subaru because there was so much focus on his knee injury. I did not expect for Mitsuomi to dive under Subaru when he slipped, therefore, taking the brunt of the fall. The impact sends Mitsuomi to the hospital (technically, we don’t see that it’s him, but we do see that it’s not Subaru and the entire team is surrounding the ambulance, worried).
Ah 2.43 Volleyball, you always gotta be like this, huh?
Heaven’s Design Team episode 9
Where to watch: Crunchyroll
Our first assignment is to make an animal that “tickles one’s maternal instincts.” Shimoda immediately goes to Neptune and Venus since they are the ones who specialize in beautiful, cute, loveable animals that you’d wanna protect. They’re both busy, and so is Jupiter, but it turns out Pluto isn’t. This frightens Shimoda, since Pluto’s ideas tend to lead to “cute” creatures who are anything but (unless if you’re into creepy things). She gets some advice from Jupiter, who’s got some… odd… ideas as he’s in the middle of messing around with an, ugh, spider crab.
I only say ugh because I legit caught one in Animal Crossing last night and they are FRIGHTENINGLY HUGE.
No. #AnimalCrossing #ACNH #NintendoSwitch pic.twitter.com/tYZMQUpEM6
— Bri @ Anime Round-up for The Mary Sue (@BrichibiTweets) March 4, 2021
Apparently, the male spider crab will imprison the female it wants to be with, and that form of love prompts Neptune and Venus to help Pluto so she doesn’t get any twisted ideas. What’s amusing about this half of the episode is how Pluto and Jupiter drop some hard truth bombs about Neptune and Venus’ animals. Just because they’re cute doesn’t mean they aren’t messy, after all, pandas often abandon a cub if it has twins, and sparrows call over their friends to eat only if there’s a ton of food, oh, and to have a better chance against predators. You can’t lie to us, Venus, we know that sparrow is out for number one!
In the end, Pluto makes an adorable, puffy cloud… that’s a parasite… that attaches to animals (usually crabs) and makes them think they need to protect the pouch.
That sounds about right for Pluto.
The rest of the episode is done in a trivia show style where Neptune and Jupiter go head to head to make PENGUINS! The two penguin prototypes compete to see who’s the best birb, only for God to accept both designs. As to be expected, Neptune’s is flippin’ adorable, and Jupiter’s… oh who am I kidding, all penguins are good birbs.
Jupiter’s first prototype, however, was kinda… much. If you ever wanted to see a long-legged penguin that looked like kids in a trenchcoat trying to look like an adult, this episode is for you.
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That’s all for this week! See everyone on Monday for the Weekend Round-up!
(Image: Funimation)
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