The Gokusen is about Kumiko Yamaguchi, a new teacher at Shiroken Academy, a high school for troubled boys. Her class is full of delinquents and ne’er do wells, underachievers that can be violent, even bordering on psychotic. Boy are they in for a lesson, though, because teacher isn’t some wilting flower, she’s the ojou of a yakuza family, and she takes her job seriously, even if she isn’t always! The question is, can she keep her students and the school staff from discovering her criminal background? Why does a yakuza princess even WANT to teach?
review
Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans Season 2 Episode 19 – Immanentizing the Ew-schaton
The reason for the article title is predicated on how unhinged Macky acts throughout the episode. If it is not using his mastery of Bael to force the non-aligned parts of Gjallarhorn under his thrall, it’s being able to unflinchingly prevent a despairing Almiria ready to turn a knife on herself after botching her childish (I don’t mean this as an insult, she’s still young after all) attempt to kill Macky. The scary part is I do not even know where the play acting stops and the craziness begins, since Macky is so dedicated to his craft. Does he WANT them to think he’s crazy? Or is it his true honest form?
Otaku Evolution Episode 84 – Dominion Tank Police
In this episode, I take a look at the four part OVA, Dominion Tank Police, that features what seems like the inevitable future of American police militaritization (Japan will just go the Patlabor route)! But is this send up of 80s hyperviolence a social satire or just a parody that identifies with its captors? I hope to sparse the mixed messages from this old “classic” I first saw on Sci-Fi Channel’s Saturday Anime block.
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Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans Season 2 Episode 18 – Jibun Woah
SPOILERS
For the first time, I couldn’t really find ONE good image from this episode. So like I did with Escaflowne, here is this episode’s Four Perfect Shots. Seriously, it’s really goddamn pretty. In fact, those aren’t the most perfect of shots. Also no, don’t get mad that one of em is Galli-Galli, you pretty much knew the moment he spoke under that mask Vidar was Galli-Galli. The true pleasure though, is what happened to him during the interim between seasons.
So Macky’s plan to seize Gjallarhorn’s HQ goes off without much of a hitch, with the help of Mika and Barbatos Lupus-Rex-Ou-Rey-Roi-King. It has been a long time coming, and this episode doesn’t mince about delaying his movement too much, not only in his coup but also in FINALLY revealing his past. It is as dark as you would expect given his chibi-self’s dourness and implications of abuse. In the latter’s case, boy he has had a lot. There is no innocent, young, rogue in Macky’s past who was slowly driven to the dark side, but somebody who was already there and just moved deeper and deeper into it as time went on. One would wonder if it wasn’t for their friendship with each other, Orga and Mika would have ended up the same if they were on their own. However, this question is neither here nor there in the long run, since we are at the beginning of endgame, and they are where they are, and Macky is where he is. It’s not exactly the most original out there (I was thinking of Griffith throughout his flashback), but it is effective, and very welcome that we now know what makes Macky tick.
Otaku Evolution Episode 83 – Birth
It’s another year, and it’s time for the first brand new episode of Otaku Evolution of 2017! In this video, I look at the 1984 sci-fi-action-comedy-curiosity, Birth! It was once released by Streamline Pictures as Planet Busters, but the version I’m reviewing is from the more accurate ADV release from the early aughts. It’s a really strange feature that boasts of talents like Hideaki Anno and Joe Hisaishi, but besides some interesting visuals, it’s a whole lot of nothing!
Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans Season 2 Episode 17 – With Terror and Slaughter Return
Like clockwork, after brief 22-minute long pit stops, the episode after said events brings us full force to that Road to Renewed Strength and Promise like it has in the past. Minutes into the show, without any of the pre-battle warm-up talks Tekkadan has already engaged with Jasley’s forces. By episode’s end, they acquire total victory over the man.
There are stakes to be had here since the last episode ended with a potential confrontation of multiple parties from Jasley, Tekkadan, and even Kujan. Yet, in a surprising twist, despite all the frenetic action that occurs in this episode, what’s more interesting is what DOESN’T happen. I guess Rustal’s lack of energy in the previous episode compared to Kujan’s bevy of it had more to it than that, with him restraining Kujan (who doesn’t even APPEAR in the episode) from joining up with Jasley. From what the episode implies, he had an offscreen conversation with McMurdo on the situation and blueballed both Jasley and Kujan from a chance at catharsis. McMurdo even breaks Orga’s Sakazuki cup offscreen and we are shown its remains with very little dramatic fanfare. Both a shame and expected, but a pleasant surprise how McMurdo doesn’t take it TOO hard. He (alongside us) knows Orga offered his cup if he decides to break his oath, and even so he is not surprised or TOO disappointed in the slightest bit that this is the case now. Time to move on is the message for that scene, as well as another where Kudelia finds out Tekkadan has cut ties to her, possibly for protection. Unlike McMurdo, she doesn’t take it well.
Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans Season 2 Episode 16 – Third Pit Stop on the Road to Renewed Strength and Promise [SPOILERS]
SPOILERS
You know an episode has it in for its protagonists if a catharsis one has been hoping for such a very long time does not come to fruition. Yes, Iok is not dead yet. In fact he is as alive and chipper as his usual annoying self is, and thus we all must wait once more for his demise. The only consolation we can seize from this is Rustal is rather blasé about this whole thing, and did not adulate the slightest bit towards Iok’s decision.
Sadly, the aforementioned is one of only two consolations to seize from this week. It is not enough for Gjallarhorn to have the bodies of Naze and Amida, it is Jasley fishing for outrage from the remaining Turbines and Tekkadan during the funeral. McMurdo remains steadfast in his respect for Naze, but now that he’s gone, Jasley is more open in his ambitions to wipe Tekkadan out. It is not shocking in any way, but it is good to see it finally coming to fruition after being already established so long ago…
Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans Season 2 Episode 15 – Turbine Muyo!
I found out what the show was clogging the turbines with for this episode…
…It was using soggy biscuits.
UNEXPECTEDLY, as if the last episode did not imply it in any way, shape, or form that something would happen, we finally get our first few major deaths of the season. Yeah, maybe Aston’s death is kinda tragic, but we only knew him for about seven episodes and were more inclined to feel bad for Takaki. Here? We have some Season 1 veterans biting the dust: Naze and Amida. The entire situation they are in is rather predictable, but as always it is the execution that matters and this episode does it so darn well.
Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-blooded Orphans Season 2 Episode 14 – Clogging the Turbine(s)
After two weeks of hiatus, Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans finally returns to the airwaves. Like the first season, the start of the second half begins on a rather dour note, and Tekkadan is once again at the center of it all as the world tries to overwhelm them.
The events at this juncture however seems to hit a more personal level than the events of Dort ever did, despite the immense effects it had on Kudelia and Biscuit. The Turbine transplants at Tekkadan (Lafter, Azee, and Echo), after stating it so many times in this series that they would, finally depart to rejoin Naze and the rest of the Turbines. The opening scene is a good way to see them off, and you can tell how the departure is quite sad for all of them. The real crux of the farewell’s emotional pathos comes from a personal scene between Akihiro and Lafter. The latter doesn’t confess her feelings to the former, but you can tell how much has changed since their first encounter. Once the most ardent opponents now are the most bosom of buddies. Funny really since I keep falling into the enemy/rival romance trope in this show, for I thought Lafter and Mika might be something, and now it’s Julieta and Mika. Yet I like these developments better. I guess that’s why I don’t write for animu.
Otaku Evolution Episode 82 – Year End English Dub Review III
It’s the last episode of the year as I look at the English dubs of the anime I’ve covered since the mid season episode. I examine dubs by Funimation, Manga Entertainment, Animaze, Central Park Media, ADV, and others! Which will I praise? Which will I burn? And what’s the deal with that refrigerator, how did that close seemingly on its own (shut up is how)? It’s time to wrap things up for a while, and stay tuned for more in the new year.
Oh, also, there’s a bit at the end.
English dubs covered in this episode: