Wooper:<\/b><\/span> Now that the calendar has rolled around to June, I\u2019m starting to think about our next season preview, but with a different perspective than usual. I often view new batches of anime as welcome distractions from the disappointments of the previous crop \u2013 but even though some of these spring shows aren\u2019t meeting my lofty expectations, I still regard the season as a good one. Even as I look into what will air this summer, I find myself pinning fewer hopes on future shows and more on the current ones to come to satisfactory conclusions. That said, I wasn\u2019t totally enthused with everything I watched over the last two weeks, as you\u2019ll discover should you read on!<\/p>\n In each of these two episodes, there was a \u201cwhat we know so far\u201d segment worked into the script, designed to help audiences keep straight all the workings of the illusory Kowloon Walled City. Episode 8\u2019s segment took the form of a chat room conversation between Yaomay and Yulong, while episode 9\u2019s was presented as an intelligence report from Yulong\u2019s assistant to Miyuki\u2019s father. The only new piece of information in either scene was Yaomay\u2019s realization that it\u2019s been midsummer for the entire six months she\u2019s been living in Kowloon \u2013 other than that, these were just recaps. In my view, some (if not all) of this time should have been spent on Reiko and Kudo\u2019s relationship, as they felt more detached from the story than ever despite their relationship taking its biggest step forward. The reveal at the end of episode 8 that they\u2019d slept together landed with a thud rather than a bang, and was immediately overshadowed by a freeze frame of Reiko\u2019s phone, which displayed a date from two months in the past. I\u2019m not saying the show should have gone in a more sexually charged direction, but the gap between their previous conversation and the shot of them in bed the next morning left something to be desired. This week\u2019s episode gave their pairing a bit more support, contrasting Kudo\u2019s memory of Kujirai B\u2019s trademark French toast with Reiko\u2019s ignorance of the recipe, which resulted in a rift growing between them. I\u2019m tempted to describe that plotline as too little too late, though, given the pace at which the show\u2019s humanity is being overtaken by its Zirconian mystery.<\/p>\n Lazarus\u2019s explorations of its secret agents\u2019 backstories have underwhelmed me so far, and that includes episode 8\u2019s reveal about Chris faking her own death to escape Russia\u2019s intelligence program. It\u2019s a far more interesting history than the show gave to either Doug or Eleina, and the piano motif assigned to Chris and her former lover Inga is quintessential Watanabe, but the characters seem to be pretty low on this series\u2019 list of priorities, and that lack of care reduces the impact carried by their pasts. But the episode featured some ultra-smooth action cuts between Chris and Sergei (another of her former countrymen), plus the dramatic destruction of the oil rig where she was being held captive, so my lack of emotional investment wasn\u2019t a major issue. Even flashier was a black ops scene during the back half of episode 9, where an assassin called Souryuu used knives on wires to methodically murder upwards of a dozen men. The narrative basis for this scene was dubious, as I doubt there\u2019s any arm of the American military (on the books or not) that would sacrifice its own members\u2019 lives to measure the prowess of a contract killer. The storyboarding and animation during Souryuu\u2019s slaughter, however, were so incredible that I didn\u2019t care. Everything to do with Skinner (who now claims he\u2019ll be the first to die from Hapna) and the political feasibility of Lazarus\u2019s central task force was dull by comparison, but this is one show whose flaws I\u2019ll gladly accept in exchange for more of its best moments.<\/p>\n When Apocalypse Hotel stranded its protagonist in orbit at the end of its seventh episode, I didn\u2019t expect that it would take 20 in-universe years to restore her to her rightful place on Earth. Nor did I expect that it would be a further 50 after her return before she regained consciousness, and least of all that her torso would have been soldered to a miniature tank in the meantime. Time skips and absurd humor are hardly new where this show is concerned, but I had thought it would lean a little more dramatic in attempting to rescue Yachiyo from space. Instead, it trended further into absurdity than ever before, as Yachiyo donned a delinquent look for an outsized mecha battle with Ponko toward the end of episode 8. Even allowing for Hotel\u2019s fondness for genre parody (see also the tokusatsu battle in episode 6), this was a bit much for me, but it was grounded by its heroine\u2019s frustration with the changes Ponko had made to the hotel while she was in orbit. Along with those controversial changes, though, came a spike in the number of extraterrestrial guests staying at the Gingarou, which paid off beautifully when they all attended Ponko\u2019s wedding in episode 9. This was arguably the best installment yet, and certainly the most emotional, as her nuptials coincided with her grandmother\u2019s passing, allowing the show to simultaneously explore themes of love, loss, and the passage of time. The result was a celebration of both Mujina\u2019s life and Ponko\u2019s, the latter of which never would have come about without her dear old grandma.<\/p>\n My initial infatuation with Samurai-den Yaiba is a thing of the past, it seems, but at least these two episodes got us back on track after a shaky start to the show\u2019s time travel mini-arc. Resolving the risk of a temporal rewrite just halfway through episode 8 was a good choice, as the threat was unserious from the start. The downside of that choice was the abrupt disappearance of Keicho-era Musashi, as both Yaiba and the defeated Kojiro\u2019s soul were sucked through a wormhole just seconds after the swordsman\u2019s victory, but he did get a post-credits farewell scene that admirably played off his lustful nature. Once Yaiba reappeared in the present, the show went into zigzag animation mode, as his battle against the reanimated Kojiro was dominated by electricity effects due to Yaiba\u2019s use of the Raijin Orb. Neither that duel nor anything from the follow-up reached the visual bar set by the series\u2019 earlier outings, but I did appreciate episode 9\u2019s back-to-basics approach. The show\u2019s silliness returned in a string of the falsely-reformed Kojiro\u2019s attempts to steal the Raijinken, which were thwarted in progressively more frivolous ways, and Yaiba\u2019s friends having a food-related laugh at his expense prevented him from getting too big-headed after his recent victories. Also, I much preferred Yaiba\u2019s mastery of an original technique amidst a beautiful bamboo forest to episode 8\u2019s orb-powered blowout on an unremarkable-looking island. Hopefully the background art stays eye-catching during the upcoming raid on Onimaru\u2019s castle.<\/p>\nKowloon Generic Romance \u2013 8-9<\/h2>\n
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<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\nLazarus \u2013 8-9<\/h2>\n
<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\nApocalypse Hotel \u2013 8-9<\/h2>\n
<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\nShin Samurai-den Yaiba \u2013 8-9<\/h2>\n
<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\nMobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX \u2013 8-9<\/h2>\n