[Music]
Hello and welcome to an all new episode of anime brain freeze. We are your mechanical hosts.
I am John and I am C.C. And when there's just too much cool anime to watch, we've got you covered.
Today we will equip our sometimes sentient vocal cords and review the Kickstarter project turned full action show "Mekau de Mechanical Arms".
Since it's also our season premiere, first we of course have to take a quick look at a couple of premieres from anime Winter season 2025 in the sneak peak.
So, strap on your bionic arms, don't get too wrapped up in directing your personal rom-con fantasy and definitely don't pause the part, we'll be right back!
[Music]
Alright, yes, here we are in the sneak peak and as usual, we've got a couple of premieres we checked out from Winter season.
I checked out more shows than I expected when I took a first look at the honor chart listing. I was like "Wow, this is slim pickings, but I also forgot about some of the shows that are, well I guess, technically winter shows."
Yes, I'm counting B starts into that because it aired like in mid or late December on Netflix, so that's when it dropped.
So whatever it counts, it's a winter show. It looks kind of dropped it on us and I keep forgetting, it's in my queue and I keep forgetting to start watching it, but considering the season is kind of dire, maybe I'll actually people make time for it.
Yes, well you have to make time for it, John. I did.
I did. We will review that show.
Well, I mean before the, here comes John's complaint about season names again, it's the first part of the final season, so there's still time.
Yes, we'll get to that once we actually talk about the, or I'll talk about the first episodes as you have watched it yet, but yes, so that's in here.
And of course a bunch of stuff from this from from yes, that has now aired its first and second episodes or whatever in January and yeah, we picked our usual things, our three categories, the notes, the maybe and the keepers for new first time listeners,
the notes are the shows we checked out, we said, nope, thank you. That's another that and we're not going to keep watching that.
The maybe are shows that hold some potential in our eyes, but we're not quite sure yet if we'll stick with it for reasons.
And then of course there are the keepers shows that impressed us at least enough to say, yep, gonna stick with those, probably unless they have like the sharpest drop of drop offs in terms of quality.
So starting as usual with the bad stuff, John, I don't have an oaps, you do so please start us off with those.
Yes, shockingly, I have stuff that I kind of watched and just turned around on.
This first show, this first show I turned around halfway through the first episode.
Wow, okay.
And it's not because I think it's a bad show without potential, it's more because I don't think I should watch it.
And that reason is because it's on echo MD doctor detective.
I've heard about this. Yes.
The second medicine doctor host detective show after the apart carries diaries or.
Yeah, I don't know anything about the apothecary diaries, but I guess it's pretty popular and I mean it's got like three seasons now.
I think this is the second season that's going to I was interested in I didn't watch the first season.
I'm thinking about since this the season might be slim one.
I might actually take a look at the first season and see if it's interesting to me.
But yeah, I heard this.
I mean that is set in a different time period and the one you took a look at I think is more modern, right?
Yeah, I was getting a doctor house vibe from it in good and not so good for my own tolerance level ways.
Because you get halfway through the first episode and there's a dude whose leg is like chomped off and he's bleeding blue.
And I'm just like, Oh, I don't think I can do this.
Oh, okay.
I don't that's what and I was like this seems fine.
The characters are looking a little off model in a couple of the shots, but you know that's.
Not that production is not perfect on every show, but then I got to that and I was just like, hmm.
Okay, thanks.
Thank you.
Thank you for showing you what I needed to see.
I will plan to listen to the show soundtrack because it's done by the jazz band Fox capture plan and they do unincredible work.
So I will definitely listen to it at least they got they've done some like movies and TV shows in anime though.
I am going to look it up real quick in real time because I don't remember what other anime they have contributed to, but they have been around.
Okay, so they did loop on the third versus cat side.
I still need to watch that one.
They did a bit of the live action.
Oh, she know, co some of the rascal does not dream blah blah blah series and a couple other smaller things.
So you know, they don't have a big foothold in anime, but they're there.
So independently the soundtrack to this one is really good.
Yes, as soon as they kick in, I was like, ooh, we, we, that's the good stuff.
So as soon as that hits like Spotify or YouTube music or whatever, I'll put it on.
Because when are their first albums? They ever heard butterfly.
Listen to that one.
Well, I check it out. Thanks for the recommendation. I'm surprised that the blood was such a big turn off for you that.
You like, immediately know out of the show you have watched bloody shows before I mean we watched Joe Joe's.
It was the color that did it.
Okay. And the man missing a leg.
Okay.
Oh, so maybe the show be good. I don't know, but for my own sake, I had to be like, I don't, I don't think I can do this.
Okay. Fair enough.
So maybe it won't be as bad as I heard and I'll go back and check it out another time.
But for now, I'll just let it play out and be like, okay, all right.
But that's that my other drop.
Do you like light novels with long names?
Not particularly. No. Why won't you ask me that, so you know the answer is I've got one here and I've got one in the Mabies.
Okay. Well, I left my A-Rink party to help my former students reach the Dungeon Depths.
Oh, no.
You know what? Both of the light novels I'm going to talk about are not easy. So well, then you got me beat because I have.
Is it in my list? Believe it or not, let me tell you something on live chart.
It's very easy to filter out light novel and eSick high.
So yeah, I don't do that.
I should start doing that because this will get to it.
There was a show this season. I don't think either of it.
I'm assuming neither of us checked it out, but it was called something like my life in another world is a middle aged.
An online shopper or something and I see that name in them like.
Shut up.
Yeah, it's the same reaction on my end was even when I see in another world.
I immediately like nope out my brain immediately shuts off and I'm like scroll past, scroll past that shit.
I don't give a fuck.
Ooh, it's gotten so bad.
So this show is about this red mage named you. Can he's part of this high ranking adventuring party called Thunder Pike.
And you know, he is the support guy for this party, you know, casting and shantman.
And he's got, you know, a few offensive spells face mostly there, like a buff is party members and help them out and whatnot.
And you know, that's that's a pretty crucial role in an adventuring party wouldn't you say?
Yes, sure.
And but his party members are like, oh, well, you keep burning through our resources and you don't actually do anything on the front.
Have you heard of components for spell casting?
Maybe this is in dungeons and dragons, but you know, so you decide, well, you know, go fudge yourselves.
I'm going to leave this top rank party and just go out on my own.
And he ends up teaming up with some of his former students who he's taught in the past. And of course,
of course, they're all cute girls. And this is a hair on the show and he shows it off.
He can beat this dungeon boss using only his buffing and debuffing spells. And it's like,
okay, it's very well produced.
That's it.
And I kind of just walked away from it after I was like, I was like, I don't dislike this.
But it's also in nothing, Michelle.
Yeah. Sometimes if nothing is in there that like grabs you in any way whatsoever,
even if it looks good and stuff, you're just bored.
And like, why would I even bother with?
I already can see where this is going. And I don't like wasting my time on this.
Also, there's a component of this world where adventures can use magical artifacts to live stream.
Their dungeon runs to the rest of the world.
What?
So sure, I guess.
I mean, sorry about that now. So it makes this show infinitely more interesting because this could turn into a satire on,
I don't know, Twitch streaming or something.
Yes, maybe that's what they're trying to go for in part, but it's still sort of like,
I don't know how well that premise holds up.
Well, you will not find out me neither. Probably not.
That's it for the notes.
All right. Then we move on to the maybe's and I'm going to start off those with.
Are you ready for some good old 90-style Edglord Fantasy revenge?
Shit.
Oh, I bet I know what show you're going to talk about.
Grammatically wrong German title included?
Yeah, let's go.
So let's talk about Uble Blood.
14 heroes were given holy spares to stop an invading force.
Three perished, four betrayed the mission and were killed.
Seven heroes returned and thus began the age of glory.
But history is written by the victors.
So even though seven heroes returned from that mission, they might not actually be the heroes of this story.
So yeah, this is a satellite show.
It's based on a long running manga. I don't know how long running.
I don't know if it started in the 90s, but man, does it sure feel like it did?
Oh, Edg in dark and it's like, we kind of circled back.
It started in 2004 and ran to 2019. Jesus.
Okay, well, that's not that far removed from the 90s. I guess it's still carried over some of that vibe from the...
Oh, I'm sorry. There's also a second manga that started last year.
Oh, so it's popular enough, I guess.
Yeah.
Uble Blood 2, the Knights of the deceased king.
Okay. Well, let's get... Let's see how long we stick with that first show.
I mean, you said also part of your, of your maybe's judging on your reaction.
Okay, there you go.
So, I guess I'm down to check out most things satellite. I think they had another show this season, but I just sort of was like, eh.
I saw why I checked it out.
Like, this summary didn't really grant me that much.
Oh, it's a satellite show. I'll check it out.
And from, you know, immediately the first couple of seconds of the show, the OP and then what happens after the, you know, after it gets running.
You immediately get the tone of this like, "Storeways" immediately being executed.
The first couple of minutes and then we got corrupt monks, lots of blood girls with very revealing clothing.
A kid who seems to have some mysterious beef with the seven heroes.
You don't have to work your brain too hard to guess where that story is going.
But yeah, it's, it's 90s as fuck. It's really like, "Okay, we're gonna follow this kid named...
"Carnsel." What a name. What is that? Please tell me what that translates to with anything.
Nothing! I don't know what it is supposed to be.
That's never I heard a name that I heard in the German language. Maybe it exists somewhere. It sounds super old or something like that.
I've never seen this ever, ever.
But yes, this is...
But immediately in the first couple of minutes you know what you're getting from this show. That little hairy ball of revenge and you know, you have the talk little sister, damsel character.
You have a smuggler with big titties. You have the rogue weed who's throwing weed.
Who's throwing like these sharp rings and whatever and then trying to get to the city of heroes.
Each for their own little missions. I mean, I don't know if Altair will take a long.
Now she's only trying to smuggle them on the ship, but I have only watched the first episode, but my suspicion is she will end up on the ship with them and is forced to take along or whatever.
And there are a bunch of adversaries against them. Of course, the main ones being the seven heroes.
And let's just make a wild guess here and say that the four people who were killed in the beginning were the actual heroes.
And the show kind of gives that away in the beginning anyway. It's not that big of a secret if at all.
And somehow Köhnsel is related to them.
And he's now gonna kill all the heroes.
And that's kind of it. And there will be a lot of blood, a lot of death.
And maybe a lot of fun on the way. I don't know. Like if you embrace stuff like that, you can have fun with it. John, what do you think?
I agree with pretty much all that. I just have one thing about this show in that's.
It strikes me as a little derivative. And I say that because have you heard of the video game romancing saga to where in the plot is you have to take down the seven heroes of former glory who are trying to take over the world.
Oh my god. I mean, there's even a remake called romancing saga to revenge of the seven. So.
Wow. I mean, I've not played any of the romancing saga games. I guess I should maybe.
But that is on Kenny. Yeah. When there's started to talk about the premise. I'm like, wait a minute. Hold on.
This is sound in a little familiar.
Wearing its inspiration on its sleeve and I assume remencing saga to came up before the manga started publishing. That is an earlier game, right?
Mancing saga to is a super Famicom game.
Oh, there you go. 19.90.3.
Well, there you go. Yeah. I mean, which you know, that's not necessarily a bad.
No, but I mean, I kind of look at it and I'm like, I can see the parallel.
I do. And I mean, that's something some some kind of plot device that has been employed.
I mean, there's an anime called the seven deadly sims since and they're all former nights and stuff like that.
And then actually turn out to be the heroes of the story. This is like the subversion of that like where you have the other other subversion of that where you have the actual or who are declared to be the heroes probably turn out to be the villains.
Most definitely and yeah, so we'll see. It seems all right, but what you said holds true.
It seems a bit derivative and I don't know if it will hold my interest. I feel like in a show like that, the fights have to look really good because that's what you get the most fun enough like having super gory, violent sword fights and stuff like that.
And the violence is definitely there is gallons of blood being spilled.
But it's also not so far violent to ludicrous degree like there are no flying limbs or heads like the capitations galore or whatever.
It's just a lot of blood like, you know, people being cut in half, I guess, but also not really just sliced open a lot.
And all right, it's just like, hey, if you go there, maybe go all the way like otherwise it seems a bit tame. We'll see and also satellite shows can look really good.
This seems to be one of those.
There are some scenes in there that look really cool. Like in the first episode, they have this fight against the big monster and there's one scene where it's like nice camera swirl around it and everything.
And, you know, there's just some cool set piece or, you know, the city where our in the beginning is in terms of architecture and how it's structured seems to be pretty cool with its underground caverns and everything that stuck out.
I like that a lot. But I don't know if all of that will be enough to hold my interest with a story that seems so I have seen that before.
And yeah, we'll see. I don't know. It's just I had to laugh at it a lot because it was so so fucking 90s and it's definitely got a little bit of that out of the edge to it.
Yeah, definitely. So, you know, not I'm willing to lose give it a try. Yeah, yeah, me too. Give it another to to episodes probably and then I'll decide.
It's on the lower tier of my babies, but that doesn't have to be in anything it might yet still fully convinced me.
But since this is a shared maybe I and I think we have an equal amount. I'll just move over to the next one then.
And that is Zen Shu for me, which is a Mapa show. So very pretty, very well animated. It's about Natsu Kuhiro Sei who becomes an animator right after graduating high school.
She quickly rises up the ranks and soon directs her first magical girl anime, which becomes a huge hit.
So expectations are high for her to deliver another super hit. No pressure.
Which was determined to be a romcom titled Hatsukoya First Love.
Problem is since Natsu Kuhiro is such a workhorse she has had no experience with romance whatsoever.
So she has no idea how to conceive a story about that. She isn't cutting her hair until her storyboards are done and that is completely covering her face.
It looks ridiculous in the first episode. It's just a hoodie with air-growing out of it like something from the ring.
And you know she can be really menacing in that way. Like some people are calling her a grandma in the first episode.
So I thought this was gonna be a workplace comedy because I didn't read all of the synopsis. Call 'em me surprise when I found out while watching the first episode that this is a goddamn music.
They got me job!
It is?
It is? Natsu Kuhiro shows on her clam lunch and then fantasizes about her favorite fantasy and a tale of perishing, which she apparently gets transported to.
Like it's probably a dream that will help her overcome her problems with her writing and everything.
You know what happens in this? She meets her, she meets her heroes basically.
This anime is an anime she watched as a kid there since it's a spliced where you see a watching it alone in a theater and she was probably super ensnared by the spell the anime cast on her and that's why she wants to become an animator.
But I also suspect she wants to become an animator to change the story of that anime because as she states the anime has a very depressing ending which had her super fan assassinated not a lot of people liked it but she was just obsessed with it.
And she doesn't really say why but my guess is like because she wanted to change the story because it's really dark like all the friends and companions of the main character gets killed and he slides into depression by the end of the story.
And that probably like when watching that she probably was like I don't want that to happen I want to change the story so she became an animator to write her own make her own stories and animation form and so on and I assume this is why this is happening right and this is trying to get her back to her roots or her brain is trying to do that for her.
And that's why she's dreaming about it while she's lying in a coma from her choking on her lunch or whatever and also she is probably gonna fall in love with the main character or she already did like as a kid she had a crush on him and that's why she wanted to change the story.
And this fantasy will help her experiencing that and you are realizing that as an adult woman and then getting something out of that to get her story realized for the romance that she is writing to from a proper experience quote unquote perspective in the real world.
But yes she is from to the she is transported to the fantasy realm that the the anime that a tale of perishing is playing in and then meets her heroes who don't know what to make of her like I said everyone is calling her a grandland.
And then there is this cool moment where they have to fight these monsters that I attack the city and in the original story of you know the effect of the anime that she was watching that's when everything went to shit and you know everyone got killed except for the main hero and everything.
And she decides I want to change that and activates some secret magical power and then just has her magical I don't know what that it's a it's a work tool for animators I forgot what it's name was.
And that starts speaking to her like it's a magical girl anime haha and and she's like hey you can change the story blah blah and she does that and that's it's a super cool moment is really well animated.
It's the first time we see her face because her hair is covering it up until that moment and then you have this really flourishly animated with a lot of color work and everything moment where her work desk is basically transported to her in this world and she starts drawing up a new version of this of the part of this story and then basically summons a monster that looks like the rough draft storyboard version of
the kind of the monster from NASCAR valley of the wind up from the end with the huge laser beam and everything and that monster does basically that to the monsters that are taking the city so she and she saves her childhood heroes with that and that's the end of the first episode so surprise is a guy.
Do you drop the lot on me with that one yes it's a lot to take in in the beginning it is pretty fun if you are familiar with anime in general because there are a lot of references dropped in here like I said the NASCAR references in there she of course mentions a lot of anime that or some anime that you might an
familiar with and there was like this poster in her workspace that very heavily reminded me of you in saga just from the glance that I saw and was like wait is that okay could be that or reference to that anyway so and and like once she gets transported to the fantasy world they do a lot of riffing on the stereotypes on the on the tropes on the archetypes and everything which is where she immediately just like wait have I be
transported to another world that usually only happens to needs shuttets and fucking losers like well and so that was nice I was like okay the show no what is I like that I like when itself a wear especially when it comes to that genre right when it's like willing to take a
fun jabs at that see Konosuba right so it seems to be going that way a bit at least when it comes to her characters the other characters are of course playing it super straight because you know the normal world for them and everything but she's like you know the out of touch
outsider and she's now in this world of trying to change the story I don't know if they will use this setting for the entirety of this show like I said was a price to me that they were going to the to this at all like that that is where the story was going I expected
to be a work on me but it kind of is I guess that's what I thought to from what people were talking about it and I just never dug in a deeper and out like I'm
it's you know it's a it's a weird concept but it's an interesting concept especially if she having the perspective of an animator and director who is now trapped in a world all too
familiar with right so this could be something doing something interesting like we had with recreators where you had characters from fictional stories that met their creators and had exchanges with them and I if they do something like that and this that
also be super interesting I would be totally down for that if the show if the story goes that route and if the character stuff stays interesting like I would be if they really do like a personal journey stuff where it's like hey I experience the story as a
child it made me dream it made me want to write my own stories and so on but now I'm in in in a slump and I don't know where to go from here the pressures high the expectations are high and I've lost the grip on what I what stories
actually want to tell and having this personal journey of well well well realized could make this a really cool show problem is right now I don't know the show will actually be able to do that properly and make it interesting like you know the the
the the ability she has of changing the story by you know drawing up in high speed a new version of the story on her on her work to ask on her magical one is technically just super strong magic which we've seen
before so you know we have seen a lot of is a guy with characters just being overpowered in the respective fantasy world due to their form of profession or skill set so it all comes down to what the story is putting going to put the focus on how the character developments realized we basically
even really seen anything from the heroes yet will they have any character at all or will they just be archetypes will see for now I'm just going to leverage into the production values of Mapa it looks really good like I said
and let's see I give it another two two episodes or something and see where I stand it's it's neat like I like the main character I like not so cool she's fun and relatable
yeah this has a lot of promise I was just completely blindsided by this being an isika isika and not what I but that's on me because I didn't read the full description on my animal
this or whatever because there it clearly says she's being transported to fantasy world of a favorite anime so there you go that's on me I guess but yeah doesn't have to
read anything bad maybe it gets me to accidentally experience a good isika isika again let's see I will report john what is your next maybe I
maybe a guild receptionist but also low any boss to clock out on time that sounds like a war comedy yes and no so story
around alina clover she's signed up to be a receptionist for the adventure skilled thinking it would you know be a ticket to the good life you know she's just there she gets out you know the quests and she advises adventures on how do what do this that the other thing but she's not
herself no no but this dream gig turns into an overtime nightmare whenever adventures get stuck clearing a dungeon and to save herself from a mountain of paperwork alina takes to beating down monsters herself to solve the problem
and now she just needs to keep her activities a secret hey guess what happens in the first episode everyone gets to know at least one person does
no it's a start so I like alina because mood absolutely um she's a mood like I just want to you know have a nice
pink job have a nice house to live in she but you know she gets stuck doing all this overtime I hope it's not unpaid for her sake
because in there's one night where she wants to go out to this festival that's going on but she works so late because of all the stupid adventures out there not doing their jobs properly
and she basically wishes upon a star I wish I had the power to prevent this from happening in oh boy does she gain some power
she basically gets this like a giant super powered warhammer that lets her just strike dungeon like giant dungeon enemies down like super easily
and she gets to a name for herself as the executioner
so she ends up going out because these adventures are taken their sweet time one night and their guild is led by this dude Jade
Jade has it's a very dark dungeon but Jade has sort of like low light vision and very clearly sees who this person is
and goes the adventure skeletons like hey who are you and you know the giga mayor may not be up uh oh who knows I couldn't tell you for sure
and then when this one adventure goes a blabbing about to one of the other guild perceptions you have to give me a secret quest I know you have now
secret quests or just rumor mill and don't actually exist or do they so Alina throws them out of there he tries to
another adventuring party captures and brings a golem back to town which seems ill advised yeah what
because I guess the plan was oh we're gonna break it down and use it for materials okay sure but this dude awakens it
and it starts attacking the town and it throws out a boulder and the boulder crushes on Venus house oh no yeah
and she starts lamenting that oh I still had 30 years left to pay on my mortgage and it's like
wow how surprises are steep in the fantasy world yeah and she takes out the golem and one of the guild masters
flies is able to discover who she is and it's like we need to have a talk and Alina's like oh god oh god I'm so screwed
so screwed so they go to the like the big guild hall and he's just like I just want to fight you bro and it's like hey what
so this show is a giant goof that's that is the end of the second episode and this show is just a giant goof
and it's like it's the workplace comedy that's also wanting to have a little bit of the fantasy world
power fantasy that's very wordy I'm sorry but I don't dislike it I don't know maybe it's because
Alina is cute and cute girls do wielding giant weapons of destruction is knee I don't know
it's at least silly enough for me to be like okay I want to at least see a little bit what this is
all about and they sort of hint in the opening sequence that maybe there's a little bit more to Alina's
past so you know I'm at least interested to see how that plays out I kind of don't like Jade because
he's following Alina around like a little puppy because it's clear you know he on the surface he's
like oh you should join our guild but you know if you dig like a millimeter beneath the surface you
can tell the motivation is is you know oh I'm really attracted to this girl and now is it because
she's cute is it because she's really strong it could be both I don't know but you know see how
it plays out like I said I don't dislike this just because it's a little bit different than you know
the other light novel I talked about a few minutes ago because this girl has no allegiance to anyone
she just wants to do her thing which yeah okay I get that I'm willing to see watch at least a
couple more episodes see where it go and what it do it's a very pretty show's animated by Clover
Works so which you know Clover Works Alina Clover I don't know if that was the coincidence probably
I'm just glad that there are at least some percent of the light novels that aren't also easy to cover
so some people seem to be getting the picture yay but that's that oh I wish you got next
my next maybe is a sports and I guess technically um metalist it's about this girl Inori who desperately
wants to become a figure skater but being in fifth grade so 10 or 11 years old she is right at the
cut off age for getting into that sport because you have to start very early and her mom is to
worry that she might get injured so Inori has to kind of sneak into the ice rig by bribing the owner
with worms for his pet birds what it's kind of cute yeah she's digging up uh uh worms it's like here
for your birds please let me ice skate here okay all right it works so one day she runs into Tsukasa
or based who's like this 26 year guy who catches her sneaking into the place without knowing the
background and everything trying to hunt her down like no running away of course uh he got into figures
getting pretty late with 14 and it's now struggling with his chosen career even though he made it to
the nationals um like he considers himself not good enough to take the a distant assistant coach job
he is offered by his former dancing partner he told me he's like uh that was just a fluke that we made
to the nationals like was all because of you and i'm not like i'm not cut out for this and everything
like he said he is obviously baggage right because he started so late and uh he thinks he wasted time
and everything and he thinks he's not good enough to actually be a teacher so things come as they must
like one day or the day where he gets his proposal from his former partner uh who stumbles into the
application center for the club but Inori and her mom apparently because Tsukasa gave
Inori said well if your mom does one let you do is you have to be insistent otherwise she won't
give in and everything and apparently Inori did that so her mom took a very special approach to
discouraging her daughter from her dream oh no Jesus Christ so she takes her to all the clubs in town to
have the coaches tell her that it's pointless to try because she is already too old it's too much
work she'll never catch up to the kids who started early and she will never be good enough
she's christ i get the intent especially since Inori's older sister got into the sport early with five
and later hurt herself so she had to quit couldn't realize that dream i get the intent but way to go mom
enjoying paying for that therapy down the road like already raking in the city anime mom scores for
the ranking of 20 25 she's gonna be in the top three anyway Tsukasa and let that gonna fly because
he and Inori are kind in the same situation only years apart right he also apparently didn't have
supportive parents and way too late realized what he that he actually wanted to do this or that he had
to do this and you know now he's in this situation show so he wants to spare her from that and he says
he's gonna train her um yeah and that's what it is and he realizes oh my god this girl's got the
chance because of course Inori has not been sitting on her ass and just dreaming the entire time she's
sneaking been seeking into the ice ring pretty much every day and she's got it and when he sees that
she see me he's like holy shit she's so good like she got the basics down she listens she know immediately
picks up what i'm telling her this is amazing and his friend who is actually a coach at this place
is like don't get too enthusiastic like you're going over over for too like he's so enthusiastic
when he sees Inori actually doing her you know picking up his first lessons and everything is like
this girl i'm gonna take her to the fucking national house hey yes it's the absolute perfect antidote to
the mom's poison because Inori is so fucking happy when she has finally someone who believes in her
and who lets her like do what she wants to do she is just like there's this fucking great and heartbreaking
moment in this first episode where she just states like says to her mom i know i probably won't be good
enough but i just can't do anything else i have a bad time at school i feel out of place i'm a
loner i don't know what to do the only thing that makes me feel good and like i'm worth something is
ice skating and you won't let me do that and you know she's apologizing for that which matches
even more heartbreaking because she's like i know this is probably gonna be a burden on you and i
feel so bad for asking for this and so i'm like oh no please honey don't it's not your fault you're
you're doing everything right please don't apologize to this horrible woman of a mother
mother of a woman i don't know her and Sukhas is the perfect you know antidote to that like i said
his his reaction is so heartfelt and because you know he also obviously has a big passion for
the sport and he sees this girl and he's like no she's got it and i can take her places she's i see
the potential here and i actually the the the the moment where he realizes that she is picking up
his lessons and she can immediately perform his moves or very quickly perform the moves he showed
her he's like oh my god this is this is so much fun i think i like being a coach i like to to teach
teach people that and see them become better and that's so it's so cozy like it's so hard
warming seeing that and yeah that's probably gonna be the story like we have them i mean
the show is called medalist so i can assume their their their their the training sessions are
gonna bear some fruits sooner or later but i assume at least the first couple of episodes is
gonna be about you know them building a relationship and some obstacles need to over a be overcome
because figure skating is a very demanding sport in terms of it being expensive like paying
the training sessions everything and having to put so much hours in every day and the risk of
injuring yourself as i and so on so that's probably gonna be that sprinkled in but also it's
hopefully gonna be this healthy teacher student story about a guy who maybe got into late but still
has a passion for this and a girl who was barred from it for so long but still has hope that she can
just do can be part of doing something she likes at least for a while or loves and yes so i like what
i saw the first episode it's it's really one of those pulls at your heart strings shows it's really
well animated i don't know which studio is doing it i looked it up but it looks really good like
inari super cute sucasa is like the goodest guy like he's he's so nice and they're probably make
a good pairing i like he to me being just completely flustered when sucasa is very loud and very open
about being very happy that he can be now a coach and stuff like that and very enthusiastic and everything
and yeah so i hope this is just gonna be a healthy heartwarming uplifting sports underdog story
and everything and he's gonna pick up this girl and i don't know bring her to winning the nationals
or at least get her some gold medals or whatever right and i hope he's not gonna steer inari too
forward into the other direction of her mom and it's gonna try to live his unrealized dreams by
carelessly through her kind of making her life shitter in that regard that could be some of the conflict
that could be some of the drama i just hope to show knows that that could be a problem and then maybe
addresses that or maybe we get to see some other characters where that had has happened to those
right some other girls who maybe like have the opposite of inari's mom who are not afraid that
you know their kids will kids lives will be fucked up when they are not able to realize their dreams
and you know instead less are like hey i couldn't become a super successful ice skater so i'm
gonna make my kid that and my kid actually doesn't want that and i'm gonna fuck up their life that way
i mean we've seen that also in other anime before and i would at least the show like the show to
address that part of the sport right yeah and by god anime please don't insert an ikey romance plot
into this with those two characters i'm fucking warning you i will drop you like a hot potay to the
moment i smell any stench of that ilk on your frames just putting that out there like there's
nothing of that in here yet but you know so hope that's not the case yes right now i have no reason
to suspect it but i'm just saying it regardless because i've been some shows in the past where that
suddenly sneaks its way into the story and into the relationship between the two main characters
and you're like not okay so we'll see where this goes i haven't heard anything bad about this yet
but i also don't know if it's an original anime or based on a manga or anything so
we'll see where this goes but for now i'm very interested i think this looks good
the characters are great and i want to see where this goes there's gonna be my sports anime fix for
the season properly and that's why it's still a maybe unless it goes into a direction where i'm like
yeah right so we'll see i'm i'm i'm weary but for now it looks like it's gonna be just a
uplifting good vibes underdog sports story so let's hope it stays that way then who will pretty
quickly become a keeper all right john what is next do you have another maybe or do you want to move
into the keepers have one more maybe all right let's do that then it's sockamoto days oh that's one
of my keepers so we're swiftly moving into those oh perfect that taro sockamoto was once a
legendary hitman considered the greatest of all time bad guy feared him assassins reviewed him
some nice rimee copy this but then one day he quit got married and had a baby he's now living the quiet
life as the owner of a neighborhood store but how long his sockamoto enjoys days retirement
before his past catches up to him you forgot one part of that description and he got fat yes
and he's very very intent on emphasizing that i had to laugh so much when they cut the sorry
especially when he looks at his future wife the first time it just loses his fucking shit
it's like actual love at first sight and then just has his shirt retired this pink shirt on
and throws his guns away and all the all the mafia goons in the back row and like what the fuck
really good but now that he's turned his back on the mob yeah yeah like the you don't exit the
assassin's world the assassin's world exits you so of course someone is being sent to
assassinate him taken out but if he can if he can and also the first guy that sent
for some reason is sacamoto's biggest fanboy uh who's like shin the psychic who i don't know if he can
really read minds or if he's just like a like he can read body language very well and from that
interprets what the people might be thinking i'm not quite sure if the show is actually going
to supernatural route yet like they have some when he looks at people we hear they're in a monologue
but i don't know if that those are their actual in a monologue or if he's just like
assuming that's what they're saying because of you know their body language so i don't know if they'll
give an explanation for that or if they'll be like just like no he's an expert it's that's it but yeah
like the dd whatever organization that that he's that's like a motorwork for they sent him or
one group of that sends him and he's like he's so he's so excited to meet his idol like yeah
yeah yeah yeah meet your heroes yes that's don't maybe don't maybe do though i mean in this case do
because like the moment in the car where he gets like starts squeaking because he realized that
soccer water still got it he's still got the juice he's so fucking excited then he can still do it
yes he's he's he's the best he's so awesome and yeah well then you know they have a fight in the
man part shop that uh soccer motor owns and you will be surprised how many everyday grocery
items one can use as weapons if they have the capable hands and if you put your
weapon in your mind to it yes that that this show proves it pretty awesome and yeah shin decides that
he doesn't want to kill soccer move even if he could like he is like he experiences a part of his
soccer of his home life and he's like and i want to take that away from my idol like these happy
moments like he deserves that like fuck it i'd rather kill myself here in front of you guys then then
taking another step at him and they're like yeah all right but uh soccer oh yes you were gonna kill
soccer motor anyway yeah and sadly he read that in their minds i guess or he deprecited i don't know
but is almost killed regardless and soccer motor who apparently has a giant armory hidden in his
confidence store all i can think of is that one scene from the matrix and yes yes
guns everywhere uh even though he didn't bring his biggest guns he just brought a stunner and a knife
i guess and uh yeah but um yes and he saves shin and then offers shin a job as a clerk in his store
and yes i guess this is gonna be what the the the episode form of the show like there's gonna be new
hitman coming and they have to find a way to fan the hitman off i don't assume he will hire all of them
so they probably have to kill some of them the show is surprisingly violent in parts like the
the beginning moments where we see like a soccer motor in his heyday was really whoa
yeah there was more violent than uber blood actually so uh it's like okay but soccer motor's
wife tells him you take you can't go back into the business because if you kill someone i'm going to
leave you and he's like no the pressure is on so uh yeah uh and it doesn't feel like he
necessarily wants to like he seems to be content where is it's hard to
garter a bit because soccer motor is not a bad off many words
like we hear like there's a few spoken lines and some you know in the monologue stuff when shin
reads his mind ostensibly but mostly he gestures
and that's that so i wonder if that changes in the future but uh yeah this is i think this is
this is based on on uh on the hit manga thing from show jump uh i don't know if it was
a gag manga or if it was to turns into mainly an action manga or something it from the setup it feels
like it's gonna be like a gag manga thing where we have funny new hitman encounter quote funny quote
unquote each uh episode and there a bunch of already a bunch of weird side characters introduced
like that weird kid that hangs around at the store all all the time uh it's brittle to freak and uh
and and then all the people in the town who rely on soccer voter because apparently he i mean
of course that's the guy he is he can do anything so they ask him for anything and that's very fun
yuki hiashi is on the soundtrack i believe at least it sounded like that definitely so yeah good
that even created a moment of dissidents for me in the beginning where it's like this really triumphant my
hero academia high cue music and then you have soccer voter just fucking blasting through people killing
them left and right and i felt like that that that wasn't need of maybe a bit of a darker piece
but that sounded so heroic it's like um hiashi baby i guess he's the hero of this story but still
what he was doing wasn't necessarily heroic but what is so cool though he is he is he is that's true
but yeah good music of course because you go hiashi is the shit so um yeah it's a fun show it's a
super fun show uh and it's even though it's airing on Netflix apparently it's aired weekly right
yeah so there's some there's something weird about that because they showed the first two episodes
on japanese Netflix but i don't know how it is in europe but in the us it's behind by an episode
because the only show of one episode last week and then they put up the second one this week
boy it sure is a good thing i have unnamed vpm service to go watch the new episodes
yeah absolutely which i mean maybe they'll pick it up well maybe they'll do a dubbell final episode then
i mean i i don't know because the third episode is up as we as right now as we're speaking
it is up on japanese Netflix but in the american one it's still one and two
yeah yeah i saw that so and i've watched the second episode yet but um i mean maybe that is because of
the dub i don't know i wonder about that seems like a two short turn around though i would assume that
at least half the season is finished at this point so i don't know uh but yeah that's weird but i
kind of like that it's that it's on a week by week basis and not uh not like a dropped um
a two binge um we both prefer the the weekly model so it's nice that Netflix is apparently
uh doing that for some anime anyway they have been doing for a while at least for in over here in
europe i think i mean i can i can confirm i'm looking at it now using unnamed vpm
the dub is available on japanese Netflix interesting okay so that's a choice that they are making
apparently very weird this seems strange but uh yeah let them do whatever they want i guess as
long as we get the episodes eventually and uh have they have a fun time with it as i did with the first
episode and apparently you did as well like i said for me it's it's already a keeper i was looking forward
to this for a while because i heard a lot about the manga in advance and then it was like oh yeah
this concept sounds super fun and uh this this seems like it could have some potential in terms of
gecks and uh fun developments and everything and yeah looks good also yes it looks great so you know
i'm just i'm just not 100% certain yet but it is a keeper idea is a maybe bordering heavily on
being a keeper so all right then what is your first actual keeper because um well from current season
i don't really have one like i'm gonna be conti we mentioned b star jellier which i know you're
probably gonna talk more about in a second yes but uh dragon ball dimas pretty much it and that's also
continuing so i don't really have a lot to contribute this time around well and for me the other
also ram thing is stokter stone season four um which is starting to tackle the final arc i don't know
if it will finish that in one core um but yeah they're going they they're going to space um which seem
to be the logical endpoint for this story in terms of about science advancing at rapid speed like in
season three they they had they were starting to sail the oceans of course in season four they are
now already traveling to the moon but yeah i'm interested to watch it the problem is i have watched
season three yet only watched the special that bridge was bridging a season two and season three
i think the first episode of season three but not past that because i was like hey i'm gonna finish that
and since you're not watching it i don't feel like doing another quick and the dead review of this
before this show is finished so that's what i'm gonna do um whenever this is finished like uh
i don't know if it will wrap up with season four or maybe it will get another core in season four
or maybe it get a season five but whenever that show is finished i'll definitely review it um but uh
that might still be off a while maybe it's next season maybe it's the season after that or after that
we'll see but i'm looking forward to finishing up the story because i really like dr stone season one and two
and i'm looking forward to what uh the uh what the solution the reveal of the mystery is who is
responsible for everyone turning to stone everything and i think and apparently the solution to that
mystery lies on the moon so we'll see uh interesting but yeah then the last um keeper and we already
talked about this a bit or mentioned it at least is b-stars the final season which technically is still a
fall show because it dropped in December late December but uh it's also not finished like john said
it's gonna get another core i don't know when that is dropping uh have they announced that yet is
it gonna come in summer or in spring uh let me do a quick search everything looking at there's no
days so well all right but twelve episodes are out i think it's twelve um and then we're probably
gonna get another twelve uh to wrap up this final season and we're gonna review this once the final
season is completely finished we're not gonna do an interim review of this um so we have more to talk
about when we review it but yeah it's picking up where the last season ended um the current b-star is
going is coming after the lighoshi because he uh lighoshi ate the lack of luis to get enough you know
power to stop the killer uh whose name i'm not mentioning intentionally because some people have not
probably watched b-stars season one and two yet please watch b-stars season one and two um and uh yeah
so now he has the top b-star coming after him apparently because he's like well that's the that's a sin
that can't be tolerated even if it was consensual which was um and lighoshi is also fighting with
royal symptoms from eating meat like going cold turkey sent him on a couple of bad trips and they're
gonna last they're probably gonna have another three full moons in front of him even with medication
and uh you know he's always like uh rolling around on the bed and in pain and everything and trying
to fight the urge to eat you know to consume more meat and everything problem is his next door neighbor
now where he's living now is an herbivore so you can imagine how that goes by the end of the first
episode and uh yeah so a lot of shit uh happening and um on the other side of things we have
apparently a new killer uh here who's doing doing something in the underground section at least
we get see someone get killed and apparently it's not an carnivore this time we see what that's all
about um we have uh someone taking over from luis of the shishigami group of the lion yakusa
guys taking the lead and boy it does he seem to be a piece of work whoof and yeah there's there's a lot
of gears moving in this first episode like there are a lot of things being put into place i'm really
interested to see where all of this goes like what's gonna happen also to uh lui what's happening to
haru like there's there's a bunch of things already uh showing here uh shown here and um and a couple of
interesting new characters introduced like and some new glimpses at what's life now is gonna be like
after the big blow-up of at the end of second season because of course that would leave
lasting effect on you know school life in general for example there's now uh strict segregation
between herbivores and carnivores in the school uh starting with the next school year so no mixing
anymore um of classes and everything because uh it was deemed too dangerous by the school board
and yeah haru poor purna if haru he said she's like hey now that i'm in college here is i don't have to
deal with uh all the bullying from high school there anymore and like oh you sweet summer child
yeah she thought she had already experienced the worst and prejudiced you know xenophobia and
bullying the world had to offer in school welcome to the world of adults we thought where everything
is exponentially worse as a rabbit friend who dates a line experiences first hand
but yeah uh everything i've seen the first episode is super interesting as usual it's animated super
well by orange and i'm just super hyped to finish up the story i love beasta season one i love
beasta seasons uh season two i think it's a standout series super entertaining it looks good it
sounds incredible as incredible soundtrack and the characters are amazing so i'm really
really really interested to see how this one wraps up i hope it's gonna be a satisfying end
won't leave me wanting we'll see but yeah john i assume once you pick it up you will also be
enthralled again and i think we hope that Netflix will wrap the second part of this season's
rather sooner than later yeah i just gotta get around to it you know how it is
yes it's always like it's it's always more demanding if there's already like 12 episodes
that you have in front of you except of just one
it's like that with a stone ocean it took me a while to get around to watching the whole thing
i mean i can kick you occasionally so be like at least verbally over the internet and be like john
if you watch beastar's yet i'm gonna annoy you so much that you're just gonna quit the series
that's sick uh i will do it shut up
yeah yeah no don't worry about it take your time i mean it's gonna probably be a while until part two
drops so i mean you said you said probably summer which i'm gonna see sounds plausible so
there's a lot of shit already announced to drop in summer for me though like that's that's
gonna be a big season uh where i watch a lot of shit so i wouldn't mind it being in spring or in fall
either so i will see i mean when i was looking ahead to summer it was all out of this year so i can
kind of drive for me so yeah not for me kaju number eight is coming back there was something else that
came back that i know forgetting but i was that i'm really excited for
let's see maybe it was the the second part of i don't know it was something
i will look it up again but i remember i remember that being a lot more in summer for me than in spring
so and in winter i mean uh it looks like spring head or if it's a is good that there's some stuff
in spring as fire force spring as fire spring definitely as fire force which yes a hundred percent yes
yes more author police which is also a two-core show that makes sense i mean that this is also
going to be its final season right i think so i at that i wasn't too sure about but
there's also another show returning in summer that we discuss really it will come it will
come back to bear soon enough yes and i will lavish lavish in making fun of you for doing that to
yourself again but that's enough of a tease that's it for our sneak peek for uh for winter 2025
and we will move over to our one not only but one of two reviews this season because for us it's
going to be a very slim review season but yeah we're gonna get to the first one of those two in just a moment
great so bionic commando was a cool game or was he had you know a couple of sequels that are real
weird remake i like that remake i mean i had fun with it a lot of people didn't like it but i was like
yeah that's fine i mean the swinging wasn't as good as in some of the spider-man games but it was
still an interesting take and yes the story was very very out there yeah that that's that that's the
part i'm talking about but yes but what could be referring to but mechanical arms mecca oode wow
what a segue amazing flawless what i'm sick i'm so good at my job
hikaru amatsuga's days of train quality come to a sudden end when he rescues alma a mechanical
arm crying for help alma fuses with his jacket introducing hikaru to the world of mechanical arms
mysterious sentient weapons that normally become part of their user's bodies forced to flee
for his life hikaru is eventually captured by aki murasame a twin mechanical arms user working for
arms an organization that protects the machines against unethical treatment the kaga meek group
an aferious organization that treats mechanical arms as mere tools seeks to recover alma
hikaru is deemed by a failure by arms for his lack of natural predisposition to be a mechanical arm
wielder so aki is assigned to be his bodyguard but aki is defeated by june kaga me who cruelly tears
out her two mechanical limbs condemning the girl to a slow death unwilling to abandon aki to her grim
fate hikaru miraculously awakens his power and neutralizes kaga me now a full member of arms hikaru is
determined to unravel the truth about mechanical arms and protect his newfound friends and allies
thank you to mael we write for that partially accurate summary is i don't feel like he
kaga ever really becomes a full member of arms but you know sure not really now like arms
is such a nothing group in this really i mean all i can never think of is the stupid Nintendo game
the boxing game you mean yeah the game was called just arms at retail all right right right it was
in project right what i had to think of was a zooer striker gun vault and this being quill or
feathers and the the character the character designs were screaming gun vaulted me with all the
neon shit and everything also like everything i don't know that worked really and then the
main guy of arms fucking like immediately the immediately vibes of the bad guy kind of i mean
who is in the beginning not a bad guy from from from gun vault spoilers for gun vault
and it's like well that guy gives me he looks like char with his mask but he also is giving me azimov
vibes so it's not char azna ball it's char azimov and you know what's funny i didn't really think of
this and not until now that you've said it but i mean akis arms cynic index are voiced by kaito
is kawa who was the voice of gun vault so overlapped we have our tenuous at best link there i wonder
maybe maybe integrate with one day make a make a udy game i wouldn't mind that there is some potential
there so yes thank you for the basic setup john first of all one one i quickly talk about the
the history of this show um because this didn't start out as uh like as your standard anime project
usually does uh it's not based on a manga as far as i know it's not uh you know an original anime
cocked up by a production committee or whatever it is a kickstarter was the the kickstarter i'm trying
to find a date when it started but it started as like basically a one off um working with uh this
lady sae ochimoto who wanted to get this off the ground and she's done some smaller directorial
working anime but she wanted to make this thing come to life and went to kickstarter with a small
goal of twenty five thousand dollars and sixty seven thousand dollars later we got a one episode ova that
you know definitely was it was the start of something that's for sure because i think the uh
was a pony canyon came in at some point later and was like hey we think this is pretty cool
what if we've gave you the funding to make it be you know a twelve episode show
so you know going off of that one episode that released in uh g's when did it release
yes it was twenty eighteen so and they i think it was a rena scully at the time also released like
a dubbed version of the episode at the same time so you could watch in english or japan
if you want you can go find it on youtube for free right now and yeah that that that's kind of like
the long and short of it but it's pretty cool to see this sort of started off this this little
passion project and you know it's definitely still a passion project at the end of the day but
it really came a long way and we get to see what it is now it was headed up by uh tri f studio and you can
you can tell there's some rough edges to the show but i honestly i feel like it gives a little bit
of its charm so yes absolutely i feel like yeah there are some moments where the the um
faces look a bit rough and something like that uh but nothing too severe um it more goes into
making them more expressive in a way and i just got aside from the gunval vibes i also got
severe trigger vibes from this where it's like hey this this is so hyper edited and uh it's so
fast pace and uh it's partially like in terms of how the jokes are played in everything it's
sometimes very quick-witted and it's so cartoony in certain parts you know the color palette is as well
like that very bright uh colors like it's a lot of neon coloring in there as well you get some wild
color products on the hairs of people and everything is really out there in terms of a character design
and color design uh and all of that screamed trigger at me like it might not have the pettigree that
trigger has but it definitely was going for a similar vibe and i appreciated that even though it was
not always on model or completely like high quality all the time and uh considering what it put
on screen especially in the fighting scenes uh i mean tri f studio has done some others stuff i guess
i don't know if they did that before mecauda or if those are the next projects but uh i feel like
this is one of their first outings uh i mean good passion projects you know you you always put your
best into it so maybe this is the best they can deliver for now but uh they could also grow from
here and get even better and i think for a first outing this looks really good um had no complaints
there yes some in some parts it was noticeable that it wasn't like always completely
perfectly pulled off and everything but it never stuck out to me to a degree or as like this bothers me
and it seems supposed to seem for you so yes i like that a lot uh and i like of course i always like
when they're going like these kind of stories where it's like hey we have this one off-patient
project and then we're gonna we are given the funds to make a bigger more realized version of this
and i love that i think that's cool i hope they get to do more of this we'll see uh we'll talk about
this after we're done with the review if there's more uh to become baby but yes so from the basic setup
this is a pretty standard science fiction action show or science fantasy i guess
um yeah you got your typical high school guy although he's a bit older than maybe your
usual protect i mean he i guess he's a third year right because at the end of the show spoilers
we see some hints that that was their last year in high school and um so i some of that feels like
it's it's older than some of the maybe other shounen styled action shows we've seen in certain parts
so that was interesting even though the characters character designs feel younger than the characters
themselves probably are but it works regardless and hikaru is set up as this guy roman character who
seems to have a good heart but has a problem with taking the first step in all matters of life
uh we see him in this uh in the train where he's sitting there and just this pregnant woman and he
he realizes but he's too i don't know maybe introverted or to to socially awkward to offer her
her seat uh his seat and he hears people around him talking and it seems to him like they're
talking about him and that makes it even more hesitant because they talk about someone being a do-gooder
or whatever and embarrassing himself so he's definitely got a social anxieties and that kind of
immediately got me on board with this character i got to say because i was like oh this is this is
super relatable to me it's like it took a long time for me personally to be comfortable asking
unfamiliar people stuff in general or even talking to them like where something in the grocery store is
or taking the initiative on some matters in a public space and despite what i might sound like
on the mic i hope i'm still very socially awkward in a lot of situations so this character me
was like oh i get this guy i get what what his issue is it sounds like john you have had these issues
as well and can relate yeah i mean that's that's how it is for a lot of people i think that age so
yeah and i mean it sometimes it never goes fully away due to reasons it gets better got better for me
but for him he's still in that phase where it's like uh i just i'm not that guy i i don't do well in these
situations and i kind of need someone to help me get over that that hum to find my way to find the
courage to take some first steps to speak out to take a stance and so on q alien robot arm
who calls out to him for some reason one one night and then appears in front of him and fuses with
his hoodie which was really interesting because as we later learn these mechanical limbs or
make a uda as they're called in the show usually fuse if they fuse at all there two types kind of
get into that fuse with the body of the host like one part of their body either with the leg with the
arm with the chest with the back whatever with the ass probably i don't know if they're dick back
out there but i also don't want to know but uh yes that can happen this winter a place this is a
surprise quickly uh but yes so for him it was different because due to the weird situation
of their encounter his new best friend mechanical hand uh alma fuse not with his body but with his
hoodie and that kind of leads to situation two different situations from other make a order because
these those can roam free around free they're kind of always connected to their host and when they're
and if they're not always showing you know they always have to be summoned in a way i guess at least
most of them maybe not the the one the the guy of water i don't know if they can come out by themselves
all the time it seemed like that for the ones that were um subjugated by the kaga me group the ones
there with arms and just you know naturally are the in their own just seem to be like oh we can just
do what they want you just do this we can blah blah blah blah blah blah blah at least kaga maru definitely can
he doesn't give a shit about in one situation water is in it's like no we have to help these people
anyway but uh yes so for hikaru is different because he's part of his clothing and people comment on
that like akki is really flustered but at when she meets that i was like what do you mean he fused
with us with your hoodie that never happens what how can it she's like completely taken aback
and it's also funny because other than you know all the other characters showing up with the um
make a order connected to their bodies like um alma can at least crawl around a bit on his own not
too far because he gets at least in the beginning too far away from um from hikaru he loses his
power and can move anymore but yeah hikaru is a first hesitant but then quickly they become friends he
helps him um and then he helps akki and then akki uh who is with arms and has her own stories she's
trying to find a guy with a worm type mecha uda because she wants to take revenge on him because apparently
he killed her family her parents and her little sister then uh those two uh hang around together
also school hikaru really doesn't want that because akki is is a really intense girl like
she's very intent on being his bodyguard even though she's not particularly good at it in certain
parts like she often loses track of him i guess when he is very when when they're already in a battle
situation he he he karu tends to sneak away and she doesn't notice because she's so wrapped up in
the fight which is understandable but outside of that she's just constantly uh his shadow and she
used her his window on the window yes instead of taking the door and she's just like she's just
running after him and everything she can be easily distracted with food because that's definitely
where her passion lies she's a very hungry lady uh with a big appetite it's like wow but yeah so
they hang around a lot and you know have the individual stories and then later on someone else get
and gets added to the main trio of characters i would say who is the younger brother of the
president of uh kagami kor who are like this like this bad company who uses mecha uda only as tools
and subjugates them and robs them of the ascension and everything like basically shackles them
with these special whatever get shackle gadgets that um make them just turn into basic knives
or whatever uh but basic like make a uddakant transform even when they're in shackled form like
into bunch of things into gatling guns into into knives into swords whatever like they're a bunch
of different types that can turn into different things we have a sentient one turn the road that can
turn into a big old motorcycle so mecha uda versatile unless you have alma who is basically always
turning into a bigger fist the more the serious progresses sometimes you just need big fist
yeah sometimes just throw a big fist and that that little brother of the kagami uh president is
is sickly and he wants um uh he wants alma uh because alma is a special mecha uda it's
everyone calls it the trigger arm trigger huh there we go and he wants to take that for his own
because he assumes that with that um uh that will cure his illness with which is i think he
can't i don't know if he can there are a couple of characters maybe who can't do this uh to fuse
uh or to to fuel mecha uda you have to use these part uh things that are naturally part of your body
arbitrary um or what is it called yeah that's it oh it's along the lines of unobtainium from avatar
i should call it a chlorian yes yes that's the same thing so human bodies generate that and i
think mecha would have used that as sustenance or whatever or it's a some symbiotic relationship
i don't i'm not sure but i think uh june um the third character the uh can't produce that or whatever
and um uh he needs um uh mecha would a special mecha order to heal him and alma supposed to be that so
he goes after him uh with a prototyping and fights uh hikaru and everything but
they then become frenemies as these things goes rivals right where it's like he does he he only
sticks around because he wants to fight him and he wants to be who beat he beat see caru but
he helps him he ends up helping him out all the time because of it and yeah it's it's that old dynamic
but it's fun and yeah so that's the main trio and from there we a bunch of other characters are
introduced and um the show sets up a couple of mysteries like what is the goal of kagami guru what
exactly does arms wanting to liberate the mecha order and tale um what happened to aki's family
why does amalusis memory what exactly are the mecha order when it comes down to that so yeah
a bunch of things that are happening at the same time and uh all these individual stories and
characters stories progress then we have a bunch of a bunch of side characters thrown into the mix um
one of the standout ones and i alluded to that particular character in the intronary
is miru who she's she is for sure the audience to surrogate because she just wants to marry everyone
off to everyone else well i not everyone i would say it's she's particularly obsessed with our three
main characters first she when uh when aki like rolls into this uh and rolls into the school to um
be the bodyguard suhikaru uh and immediately like uh asserts dominance by putting her
test directly next to him uh miru is immediately like smitteners like oh this is this is a rom com high
school rom com happening and i'm gonna make that happen i'm gonna support both of these for
i want that to happen every time something happens where these two interact she completely
mis-miss understands the situation and and assumes this is a new romantic romantic kerfuffle uh
you i mean it tonight in her head it will always be and then later june gets into the mix and she gets
her bisexual uh flavor mixed into that and she's even happier and yes so um suddenly it's a BL story
oh yes yes yes yes yes the there's this love triangle and she couldn't be happier so she is really
fun and then we got a fun a couple of fun side characters in there not all of them like
given a lot of screen time really which is also which is one of the problems of the show i would say
it's also one of its benefits so this show has one of the most intense breakneck pacing
uh huh it just i have it hits the ground it just goes yes it goes it never lets up there's no
downtown in this show even in the moments where you think well this is about downtown moment no no
they're just gonna throw a new character in there or fun beat or some some uh breakneck edited jokes
like slapstick jokes or visual gigs it's incredible it's intense and might come across as too
hectic for some people i kind of liked it a lot like it felt super breezy it felt like a super quick watch
because there was so much shit happening in every episode you know it's also pretty funny like the
stuff with marrow constantly trying to create her own visual dating novel experience is funny
the dynamic between hikaru aki and june is fun and quick with it like there's a lot of fun banter
between the three the exchanges between alman and hikaru also have a nice body comedy feel to it
and it's like good vibes like it's like a fun a lot of fun interactions in this show and then you
have the amazing battle scenes like there are a lot of fights in this show they're not all like on the
have on the level of super sakuga i don't know mapa stuff or ufo table stuff or something like that far
from it but they're so well and quickly edited maybe sometimes a bit too quickly for you know
to always know where you aren't any given moment like to show the man's of a lot of you in terms of
keeping up with the action but if you're attuned to that i felt i had a lot of fun with the action scenes
because there were so much cool shit happening in terms of shot composition in terms of you know
you had a lot of cool tracking shots a lot of moments where there were like these nice not
necessarily 360 moments but where the camera was completely panning around someone but definitely
moments where you had like this big area and then the camera was moving around a bit like from a
helicopter shot and you would get a bigger grasp on where this set piece was happening and everything
and it looked really cool i did not expect that in in the show from kind of first timer studio like
this like there was a lot of visual a lot of vision that i felt from this show when it came to the
visuals and the composition of the fight scenes john john what did you think about the fights in
this yeah they were definitely to say the least of it engaging so you know it might have been might
have been a lot to sort of take in some parts of it but you know you're always they always give you
something to sort of look at and be like oh this is you know at least very well there's at least a
vision to these fights and you know you can see them very clearly show that to you in these scenes
so i think that was you know definitely a strong part of it but you know going back to what you
said about the plot moving super fast earlier i think that might be your reason with some people
may turn away from this because yeah it does it goes and it goes and it goes so you know there's a lot
to sort of try and take in when it when as i don't want to say when it starts because it it doesn't ever stop
yeah that's true but it also it feel like it's not relying too much on exposition terms
uh at the same time which you would expect from a show that is like trying to cram a lot of story in
such as short runtime and uh it's like going for a breakneck pacing or whatever where a lot of
there's so much happening in that show in terms of twists turns and everything and characters
introduced that would be enough for at least the two-core show show in terms of what you could do
with that and with the characters that were in there definitely at least the two-core show if not two
seasons uh full seasons of this would have been possible if the show decided to be like no now i've
introduced these characters and we're just gonna have a couple of fights for the next i don't know
ten episode monster of the week style right and we have some shenanigans at the school and whatever
but the show doesn't want to do that instead it's like no first we're gonna have the introduction
of our main characters eco and uh an aki they're gonna get together we have um the initial you know with
the initial contact with alban everything and then we have a short arc that relates to june being
introduced then we get a short arc that relates to aki's uh background story with her sister then we
get into more of the mika otu stuff in general the kagami stuff um uh we get some uh background story
on uh on one of the other characters we get uh we then already move into the final part of the show
which is like the last the last sort of this is basically one continuous set piece fight scene in a way
that just you know switches bad guys or made antagonists over and over again but it doesn't
feel like it's stalling or everything it just always feels like it's moving along because we also
always get like snippets of history of the mika ude and of um of some of the characters and dead
that we didn't know before some of which we definitely can guess like one of the things that was
played like a big surprise in the show was like no surprise to me at all and i immediately telegram
that to john when i started rewatching the show because i stopped after the first episodes and then
i binge the before or review and i was like you're just i just start this up again i just want to let you
know even if i eat my words i know what this character's about you know i said was you i guess you
should keep watching let's say yes uh like yeah i was i was half right like this yeah i i got to say
though that i do appreciate that the things did keep going the way they did because yeah in
anime too many times like the big pivotal plot point that should have been revealed way sooner is like
it seems like the last two episodes at least in this we had things that were going so it felt natural
in its progression yes even though this show did move fast i would like to refer you back to the
Kickstarter ova which was like a speedrun of the first three episodes so seeing it in the show
proper getting you know a little bit more of its proper uh to do time given to it was like okay so
we sort of got a taste of what they wanted to do and this is the fuller more expanded version of
it as much as it can be so you know it was nice to see you know because i made sure i think
i forgot where i was watching i think i watched the first episode then i went back and watched the ova
and then after watching the second or third episode i was like oh okay so that was just a primary for
you can expect this yes yes at that i mean that makes sense in terms of what the content of this first
three episodes is and uh that works as a nice you know little thing and then uh and then you can
heavily expand on that and the show does that like goes into the lore goes into some of the characters
talking about another thing that is a bit of a downside to the quick pacing is that we have a couple
of potentially interesting characters in there who just are like in the show for like two seconds
like we have this character taani and caraxe like uh guy with his frog ish um mecha uder uh who get
taken out i think in episode three or something like very quickly and the problem is the show places
at the as this tragic carrying thing and we have like spend time with these characters for like one
minute of the show yeah like they're their team members of of uh a key they're from arms and everything
and then they get taken out by the the the the worm guy uh the the worm mecha uder user and it's like
oh my god no taani and like who oh that guy yes we we we just spent a one minute at the beginning of
the episode with him but the show is like oh god this is the horror's and i'm like okay and this is
these are the moments when i'm like okay the show went on for not 12 episodes 24 and we had a bit more
time to spend with taani to get to know him and his interaction with caraxe and everything and him
he has this moment in the beginning of the of the show where he helps out he of the episode where he
helps out he caroo and you immediately oh he's a good guy he's from arms and everything but then
immediately gets taken out of the show and it's like okay you could have had more impact if you had a
longer running show and they go on to get some missions together do some stuff um free some mecha
uder from carame industries right because that that holds the potential of you know making some
interesting or having some interesting one stuff to week episodes we get our our arms guys fighting
the carame guys all of them have special shackled mecha uder and then they fight them and they free those
you know you could have gotten some episode of them then you put some of the cool school stuff in
there and uh and enough comedy bits in there and it wouldn't feel like uh it was wasting its time
too much if you put enough character stuff in there and then if you then it reintroduce the
arc of storyline and the mecha uder worm uh worm mecha uder user and then he kills quote unquote of
tani that would have been a uh heavy moment like uh that would have been like holy shit now things
are getting really diard after all this kind of lighthearted hey we're having we're having successful
missions and stuff like that so that was one of the moments was like uh there was a maybe a better
way to do this but also not in this runtime and with the story they wanted to tell so it was like
they're trying to focus on a couple of characters that are important there's also one from carame
industries who's like featured in the op like this is he is is is is a sword uh mecha uder user
and he seems to be like oh he's a strong opponent and then he is a fight with arkey like in the
second half of the show in one episode for like two minutes and it never appears again and it's like
I that again that could have been the antagonist for like one or two full episodes I guess and
the way this guy behaves is fun and everything because he's like hey a middle aged man I kind of
don't want to do that but I also can't lose my job because what else am I gonna do right so that
could could have been fun but it's like blink and you miss it so those were some of the few moments
where it's like okay I would have liked the show to be longer but it's not so problematic that it
completely took me out of the show and also I feel like the time they instead spent on our main
characters works we get enough of screen time with hikaru his interaction with alman everything we
get enough screen time with june enough with arkey and that's enough for the show to work enough in
the character department I probably would like to get a bit more out of the bad guy I get the motivation
everything and where he's coming from but it's like there is an emotional component here that
you set up in this show and it doesn't really pay that off that well I mean there is something in
the final confrontation that again tries to bring that up and tries to work with that and
everything but I feel like they could have emphasized that more to get more of an emotional response
from me in regards to the motivation of the main villain specifically I don't know you felt about that
nah here are just that that's a byproduct of going as fast as they did so yes yes the
but again those are nitpicks because the positive effect of it going so fast as you're
never bored like this show is just 10 million miles miles a minute it's just going from next plot
beat to next plot beat to next character beat to next character beat you're never bored there's always
something interesting new to see there's a new cool fight scene especially the fight scenes with
arkey are cool like the way she uses cynic and dags and moves around in in any given fighting
areas cool the fights of alman and hikaru cool yes alman kind of basically only is just a big fist
but the funny part is in the beginning hikaru doesn't get really it doesn't really have an active part in
the fight yet because how much it strings him alone because it just drags him around being stuck to
his hoodie and and doing the fights were because you know the because they are not used correctly
together in the beginning there's of course a development in that regard but in the beginning
alman is still a separate entity that means the usual stuff the body enhancement stuff that comes
with fusing with the mechowder doesn't is not happening to to hikaru yet so it's it's fun at that
changes of course so the fights also change and that's neat i think one of my favorite stupid jokes
later on was when there's a character from the kaga me group a scientist on there so i named
not horror he looks so similar to one of the scientists on arm side quen that i think someone
calls him quen two and it's like yeah shut up that's stupid it's so dumb but i love it's like
because they put them next to each other it's like he's just got different hair oh no oh no it's the same
person oh no yeah the show comments on that it's not like to show us unaware of that it's like
quen says that is like oh my god he's just why does he look like me it's so so funny also
we have like a couple of different enemy factions we have like expansion three section or whatever
with some of the bad guys who work under kaga me we have the white ravens we see one of the white
ravens in the beginning but the all the rest of them are like introduced in the last episode
kind of do nothing and get like but they get text describing them and their mechowder which
no other character the show got for the introduction like nobody gets this and it's like
and even one of the characters says oh some some weirdos appeared out of nowhere late in the game
or whatever like the show is just poking fun at itself for that kind of way yes it's and it's
fun like it's it's super entertaining when you have that like i said the the human in the show
the human in the show in general worked for me and like i said and let's not forget
armor being attached to that hoodie what what happens if he carol wants to watch that hoodie like
also that's a sturdy god damn hoodie if armor was attached directly to it was back the combat would
make more sense at the beginning but the way it was back then like armor should always get torn
out of the hoodie with any punchy throws and at some moment he that happens but not in the beginning
anime logic i guess you've got to love it and also in my opinion missed opportunity for brand promotion
you don't want to get you know that unique low or some other clothing brands like hey
our our products can have alien robot arms attached to them in intense battle scenes and that
clothing still is intact bitches like that's that's something you put on a poster i feel like the show
was in general very marketable like you could sell the make-out of them as toys very well and
their different transformations and everything and then the clothing this is thing i don't know if
they did i don't know of some successful the show was in general but i feel like looking at some of
the concepts of the show dollar signs were like appearing in my eyes or so right there was like oh
well there's money there i'm sure someone out there has plans to try and monetize the heck out of it
emerging dice the heck out of it but yeah that's kind of the show and the problem is i don't know
much we can say about the plot with giving out too much away because there's all these little
side plots that are kind of resolved after one two three episodes depending on who they are about
but they always reveal something more about the story in the backgrounds and giving that away
is kind of taking the fun out of what little quote unquote story there is in the show there's
enough in there but it's like it's so quick and it's moving fast by so quickly that giving most of
that away would take away from that as well so i don't think we want to go into that it's just a very
quick paced fun show like we both said it might turn some people of how fast it is how quickly edited
it is like the editing in the show is what gives it uh among the story moving along so quickly
gives it this breakneck feeling uh breakneck pace feeling there the the scenes switch very quickly
not only in the fight scenes but also in the gag comedy scenes but also in the story scenes there's
a lot of cuts in this none of them really feel out of place but you notice you notice that this is a
very very quick show because of the editing so i didn't mind it because i thought this the cuts
didn't feel superfluous or everything anything it's just made the show feel that much quicker and for
some people who like their anime have a more mellow pace this might be too much even for an action show
i can't tell like i said i liked it john apparently liked it so give it a try i would say because
there's enough happening there nothing too out there like i said you can for most of the stuff that
is happening you can guess where the story is going a lot of this is standard stuff um trophy stuff
but because it's so fast they never dwell on it so long that in the noise you that you already know where
is it it's going because it arrives there just when you have to have the thought it's like oh we're
already here all right okay we they're not trying to make this a mystery too long they're already
resolving it that's good because i already knew what's probably gonna happen and then the way they
resolve it is usually with a fun action scene or a fun comedy scene or both and yeah so that
is cool and yeah so a bunch of lovable funny characters some are a bit more annoying than others i guess
they can maybe great on you in some ways if i can understand if people are maybe annoyed by one
or kagamaru because they're very loud characters both of them yeah um but the show is fun to look at
an action scene like i said the color palette is great i especially going in the fashion critic
route i especially like two south fit i think she has a really cool character design like with the
blue and yellow slash orange stuff like the high contrast thing there's a lot of high contrast work
in this show it just looks cool it looks cool science fictiony neon cyberpunky again very
triggering a lot of that feels like we've seen it in cyberpunk etch runners maybe different
character designs of course but in terms of color work and everything so yeah i just it's a cool show
it's a cool looking show it's a cool sounding show because soundtrack done by our boy
iiouki saoano also delivered a banger of an op with vortex oh yeah first time i saw that op i was just
like ooh this is also a nice a nice music video of that on youtube where we got a bit of i don't know
if that animation is somewhat related to this story because a lot of that looks like it's from mecca
but different character designs and stuff that doesn't happen in the show i mean the studio made it just
you know put in the work for themselves to help promote it i don't know there's
us didn't yeah i had trouble digging up that sort of thing yeah but definitely check that out
if you watch the show or if you don't watch the show it's just it's just a cool fucking song one of the
typical saoano bangers you know them if you heard one of them you know what i sound i the man has
one stick and he goes back to that again again but i happen to love that that particular stick
and that particular style that particular pony so he's he's just he's just awesome i just love his
music and this this is a this is another one of his his great soundtracks in my opinion it's just
super fun to listen to it emphasizes the action scenes perfectly the emotional moments too not only
the action cc is really good with the emotional keys as well so i guess yes also co composed by
kotae hamamoto who's done some other big stuff in the past too so like a little bit of attack on
titans some blue exercist here and there so he they have also been around cool cool cool yes very good
sounding show very good looking show especially considering tri f hasn't done that much yet
and this starting out as a kickstarter project and everything just really really cool cool little thing
and it's kind of self-contained i mean at the end we have a teaser for what's gonna happen what could
happen in a potential second season like did this definitely have a heavy teaser images it's like
okay this this could happen next and then this and this is where those characters would be and so on
definitely got potential preview i don't know if we'll get an actual next season because i
don't know how successful successful the show was i would love to have another season of this
like i guess between the ova and the series they had a manga that ran from 2022 to 2024 so
i don't know if this is all of the story they wanted to tell or if there's more in the manga or if
they wanted you know if there's obviously like you said you did tease the possibility for something but
but i guess time will tell how many volumes the manga have ten volumes are chapters ten volumes
okay i think there's got to be enough in there for for another season i don't think we've covered
ten volumes of manga with these twelve episodes although again considering the story right with such
a breakneck base like if they cut stuff out that was maybe in the manga i didn't know that i thought
the manga was an adaption of the anime we got and ran concurrently so like they do that more often
these days whereas like they release an original anime and then they release at the same time a manga
adaption of this so yeah i mean it was ten volumes but it was only like 39 chapters so it's not like
interesting super of eevee yeah not a full-size tank of one then yeah sure i mean 39 chapters yeah it could
be that could be it could fit into twelve episodes i don't know well we would probably have to look it up
but again that doesn't mean even if we have covered everything of the manga with these first twelve
episodes that doesn't mean that they can continue it beyond that if the anime was successful enough
let's see uh it just you know the teaser images felt like they want to tell more from this
more story from this universe and that's entirely possible yeah i hope they get to do that if
the pen even if it's already exists a manga form or not i hope they get to
yeah i hope we we they get to show us more of the of the mechanical arms world uh that would be
pretty damn awesome john where can people watch this show and watch it on crunchy roll uh looks like it
may be available on other services internationally depending on where you live but is chiefly on
CR so nice and yeah if you like action shows if you can tolerate or even like
very quick pacing if you like good uh action scenes fighting scenes and a bit of wacky comedy
at the side because it shows super wacky at moments and very loud if you can stomach all of that
or even appreciate it then i recommend you put this show into your armory
and that is a wrap on the 163rd episode of anime brain freeze all the music in this podcast is from
the double dragon neon soundtrack by the amazing jack kovman please go to vart.com and check out
this also work find us where all the podcasts live but also check out anime brain freeze.com for
our review index and more please leave us a review and rating on apple podcasts, Spotify or your
podcast app of choice if you can but also on the socials or send an email to anime brain freeze at gmail.com
we would love to reach your feedback thanks for tuning in we hope you had a good time and please
join us again in our next episode maskooot so long everybody. next time on anime brain freeze monsters aliens demons
ghosts and dicks dicks dicks
♪ You're my city ♪
♪ You're amazing, you're coming ♪
♪ Oh, oh, oh, oh ♪
♪ You're true, you're true, you're my city, you're my city ♪
♪ You're my city ♪
[MUSIC]