anime dominion

Last week episode was good and Tokyo Ghoul did not fail to entertain me again this week. Impresively, this week episode gave more detail of Kaneki and Hide background information as well as some action and definitely more feels. The only thing that could distrupt viewer pleasure was the huge amount of gore censorship. One scene made ¾ part of the scene turned into a black layer and we could barely see anything beyond the ¼ area. 

 

Yup another Mikasa in action

The episode started just after Toka saved Kaneki from Nishio, she sent him to an old bartender, who seems like another ghoul. After treating him a coffee, which suprisingly enough; taste the same for both human and ghouls, After a conversation regarding Kaneki’s current state, he gave him a bag that contained a human flesh in case his ghoulish nature awoken. Amusingly, Rize still lived on in Kaneki’s mind and she would not make Kaneki’s life easier by keep tempting him to give up his human heart and to eat the flesh.

 

The temptation kills

From the first two episodes,  TG told us that the ghouls from this series were not some kind of mindless flash eating zombies but more like civilized predators. They could blend in the society and acting as if they were humen while their appetite was definitely different from us. The proof is when Nishio ate the cake, he could acted as if the cake tasted good while in actually, he wanted to puke them out

 

Found you B***h. ^-^ I hope u dont mind I use censorship ;p

It is good that Tokyo Ghoul delivered the background information of both Kaneki and Hide pasts as the following event regarding Nishio, the ghoul that attacked Kaneki in last scene, truly make the scene more powerful. As Kaneki was not a very social person to begin with, seeing the glasses ghoul wanted to ate his only friend made him went out of control. Many flashback about how Hide started to befriend him and how close their friendship was made his anger and frustation felt so real.

 I don't know if he is lucky or not for getting the organ transplant with Rize. In some senses, she was definitely more powerful than Nishio and when he went out off control, Rize organ transplant made hime capable of killing Nishio with ease. If you look closely before the ending, even Toka received injuries for trying to knock him out. By the way, the part where Kaneki gave up to Rize temptation and about to eat his best friend made my heart beat faster. It was truly a strong scene to saw his desperation almost cost his friend’s life especially after we got bombarded with memories of childhood friendship.

 

Oh S**t tell me it not real -_-

Somehow, I am still wondering about Toka and the bartender real entity in this series. While it was clear that both of them belong to the ghoul clan, they did not seem to attack and eat human fleshes though I am still uncertain as more episodes will reveal their real appetite. I am also intrigued with the word “anteiku” that the bartender said. Does it look like Bleach “Soul Society” or is it a clan of super Ghoul? Maybe the next episode will tell us more.

So the Jason guy was trully Jason??? wow so original

I am sure this anime is more depressing than some of the other series had to offer. Yet, it still give us some hope as the bartender told Kaneki that he belong to the both world. Imagine if you were in Kaneki shoes and you think that you can't fit in with either ghoul and human society? His wise word made Kaneki realized that being a half entity allowed one to merge with both world. It was trully a heartwaming word especially for Kaneki because no matter how bad Kaneki appetite for human flesh is, he still retained his kind heart. Plus he acquired super ghoul power; making him a unique individual that could close the gap between human and ghoul.

The formidable opponent seems like a very interesting title for an episode. However, for me the episode title was misleading and the fact is, the comedy pattern of Haiyuu!! started to get stale over time. I'll be honest with you that episode 14 of Haikyuu!! seems more like a filler episode and the character development for this episode only give a bit glance of the bench warmer; Yamaguchi, who decided to start learning new moves to cover for his lack of skills. Also, the episode gave small information regarding Daichi's old buddy, Ikejiri, who joined Tokonomi high and he may become their next opponent

First of all, the episode started with the meeting between Karasuno team members about their next opponents for the preliminary volleyball tournament. Honestly, I thought they waste some minutes just to tell us what kind of opponent that they will face in the next round. The only good lesson from Ukai is that they should never underestimate their opponent regardless of the school rank due to the fact that each team play to win the championship.There are small parts about training and formations in this episode but they are not very interesting to watch nonetheless.

Second, When Sawamura talked to his female friend, who happened to be the captain for the girl volleyball club, about their preparation for the next matches. At the beginning, I think it was nice to show us the other part of Karasuno volleyball teams. Yet later I asked myself; do they really intended to follow the girl's team journey to achieve the championship? Or is it just another splice of life scene added to fill this episode time slot?  Well, I am not against feminism at all. However, knowing that the focus of this series is on the male member of Karasuno High, I doubt the girl team matches will even be covered in the next episodes. It would be better if the episode gave more time do develop Yamaguchi’s character due to the vast amount of personal that this series had.

 

Believe me. This is exactly my reaction to his antics

Then, regarding to the jokes, Haikyuu!! started to use the same formula again to induce laughter from us fellow otaku. Started with Tanaka playing some role-play to his fellow members, which I think is neither funny nor original at all. Imagine having a male friend acting like a male then walk to the other side acting feminine and talk lovey-dovey and he expect you to laugh at him. Maybe at the first time you would laugh to him. Then, he done it again and again. Honestly, I feel sick with his joke. I don't think that kind of joke is necessary for this episode. Then, the last part of the episode tried to made us laugh with the senior hilarity after getting the ganbatte speech from Shimizu. I was not laughing at all because I expected their reactions even before she said the encouragement. It was exaggerated to the utmost level, hoping that we could get rolling in the floor and bursting in laughter,  which in my case fail miserably.

I like Haikyuu!! and I am worried with this episode because it started to put some unnecessary information to fill the 22 minutes. If I came here writing how amazing the episode is, then I am lying to you because I am not amazed with this episode. I did hope the next episode would bring the series back in game and believe me. When I said an the episode is boring, it doesn’t means that the anime is bad. It means that it fails to amaze me and it could not give me a good impression.

New season means new animes (yay). I was trying to find interesting anime with mature themes and I found this series, Tokyo Ghoul. If you are into Animes like Shingeki no Kyojin or Black Bullet, you will feel at home with Tokyo Ghoul. One word of warning is that the anime will display gore and plenty of bloods. So, if you dislike bloodshed, dismembered human, or depressing situations, I think you should stay away from this title

 

Jason is bored fighting Freddy. He needs stronger opponent fast

The episode started with a nude woman devouring her victims, then comes another Jason-like being tried to collect the woman’s fingers using a steel finger claws etched to two of his fingers. Ok, so the battle ended with the woman fled from the scene while taking her opponent’s weapon. So the anime started with bloods and non-explicit nude scene. I guessed we were into another serious tone, and dark themed anime with this series.

 

Kaneki's appearance is quite normal for the main hero

The main protagonist name of the anime is Kaneki and his appearance is well; I would say a bit too ordinary for being the main character. He had no spiky hair, multi-colored hair, or special features that made his appearance stand out from the rest. He reminded me of Shinji Ikari like Neon Genesis Evangelion. I even thought Hide, his best buddy, is the protagonist when I first watch the episode. So, enough with the introduction, both of them were talking about dating ladies and Kaneki’s plan for his next dates. Well, the woman that Kaneki liked entered the shop. She had astounding appearances with a long and purple hair and after Hide mentioning that the Lady was way too beautiful for him, left the shop. Luckily for Kaneki though, the girl had similar taste with the book that he read and he managed to score a date.

 

It was not as romantic as what you thought. Believe me.

After taking the woman, who introduced herself as Rize, out, he accompanied her to her house. Rize suddenly bite and revealed to him her real identity. She was a Ghoul; a human like creature that devoured another human in order to preserve his/her life and the authority classified them as animals. Her body mutated, giving out fleshed like red tentacles in her shoulder. She struck him, threw, and then stabbed him until he turned in a comma state. Luckily, just as she was about to finish Kaneki, a pile of debris dropped into her. It seemed like the debris killed her and the reason why it dropped remained a mystery.

 

So much for the first date

Do you still reading? Ok so this is the major turning point of the episode. He was hospitalized and almost died due to his injury. The doctor who operated him thought that the dead woman lying near him was another human being, who got accident due to the falling debris. For the doctor, saving a patient life is important and those with higher percentage of living will get the operation even if s/he has to sacrifice the other victims. Now this is the serious part, The Doctor implanted the woman’s organs to Kaneki hoping that he could at least survive. Ok, in this post I am not going to talk about what is ethic or not in doctorate. However, Due to the implant, Kaneki turned into a half ghoul and a half human. He started to find human’s foods awfully tasted and sooner, he started to grow appetite for human’s fleshes.

When he smelled a delicious aroma, he met another ghoul devoured another human flesh. It seemed the ghoul wanted to share him some of the meat until another ghoul came and struck both the eating ghoul and Kaneki. The incoming ghoul said that both of them were hunting in his territory and he started to attack Kaneki. Suddenly, the waitress that served in the coffee shop, where Kaneki and Hide were talking about dating, came to the scene. She was actually a ghoul, who could control her power, and after a quick skirmished, she made the other ghoul ran away.

 

Behold my shining eyes of Darkness!! @-@ where did I heard that line before?

It was a very depressing anime and I knew that the protagonists might seem like a crybaby. However, I cannot blame him entirely, he was never wanted to be a ghoul to begin with. It was like a curse suddenly took over his body while his heart remained a human. If he did not eat, his ghoul instinct would make him suffer. However, if he took a bite, he might end up as another man-devouring ghouls. As the result, He desperately fought for his humanity sides until the waitress, Kirishima Toka, took a piece of the victim hand and pushed it to his mouth.

The episode continued the training match of team Karasuno against their ancient rival Nekoma. Some of you might think that this episode was an OK with some match actions and a bit of comedy in the end. However, I love this episode due to implicit moral values that it added during this episode. Values like sportsmanship, teamwork, and friendship are depicted throughout the entire episode although some scenes were a bit exaggerated.

First of all, lets talk about fairness and how I could perceive the moral value from the aftermath. Karasuno and Nekoma team while bitter rival maintain their long-term friendship. The heartwarming scene when the match over was how they respected each other and shake their hand regardless of the matches outcome. In real world sometimes we see real sportsmen fight because they cannot accept losing. While I am not trying to point out any particular cheatings or misbehaving in the real sport matches, I hope you could understand what I want to tell you regarding the sportsmanship.

Second, the producer of the Haikyuu!! wanted to show us that having tremendous talents is not adequate to win the matches. They purposely made the Karasuno team lose not because they were lacking the skills but due to the fact that Nekoma had better teamwork. Every member of Nekoma done their role perfectly and from the episode, it was clear that Nekoma had more experience playing as a team. Meanwhile, half of Karasuno’s team was consisted of new freshmen and they were adjusting their teamwork. They wanted to depict realism that no matter how talented Kageyama or how fast Hinata’s reaction was, they still could not defeat a more experienced and solid team like Nekoma. I have to give them credit for not turning Karasuno as a super “team” that could win the match regardless of their limit because it was the protagonist’s team.

The last value that I wanted to add was about the friendship. It was funny when Tanaka realized how Yamamoto, despite his tough manner, was more or less a coward when dealing with opposite sex. Tanaka, who in the last episode hate Yamamoto, saw himself in Yamamoto and this event made them a best buddy ^o^. Their reactions were a bit exaggerated but funny to watch nonetheless. In addition, even though the handshake between the members of opposing team has it’s own kind of tension, they see the other team not only as a rival but also as a friend and they promised each other to improve and met again in the upcoming match.

One hilarious aspect that I see from this episode is how Hinata could continue playing even though the other members already lost their stamina. Watching the Nekoma’s coach reactions and Kageyama’s really made me laughing in the floor (LOL). If I have to give my impression, the closing of the exercise match was very endearing. It gives some values to us as it loyal watchers and as well as fellow otaku in generals and I do hope I could watch the next episode fast. By the way, did you find another interesting points from the episode? I hope you do enjoy the entertainment while watching the episode as I am.