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Morita-san wa Mukuchi’s Second season is really more of the same but still quite enjoyable. It reminds almost of Shaft’s Hidmari sketch in that they’re both 4 panel comics about 4 girls doing nothing of importance with a very similar sense of humor; sadly this show is not nearly as funny. Enough chat let’s dive in.

Story/Characters: 4 friend laugh and joke their way through typical everyday occurrences. Really there is no story, no story arcs or character development. For a show like this it’s okay, it sets up the joke, makes the joke and then leaves and that’s just fine. It doesn’t over stay ... its welcome and doesn’t need to worry about making transitions.

The characters are all one dimensional with one/two traits: Mayu’s quite, Hana’s Shy, and Mika won’t shut the hell up. Again it’s not that big a deal because they’re all set up’s for a joke. Also everyone loves Mayu and there seems to be this whole undercurrent of Yuri that’s not played with nearly enough. Heck Mayu has a stalker that no one ever seems to acknowledge and is known as girl with glasses.

Speaking of jokes this brings me to my main problem with the show: the humor. It’s not bad per se just typical and safe. Did it get a few chuckles out of me, yes but they were few and far between. It just feels like I’ve seen it all before. I can’t decide if the thing about Hana being from a broken home is meant to be funny or not.

Music/Art: The opening is energetic and fun with some nice animation and the overall look of the show is nice. The girls are distinct enough to never get confusing and Mayu’s eyes feel like you’re staring into the abyss in a good way. Not much else to say, it’s all around solid art and sound.

Wrap up: This series isn’t going to set the world of comedy ablaze but I don’t think it was trying to. Again that’s alright not every comedy has to be a masterpiece. The show is fun, colorful and sadly forgettable. Seriously I just finished watching this about 20 minutes ago and can remember about 3 jokes.

If you want to know if you should watch this show, ask yourself “Self did I enjoy season 1?” If yourself answers yes then you should go watch it if not then don’t pretty simple. If you didn’t watch the first season then do so now (it’s only 40 minutes) then ask yourself the above question.

Futari to Futari or Two and Two is Shojo-Ai story about two couples and their very odd relationship.

The story is ok; it’s interesting enough to see the younger girls struggle with their feeling for each other and their older lovers. It moves at a nice clip but it’s really nothing profound. Luckily enough while the story is focused heavily on sex, there is never a feeling of shoehorning in the sex. It flows naturally and is usually pretty tame when it is. The drama is played well and never becomes overly angsty. Despite the odd nature of the four girls relationship, it is never ... really demonized and just shown in a way that the reader can make their own judgment.

The art is nothing spectacular, a typical art style for Shojo-ai. The characters are distant enough to not be confusing and backgrounds are nice. Also no nipples are on full blast here and the sex scenes are PG-13 at best. There are scenes of the girls teasing their lover and the aftermath but the actual act is rarely shown. My only problem is the water on the skin bugs me somehow; I can’t put my finger on it.

Finally the characters, there are only four of them and they’re semi-developed. Sayako and Ayumi are both in middle school and take a dominant and submissive role with their respective lovers, Keiko and Asumi. But this switches when they start sleeping with each other though Sayako still has some dominant tendencies. This being a shorter series no one gets particularly developed that much. Ayumi is scatter brained and Sayako is serious while their girlfriends are the opposite of them. We get a little back story on Asumi and Keiko near the end that sheds some light on their own relationship. So while not terrible character development, it could have used some more.

In the end is this manga worth your time?If girl/girl or abnormal relationships disgust you then kindly skip this and go read something else. However if you like girl/girl then I'd say yes because it’s a short read and it is enjoyable. Be warned it will leave you wanting more.

Normally, I’d try and open with something witty but not to today, this series has left me witless (thank you I’ll be here all week).That’s not to say the series is bad, in fact it’s quite good. I just don’t feel like making a witty opening… okay enough of that, time to talk about Claymore.

First off this is only pertaining to the anime (obviously). So if some question I posed gets answered in the manga, awesome. I’ll probably get around to it sometime but for now anime content only

The story is a good a place as any, so let’s go with that. The story itself ... is a fairly typical revenge plot interlaced with a theme of He who fights monsters. It for the most part works, moves at a nice brisk pace, and is quite enjoyable despite a few minor plot holes. However they are just that, minor, and never really killed my enjoyment. There is a really nice plot twist around episode 9 that I found pretty clever. The story leads the cast into some fun fight scenes and those are probably where the show shines. None of the fights feel dragged out and as said they are a blast to watch. I’m also pretty sure that most of the fights would make some sweet metal covers.

That was the good now for some bad, this dealing more with backstory. The world they live in is poorly fleshed out: towns and locales are interchangeable, their religion is mentioned but very vague and the reason for the Yoma (read monster) is never touched upon. Again this wasn’t a deal breaker for me but it could have made this world feel more alive. Also there is a tendency to throw around the phrase Yoma aura to explain away the claymore’s special moves and kind of feels like a cop out to fill in minor plot holes.

Moving on to sound and art, and as usual my music expertise is that of a tone deaf panda so I’ll keep that section short. The OP and ED are fine and nothing special and their accompanying animations are nice as well. The soundtrack as a whole works very well and a couple songs like Teresa’s theme (or what I’m calling Teresa’s theme) are nice. That’s all I have to say music wise so let’ shift over to art.

Between here and the characters themselves this show succeeds and fails. First the good, the Yoma’s look great. They all are terrifying, look monstrous and actually kind of scared me. They all do tend to rely on more tendrils as they change to a more powerful form but the upgraded forms to looks impressive especially the ones in the final arc. The fights flow beautifully with speed and grace and are very fun to see. The world itself while somewhat bland works and the locales do look nice, but it’s typical fantasy fare.

The Claymores are where the show kind of trips up. They all have a similar look to them and often times I keep confusing one claymore for another. Hell until one character said her name I thought we were following a different claymore. Luckily the main character Clare is distinctive enough that she was never easily lost .That being said the designs while somewhat similar are still very nice and do invoke a kind of cold beauty that the claymores command. I’ll make a side note to mention that the eyes for the Claymore and Yoma are great. I know it sounds weird but they really look cool. I’ll also side note my side note to say that on occasion you’ll get a shot of a serious scene and Clare or someone will have a goofy grin or comically bugged eyes. It’s really disconcerting but is very rare.

Now it’s time for part 2 of fail/succeeds, this time with the characters. We’ll start with the leads Clare and Raki. Clare is beautifully fleshed out in a four episode arc detailing her motivations, which is good because her motivations are what drive the series. She is interesting and you feel sorry for her and want her to succeed in her goal. She grows throughout the series and has a decent closure to her past. Raki while not getting the whole backstory arc is not completely without character development but there is very little past episode 13.He was an okay character but they made good call by downplaying him and not making him a object for Clare to rescue.

Where they drop the ball is the main “villain”, Pricilla, who while getting a decent backstory, serves no real role besides being a counterpoint to Clare. She shows up in the flashback arc and then serves as a passive aggressive threat, not showing up till near the end. Which is sad because when she does show up she’s portrayed as a tragic victim driven by her own blind morality, not even aware she has become what she despises. Obsessed with getting revenge on a person who’s dead to cope with the horrid past. As you can tell I like this character, and I would gladly watch a spinoff of her child hood and what she was doing in the years between her awakening and the series’ final battle.

The other villains while mildly interesting (Ophelia especially) are not that well expanded upon. The same goes for the supporting cast, who are really one note but enjoyable. They interact well, all are fairly sympathetic and to spark me to actually want to learn more about them.

It’s time to wrap this up. My Final thoughts: A decent fantasy show with a good plot and enjoyable characters. Ultimately brought down by its lack of depth. You could do worse but you could also do better. I'd check it out before laying down some cash for it.

The Second Season of Jigoku Shoujo has a few different names: Futakomori, Two Cages, Two Mirrors and my favorite Jigoku Shoujo 2: Electric Boogaloo. Ok I’m kidding on that last one, though Ai sending people to hell via break dancing would be entertaining .Regardless of what it is called it’s still the much improved second season of Jigoku Shoujo, so let’s dive right in.

The stories are the first big improvement, dropping the first season’s clear cut black and white morality for a more realistic grey morality. Gone is the pure innocent victim who is tortured by the big bad tormenter. Now both the victim and ... the receiver of the revenge usually have blood on their hands so to speak. As a result they stories feel somewhat more believable, though they do occasionally throw in someone who is just plain horrible to remind us that some people are really just assholes. The revenges themselves are cut down dramatically but it does make each one we do get much more special and fun. Also it abandons having a more overarching story till about episode 14 and even then it doesn’t pick up until episode 22 but again less is more and it ends wonderfully. The episodes move at much better pace than the first season's and I found myself breezing through this series once I picked it up again after a hiatus.

The main cast gets a new addition in the form of Kikuri, who flirts between gosh darn adorable to holy hell that was scary; she’s a nice foil to the very serious AI. The original 3 helpers now get a more expanded backstories and you get a better feel for the characters. Wanyuudou and Ren’s episodes are fairly good without really detracting from the main revenge plot and Ren’s is probably one of my favorite episodes of the season. Hone Onna is a fine character however; I’m not sure what it is but the 2 episodes that feature her prominently felt very contrived and were probably the worst of the season. As mentioned above characters specific to each story feel more realistic and manage to pull a few tear jerkers for those sent to hell. It also helps that Ai and her group are much more involved with each target giving us that allows for said character development.

The sound and the art were both amazing, the music added to the creepy vibe of the series and it’s always nice to hear Sakasama no Chou again in random places. As usual I’m never quite sure what to say about the art, it looks good and flows nicely. Also special mention should go to Kikuri’s eyes which help the cute to creepy transition though they have a habit of falling in to the uncanny valley when not scaring the hell out of me. Same with the music as mentioned above it builds atmosphere nicely and it’s good not much I can really say.

Overall it’s a great series that plays and subverts the established formula from season one with better character development. It’s a ton fun and shouldn’t be missed especially if you loved the first season and even if you don’t or didn’t watch the first season watches it anyway.

Lets break this odd team up down:


The Story:A very standard story that offers nothing interesting, which is sad, I've seen shows with less time than this offer a unique story.It's a basic collect the maguffins plot that were dropped in to near the end. Never really established what they do asides from being a source of power for both sides That being said it's not horrible just poor . I'll get to characters farther down.



Art:This is where the show shines, the art is very nice looking and the character design is nice if again stranded .Though as a minor nitpick the girls themselves ... have some of the stupidest hats I've ever seen. Not that I'm a stupid hat expert or anything but it just bugged me. The fight scenes,few that they are work well and the broom flying was kinda cool Also I think the bad guy was Yoh from Starry Sky, not quite sure


Sound:I'm not going to say much becasue I noticed very little of it and skipped the ending song.It's not bad but nothing really stands out.At least it's unobtrusive and that's a plus

Characters:This is where things fail hard.They have no development, no establishment of even the most basic relationships and as a result I feel nothing for these characters.With the roughly 20 minutes given I'm not expect deep complex characters but at least something other than stereotypes.We get one inkling of a relationship between Aoi and Suburu but it's never stated if they're sisters,friends or what ever.Ever other character is along for the ride . Suburu gets a bit of small development in that she's a bit thick headed and determined.The main Villain gets a back story about wishes but like everything else it feels rushed and unmemorable.It's kinda hard to say anymore about bland stereotypes.

Overall: I have to say while I've kinda ragged on it,it's not horrible just bland and stupid.Though for some reason I can't shake the feeling that the whole thing is taking the piss out of the Magic Girl genre.If I find out it is this could easily be a 7 or 8 overall.However since it seems to be doing it straight faced then it's a solid 4. Is it a waste of time? Not unless you can't spare about 20-30 minutes of your life. If not just go watch the much better Mahou Shoujo Madoka★Magica or if you haven't already seen it Mai-Hime.Both which are better.

When They Cry defiantly flirts with greatness but ends up just missing the mark.

Up to the first "answer arc" things are great: the atmosphere is disturbing, the build-up is excellent, and the climaxes terrifying. The characters are introduced and fleshed out well via their respective arcs. It balances humor with the horror in a way that makes the horror more effective.

Then the aforementioned answer arcs roll around and things start to drag. Yes there are some disturbing things but it just drags with not much happing till around episode 25-26 where things heat up as the series closes out the ... season. The Finale is probably one of the best episodes for it's tense scenes and bombshell ending.

It's a great series overall and defiantly worth a watch.