Shiki 4 – Vampiric Pink Eye

Well, either that or switching on the vampire headlights during the evening turns you into an owl. Megumi can even swivel her head around at angles humans cannot achieve! That is impressive.

The final scene is actually pretty cool because it does what the best horror is especially good at — undermining the viewer’s perception of reality and tapping into a freaky ass situation. I’m 50/50 on whether Yuuki is actually dreaming right now. Certain visual cues hint that he is dreaming, but Tatsumi of course received the all-important invite to Tohru’s home, and he did promise to bring a friend along. See, this is why you shouldn’t cross wannabe starlets: You never know when they’ll be bitten and cursed with the blight of the undead, only to come back and haunt you at a later date. It’s a real threat, people!

Giant Killing 17 – Ball Don’t Lie

Have to say I breathed a sigh of relief for Sera after hearing that is injury is “just” a mild sprain, although don’t let the “mild” part of that fool you — it’s pretty damn painful! I sprained my ankle playing tennis in high school; it probably wasn’t as bad as Sera’s sprain, and it still hurt like a bastard. There’s nothing mild about a sprain.

Compared to the pain of a sprain, however, sitting out a game and being unable to help your teammates out hurts much more. Not that I can relate too much, because I was one of the low men on the totem pole on my tennis team, but hell, even being unable to go out and play at all really sucked. Presumably an athlete plays a sport not just because he or she is competitive and wants to reach new athletic heights, but also because playing the game is just damn fun. I wasn’t too great at tennis; however, I enjoyed playing it quite a bit, and still enjoy doing so, even though I don’t have as many opportunities as in the past. Nobody who enjoys playing a sport wants to sit on his or her ass while everyone else is out pushing themselves as hard as possible. It blows.

High School of the Dead 4 – Pumping Gas and Lead

Not a whole lot going on in this episode unless you are a fan of recap. Weird to see so much this early on in the game, though. There isn’t much of substance after that either. The bus crew just hangs around a bit and scowls at Shido because he is being a big, gross Pedobear, and Rei and Takashi have a squabble before gunning down gunning down one of the Yellow Scarves extras. Also, groping.

So there isn’t too much to go on when it comes to the death chart this week, but hey, not having too much more new information never stopped me from posting before, so why should it stop me now?

Macross Plus – The Fun of Flight

I am a total pussy when it comes to heights, but I’ve always loved the pure sensation of flight. For whatever reason, I get the shakes going up slowly in a glass elevator, but put me a mile high, and I’ll look out the window and think, “Holy shit, this is awesome!” Too bad I’ve been on an airplane just three times in my life.

I can appreciate a work that loves flight to the point of fetishizing it; that’s a huge part of what drew me into Macross Plus almost immediately. It has been nearly 16 year since the original release of Macross Plus . . . and holy mother of god does it ever still look amazing. Not just the detail of the art and the fluidity of the animation (though both are fantastic), but also the pure joy that you get from everything when the creators allow the action to go crazy. There is some heavy, petty stuff in the relationship among main characters Isamu Dyson, Guld Goa Bowman and Myung Fang Long, so it’s always a welcome distraction when the animators let ‘er rip.

Shiki 3 – Don’t Invite Them In, You Fools!!

This is what happens when you are too friendly — you end up inviting the vampire Terminator to your place.

So, things are moving ever so slightly more, and we get our first look at the new folks in town, aside from the Vampinator up there. And they don’t waste any time putting themselves in a position where they can take advantage of the polite country folk and get wholesale invitations for good ol’ feasting. Like Joojoobees, I noticed that Shiki is sticking the convention of vampires requiring to be invited inside someone’s home before they can follow and take advantage of them.

A Compendium of Cool Characters

Sort of a lie. This isn’t summarizing anything massive; just a little ol’ post inspired by ghostlightning’s post on the why of favoriting characters over at THAT Anime Blog. I’m also a dirty bandwagon hopper, because Rakuen at Borderline Hikikomori has already taken the lead on this. But, hey, bandwagon hopping every once in a while isn’t so bad, right?

(P.S. Still thinking a bit on how to tackle a Macross Plus post. Just know that I greatly enjoyed the OVA and would heartily recommend it to anyone, even those who might be a bit wary of Macross.)

Giant Killing 16 – Timely Untimely Injury

Haha, definitely have to give Giant Killing some props here.

Can’t believe the possibility that Sera would get injured never occurred to me. Isn’t it a great irony? (Well, not for Sera, but for the audience.) We don’t know what specific type of injury Sera has, but it’s a safe bet that he has injury Natsuki had — a knee all torn to shreds. Sera tries to protect his spot as best he can, but in doing so he succumbs to the same fate that befell Natsuki. Sad. (Although Sera is actually holding the upper leg area, so perhaps it’s not the same as Natsuki’s injury? It’s in the same ballpark, at any rate.) I’ve never had a serious injury, but as a sports fan I have been regaled constantly with stories of athletes going through rehab. That shit is painful and grueling.

(Another quick note: Would it be too much to assume that this was lightly foreshadowed during the Nagoya game? I’m on the fence about it. On the one hand, it’s difficult to believe that having Sera be briefly injured was not a deliberate choice on the part of the author. On the other hand, it was a back injury. But if it were foreshadowing, that would be kind of cool. Not, uh, for Sera, of course.)

High School of the Dead 3 – Democratic Problems

Again, story is pretty standard, but it’s good that there’s a bit more action with each episode. Also nice to finally see another element of conflict enter the picture with Shido taking the opportunity to usurp authority from a bunch of kids and a busty nurse. Any way you can get some power, right? Did lol at the bus physics (not that I expected anything other than crazy Hollywood stunt driving) and Takashi being a good motorcyclist despite not being licensed (although that’s forgivable; just because he’s unlicensed doesn’t mean he couldn’t have learned from somewhere).

On to the death chart . . .

Shiki 2 – What’s the Diagnosis?

Besides murder, that is. *dodges tomatoes*

I like that Shiki is doing the “*wink *wink* CONSPIRACY” angle with the audience while the characters are fumbling around trying to find the source of the mysterious disease killing people off ’round town. A similar “epidemic” being around 20 years prior, one common symptom among those who have died, mysterious new people who have moved into town . . . wait, that last part hasn’t come into play yet. Baby steps for the amateur detectives!

SDF Macross – Making Culture the Fun Way

SDF Macross achieves something I love and respect: It is serious without being very serious at all.

The set-up is classic Serious Business. Humanity has finished reconstruction of an alien craft that landed on Earth 10 years prior. During the launching ceremony, an alien race, the Zentradi, picks up on the activiation of the ship and identifies it as a battleship used by their enemies. And then, as the Zentradi make an approach, long dormant systems activate in the ship, dubbed the Macross, and fire upon the Zentradi scouts, accidentally starting an intergalactic war.

(Spoilers for SDF Macross within this post. Don’t read if you haven’t watched the series and plan to do so.)