#for a guy with two dimensions he sure is multifaceted

[easeinjazzout]

cannot properly express in words the kinds of things your work makes me feel so @ckret2 i am peeling that triangle like a potato

[svynakee]

Promare thoughts/impressions

Watched Promare. Overall, enjoyed it very much and it was everything I expected it to be (extremely TRIGGER, basically). A visual feast that definitely satisfied my shonen action hunger. In summary though, I really wish it’d been a 12 ep anime.

Spoilers ahead.

LIKES

Visuals: Loved the stylisation. The vivid, pastel flames and the polygonal ice made a nice contrast and it looks so different not only from other anime films but also from other animations by the same studio? Brilliant.

TRIGGER being themselves: Illogical story with a grand scope, bombastic action hero, easily distinguishable character designs.

Hiroyuki Sawano: His music is just what you’d expect from someone of his calibre. Absolutely floored; also, quite a range in the soundtrack! I remember especially when Galo starts talking about the Japanese firefighters the music shifts to something more traditional.

Galo not being racist: Well, not being prejudiced. While its pretty par for the course to have a protagonist learn to overcome his prejudices in this sort of story, the fact that a person in the rescue ops doesn’t, you know, hate the victims who cause the disasters he’s meant to respond to is very logical.

Kiss follow-up: The no-homo fake out. Not gonna lie, they had me in the first half when Galo recoiled and seemed disgusted. But it would’ve made no sense because like he said, it was a medical procedure he’s been trained to do. Putting his mouth on anyone, regardless of gender, should not have grossed him out. And it didn’t! Being unhappy that he ‘started a fire’ makes more sense because his entire job (passion) is about stopping Burnish. There’s a real lack of hetero-signalling here actually. Promare’s not afraid to let its viewers decide how Galo swings.

Female gaze: Yeah sure there’s that shot where Aina’s butt is on display but the camera sure seems magnetised towards Lio’s crotch.

Lio’s refreshing morosexuality: Once they start working together in earnest, Lio is quick to just indulge in Galo’s quirks. He trusts the guy easily but not to the point that he stops calling him out for stupidity. Very movies end with me knowing that characters from opposing sides have a strong friendship ahead of them. Promare is one. I might talk more about Lio’s match with Galo more elsewhere, but for now, I do like how he isn’t shutting Galo down/constantly arguing which is what you usually see when a serious character has to work with a boisterous one.

DISLIKES

So most of my dislikes come from the fact that it’s a movie. There’s no way they could’ve done otherwise in a 1:51 timeframe, but knowing what the studio’s capable of, I can’t help but wish I saw their full potential.

Character development: Nobody really grew. Not every story needs it and not every character needs to change, but the lack of flaws addressed hurt Galo and Lio’s memorability I think. I kept expecting Galo’s impulsiveness to bite him in the ass. Didn’t see it much except for his confrontation with Kray. I even thought the ‘don’t pose and focus’ thing might come back, notably during the Lio de Galon fight when Kray keeps justifying his robot’s weaponry as terraforming equipment. Galo and Lio are just the type to shut him up and point out ‘If it’s being used to hurt people, it’s a weapon! If you hurt others, you’re a villain! Nothing can justify that!��� since it fits thematically into that fight as well.

Streamlined plot: TRIGGER has been shown to have a good grasp of story pacing. It can feed you one bit of ridiculousness at a time until they bring out something awesome but extremely stupid, knowing that they’ve tempered you enough it’ll just be epic. In this timeframe, that just didn’t happen. Not enough foreshadowing, too many crazy concepts introduced too late, and there was more than one Deus Ex Machina if you know what I mean. Instead of a proper build up that ended on a strong final note, it felt like a brief but sudden blaze that flickers out to leave darkness.

Less dynamic camera: Made it hard to follow the action sometimes. In a way it’s like the plot; too much momentum and not enough time to process it. A good spectacle is worth nothing if there’s no chance to digest it.

Flat supporting cast: Again, this is because TRIGGER’s animes have been strong in this aspect. The movie timeframe means limited screen time, but Mad Max Fury Road had only ten more minutes and managed to set up its supporting cast well. In Promare, they’re mostly reduced to archetypes. What are their relationships? Motivations? They feel more like talking props, like the NPCs you have milling about the map shouting flavour text. There might be more in the supplementary material but for the movie itself, I didn’t like most of the characters not named Lio or Galo. In fact-

Don’t like Galo: Or rather, don’t find him compelling. Unlike Ryuko or Simon, I don’t think he could carry a series. He lacks depth and drive beyond ‘I am a firefighter’. Sure, he’s stupid and loud, but those are personality traits, not a personality. Being nice, determined, having a love of pizza…these all feel so generic and TRIGGER is capable of so much more. Galo feels like an alright lead in a movie where a lot is happening, so he doesn’t have to carry anything in terms of emotion or drive, but he’d be boring in a full-length series. Or even a movie trilogy.

Don’t like Lio?: While I don’t agree that every conflict has two equal sides, I dislike how squeaky-clean Lio is. He feels more like the shonen protagonist than Galo sometimes. He’s caring, skilled, honourable, intelligent, determined. His flaws? If you shoot him then try to commit genocide he’ll knock on your door and ask to fight you. It’s unclear if there’s any casualties during his rampage, which makes sense because we know his flames can be harmless (by his choice) and he was specifically threatening to destroy Kray’s city unless Kray listened. On the other side you have Vulcan and Kray. He could’ve afforded a bit more ruthlessness and still come out clearly heroic. It would have given him more intensity to better contrast Galo.

WHAT I WANTED

In summary? Promare as an anime instead of a film. I’d give up smooth fights and shiny CGI any day for stronger writing and characters with impact.

Longer timeframe in-universe: The plot essentially takes place over a week, which limits how much development characters and relationships can undergo. Lio feels too ready to trust Galo. Galo can’t process Kray’s betrayal. The sisters’ story is just kind of shoved on you like unwanted vegetables spooned out by a health-conscious mother. Dr. Exposition suddenly comes in and starts tying up loose ends so abruptly I had to check my phone to see if the movie was almost over. The short timeframe means Promare feels like a marathon-length sprint.

More moral ambiguity: The Mad Burnish are still righteous and try to minimise damage. However, their plans don’t always work. They leave escape routes but fail to account for impaired mobility. Young Burnish lose control while they’re on the run, endangering ordinary humans. Lio is forced to make tough choices. He becomes more jaded, which leads up to the betrayal where he can truly break and begin rampaging. I’m not saying he needed a full Satsuki Kiryuuin thing, but damn do I miss her sheer badass aura. Lio lacks that dangerous feeling. You know he’s apologising inside if he steps on you.  

Galo’s popularity: Galo is shown to have great PR and love playing the crowd. Kray has good PR. The Burnish have bad PR. Instead of Prometh looping a vid with his hacking powers, Galo could’ve convinced the city of Kray’s evil the traditional way: a big speech about humanity and believing in yourself (and not Kray because Kray is evil).

Promare: Lio tells us the fire is alive. Interesting. Prometh says the fire is actually aliens from a parallel dimension whose prime directive is to burn also they feel pain if the Burnish are hurt. My reaction is like Galo’s: I sleep. The entire concept of the promare…I just don’t like it. Maybe I don’t like how they al disappear at the end and fix the Burnish.

In my ideal Promare, the things I love TRIGGER for would all be present. Strong supporting cast. Multifaceted characters. Build up that just gets more ridiculous and epic at a steady pace. Good fights but also quieter breather moments. More jokes.

More Promare, basically.

[wendyhermansongeller]

Lukas Graham Frontman Talks Politics, Fatherhood, and '7 Years' Worth of Grammy Nominations

The list of 2017 Grammy Award nominations, revealed in December, was filled with a handful of dominant and expected pop royalty, most of them female and in need of only one name. But then, there was a name that popped up three times among the Beyoncés, Adeles, and Rihannas: Lukas Graham.

That name, as fans well know by now, does not denote a single person, but rather a group of four Danish young men who tickled our ears for most of 2016 with the ubiquitous single “7 Years,” a raw tune with heartfelt lyrics, soaring vocals, and a cultural presence that ultimately scored Grammy nods for Record of the Year, Song of the Year, and Pop Duo/Group Performance.

Frontman Lukas Forchhammer not only lends his first and middle names to the band — he also serves as a flesh-and-blood personification of the multifaceted charm its music delivers. He grew up honing wrong-side-of-the-street smarts in a Copenhagen-area collective, while simultaneously developing his ethereal soprano as a classically trained choirboy. As one might expect, he’s an equally flexible conversationalist, tossing well-thought-out opinions on everything from music to politics in quick order.

Yahoo Music sat down with the singer to get his thoughts on this year’s Grammys, the band’s next direction, and his very favorite event of 2016.

YAHOO MUSIC: You’re up for three Grammys next month. How many musicians from your country have been nominated for Grammys?

LUKAS FORCHHAMMER: Eleven Danes have been nominated, three have won, and the most prominent Grammy was won for best rock ‘n’ roll piece in 1962 — by Danish composer/piano player Bent Fabricius-Bjerre with the melody “Alley Cat.” The funny thing about that story is he didn’t even go to the awards ceremony, because he was up against Elvis Presley and he was expecting not to win! So when he won, he was in Denmark. He jokes about it still, he’s like 92 years old now: “Well, that would have been the highlight of my career, but I missed it!” [laughs]

Hopefully you plan to be there this year!

We definitely going to be there, just to experience an award ceremony — for not one, not two, but three Grammys! We’re very satisfied with just being nominated. It feels very, very heartwarming to be voted by peer-by-peer voting.

Given what an explosive year you’ve had, did those nominations actually come as a surprise?

I was very surprised. But also, two months before our nominations, I became a father. So that’s like the biggest and most crazy thing for me to happen in 2016 — having a little daughter. The Grammy nominations were like icing on the cake. I’m driving through eastern Ohio, western Pennsylvania, in the tour bus with my baby girl, and I’m getting the news of being nominated for these Grammys — it was a little too magical of a moment. It was one of those moments: “Something’s gotta go wrong in the next hours, otherwise this is too crazy great.” [laughs]

Plus, the unreality of it all must have been magnified by that fuzzy, sleep-deprived new-parent stage…

You don’t get much sleep, but there’s also so much love, all these love hormones. And all these thoughts about the future and your own childhood. And then suddenly three Grammys on top of that while you’re touring America (laughs), it’s an unfathomable feeling. I didn’t know that you could add on to that wonderful feeling of being a parent.

“7 Years” is a standout song in the Grammy categories it’s nominated in. What do you think is the main element of its extreme and universal appeal?

Speaking in hindsight it’s always easy to figure out what is the good part of a song or why are we listening to it. But it’s also a very dangerous path to go down. I think very simply the song is so different from everything else on the radio that it stands out naturally. But also it talks about a subject that is so close to heart — it talks about family, and dreams, and ambitions as you’re growing older. It made it very understandable to the musical audience. It’s not very pretentious.

It’s also unique in that it really doesn’t have an easy hook. Rather, it has a prolonged buildup, which you don’t find often these days in pop music.

It’s all a hook. If you think further back, to like folk musicians — if you take a Woody Guthrie song, “This Land is My Land,” the way the melody keeps repeating itself…It is basically back to country ballads. It’s what we would call Bise in Danish — a basic folk structure where the retentive melody makes sure you remember what you’re supposed to be singing. I just like different song structures and styles, being a classically trained soprano soloist, growing up with a lot of folk music, rock ‘n’ roll, British invasion bands, rap music. I just find it annoying that people say “Oh, but a song has to sound like this, grow like this.” Why does it have to do that? Why can’t we change the structure because we feel like it?

In one interview earlier last year, you mentioned that you don’t even think “7 Years” is your best song.

I don’t, but then again, it kind of changes which song I’m happiest about performing or singing or just listening to myself. I’m a very prolific writer and I think I have better songs in me to come, definitely. Now that I’ve become a father I’ve got this new dimension to love, life, and my writing.

Do you ever worry, then, that “7 Years” might become the centerpiece of your career, given its tremendous popularity?

I think that if we let ourselves be afraid of a song like that [becoming] the paramount experience of my career, then it will be. If I let it control us, it will be a problem. But instead, I think we’ll just brush it off and keep going.

It may be too soon to ask, but do you have an idea of where you want to go with your next album?

I don’t ever really do that. We’re not the kind of guys who sit down and say “We need six songs that sound like this, and then two in this direction.” [“7 Years”] was just a sneak peek into my life between the ages of 18 and 20, and 30. The next album is going to be my life now as a parent, a touring musician, and a citizen of this world.

I’ll probably be a little more political on the next record, probably talk about some gender politics, role model politics, maybe have a song about how are we communicating with each other. Because, to be honest with you, I find most of our public communication and media communication is so ugly that it really sickens me to my stomach.

Touring America during the period preceding the presidential election must really have sickened you, then, given the extreme vitriol being hurled around.

The political conversation took this turn because the political elites failed to recognize there is a world outside the major cities. And it’s the same in Europe, and Denmark — political and economic elites keep forgetting at the end of the day a democracy is a lot of things. And you need to take into consideration what goes on in rural parts of America and Europe. Small hillbilly towns also need to be heard. It happened too much in American and European history that we dismissed the poor white population as being stupid and ignorant. But the fact is that they are very much there, and they’re a huge part of political life.

You have seen a lot of this first-hand growing up and getting into your share of what some would term juvenile delinquent acts, yes?

I have indeed seen a lot of it first-hand and participated in a lot of juvenile delinquency first-hand. And I would have to say that juvenile delinquency comes from a society and culture that is not valuing what these young people have to offer. I mean, if you look at all our celebrities, they’re supposed to look young and act young and be young, but we’re not letting our young people be young. Kids aren’t allowed to be kids, but everyone’s getting Botox and fake tits.

It’s interesting, because it seems the natural musical outlet for a rebellious childhood would be a genre like punk, or gangsta rap — something with anger. Lukas Graham isn’t anything like that.

I spent so much of my life being angry, being afraid, and feeling downtrodden and sorry for myself. Be it the way that the police treated me as a teenager, or the way schoolteachers treated me in primary school and high school, or be it the way other kids’ parents looked at us. Because of the way we spoke, everyone knew where we were from, and we just weren’t welcomed everywhere like most normal kids were. When you grow up like that, at some point you become either permanently angry, festering, or you switch it up and do something about it.

Speaking of switching it up: A totally different topic. How are you managing to balance fatherhood and a musical career? It must be difficult.

No not at all, I find it very easy to balance work and my child. But then again, I’m from Denmark — my girlfriend went on maternity leave for a full year from her college. She’s basically getting a state-funded scholarship, which everyone in Denmark gets for a certain amount of time when you study. So for a full year she’s getting $600-800 a month while she’s taking care of the baby and on tour with me. The system that we grew up in Denmark facilitates parenthood and bonding with your child. Fathers in Denmark can choose to do paternity leave up to eight months. So my country is definitely making it a lot easier to be a new father.

That’s wonderful, but, still — a career in entertainment has logistics that are just naturally challenging to blend with parenting.

I grew up in a world where I saw everybody making hindrances for themselves. Everything becomes more and more problematic: “Oh, we can’t do this because of that…oh, this is going to be difficult.” Or else you just do it and make it work. Make that decision to make your life easier rather than more difficult. Make that decision to facilitate things rather than not.

And, it’s my girlfriend who makes sure that I can do this. If she wasn’t in on it—if she wasn’t prepared to facilitate me being a father, it would be very difficult and I wouldn’t see my child for three weeks at a time. So I’m very grateful that she wants to go on tour with me, and live this lifestyle for a while. Ask me again in a year when she’s back studying her masters, and I can’t just bring the baby on tour.

“7 Years,” as well as the rest of your album, was largely inspired by the death of your father. What do you think he would have thought of these songs if he had been able to hear them?

I think he would have liked them; that I took a turn and started writing more personal lyrics. Real songs about real life. I think he’d be very proud of what we achieved. But it’s a Catch-22 question, you know, because if my father hadn’t died when he died, I wouldn’t have written the songs that made me travel all around the world. We can’t get everything. And it’s OK. [There’s] a lovely Japanese proverb written as a haiku: “You can’t catch all the falling leaves in the autumn.”

Back to the Grammys. Is there any one of your three nominations that you would most particularly like to win?

Song of the Year definitely would mean more — I mean, I don’t even dare to hope for one — but Song of the Year because it is in celebration of the writing process and the creative process leading up to the song being released. I like to be acknowledged for the fact that I write my own music, and that I have a hand in the creative process. But any of the three, I mean c’mon! It’s winning a Grammy!

What if you win all three?

If we get all three, I’ll shave my head. On the Grammy podium (laughs)

[courage-a-word-of-justice]

Tsukigakirei 4 | Kado 4 | Boku no Hero Academia 18 | Grimoire of Zero 4 | Oushitsu Kyoushi Haine 5

Tsukigakirei 4

By the by, episode 5’s title (Kokoro) is a reference to a Natsume Souseki book, just in case you were wondering when we were properly going to get to the Souseki stuff.

That gold dragon case Kotaro has is cool as. I want one…

There’s one scene with a lot of iron poles that I can’t quite decipher in regards to whether it’s CGI or not…(around 4:56 on CR).

Why is it that every time characters do Touristy Things ™, there are slow pans of scenery? It kinda pisses me off ever since it happened in Blue Exorcist…

Selfies are still popular with people, I see. Thought they’d died out already…

Oh gosh. The CGI got so obvious in this, it’s about the same level as cars in Alice to Zouroku (which look hella blocky)!

(when Akane walks out of the store) I know the feel, Akane. I know the feel too well.

Why is getting on the scale such a big deal in Japan? I get it for Akane’s friend who does it here, since girls are conscious about their weight more than boys, and I get it for Atsushi (Boueibu) as Boueibu’s a parody of content targeted at girls, but the scale is in such an obvious place in bath places…

Although the show has passed the Bechdel test already (unlike some of my works…ouch…) I feel that even with the “honesty” thing Tsukigakirei has going, it does kinda fall into a stereotype of “girls talk about boys” if it’s not focussing on the track stuff and that feels kinda disappointing. Girls can be more multifaceted than that, just like boys can.

The girls are eating dango. You can see those in Touken Ranbu all the time.

The CGI people makes this look like (what I know of) Ajin, and that’s bad.

Do you know about that Japanese graffiti where you put two names under an umbrella as a sign of love? Yeah…this is kinda like that.

“I want to talk wih you more” does not equal “I want to be your boyfriend/girlfriend”, kiddos. Remember that.

Kado 4

I’ve noticed between the start of the Sports Festival Arc (BnHA), Kado and Tsukigakirei, I’m yelling “hurry up!” at my screen a lot. Considering how great the latter two are despite their slow pace, I don’t mind those ones being subjected to my yelling, but BnHA is meant to be a fast mover by virtue of its genre. Also, since the three are received in the same 2 day period, it’s inevitable they’ll continue to get comparisons to each other.

29th of what month?

I should’ve known…Shindo would’ve decided to release children and mothers first, because it makes sense. *nods understandingly*

Oh, it’s the 25th of July this stuff started on. Okay. On the subject of Kado, I must say the artstyle of both the adaptional manga and the Railgun one (for after ep 5) don’t do the show any justice. Shindo and Shunina’s faces are too squashed on the Railgun promo image (plus the dot style is weird), while the adaptational manga’s faces for those two don’t look as beautiful as the merch images (exhibit A is the cover page for the linked chapter, the noses don’t look right there). (Then again, I can be very picky about this stuff, considering I am a lover of bishies and I tend to have high standards of “beauty”…)

The manhug was unintentionally suspenseful (when it happened) and funny (after it happened).

I’m not sure if bob girl (forgot her name) should be happy about this, because she sure looks happy.

Why Hanamori, the incompetent one? Then again, there must be a reason why Hanamori hangs around with Shindo and I can understand Shindo’s need for movement.

Wowee, Shindo. I can’t believe you just fired yourself…

They’re focussing on the UN, that’s rare…! I should’ve known it was coming due to Shindo belonging to it, but anime is normally very Japan-centric and never moves from that sphere.

I’ve never been to Haneda (as of this commentary), but what’s up with that dancing girl statue?

It’s quite interesting, not as a fellow person but as a viewer of this show, to note Shindo overworks himself and that he operates off adrenaline. He seems basically superhuman with all his negotiation skills.

A senpai is getting scolded by a kouhai tsundere. Never thought I’d see that in my life. Also, when Saraka thrusts the iPad at Shindo, notice how fluid and fast the motion is. That truly is evidence for how good the CGI is.

“Yahakui zaShunina is hot.” “I love the pattens on the side of Kado.” – *nods* I agree with these people. Two of many reasons why I’m in Kado hell at the moment. However, do note the exact word used for the Kado statement is ステキ, not “love” (suki) but rather “wonderful” (suteki), i.e. “The patterns on the side of Kado are wonderful”, there appears to be an unsubbed statement saying “あれプロジェクションマッピング？” (“Is that projection mapping?”) and the Shunina statement appears to say “Yahakui zaShunina is cool”, rather than saying “he’s hot”, so the “hot” is an implication at best, nonexistent at worst. If you find these words familiar, it’s because I copied them for this post.

Hey, it’s this guy. No wonder the staff needed ep 1.

Google-sensei says plastic is not conductive normally, but since it’s organic, it can be made to be conductive. Hence conductive plastics. Also, NMR appears to be this.

Senbei. After all the big sciency things I’ve noted for this show, senbei is a real laugh.

So basically speaking…it’s kinda like nuclear bombs all over again...

La Luna (White Parasite) was into human stories, and it had a collection of storybooks which gave it inspiration to make the magicians themed after fairytales and itself after a kitsune. The Kado staff applied a similar concept to Shunina and I must say they’ve done it much better than I ever did.

It’s heartbreaking to see the bromance end. Just seeing Hanamori in tears makes me wanna hug him, dangit.

It’s an odd choice to note China was one of the countries highlighted in the explanation of “countries”, as Japan and China don’t have the best relationship in history.

Even if the Japanese fought in self-defence using the JSDF, they wouldn’t be able to fight against international military action…and the Japanese Constitution said they renounced war after World War II…*gulps* (You can really tell I brushed up on 20th century history before getting here, eh?)

Seeing Shunina using a phone is just…*laughs* fabulous! It’s something I never would’ve thought of for La Luna, although I did accidentally stumble across a spoiler for it on Tumblr last week (…so I knew it would happen eventually, but that’s my fault).

What in this dimension and Shunina’s do the government people want with Kanata??? Man, these cliffhangers every week are really getting to me, dangit! (Sidenote: I love, love, love shows that make me want to watch the next ep every week, but simulcasts do give you the unique hell of waiting one week to find out what happens next, assuming you don’t want to get spoiled in the process.)

Boku no Hero Academia 18

“Yaoyorozu’s Creation is too hard to deal with!”

Interesting to note Bakugou only says “Kirishima”. (I noticed it last time but only made a note of it this time.)

I knew this from spoilers already (in fact, Monoma was how I learnt the Japanese word for “to copy” – monomane suru!) but Monoma is a copycat guy. I didn’t know how the Quirk was introduced though, so that was great.

Wowee, Monoma really likes provoking people, eh?

It’s the small things, like the knocks on Kirishima’s head, that make this show a delight to watch.

Small sidenote, but I think Endeavour’s flaming beard is great. As I said, the small things are what makes it a delight to watch…because it’s so unique.

Grimoire of Zero 4

Oh great, this merchant again…

Those apples are so misshapen, I sometimes think they’re pears.

At first I thought the subbers were lazy but then I realised…it’s a montage. D’oh.

“The sky is so blue.” – Yeah, and the rainbows are all rainbowy. (sarcastic)

At least Albus knows where the fish is, LOL.

It’s a bit dizzying to have a sudden cut to a rock, but at least that makes for a unique humour experience. Not ina metaphorical sense, mind you – I almost felt like I was going to be dizzy because of the suddenness of thecut.

I have a bad feeling about Latette, because of what Albus said. It’s kinda like that point in Mulan where they’re singing “A Girl Worth Fighting For” and suddenly, bam! You get my drift?

A burnt doll. See? Mulan de ja vu all over again. The only difference is how the houses are intact this time.

Grimoire of Zero isn’t bad, and I still want to know what happens next in it, but it could aim to be less cliché. The chemistry of the characters really sells it, so maybe the show should learn to focus on that in the future while continuing its worldbuilding and theme exploration (instead of going on about, say, Zero having romantic interest in Mercenary).

Royal Tutor 5

In this one shot of Viktor on a horse, it’s like someone crossed Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure with Napoleon…and that’s funny(!)

Ooh, who’s this guy with the green eyes? He looks a lot like Sebastian (Michaelis, Black Butler) or Pad-kun’s human form (Classicaloid).

Was that green statue CGI? If it was, the CGI was pretty obvious.

I never explained this earlier, but I found the word oushitsu in a Japanese-English dictionary. It means “royal family”, despite the second character meaning “room”.

Ooh. The King. Such pretty, such wow. (I like him.)

Hmph. This sort of plot is what you’d see in something like Masamune-kun’s Revenge. (In fact, I bring that name up because in one of the episodes, a plot like that does indeed happen.) Does this mean this show’s getting sloppy? I hope that’s not the case.

I guess the feeling of defeat setting in means the battle’s over before it’s even begun, eh? So don’t feel down, get motivated, Leonhard…or something like that.

One plus one can equal 11 or window, depending on how you look at it.

Wuh? That’s just your interests, Licht.

Oh! Sachertorte. Didn’t think of that, even though Kai did foreshadow it.

I think all teachers (and then some people who are not teachers, me included) understand that sentiment already, Heine. It’s called the “growth mindset”, to use some buzzwords from a former teacher of mine. (Speaking of “growth mindset”, I got a poster about it from said teacher. That’s why I still remember the concept.)

I think the animators aimed for a determined expression (at “Hurry up and teach me!”) but Leo’s frown makes him look like a sorrowful puppy.

I think this anime would benefit if it had more of that thick line style Leo took on for a second there.

Oh. The palace is CGI in those sky shots. No wonder I thought it was off somehow. The CGI actually makes the palace look realistic. It’s a very Kado way of applying CGI and when Kado is my standard of CGI that I like, that is something this show should be proud of.

Oh! Another foreshadowed loophole I should have seen coming.

There is a strange object in the back that appears to be CGId. It looks like it’s shaped like a fireplace, and it’s a good thing that it follows the Kado application style. (Then again, me noticing weird CGI things is just a habit…)

Well, this is a new interesting development. Hopefully we can get to the truth behind Heine’s past without having the anime be sloppy or cut off in the middle of the developments (like Nanbaka).