#19.8.24

[samsi6]

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seit anbeginn war

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der hochrisikobereich

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kleineres übel

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[joshhhhhhhhhhhhhhh]

Giving myself one more quick post before I watch the last episode - although as a quick sidenote proud of myself for how much progress I've made today, fully expected to take a lot longer so this feels good.

Anyway, couple episodes have happened, couple thoughts on the lot - this second season is so much better at actual plotting stuff lol. There's a particular scene wherein Melissa recounts how her dad basically arranged a marriage for her, and she ran out on the day of the wedding to join the marines as a fuck you, and draws her own little conclusion about how important her decision was here. That word, "decision", rubs off on Sousuke, gets him thinking, and yeah, he makes a big decision accordingly. It's actually a really good scene, the story Melissa recalls is like really naturally integrated into the setting, you're not even watching it thinking "how is this gonna affect Sousuke" it's just actually like good natural dialogue, and it also fleshes her out at the same time. As a sidenote in this same scene Melissa when scouting out areas to look for an invisible mech says we can leave any areas with birds because "the ECS can't hide an AS in the UV spectrum" and like hello, real robot details? That was cool. Also her making that observation reminds us of her being an actually competent military figure, like genuinely this shit was just very good. I couldn't even stand seeing her in hte first season, what an improvement.

Melissa stuff aside, Sousuke really goes through it in these episodes. Even almost has a hookup with a prostitute who looks nearly identical to Kaname. More adult-feeling season holding true. But there's a particular bit I really liked, wherein through figuring out a series of incidental clues, Sousuke is led to a room wherein he sees none other than Gauron on a bed. Now, I actually knew Gauron came back alive because I was skimming my friend's MAL and saw his note for Second Raid, but I didn't know the how or when, but you know what? It was kind of awesome. I was dreading it for a bit there because he was sort of annoying anyway and how the hell does he survive a self-destruct season, but they justify it with Lambda Driver stuff (makes sense, he was clearly the strongest user of it anyway) and having him be in critical condition anyway. And hey, what does he do? Well, provides some exposition, which was whatever, but more than anything riles up Sousuke. Remember a few episodes ago when I was lamenting that some new guy was the impotus for Sousuke's development? How much I wish it was someone else instead? Well I got what I wanted, and it was through Gauron. Insane. Good scene in general, and a particular highlight is Sousuke getting the catharsis of finishing Gauron off here. It was a bit of a pathetic death, Gauron starts telling him Kaname died and Sousuke, pissed off, shoots multiple bullets into Gauron's already-on-life-support body, but I think that works for this part of the show. Good stuff in general.

Anyway I'll uh, I'll finish the show now.

[joshhhhhhhhhhhhhhh]

Will watch more today but stopping for a food break. Pretty good pair of episodes I think. In general I think The Second Raid feels a lot more interested in itself than s1 was, and I mean that as a compliment - we're actually seeing the different departments in Mithril and the way they all operate, which leads to challenging Tessa's relative pacifism and position as a whole, all stuff I really appreciate after s1 kinda just had "we're a nice military unit smile" and Tessa was just "moe anime waifu but she happens to be a military captain but like basically just in name only" and shit, it's a step-up. Characterisation is also better across the board, aforementioned Tessa thing for a start but something like Mao chewing out Sousuke for being caught between a rock and a hard place fleshes out her own characterisation much more than she ever had before, and the ensuing interactions between Sousuke and Kaname accordingly are pretty good stuff - haircut scene was legitimately good. Also much better setpieces, crashing an expensive party and having a guns'n'cars chase scene afterwards, Mao repeatedly knocking out the very guy they've abducted, that was fun. I guess just everything that we had before has been improved quite a bit.

Although sort of iffy on some of the new stuff still - I praised the season's increased maturity but seeing the twins give a guy a quick handy before slitting his throat was odd, and then having current main villain guy clearly be jacking it to... videos of small animals? You've flummoxed me, Full Metal Panic.

Oh well. More in a bit.

[lottiebabyarchive]

Lottie on her IG story 🤍

[lottiebabyarchive]

Lottie on her IG story 🤍

[lottiebabyarchive]

Lottie on her IG story 🤍

[joshhhhhhhhhhhhhhh]

Finished! Score in a few days - I have a friend I've been talking about these with every week and I kinda wanna talk to him first. He's not choosing my score or anything, but I think the back-and-forth will help me get my thoughts in order and decide where to leave it. Because as it stands I think I'm between 6 and 7 - and 6 sounds low after all the praise I've given (and am about to give) but then part of me wonders if it isn't just that I'm surprised how much it improved over the first season, like if that surprise factor isn't the main reason I'd want to score it a 7. We'll see where I end up with.

Anyway, good last episode. It had an extra 5 minutes in length which really benefited it, because it meant we got to see quite a lot of plot points and character moments come to nice resolutions with wiggle room for cute scenes as well. Felt really fucking bad for the twins though man, the dead one's corpse being puppeted around by Gates was fucked up, and the sister not being strong enough to even enact revenge and going down in seconds actually made me upset. We get to see Kaname restore Sousuke's faith in himself more or less, that was pretty nice, although honestly I could've done with at least less of the slapstick. The ensuing fight between Sousuke and all the Venoms is pretty dope, I haven't spoken about it much but yeah no KyoAni mecha action is really good lol. The final setpiece is really sick - Gates in his own Venom is holding another AS hostage, and Sousuke charges up this insanely sick looking punch, stops right in front of the hostage, and then Lambda Driver fuckin makes the punch go through the hostage completely safe. It's absolutely dope as shit. A level of excitement I never thought this series could offer me. Just really good all around.

And then yeah, Sousuke's back in action, knows what he wants, and all the villains are dead. Couple scenes of various emotional catharses, Sousuke's still staying with Mithril because we wouldn't have much of a show otherwise but he lays down the law, has the full support of Tessa, her moe anime waifu scene here is actually earned because she's been a character up to this point, it's all just pretty good. If I can be honest I was actually thinking about watching Invisible Victory and I still might - but Second Raid so neatly wrapping up most of its stuff makes me think I'll be fine even if I don't. It's really just Tessa's brother that's a variable here, but we'll see what I decide to do.

But yeah, that's me done. Mostly. I'll watch the OVA tomorrow. That was definitely good - I don't think I have too much to say that isn't just spread throughout the other posts I've made, but I mostly had fun here. The series takes itself seriously and has pretty strong plotting and lots of good character moments, which is all you can really ask for. Villains weren't great this time around, I didn't really talk about him ever but I don't think I liked Gates at all, him jacking it to small animals is almost too bizarre an inclusion for the series, but hey. Craziest thing I can say by far is that I am largely endeared to the characters now, which was an unfathomable concept to me back when I finished the first season. Even Fumoffu only got me liking Sousuke, Kaname and the like still pissed me off. Actually being able to point to the characters and say "yeah I liked them" goes so hard. I think I'll call that the end of the post. Like I said, OVA tomorrow, Invisible Victory is a maybe, and then uhhh I mean that's it. Although as one final sidenote, the OVA is the last Kyoto Animation thing for me. Insane.

[joshhhhhhhhhhhhhhh]

Still watching but standalone post because this was my favourite episode so far. Kaname removed from the school setting entirely and unable to rely on Sousuke turns her into the best version of herself, even if what we're effectively watching is a cornered rat try desperately trying to defend itself from predators. It's a somber episode really, very little music, the main thing you hear is cries of desperation and the endless downpour of rain. It works really well, moody as hell visuals to match. Particular highlight was the ultra-downsized AS strangling one of the twins to death, which very much is a scene of no music and the only sounds are struggling and rain. It's kind of brutal. Works really well. Also don't feel like she was killed too early or before we knew her or anything because her sister's still alive and they are the same character. Leonard Testarossa makes his formal debut as well, still potentially worried that it's too late in the season for him to get to do that much but he made a decent impact even just here anyway, so.