REI uprising

In Black Clover Asta charges at Ladros, which Ladros tells Asta to stop and also tells Asta that they should team up. Ladros also says that they should both rise up in the ranks of the Diamond Kingdom, which Ladros plans to double-cross Asta, but Asta replies that he will pass because he is going to become the Magic Emperor of the Clover Kingdom.

 Ladros then jumps onto a branch and uses it to fly in the air. Ladros fires blasts at Asta, but Asta easily counters the blasts. Ladros tells Asta that he knows all about his fighting style and without Finral, Asta can’t do anything.

Ladros also tells Asta to give up, which Asta replies that he will never forgive Ladros for hurting his friends. Ladros says that there is no such things as friends, because there are only those who use people and those that gets used. Ladros also says that he plans to use both Mars and Fana to further his own position in life, and will also use Asta as a stepping stone.

Ladros continues to fire more blasts, which Asta decides to reflect some over the blasts back. Ladros absorbs the reflected blasts and says that reflecting them back is useless.

Asta throws his sword into Ladros, and Ladros starts to lose his mana.Ladros notices that he can’t pull the sword out, and falls to the ground. Ladros starts to panic about how everything is falling apart, which he tells Asta to stay away from him. Asta tells Ladros that he did not get where he is on his own, and also says that his friends are here to help each other rise. Ladros tells Asta that he is wrong and to pull the sword out, which Asta says that he won’t since Ladros might attacks his friends once he pulls the sword out. Ladros then says that he could die, but Asta tells him that he didn’t hit any of Ladros vitals. Asta then tries to knock Ladros out, but Ladros quickly escapes and uses reinforcement magic to pull the sword out.

Ladros quickly grabs Fana and tells her to bring out her powerful magic. Fana says that she doesn’t know Ladros is talking about, which Ladros attacks Mars and threatens to kill him.

Fana tells Ladros to stop, which Salamander appears and attacks Ladros. Ladros absorbs Salamander and comments about how this mana is high quality.Asta charges at Ladros, but Ladros easily pierces Asta shoulder from a distance. Ladros comments about how he will be able to make the kingdom his with power, when Asta suddenly stand back up. Ladros fires a blast Asta, which Ladros decides to continue to firing blast from afar until Asta’s body is blasted to pieces. Asta looks back up, while a black mass surrounds Asta’s arm and withers the grass around him.

Asta stands back up, with the black mass having surrounded his arm and created a horn along with a wing.

Ladros wonders about this feeling he is having and tells Asta to get out of his sight while firing a blasts. Asta charges through the blast while also easily cutting through it. Ladros comments about how his power is supposed to be unstoppable and jumps into the air to avoid Asta while also continuing to attack. Asta changes direction and heads towards Ladros. Ladros asks why after everything he had done to get to the top, which Asta says that its because he has others to rise alongside with and to make him stronger. Asta attacks Ladros and defeats him with a new attack.

This time we have Soul Eater, a shounen anime produced by Bones (Wolf’s Rain, Full Metal Alchemist, Ouran High School Host Club) that came out in 2008. I’ve never read the manga, so this is based solely on the anime. Set in the fantastical Death City, Soul Eater focuses on the Shibusen Academy, where students both work together and compete in order to turn their partners – boys and girls that can turn into various different weapons – into world-class Death Scythes. My university pally and I blasted through all 51 episodes in about a week, if you don’t count the days that we were too busy to watch any. Let me tell you, this does not make for hard watching.

The first few episodes start off as prequels for the main seven characters – three ‘Meisters/Technicians’ and their ‘Weapons’. These episodes are ones that I found to be somewhat disjointed, and to be honest I probably would have given up on the anime after 4 episodes or so if it wasn’t for aforementioned pally. Swiftly afterwards, once the main characters start to interact together, I was hooked. And shortly after that when the frankly ingenious support characters were introduced and fleshed out, I was manic about it to the point where I was screaming in outrage at the screen if any other character DARED to so much as harm a hair on their heads.

Plot – [7/10] I wouldn’t describe the plot as being either typical or particularly inventive. I will say, however, that it does dangle a standard premise in front of you for a good few episodes (in order for a Technician to turn their Weapon into the ultimate Death Scythe, they must collect 99 evil souls and then one Witch’s soul; cue epic quest) and then almost entirely removes it for something much better – a pleasant surprise that, as I understand it, doesn’t quite happen in the manga. While some elements of the plot remain unclear and somewhat incomplete by the end of the series, I ultimately felt that it didn’t detract too much from my enjoyment. Bar the very last scenes, unfortunately, in which I was left starving for a bit more of a tie-up, or better yet, a follow-up montage in the ending credits. Still, I suppose that’s what the manga’s for.

Characters – [9/10] The meat of Soul Eater, with some big-name voice actors who really give the characters life. Firstly, we have Miyano Mamoru-san (Yagami Light of Death Note, Kiba of Wolf’s Rain) as the symmetry-obssessed Death the Kid (an awkward-sounding name, I have to say, that belies a truly slick character); the ever-prolific and utterly fabulous Koyasu Takehito-san (Sakarazuka Seishirou of Tokyo Babylon, Zechs Merquise/Milliardo Peacecraft of Gundam Wing) as the Weapon Excalibur, who will surprise you in several different ways with his presence throughout the series; and Kobayashi Yumiko-san (Sarah McDougal of Love Hina, Dan Taichi of Prince of Tennis) as the headstrong Black*Star, to whom a nod must go for the most subtle yet engaging main-character development; to name a few. On top of these, Soul Eater showcases a surprising amount of young, new talent – notably, the voices of Soul (the title character) and Maka Albarn, the female lead who I unfortunately found to be incredibly irritating.

Let me make my point hard on this. Maka is hard-working and academically very smart, with a down-to-earth attitude that helps her to deal with her absent mother and womanizing father, who recently divorced prior to the start of the series. But (and oh, it’s a big But) it doesn’t last. Rather than character growth, we seem to have a case of the exact opposite as the series progresses. Maka repeatedly ends up making absolutely ridiculous decisions that can in no way be logically justified. As much as I don’t like to use Naruto as a comparison, I think I have to. Maka’s choices aren’t a Naruto-style situation wherein Naruto makes sometimes-stupid decisions because of his raw emotions, because that’s Naruto’s character and way of life; plus, Naruto has (for the most part) the strength to back up his convictions. Maka, on the other hand, does not. Not only that, but she apparently doesn’t learn from her monumental mistakes. And /then/ she’ll bitch to the series’ headstrong character Black*Star about how he acts before he thinks. Though, come to think of it, at least Maka isn’t exactly a hypocrite on that matter because it’s shown that she does in fact think about her actions before she carries them out, comes to the conclusion that it’s stupid… and then does the wrong thing /anyway/. If it wasn’t for almost every other character providing sustained interest and sheer compelling brilliance whenever Maka’s off-screen, I think Soul Eater would fall far short of greatness.

Art – [9/10] And of course, there can be no characters without the visual art. While the quality of the animation itself is fairly standard shounen-style fare, the rating for this section gets bumped up enormously for originality. The designs of virtually everything – from the fantastically surreal moon and sun to the laboratory of the anime’s resident Mad Scientist (who would have an entire paragraph in the above section if it wouldn‘t turn into an essay on why he’s such a /darn good character/ on both an emotional and a story-telling level) to the eyes of the later villains – positively shines with mouth-watering creativity. I could wax lyrical about the brain-melting inventiveness of the character designs all day. It’s honestly worth watching for the artistic genius alone.

Music – [8/10] With the exception of the very first ending theme (which was painful, if I’m honest), I thoroughly appreciated each different ending and opening. They were well-chosen and fitted the style and feel of the anime well. The music used throughout the episodes themselves suited the atmosphere wonderfully – the fighting music was driving, the sad-scenes music was sorrowful and the cheery music gave the anime a smile. While it wasn’t as memorable as, say, the music to Gundam Wing or Gintama, it did its job in style. Also in this section, I’d like to add that the song sung by the Weapon Excalibur made me almost die of Sheer Heart-Rending Joy.

Piece of advice if you ever intend to review anime: don’t give yourself two weeks to watch an anime that you should space out over months.

Fukurodani’s chapters during the Nationals arc only further intensified this, and I knew that with Hinata on the same team as Bokuto, it was only a matter of time before Akaashi popped up.

Haikyuu chapter 381 has finally introduced a character I have been anxious to see again.

That he is in the company of Hinata’s idol, Udai “The Little Giant” Tenma, is just pure fan service. But this is the kind of fan service I can absolutely get behind.

Oh, and also there’s a match going on or something? Sorry, I was too busy focusing on Akaashi in glasses to notice.

One thing that Haikyuu chapter 381 has done is make me weep for the perfection that was Hinata and Kageyama’s coordination. Because this week, it seems like Atsumu is a better partner for Hinata. I don’t like thinking that, but I feel very betrayed by this whole chapter. Although, I guess it would be difficult for Hinata to defeat Kageyama if his natural state is to be paired with him. They’re destined to be on opposite sides of the court.

The fact that Atsumu can replicate Kageyama’s pinpoint tossing abilities is nothing new – we saw this during karsuno’s match against Inarizaki. But it’s really interesting to see that Kageyama is not the only setter who can keep up with Hinata, but Hinata might very well be the only player who hit those tosses. (These chapters seem perfectly timed with where we are in the anime at the moment, especially after Kageyama’s faux pas in the most recent chapter.

But of course it’s Kageyama who is able to receive it. Who else would have that same level of familiarity with the freak quick?

“You dare use MY move against me? I’ll show you.”

Scenes like this also emphasize that these are not the same players we remember. Everyone, not just Hinata, has been honing and improving their skills over the past several years. They’re not in high school anymore.

I’m still concerned about this breakneck pace that we seem to be on, but the flashback between the Miya brothers proves that Furudate still cares about the side characters and their development. I anticipate a lot of flashbacks as the match continues, because there is still a lot we (or maybe just I) need to know about those missing years of the time skip.

The flashbacks also bring back moments that, at the time, didn’t seem like much, but in retrospect seem like some pretty epic foreshadowing.

Also, despite my fears that this may be the final match of the manga (hard not to worry about with chapters called “The Final Boss”), I think things like showing the national team coach watching this game do give little hints that we may get to the Olympics. I’ve mentioned before that I think this is a goal of Furudate.

According to me it was interesting to read the vol.In it Oden was prevented from killing Orochi by Kurozumi Semimaru, and his actions resulted in Orochi’s allies attacking the citizens outside.

Thus, Oden started dancing naked in the Flower Capital for five years. After a year, he was given the news of Roger’s execution.

20 years before the present day, he learned that Kaido had captured Hyogoro on Orochi’s orders and killed the yakuza boss’ wife as well as 16 of his men. This spurred Oden to take action, and he and his retainers set out to defeat Kaido.

For further follow it up.

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton