Meeting Date: 12/14/2016
Disclaimer: The Herald Anime Club discusses shows as they’re airing. Naturally, there will be spoilers for a given episode. You have been warned!
Mike Ferreira: Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the Herald Anime Club. I’m Mike Ferreira, and I’m joined by Lydia Rivers, Anthony Simpson, and L.B. Bryant.
L.B. Bryant: Ello!
Anthony Simpson: Evening.
Lydia Rivers: Hiii everyone!
Lydia Rivers: I missed a big week last week, but it’s good to be back.
Mike Ferreira: Good to have ya back.
Lydia Rivers: I watched Episode 10 while doing Christmas baking in my cuddly paw-print PJs. I wonder if Easy would approve?
Mike Ferreira: Easy would approve.
Mike Ferreira: This week was another big week, as the series seems to be ramping up for the grand finale.
Anthony Simpson: Lots of information given this week.Not much on the action.Also I laughed at the comedy this week.
Mike Ferreira: I’m not sure on the “not much action” part – It’s not every day you see Jesus give a giant dragon cancer.
Anthony Simpson: It wasn’t action heavy.
L.B. Bryant: My big takeaway from this episode? The Ends really aren’t that bad of guys and I’m actually suddenly finding myself on their side.
Mike Ferreira: I never really saw them as bad, myself… they were always pretty tragic figures.
Mike Ferreira: Love how Anastasia’s basically the “mom” of their screwed up little family – that was an interesting dynamic.
Lydia Rivers: Yeah. I’m so glad they went there. What happens when Jesus uses his miracles against you instead of for you? Cancer.
L.B. Bryant: Evil Jesus made some pretty good points and overall, his platform of ‘screw humanity’ has resonated with me. Evil Jesus 2020!
Lydia Rivers: Dark Jesus!
Anthony Simpson: One I found interesting is that Evil Jesus wants to do something similar to Nobunaga wants to do with the demi-humans.
Mike Ferreira: Indeed. They’re both fighting for the same ideal, albeit for different sides
Lydia Rivers: I got chills when Dark Jesus confirmed that he still has the same attitude about equality. Well.. I mean…for non-humans now.
Mike Ferreira: Likewise… I also liked how he cemented the idea that he won’t be around forever so, instead of just creating food for the demi-humans, he’s teachingthem to live in a civil society
Anthony Simpson: it makes sense.
Mike Ferreira: It really does.
Lydia Rivers: I’m also increasingly getting the feeling that Murasaki vs. Easy is necessary for that world as a whole instead of just a byproduct of some random dispute.
Anthony Simpson: They would be fucked it just kept making food for them, then just up and died.
Mike Ferreira: Definitely. On both counts.
Mike Ferreira: One thing that struck me as interesting: Easy referred to Murasaki as a social worker. I think that’s the first time we ever got any real details on who these people are.
Lydia Rivers: Yes! I wonder what Easy’s position is? She said he had delusions of a government worker or something, so did he step in arbitrarily?
Mike Ferreira: That’s what I’m wondering.
Mike Ferreira: Easy still strikes me as IT
Lydia Rivers: Maybe she saw the ends while managing the database and decided to re-categorize them.
Mike Ferreira: That’s possible. But a better question: What do they both *gain* from this?
Lydia Rivers: I dunno. What do humans gain from managing ecosystems? Maybe it’s the same thing. Biodiversity in the universe?
Mike Ferreira: Good point
Lydia Rivers: Murasaki is adding non-native species to help manage non-native species. A tricky process and the model always takes on a life of its own.
Mike Ferreira: Indeed. It also explains why he’d bring someone like Hitler and Saint-Germi early – an early experiment to see what impact they’d have. Unfortunately, he brought in history’s greatest monster but..
Lydia Rivers: OOPS. Either that, or he did it to galvanize everyone in preparation to fight another monster who wants to kill them. Sorry Dark Jesus, but you kinda are…
Anthony Simpson: This also goes back to point of the Drifters.They come in and change things up for better or worse.
Mike Ferreira: Indeed. And, as Saint-Germi pointed out, Hitler DID change things
Anthony Simpson: It also possible there were Drifters before Hitler and Saint Germi arrived.
Mike Ferreira: Also possible.
Mike Ferreira: We don’t know how long this has been going
Lydia Rivers: That aircraft carrier captain who became king of the pirates, for example?
Lydia Rivers: I’ve forgotten his name.
Mike Ferreira: …I want to see more of him!
Mike Ferreira: His story seemed so interesting, but we got… 5 seconds
Anthony Simpson: He is an Admiral.
Lydia Rivers: I’m so glad Dark Horse is continuing the manga translation in 2017.
Mike Ferreira: Indeed… I’ll be lining up for that
Mike Ferreira: On another note: I’m loving Saint-Germi far more than I should.
Lydia Rivers: We should love the Count of Saint Germaine. He was a super interesting dude. I think it’s funny that they used cross-dressing as a way to highlight how he wasn’t afraid of looking different in his time.
Lydia Rivers: Well, “seeming”, not literally looking differently.
Anthony Simpson: Saint-Germi looks like he would fit in Jo Jo’s Bizarre Adventure.
Mike Ferreira: Yeah. The cross-dressing, plus his pretty boys really kind of accentuated that.
Mike Ferreira: Anthony: Right down to the posing
Lydia Rivers: Just when they started looking badass, they got knocked out by nosebleeds.
Mike Ferreira: Indeed. Nosebleeds from Hannibal and Nasu no Yoichi. Have to agree on one: Nasu no Yoichi is super hot
Anthony Simpson: Yoichi is a good looking dude.I could see myself falling for a guy like that.
Lydia Rivers: He is. He trips my big sister circuits really hard though. I want to bake him cookies every time he gets scared of Yoshistune.
Lydia Rivers: There there, Yoichi. We can be scared of him together as we nom these cookies!
Anthony Simpson: I wanna bring this up and this really stretching it, but this whole setup in a some what religious sense about Murasaki and Easy reminds me a bit of Deism.I don’t think either of them are gods.I don’t think they created this world that everyone is currently in, but they don’t interfere with the world either even though I think they easily could stop things from happening.
Lydia Rivers: What do you mean by interfering? Dropping people in from another universe is pretty big on the interference scale.
Anthony Simpson: They keep an eye on things but they don’t interfere with the situation.
Mike Ferreira: I get it – the concept of the watchmaker deity
Anthony Simpson: What I meant is interfering themselves.
Mike Ferreira: Where they insert elements to a system and observe, but never directly touch it with their own hands once things are in motion
Lydia Rivers: Oh, you mean they’re supernatural scientists with opaque intentions conducting experiments? Got it
Mike Ferreira: Exactly
Anthony Simpson: For our readers Deism basically means that some type of god created the universe then retreated and no longer has interaction with the universe.
Anthony Simpson: It reminded me of it, but its obviously not the same thing.
Lydia Rivers: It could be. I mean I’d laugh so hard at the Douglas Adams-esque humor if a “supervisor” catches them in their interdepartmental conflict that uses a world they’re supposed to observe as a means of dueling.
Mike Ferreira: That would be hilarious
Lydia Rivers: Oh! Did anyone else love the dwarf trope? I thought it was hilarious, the way they beefed up like porous sponges when they were fed and boozed.
Lydia Rivers: And how they took drunk Yoichi perfectly in stride.
Anthony Simpson: Drunk Yoichi was adorable.
Mike Ferreira: I loved the dwarves
Mike Ferreira: And Drunk Yoichi was priceless
Mike Ferreira: Precious cinnamon roll priceless
Lydia Rivers: Hahaha! Ugh, and that smile he had after Toyohisa assured him he was free? Seriously, I want to bake that kid SO MANY COOKIES
Mike Ferreira: He deserves all the cookies
Mike Ferreira: On another note, I love how the dwarves just keep breaking the fourth wall when Nobunaga goes into his monologues
Lydia Rivers: Yes! That dryness goes so well with their trope. I felt like I could just grab a mutton leg and a stein and throw myself down next to them, I was so comfortable! They did well with the elves too, but I feel like the dwarves were perfect.
Anthony Simpson: I also wanted to bring up the accountant that the Drifters spared in episode 6 made a return this episode.
Mike Ferreira: The dwarves just nailed the archetypes. Right down to being able to dissect a gun from looking at it
Mike Ferreira: The accountant was hilarious. He knew what Saint-Germi ment
Mike Ferreira: *meant
Lydia Rivers: He hid the elf men, bless him!
Anthony Simpson: well I figured they would play the archetypes for the dwarves, they did for the elves with having them be good with archery.
Lydia Rivers: I mean, the predatory queen trope is kinda old, but it was a well-placed moment.
Anthony Simpson: I did feel a bit bad for him since he is made for fun of for being a cherry boy.
Mike Ferreira: Honestly, that was a bit of an awkward moment.
Lydia Rivers: It definitely seems like they have to go for cheap humor, with the boobs and the cherry boys and the super loudly horny dudes.
Mike Ferreira: It’s really kind of weird because they go so low-brow with the humor while everything else remains pretty high-concept.
Anthony Simpson: I mean I will give the dude credit that he didn’t get involved gang rape of the female elves.
Lydia Rivers: Well, I’m begrudgingly giving it lenience as an attempt to create lightness in the shortest amount of time possible. Because I want them to give me more of that high-concept time than I do humor. We have Nanbaka this season to counter-balance it.
Anthony Simpson: I’m going to beat a dead horse again but I’m not super big of the comedy that the show is doing. That said some of the comedy this time around I did enjoy.
Mike Ferreira: Very true.
Lydia Rivers: Yeah. I like the “humor” that’s specifically employed to highlight hubris, but some of the random stuff they put in there to give it a more simple feel is kind of offbeat.
Anthony Simpson: I laughed at Saint Germi about eating the dude, then the stuff at the end with the music and the dudes getting hot and bothered with the Drifters.
Anthony Simpson: Like last week with the raspberries.
Mike Ferreira: The part with Saint-Germi’s pretty boys was hilarious. Hannibal looked so triumphant
Anthony Simpson: I didn’t like that.
Anthony Simpson: The raspberries part.
Mike Ferreira: The raspberries part was just… yeah.
Mike Ferreira: It was a part
Lydia Rivers: I want to be granted a country for bringing him raspberries. I wouldn’t accept, but it’d make me laugh.
Lydia Rivers: “You like them that much?”
Anthony Simpson: The music made that scene so much funnier.
Mike Ferreira: But yeah… the humor’s generally pretty hit or miss.
Mike Ferreira: It’s at its best when it’s used to really elevate a light scene, or when it’s being used to cement the idea of the Drifters’ humanity. At its worst, it’s just… it’s a thing
Anthony Simpson: for me it is more misses than hits.
Anthony Simpson: Its my least favorite part of the whole show.
Mike Ferreira: On the plus side, it’s not overused. It makes its appearance and just fades away fast.
Lydia Rivers: Bleh. Tell that to Olminu! She is Bad. Ass. But all we hear about is her boobs. “She’s badass…especially her boobs.” Yeah ok thanks Seimei.
Mike Ferreira: Indeed. Olminu has some genuinely badass moments and they just get undermined!
Lydia Rivers: It’d be one thing if she deliberately makes them part of her visage so to speak, but she clearly hates it when people make them commentary.
Anthony Simpson: Olminu is great, but yea boob jokes.
Lydia Rivers: Therefore every scene she’s in I feel sorry for her instead of feeling hyped over whatever she did. It’s irritating!
Mike Ferreira: Indeed.It really just tears down a good character
Mike Ferreira: Especially given the first time you see her, she’s just in a gillie suit observing the Drifters as a mysterious force – there’s badass potential here, people!
Lydia Rivers: And she’s clearly intelligent and earns high praise from her boss, Abe-no-freaking-SEIMEI!
Lydia Rivers: Oh, and so do her boobs.
Anthony Simpson: I feel like her whole character can just be defined as boob jokes, she’s a badass, oh and boob jokes.
Mike Ferreira: It’s a shame, because she’s such an integral part of the team. She’s smart, she’s capable, she’s incredibly cunning… but whenever she’s on screen it’s basically “Yes, girl. Now move those tits away, daddy’s talking to somebody important”
Lydia Rivers: I probably take it personally since, well…I get it. It really sucks to be in her shoes ~.~ I once got told in a university chemistry lab “If you don’t like it, go work at hooters.” OH OK THEN.
Anthony Simpson: That’s… pretty sexist.
Mike Ferreira: That’s super sexist
Lydia Rivers: You know, it’d be fine if I exalted my boobs as part of my character right? But I got that comment after I let them know that I, personally, am disrespected by their commentary.
Lydia Rivers: And that’s my point for this show. Olminu obviously hates it but has to put up with it in order to do her job.
Mike Ferreira: Indeed.
Anthony Simpson: Sadly that is true.Hell the Ends as far as we know don’t do this to the two females in the group.
Mike Ferreira: There’s a mutual respect there
Lydia Rivers: Nope. They don’t have any humor whatsoever though, cheap or otherwise.
Mike Ferreira: Indeed. Anastasia and Joan are both treated as incredibly capable.
Anthony Simpson: Well Evil Jesus is too busy for that shit.He teaching the masses and giving dragons cancer.
Mike Ferreira: …how the fuck did bombastic easy get the group with no sense of humor?
Lydia Rivers: And you know, as chauvinistic as Toyohisa is, he respects Olminu. I think that’s a good lesson.
Lydia Rivers: LOL RIGHT?! But I think she’s unaware of her bombasm. Hehe
Mike Ferreira: It’s such a weird dynamic
Mike Ferreira: Meanwhile, strait-laced Murasaki gets the boob-grabbing, raspberry-eating, but still somehow lovable warlords
Lydia Rivers: Well, you know what they say about the straight-laced people. What goes on behind those unwavering eyes might as well be Muppet Theatre.
Lydia Rivers: Or is that just me?
Mike Ferreira: Nah – it’s about right.
Mike Ferreira: Aniwho… it looks like we’re getting close to our time for the week. Any final comments?
Anthony Simpson: We only have two more episodes left so I’m interested to what happens in the last two weeks.
Mike Ferreira: Likewise. I’m hoping they can keep this momentum through the end.
Lydia Rivers: I’ll be continuing to enjoy the “no winners” angle of this awesome series, and hoping that they don’t try to do anything to bend the series to an artificially smooth close. I’m hoping that if it must be, it just ends suddenly so we can have an excellent second season eventually. That’s what I’ll be thinking about for Episode 11!
Mike Ferreira: I’ll be genuinely sad when this ends
Anthony Simpson: I’m going to miss it.
Mike Ferreira: I think we all are.
Lydia Rivers: Oh man, me too. I don’t normally lose my dignity into fangirling over series, but Drifters got me there.
Mike Ferreira: Thankfully, we have two weeks left.
Lydia Rivers: Maybe I’ll create the Octobrist Support Group, and feed you guys those cookies haha
Lydia Rivers: …Actually I won’t, since Octobrist was nasty in our world.
Lydia Rivers: uh
Mike Ferreira: Yeeeeah.
Lydia Rivers: haha that’s what ignorance looks like guys, it’s ugly!
Mike Ferreira: Hehe.
Mike Ferreira: But anyway, til next time, remember: don’t piss off Dark Jesus. He’ll make you regret it.
Lydia Rivers: Don’t be a living Homo sapiens in front of Dark Jesus. He’ll make you regret it.
Anthony Simpson: bye bye.
Mike Ferreira: That too.
Mike Ferreira: Have a great night!
Lydia Rivers: Stay shiny everyone!
