Retsgip’s Anime Blog

Darkshaunz finds the meaning to “Death Metal”

Score: 9.0/10

It must be something I said. Prior to this episode, I almost had the feeling Shinsen Subs ditched this project altogether. Fortunately, they seem to have gotten back on track with Tokyo Majin, and I’m very pleased to see it on a weekly release once again. This week saw some heavy focus on Aoi, and the emphasis that she isn’t the typical “Princess” type, more random zombie encounters (Got Final Fantasy?), and enough GAR to have for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Join me as we slay demons and admire Sakurai’s fine behind.

Polly is sick of crackers.

There’s something about Crows. Their presence, their colour and the way they stand around like statues observing our every move, everything about them is like a Horror cutscene waiting to happen. In fact, in my university, theres this one crow which paces back and forth on an outdoor bench (He claimed it as his territory), everytime someone approached it, it would squawk really loud and lunge at you. As I suspected, seeing crows in an anime like Tokyo Majin is like flashing a massive neon sign saying, “Hey! something completely and utterly evil is about to take place!”. With all of that said, Crows are fucking awesome birds and I hope to raise my own Crow Army one day (Kill my pretties Kiiillll!).

Just a harmless, avid fan of the guitar?

The Crows are actually there watching a crazy guitarman do a solo on top of an abandoned building. I had always wondered what retired rock stars do when their days of glory and infamy are over, it turns out they totally lose their crackers and play for Crows (at least its an attentive crowd). I am not sure what went wrong in this guitarist’s life, but rest assured, Crazy Gay Clown knows all about it. Our overloaded makeup clown is back with his Loli assistant, to let this Guitarist sing his last solo, before he farewells his mortal brothers and sisters, to join the demonic ranks of….Crazy Gay Clown. I say gay not because he puts on makeup or tries to look as Trappy as possible (though Im sure those don’t help either), but because he literally nearly kisses the clearly terrified guitarist in his “Dark Side Seduction”.

Nope, he’s completely lost it.

Attack of the Clowns.

If you thought an army of crows overlooking a psycho guitarist was somewhat disturbing, try an army of crows overlooking a psycho guitarist about to get kissed by a crazy gay clown (Yeah, its pretty freaking insane). The guitarist is offered a chance to get revenge on those Horrible MTV critics for not voting his song to be number one for at least 2 weeks in a row (those cruel bastards). So rather than say, improving his rock solo to make his music more popular, he opts to turn his soul over to become a Demon and send his ravenous flock of crows to instill fear, death and destruction on the general populace (Encore). His transformation is signalled by a Purplish Pink flare coming from his forehead, I don’t know why this series likes that colour aura so much (did they spill Barbie nail polish on the production cells or some shit?).

I am pretty sure that’s kissing proximity.

Dear God, its that Purple Light again! Flee! Fleeee!!!

Audiences are then transferred to a young Aoi, who is in a bit of hot water (pun intended). Turns out in the past, she was a bit of a pyromaniac and loved burning shit down, take for example the building we see in her dream. Its either that, or its a dream of a traumatic moment where she failed to save her good friend from a fire because of her lack of strength and resolve, forming the main foundations of the episode. It’s probrably the latter, but a Pyromaniac Loli sounds one hundred times more awesome anyday if you ask me. Naturally, Aoi wakes up from her dream in her blue yukata/kimono/whatever you call them and breathing heavily. I don’t usually breathe heavily after nightmares (usually I’m wondering where my pants went during the night), but I guess Aoi finds the whole traumatic-memory-of-dying-friend thing all too exhausting, weak.

Fire makes everything better….

….Except when you’re having a trauma nightmare and sound like you just ran 50 kms.

Hyoraiji and Tatsuma share lunch on the school rooftop of course, it seems that is the only place anime heroes have their lunch. Hyoraiji jokes with Tatsuma that he wishes the girls would only dress up in their school swimsuits since it’s summer, I thought it was a great idea. Tatsuma didn’t share my affirmative, he called it “sexual harassment” (lol what). Dude, its the thought of seeing girls in school swimsuits for the remainder of the term, is Tatsuma retarded? Meanwhile, in a classroom, Sakurai and Aoi share some gossip about which one of them might get laid first in the series (Im going with Sakurai)….well not really, they talk about the events of the past episode. The only thing I was paying attention to was Sakurai’s fine behind, and just when was I going to see that junk settled nicely in say, a skintight trunk.

No Tatsuma, thats called Testosterone. Harassment comes after that.

2007 is the year of fine anime asses.

Viewers are then dragged into the obligatory, “Lets remember what happened last week” segment of the episode. The opening sequence to this flashback had me in laughs, basically someone asks, “Demons? Like *demon* demons?”. I was thinking to myself, are there any other kinds of non-demon demons? Like Rainbow Pixie demons from Candy Mountain or Unicorn Happylala demons? This was of course, a big facepalm moment for me, but it was still a very candid moment which I decided to bash on because I could. There’s also the typical Kisaragi “Blue Steel” stare that we must all get our fill of in every episode. He explains that the gang have a power which allows them to tap into “Dragon Veins”, these veins regulate their ability to go BANKAI on the zombies, but the zombies are being little bitches and totally screwing up the dragon veins (Less QQ, more Pew Pew).

Are there any other kinds?

Daito (Wrestler-chan) has this really really obvious crush on Sakurai. I mean, as far as cliche’d crushes go, this probrably takes the cake. Like any real man, he doesn’t charm his ladies by flowers, pendants or shiny gems, but he uses good ol’ beef stew. Apparently he *accidentally* made too much beef stew and this formed to pretext of seducing Sakurai. I can’t blame the man for trying because I am sure every guy in school wanted to get down with the Archery Captain’s fine ass. He also gets points for being original and generous, by the looks of the “Bento Box” he was carrying, there was enough stew there to feed a fucking army. Hyoraiji and Tatsuma share their lunch on the grass patch, only to be interrupted by Aoi and her self-confidence issues.

I can tell she’s turned on already.

Aoi’s feeling down because she feels that she hasn’t been making any real contribution to the team as of late, and they feel that she shouldn’t join the fight as she might hurt herself of just be a liability in general. I thought she was a bright girl, but she surprised me when she tried to reason with Hyoraiji, who is the school’s biggest prick and dipshit. I am not sure what she was expecting from Hyoraiji, but she definitely got what I expected her to get, a stiff attitude and enough morale-breaking words to stagger anyone’s esteem. Tatsuma, being the near-emotionless brawler, decided to just concentrate on his food, because that’s what people are supposed to do during the lunch break. Maria-sensei (Hot MILF extraordinaire) decides to check on freaky-lab-coat-sensei (I think his name is Usanagi), I think the main purpose of that whole scene was to demonstrate just how sexy her american accented japanese is (which it is, very much so) and how blatantly obvious it was that she’s purely there as fanservice.

Is this Heartbreak High or Magami High…I get confused.

The MILF is not amused.

Transition to night time now and lo and behold, Aoi and Sakurai can be seen taking a lovely stroll through a dark alleyway without any escorts. Correct me if I’m wrong, but the last time I saw a lovely young anime schoolgirl walk past a dark alleyway, she was attacked by more zombies than all the resident evil games put together. I am sure there was a demon out there just waiting to get its hands on the likes to two lovely schoolgirls (To suck their souls out or go shopping with them). Surprise, Surprise! the girls are then attacked by what looks like an Australian Frilled Neck Lizard. Crikey! Demons may be badass, but they are no match for this Aussie reptile, because it has the power of…endangered species protection!. I was more concerned as to how the Frilled Neck Lizard ended all the way in Japan, but before I could worry for the poor thing, Tatsuma and Hyoraiji magically appear to beat the crap out of the lizard.

This one’s a beaut!

Until it gets roasted by reptile hating Tatsuma and Hyoraiji. /middlefinger

As I mourn the loss of the Frilled Neck Lizard, there’s a news special indicating that Crows have been found in the city (gasp!), no wait, that’s not dangerous sounding enough, lets try that again; Crows have been found travelling in Death Squadrons and were last seen swooping people’s heads off with orange glowing eyes (better). Naturally, the city is in a complete state of panic and chaos, and I’m sure Crazy Gay Clown and his loli assistant are sitting on top some hotel suite swirling their red wine glass (1982 vintage) completely laughing their evil faces off at everyone. Aoi goes outside to investigate upon hearing the news that killer crows are killing people and damaging property (I should really work on my ability to see whether people are smart or not). I am glad Aoi’s character is getting some much needed power-development, but I’m also glad the somewhat generic “gonna protect xyz” is also out of the way for the new concepts to come in.

Russell Crow. Har Har.

Tokyo Majin wouldn’t be Tokyo Majin without even more kickass looking characters, and this time we have “Lightning Eyebrows” man, overlooking the crow infested city, and wondering where his plastic surgery went oh so wrong. Toono catches the dirty pair red handed investigating the Attack of the Crows. Tatsuma is also inherently really crap at lying to people. I mean lets face it, “shopping for long underwear” (is that a direct descendent of Longcat!?) is probrably the most ridiculous excuse for investigating a killing scene, but at least we know where his head is at, the lingerie department, that is. I would also like to add that anime crowds are absolutely hilarious, its like, “Look guys! a heap of people have died and crows are stealing our cars….I know! Lets all crowd around and shit!”. Even though the world is about to break into a million pieces and even though God is about to smash her divine fist upon the face of this Earth, you can bet your life that a gasping, shocked and readily convenient anime crowd will be present for the event.

Pika Pika Pikaaa~choooo

Long underwear is Looooooooong (you saw this coming, folks).

Hyoraiji spots Aoi out from the crowd, and drags her into an alleyway, and they both some of the hottest, randiest and intimat-woah I’m getting carried away by my sexually-charged imagination now. Nothing exciting really happens here, Hyoraiji drags her aside to scold her about how she’s essentially a useless obstacle in the scheme of things. Honestly speaking, if I saw a guy holding up a girl in an alleyway, I’d be inclined to round up a couple of guys to mash the culprit’s face in, I mean c’mon, its like a Raepscene waiting to happen (lol Japan). As it happens, Lightning-Eyebrows felt that the whole thing looked suspicious and descended upon the gang to make sure nothing hanky-panky was happening. The other explanation was that he was too busy staring down at Aoi’s bra and lost his footing (only to try to make his goof up a GAR event where he screams and shit).

“…Aoi, you smell great, minty fresh even”

Lightning-Eyebrows! Use Psychedelic Disco Lines Attack!

Lightning-Eyebrows is essentially Pikachu on Starcraft Marine Stimpacks (and a fur jacket). Instead of going “Pika Pika” and wagging his tail, this Pikachu spins around some whacky staff and has a haircut which would have Yami Yugi applauding. He seems kind of skilled, essentially he overpowered three of the gang with his electrical burst, staff lunges and stupidly remarkable agility. Hyoraiji is pretty much the Mugen of the group, and it was kind of surprising to see him get outmanouvered and outgunned in that manner. Sakurai’s arrows are kind of redundant in a close combat environment anyway, and god knows what Daitou was doing, he went down like a huge brick. Aoi tries to help, but Sakurai breaks her spirit by saying that she doesn’t have the power to fight (Great Pep Talk!). It’s not until a fire breaks out that Aoi has the whole “lulz this is a spirit-energizing flashback which is related to the events of the present” sequence. I also noticed that he does an “Asura Strike”-like attack Monks use in Ragnarok Online (which was kinda cool).

Bad Hair can get you in a heap of shit these days.

Pikachu-man crits you for 10,122 (Crushing). You Die.

I will protect you. I will protect the people of this town and everyone important to me. Where have we heard these lines? Everywhere. Inspiring as they are, I’m a jaded jackass, and we need something totally different. I think I much preferred Revy’s, “I will tear you a new asshole” a whole lot more. That aside, Aoi’s our favourite and beloved Combat Princess, so I won’t hold it against such a darling of a character, but if they are going to spunk her up, they should probrably do what Naruto did with Sakura (now that’s spunk). Lightning-Eyebrows doesn’t like it when a lady talks him down and challenges him (must be an ego complex), so he does the gentlemanly thing by shouting like a drunken barbarian, charges his lazers and tries to zangief jump on a highschool girl. Charming.

The new ecstacy pills were refined to allow schoolkids to trip out to the max.

Will Aoi survive? Will Sakurai’s Fine Ass get Finer? All these questions are to answered in next week’s exciting installment of Tokyo Majin! All in all, aside from the over the top and generic cliche’d Aoi confidence-building moments, it was still an enjoyable episode. It’s also the first time the Australian Frilled Neck Lizard was featured in an anime, so awesome work to the animation studio for using it as a source of inspiration for their….Frilled Neck Demon. I am pleased to see that the production values are still holding integrity and the fights still look as visceral as they did since the start of the series. All this anime needs now is a Hot Elven Female Bikini Demon Hunter with a penchant for seducing the male cast….*wishing*….well, you can’t blame a guy for trying.

Cheers,

Darkshaunz