Welcome to the tenth week of the Fall 2013 season of Anime Knockout! Every week, we will review the new anime of the season, rate them, and kick the weakest show off of the queue.
Spoilers ahoy! So, if you don’t want to know what happens, come back after you’ve seen this week’s episodes!
For the Fall 2013 season, here is our chosen lineup:
Arpeggio of Blue Steel
Beyond the Boundary
Galilei Donna
Gingitsune: Messenger of the Gods
Golden Time
Kill la Kill
Log Horizon
MEGANEBU!
Nagi no Asukara
Samurai Flamenco
Strike the Blood
Walkure Romanze
Wanna be the Strongest in the World
Log Horizon
Briar’s Review:
This episode wraps up the Round Table arc, bringing law to Akihabara and starting an economy. A rush to invent things has started, giving people something to do and lifting them from despair. Log Horizon gets a guild house of its own and two new members. It looks like the next story arc will focus on the NPCs, the People of the Land, and the potential for war with them. The show has made a point to demonstrate the NPCs are not just there for the sake of adventurers now. They have their own memories, families, and dreams. They also have their own history and territories.
Plot Score: 6/10
Character Score: 6/10
Production Score: 6/10
Briar’s Total Score: 5.6/10
AstralRuby’s Review:
They have turned their world into a realistic economy. Most of the episode was again the round table meeting. Log Horizon got its own based and accepted the kids into the guild. The non-playable characters are turning out to be much more than just background characters. The People of the Land might be getting ready to declare war against the adventures instead. I’m getting a little bored with this show due to the pacing, so I hope it speeds up a little more. New mystery characters were introduced seemed like NPCs.
Plot Score: 5/10
Character Score: 5/10
Production Score: 6/10
AstralRuby’s Total Score: 5.3/10
Week 10 Total Score: 5.4/10
Season Total Score for Log Horizon: 6.1/10
Golden Time
Briar’s Review:
I’m so relieved that the old Banri was only a momentary glitch. The ending of the last episode had me worried. Instead, Banri is sick with a fever and Nana and Linda help him out. Kaga arrives, jealous and sure that he was cheating. However, her mood swings back into loving girlfriend mode and she says that she was kidding. She goes on and on about how she is Banri’s girlfriend. 2D and Yana also show up, telling Banri and Linda that Kaga was truly freaking out about the thought of Banri cheating on her.
After so many episodes, it looks like the writers either know someone who has Borderline Personality Disorder or have read up on the subject. Kaga, with her abandonment issues and accompanying jealousy, splitting, self-loathing, and “go away, don’t leave me” attitude seems to fit this emotional disorder. Since this isn’t being played up for laughs, I’m guessing this is intentional. If that’s the case, I don’t think there’s going to be a happy ending for her. Then again, this is fiction, so anything can happen.
Plot Score: 6/10
Character Score: 7/10
Production Score: 7/10
Briar’s Total Score: 6.6/10
AstralRuby’s Review:
Banri’s old self came back for a few minutes in the middle of the night, leaving behind the desire to see Linda again. Banri got a fever from all that and so all his friends end up helping out or hanging out in his apartment. Kaga was getting jealous of Linda and afraid he was cheating, but still not sure how serious she was. Kaga wants to go to the beach with Banri when summer vacation starts to further their relationship. Hopefully this decision wasn’t made to one-up Linda. This anime is still moving along at a decent pace, but I thought episode was pretty slow and filler-like.
Plot Score: 5/10
Character Score: 6/10
Production Score: 6/10
AstralRuby’s Total Score: 5.6/10
Week 10 Total Score: 6.1/10
Season Total Score for Golden Time: 6.3/10
Beyond the Boundary
Briar’s Review:
This is an interesting show and I wish it didn’t waste so much time on the comedic fetishes. They really aren’t that funny and take time that could be used to otherwise flesh out the plot or characters. This particular episode bounced around a lot, telling the story in a non-linear fashion. I was able to follow what was going on, but the impact was rather dulled. If it had followed Mirai’s dealings with Izumi in order, then moved on to the aftermath of the battle, it would have hit a lot harder. Instead, the buildup was broken too often with the time resets. I’m really glad they made the seasons obvious in this, otherwise I would have the visual cues to know where we were on the timeline, even with the “# Months Ago” subtitle.
The fluff and filler in this series is enjoyable, adding humor and charm. If I could only show a person one episode of this series, it would be the stink monster episode. The humor and lack of boob-grabbing made it a delight to watch.
The characters are pleasant to watch and I don’t find myself getting annoyed with them. It is a little difficult for me to remember all of the names in this, partially because the introductions to many of these characters weren’t strong in the beginning. Mirai is the most interesting character to me in this show and this last episode explained a lot of her earlier actions. I’d like to see Pervy-Brother, Hiromi, fleshed out a little more than “has a thing for his little sister and is friends with Akihito.” It’s mentioned that he fought youmu-Akihito and nearly died, but this event gets very little attention. Maybe it doesn’t need much attention, but I would like to know a little more about it.
I like the colors and animation in this show. The fight scenes are more fluid than any other show I saw this season. The colors are often warm, especially in scenes with Mirai. Meanwhile, the Spirit World Warriors seem to get treated to a cooler palette. I’ll probably finish out the season for this show on my own, just to see it through.
Plot Score: 6/10
Character Score: 6/10
Production Score: 7/10
Briar’s Total Score: 6.6/10
AstralRuby’s Review:
The beginning of the episode didn’t make a lot of sense considering the rest of the episode. It started out as if both Akihito and Mirai were alive after she defeated him in the last episode, but he was like a soulless shell just walking around in a sleep-like state for months until he “woke up”, and she was taking care of him all that time. Then it was all just Akihito’s dream, because there was some of Mirai’s blood still inside him and so she was conscious in his dream until he woke up months later. The rest of the episode was just showed bits of Mirai’s side of the story, about how she was always targeting Akihito and then how she was supposed to distance herself from him, but they got close anyway, and then she couldn’t kill him so she planned to sacrifice herself to save him in the process of killing Beyond the Boundary. Episode was confusing in the way it started and then went nope it’s actually this. It was meant to be a downer, and it was.
Oh, and still can’t go one episode without being reminded of the boy’s fetishes. It the majority of the comedy presence of this anime, and I’ve been tired of it for a while since it’s the same reactions every time. The guy with the sister-fetish seemed like he could have been a really awesome character whenever we saw his powers, but his powers weren’t really explained and he kept being reducing to perverted side character that didn’t have a real important role to the plot or even Akihito’s life other than kind-of-friend and guard.
The relationships could have been developed a little more, especially with the side characters since I often found myself forgetting who they were and why they were important. Not too much time, but a little extra would have been appreciated.
Visually, this anime is very well done. There is a lot of detail and movements. The backgrounds are great, even if they lack other people sometimes. Voices are good.
Not a bad anime, just above average. It simply suffered what many anime go through that that is dramatic plot twists told in an abstract way to make them even more confusing. The emotions of this episode were subdued due to the confusion of what happened and what was going on, and even what happened afterwards. If told slightly more linear, while still keeping some of the abstract elements, this episode could have been much more tear-jerking.
Plot Score: 5/10
Character Score: 5/10
Production Score: 7/10
AstralRuby’s Total Score: 5.6/10
Week 10 Total Score: 5.9/10
Season Total Score for Beyond the Boundary: 6.0/10
Samurai Flamenco
Briar’s Review:
So, um, I still don’t really know what’s going on. Samurai Flamenco faces King Torture, who’s a cyborg, in a final battle. The plot itself isn’t really anything remarkable. It’s the characters that carry the show here. Moe heroically offers to take Mari’s place to suffer King Torture’s abuses. The inventor puts up a grand fight against minions. Goto wields a pink hummer against a rocket. Goto really steals the spotlight again. Even the few lines from the bystanders brought a quick grin. Question still is how the hell are King Torture’s shenanigans possible?
Plot Score: 5/10
Character Score: 7/10
Production Score: 7/10
Briar’s Total Score: 6.3/10
AstralRuby’s Review:
I’m not having fun with this one as much. Everyone is acting as if all the weird stuff going on is normal and that bothers me since they spent so much time in the first few episodes establishing their very normal realistic world where monsters and villains don’t exist, but then suddenly they do and it’s already normal? I don’t think so, and I can‘t really get over that. Though the characters and the character analysis of other characters is still really good. It’s still entertaining, and it still manages to have some comedy slipped in there. Not sure how Goto escaped without major injuries or burns, he fell out of that car right before it went flying. Where did he land? How did he meet back up with Hazama so fast?
I’m not even sure how I would describe this anime anymore in a way that would prepare someone for everything.
Plot Score: 5/10
Character Score: 7/10
Production Score: 7/10
AstralRuby’s Total Score: 6.3/10
Week 10 Total Score: 6.3/10
Season Total Score for Samurai Flamenco: 7.2/10
Ratings (Points out of 10)
| Series Name | Week 10 Score | Running Season Score |
| Beyond the Boundary | 5.9 | 6.0 |
| Golden Time | 6.1 | 6.3 |
| Log Horizon | 5.4 | 6.1 |
| Samurai Flamenco | 6.3 | 7.2 |
This week, Beyond the Boundary finished with the lowest score. It will not return for Week 11. Good luck, Akihito.
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