So, friends, we’ve gotten to that point in the anime season where real life starts to get in the way, and it becomes a bit easier to see where one’s priorities are. I’m someone who thrives on regularity, so when I was suddenly asked to fill in for another position at my job due to pandemic-related absences, it threw things into pandemonium. Doing two jobs at once isn’t really my preference, though the second job is the one I used to perform so at least it didn’t require any training. But it did affect my work hours and the overall ability to schedule out my days, and while you wouldn’t think starting and ending the workday an hour later would be a big deal, apparently it was for my brain.
I’m not a great writer to begin with, but making it so that my evenings were shorter and with less time to edit meant that I wouldn’t have much time to turn my words into something passable, so I decided to just let things go for the week and deal with it later (avoidant personality for-the-win). While this job shift is likely to last at least a few days into this next week, I did want to try to at least come up with something to post, so here’s another selection of moments I enjoyed in the anime I’ve been watching lately. Perhaps at some point these posts will get caught-up with the present… but it’s me so I wouldn’t count on it!
Cells At Work!! Season 2 Episode 5 – Dendritic Cell Activates the Immune System
Just by their nature, many of the plot lines in Cells at Work!! deal with the body’s different immune responses. The human body is constantly under attack from bacteria and viruses with ill intent, after all. In this episode, the body is threatened by a mutated form of influenza which seems to thwart all the typical defense tactics. NK Cell, who’s been accompanying White Blood Cell and Normal Cell on a search-and-rescue mission, seems especially thrown off her game. Enter Dendritic Cell, who’s been serendipitously activated by one of the extremely cute Lactic Acid Bacteria introduced previously. He uses his newfound sadistic side to activate the immune system – using a technique that one can only really compare to blackmail.
One of the things I love about this series is its manner of symbolically representing biological processes in ways that are humorous and easy-to-understand. In this case, Dendritic Cell preys on the reality that most of the cells – as well as most of us humans – go through a cringe-y chuuni phase at some point in our adolescence, and there may be photographic evidence of that floating around out there that we may not want to have come to light. I know that when I think about embarrassing things I’ve said or done in the past, it sometimes prompts a violent, internal embarrassment that reminds me how much I’ve changed over the years and motivates me to do and be better (though I also think there’s nothing wrong with being silly once-in-a-while, even if you’re swiftly approaching middle age like I am!). This episode is a good reminder of that, and provided me with a few solid belly-laughs.
It’s worth noting that not all the photographs we catch momentary glimpses of during the climax of the episode are great. There’s one in particular that luckily doesn’t get a close-up focus which depicts the typically male-appearing Killer T Cell wearing a dress and makeup. I’m not particularly impressed by the implications of this throwaway gag – there’s enough bad media out there that mistakes cross-dressing or transness as some sort of deviation, and it bugs me when those attitudes leak into otherwise good media.
Kemono Jihen Episode 04 – Akira Finds His Strength
Who all is keeping up with Kemono Jihen? While it’s not quite as atypical a shounen action series as I was lead to believe by the first episode, I’ve still found it to be fairly entertaining. Since we’re still in the early stages of the story, we’re also still getting a feel for the main characters, including Akira, a peppy, social-media-savvy, fashionable young person whose origins hail from a tribe of “Yuki-onna,” yokai (traditionally women) who can control snow and ice. As with all the characters in this story, Akira’s existence is complicated, and he and his brother inherited this snowy ability. Akira’s brother was considered the more powerful of the two, with Akira only able to form thin ice over water. However, when he and Kabane are sent into the sewers to quell an uprising of frog yokai, Akira exhibits much greater abilities when called upon to save Kabane.
Whether or not Kabane actually needed saving is up for debate, I suppose (he seems essentially invincible), but the heart of the story is a young person feeling less useless in their own skin, and that’s something I can really identify with (the desire if not the reality). I also like that Akira’s general characterization reminds us that femininity is not just the realm of those who are assigned-female-at-birth, nor is masculinity the sole domain of those assigned-male-at-birth. While I can’t say that media always does a great job with portraying the nuances of gender, I do think an attempt was made in this case.
Otherside Picnic Episode 5 – Wandering Into the Other World
In this episode, the first of a multi-part story, Toriko and Sorao wander into the Otherside inadvertently after a night of drinking. As it turns out, Toriko probably shouldn’t have worn the white hat she took from the realm the last time they visited. Night has already fallen and the two know that they’re in danger. As they’re confronted by a terrifying horned entity, they encounter a stranded US military platoon that wandered into the Otherside from Okinawa. They’ve been there long enough to establish a base, and they’re hoping to find their way out.
I don’t struggle with many specific phobias, but one completely illogical one I have is accidentally wandering into a place that’s, well, wrong. Many years ago I was a big fan of the Silent Hill series of video games. In the third game, you play as a teenage girl named Heather, who after waking up in a mall diner and finding herself pursued by a mysterious man, goes into the women’s bathroom and climbs out the window to escape him. When she re-enters the mall from a different entry point, it’s suddenly just wrong; the place is run-down and nearly vacant but for the moaning flesh creatures that help to define the look and feel of the game series. I’ve had many nightmares about this scenario over the years, so I found this episode of the anime series to be particularly scary simply for the fact that it touches on that feeling of being swept away to a dangerous and frightening parallel place. I also have some apprehensive feelings toward the soldiers… but I suppose I’ll have to just wait and see how that part of the story gets resolved.
So I’m a Spider, So What? Episode 5 – Kumoko Eats Delicious Food
In episode 5, our spider heroine begins to tackle the middle stratum of the labyrinth into which she was reborn, learning to deal with lava lakes and huge monsters who launch fireballs at her. Her webbing is nearly useless in this environment since it burns up right away, but her quickness and her human ingenuity eventually lead to her making some successful inroads. Suddenly she finds herself surrounding by two giant lava catfish with mouths big enough to swallow her whole. Luckily her continual level advancement and deft(?) skill selection allow her the tools to defeat one of them. After what seems like many days, Kumoko finally finds herself winning the biggest prize of them all, and it’s not some new magic spell or evolution. As it happens, the catfish are absolutely delicious; no longer will she have to suffer vile, poisoned meat!
I’ve heard it said that hunger is the best seasoning, and having lived through a particularly bad bout of food poisoning, I believe it. I also think that “hunger” doesn’t necessarily always refer only to physical hunger, but also to emotional hunger. Eating, at least for many of us, has some emotional component, and whether that’s sated by the satisfaction of cooking a special meal and eating it with loved-ones, or from depressive snacking is, I suppose, up to our unique circumstances. I think it’s the rare person who eats simply for sustenance purposes, uncaring about form or flavor, although in some cases doing so might be a necessity. Kumoko’s had to eat to sustain her stamina, but the food selection hasn’t been great (and, in fact, has mostly been wildly unpalatable). So it’s such a huge victory when she finally finds a delicious meal in such an unforgiving environment. If I wasn’t already rooting for her to prevail, I’m sure seeing her joy at devouring a delicious lava-fish might push me over the edge.
Wave! Let’s go Surfing Episode 4 – The Finale of the Competition
While Masaki “Corgi” finds himself out of the competition earlier on, his closest friends Nalu and Sho are able to hang on during the tournament and face one-another in the final round. It’s here that Masaki witnesses their competitive instincts at play as they each wait for the perfect waves upon which to best show off their skills. The final round ends up going right down to the wire, as they both try to do their best.
This definitely isn’t the series I look forward to the most every week, but for whatever reason it does have a soft spot in my heart and I’m glad the action seems to have picked up quite a bit these last couple of episodes. While this episode may have taken an extremely dramatic turn right at the end, what I want to talk about is the more uplifting portion of the episode that takes place as Nalu and Sho surf their hearts out in the final round. One of the things I like best about sports anime is the idea of the positive competitive rivalry – when two individuals or teams use their rivalry with one-another to push themselves to do better than they may have if they only needed to coast to the finish line. I’m not sure how often this happens in real life; I do know that it’s not an idea that’s as valued in American culture as it probably should be. I think in this episode Nalu and Sho both want to win, but they’re also both friends with one another which is just as important. This also marks the end of the characters’ carefree days before Nalu leaves for school in Hawaii, so there’s a bitter sweetness to the competition as well. For all this show’s issues with weird CG and its slow start, I think this episode marked a high point.
Wonder Egg Priority Episode 4 – The Gang’s All Here
While Ai and Rika team up to defend a duo of idol fans from their personalized attacker, we’re introduced to Momoe, the final(?) egg warrior. As she defends an egg girl from her attacker – an adult male molester whose relationship to her family made the situation before her death by suicide even worse – we learn that Momoe struggles with being seen as her genuine self. Her masculine presentation – partly an effect of her preferred way of dressing as well as of her height – has caused many girls in her life to see her as a boy and thus as a romantic object, when all she wants is to be seen and acknowledged as a girl. When she finally meets Ai and the others, Ai compliments Momoe on her height and how it makes her beautiful like the models her mother used to work with. It seems to be one of the few times Momoe has felt accepted as herself on her own terms.
Ah, Wonder Egg Priority is the one series I’m watching this season that makes me wish I were a better writer. It seems to have the most things to actually say about the complicated and hurtful things that happen to young people (specifically, in this case, young girls and women), and unlike Mushoku Tensei it hasn’t yet hamstrung itself by being thoughtlessly gross and/or joke-y about serious topics like bullying, sexuality, or gender expression. If you’re looking for better insight on the show, I’d recommend Atelier Emily’s posts on the topic. In any case, I suppose right now you’re reading my writing, so what I have to say is this – for as nuanced as this show can be (and it provides me a lot of food for thought each week), one reason I think I’ve connected with it is its portrayal of its characters learning to connect with others. Each of the characters struggles with her own trauma, and whether that gets resolved by the act of reviving their respective “statues,” perhaps the true victory is the fact that they’ve been able to find one-another.
I think another interesting thing that occurs this episode is we gain a better window into how Acca and Ura-Acca are more sinister than they may have appeared at first (and honestly, they’ve never seemed particularly above-board to me). The mannequins’ casual, throwaway misogyny reminds us that the girls aren’t only fighting against the myriad, symbolic expressions of woman-hate represented by the monstrous beasts inside of the egg worlds; they’re battling against their very real encounters with hatred in the real world and the effects of it inside their own hearts.
Well, that’s another week down the hatch. I’ve been having fun looking for the positives in anime lately – I hope you have too!