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Silly joke: For monks only

A man is driving down the road and his car breaks down near a monastery. He goes to the monastery, knocks on the door, and says, “My car broke down. Do you think I could stay the night?”

The monks graciously accept him, feed him dinner, even fix his car. As the man tries to fall asleep, he hears a strange sound. A sound unlike anything he’s ever heard before. The Sirens that nearly seduced Odysseus into crashing his ship comes to his mind. He doesn’t sleep that night. He tosses and turns trying to figure out what could possibly be making such a seductive sound.

The next morning, he asks the monks what the sound was, but they say, “We can’t tell you. You’re not a monk.” Distraught, the man is forced to leave.

Years later, after never being able to forget that sound, the man goes back to the monastery and pleads for the answer again.

The monks reply, “We can’t tell you. You’re not a monk.”
The man says, “If the only way I can find out what is making that beautiful sound is to become a monk, then please, make me a monk.”

The monks reply, “You must travel the earth and tell us how many blades of grass there are and the exact number of grains of sand. When you find these answers, you will have become a monk.”

The man sets about his task.

After years of searching he returns as a gray-haired old man and knocks on the door of the monastery. A monk answers. He is taken before a gathering of all the monks.

“In my quest to find what makes that beautiful sound, I traveled the earth and have found what you asked for: By design, the world is in a state of perpetual change. Only God knows what you ask. All a man can know is himself, and only then if he is honest and reflective and willing to strip away self deception.”

The monks reply, “Congratulations. You have become a monk. We shall now show you the way to the mystery of the sacred sound.”

The monks lead the man to a wooden door, where the head monk says, “The sound is beyond that door.”

The monks give him the key, and he opens the door. Behind the wooden door is another door made of stone. The man is given the key to the stone door and he opens it, only to find a door made of ruby. And so it went that he needed keys to doors of emerald, pearl and diamond.

Finally, they come to a door made of solid gold. The sound has become very clear and definite. The monks say, “This is the last key to the last door.”

The man is apprehensive to no end. His life’s wish is behind that door!
With trembling hands, he unlocks the door, turns the knob, and slowly pushes the door open. Falling to his knees, he is utterly amazed to discover the source of that haunting and seductive sound……

…

But, of course, I can’t tell you what it is because you’re not a monk.

Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufuku wo! Season 1 anime review

Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufuku wo!, most sensibly abbreviated Konosuba is a light novel by Natsume Akatsuki that was adapted to two seasons of anime in 2016-2017. I only watched the first 10-episode season, which was 10 episodes too many and I’m not even sure why I stuck it out that long.

Summary (from Wiki): Following an untimely and embarrassing death, Kazuma Satō, a Japanese teenage shut-in NEET, meets a goddess named Aqua, who offers to reincarnate him in a parallel world with MMORPG elements. Despite being offered a godlike item or ability to use in this new world, Kazuma, following some provocation, chooses Aqua herself to accompany him to the town of Axel, quickly finding her absent-mindedness to be less than beneficial. With Aqua unable to return to the afterlife until the Devil King is defeated, the two form a party and recruit two other members; an explosion-obsessed magician named Megumin and a masochistic paladin named Darkness.

As I mentioned in my last post on Tsuujou Kougeki (I’m not typing the full title out, gimme a break), the trend these days is towards subversions and deconstructions of the “hero goes to another world” genre. In Konosuba the twist is minor – instead of Kazuma becoming overpowered like other heroes are implied to have done, he has to start from level one and work his way up normally. It’s just a minor setback really, because we all know in the long run he’s going to end up rich and powerful anyway. And besides, Aqua has a cheathax that prevents him from dying for real, so he’s essentially immortal. That’s overpowered in and of itself.

What I liked about Konosuba: The world of the game is very bright and colorful. The land is largely peaceful, the people are fairly friendly, the food looks delicious and in general it looks like a nice place to live.

I also like shows that deal with the practical “what are we going to eat and where are we going to sleep” issues of otherworldly life. It’s a big achievement for the team when they finally get upgraded from living in stables to living in a deserted mansion.

It’s interesting to see how a team with such wacky but powerful characters manages to gel and work together to defeat the powerful opponents they occasionally have to face.

What I disliked about Konosuba: The trashy fanservice and perverted unfunny humor. The goddess Aqua doesn’t wear underwear and prances around in a “dress” barely long enough to be called a short top. If you heard that and thought “Woo hoo!” this is the show for you. Otherwise it just gets annoying, not just Aqua but also other characters like Darkness and the succubi.

Darkness is especially annoying because she’s always writhing around thinking perverted things whether the situation calls for it or not. Usually not. And Kazuma uses his stealing skills to steal panties… Ranma 1/2 ended 20 years ago, dude.

There isn’t much progress made towards finding and beating the Demon Lord in season 1. Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufuku wo! is more a slice of perverted life show with occasional battles than an RPG-based action show. It’s a good watch if you find fanservice funny or interesting or enjoy constant innuendo. Fans might say “There’s more to the show than that!” but a week after finishing this show, only the slimy frogs, the battle against Verdia and the Destroyer and the fanservice scenes (succubi, Darkness’s wild imagination, Kazuma’s panty stealing) come to mind when I try to remember anything. This really isn’t my sort of things so I’ll pass on season two. Next!

Overlord anime review – Nothing really happens

Overlord is yet another isekai anime about an overpowered main character who gets stuck in the world of a videogame. The slight twist on this one is that the main character Momonga a.k.a. Ains is an undead character with a legion of undead servants under him, all loyal to his every command and willing and eager to help him conquer the world.

The good: The slight twist on the setting and the characters’ slightly different morality makes Ains/Momonga and his companions a little more interesting than the “Must save everyone” hero-complex characters that populate 90% of these kinds of shows. For example Ains leaves NPCs dead when he could easily resurrect them (because resurrection would draw the wrong kind of attention). His party also murders another NPC party to keep them out of the way and so they can experiment on the corpses later. Of course these aren’t exactly commendable actions, but their unusual approach to the world makes them unpredictable and thus more interesting to watch.

Overlord also has a fair bit of action and combat – much more than I had expected given Ains’ goal of merely getting famous. I thought he would concentrate more on politics and magic, but he transforms into a warrior class and dukes it out with random mooks instead.

Which was a bit… sad. Sword-using main characters are a dime a dozen in isekai shows, and there’s already a famous dual-wielder out there. The battles Ains fought using his magic, items and skills were far more interesting than the hack-and-slash he used to take on some of the enemies. I hope future battles will focus more on his magical side and less on his Kirito-wannabe tendencies.

Last thing to praise Overlord for: the humor. Though the funniest moments came in the Pure Pure Pleiades specials and not the main series, the show still had some humorous moments. …Or so I thought, but now that I try to come up with examples, nothing really comes to mind. I’ll just say the show had a uniformly light, friendly and adventurous tone even when bodies were falling like raindrops all around. Even the death of some well-developed NPCs wasn’t all that depressing or saddening because the main characters take it all in stride.

The bad: Tasteless and needless vulgarity especially from the characters Shalltear and Albedo. And Cocytus in the specials. Also the show didn’t need to be quite so gory, it smacked of someone trying too hard to make the show hardcore and different from other fluffy game world shows.

The unsatisfying: Shalltear felt inadequate as the ‘final’ boss of an anime series. She was more or less a joke character throughout the show, then suddenly she’s being treated like this giant threat nobody can possibly beat no matter what? I didn’t buy it. Though I admit the final battle was suitably epic, the opponent should have been equally epic and not the previous butt of everyone’s jokes.

Bigger complaint, Overlord really should have been a 26-episode anime. At the end of the 13 episodes things have only really begun to get started. Ains has only just managed to get famous in one city. His bait ploy involving Sebas and Solution has just gotten underway. Powerful characters like Gazef and Brain have met. And most importantly, the only possible threat to Nazarick’s reign, the Slane Theocracy, has just started to show its true nature. Ains Ooal Gown and Slane are on a collision course without a doubt. What’s going to happen now?! Eh? Roll credits? Last episode? You want me to read the light novels to find out what happens next? NOOOOOOO!

Conclusion: Overlord is a fun show, but much too short. It has some good action, a charming cast and an overpowered but still somewhat relateable main character (the gap between Momonga’s scary appearance and diffident true nature always made me smile). If you can overlook the occasional gore and off-putting fanservice it is very much worth a watch.

The only downside is that season 1 will leave you itching for more. Which is what all first seasons are meant to do so I can’t complain. If you don’t mind light novels, I recommend reading the light novels instead so you don’t end up like me, champing at the bit for the next installment. Or you can join me in hoping for a sequel. Season 2 where?!

One Punch Man anime review

I’d heard a lot about One Punch Man before watching the show. I figured it was just the usual internet hype about any slightly good show and basically ignored it for a while, but eventually the title sounded intriguing enough that I eventually tried an episode. And then another episode. And then another. I was kinda busy so it took me several sessions to get through the first 6 or so episodes, then I marathoned the last few in a night. Verdict: One Punch Man is actually really good!

Story summary: On an Earth-like supercontinent planet, strange monsters have been mysteriously appearing and causing disasters resulting in the world’s superheroes rising to combat them. Saitama, the protagonist of the series, is the strongest hero alive who easily defeats the monsters or other villains with a single punch. However, due to his immeasurable strength, Saitama has become bored with his power and is constantly trying to find stronger opponents who can present a challenge to him.

The show is exactly what it says on the tin: superhero beats villains and monsters alike with a single punch. You might expect a show like that to get boring pretty quickly, seeing as you know the end of each monster even before it shows up, but they managed to keep it fresh at least for 12 episodes. Much of that “freshness” comes from sub-protagonist Genos and other superheroes who act as cannon fodder to show how strong the villain-of-the-week is before Saitama smashes it to show how much stronger he is. If you’ve watched Dragonball Z you know the whole mechanic.

Part of the fun of the show comes from the variety of monsters and superheroes. What kind of bad guy is going to show up this week and what ridiculous powers is s/he going to have? A Godzilla clone, a skyscraper-tall bodybuilder, a giant beetle, a gang of lazy slackers in power suits, and on and on. Of course their doom is assured, but it’s fun watching them have their little day in the limelight before they’re polished off. As a bonus they often get to voiceover the next episode’s trailer for some final lolz.

As an action show, One Punch Man doesn’t pull out any big surprises and doesn’t contain much tension due to the aforementioned foregone conclusion. What little excitement comes is from watching the supporting cast attempt and (usually) fail to deal with the problem. Then Saitama comes in and ends things with a single punch. The viewers who will get the most out of this show are those who enjoy destruction on an absolutely massive scale – cars overturned, buildings sliced in two, half the city blown up every episode and, of course, the giant blood splatters and ludicrous gibs that come with the territory when you exterminate a giant monster with a single punch. There is some good choreography on some of the fights, but really it’s usually people jumping around and somersaulting and getting smacked to the curb repeatedly, not much more than that.

Rather it is as a comedy and a parody of superhero shows that One Punch Man comes into its own. After all, genre savvy viewers know that no matter how many blows the hero takes, he’s always going to vanquish evil in the end. So why not cut to the chase once all the messing around with minor lackeys is done? As a result, the viewer ends up watching the ridiculous hijinks of the villains with a kind of spiteful glee. Oh boy, you’re really gonna get it now, just wait till Saitama gets here!

As a result I’m a little on the fence about the show’s occasional attempts to humanize Saitama and the rest of the cast instead of just letting them be delightful caricatures. Things like the weaker heroes trying to stand up to the bad guy didn’t really add anything because of the foregone conclusion. Though I was a little touched by the unlikely camaraderie between Mumen Rider and Saitama, it was offset by Saitama’s unusual… niceness, shall we say, when it came to taking the blame and making the other heroes look good. Like, was it established already that he’s the kind of guy to care about such things? His character is a little hard to pin down, and the excess focus on Genos’ point of view of things doesn’t really help.

But anyway, I’m not here to analyze One Punch Man, just to wax on and on about how much and I enjoyed it and how you should totally watch it or read the manga. I think the anime is more fun, but the manga covers way more ground and the show will only leave you wanting more (Season 2 can’t come quickly enough) so go for both if you can. It’s a great show, memorable characters, funny premise, lots of actions, good ending, the works.

Log Horizon Season 2 – Thoughts on episodes 1-12

I jumped straight into the next season because, why not? It turns out season 2 of Log Horizon has many of the same issues that stopped season 1 from being a top-tier show. Mainly a tendency to focus on side characters doing things the viewer doesn’t care about and which are only marginally important to the rest of the show as a whole. All the while when something far more interesting is going on with Shiroe and his main party.

This time the problem was a long arc focusing on Akatsuki’s crisis of confidence and her attempts to deal with a “serial killer” on the loose in Akihabara. This would have been okay if it lasted for only an episode or two, but episode after episode after episode of Akatsuki angsting about her own inabilities and her (forced, unconvincing) feelings for Shiroe grew tiresome very quickly. The resulting “girl power!” showdown that was supposed to give the female eye candy of the show something to do might have been interesting if the guys weren’t also having a far more epic and monumental showdown right around the same time. If you want to give characters a day in the limelight, make sure the spotlight is on them, don’t make them a sideshow distraction from ‘the real thing.’

So anyway, that was pretty boring. The whole first half of season 2 has been pretty boring, actually. The best part was the revelation of how much it cost to maintain all those buildings and the resulting plan to find the source of the gold. I enjoy Log Horizon best when it’s focusing on things like basic economics and less when it’s doing generic MMORPG battles, though the battles against the raid monsters were pretty intense. The shock resolution of the whole gold arc is also interesting and unusual and I look forward to finding out the implications.

First, though, it appears I’m going to have to sit through a Valentine’s Day episode… ugh… I’ve been watching anime for almost 20 years at this point and I have never, I repeat never seen a good Valentine’s Day episode. In fact, I’m very tempted to just skip episode 13 and go straight to 14. Why are they doing lovey-dovey hijinks when Rusty has gone missing, his aide has lost an arm and the West is up to shady shenanigans that need attention pronto? It’s this tendency to wander and insert fanservice and slice of life elements at the most inappropriate times that keeps Log Horizon from being the 5-star show it could have been.

Still I just have to suffer through episode 13 and then I’ll be treated to all the action and intrigue and world-building I could ever ask for, riiiiight? Don’t worry, I’m not holding my breath, but the rest of the show should at least be decent. I’ll get round to finishing it one day.