Spice & Wolf: Merchant Meets the Wise Wolf episode 4 review

So, Holo gets captured and Lawrence has to save her. This means that Holo is officially a damsel-in-distress, like Princess Peach. And that leads me to my tangent.

Peach was the damsel-in-distress, while Daisy was the athletic, outgoing one. But sometime recently, probably in 2020, Nintendo completely reversed course on Peach. Now Peach was the athletic, outgoing one, filling the role of Daisy in the Super Mario Bros. Movie as well as in her own Switch game. That’s all well and good, but imagine Rei Ayanami becoming a fast-food worker and taking people’s orders. (Oh, wait, she did do that. Another tangent.)

Anyway, if Holo is going to be like pre-2020 Peach, then this show is in some serious trouble. But if she comes out swinging like post-2020 Peach or any-time Daisy, the show will be in better fortunes.

Best girl of the episode: Come on. Holo.

Episode rating: 7/10

Kaiju No. 8 episode 10 review

This was by far the worst episode of this show, so I’ll just cut to the chase instead of recapping the episode. There were so many stupid/ridiculous things that happened in this episode, so let’s go through them.

• Vice-Captain wins the battle, and everyone starts joking and laughing and talking about needing a rest. Somehow no one notices an enormous Kaiju hovering overhead which literally is bigger than skyscrapers. Everyone’s shocked when it appears, yet unless that thing came out of thin air in a moment’s notice, they should have seen it while they were yukking it up.
• The big reveal of Kafka being Kaiju No. 8 was completely botched. Instead of it happening at a big moment when the gravity of the situation could set in, “Sir” just ignores his pals and charges right in and gives away his secret. You could not have possibly picked a more anticlimactic way of pulling off the reveal.
• Worse, everyone isn’t even surprised. They’re kind of like, “yeah I thought there was something weird about him.” So, the big reveal was already anticlimactic enough, and the other characters’ response just made it more so.
• Finally, after “Sir” defeats the enemy, Mina puts a gun to his head and says she’s taking him into custody. Because saving all of his friends is something worthy of him being threatened to be killed. What a nonsensical moment! It was the cherry on top of a stupid sundae.

I feel stupider just from watching this episode. There is little chance this show will recover from this. Why? Because the big reveal was botched. It’s bad enough that all of the characters acted completely oblivious to common sense, but now that the biggest moment of the show has come and gone in the most ineffective fashion, it’s all over. I will watch until the end of the season and then drop the show for good.

Best girl of the episode: I guess Mina

Episode rating: 3/10

Konosuba season 3 episode 10 review

So, Darkness is getting married! But that’s a bad thing, because it breaks up the Big Four. In order to stop this, Megumin is pulling out all the stops. And this is where that great spinoff featuring Megumin helps so much. By fleshing out her character, which had previously been just “EXPLOSION!”, we’re able to see that Megumin actually has feelings and cares for her friends. Man, Megumin is starting to charm me.

Aqua, Kazuma, and Megumin crash Darkness’s wedding, which is always fun. Every show needs to have a wedding-crashing episode at least once. Garfield and Friends had a particularly good one when Garfield overheard Marion John saying (what he thought he heard as) “I’ll be finally marryin’ Jon.”

A much better episode this week than last week. In fact, one of the better episodes this season. And to think they did it with Darkness serving as damsel-in-distress? (Although I’m pretty sure she’d like that.)

Best girl of the episode: Yes, it’s Megumin.

Episode rating: 8/10

Spice & Wolf: Merchant Meets the Wise Wolf episode 3 review

So, it’s Economics 101 today on Spice & Wolf! I would have flunked the class. All I know about economics is how to lowball someone on eBay to get something for a ridiculously cheaper price that I should have. But this seems to be heavier economic talk than that. While I knew this series was a lot about economics, I was hoping it could make them fun.

And it kind of does, to an extent. I love Lawrence and Holo’s little negotiations. The two of them make a great pair. However, I can’t really get interested in a show if it’s simply trying to teach me the difference between different types of silver. That’s just not for me.

So, a pretty good episode this week, but not as good as the last two.

Best girl of the episode: Will it ever be anyone but Holo?

Episode rating: 7/10