Konosuba season 3 episode 4 review

This… is… Jeopardy! But in this case, we are no longer in jeopardy of boredom. Konosuba has returned to glory. This episode, while not perfect, brought us back to the show we all know and love. You’ve got Kazuma being a scumbag, Aqua being a baby, Megumin being drunk on power, and Darkness being her usual self. Wait, check that. There were no masochist jokes in this episode, and those are what makes Darkness best girl.

But otherwise, what an episode. I enjoyed this one from start to finish. And even if Eris pads her chest, I like how she showed up to make Kazuma’s life miserable. The characters in this episode are a lot like everyone in a so-called scandal I’ve heard about. Everyone’s looking out for their own self-interests and it ends up causing misery for everybody involved. But that’s a topic for a different podcast.

In any case, Konosuba is back to being great again. Not just good, great. And if Aqua and Darkness could just be featured a little more, maybe we’ll get this thing cranked up to 10.

Best girl of the episode: I want to give this to other people besides her, but sorry, it’s Darkness again.

Episode rating: 8/10

Kaiji No. 8 episode 3 review

Is it possible for one show to borrow from every shounen series ever written in the matter of three episodes? Consider:

• Large monsters attack city which produces a defense force, and the main character becomes one of those monsters himself. Gee, I wonder where I’ve seen that before?
• But it gets worse. Now we have a scene where we find out how powerful each character is. The main character’s rival, established in this episode as Shinomiya, is by far the strongest with a 46%. The main character himself? A 0%. Hmmm… I wonder if I’ve seen this before… oh, right, Black Clover.
• Okay, but we at least aren’t going to have an exam arc like Hunter x Hunter… nope, we’ve got that too.

So, I don’t know. Kaiju No. 8 appears to be the biggest cliched show I’ve ever seen. Everything about it is borrowed from somewhere else. Now, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. You could argue that a truly great book/movie such as The Hunger Games was completely borrowed from all sorts of previous stories. There really is nothing new under the sun. So, it’s not fair to write Kaiju No. 8 off even though I’ve already seen it before.

But that being said, it’s got to get to the point where I feel like it’s got some sort of uniqueness, or else I’ll just be napping through episodes trying to get through them. I’m already close to that as it is. Kafka, or “Sir” as he seems to be called more times than his actual name, needs to have some sort of uniqueness to his character rather than being a hodgepodge of different shounen MCs. Mina needs to be more than just a pretty face; we need to actually see her do something.

Oh, and Shinomiya? She’s actually pretty cool. My hope and prayer is that she doesn’t end up Sir’s love interest. She does SAVE Sir in this episode, which is pretty lame because I thought we were actually going to get some conflict from him having to use his kaiju powers. So, yeah, she SAVED Sir, but she’s really the only character that doesn’t feel stolen from another anime.

3-episode rule? It passes. But keep in mind that the 3-episode limit doesn’t mean that a show is safe. For example, I recently dropped Banished from the Hero’s Party after 6 episodes. So, Kaiju No. 8? You’re on the clock. Fail to impress me much longer, and I’ll cut you loose. There’s just too much potential that I believe this show still has that I can’t drop it quite yet.

Best girl of the episode: Shinomiya

Episode rating: 6/10

Tonbo! episode 3 review

I want to like Tonbo!, I really do. But if this series were a golf hole, right now we’d be in the bunker and trying desperately to get out and save par.

The voice acting is way off. Not that the VAs themselves are doing a bad job, but there’s too many awkward pauses between phrases that something just doesn’t sound right. In addition, there’s no real goal in sight. It’s just Tonbo and Igaiga playing golf, with each learning stuff from the other. Oh, sure, that’s great slice-of-life stuff, but I’m not a SoL guy. I want actual stakes. Needless to say, the last golf anime I watched had stakes – and oh, were they big.

So, I’m left wondering how I can continue with Tonbo! if it remains too, well, boring. As for now, though, I’m giving it another episode

Best girl of the episode: Tonbo (of course, who else?)

Episode rating: 5/10

Konosuba season 3 episode 3 review

I had mentally prepared to write a eulogy, an obituary of sorts, for Konosuba. Not for the series as a whole, but for this episode. You see, Konosuba is like Seinfeld. It’s got four main characters. If any one of those four characters is out, then the whole episode suffers. Do you remember the episode where Jerry went down to see his parents and George wasn’t in the episode at all? Of course you don’t, because it was one of the least memorable Seinfeld episodes of all time.

So, Konosuba is the same way. It needs Kazuma. It needs Darkness. It really needs Aqua. And yes, it even needs Megumin. It needs all four together.

When I saw that Kazuma was going to be spending some time with that other Princess Iris, I knew we were in trouble. And sure enough, the first half of this episode was some of the worst and most boring stuff Konosuba has ever offered. If you didn’t fall asleep during it, you at least yawned. Kazuma + Iris – the other three = boredom.

Fortunately, though, Darkness shows up halfway through the episode, with Aqua and Megumin in tow. And the rest of the episode is pretty good, even though Aqua and Megumin were kind of superfluous for a change. Darkness and Kazuma provided all kinds of entertainment. There’s a reason Darkness is best girl and she’s my waifu. If she doesn’t barge in and stop the boredom, this episode would have gone down as the worst in Konosuba history.

But rest assured, it’s all good. Konosuba has been saved by the bell. Now it’s time to get up off the canvas next week.

Best girl of the episode: Lalatina Dustiness Ford (who else?)

Episode rating: 6/10