This week in the Winter Games had sex, hot springs and ghosts!!!! There’s also some shirtless dude playing at the beach and an underage girl forced to make dinner for an entire family. Let’s read on. 

Grancrest opened with the fallout of the Lord Congress. Since Villar doesn’t want war, Theo is asked to go back to his “domain”. Where is that? Savis? Or the region he took going to the Lord Congress? Gee, if only we had a clear view of the world, damn it. Siluca urged Villar to take up arms though, and Milza (finally remembered New Dude’s name, prolly cause it was repeated several times in this episode) even tried to persuade him. Villar doesn’t want a fight though, and he stands by the peace between the two groups. He seems to know about Marinne’s offensive though, and he just advised a lord that came to him to just let Marinne take his region. That’s fun. But wait, we were supposed to see Marinne march towards Alexis’ place, so why are we not seeing that carnage? I want carnage, damn it. Well, we didn’t get any carnage, because Theo just confessed to Siluca.

Out of f*cking nowhere. Oh wow, we’ve been building this love story since the first episode. I’m so glad it isn’t rushed, ham fisted and awkwardly out of place given how the chessboard for carnage is already setup. The anime had time to let the two stroll into a depressing place where everyone hates them, and then they settled into a comfy hollow tree when it suddenly rained. They confessed, and I did not give a single f*ck about. And then they had sex.

Hahaha. Of course not, this story doesn’t need sex.

Except…..

Yeah.

Not Siluca and Theo though. For some reason, Milza is in the battlefield protecting a fortress, and Marinne just looks on as he slaughters her troops. She then decided to want to speak to him and offer him a place at her side of the chessboard. He accepted, but he wanted sex.

No, seriously. He wanted sex to serve as a pact between them. Milza is ready to betray Villar because he realized the guy just isn’t cut out for conquest. He decided to switch sides, just because, and he wanted a conquest as well. I do think Milza did a smart move here, since someone really needs to die at this point of the story. While I thought Alexis would be axed because his death flag was raised, it actually feels like it’ll be Villar who’ll exit the story. He kinda had a pathetic Ned Stark role in this episode seemingly not showing any fangs despite having the power to do so. Ned Stark’s death ruined me! Villar better die in grand fashion too!! I feel like his death flag is raised too, and the next episode is actually entitled “Betrayal” so that sounds fun. I think it’s a double death flag, but I do think Marinne and Alexis will die at the same time. Meanwhile, Villar is primed for some tragic betrayal and death. At this point, I think Milza will eventually take control of the Alliance while Theo will rule the Union and their crests are destined to eat each other. It’s pretty brilliant, since (if) Milza’s crest is made of chaos then his ying will fight Theo’s yang. That makes sense to me, and I can’t wait to see it happen.

Oh sh*t, the sex stuff. Yeah, Milza pounded Marinne. She was even a virgin, so that’s pretty tragic. I like the camera work though, because the shot of Milza mounting Marinne is the same shot we see whenever Milza kills an opponent. This is not love making, but Milza pretty much killing an opponent. I think it’s symbolic. Milza just conquered the Alliance, and Marinne just took it lying down. At this point, it’s clear we have our pure antagonist. This is a dirty rook, and he just ate the queen. So many sex puns, wait, one more. His sword just dug into Marinne symbolically killing her. Yes, why can’t I be this good at predicting stuff?!

Notable Characters in this episode

Marinne is awesome. At this point, she is really showing her fangs. I mentioned last week that the lords don’t seem to have incentive in joining either side, but it seems Marinne is giving them a reason to pledge their fealty. This week, she f*cking poisoned a fortress. It was against the rules of war, but I like it. Cersei never played fair, and we all loved her for it. The sight of her standing alongside her intimidating knights is just awesome, and she even drew blood for her cause. But I also love how she isn’t really an evil b*tch, she is just forced to take that mantle. I mean, she was wooed by Alexis. That guy is more feminine than her, so you just know it’s out of her character to kill for the sake of killing. At this point, it’s for her family’s name. Brilliant, because it’s the same reason Villar isn’t drawing his sword.

New Dude, I mean Milza, is also pretty awesome. He killed a bunch of people, he watched a fortress get poisoned and he tapped that ass. Ohmygawd, will we see more sex in this anime? I hope not. I honestly do not need it. I just want blood and betrayal, and for someone to just f*cking die already.

Plot Related: Villar’s castle will be taken by the Alliance

Character Related: A character will be interrupted midsentence by another character

We had another empty episode of Yuru Camp. Dare I say, a pretty directionless and pointless one. We were supposed to have the payoff for last week’s build up, but it seems the story is trying to get Rin to join in on the Christmas camping. We might see it happen at episode 11 or 12. I think it’ll go down at episode eleven leaving the last one for a feel good goodbye episode where the Outdoor club grows into a five member club. This means we have one more episode to just f*ck around, or whatever. We did see a huge amount of zen moments delivered by Rin when she journeyed to her camping trip. Unexpected trouble made her change destination though, and the rest of the episode just follows her basically touring a bunch of places. We also get the regular stuff this anime likes to inject in its episodes: eating, dogs and hot springs. Eating dogs in the hot springs. Yeah, nothing of note here really. I guess the biggest development is that Saitou has confirmed in joining the Outdoor club for the camping trip, and Nadeshiko brought up the idea of asking Rin to join too.

Speaking of Nadeshiko, she was inside her house the entire episode. A lot of dialogue is done through text for this episode as well. Nadeshiko is sick and she was supposed to go camping with Rin. As plans changed, Nadeshiko just accompanied Rin through the power of texting. A bunch of scenes where Rin rides her moped is layered with a bunch of texts where the two goofs off. Aki-chan joins in as well, and it turned into a group chat while Rin travelled. In a cute spin, Rin was not travelling alone. Nadeshiko’s in-house penalty is peppered with some laughs when her entire family happily waits for Aki-chan to cook them some noodles. It’s the kind of light gag the anime likes, but it’s mostly just away to get Nadeshiko to eat. I’m fine with that, because Nadeshiko eating is kinda the perfect way to describe this anime. The gag is pretty cute, since Aki-chan is on the spotlight, and we also saw Nadeshiko’s family. They all have different hair colors. What’s up with that? Again, moms look young in this anime. Fathers look appropriately old though, so there’s an imbalance with that. It’s like an ironclad rule that any female character must look young and moe as possible. Anyways, this anime is about to end and I think the show is preparing to really nail its ending. So far, we’re building it up so nothing big is really happening. I’m also not losing, or winning, the prediction game so I’m fine either way.

Best moments in the episode

• My heart broke into two when the energetic Nadeshiko is confined to her house. This is not how you take care of her. You give her lots of sunshine and a large space for her to gallop in.
• The dream sequence is weird and so out of place. I guess it makes sense for Rin to dream of Nadeshiko, and I feel a bit satisfied the mustache in the OP sequence actually appears in the anime. Hey, the aliens appeared too so I guess it makes sense.
• Rin’s visit to the doggy temple is the zen moments at its best. Making her buy a souvenir and getting a decent fortune also makes for a fun moment.
• I did not expect her to go to a hot springs though. I guess the animators felt bad she didn’t get to soak in one before the anime ends.
• I also enjoy Rin doing the omake segments, and she even dragged Saitou for some light gag. I love this duo, so I can’t wait for the camping rangers to finally assemble.
• Nadeshiko is at her best when she eats, so….just make her eat. All the time.
• It’s also nice to see Aki-chan use the power of technology to not give us a clichéd gag routine of her making a crummy dish. Instead, like the filthy millennial the she is, she asked help from a how-to video. Seeing her feed an entire family is adorable though. I have serious qualms with this anime forgoing clichéd gags for light hearted fluff, since it ruins my prediction, but I guess this anime is just really too laidback to pull the trigger.

Plot Related: Characters will sip off of their bowl

Character Related: Characters will slurp their food

Yeah, at this point, I can only think of predictions related to food. Hey, it’s the anime’s fault. Gawd damn light hearted fluff of an anime.

You should all know that I scored zero points this week. Even my predictions for this stupidly predictable anime didn’t net me some points. I think AG and Leap’s prediction about the beach episode is more on point than mine. In fact,Leap crushed this week and got second place, pushing me to last place. This is not my week, but TPAB will bounce back, somehow. Now, I’ll do my best to avoid my usual gripe with this anime. We should stipulate by now that this show has awful animation and a lazy, nonexistent story. It’s a staple for this anime by now, and I’ll try to look beyond the regular awfulness of the show. So, OK, this week, the Sanrio Rangers gave us a beach episode.

They were supposed to be training, but you know it’s just a forced excuse to go to the beach. After all, training is trying to improve on something but the Sanrio Rangers hasn’t even come up with a story for their musical or the songs they’ll sing or the costume they’ll wear. They just really wanted to go to the beach, I guess. I’m fine with that. I mean, at this point, the anime can’t really get any worse so I should just accept its current form of stale awfulness. Of course, they didn’t really train anything. They went shirtless, frolic on the beach, one guy showed off his abs, they told ghost stories and they ate a lot of curry. I should elaborate on each segment of the anime, but, you know what, I won’t. If the anime is on a current stale of awfulness then I’d give it a stale awful episodic review as well. It’s only fair. I mean, what the hell are we doing? No tie in with the Sanrio mascots, no product placement, no decent moments of bonding between the characters, no delightfully awful yet funny sparkling dialogue, and no effort whatsoever. We’ve lost the premise of “boys liking Sanrio mascots”, and we can’t even give a decent beach episode. I mean, if we’re going for fan service then you’d at least give me some points for my game by having the student body president wear a speedo. Damn it all to hell.

But, again, nothing really matters except for when the boys put on their musical, so you can expect more BS episodes up until the last one. But, did I at least enjoy a segment of this episode? The answer is No, and f*ck you for asking.

Plot Related: Uke can’t join the musical because of a contrived reason resolved before the episode ends

Character Related: One of Kouta’s other friend is still wearing an ACBC shirt

This week has been interesting, so read up on the other players’ posts. Irina’s HERE, HERE, and HERE

Leap’s post HERE

and AstralGemini’s post HERE

For my collab with Keiko, where the parallel to Rashomon is established, check out the hopeful developments HERE