Week eleven of the Winter Games feature a teacher that needs intervention, a student on his first period and a death!!!! Let’s read on. 

I believe we have gone full circle with Yuru Camp, since the opening scene of the first episode is now the focus of the show. The big Christmas camping, where the girls assembled, seems to be the big ender of the show. Looking back at the experience, this show is actually pretty empty. Nothing really happened, huh? I’ll probably build a shrine for Nadeshiko in our woods though, because people need to worship her, but nothing really substantial happened in the show. I guess it featured a lot of food and a lot of real places to camp. I guess Japanese viewers can now go on a pilgrimage going to the places the girls went to. Maybe recreate the food in the same setting as well. This is the problem with most marshmallow shows. It doesn’t really hold up much, so it’ll just be easily replaced by the next marshmallow show of the next season. But that’s fine, because I met Nadeshiko and I wuv her.

You adorable little energizer bunny.

Anyways, the episode features the girls just assembling and then setting up camp. The main focus of the episode is in the latter half where the girls ate the Grade A meat. I have never heard of graded meat. I wonder what grade the meat in my market is. The girls ate a lot of food in this episode, Nadeshiko in particular. Before the camping, she already downed four rice balls and I think she ate the most in this episode. The biggest pay off of this get together is the sukiyaki that Aoi made. It looks really good, and I got hungry looking at the food. It didn’t end there though, because Aoi then made tomato sukiyaki with the remaining meat. Proving that these girls want to die early, Aoi immediately planned on making some cheese pasta with the remaining beef broth. I like this girl. She doesn’t let anything go to waste. As suspected though, the big camping adventure will be a two parter. While preparing the cheese pasta, because their stomach is bottomless, their gas actually ran out. It’s basically gawd telling them to stop. In fact, they grabbed the teacher’s gas and it was also empty. Again, even gawd heard the screams of their heart. The episode ends with Rin going to a store to buy more gas, because Nadeshiko needs gas for her morning breakfast. I’m sure it’ll be one hell of a one pot wonder, since she consistently does a lot of them. Given my track record with the predictions though, you can bet this won’t come true. I think I’m losing. Oh gawd, why?!

Notable moments in the episode

A lot of minor stuff happened in this episode, and I just want to bullet point them rather than talk about them above.

• Firstly, the zen moments is done by the Outdoor club, because they went to the meeting place early. Thy also gave us the first food moment of the episode with their ice cream. It was weird. I do love seeing the other characters get some significant screen time.
• The non-lacquered skillet and the expensive sleeping bag, discussed in the previous episode, made an appearance. And yet Pine Cone-chan seems to have no plans of returning.
• This is the first time the camping rangers are seen on screen together in the anime.
• This is the second time.
• Saitou’s dog is adorable, and Nadeshiko galloping in the field just feels right. Yknow, the girl needs a lot of space or else she’ll be all sad.
• Red Fuji is awesome. I love orange sunsets, and they do look awesome on a high place where the sky looks like a beautiful painting you just want to capture with your expensive camera.
• The Frisbee segment is weird. Yeah, I get it. It looks fun and engaging, and it does remind me of a true group of people camping together, but it still looks weird. We don’t even know where the little kids came from.
• I guess the general vibe of the girls camping together also feels nice. Despite the anime feeling empty, it does nail a lot of things right. The big camping in this episode is really different from the previous ones because of how many people there are. It contrasts with Rin’s solo camping, which the show does bring up, and I hope Rin sticks to group camping.
• Drunk teacher is awesome. She starts her day right with beer, sleeps the afternoon away, wakes up with rum in her coffee and whines about not bringing sake and wine while she eats her food. She’s pretty depressing though, since a girl that drinks like that shouldn’t be doing it alone. But ohmygawd, she drinks like a fish. It’s really amazing.

There is a significant drought for me when it comes to Yuru Camp. My predictions just aren’t landing, and it’s really fascinating how I’ll probably lose the Winter Games. I think the sprint at the beginning was Ok for me, but I’m dying once the marathon started to set. The others certainly prepared for a marathon, while I’m pretty much fallen out of the race. I’m that runner that fell over some gravel, but somehow got a branch lodged in his thigh or something. I think the distinction of being the loser of very first Winter Games has a nice touch to it.

Plot Related: Characters will gaze the sunrise over Mount Fuji, and Nadeshiko will probably go “wahhhhhh”

Character Related: Nadeshiko will cook a one pot meal

This episode of Grancrest features Villar’s death. Yeah, the first big deal death finally happened, and it was pretty anti-climactic. It was really disappointing, because I’ve personally built up the death as something grander. Villar’s end starts with a gawd damn Deus Ex Machina, because the show isn’t satisfied with having Milza just attack the castle. He wasn’t even a prominent figure in this episode. After attacking people like a madman in the previous episode, implying that he must be the one to kill Vilalr, he is now chilling in a horse next to Marinne. It seems the Deus Ex Machina is enough to end Vilalr, so Milza just sat back. Well, the anime did have a big time skip implying that Villar’s resources are spent defending from countless attacks. I wish we could’ve seen Villar’s forces slowly dwindle down and the hopelessness slowly appears over their heads. Unfortunately, this anime prefers a fast pacing so we don’t really see anything important happen. The Deus Ex Machina just comes in and starts wrecking sh*t.

Oh yeah, the big Ex Machina is actually a 1000 ship battalion that attacks Villar’s already weakened forces. Like, really, a new character with a lot of hands turned the tides of victory. It doesn’t make sense, because Theo and Lassic could’ve rushed in to save Villar. If there was a time skip, and they clearly killed their opponents before the last episode ended, then there’s enough time for the Union to send aid. Unless there is no time skip, which still doesn’t make sense, because that many ships is hard not to spot. Someone from the Union could’ve warned the neighboring lord, like ‘yo, are those your ships?’, so the whole thing wouldn’t have looked so stupid. I mean, my gawd, Villar is killed by the most dastardly and lazy storytelling device man has ever conceived: the dreaded Deus Ex Machina. The invasion is a slaughter though, and a lot of poor people are killed.

More importantly, the awesome floating ship and the unnecessarily awesome mirror laser from the previous episode are also disposed. It’s truly a gigantic defeat for the Union, but it doesn’t really feel that big of a loss. The Alliance basically won by outnumbering the opponent, so the whole strategy aspect of the battle is pure sh*t if you can just spam the opponent with your pawns. Wouldn’t it be better if the rabid Milza from the last episode infiltrates the castle, kills everyone, and has a part in Villar’s death? I mean, he already did that before. He f*cking killed everyone in a castle by himself and he dethroned his father. The show built up a very evil man, and he doesn’t have a hand in the defeat of the most prominent leader of the Union? That’s bullsh*t. This was a very stupid episode. I don’t care if the chess board of carnage is setup, because this was just awful.

Villar went out like a hero though, I guess. He also had a very awesome moment when he hugged his cousin before falling over and dying. We do not even know what truly killed him, and it seems no one is to blame for his death. He just decided to fall on his back, and it’s so weird. He is such an awesome character, and he deserves a more meaningful ending, damn it. Eh, either way, Marinna gives Villar’s castle to Milza while we hear Villar’s final message to Theo. The battle is on between the two, I believe, and I can’t wait to see it. We also saw meme face and the other Union lords discuss the Villar situation, but the idiots are still pushing for peace. I love Alexis’ face basically looking like a helpless child. Villar’s death is on his hands, so I hope the idiot gets an axe to the chest too. Yeah, I would just like to say that I love the fact that someone hurled a big ass axe through the air to kill a mage. How does that even work? Is it like a Frisbee?

The next episode of Grancrest will be a recap, so I believe the Winter Games for Grancrest ends here. I was expecting a bang for the mid-season end of the anime, but we got a f*cking whimper. I think Leap and Irina will continue to watch the show. I won’t, because I have a lot of shows to catch up to. I have the tea time collab to focus on as well. This particular collab is also drawing a close, so it has been a wild ride. I thank everyone for following up on our collab on a weekly basis, but next week is the last one. Please tune in for the closing of the Winter Games 2018.

Before I start sh*tting on Sanrio Rangers, I would just like to say that THIS is my reaction when nyaa shut down. Same setting too, as I’m surrounded by friends also as shocked as me. Ah, that was such a great tragedy. Anyways, this episode of Sanrio feels like very wonderful forced filler because they just couldn’t make twelve episodes of content. Mr. Contrived comes back to give us a very awful conflict that doesn’t really make sense.

Oh, before I talk about the episode itself, just look at the lazy animation above. Look at that. WTF is that? Look at the awful perspective and the horrible proportions here. Yuu is supposed to be on the back, while Kouta is on the foreground. Doesn’t look it though, because this show sucks. Also, did you guys notice that the same scene of Kouta in the right hand corner and the others lumped in the left is done five times in the show. Now that’s some lazy sh*t right there. Like, just re-draw over the same lazy scene. It’ll work five different times.

Anyways, this episode is about Kouta having a forced conflict because he used to play a tree in a school play or something. The entire episode is a mess, because the problem comes out of nowhere. I can understand if Kouta feels inferior to the other guys, but not during the home stretch. The guys already bonded by going through Puroland and sleeping together in their training camp. These kinds of feeling should already be over. Maybe before the bonding experience, then I can understand. But this problem came the f*ck out of nowhere. He was already sparkling with the group, so his inferiority problem shouldn’t really be an issue. The guy admits it himself that he doesn’t really know what’s wrong with him.

Ohmygawd, the awful writing at work here. They even padded out the episode by having characters give advice to Kouta, which should’ve convinced him to stop acting like a b*tch. Like, three different people came up to him, told him that he shouldn’t feel bad, and yet he kinda just white noise the advises. Like, nope, I’m mad in this episode. That’s my role in this episode, so I don’t care how many people advise me to calm down. I have a theory actually. This kind of erratic and annoying behavior reminds me of a girl…..

…during her period.

Seriously, go watch the episode. Kouta seems to have his first period, and he doesn’t know how he should feel. He just wants to be mad, maybe eat some ice cream to ride out the cramps and he wants to scream from time to time. Like seriously, what else can explain this stupid episode? Instead of having the characters just practice, bond more, and maybe let the president give more innuendos, the writers apparently thought that a forced conflict makes more sense. It doesn’t. This is your cool off episode, so having a guy experience his first period shouldn’t be happening this late in the game. What the hell is wrong with you?

The episode ends with the Sanrio Rangers returning to Puroland at night, and that was a weird scene too. Did they stalk Kouta? Because his decision to visit Puroland is on a whim. But, that’s enough overthinking. This episode sucks. Kouta sucks. This anime sucks. I’m so glad we have the last episode next week. Sweet baby jesus, this ride is almost over.

Plot Related: The Sanrio Rangers will get a standing ovation for their musical

Character Related: The group will share one last sappy moment, and maybe someone will cry, and they’ll hug it out afterwards.

Anyways, check out the other (winning) bloggers’ posts. Irina’s post HERE, HERE, and HERE

Leap’s post HERE

and AstralGemini’s post HERE

In a collaboration where I am also losing, because my romance prediction isn’t gaining traction, the latest episode of After The Rain features my new header. Check out Keiko’s post HERE where we discuss the best episode in the anime so far.