I watched a sh*t ton of anime last month, so let’s just get this over with. I also included Yuuki Yuuna in this wrap up, because I forgot I posted it this month. I saw it last month, so it still sorta counts. Either way, it’s a long lsit of moments. I will be talking freely about the best moments in all the shows I reviewed in this month. Please remember, there are loads of spoiler ahead. Click at your own risk. Let’s read on.

Best Moments June 2018

Yuuki Yuuna Yuusha de Aru – Borrowing the God’s Powers

Madoka killed Mami in episode three, and it was awesome. For Yuuki Yuuna, the trigger was pulled at episode eight when we saw the girls defeat all of the enemies and transport back to the real world. Instead of going back to the school rooftop, like usual, Yuuki and the wheel chair girl instead gets transported to a place overlooking a broken bridge. Waiting for them is a bedridden one armed girl covered in bandages. She welcomes both of them, and she reveals that she used to be a magical girl like them. In Yuuki Yuuna, girls kinda level up and becomes more powerful. In their last fight, all the girls except for the tsundere leveled up. After the fight, Yuuki lost her sense of taste, the other girl lost her vision in one eye and the little sister can’t speak. They’re optimistic about the whole thing since they just defeated the final monsters that’ll attack them. Sure, they were surprised when the very first monster they killed came back but they’re strong enough now to kill it easily. The bedridden girl now tells them that they’re actually screwed. If leveling up once made them lose their senses, can you imagine a girl’s level is when she loses an arm, an eye, gets bedridden and basically becomes a shell of her former self?

The horrible part? She is immortal.

Yeah, magical girls can’t die so they are bound to fight monsters, level up, lose a part of themselves and repeat the process until they can’t. The bedridden girl explains she has leveled up seventeen times, and her only role now is to make sure Yuuki and the others fulfill their roles. And there it is, Mami gets killed one more time and while it isn’t as shocking as a girl getting her head eaten, the darkness really just ramps up. Upon learning the truth, the wheel chair girl actually tried to kill herself and she discovers that their magical pets are actually around them 24/7 to prevent it. She even tried seppuku to make sure, and yeah, she can’t die. But the monsters are all dead now, they killed them so it’s really over, right? Well, the girl took a peak outside the wall of the Divine Tree and she witnessed this:

A world in ruins, and they’re basically in some weird hell now. The worst part is that the monsters they killed before are casually regenerating outside the wall. This means that the monsters never truly die, they must fight, they can’t die, they’ll forever live in agony and this beautiful nihilism truly rivals Madoka’s. No, the girls of Madoka can die. Yuuki Yuuna lives on in constant suffering. It’s truly a circle of hell reserved for magical girls. And just like the rest of the show, the explanation for the girls’ powers is actually really well explained. Since the divine tree is like a God, the girls are merely offerings borrowing its powers, but Gods usually do these transactions with an exchange. So, it’s an arm or an eye for some super strong magical powers. It’s really f*cked up, and certainly the best moment of 2014. I’m putting this one number one in my top 100 anime moments of 2014, unless something beats its awesomeness.

Yuuki Yuuna Yuusha de Aru – Voiceless

One of the best uses of setup and pay off in this anime would be the little sister losing her voice. During one random episode, she has stage fright and can’t sing properly. The fluff episode entered around the girls trying to help her sing in front of a group. In the end, she does with some “power of friendship” crap or whatever. Alongside this, the dynamic between little sister and big sister was always a focus of the show. They talk to each other a lot, and the cute voice of little sister really stood out among the group. When she lost her voice, the dynamic of the group really changed. When they were back to their usual fluff routine, there was an unexplained tension.

Now, the big reveal is that they can no longer get better. Little sister has forever lost her voice, and big sister took it hard. One, she forced little sister to join the club and become a magical girl. Two, she always felt responsible for little sister after their parents died. Three, she answers the phone and learns little sister actually joined a singing contest. Big sister went to lil’ sis’ room and she play her audition song. This was the very first time we hear the voice again, and it was crushingly painful. The entire scene was quiet, big sister is in shock and the innocent voice of little sister just feels painful to hear. From episode one till this point in the show, the story was always building up this amazing betrayal and it was heart breaking. I don’t say that lightly.  It was devastating, and the anime ensured the impact was effective by holding it off until the ninth episode.

Yuuki Yuuna Yuusha de Aru – The Six Tenets of a Hero

In the big climax of the show, the wheel chair girl said f*ck it, and blew a giant hole in the wall to allow some monsters in. Since they’re already living in hell, she figured it doesn’t really matter if the divine tree dies by her hands. The other girls didn’t want her to kill the tree though, so they fought off the monsters. Of course, they already know that they might level up again and lose another part of themselves, so the other girls were hesitant to fight. Yuuki Yuuna, being an idiot, threw care away though and reminded everyone that they are heroes. The tsundere agreed, and so she decided to fight after Yuuki passed out fighting alone. The following moment is quite possibly the best and the worst moment of the show.

Tsundere fought, and she leveled up. She gets knocked down, but she fights back and levels up again. Now, it was already established that when you level up, you lose a part of yourself so Tsundere willingly doing this is both heroic and heart breaking. In order to save everyone, she decided to fight alone. In her first level up, she was able to take down a lot of enemies. It was really awesome, but then you see that she has lost her arm in the process. Unwavering in her resolve, she levels up one more time and she loses the use of her right leg. She levels up one more time, and she loses her hearing. She levels up again, and she loses her sight. Keep in mind, she feels these things fading from her body as she keeps leveling up, so it was just really hard to watch it. Every time you see her level up, you just feel dread and you want her to stop. She doesn’t stop though, because she’s a hero. This is the best example of Yuuki Yuuna rewriting the rules. In this one scene, Tsundere was a victim of her circumstance but she fights through with a devil may care attitude proving to the viewers that she is not really a victim. She is a hero.

The most awful part is afterwards. Yuuki meets up with her and you see the Tsundere horribly maimed apologizing to Yuuki. She then asks “did you my awesome fighting?” Gawd damn, this anime is awesome.

Terraformars – A Plain Character

In episode eleven, we meet a new character. He is boxer, and he is probably the best character introduced in the show. In his backstory, we discover he comes off as a plain guy. A random promoter tells him that his fights needed drama. Sure, he’s the champion but he isn’t a flashy champion. The guy is very disciplined though. He wakes up early, jogs in a long mile and we even discover that he stops in a specific spot to gaze at an island, a place he considers the best view in the world. He even visits his mother on weekends because she is bedridden. A lot of characters in Terraformars have some sob story to tell, and this plain guy has as well. His retina is detached and he is going blind. Soon, we see her mom’s house is empty and we realize the best view in the world is soon out of his grasp. He is such an earnest character, and he is dealt a bad hand in his life. All of these feelings resurface when he was stuck in a hole with a roach that wants to box him. The two of them had one hell of a back and forth, and he eventually wins. As the episode ends, we flashback to when he was recruited to join Annex 1 and he agreed to join on one request. The recruiter assures him he will get a boxer type bug as his implant, but he keeps quiet. He then said, he prefers a bug with good vision.

Terraformars – I Found Happiness

That German dude turned out to be the most tragic character in the show, huh. His backstory is pretty awful. At the start of the series, he was really detached and always defensive. He keeps telling soldiers to not get their hopes up because they’ll die soon anyways. He would insult people, belittle them and he is just this miserable assh*le throughout the anime. In one of the show’s climax, he was in the spotlight and his backstory is revealed. It turns out that the guy is an actual softie. He’s pretty meek and he keeps his distance because he was being openly experiment on as early as his college life, before he needed it for his journey in Annex 1. But, then he just fell in love. There was this woman, he was smitten and they married.

Then she cheated. She apologized, and the German dude accepted her back.

Then she had a baby, and since the POV storytelling is told in the eyes of the German dude, currently drugged up while he fights the roaches, a lot of the following scenes are just implied. But basically, he wasn’t the father and he knew that. Drowned in his own thoughts, you can hear the baby in the empty apartment because his wife just left him. That’s right, the German assh*le turned meek cuck was basically betrayed by the only person he ever loved. With this backstory revealed, he really didn’t have anything to lose anymore. He destroyed a lot of roaches and he plans on going out in a blaze of glory. In his dying moments, we soon discover he was meant to die in the first place. The Germans experimenting on him ensures their technology won’t be obtained by any roach or man, so the German has a bomb implanted into him. His entire unit goes with him, and we soon learn even after the threat of roaches beheading us with their awesome hands, the humans are still greedy and opportunistic vermins. This anime also kinda indirectly told us never to trust the Germans. Yeah, smooth move from a country that needed to be nuked just to be told to stop.

Psychopass 2 – Tsunemori Reunites with the Sybil System

In the climax of Psychopass 2, it is revealed that Kamui simply wanted the Sybil System to judge him. The system told him to go f*ck himself though, because including him into the system would create problems. You see, he is 184 people in one being and the system only judges one mind in one person. Acknowledging him means the system can also judge collectives compiled in one body, like a society, but it should only judge a person in that society. It’s basically a paradox, and the system simply wants him dead. Knowing this paradox, Tsunemori springs into action. She meets fact to face with Kamui and she tells him, “Let’s go meet the Sybil System”. With a gun drawn to the system, Kamui orders it to judge him. He then points the lethal eliminator to The Sybil System  and Tsunemori simply watches on. Finally, the system folds. It flushed out the brains that refuse to judge Kamui, and it was forced to evolve. With the gun now set to the lethal level, the system orders Tsunemori to kill Kamui. Actually, you can sense the fear in the system since it know, at that moment, only Tsunemori can save it. It is f*cking perfection.

Ok, the convoluted thing of 184 people in one is dumb, but the Sybil System begging Tsunemori to save it is just satisfying to see. In the last season, the system laughed at Tsunemori as it promises to end it. Now, the tables have turned and the system is begging for its place knowing only Tsunemori can save it. Of course, Tsunemori did stop Kamui but she planned to detain him. Basically, it’s another slap in the face of the system. She functions outside its will, so she basically just told it to go f*ck itself. Unfortunately, the dude that looks like Saya’s slave from Blood + appears and effectively kills Kamui instead. It was OK, since he died afterwards. Both of them didn’t need to exist anymore and all the loose ends are finally tied. It’s a lame way of tying it, but hey, we didn’t get Urobutcher to write it.

Psychopass 2 – The Link

This anime found a way to keep Kogami in the story without actually forcing him to appear in the story. How? Tsunemori actually lights his brand of cigarettes and she just lets the smell waft in the air. As she thinks, she remembers Kogami and he often helps her in basically everything. From solving the case to how to keep her mind stress free to even finding comfort in her chaotic days, she would turn to Kogami. The anime is even subtle about this, and I really love it. It’s something I’m sure The Urobutcher can never do, because he doesn’t really know sentimentality. His writing is aggressive and dark. When he tried to write something light for Susei no Gargantia, the guy kinda fell off the map afterwards. So this is really why this moment stands out for me. For its restraint and beautiful sentimentality, Ubukata proves he has written something that cannot be compared to the Urobutcher.

Hitsugi no Chaika – He Lives

This anime doesn’t really work on building moments, because the pacing is too fast. It’s only ten episodes, so it’s always on high gear. A lot of moments lacked impact like the revelation of the ultra-gun, the truth behind the Chaikas, and the guy becoming a dragoon soldier. These are moments were wanted to see, but they were executed badly and not as memorable as you’d like. The shocking moments aren’t that impressive as well. There was a scene where one of the Chaika sits on a throne, and when she lifted up her skirt she was actually housing a tentacle demon that immediately ate the remains of the emperor. It’s a WTF scene for sure, but not really that memorable. Hell, even the weird dragon girl didn’t give us any cool moments in this season. It’s a really good show, but it just didn’t really bother to make impact with memorable scenes. It’s fine, but if I were to choose one moment from the show as truly memorable, I guess it’d be the resurrection of the Emperor.

Yeah, it was obvious he was coming back to life but I mostly like the ensuing chaos that came after he came back. The main character became a dragoon, a bunch of satellites gets turned on, the Emperor is overly OP and then the confusing ending came. The emperor notices Chaika is firing at him, he pointed his super gun at her but the gun immediately recognizes Chaika was her owner. She went to her and activated into a super duper gun. Chaika has run out of bullets though, and it’s already established that your memory can be used as ammunition as well. She went for it knowing full well she won’t come back the same, and she fires at the Emeperor. The guy just stood there though as if satisfied about the entire ordeal. I don’t really know why he just stood there, but it was a small glimpse at the humanity from a man deemed too evil to even have his body buried whole. Make no mistake, he had evil plans with those satellites basically triggering another war so he can gather the feeling of anguish and despair to make him live forever. Emotions are the core components of any magical spell and he actually held onto a 4 decade war to ensure his magical source is never empty. But, again, he just stood die as if he just wanted to die. Maybe the LN found a way to keep him alive or something, but the anime ends here. The Emperor is gone, and Chaika and the guy lives on together in a log cabin or something.

Inou Battle wa Nichijou-kei no Naka de- I Don’t Understand

One of the best moments in the show features the childhood friend ranting at how frustrating it is to be friends with a guy with eight grade syndrome. The rant is really good, and the voice actress really sold the scene. It was a mix of frustration, sadness and just outright pleading from a girl that is slowly losing touch with her childhood friend. Tears going down her cheeks, her voice shaking in frustration, the girl would ask the guy to please help her understand what’s the big deal with having an eight grade syndrome? This is Trigger at their finest. They don’t need scantily clad girls fighting with big scissors when the same epic sentiment can be done with one very talented voice actress and an honest scene where restraint shines the brightest.

Inou Battle wa Nichijou-kei no Naka de – They Don’t Need to Know

Perhaps one of the smartest twist in the show comes from the tsudnere’s big brother. He is first introduced as just another idiot with eight grade syndrome. Later on, after we’ve suffered through a lot of club nonsense and harem/love triangle stupidity, he comes back telling the audience there is actually a giant war against humans with super powers. Yknow, the main premise subverted by the anime. Now, how come the main characters never become aware of this war? It turns out, the big brother is actually ensuring that they don’t get mixed up in it. He prefers to see the literature club happy and safe while big brother does all the dirty work. It’s subverting the subversion, which is basically making two shocking right twists you end up in the same direction. This anime is proud of its big moments of sentimentality and grand gestures but they don’t really matter in the overall picture the anime is presenting. This one matters though, and it’s a shame the anime ended on this fact. Basically, the characters have been confined in their club room by force and one can only wonder if they’ll ever break the walls down, or maybe someone will do it for them.