Gonna Be the Twin-Tail!! - Episode 1

Time to start something new. Seeing as the School Days are behind us, I decided to change the title of the blog to a more neutral "Kevin Watches Anime". It was still up for grabs and I think it works pretty alright.

This time around I'm going with a recommendation from a different friend who told me to watch "Twintail" and this seems to be it. Crunchyroll did have it and it is available for me just... It's not with English subtitles. So now the question is... do I go for German or French... I haven't had to use either in years. French used to be better but seeing as German is closer to Dutch (which is my native language by the by) I might have to go with that one instead.

Also apparently this is another anime where only the first couple episode are any good, but we all know that's not gonna stop me.

Nope. I can't do it. Yar-har-fiddle-dee-dee, finding myself a version with English subs.

That's... an odd thing to comment on. I mean, I'd be more surprised if it wasn't a partial name-drop.

I have yet to learn this guys name (who I take is the main protagonist) but he's already obsessed with girls... though in a more subtle way? He's got a real hair-fetish going on. So much that he wants to start a club about it. Don't know if I trust "clubs" much these days, but alright. Whatever, weirdo.

Onto the intro which seemingly introduces us to the other characters (or at least spoils who's gonna be important). There's Erina, who was introduced by name two seconds into the anime (the blonde chick), and there's that black haired girl the first bit kept focusing on and finally there's a white/silver haired girl who doesn't have the titular twin-tails, yet seems to be surprisingly infatuated with Soji (our main character). But due to her lack of twintails I smell zaniness.

Oh it is? I was under the impression it wouldn't be.

Hey! Show some class! We save our beach scenes for their own episodes. You can't just squander it on the intro.

Although.. from what I gather our main characters turn into weird robo-strippers that can fly. This seems to include Soji by the way, who also seems to be undergoing a gender change. I'm really interested to see them explain that one.

I'm also getting the feeling the white haired chick is purely there for fanservice. Outside of the first shot of her latching onto Soji all she's been in this intro is jiggle physics.

Overall the intro was fine though. I liked the song and the action looks pretty cool.

And then suddenly these two just start fight in the middle of a conversation. I hate it when people do that. It's so rude.

Anyhow, we learn that these characters are actually related (they share a grandfather) though I don't think they're sibling. At least I hope not because I think Soji's mom was hitting on the other girl. I don't know what else to make of this.

Um.. that escalated quickly?

I guess we won't know. That's all that scene was. Outside of the shadow of the thing chasing her, which kinda looked like a bad hair day Godzilla.

Soji and the other girl (we gonna get a name anytime soon?) are finishing up work in their curry restaurant and discussing Soji's club idea when they notices "Jiggles" sitting there pretending to read a newspaper when suddenly this happens.

Real classy.

But then she goes over to sit with Soji which the other girl doesn't like and then she tries to hit Jiggles but then...

SHE HAS A FORCEFIELD?!

WHAT.

Okay, so that second one turns out to not be true, I think. (I'm watching you)

And Jiggles finally introduces herself.

Yeah, no.

She then offers Soji a bracelet.. because he likes twin-tails...
The other girl rightfully thinks that's weird but Jiggles claims it isn't.

You said it.

Jiggles then starts begging Soji to put it on insisting that he must and that it isn't a weird scam like the other girl thought it was.

I DON'T LIKE WHERE THIS IS GOING.

Yeah? Well.. ...Damn it, she got me...

(Also the other girl is Aika. We finally got her name, thank god.)

Anyways, Jiggles tells Soji that she'll do anything for him to out the bracelet on and the twin-tails are brought up yet again. I'm gonna have to check TvTropes on this later but that's just an unusual euphemism isn't it?

Well Jiggles did offer her twins to him, though he immediately turns them down.

She then tells Soji that if he doesn't help her all the twin-tails will disappear which causes him to agree, have the bracelet slapped on and transported elsewhere along with the two girls.

Anime is weird.

So after they reappear we discover they've been transported a 20 minute drive away where we find the girl shown earlier in the episode and in the Godzilla scene who, get this, HAD HER LOVE FOR AND MEMORIES OF TWINTAILS STOLEN FROM HER BY A MONSTER CALLED AN ELEMILIAN.

Anime is weird.

So there's people in skintight bodysuits with guns that fire giant bubbles that ensnare girls with twintails to bring them to their leader, who is a guy in a lizard suit that claims twin-tails are a destructive force.

ANIME IS WEIRD.

I.. you get my point, right?

Anyways, we see that the ultimate twin-tails belong to Erina who is being taken to the Lizard Guy.

Well... Duh. I mean.. how else would you do it?

So... apparently Soji is going to have to fight the Elemilians by donning the most powerful suit of armor, the Tail Gear...

I'm honestly laughing at this point, this is ridiculous. It's wonderfully ridiculous. This has to be some sort of parody, right?

Okay, yeah. I'm convinced it is now.

The Lizard Guy (who I guess is just the Elemilian) comments on how easily she? could defeat the Ultiroids and demands to know who she is.

Jiggles states that it's time for the grand introduction which Soji starts until...

I know that falling over thing is a definite anime trope, but it was really funny seeing the entire crowd do it in unison.

In any case, Soji chooses the name Tailred only to...

So basically that who fight scene was freaking amazing because of how over the top and silly it was.

Afterwards Erina thanks Tailred before being attack by her pile of maids.

Then we see this guy...

I take it he's the main villain and he controls a bunch of other reptile people as well. Along with having the greatest motivation known to man.

And the ending was pretty good.

So that was the first episode of "Gonna Be the Twin-Tail!!" I really didn't know what to think at first, but once I realized it was a parody and stopped trying to question the logic behind it I enjoyed it a lot more. It was really weird, but I definitely did enjoy myself. 

But anime is still really weird.

School Days - Alternate Endings (Bonus)

Alright, so… I guess I lied. Guess who’s watching more School Days! We’re gonna watch all the alternate endings today (which I believe are from the various visual novel incarnations that I later learned this whole thing was based on. Makes a lot of sense actually..). I might split them up if this post gets too long, but let’s do this.

“Forever”

Oh my god, so basically. Kotonoha is too obsessed with Makoto to let him go. So when he chooses Sekai instead you let’s herself falls off the building and dies really fucking graphically. Going with the rest of the series I feel that ending could work but.. That’s dark. And the ending itself was already dark.

“The Bloody End Conclusion”

Just from the title alone you know this one’s gonna be good.

Well that was disturbing. We get a really awkward ten minutes of Kotonoha being in Matoko’s house while he’s fucking Sekai in the room next door. And then in the end Kotonoha sees paint buckets and that suddenly makes her decide to kill Sekai in public by slitting her throat. Wow that was graphic.

“To My Child”

So apparently at the start Sekai is already gone and Kotonoha had Makoto’s baby.

And then she returns to stab him and is distraught when he tells her he loved her, and then he just kinda… stumbles along until he eventually dies.

“Pushed Too Far”

This is the last bad ending, so I don’t like where this is going looking at the title…

So in this one Sekai gets pregnant with some other guy’s baby and Kotonoha admits defeat and say she’ll support the two of them. Only for Makoto to tell her he doesn’t want to tell with someone else’s baby. Taisuke's nonetheless. Apparently Sekai blame Kotonoha for making him think that. So Makoto tells her this and she says she’s willing to forgive Sekai for that because she’s still her friend and brought them together after all.

SHE IS THEN PUSHED IN FRONT OF A TRAIN

Makoto tries to pull her away and manages to grab her hand, before the train rips away everything else.

HOLY HELL THAT WAS GRAPHIC.               

“Sexfriend”

Another excellent title here.

That ending was.. not very noteworthy. He’s still with Sekai but is fucking Hikari on the side for some reason. Also I think she might be pregnant now.

“Everyone’s Makoto”

That… sure is a title…

So the scenario here is basically the same as the last one except Hikari apparently wants to arrange for him to have sex with different other girls each they. And he seems surprisingly morally obligated to this fact considering he’s still with Sekai. That seems strangely caring for his character this late into the anime. Is his character different in the game?

“The Earnest Feelings Are Rewarded”

So this one starts off with Makoto realizing he’s loved Katou all along and it’s actually kind of sweet. He seems to be sincere when he tells her he remains loyal to her. After the (cut) sex scene they apparently turn out to be constantly arguing. But it turns out they’re still okay so.. I dunno.

“Goodbye Sekai”

So.. Sekai has buggered off and apparently everyone’s become distant with Makoto. Yet he’s somehow still together with two girls I’ve never seen before (who seemed both twins yet very young. So.. part score, part gross.) He gets a letter from France, probably from Setsuna but he just tosses it out. This one was kinda weird.

“Two Lovers”

Okay so this one starts out with the lesbian option I jokingly suggested in an earlier post, before them deciding to have a polygamous relationship and be stuck with perma-threesomes. Also they’re both pregnant… what?

“I’m His Wife”

So in this one.. Setsuna sends Makoto a letter from France with a picture showing she’s pregnant. Somehow I found a couple of these endings weirder than the one we got in the anime itself.

“Love Fulfilled”

So Sekai is sitting outside depressed thinking Makoto won’t come see her when Setsuna comes over and tells her about how apparently Makoto made plans with Kotonoha (which upsets her even more) before eventually implying that he basically already chose for her. He then shows up, they say they love each other and make out. A lot of these endings might work better for me if I knew the exact events leading up to them because it’s not what I thought they would be where they’re just alternate endings to the anime. Oh well.

“Bavarois”

In this one Sekai is once again upset, though inside her own home. Makoto comes at her door apologizing for something but she won’t forgive them. Eventually her mother comes home they eat some desserts and mentions that her boyfriend is still outside waiting for her and he wouldn’t move until Sekai accepted his apology. After which they’re reunited. Again, Makoto seems a lot more likeable in this scene than he was in any episode past the third of the anime. Was he just really Flanderized when they adapted it into an anime?

“Setsuna’s Wish”

In this one I think it’s implied Sekai and Makoto are together as they see Setsuna before she leaves for France. Although she and Makoto casually discuss sexting each other in front of Sekai. She doesn’t appreciate it but seems to take it far too well regardless.

“With Honesty”

Nothing to noteworthy here, Sekai thinks Makoto picked Kotonoha instead. He didn’t, they love each other.

“I Love You”

Well, there’s an ending to could’ve really been an alternate one to the anime if we didn’t have Makoto having that make out session with Kotonoha in that last episode and went for this instead. Not sure if that would’ve been a satisfying conclusion to Kotonoha’s story it’s certainly something.

“To Kotonoha”, “It Begins With The First Kiss” & “After the kiss”

These were basically if they ended it at the end of episode 2 or something like that. All three are the same for the most part it’s just their conclusion that’s different. Makoto starts out by berating Sekai and Nanami for sending the bitch squad after Kotonoha before pulling a big damn heroes, saving the latter from the former. He then has Katou tell the others to not bully Kotonoha anymore and they reluctantly agree. Afterwards they beat Nanami and Sekai in the hallway. Sekai tells him she didn’t know about the bullying and Nanami admits it was all her. Makoto leaves her to cry though. The ending scene itself was pretty sweet in its own right, they referred to the bit in the first episode where Kotonoha’s food wasn’t particularly great and the scene ends with Kotonoha being embarrassed by their indirect kiss. In the first ending he tells her to not be embarrassed by it as they’ll be kissing for real at some point now that they’re boyfriend and girlfriend. In the second they actually kiss. And in the third he reminisces about what they might do beyond there, but specifically states they wouldn’t do anything until she was ready. Which again is weirdly considerate of him when you think about his character in the anime. I would’ve probably been okay with these ending had the anime been two episodes long, possibly three but for the series as a whole this would seem kind of odd. I’ll take them for what they are though.

“Him And Only Her”

This one started out differently but was basically the same in the end, the main difference is that Makoto apologizes for bad things he did and promises to be better and protect Kotonoha. My conclusion from the last one still stands, but this might be more for episode 4 or 5 maybe.

“With Kotonoha”

Not much to say here, Makoto and Kotonoha had sex and are happy together. This feels like a better ending to episode 3 to be honest. Not much else to note here though.

“Lust”

So apparently Makoto told Kotonoha that he would be with her if Sekai gave up, which she does after talking to Kotonoha. He goes to questions what she said and she says this:

And she had pictures too! Apparently just showing them to Sekai was enough to make her turn pale and basically give up. Kotonoha then tells Makoto that she wants him to keep doing stuff like that and he rightfully question whether this is love or lust.

“A Christmas Eve”

That was short. Basically they end up in that hotel room Kotonoha arranged near the end of the anime and I guess we never find out what happened to Sekai here. I guess she’s still waiting with her dinner or maybe she already threw it on the floor. I don’t know.

So.. I thought that was it, but after doing some more research I found out that the PS2 version of the game had two additional scenes that were later removed again from the version that all the other scenes were from. I suppose I might as well look into them.

“The Train”

Basically it’s exactly like “Pushed Too Far” except Makoto manages to save Kotonoha while knocking Sekai aside. Makoto and Kotonoha are on the tracks but climb out as Sekai realizes her phone is still on the tracks and tries to reach for it before getting hit by it. Not. Freaking. Worth it.

I’m not sure if it’s an alternate version of the scene, but I found a video that had a couple more seconds before Sekai got hit where you see Kotonoha push her down and onto the tracks before Makoto fully pulls her away from the tracks.

“That Other Train One”

I couldn’t find the name for this one, nor the scene in Japanese. I had to watch a Spanish fan-dub.

Regardless in this one the three character meet at the train station where I think Kotonoha tries to beg Sekai to stop being with Makoto. At least if I know these characters well enough by now. I don’t think it work and Makoto tries to break up the upcoming cat-fight until Kotonoha pushes Sekai onto the tracks. Makoto jumps in and helps her back up. Sekai reaches her hand out to help him before we get a gore discretion cut while hearing screams and squealing train brakes. This fucking train has literally killed everyone now.

Anyhow… I believe that for real does it for School Days. Apparently it’s part of a freaking saga of visual novels but I’m not really gonna bother with those (unless you people really want to see them, but even then it’s gonna be hard because I think they’re Japan only) as I’d rather just stick to anime for now. Besides, I think I’ve seen enough school days to last me a lifetime. It’s time to move on. So next time.. I will finally, and for real… not be watching School Days.

School Days - Episode 12 (Finale)

Here we are, the grand finale. We’re finally gonna find out how the confusing, frustrating and sometimes really dull story of Makoto, Kotonoha and Sekai is going to end. I would say nothing bad is going to happen but… That knife plot points hasn’t paid off yet.. and that mean we have a Chekov’s Gun amongst every single other plot point that did get resolved. I’m hoping for the best, but setting myself up for the worst. It’s up to debate which situation is which. Let’s do this.

So we start out with Makoto and Kotonoha. The former complains it’s cold and tries to warm his hands before the latter promptly places them on her boobs. Then we cut to Sekai, who I think is actually living with Makoto now who complains that he’s late. He’s a real asshole though if that’s true because just last episode he was actively trying to call the girls he was banging on the side.

Then instead of the usual intro we get the glass shatter that the first episode had… I’m not sure why but it gives me a really weird foreboding feeling.

So we have Makoto call Sekai and lie to her about his whereabouts until he lets Kotonoha’s name slip and Sekai figures out what’s going on. He then ends up telling her off and basically kicking her out of his house saying that she’s not even his girlfriend. What’s the really unsettling thing though is that before it cuts, she angrily grabs onto her stomach and you hear glass shattering. I’m guessing she flipped that table but.. I can’t help but feel the angry stomach grab implied something worse than that.

We then cut back to Makoto who drops to the floor and immediately receives a text from Sekai in which she apologizes for what happened. While he’s down on the ground Kotonoha just kind of stares at him and this episode just continues being unsettling…

We see the three characters heading home until Sekai gets a repeat of the first time Kotonoha caught them making out.

Makoto and Kotonoha head to his home where he finds the dinner on the floor, meanwhile we see Sekai come back and angry push the elevator button. I had to pause because I had a feeling shit is about to go down and I wouldn’t remember to write this part.

Speaking off mirrors, we start off with Sekai slapping Kotonoha in the face this time. We then get Sekai screaming at the two of them until this happens.

My thoughts were literally “Oh shit..”

Then Kotonoha proceeds to spill the beans about Setsuna to Sekai, first insisting she told her do it before quickly realizing she didn’t know. Kotonoha talks about the “realizing how Makoto feels” conversation from the second episode and tells her she finally understands before shameless making out with him in front of Sekai, causing her to scream out in agony at the sight.

We proceed to a flashback of Sekai and Setsuna talking about Matoko shortly after their orientation happened, then Sekai is also put into that weird masked play thing from before. Apparently Setsuna was one of the people and Sekai is told that everything is basically all her fault and that she only made them be together to make herself look good. It was really weird and confusing but it was enough to make her fall down on her knees and cry.

And then the next day Sekai gets a text from Makoto basically saying Kotonoha knew an abortion clinic and that she should go ASAP.

The next seen has Makoto at school when Sekai text him she wants to talk to him in private, at this house.

Apparently Sekai is going through with it because the next scene immediately has him discussing it with Kotonoha. I guess he really did learn though, because he tells Kotonoha that he enjoys just spending time with her and will remain focused on her now. Better late than never I guess?

No never mind, he hasn’t talked with Sekai yet. He’s doing it now.

I can’t believe his first question to her was “So how was your abortion?”

Eventually he offers to get them some tea but she says she’ll get it instead. While she makes it she eventually notices the garbage bag with her dinner in it and grabs her phone.

We cut back to Matoko who is in the living room still when his phone goes off and he goes to find it in I guess the bedroom when…

“Oh shit” once again was all I could think. She’s gonna murder this asshole.

It cuts to Kotonoha and Kokoro talking about how Kotonoha is gonna make Makoto dinner and go to the ocean the next day and Kokoro saying she wants to come with them.

And then we cut back to Makoto finally reaching his phone and reading a text from Sekai

It then repeats the following screen and I wasn’t too sure what to make of it…

Those are returns… there’s probably another message at the end… and he’s scrolling to it…

This is actually really suspenseful..

Oh. My. God. The teapot squealing louder and louder in the background as he scrolled, the sound design was excellent there. I’m almost kind of terrified to unpause but.. I want to as well.

OH MY GOD…

That was really fucking intense…

And really fucking messed up…

I really recommend you watch it yourself because it was really intense and extremely disturbing…

But if you’re not up for that, allow me to tell you in fine detail.

Alright so…

After the goodbye message you get this really earie silence. You don’t hear the steam anymore, no music… nothing.

Then the music starts to kick in and we see Sekai standing behind Makoto, before he even fully realize she just dashes for him and stabs him, causing him to drop to the floor.

She tells him he’s too cruel and we hear another step while flashing back to earlier moments.

She keeps stabbing him while we see more flashbacks until he says her name one last time before grabbing her boob.

The man is dead. Makoto just fucking died.

(The censored blood kinda took away from the situation a little as it was black, not red. At least.. I assume it was censored.)

The steam finally kicks in again as Sekai realizes what’s she did and hauls ass out of the apartment back to her own home, somehow without anyone noticing her being covered in blood.

We then see Kotonoha enter the apartment and finding Matoko’s body. It cuts to a distressed Sekai sitting on her bed as her phone goes off.

She reaches the roof and there seems to be nothing but a bag on one of the benches until we hear Kotonoha ask if she went to the abortion clinic. Sekai tells her that she would never go to one she recommended and Kotonoha tells her it’s because she’s lying and that she never was pregnant. She only said she was to have Makoto come back to her.

At this point, you can see the danger approaching if you look closely. Unless Kotonoha suddenly grew a tail…

Sekai breaks down and tells Kotonoha that she deserved to be with Makoto after everything she did for him.

Kotonoha then remarks that he’s right here.. and before you think she’s being sweet and pointing at her heart or something, no. Remember that bag? Oh yeah, we’ve gotten into full on Se7en territory.

Sekai opens the bag and proceeds to throw up. We don’t actually see what’s in the bag but you can just tell it’s insanely disturbing.

After Sekai gets up, Kotonoha tells her she wants to see if she was telling the truth and reveals a huge knife already stained in blood.

Sekai tries to pull out the knife she used to murder Matoko but Kotonoha blocks her and she drops it.

Kotonoha glares at her as we pan up and just hear a slice and blood shoots up like a fountain.

Sekai dies instantly, drops to the ground and blood starts spilling everywhere.

Kotonoha is covered in blood as we get a shot from inside Sekai’s stomach.

She then confirms Sekai was lying after all and the scene ends after we hear Kotonoha state that there was no baby inside her.

We then cut for one last time to see a ship on the ocean. All we see on the ship is Kotonoha lying on the deck… holding Matoko’s severed head and the bloody bag behind her, saying that now they can finally be alone.

Holy hell, crap on a cracker. That was freaking insane and kind of out of nowhere but.. it was kind of awesome. No really, I actually kinda dug that ending. I’m not sure if Sekai should’ve died like that, though I guess she did murder a man.. Oh well. Where did Taisuke by the way? Maybe he really took Kotonoha rejecting him to heart. I don’t think he was seen after that… That’s dark.

Well, that certainly was a journey. That definitely was an experience.

I did like some parts of it, the beginning was alright, it was kinda funny. The end of the third episode is where it started going downhill for me the whole affair really didn’t do much for me and the fact that it was the only thing anyone ever talked about got really tiring after a while. I can’t really say it was all bad though, I certainly enjoyed myself for the most part. It’s weird how there was a lot of points where I feel this thing could’ve ended and I’d be perfectly alright with it, but it didn’t and it just kept getting worse. For example, the end of episode nine would’ve been an okay thing to end on but alas.

The final ending was messed up to hell and back but in a strange way… it’s a far more satisfying conclusion than him ending up with either one of them, despite Kotonoha deserving to be happy she really didn’t need to put up with this asshole. And I guess she’s still happy now in her own twisted little way.

Overall I’d recommend seeing it at least once, maybe do the thing I got recommended initially and just watched the first and final episode if you’ve already read this blog anyways.

That certainly was an interesting intro to anime as a whole, I’m glad you guys were there to witness it.

From here I’ll probably do another full series if I find a good contender for it, aside from that I’ll probably blog about various first episodes of other anime I had recommended to me. I might not be watching School Days anymore, but I’ll definitely be watching something.

- Kevin

PS. Whatever happened to that third guy?

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Episode 3

Hey guys, Kevin here. I’m gonna change things up a bit this time around. I’m gonna do a recap in post alongside the usual reaction excerpts due to us not really saying much that was very worthwhile.

The episode itself started off with a recap before hitting us with the intro.

Caitlin: “This is still the most anime opening ever.”

Kevin: “We’ve been over this. It really isn’t.”

Caitlin: “I know but I’m gonna say that every single time.”

Kevin: “When were they ever at the beach together?”

Caitlin: “A romantic rendezvous of course.”

Kevin: “Oh god, since this is an anime we’re probably gonna have a freaking beach episode too…”

Caitlin: *laughs*

Kevin: “Do the bow!”

Caitlin: “Aw.. he didn’t..”

Kevin: “There he goes!”

Caitlin: “Yaaaaaaay!”

Kevin: “I like how it showed it was the receipt for the glass stand, even though it was a plot point they didn’t know they because no one ever bothered to flip over the thing.”

The remainder of the trial scene was enjoyable as well but it ended up mostly just us fangirling or laughing at every little thing from the games that was really awesome or really weird to see in anime format. We mainly enjoyed them replicating animations like Wright’s desk slam and Edgeworth’s finger wag.

Caitlin: “I’m surprised he hasn’t broken that desk yet by slamming it so much.”

Kevin: “Don’t sit like that, you’ll ruin your hair!”

Caitlin: “Or maybe he’ll poke holes in the chair.”

In the second part of the episode we get a pretty interesting deviation from the games where Grossberg himself owes up to being blackmailed by Redd White (and sending Wright off to investigate),  even mentioning a certain something that happened in the past.

Caitlin: “What was that?”

Kevin: “Did you not realize what that was?”
Caitlin: “No I didn’t.”
Kevin: “Do you need a parrot to remind you?”
Caitlin: “…I repressed those memories…”

From here on out I think we were basically constantly laughing at the hammy ridiculousness that was Redd White in the Japanese version. He spent the whole seen shouting random (misused) Engrish and it was one of the most amazing things I have seen in what little anime I’ve watched. It truly was a sight to behold.

The scene itself was pretty interesting too. White didn’t actually resort to physical violence in this scene but he actually gets Phoenix Wright arrested for Mia’s murder. I believe he just got him kicked out in the game with the knowledge that White murdered Mia but he had no way to put him on trial for it.
I think he might’ve threatened to pin it on Wright but I don’t remember him actually going through with it. The scene after that even has Maya being released from custody and Wright being locked up instead.

Overall we really had a blast with this episode, despite not having much to say about it. It was just every bit as wonderful as we hoped it would be and it makes me really excited to see some of the other really quirky character pop up later.