The shake-up continues!  I may be kneejerking in the case of Sousei no Onmyouji, but it truly was the episode that entertained me the most this week.  Truly a dark horse here, fellas.

Boku no Hero Academia, on the other hand, suffered from a bad case of mediocrity since it was pretty much adapting a transitional chapter.  Hard to fault it for that, but it doesn’t get any bonus points either.

Sousei no Onmyouji

Sousei no Onmyouji, the fuck are you doing?

Seriously, stop.  This is getting ridiculous.

So we start right where we left off with tensions between Benio and Rokuro after the revelation that Rokuro killed her brother.  Unfortunately, we don’t allow that revelation to simmer because out of FUCKING NOWHERE, a mysterious villain shows up.  It’s Benio’s brother.

Yes, it turns out that the person responsible for the Hinatsuki Tragedy was in fact Benio’s brother, Yuto, who was performing a forbidden ritual to turn the trainees into Kegare.  Those who weren’t corrupted into Kegare were killed by the corrupted ones, and Rokuro was forced to kill everyone.

Rokuro goes fucking berserk but can’t touch the kid.  Meanwhile, Mayura’s father is doing fuck-all, leaving Benio to be the one to actually accomplish something: she takes a hit from Rokuro to snap him out of his rage.

In the end, Benio and Rokuro’s bonds are actually strengthened by the revelations (and in record time!) and the two resolve to become stronger together.  Gotta say… that was a rather unexpected turn.

That’s two excellent episodes in a row for Sousei no Onmyouji.  The encounter may have been formulaic as fuck, but for this series it was certainly fresh, and re-introduced the darkness that was hinted in the very first episode.  Like I said last week, this may be the turning point for the series, and it could very well turn out to be REALLY freaking good in short order.  Then again… they could royally fuck up and throw stupid filler.  It’s honestly a coin toss.  But hey, at least I have some semblance of hope for this anime now.  After all, this was the first time ever that I actually looked forward to a Sousei no Onmyouji episode.

Ushio to Tora

Well, after two weeks of despair, now we have the turning point.  The Beast Spear’s fragments kill all the memory-blocking Hiyou, then return to form the Beast Spear once more.  Finally, the counterattack against Hakumen no Mono begins…

This episode was all about reviving hope in everyone swallowed in a fear of Hakumen, and it is spectacular.  Even more spectacular?  Tora PAWNCH!

The hope spot isn’t all Ushio’s doing, either.  As always, you can count on Asako to bring on the feels, as she manages to argue to everyone to believe in Ushio even when she has no memories of him.  And it just makes it even better when her memories are returned.

Anyway, Tora and Hakumen’s fight doesn’t quite go Tora’s way, but Ushio is back with his armor on and an army of demons with their hope returned.

Kuma Miko

Much like the Hibiki episode, this was a breath of fresh air, this time for multiple reasons.  The focus wasn’t entirely on Machi this time, and that was for the best.  There’s only so much cringe and bullying you can subject one little girl to.

The entire village comes together and discusses how to bring up tourism, and everyone pretty much gets tricked by Yoshio to agree with making a commercial for the village.  Just one thing he doesn’t mention: commercials are expensive.  To make it work, he asks a local shop owner to be a sponsor.  This comes into play later, but for most of the episode, it’s just the village making the commercial and doing retakes as the vision for the commercial evolves into something surprisingly… good.

And then Yoshio ruins everything because as part of the sponsor agreement, he pretty much has to turn it into an advertisement for the shop.  But the villagers don’t really care for the most part because they’re excited just to be on TV.

…except the old director takes offense to the changes and kinda has a heart attack.

Congrats, Yoshio.  Your meddling killed a man.

Sailor Moon Crystal Infinity

I don’t think we’ve ever gotten subs this bad before.  Like, not even the subs on NicoNico were THIS verging-on-unreadable bad.  There is no doubt in my mind that the translator isn’t a native English speaker, but, y’know… that’s not really a problem for me so long as your fucking SUBTITLER is.  Goddamn, is there no fucking quality control at CR?

Okay, calm blue ocean, calm blue ocean…

The good parts: The Momoiro Clover version of New Moon ni Koishite is spectacular.  We get a great animated Submarine Reflection.  The battle with Kaolinite was great and had The Last Battle blaring in the background, which is always a good thing.  Pretty much most of the first half of the episode.  And the new Tuxedo Mask ending is like something straight out of the 90’s.  I’m talking straight up Escaflowne Mystic Eyes vibes.

Seriously though, take a look at Mystic Eyes and tell me this ending didn’t take a few cues from it:

The bad parts: Most of the second half of the episode.  The animation was a little… eh.  The animated Chronos Typhoon could have been better (but at least it was better than season 2 Dead Scream).  It overall seemed a bit rushed and suffers from adapting the manga a bit too closely, as the Inners once again helplessly fall into a trap.

On the upside, I did enjoy how the final battle was reminiscent of the 90’s anime: the inners unloaded all their attacks on Kaolinite, then Super Sailor Moon finished it off.  The difference here is this was friggin’ Kaolinite, the second-in-command for most of the series.  As much as the Inners job in Crystal, you STILL get the sense they would wipe the floor with the 90’s Inners.

Ace Attorney

Again, another decent adaptation of the source material.  Von Karma’s presence and intimidation came across nearly perfectly, but his courtroom dominance could have been better.

Still, I have no complaints about the courtroom scenes.  Flew by a little quickly, but didn’t feel rushed.

The scene with Maya being taken away should have been the brightest part of the episode, but it… wasn’t animated particularly well.

To add to the disappointment, no Missile.  That’s just sad.

Boku no Hero Academia

Not… a lot happened here.  Honestly, it was kind of boring.  Again, I do appreciate the extra exposure the other students are getting, but consider that the first half of the episode is essentially picking out a class rep and Iida character development, and the second half is setting up a fight with a group of villains… and the first half is by far the more interesting half.

Not that there’s anything wrong with setup.  We needed to build up the rest of the cast more.  It just… wasn’t eventful.