Wait… what?

How about that Air Force/Michigan game? Ouch. Chew on that, Wolverines. And now Miami’s up too? Too sweet.

Impressions:

Good god, was the music at the start of this episode irritating as all hell. I GET IT. IT’S VAN. Now shut off the blaring organ. Please. He’s not even playing one this time. I especially liked how Jade followed up a piddly little Energy Blast with Indignation. Honestly… Energy Blast? Against Van? Would that even do damage? I guess it was a decent fight, but last week’s was more impressive… so… *shrug* Tear hacking Lorelei was just as cheesy here as it was in the game, but at least in the game, you still got to keep fighting instead of Van collapsing.

The rest progressed pretty much as anybody would have expected, with Luke sacrificing himself and a little epilogue before he shows up again. I was rather disappointed that the final scene was pretty much frame for frame identical to the game’s already anime cutscene, but Sunrise has been lazy as hell with this production for quite some time now so it’s not really that surprising. Would it killed them to have a kiss? Or even just a hug? Well, whatever. Disappointment has become par for the course here.

Final thoughts at the bottom.

Final ED

Final Thoughts:

Well, it started well, and did a pretty good job of cutting about 50% of the terrible overwrought nonsense that infested the game. Unfortunately, as the technobabble nonsense continued, adding angst and depression on top of it, they started making cuts to the action so as to fit in more exposition and technobabble. Around the eighteenth time we saw that diagram of the planet’s Sephiroths, I was ready to throw a brick through the screen.

The biggest problem is that the story is really nonsensical to begin with and continually contradicts itself. Beyond that, the central cast remained as weak as they were in the game. Tear has no personality, and both Luke and Asch are so self-absorbed from the very start, and while their tunes may change from spoiled to a martyr complex, it’s really hard to care about either. Thankfully, the side characters remained their strong selves, especially Jade and Guy, but they’re just the sideshow to the Luke/Asch inferiority complex hour.

When you minimize the action and rely on the relatively horrible story and mediocre central cast, it shouldn’t be surprising that the plot overall turns out pretty badly. I’m sure having played through the game a couple times colors my views on this quite a bit, but I’m not really sure if that helped or hurt it. While I appreciated skipping all the backtracking and Sephiroth visiting, sitting through the boring dialogue for about the fourth time really wore me down pretty fast. There have certainly been worse adaptations, but this has been a pretty soulless and by the books affair all around, especially when we had UFOTable’s excellent Symphonia adaptation just before (and apparently, after as well, now that they’re finishing up Rakkyo.)

All in all, I don’t think it’s strong enough to satisfy people that aren’t fans of the game already, but at the same time, it doesn’t really show off the best parts of the game either. I’ll stick with ‘disappointing’ as my final one word thought.

They are scrumptious and help Luke get into Natalia’s pants.

Impressions:

I’ve got to give them some credit. Legretta and Sync’s final battles were actually rather well done. If they had just cut out all the flashbacks and needless chatter in between, it would have been the first truly solid episode in a long while. Unfortunately, there was a ton of random yakking stuffed in between the clashes that prevented it from ever really building any momentum through the first half. The end of the fight also came a bit abruptly. Tear just paralyzed everybody (with Nightmare? Are you kidding me?) and that was that. Even more unfortunately, the Asch vs Luke fight consisted of about 75% flashback and 10% Asch’s inferiority complex. Regardless, the first half and about the first minute of the second was probably the best that this show has been in months and months.

I do think Legretta really got the short end of the stick compared to all the rest of the God Generals, although I’m extremely impressed at Jade’s ability to bloodlessly kill her without even tearing her clothes. I’m not even sure why they refused to show blood either since Asch died with his splattered all over the place. In fact, I think he’s the first person to actually bleed something other than orange or blue sparklies in this show. Anyway, I barely even remember them even starting into the Tear and Legretta’s past together, and compared to the far more marginal Dist, she’s barely made a ripple in the late going. Then again, I’d hate to put forth the idea that we should have sacrificed the little action we had for more flashbacks. The pacing and development problems are best saved for a wrapup next week.

Also… "Asch’s heart is in me now…" That may be the corniest line you’ve ever uttered, Luke. Shame on you, even if you did just consume his precious precious bodily fluids fonims.

Speaking of which… I really hope that the preview is just holding everything back, because it was almost nothing but stills. *sigh*

Preview:

Van the Stampede.

Oops. Forgot to title this.

Don’t feel like waiting for a non-awful resolution copy to show up. It’s not like anything interesting happened this episode anyway.

Impressions:

Well, that was a waste of an episode. I did enjoy Eldrant firing shots randomly into the air against a navy. I think it’s because Van invested in a new laser light show and needed to try it out. Aside from that though, absolutely nothing of interest or note happened. Asch yelled at Luke some more, Tear found out that Luke’s dissasociating, literally and figuratively, and Anise named the new Ion clone Florian. They didn’t even get the new slick final battle costumes from Peony. My standards are low for this show at this point. I’d have settled for new costumes…. preferably the spa ones. If you want to boil things down, Jade sipping orange juice in a bar really encapsulates everything wrong with this adaptation at this point.

Two more episodes to go… and the fact that Legretta didn’t show up even once in the next episode preview has me more than a little worried that they’re going to be half-assing the big climatic final battle… just like they’ve done for almost every major fight since episode 3 or so. Four major fights left… let’s see if they all add up to even four minutes.

Preview:

Sync and Asch settle things… if we’re lucky.

Congratulations to both of you… you made it a competition as to who was the lamest.

Impressions:

Oh come on. Mohs goes down to a Grand Cross and Largo is one-shotted by an arrow to the back. Apparently it hit his weak point, because Guy setting him on fire had absolutely no effect, but a little piece of wood was enough to bring him to a slow operatic end. As usual, neither fight was interesting nor consisted of over 3 attacks, leaving just Largo’s little sob story and another diagram of the planet’s fonon flow as the meat of the episode. Seriously… we’ve seen that same gooddamned diagram of the planet in at least seven or eight episodes, if not more. I’m tired of it. Make a new one.

They did do a better job fleshing out Largo here, but he’s about 3 levels from the bottom of the villain tier list, and half-assing Natalia’s family issues for a second time really doesn’t cut it. She’s already gone through accepting that she’s not the ‘real’ princess, but is still the princess, and adding 45 seconds of hesitation before shooting her real father who sort of wants to destroy everything she loves isn’t exactly a particularly compelling moral dilemma, especially when team A is fighting against a giant bloated cthulan pope.

Preview:

Asch vs his rival, constipation.

Just kidding, more angst.

Tired of waiting for a decent quality raw and this one’s been out for around 12 hours. You’ll live.

Impressions:

Ah, frightened martyr Luke’s segue into "I’m going to die of magical fonim cancer anyway, so I might as well kill myself" Luke. I swear, between Tear, Luke, and Asch, they’re practically 2/3rds of Shuffle’s inexplicably terminally ill-of-magic harem. At least there are only two more attempts at martyrdom for the Luke/Asch conglomerate before this show draws to its curious little end. They’re still going to have to majorly pick up the pace here though. For whatever inane reason, they decided to leave things at the Tower of Rem, take the needless backtrack to Daath to make sure everything was jive with the bosses, just to go back to Rem and continue what they were already in the process of doing. If anything could have or should have been cut ever, it was that moronic little bit.

Sadly, they decided that making sure we knew that the kings would grant refuge to the surviving clones was more important than Dist’s last stand, so the battle there consisted of Jade saying "Oho, now I’ll get serious" and one-shotting Dist with a Mystic Cage. I’m sure he’ll conveniently forget to use it against the upcoming bosses next episode, and apparently still hasn’t made it back to his episode 2 Indigination abilities. Come on, Jade, you’re massively underleveled here.

And they’ve decided to bring in Florian next week too… in case we haven’t had enough of Ion’s clones… because recall that Sync is still alive out there too. *sigh* Stupid Ion clones getting freakin’ everywhere. They’re worse than roaches.

Sarcastically Brief Summary:

Dist interrupts the gathering of replicas at Rem, only for Jade to Mystic Cage him off the side of the tower and explodes him. The party goes to the rulers and relays the terms. The replicas will sacrifice themselves to stop the miasma, but the countries must give refuge to those that survive. Luke will be the catalyst for it, meaning he’ll die in the process as well. Nobody’s happy about it, but Jade says that it’s the only way. At night, Anise tries to comfort Luke, saying that he has a right to live, just like Ion did. After that, Luke goes to Tear and confesses to her that he can’t stop shaking, he’s so scared of dying.

The next day, they go back to Rem and begin the rite. Asch tries to take Luke’s place, but Luke pushes him off and uses the Sword of Lorelei to start it. It doesn’t quite work, so Asch lends his power to Luke’s and the two purge the miasma together. All the replicas at Rem vanish in the aftermath. Luke wakes up and realizes that he’s alive, but notices that he’s starting to fade too. He hides it from the others as a gem materializes in his hands. Asch says that it’s the other part of the key of Lorelei that was in Luke’s body and leaves.

Luke comes out from his medical checkup and tells the others that his vitals are a little low, but he’s okay. They happily go trotting off, but Jade stays behind and tells Luke that he knows Luke is lying. Luke confesses his true condition. He doesn’t have long to live because of how his fonims are fonimating or what-have-you. Tear listens from the doorway.

Preview:

Mohs, Florian, and Largon… oh my!

Sweet… absolutely bloody nothing happens.

Impressions:

Surprisingly, a rather dull and exposition heavy episode centered mostly around Asch given how much of the game they’ve got left to cover in the remaining 5 episodes. They went ahead and shifted forward the confirmation that Largo is Natalia’s father for even the slowest members of the crowd, although Natalia’s still unaware of it so I can’t wait for even more of that. This episode also wasn’t helped by repeatedly skipping events just so they could flash back 15 seconds later. Why would you even do that?

Otherwise, nothing really important. Eldrant and the whole replica thing is making the miasma go crazy, Asch is especially affected by it, and now everybody’s off to the Tower of Rem to chill with the crazy replicas. That’s seriously it. No action, no deaths, and only one Ion running around. Luke has regained his martyr complex, so we’re going to be back to him attempting to kill himself to atone to the world for the rest of the show. Maybe in the adaptation, they’ll let him succeed.

At least the preview for next week was almost all action. I can still keep the vain hope alive that they’ve been punting on all the action scenes through the middle to save up for some awesome action at the end. Also, I’ve decided to believe in UFOs and have purchased some swampland in Florida that I’ve been guaranteed will turn a profit.

Preview:

Rumble in Rem.

Sorry, plot. Arietta wants revenge!

Impressions:

Let us not discuss the embarassingly bad fight, or Mohs’ amazing plan to becoe a giant purple blob, or the reignition of Luke’s inferiority complex. Instead, let’s talk about something this show did well for a change. Arietta’s death was very excellently done. It does help that they haven’t really brought up too much that the original Ion was a giant jackass and Van’s croney in the game, so hell, if you don’t (well, didn’t) know that, it makes it all the more touching. I really do hope they don’t bring Ion’s useless next clone into this. Florion really serves no purpose and would just dilute some of the better scenes this show has actually had in the later going here. It’s sort of sad that the best parts of this show at the moment are all the deaths of side characters.

Of course, this touching scene was brought to us by totally abandoning the plot in progress to go and fight a tertiary character over a matter of misplaced honor, but hey, you know… you can’t throw an omlet all over the walls without breaking some eggs. The big reveals about Van still being alive and Largo some mysterious person who uses the archaic male formal who lost a locket on Mt Roneal during the avalanche being Natalia’s real father also seemed a bit underdone. Then again, in the game, Legretta shows up basically the moment the timeskip starts, shoots Asch in the gut and reveals almost everything. At least it looks like Asch will get his sucking gut wound next week, as opposed to just sucking.

Preview:

I’m beginning to fear that we’ll never hit the Keterburg spa.

Seeya, Ion.

At least until your next clone shows up.

Also as a side note, given how much they skipped this episode, and the sheer amount of random crap to do in the endgame… and that I’d rather be playing Vesperia anyway, I’m done recording scenes from the game.

Impressions:

Well, they skipped a ton this episode, which is somewhat confusing because there are only maybe two or three dungeons left in the game… not counting all the backtracking of course. At any rate, it skipped pretty much all of the Asch and "What a shocker, Van is still alive and wrecking the core" stuff to focus on Anise, Mohs, and Ion. I still think Anise’s betrayal is really really silly, especially given that they’re inside a cell and not even physically being menaced. Anise is the worst body guard ever if she can’t take out two grunts before they can get through a prison door. I guess it’s marginally less silly since we skipped the two or three dungeons of Jade making fun of Anise for acting excessively suspicious, but c’est la vie.

I also thought that after skipping about 95% of the "Tear’s infected by the miasma" scenes, Ion removing it from her as his dying gift seemed rather shoehorned in. Not that it wasn’t deus ex machina in the first place, but in this adaptation, it was introduced and then magically removed over about four episodes, so what was even the point of including it in the first place? I should also point out that for all the previous rambling about how the score is off-track, it seems to still be predicting this new world order just fine. Oh well, that’s a problem with the game as well.

No action or really anything of note to mention, sadly. I can still hold out vain hope for the Arietta/Anise showdown next episode, but somehow… I don’t think I’ll hold my breath. They’ve got to recram in the Asche and Van stuff somewhere after all. Along with Mohs shedding his cocoon and becoming the ugliest butterfly ever. Although I’m not really sure anything could be uglier than this particular shot. Ouch, Sunrise, ouch.

Preview:

The most exciting thing in this preview was Guy and Natalia in new costumes.

Is there a word for an anti-cliffhanger?

Impressions:

Well, there wasn’t much that they could have done to make this particularly interesting aside from investing in the big ‘final’ battle, and they didn’t even do that. A couple sword clashes, Guy hops in, Jade casts… Turbulence (Turbulence, dude? You cast Thunder Lance last episode… at least hit him with Ground Dasher here, if not a Mystic Cage) and then Luke scored a critical hit on Van’s shirt. Apparently that was enough to convince Van to throw himself into the core. They cut out most of the rest of the pre-’final’ battle conversations, but I think that Tear angsting alone in her room actually drove home her emotions over fighting Van better than her little cheerleader speech for Luke. They kept Natalia’s (well, more or less), and she’s really the only important one.

All that still doesn’t change the ridiculousness of Van waiting for them at an organ before spouting off crazily. The only thing that could have made that scene more ridiculous would have been putting Van in a hat made entirely of fruit. Let’s also not forget the inane timeskip after Lorelei tells Luke and Asch to save it (ignoring that two people just leapt into the core where it lives of course) to go lazily sleep at home. He didn’t even remember to tell anybody about the closest thing that the world has to a god begging him to save it. Congratulations, Luke… you’re a flipping moron.

Preview:

CLONES CLONES CLONES!

No! We wants to make the replicas!

Make up your mind, Van.

Impressions:

I should really just stop caring about this and finish off my playthrough. While the fight against the God-Generals was pretty well done, it was 50 seconds long before Jade decided to cause an avalanche. It was amusing to see them do a brief montage of the other Sephiroths that they skipped previously. There’s 5 dungeons or so covered in about 30 seconds. At least they managed to work in the Dist scene with Jade on the way through Keterburg. Earlier in the game, the party blew off Dist when he broke the Albiore II and just fixed it instead on one of the innumerous trips through Daath. He waited for Jade until he caught hypothermia and passed out. Here, Dist is just sort of hanging out. It certainly makes Jade seem a little less sadistic when he’s torturing an idiot instead of somebody half-dead and unconscious.

Nothing special or interesting on the plot front, even if you haven’t played the game though. Tear thinks that Van’s infected by the miasma too, but when your goal is global genocide, I don’t think you’re too worried about having cancer. Then they go around to set up all the sephiroths, before heading to Roneal and finish off the last one, taking out the last four God-Generals on the way… at least until they all show up again for the end of the game. Like anybody would really believe that an avalanche would kill them offscreen.

Sadly, it’s a little hard to tell how far they’ll get next week. I’m already rolling my eyes at Van waiting for them while playing an organ in the middle of what basically amounts to a giant ancient chimney.

Preview:

Preparation and journey through the Absorption Gate.