I was so close to just nominating 12-taisen to be here consistently every week when it debuted last week. With so much going for it, how could you not like it? This week gave us more insight into a rather intelligent character, who will probably live until the end, Sharyu, aka the Monkey, but the real interesting part was the incessant monologuing by Doukutsu. He thought he had it all under control by hiding himself, but it turned out that he could not hide himself that well due to Niwatori’s ability to communicate with birds, something you would not predict. Sadly, Inounoshishi is still dead, hey, rule out nothing with NisioisiN, but she is roaming the streets of the city, which are also dead, clearly as bait for Usagi to come and kill those who try to get her. After Doukutsu injects Niwatori with a special poison to power her up thinking he can use her, she kills him! We then see hell is setting up around the corpse of Inounoshishi.

What will happen next is anyone’s guess, but dang, this series is good! We do know that Uuma and Ushii are up next to go head to head. The plot twists are rather good as the unexpected keeps happening. I predicted that Doukutsu was going to kill Niwatori until he started getting very confident moments before she smashed his face. Then, well… I was mildly surprised. From the flow of the conversations to the characterizations, the whole series is really meeting any and all expectations that I have had for the series. It would be a shame if it all ends in one season, but for now, I am looking forward to more!

Ousama Game is one of the most anticipated anime of the fall anime season. At the end of episode 1, however, I felt like the children are all melodramatic and quick to turn on each other. By episode 2, I’m more or less convinced that these children are just plain dumb. Like, dumb as heck. Let’s start with the flashback to the first Ousama Game where Daisuke was forced to have sex with Shouta’s girlfriend, and then, due to Shouta’s immaturity, Shouta ordered Daisuke to kill himself. That circumstance shows just how childish and petty Shouta is. He doesn’t understand the reason why Daisuke and his girlfriend decided to go along with the game, nor does he seem to want to blame his own girlfriend for the deed (because we always blame that other person and not our own partners, right?), Not to mention that Shouta takes it that next step further and tells someone to go kill themselves, knowing full well that his word will be the next dare. That’s frustratingly immature.

Then there’s Natsuko, our seemingly wonderful female lead who turns on Nobuoki just because he rejects her and then, once again, gets him in trouble with everyone else for something he didn’t do. If you ask me, these kids just wanted to beat up Nobuoki the entire time considering how little they hesitate to do so. Natsuko is just petty, much like Shouta, and seems to want everything to go exactly as she wants. Man, this game brings out the worst in people. Now, I predict that Natsuko will be the reason why so many people die in an attempt to punish Nobuoki. I even think she’ll just force herself on that other boy to survive. Seriously, these teens are childish and frustratingly stupid. It’s a wonder if they make it past ep 6 with the rate they are going. This must be a big class or else, this won’t be a long anime.

We’re used to see a lot of anime about idols, often presenting cute young girls full of joy and “living the dream”. Wake Up, Girls! Shin Shou, on the other hand, focuses this new chapter in the “real” part of being famous… or at least trying to become famous. This second episode has some jokes here and there and lots of kawaii scenes with the 7 girls, but if you look closer there are 2 idols problems worth mentioning: virtual idols and healthcare.

One of the things we see here is how idols should deal with the competition, this time in form of virtual girls from some app… like Hatsune Miku, for instance. We get to see all the effort WUG does to get noticed, but it doesn’t even matter because the virtual girl seems to have best results with minimum effort, and the company behind them doesn’t even have to feed them. And food is the second topic here! You see, to become more popular before their show at Sendai Stadium, Kaya and Minami did a few TV appearances in the name of the group. As idols, all they had to do was smile, look cute... and eat as if there was no tomorrow. This episode was about Kaya gaining weight and hating the fact of not being able to lose it, so she starts to avoid eating at all. Sure, nobody mentions bulimia directly, but the feeling is still there, specially with Kaya struggling to look at the other girls eating or even hiding to eat. If you want, you can still treat this anime like any other show with kawaii idols, but this week you can also go a little deeper and meditate about what it means to be famous.

In episode two of the long-awaited third season of Shokugeki no Souma, Yukihira is still trying to perfect his mapo tofu recipe to beat his rival-of-the-moment, Kuga in the Moon Festival, and as always, Tadokoro is front and center to help him with tasting. She then matter-of-factly tells Yukihira that she brought him Chinese recipe books and the like to help with his booth. Yukihira is surprised because he knows Isshiki invited her, as well as the rest of the Polar Star Dormitory, to help with his booth. Sweet, darling Tadokoro replies that he did, and her research group invited her to help in their booth too, but she declined both of them.

Yukihira, confused, asks ‘why?’, so Tadokoro tells him that he said he was short-staffed for the festival. At which point she goes into one of her adorably awkward freakouts because she realizes she is probably not good enough to help him and she was probably wrong in assuming he’d want her to. But, blushing like crazy and wiggling nervously, she states her case saying that maybe he doesn’t think she’d be helpful, but she was back home and and she knows she could help him… only if he wanted of course.

Yukihira stares at her and then gladly says ‘That’d be a huge help!’ and we see Tadokoro’s face light up with a huge smile, and we remember why she’s ‘the chef everybody likes’, as Hojo puts it -and why some of us are rooting for a Yukihira/Tadokoro pairing! This was the most adorable scene I saw all week! And it was a great way to fall back in love with the characters I’ve so missed. So looking forward to the rest of this season!