Tougen Anki Episode 8 Discussion

the monster stomping on her was hilarious but not as funny as when bro shaped his blood into his dead girlfriend 🤣

This series just feels so incredibly... flat. every episode gets worse. Even for a shounen. Like they're trying so hard to give it depth, but everything is comedically trope-y and it's just not well written. It actually really bothers me how badly they're trying but failing at it. I don't usually bother that much with series I feel like this about it, but I just *want* it to be better. At this point, I can't tell if I'm hating on it or cheering it on for trying despite failing. It's probably the latter because it's not like I dislike everything about it. Just too much to ignore. It feels like the author is trying to throw everything in at once in all scenarios and it just comes out as detached and shallow.

I must say this episode has been one of the best so far, it really surprised, especially after not being the biggest fan of last week's episode.

I was really surprised by Rokuro's backstory. It seems he's going to be a character that has double personality, one while he is in his "normal" form, and another when he's using his blood eclipse release. But given his backstory, this double personality actually has some explanation, which isn't that usual when anime does this trope.
It's sad that Rokuro lost his girlfriend, when she was the only one that gave him courage to live. He always was afraid of everything, but Lulu pushed him into being "cool", which was just him living his own life without regrets. With her death (which was indirectly caused by the Momotarou), he lost this "safe space" he had with Lulu, leading to the Rokuro we saw last episode.
It was really sweet how his blood eclipse release is basically a representation of Lulu, and that alone is enough for him to show her his best side.
My hopes for this character are really high honestly, I hope they can work his character more in the future, and don't make him with this double personality for the entirety of the series (which is quite long already, 25 volumes as of now), and I'm interested to see how his relationship with Kuina is going to evolve.
Talking about Kuina, she fumbled bad this time, almost beat to death, it was hard to see. I wonder why her blood eclipse release didn't make the Ugly not want to fight her, like last episode. Does she have a limit to how many times she can use that abillity?

Although the animation for Kuina's part wasn't that good (some effects were even a bit weird), the fight scene of Rokuro vs Ugly was really good, like, it looked so good, like the fights from the first 2 episodes. They really spent the budget of the episode there, and honestly, it was worth it. Rokuro's blood eclipse release looked really cool.

Shiki, for the love of God, why did you go straight to Tsubakiri... Well, from what we've seen from Shiki, and considering he's a teen, it makes sense he thinks he can beat Tsubakiri, but the only way out for him now is to be saved by someone, maybe Mudano or Kyouya.
But that gunshot really was powerful, it blasted the whole room. Curious to see what Tsubakiri has in the coffin. Is it really Kyouya? I hope it's not Shiki's dad, because that wouldn't make a lot of sense, and it would just be horrible (especially because it would go against Momotarou's values too).

Jin against Yomogi also seems really dangerous... He certainly isn't ready to fight her, and will certainly need help from someone.
Also, Ikari has yet to make an appearance now, last episode he appeared like 5 seconds, in this one he didn't even appear.

But I guess we're seeing him soon, by the spoiler I just saw. I was going to listen to the opening of this anime on Spotify (because The Oral Cigarettes released such a good song, Overnight is my favorite opening this year by far), and well, for the past few weeks, The Oral Cigarettes have been changing the playback videos (the videos that appear while listening to a track) for the song to feature scenes from a particular character. 2 weeks ago was Homare's Blood Eclipse Release, last week's was the green haired one, and now I they have put Ikari's one, which is interesting, because as I am aware, they haven't release any preview for the next episode yet, and that scene is certainly from any of the 8 episodes that have aired.
You end up receiving a lot of spoilers here in the anime community, but receiving one on Spotify was not on my list xD

Anyways, I really enjoyed this episode, and I'm excited for the next one! I'm glad this is getting 2 cours really, and it does seem this arc is going to last the rest of the cour, or at least almost to the end of the cour.

I must say this episode has been one of the best so far, it really surprised, especially after not being the biggest fan of last week's episode.

I was really surprised by Rokuro's backstory. It seems he's going to be a character that has double personality, one while he is in his "normal" form, and another when he's using his blood eclipse release. But given his backstory, this double personality actually has some explanation, which isn't that usual when anime does this trope.
It's sad that Rokuro lost his girlfriend, when she was the only one that gave him courage to live. He always was afraid of everything, but Lulu pushed him into being "cool", which was just him living his own life without regrets. With her death (which was indirectly caused by the Momotarou), he lost this "safe space" he had with Lulu, leading to the Rokuro we saw last episode.
It was really sweet how his blood eclipse release is basically a representation of Lulu, and that alone is enough for him to show her his best side.
My hopes for this character are really high honestly, I hope they can work his character more in the future, and don't make him with this double personality for the entirety of the series (which is quite long already, 25 volumes as of now), and I'm interested to see how his relationship with Kuina is going to evolve.
Talking about Kuina, she fumbled bad this time, almost beat to death, it was hard to see. I wonder why her blood eclipse release didn't make the Ugly not want to fight her, like last episode. Does she have a limit to how many times she can use that abillity?

Although the animation for Kuina's part wasn't that good (some effects were even a bit weird), the fight scene of Rokuro vs Ugly was really good, like, it looked so good, like the fights from the first 2 episodes. They really spent the budget of the episode there, and honestly, it was worth it. Rokuro's blood eclipse release looked really cool.

Shiki, for the love of God, why did you go straight to Tsubakiri... Well, from what we've seen from Shiki, and considering he's a teen, it makes sense he thinks he can beat Tsubakiri, but the only way out for him now is to be saved by someone, maybe Mudano or Kyouya.
But that gunshot really was powerful, it blasted the whole room. Curious to see what Tsubakiri has in the coffin. Is it really Kyouya? I hope it's not Shiki's dad, because that wouldn't make a lot of sense, and it would just be horrible (especially because it would go against Momotarou's values too).

Jin against Yomogi also seems really dangerous... He certainly isn't ready to fight her, and will certainly need help from someone.
Also, Ikari has yet to make an appearance now, last episode he appeared like 5 seconds, in this one he didn't even appear.

But I guess we're seeing him soon, by the spoiler I just saw. I was going to listen to the opening of this anime on Spotify (because The Oral Cigarettes released such a good song, Overnight is my favorite opening this year by far), and well, for the past few weeks, The Oral Cigarettes have been changing the playback videos (the videos that appear while listening to a track) for the song to feature scenes from a particular character. 2 weeks ago was Homare's Blood Eclipse Release, last week's was the green haired one, and now I they have put Ikari's one, which is interesting, because as I am aware, they haven't release any preview for the next episode yet, and that scene is certainly from any of the 8 episodes that have aired.
You end up receiving a lot of spoilers here in the anime community, but receiving one on Spotify was not on my list xD

Anyways, I really enjoyed this episode, and I'm excited for the next one! I'm glad this is getting 2 cours really, and it does seem this arc is going to last the rest of the cour, or at least almost to the end of the cour.

The story has well intention but the anime is quite rough. With that said, I think the decision to use 3d model for fighting scene is the right decision, 2d is much more expensive and this anime surely doesn't have enough budget for that.