Monica is best ganguro

Wow, I have not seen this style in a very long time. There’s a huge amount of talking about makeup in this episode as you might expect, but considering we’re just a couple of guys, I apologize if we screwed any of the terms up (not to mention some terms only exist in Japanese and vice-versa). Speaking of words, the girls speak in a form of slang known as “gyaru-go”, which is a whole bunch of weird abreevs and such. And in case you were confused, there is in fact a new OP this episode, but not a new ED. That is intentional.

If you’ve ever learned how to count in Japanese you might be confused at how we translated a certain part of this episode, but it makes sense if you try saying it out loud yourself. Also, how is it that Mahiru keeps getting the best songs? She’s too OP.

Also, if you’ve ever learned how to count in Japanese you can check out this video about the exact same thing this episode is about.

Episode 034: Torrent | Magnet

Praise genetics

Yes this is a hot springs episode, but do you really want to venture in and see only old people using them? Two of them are named Kame and Tsuru meaning turtle and crane. These two animals often show up together in Japanese culture, though I primarily know them from the Kagome Kagome game (play Remember11 if you want to learn about it the same way I did) (also the last woman is named Ume, if you were wondering). Today’s quote is apparently from Eric Clapton, but once again the Japanese have found a quote from an Englishman which seemingly doesn’t exist in English. Are we sure they’re not just making shit up? Tell me if you can find a source for the real one.

Episode 033: Torrent | Magnet

I’m not sure which part to comment on first

I think last post I included a link to what yuzukoshou was, so refer to that if needed. There were a lot of little things this episode that strengthened a bunch of side relationships, like Tsubasa x Yuri and Ako x Kanata, and that’s not even mentioning what the next episode preview promises. It’s also really nice seeing the aftereffects of Koharu leaving on everyone.

Episode 032: Torrent | Magnet

Around Sora, never relax

There’s a form that repeats a few times this episode, even if you can’t read it the first time you can read it later on. Yuzukoshou, relevant next episode, is a type of seasoning. This was the clear start to the next saga of the series, as we were cut down from three protagonists to just one, who was promptly ignored for most of the episode. Let’s see how this turns out.

Episode 031: Torrent | Magnet

Thank you for all my precious memories

The director tweeted that these two episodes were the big climax before the series enters high gear. He said that with this, the three main characters have now all stepped up to a new start line. Please enjoy.

Episode 030: Torrent | Magnet

I won’t lose

Wow, in this episode BN Pictures simultaneously manages to spell “Kibougaoka” the way I like it (with the ‘u’ in the middle) as well as screw up a copy/paste on one of their signs. The girls watch videos in the middle of the episode, and all the phone says is “Halftime show [Class] [Year]”, nothing important. This was a really well constructed episode, and I won’t give anything away. Rumors say that next week with have even better staff too.

Episode 029: Torrent | Magnet

Ako kitty wins MVP simply for bringing back the best costume

And suddenly it’s Halloween! I know that two very devoted viewers just explained one of our translation choices for the last episode, but we decided to swap Subaru’s nickname for Yume from Tomato to Boiled octopus. It felt like the right time, and coincidentally someone offered to do the BDs for this series today, so I’ll be updating all the past incidences of this for his batch.

Today’s refined reference was to Shakespeare, to the best of my knowledge Hamlet. This was rather hard to find, since attached to the Japanese quote is a poorly translated English version of it, which is nothing like the original. If you look into it, you’ll actually find it’s quite lewd in context.

And finally, I hope you’re old enough to have seen a certain magical girl show that’s referenced from the 90s. Or at least the poor remake of it from the last couple years.

Episode 028: Torrent | Magnet

It’s called the prone guts pose

There’s a tiny animation error in this episode where it says 9/15 instead of 10/15. I guess it just goes to show you that BN Pictures locks their animators up for longer than they should. I’m looking forward to the Halloween episode next week, let’s see how it compares to the S3 one.

Episode 027: Torrent | Magnet

Me during free days of gym class

Lily’s back! Welcome to the second half of Aikatsu Stars, with a new OP and ED to boot. I really like them, and I think the OP director’s certain tendencies (perhaps embodied by the above girl’s name) will be obvious. I forgot last week to mention that KirakiLine is the next version of KiraKiratter, and of course is based on Line, a chat program primarily for phones and often used in Japan. There’s also a certain Fist of the North Star reference, or at least that’s the most well-known use of the line. I haven’t quite gotten around to reading or watching it yet myself, unfortunately.

Episode 026: Torrent | Magnet

Also, October 10th is Mezashite’s fourth anniversary. Thank you all for sticking with us!