The Weekend Anime Round-up Presents: (Skate) To Infinity (and Beyond!)

Happy Monday, fellow anime enthusiasts. As to be expected with the upcoming spring anime season, the winter anime we’ve been watching since the beginning of the year are coming to an end. Let’s grab our skateboards one last time and head off to a sakura blossom-filled graduation!

Note: Last week, I covered the early premiere of Moriarty the Patriot. Since it was an early premiere (the series aired in Japan yesterday) there was no new episode for us yesterday. I imagine it’ll pick back up this coming weekend.

Thursday, April 1

Heaven’s Design Team episode 13 – SPECIAL

Where to watch: Crunchyroll

Well, this is a delightful surprise! I didn’t know we were getting one more episode of this series!

Despite what it looks like, Venus and Pluto are making shark eggs, not rice bowls. The eggs come in a variety of quirky, fun shapes, making Venus wish that she’d get orders like this for her birds. Shimoda reminds her that she currently has an order to fulfill, but it’s one of the most impossible orders she’s had to do.

Create a bird that doesn’t lay eggs.

The order is so daunting that Venus leaves the room, drags in a couch, and proceeds to dramatically faint onto it.

This right here? One of my favorite gags in the entire series. My poor girl is stressed, what kind of God places an order like this?!

Venus basically goes through a (bird) identity crisis until she finally says “cluck it” and throws something together that doesn’t have to lay eggs. It looks nothing like a bird at all, but really, what even IS a bird? By the time she finally decides to accept change and cross the line between “mammal” and “bird” God accepts her design, which ends up becoming a Kiwi. Yes, Kiwis do lay eggs, but God thinks the design is funny and goes with it. Venus, rightfully, faints on the couch again, and I’m left with my original thesis about Hell being the better place to design for because God’s kinda a dick.

The rest of the episode is exactly what I expected for a special. Five of the designers (Pluto, Venus, Mercury, Neptune, and Jupiter) each get an assignment, but what they make has to work with what the others are making. Here’s a list of their orders:

-Mercury: don’t sink

-Pluto: can swallow needles (fun fact: Jupiter can also swallow needles?!)

-Neptune: unaffected by ground that’s painful to stand on

-Jupiter: resists heat and cold

-Venus: can survive with little water

Since everyone’s styles are so different it leads to wonky imagery, like a long, thin-legged elephant, a giant fluff nugget that looks like it came from someone’s huggable animal Kickstarter, and, um, this:

After a series of tweaks, the team ends up creating a camel that does, legitimately, meet all of the requirements. Ueda informs the team that they did such a good job that God will most certainly send down more orders like this.

No one is happy about that.

Again, everyone should just go and do work for Hell, lol.

Saturday, April 3

My Hero Academia season 5 episode 90

Where to watch: Funimation, Crunchyroll, and Hulu

Last week’s recap episode was cute and all but it’s time to see the rest of Endeavor’s flashback about what happened after the High-End Nomu attack. That’s right, time for the plot to kick in.

But before my muscle queen rabbit makes her badass entrance, we’ve got some “punk boyfriend who never returns your texts until he needs to crash on your couch” vibes to process. Dabi and his blue fire were just about to cause supreme chaos before Mirko showed up. Dabi, being a smart villain who knows when it’s time to GTFO, actually wishes Endeavor well (?) and tells him not to die (???) before he calls on someone named “Ujiko” to get him out of there. Mirko points out that Dabi escaped in the same way they saw happen back in season 3 at Camino (aka: where All Might and All For One fought it out).

We see Dabi at an old warehouse, Hawks cornering him with one of his feathers, and… speaking casually with him (?) because he’s working with the League of Villains (???) All right, the question marks are a bit much this time, because it turns out Hawks has been asked to infiltrate the League by the Hero Public Safety Commission. Hawks is still trying to prove himself to the League since they don’t trust him yet. It turns out Dabi brought a much stronger Nomu than he said he would, while Hawks brought a stronger hero (Endeavor).

This leads to Hawks feeling guilty about Endeavor’s injuries, especially since he purposely led him around so he’d have an excuse for the timing of the attack. What’s interesting about this is that Endeavor isn’t aware of what Hawks is doing, which means the Hero Public Safety Commission is acting without informing the number one hero.

LOL, what could possibly go wrong?

Endeavor returns home to his family after being discharged from the hospital and we get a variety of reactions. Fuyumi wants the family to come back together, but Natsuo isn’t willing to forgive Endeavor. Shoto, in the middle of enjoying some delicious soba, points out that Endeavor is a good hero, but not a good father.

I really appreciate Shoto’s line about Endeavor being good at his job, but a shitty parent. I think a lot of people assume someone is good if they look good in public, but honestly, you don’t know that person. Just because Endeavor is winning society over doesn’t mean he’s instantly forgiven for the harm he’s done to his family, and honestly, it shouldn’t be easy, like, at all. 

The rest of the episode focuses on the dream Deku had at the end of season 4. He gets to meet the previous users of One For All, more specifically, he gets to meet the original user – All For One’s brother. We see that All For One was doing, quote, “good” by altering people’s quirks, removing them, giving them to others, basically, he was playing God. To him, he’s just compromising and giving people what they want, but his brother knows that he’s simply taking advantage of them and using them to get a stronger, villainous grip on society. All For One says that he’s creating the world they used to read about in comic books, but his brother reminds him that in those stories, the hero always wins. The scene ends with All For One forcing his quirk onto his brother, Deku trying to reach out to him, but not able to do anything since it’s just a dream.

The original user speaks to Deku now, telling him he wanted to show him more, but Deku’s only at 20% of his full power so the scene has to be cut short for now. Even so, the original user tells Deku it’ll be fine because he’s not alone. Cue Deku waking up, the power inside of him reacting and trashing his room.

Next week sees the return of Class 1B and a new participant!

SK8 the Infinity episode 12 – SEASON FINALE

Where to watch: Funimation

Adam, after suffering from a humiliating victory, decides that his match with Langa is no longer a wedding (yay!) Instead, as he appears at a tailor shop, in the rain, he reveals that he needs a new outfit for a — GASP! You don’t get to know yet.

Dun dun duuuuun.

Elsewhere, in “oblivious to the impending doom because we’re so lost in each other” land, Reki is working on a new board for Langa. Langa wonders why Adam skates at all, and Reki decides that it has to be because it’s fun, otherwise, why skate at all? I see Reki is completely back to being “sunshine boy for all” because he’s not at all scared about Langa going up against the Matador Who Chooses Violence — I mean Love, or whatever.

On the way to the match Cherry is driving Team Found Family — Shadow included — with Joe playing the part of Biker Dad. Everyone is concerned about the match but Langa and Reki are in the backseat reminiscing about their first time… skating, first time skating, Langa’s first time skating. Still, Jesus Christ boys the final match is taking place on Mount Doom be a little bit concerned! Cherry and Joe are REAL worried because Adam’s never gone all out before, something that makes Cherry grip the steering wheel in a clear “I’m not over my ex but damnit I WANT to be” move.

Anyway, onward to Mount Doom and Adam being dressed like the Grim Reaper because this match is now a funeral. More like FUNeral, am I right? There’s a gravestone at the end of the race, the beef taking place at the original grounds for S before they realized how unsafe this Bowser’s Castle ass track is. 

Adam’s outfit is cool though. I’m not gonna pretend like it isn’t.

The race is on and it’s the most “no you can’t do that in real life” performance we’ve had yet. Did you think the Dragon Ball Kuroko no Basket passes were outrageous? I mean, they are, but the stunts Adam and Langa pull off fully embrace the ridiculousness of anime. At one point Langa gets completely lost in Adam’s hypnotic fall into the abyss with me no jutsu, leading him into “the zone,” a space typically referred to by athletes when the adrenaline is flowing and they are hyper-focused on the game. However, in this beef, the zone is a terrible place to be in because Langa can’t feel anything and isn’t focused on his surroundings, a huge disadvantage in something like skateboarding. Reki screams for Langa to return, but his voice can’t reach him as Langa falls over the edge like a lifeless doll.

Is this the end? 

No, because as he sees his skateboard, he sees that Reki wrote the word “FUN” on the board — in English, a callback to when Langa taught him how to say/spell it in English. This (and a series of Reki dominated flashbacks) snaps him out of his trance and he grabs the board, skating down the edge of the drop-off point to continue the match. Thank you “Reki Healing Escalation.”

Also thank you, Papa Langa.

Adam is distressed when he realizes he’s lost sight of Langa, skating all by himself, and he doesn’t wanna be all by himself anymore. To his surprise, Langa grabs onto him, and tells him that he needs to stop skating the way he does because it’s not any fun. Adam is furious, going in for the attack because he sees no point in having fun. Fun doesn’t get you anything, friends will only end up betraying you (cue flashback of Adam’s father burning his board and Tadashi doing nothing about it), and to Adam, Langa is still a child for believing in such useless things. Langa calmly calls Adam out on all of his bullshit, countering every single one of his points until the two of them end up knocking each other out.

Reki fully believes that Langa is gonna get back up, and he’s right. Not only does Langa get up first, he hands Adam back his skateboard so they can properly finish their beef. Adam’s bone mask shatters as he remembers how Tadashi, once upon a time, handed him his skateboard and gave him an escape from his abusive life. This leads to Adam and Langa having a proper, non-abusive match, Tadashi cheering for Adam, Reki running to the finish line to cheer for Langa, and Langa… not even realizing he won because he was having so much fun and flinging himself into Reki’s arms.

Langa did win, though, and Adam walks away, actually addressing Tadashi as a person for once throughout this entire series.

The credits roll and we get cute scenes of what everyone’s up to. The group has a party on the roof of Dope Sketch to celebrate Langa’s win, Adam showing up with flowers by helicopter. Langa and his mom go and visit his dad’s grave, Langa bringing his skateboard with him. Reki teaches his siblings how to skateboard, his sister picking it up quicker than he imagined. Grandma looks impressed, and I fully believe that she used to be a badass skateboarder back in the day. Shadow finally gets the nerve to tell his manager how he feels, only to find out she already has a boyfriend. Real talk, I’m high key upset about this. Shadow deserves nothing but good things, I didn’t want him to be left crying in the end.

For your consideration, a headcanon:

Joe takes two ladies to an autograph signing for Cherry, who writes him a cheeky message that leads to the two of them flirt fighting like they always do. And Miya looks to be patching things up with the friend he used to skate with.

After all that we see that Adam, well, gets in zero trouble for the whole political scandal thing, Kiriko being reassigned and told to leave Adam alone. This is because Adam leaked information about Diet Member Takano, which I suppose shows just how much power charismatic men possess, but I dunno, Adam having to be held accountable a little bit would’ve been nice. I’m also forever salty that Kiriko, who even gets a slot in the opening, doesn’t really do much of anything in the series. I’d hoped that she’d, somehow, either end up discovering S and reveal an interest in skateboarding or that she WAS a skateboarder. Just a scene of her showing up and everyone panicking because the cops are there, then she smirks and tells them all to carry on, maybe even does a cool trick on a board.

Still, I guess Tadashi gets his happy ending because Adam wants him to be his dog forever.

Mmmkay.

This isn’t enough to make me feel dissatisfied with the ending, though, because our main characters (Reki and Langa) do end things on a fantastic note. We get a recreation of the first episode, back when Reki was talking about how daunting being asked what your happiness is could be. This time, that scenario is in Langa’s point of view, who says that he didn’t understand how that could be an intimidating question until he realized what it feels like to not know what your happiness is. Fortunately for him, he knows what it is.

It’s Reki.

It’s always been Reki.

Even the ending theme has lyrics like “let’s keep the feelings” and “happiness is you.”

After the two boys greet each other with their customized dap, they set off to have the match they’d wanted to have together.

As much as I adore this series and the characters, I have no idea what they’d do for a season 2. Still, I did come up with an OVA idea:

Horimiya episode 13 – SEASON FINALE

Where to watch: Funimation

It’s amazing how this episode feels so much like high school graduation. It feels like something life-changing where you’re happy about what you’ve accomplished but kinda unsure about what happens next. This leads to a lot of self-reflection about your time in high school, and in Miya’s case, the time before that, too.

The entire episode has characters dealing with what happens next. The student council (and Akane), for example, talk about ways they can get together with everyone in an attempt to hang out outside of school, after all, there’s not gonna be the central location of the council room anymore. It never occurred to me that this entire group hasn’t really spent time together off school grounds. They’ve run into each other, or done things in separate groups, but not really with each other. I didn’t really realize until watching this how high school was such a convenient place to see my circle of friends. We all HAD to be there, so it was easy to see each other on a daily basis. Once that element was gone and it was left up to us to get together on our own things changed. That’s not to say we didn’t ever hang out, but it wasn’t nearly as frequent — it couldn’t be because we were all busy doing other things.

It’s pretty scary for your relationship dynamics to change so much at such a young age.

High school was a constant captive audience. If we didn’t have at least one class together, we had lunch, or after-school activities, or time in-between classes. I imagine these kids in Horimiya will still be friends, but that constant togetherness won’t be a thing anymore. This also means that some characters decide to get some closure, like Sakura, who tells Toru that she had fun this year and part of that was because of him.

The main focus, as to be expected, is on Hori and Miya’s relationship. More importantly, there’s a lot of focus on Miya, his feelings about his past self, and him coming to terms with who he was before and who he’s becoming now. He even imagines a world where he never helped Sota and brought him back home, which would mean that he never would’ve met Hori or the friends he would come to have. It’s all a series of coincidences, he says, and Hori mentions that it sounds like fate brought them together. This may be true, but Miya decides that slowly, but surely, things would’ve moved in the direction that he wanted. This is hugely important to his character. Instead of pinning the whole thing on fate or destiny, he’s come to believe in himself enough to think that he would’ve been capable of having a happy life no matter what. It’s not just because of Hori or his friends, it’s because he finally feels like he’s worth this kind of happiness.

This is more noticeable in the fact that he actually talks to his past self, not turning away this time. While his middle school self does say that he’ll disappear for him, it’s important to note that this didn’t happen until Miya acknowledged this part of him and faced it with a smile.

The season ends with Hori and Miya walking home together after graduation with Miya narrating about how he didn’t know this kind of world could exist, and that he didn’t realize he could feel so many things. While I know the manga is much longer than this, having this all end on such an endearing, positive note is the serotonin boost I needed. Could it have a second season? The content is there, but if it didn’t, this is a really great ending.

Sunday, April 4

Theatre of Darkness: Yamishibai 8 episode 13 – SEASON FINALE

Where to watch: Crunchyroll

Two friends reminiscence about a time in their childhood where one was supposed to look for the other, but the other was left behind. It’s all laughs and drinks until our main character finds out he’s been sleeptalking, looking for something… or someone. He decides to record himself to see what he’s been looking for, only to discover that he’s been looking for his missing friend, you know, the one he shared a drink with the night before? It’s fine, his friend says, because now it’s his turn to have to be found.

—

That’s all for the weekend round-up, where we had to say farewell to SK8, Horimiya, and Yamishibai (as far as I know, there are only 13 episodes listed for the horror anime series). However, this does mean that the new season is moving full speed ahead, so expect a write-up on some new series I checked out!

(Image: Funimation)

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Briana Lawrence

Briana (she/her - bisexual) is trying her best to cosplay as a responsible adult. Her writing tends to focus on the importance of representation, whether it’s through her multiple book series or the pieces she writes. After de-transforming from her magical girl state, she indulges in an ever-growing pile of manga, marathons too much anime, and dedicates an embarrassing amount of time to her Animal Crossing pumpkin patch (it's Halloween forever, deal with it Nook)

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