C Cube 12 - Finale and Final Thoughts

After three months, we're finally at the end. The bulk of this last episode was the final battle, with a bit of of resolution and some hinting to the future. The Waas to look for in this episode was obviously one with the absurdly long name, Suicidal Beautification Reflector, or SBR. The thing as three abilities, how overpowered is that?! Alice pretty much takes control of the fight by making copies of herself, making it quite a lopsided battle. I wish they didn't censor Fear drilling the guts out of that Alice cone though.

But what kind of finale is it if characters from previous arcs don't show up? Shiraho and Sovereignty to the rescue! I was looking forward to them doing something amazing to turn the tide of the battle, but what I got was disappointment instead. Sovereignty used her doll-controlling powers to hurl the immobile Kuroe right at the mirror to destroy the SBR. What kind of cop-out was that? All those copies Alice couldn't defend on such a pitiful attempt to break the SBR? She just stood there and let it happen, and even had the audacity to act surprised afterwards!

Without the numbers on her side, she was pretty much done for. Fear magically snapped out of being reminded of her crazy old self and deals the finishing blow. Fear declared that even though humans are weak and worthless, she wanted to become like them because they could find happiness. Then we got the classic "humans didn't help me when I was in trouble" drivel from Alice before she was defeated.

Alice ended up escaping Haruaki's gang and falling into the arms of this guy. Despite his short amount of screen time, this guy looks to be a magnificent bastard; just look at his hat! This pretty much ends the season. In the end, they show the Families, members of the Lab Kingdom, and the protagonists: the three different factions in the C Cube universe. This is probably a nudge for the viewers to buy some BDs if they want a second season. I don't foresee it happening though, since the sales aren't very good.

To sum up this show in one word would be this: disappointing. After watching the trailer a couple months prior to the show's airing, I was expecting something different. I guess I should never really have high hopes for light novel adaptions, because there aren't many good ones out there. The positives for the show are definitely the visuals; Silver Link did really well with its Shaft-esque art direction. The fight scene animation and music weren't half bad either.

Ultimately, the show can be simplified into a generic supernatural harem with the gimmick of Fear's crazy faces. There was fanservice and there were battles; pretty much your bread and butter of the genre. Disappointed as I may be, I would still watch the second season if there's going to be one. I've invested enough into the show to care about what happens next to the characters. Overall, it wasn't an amazing show to watch, but wasn't a chore to do so either. I hope you enjoyed watching it more than I did though; I know these kinds of shows are right up some people's alleys.

EDIT: 13th episode to come with BDs.

Happy holidays.

-Bern

C Cube 11 - Final Battle Buildup

A bit of a delayed post because of final exams, but here it is. As the title may suggest, this episode was largely the set up for the end of the arc to finish the season off. As suspected, the episode began with a sit-down addressing Fear suspicions of Kuroe. Natually, she wasn't the killer. How can someone so cute possibly be the killer? In fact, she was just eating the hair to restore her power as well as eating them in her memory.

Alice showed up and amazingly splits them up and kidaps Haru, Kuroe, and Kirika. As expected of the head of the Bivorio Families, right? As I suspected last week, the thing that linked the murder victims was that they were both wearing crosses. However, it because they were wearing crosses that they went to Kuroe's shop. That is to say that they were both members of the Bivorio Families.

There's something I don't get about the Bivorio Families. They claim that they love them, and would do anything for them, which they showed by simply sacrificing themselves for Alice's plan to get Fear to go with them. Why don't they just let the Waas be, if they love them as much as they claim? Rather than doing anything for the Waas, it just seems much more like an uncontrolled demented obsession to me. Remember how she just changed her target from Kuroe to Fear so quickly? She doesn't care about them, she's just doing what's better to satisfy her obsession, not what is better for the Waas.

Two weeks ago, I said Kirika's decisions down the road would make it or break it for me. Her decision this episode solidifies her in the "make it" category. What it ultimately means is that she said enough was enough, and has chosen to be with Haruki, and pretty much cut ties with the Laboratory Kingdom. Good for her. I doubt that that Himura guy is dead though, and doubt even more so that the Lab Kingdom would take this sitting down. Kirika's brother is probably the primary antagonist if there are any future seasons (judging by the sales, the chances are slim to none).

So at the end of the episode, the final confrontation between harem members and the antagonist of the arc took place. This seems it will just boil down to a raw battle; no tricks or any shenanigans. More crazy Fear faces is definitely welcome though. The arc will end and we'll probably see the school festival during the final minutes during the finale.

-Bern

C Cube 10 - Bondage and Misdirection

If you like Kirika, bondage, or fanservice, you're bound to like this episode (pun not intended). I think we've approached the midpoint in this arc, with the arc ending the next episode, and finally with school festival hijinks for the finale. Overall, I felt this episode was quite good, because Kirika is probably my favorite character on the show and that they pulled some sneaky misdirection.

After Alice dropped the mysterious "I'm the culprit" line last episode, there have been homicides happening, clearly sending a message to Fear. The only logical person who might have done this would Alice right? Maybe. What surprised me was Konoha's other persona during their short scuffle with Alice. It's just my opinion, but I think Konoha is probably the most boring character on the show. However, I really liked the badmouth blue-haired version of her. Does she become like that when she takes off her glasses?

Clearly, the star of this episode was Kirika. Back in the first arc, we already found out that Kirika possesses two cursed tools. We knew that the drawback of the bondage gear was that she'd die if she took it off, but we only knew that Kurokawa Karen could be used as a weapon. It turns out that the negative effects of "KKK" is to give its owner compulsion to cause physical harm. Instead of doing it to others, Kirika does it to herself because of how well her two cursed tools match up. Being Kirika is suffering.

It makes me wonder if this was actually what the "blackmail" was referring to. Sure this could be embarrassing to let Haruaki know about it, but it's really not that bad. Could the math teacher be referring to something else when he called her in the beginning of the episode? Nevertheless, I think this confirms that Kirika would probably choose Haruaki's crew over the Lab.

And finally the twist. Who would suspect a loli with such a cute voice to be the killer? After Alice told them to find out what the victims have in common, the group concluded that they all visited Kuroe's barbershop at one point. I really think that this is a red herring. Alice was the one who told them to look for things they had in common, which is probably true, but they found the wrong thing in common. Remember when the classmate was talking about the first murder? The report said that there was an accessory next to the body. Now take a look at the next two screenshots:

Both the victims were wearing crosses. Well, who else was wearing a cross, has a cross shaped weapon, and had the imagery of a cross over her head? It's Alice. For whatever reason, she's misdirecting them. Originally she was pursuing Kuroe, so she must've knew something about that hair absorption thing. Then she used that in her plan to maybe cause some infighting and take Fear in the mix up. For the next episode, I predict that there's going to be a confrontation with Kuroe, with them ending up defeating Alice together.

-Bern

C Cube 09 - Barbershop

Though I dropped Ro-Kyu-Bu very early on, the voice of Ogura Yui is absolutely unmistakable. This Ningyouhara Kuroe is the newly introduced character, but she's not so new to part of the cast. Remember when Konoha was talking to Sovereignty about how she had plenty of experience with energy-sucking dolls? Ha, I really appreciate the little things that tie up. As the title of episode may have suggested, Kuroe is quite the eccentric character; I quite like her demeanor.

I'm sure we've all been suspicious about the math teacher since the first episode. Well, he's revealed to be a fellow "lab member," of course referring to Kirika's brother's organization. Suffice to say, Kirika isn't really fond of the guy. I don't buy the "thirst for knowledge" one bit. Whenever someone comes up with a vague excuse like that, there's probably a hidden agenda. Since we now know who he is, he'll likely be directly involved in this arc.

Much of the episode wasn't very serious stuff, which largely focused on fanservice. That aside, it seems that Fear sort of looks up to Kuroe in that she wants to rid herself of her curse as well. To her, helping out at the barbershop seems like a legitimate place to start helping people. Maybe what writer is trying to get at here is that what Fear is doing right now is this: she's helping people as a means of ridding herself of her curse. She won't be able to lift this curse until she learns to simply help others for their sake, and their sake alone. Or maybe I'm just spouting a bunch of nonsense.

I've stated that I really like Kirika's character, but her predicament isn't really avant-garde. Because she's bound to her cursed tool, she's unable to make any progress with Haruaki. She's reluctant to be in the family business to boot. Yet at the same time, she feels confortable and perhaps even feel like a regular girl because of the protagonist's omnipotent allure. How the writer handles her decisions down the road will make it or break it for me.

Last but not least, we have the apparent antagonist of this arc. This Alice belongs to a different faction, the "Families" she calls it. Originally after Kuroe, she changed her target to the girl with a Rubik's cube. What the families intend to do with Fear, who knows? Perhaps the most intriguing thing about this rather bland episode is her final line, "I'm the culprit." Maybe it's me being dense and I just missed something important. What exactly is she referring to? Well, that doesn't matter as long I get see more crazy murder faces.

-Bern

C Cube 08 - What is Love?

Five days after its airing, I finally got around to doing this post. Unsurprisingly, this episode concluded the Sovereignty/Shiraho arc. As expected, there was a battle in the first half to resolve Sovereignty's conflict, though it went differently from what I thought it would. The latter half was pretty much putting the finishing touches on the arc, as well as hinting towards the next arc.

Yeah! Fear's crazy faces make their return. I just love how she looks completely opposite from her normal moe self. Shiraho said something about Fear not caring about humans after all, which may have caused the viewer to doubt whether or not Fear is actually in control of herself. Indeed, it turned out she was. Their idea was to lure out Sovereignty by using Shiraho as bait. After making him (I'll just refer to Sovereignty as a guy from now on, since there are less guys on the show and just makes it easier) reveal all his Killing Organs, all that was left to do was to destroy them.

I thought that the arc was solved rather elegantly. Based on the previous episodes, I automatically assumed that they were going to try to lift his curse, but they simply just removed the harmful aspects of it. It was actually a pretty intense scene with some tremendous voice acting by Chiwa Saito. And the running theme throughout the episode was love. Erasing Sovereignty's curse also meant that erasing their love for each other. As long as the Killing Organs were removed, just your regular gender changing moeblob.

The latter half of the episode was really looking more at Shiraho's character. Same voice actress aside, I feel that Shiraho's character is eerily similar to Senjougahara. She has comparable mannerisms and possesses the same type of tsundere qualities in that lashes out verbally, yet not in a malevolent way. Though not as a student, Sovereignty is conveniently placed at school. Thus, it is likely that they will both be recurring characters.

You're probably tired of me repeating the same thing over and over, but Silver Link has really got it going artistically. The above and below screenshots are prime examples. Another good one was when Chiwa Saito was voicing that emotional plea with the blue cracking pieces. Something that was pleasantly surprising is the background music during the casual scenes in the school setting. It was just really upbeat, and I think that it fit perfectly with resolution of the arc, with the students that got energy drained recovering quicker because their crushes visited them and all.

I think I said this on the previous post, but Fear is really growing as a character. There are two instances that I want to point to. First, when the group was talking about how to solve the problem in the beginning of the episode. When Shiraho said she didn't want the curse lifted, Fear apologized for not understanding the human emotion of love. Near the end, she feels like she's beginning to understand what it is. I hope to see more of this in later episodes. So, sports festival next week, eh? And a new character, too? I'm game.

-Bern

C Cube 07 - Cube X Cursed X Cabbage Master

Another slow post this week because of my preference for UTW subs. Sometimes I really wish I understood moonrunes (well, acutally all the time). I'd say this week's episode is one of the better ones, purely because of the twist. When twists are thrown into any story, there are usually two reactions. One, the twist is there for the sake of the twist, and often times it's there to desperately try to make a generic story stand out. Two, there were slight hints dropped, yet it was still unexpected and it works well. I'm in accord with the latter category. More on that farther down.

Here's something that isn't directly related to this story arc that I really appreciate. Haruaki really makes the right moves in integrating Fear into human society, and shows her that it feels good to be a decent human being. Doing everyday things such as shopping and cooking seems for like something for a slice of life show, but I think these kinds of scenes really add to the growth of her character. Some might gloss over these scenes and dismiss it as the comedy part of the show, and be more attentive to the story aspects of the show.

I thought I'd include this screenshot because I really like Kirika's character. I sort of want to classify her as a tsundere, but the tsun part isn't really there, which is quite nice. After watching so much anime, you just develop a propensity to classify any character you see. Of course, if you're looking at a character you can't classify, it's probably well-written. I think these two share quite an interesting share an interesting dynamic, albeit Haruaki's density level is higher than that of osmium. This specific scene reminded of a similar one between a certain pink haired girl and a certain combat butler.

I honestly didn't see that twist coming. "Sovereignty" from the previous episode seemed like she had the perfect personality for that of a doll. However, we find out that she is actually Shiraho, and who we initially thought was Shiraho is actually Sovereignty. But it doesn't end there! Sovereignty is actually androgynous, having both and female and male forms.

Last week, I suspected that it wasn't Sovereignty that attacked Konoha, but the unknown male student. It turns out that it was indeed Sovereignty that attacked her, but the male student is actually Sovereignty. So was I right or wrong? Or both? This twist has got me all tangled up! I think the reason why I thought this twist worked well because there was a slight hint. There's no way a girl with such an ample bust would use the pronoun "boku," right?

Another nice scene here; it looks like something out of Bakemonogatari. I think that it's likely that next week's episode will end the arc. If Sovereignty's curse is to make its owner fall in love with her and kill her, why did so many students look like they were drained of energy? Judging by the scene above, a stab with that blade seems inflict physical wounds rather than drain energy. I guess we'll find out next week.

-Bern

C Cube 06 - Does Massaging Really Work?

Though I doubt that it does, someone bust this myth for me (no pun intended). Anyway, a bit of the delayed post because I've been rather busy, and UTW's release was rather slow. This week's episode starts another arc and introduces two new characters, both female of course. I felt that it was one of the weaker episodes, since there was only a bit of action, and all that was slicing open a couple of stuffed animals.

The first character introduced is a doll named Sovereignty, the cursed tool of the arc. She's voiced by Chiwa Saito, which I recognized because the voice she uses is quite similar to the one she used for Senjougahara in Bakemonogatari. Apparently, she feels betrayed by humans, so she hates them now. Konoha surmised that she has a reason for draining the life force, albeit non-fatal, from the students of the school. Perhaps it has to with her final line in the episode, "Does anyone truly wish to have their curse lifted?" She comes across to be a rather cynical character, especially on the raison d'être of cursed tools.

Here we have Shiraho, a klutz with a rather large chest size. I personally don't care for this archetype, but I'm sure it appeals to some people out there. She seems to be the only human that Sovereignty doesn't hate. Here's a rather obvious prediction: by the end of this arc, Shiraho will profess that she will always be Sovereignty's friend. Then our protagonists will proceed to try to lift Sovereignty's curse and Shiraho will continue to bump into people with her boobs.

I know I've said this before, but Silver Link really uses the contrast of color well. This really shows that they're on opposing sides, or perhaps even that they have contrasting ideologies for the time being. I'm wondering how they'll actually try to convince her that they'll try to lift her curse, because she doesn't seem to listen to reason right now. A hunch tells me that they'll probably physically defeat her in battle to accomplish that.

So in this episode we had a couple seconds of the shady math teacher overhearing the side characters' conversations. Kirika is also wondering what's going on. More importantly, Konoha has been attacked, and a new male character is likely going to be introduced next episode. Was it Sovereignty that attacked her? Or was it the unknown male character? I'm guessing the latter. Next week's episode should prove a bit more interesting than this one.

-Bern

C Cube 05 - Just the Tip, He Said

This week's episode pretty much picks up right where last week's left off: Fear choosing to fight rather than idle around, and with Kirika right at the front door. It resolves the fight with Peavy, gives a bunch of info on Kirika, and hints at the future plot. Blood and battles aside, I thought it was just an okay episode, though I really like Kirika.

After a whole lot of "trusting for no reason" and "being selfish," Peavy cut open Kirika after using her to lure out Fear. Surprisingly, Fear was able to remain sane. At this rate, we won't get to see any more of her crazy faces! I thought this scene was rather interesting, too. From the fight, Peavy seems to have broken her arm, and have her eye stabbed. We also learn that she hates Waas because of what they did to her parents. In her final moments, she cried out to Mummy Maker to save her, only to realize that she already killed her. It's as though the writer wants the audience to sympathize with her, so it wouldn't be out of the question to see her again in the future.

Aw, we didn't really get to see any bondage action. The latter half of the episode was largely Kirika-centric. Apparently, she has possession of two Waas, Gimestorante's Love, and Kurokawa Karen. The bondage armor healing external injuries seems rather useful, yet impractical for any kind of one on one battle, since it left her incapacitated for a period of time. 

Next we get a bunch of info-dumping on Kirika. As suspected, she's part of an organization that has to do with Waas, though it seems that it's not one that directly opposes the Knights of Gathering; it's just that they have conflicting interests. She also mentioned that her organization is a minature country her brother made. It's likely that we'll get to know about her brother in the future. Last week, I suspected that the night assailant wasn't Mummy Maker, though I didn't expect her to be Kirika. As long as they keep bringing in these little surprises, and having more bloody battles, it should be entertaining to watch.

Finally, we close the episode with an intentionally misleading scene. The plot from here on out will likely be collecting more Indulgence Discs to prevent Fear from going insane. That's too bad, her craziness was fun. I know Fear will get a lot of spotlight, Konoha is rather boring, so I hope we get to see more of Kirika in the future.

-Bern

C Cube 04 - My Little Mummy Maker Can't Be This Cute!

Color me pleasantly surprised. After the ending of that first arc last week, I fully expected more of a slice-of-life episode. Instead we get a decent bit of action, more blood, a loli dying, and more crazy faces. I really like the direction this show is going. Though we haven't seen them back in their high school setting since the first episode, I think we'll eventually see them back there, which should prove to be less interesting, unless of course Peavy chooses to attack them there as well.

So this is Mummy Maker, or Amanda Carlot just to get the viewer on a more personal level with her before killing her off. Her burn marks and Peavy's lack of an arm remind me of Hanako and Rin (KS release when!?). They build her up to be a cute loli with a shy personality, and apparently abused by her parents. Don't you just want to hug her? She's even willing to negotiate with the enemy to prevent some unnecessary bloodshed. Unfortunately, that's what got her killed, or appeared to be killed I should say. I wouldn't be surprised if she was able to mend her own wounds with those Chupacabran bandages.

Remember when an Auxillary appeared at Haruaki's house during the night? When I was watching that I really thought that it wasn't Mummy Maker. When Fear attacked her it looked like she got a nice shot on the Auxillary judging by the amount of blood, but when we see Peavy's flashback of killing Mummy Maker, she didn't seem injured. This is also right after Kirika makes her suspicious call, though I'm not sure if there's a connection there.

That's one huge axe. I find it interesting that it was activated by blood. I remember an episode or two ago that Konoha (in sword form) also reacted when there was blood on her. Perhaps there is a set of identical properties that all Waas share. Peavy throwing up a little because of her hatred of Waas was a nice touch.

Haruaki's in trouble, Fear's about to go crazy again, and Kirika's right at the front door. The next episode should be another one full of action. Judging by her call, she might belong to an organization, perhaps one that's opposing the Knights of Gathering. I expect to see Kirika to put Peavy in some bondage torture next week.

-Bern