Winter 2025 Anime

Wait, Does Kissing Really Do That to People?

Aside Roderick J "Jay" Friz Anime, Anime Reviews, Blogging, Crunchyroll, Uncategorized , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You Season 2, Episode 8 Review

Last time on The 100 Girlfriends, the Rentaro Family was facing its biggest crisis since the incident with Hahari! Rentaro’s tenth soulmate, the beautiful Mimimi Utsukushisugi, refuses to be part of any group with Nano in it due to a past transgression. Thus, the newcomer challenges Nano to a contest where the loser must leave the Family! How will Rentaro use his CHADtaro powers to resolve this conflict? What sort of antics will Mimimi bring to the Rentaro Family? And how saucy can this anime make the simple act of kissing?

That last question will make sense soon enough.

Mimimi’s Problem with Nano

So, after Mimimi threw down the gauntlet last time, this episode reveals the exact circumstances that led to her grudge against Nano. After winning a beauty paegant they were both in, Mimimi tried to be a good sport and extend a hand to Nano. In response, Nano rejected her, saying friendship was a waste of time. What made things worse was that Mimimi secretly entered Nano in the pageant all so the two of them could become friends, only to get spat on.

The first half of this episode is as much about Nano’s character development as it is about Mimimi joining the Family. Before she met Rentaro, love and friendship were utterly foreign to her. Her willingness to accept Mimimi’s challenge speaks volumes to her character development. Something that becomes more obvious over the course of their “beauty search” contest.

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Instead of judging each other by what makes them beautiful, they point out everything they find beautiful in the rest of the family. This leads to some very fun moments where everything that makes the others attractive. However, it’s when they get to Rentaro himself that the real funny moment of the episode takes place.

CHADtaro humiliates himself for his Family

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Rentaro uses his CHADtaro powers to turn himself into the least attractive person they can possibly find. He shaves his eyebrows, hair, and puts on a humiliating costume all so they can’t get an edge, and call the entire contest a draw! That’s how far Rentaro is willing to go to keep his girlfriends happy!

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Mimimi almost takes this moment as another loss, but again, this episode demonstrates Nano’s character development. She may not be able to make up for her past slight, but she makes it clear that she finally understands the value of love and friendship. Which is one of the great things about this series. The girl’s problems aren’t fixed overnight, but thanks to the supportive environment Rentaro gives them, they’re able to work on them together! And it’s enough to convince Mimimi to drop her grudge and officially join the Family.

Kissing Galore

In what is now a tradition for the series, the second half of the episode is centered on Mimimi integrating into the Rentaro Family through an activity. In this case, it’s helping each of the girls reach their most beautiful selves by partaking in activities that will aid them. In this case, kissing. Lots and lots and lots of kissing.

This entire half of the episode is primarily an excuse for the anime to skirt the line between SFW and full-on ecchi. Using a new lip balm to stimulate the pleasure centers of the brain, the girls each take turns kissing Rentaro. The moments that come out of this are, suitably, hilarious. Like this!

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Or this!

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This one got crazy!

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And this one was a straight-up shoutout to Food Wars and its infamous Foodgasms.

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And look at how what happened afterwards!

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And with that, we now sit at ten girlfriends, with ninety more to go. And this season only has one girlfriend left to introduce, so there’s no telling what might happen! At least the girls will be able to remain beautiful, though!

I Give “The Beautiful and the Bold” a 4/5

Memmeln is Acting Hecka Sus!

Aside Roderick J "Jay" Friz Anime, Anime Reviews, Crunchyroll , , , , , , , , , , ,

Some people think that living for centuries would be awesome. However, what good is getting to live for hundreds, even thousands of years, if everyone you know grows old and dies without you? In fantasy novels, it is the curse of many elves to outlast their fellow mortals, like Memmeln from Zenshu. Even with everything Natsuko knows about the film she’s stuck in, she doesn’t know what drives Memmeln. And that not knowing almost costs them the Nine Soldiers everything in the new episode of Zenshu.

Memmeln is a Void Stan

As Natsuko is working on her drawings, Luke asks a question out of the blue regarding the Void that snuck into the festival last episode. None of them know how that happened in the first place, but Natsuko knows…sort of.

Spoiler alert: Memmeln is part of a group that cast a spell to disguise the Void as the priest. Their plan was to summon the Ultimate Void, but when they do, and Luke killed it, it was revealed to be Memmeln. The problem is that the film never explained why this happened, so Natsuko’s left fumbling for answers, just like Luke.

Which leads to the big “wtf” reveal of the episode: Memmeln is part of a group of elves that are fed up with living. They’ve seen death and destruction too many times over the course of their lives, so they just want the pain to end. In short, they’re trying to create a mass extinction event to embrace death.

Immortality is Overrated…

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While there’s no denying that getting to stave off aging for a century or two would be nice, not everyone thinks of the downsides of such a long life. Live long enough, and everything starts to become a blur. People you know and love die, and you’re left alone. Living that long can be a curse unto itself, something Memmeln is acutely aware of. However, instead of cherishing the time she has all the more, Natsuko points out how self-serving her plans are. And she’s not wrong. It is rather selfish to unilaterally decide to end the world.

So, the big issue is how do Natsuko and Luke convince Memmeln and her group not to go through their plans? Something Natsuko knows well: the immortality of a creator.

Unless you create something really cool!

It can be argued that, besides the existence of the soul, the only true form of immortality is having the world remember your name. And in this regard, great storytellers can wind up being remembered long after they’ve left this world. Homer, Shakespeare, Tolkien, all of them have been dead from anywhere from several decades to thousands of years, but people still remember them. Centuries from now, people might still remember Toriyama, Tezuka, Oda, and the other great mangaka of 20th and 21st centuries. The bottom line is that all these people created characters that, even after they’re dead and gone, are going to be remembered.

So, Natsuko plays into that with her latest drawing. It’s to remind Memmeln and her choir that, for all the suffering and loss that comes with the fullness of time, there are still beautiful things worth cherishing. Granted, she used a boy band heartthrob from an anime she worked on, but that doesn’t take away any of the poignancy. No matter how much destruction and loss the world is filled with, there’s still beauty to be found!

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Natsuko and Luke’s plan works. They manage to convince Memmeln and her followers to not give up on life when they can still stan anime husbando’s. The bad news is that seeing them go off together briefly gave Unio the impression that Natsuko and Luke were dating. And Luke’s denial at the end only makes him even more suspicious.

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Who thinks Natsuko and Luke are going to date?

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It’s official: Zenshu is shipping Natsuko and Luke, which could be both good and bad. Good, because if it goes through and she gets some character development before waking up back in Japan, Natsuko would have the experience to finish that romance anime she was stuck on. Bad, because it could lead to the story ending far worse if something bad happens. That, and she and Luke would be separated if she went back home. It could go either way.

Clearly, Zenshu is playing the long game and trying to make us invested in how things will turn out, and it could go either way.

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I Give “Eternity” a 3.5/5