Alderamin on the Sky is told as a history of a legendary tactician and general, who became great because he was lazy and had no interest in fighting. It is set in a very steampunk universe, with compressed air rifles and airships, and a technology base from around 1820 or so. It opens with our protagonist traveling with a childhood friend he is escorting on her journey to a military academy. They meet new friends on the ship they are sailing on, which runs into trouble leaving them stranded behind enemy lines. I was hooked by the end of the first episode, and every episode since has been better than the one before. We are up to the 4th episode, with a new episode popping up every Friday.
We are only 3 episodes into the fall season, and already Taboo Tattoo has me looking forward to the new episode each Monday when I get home from work. The Tattoos are technology from an ancient civilization, each with a special power they give the wearer, a specific trigger that activates them, and a price they exact in return for the abilities they grant. The protagonist is a middle school kid who ended up being given his tattoo when he stepped in to defend a stranger from some street punks. He was promptly tracked down by a couple of American Army tattoo wielders. They had been tasked with locating a group of stolen tattoos and were hot on the heels of the man he had defended. There is also a psycho princess who just used her tattoo to murder her parents and take over the government of her island nation, as a stepping stone to world domination. She has agents with powers going to other countries to kill off the gifted and bring their tattoos back to equip her army. And that’s just in the first 2 episodes; it’s going to be a wild ride!
Starting this week, Marvel has its own in-house news/promotion show, THWIP! The Big Marvel Show. They will put out new episodes every Wednesday both on their web site and on YouTube. The first episode runs about 15 minutes, I don’t know if that is going to be the standard or if it will fluctuate depending on the material available each week. This could be fun, or it could get really old fast; there is no way to know based on a sample set of 1 how it will work out, but we will find out. Thanks to THR for the heads up on this one.
In Divine Gate Adapters are folks with powers over their realms of Air, Water, Earth and Fire, each realm existing on a different plane of existence and each accessible to the others through a mundane gate. The Living, Heavens, and Underworld become connected to each realm after a Divine Gate is opened, adding another set of layers to the situation, and whoever opens a Divine Gate can change the universe as they desire, including changes in the past and future. Adapters use Drivers to control their powers and keep them from going into meltdown, but they don’t always (or often) work. I have been enjoying this one a lot this new season, and can’t wait to see more.
Season 2 of the Asterisk War is now streaming, with the competition at the Festas heating up. Combat as spectacle, pitting the schools against each other, with the prize going to the last team standing. Our protagonists are facing ever deadlier opponents with each new round, and already within the first few episodes we are introduced to a new school and the mastermind behind them. This one has new episodes each Saturday morning; tomorrow morning we will get episode 3.
The post-Armageddon series God Eater took a 3 month break between the biologic battles of episodes 9 and 10, now they are back to finish up the first season. Episode 10 just posted to Crunchyroll this past Monday, with new episodes each Monday. As with a number of other series, God Eater aired first on Daisuke, so you can watch 10 through 13 there already. Both sites have both free and paid accounts you can sign up for, and you can watch anything they stream with a free account. The paid accounts have some added benefits, like watching the shows a week earlier or getting them without commercials. Both streaming services also have free iOS and Android apps you can use to watch your favorite shows on your smart phone or tablet, and each service has pros and cons with different aspects of the account set up.
The most interesting thing about Daisuke is the titles they carry. They are a consortium of 6 Anime companies based in Japan, rather then a North American distributor like Crunchyroll, Funimation, or Viz. Which means they have a mix of some of the shows the other 3 carry, they show some titles a week or more before any of the others have them, and they even have some shows that aren’t carried by the North American distributors at all. Of course, there are more than 6 Anime companies in Japan, which means each of the others carry titles that Daisuke, nor their local competitors, have. Personally I can’t afford to have paid accounts with all of them, plus Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, Acorn, etc, on top of my cable company bill (best broadband bandwidth for the buck, bar none). So I am evaluating who has what, and which titles in each ones library I can not live without. If I can only afford a couple of monthly service fees, I want to make sure I end up with the best ones.