This just popped up in my YouTube feed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vc_J8uBRSwk

It's about the song that the Serpo sings when he's transforming the boxer alien into the mantis shrimp/Baltan-like form.

The song named "Yuuki No Shirushi" or "Sign of Courage" was from a 80s commercial for Regain an energy drink, that became an anthem for the work-yourself-to-death zeitgeist in Japan at the time.

The comments under the video say that...

I wasn't quite as impressed with this episode.

Sowing the seeds of distrust in the opposition party, so that any act that could be interpreted as betrayal would cause the party to fracture, was clever.

But Noel's plan relied on his own party being able to defeat the Dantalion without his opponent's help.

And Noel's Strategist subclass/specialization seemed to come with skills that were tailor made to defeat such a foe, or was it vice versa?

In particular, I don't recall the Link ability being revealed earlier, so it feels like a deus ex machina.

Or maybe it was revealed and I just don't remember.

Conversely, Leon's supposed to be this amazing Talker, same class as Noel, and same B rank I think(?), so what was his subclass/specialization, what abilities came with that and why weren't they useful?

Heh, I just noticed that Leon and Noel are each other's name spelled backwards.

p.s. Shidou Antenna-head comes in for Wakatsuki, the guy with the big eyes and hair elastic across the forehead.

For reference, here's the starting U-20 lineup again (from episode 6) https://ani.social/pictrs/image/31587707-6518-4f81-9621-3799f61c7c0c.webp

Then Isagi has one of his puzzle pieces flying moments...

@rikka@ani.social

And doesn't that eventually make Reo the player with the most potential?

If he can copy any move or skill at 99% accuracy, he'll be an incredible player at any position.

That all depends on how long he can store it in his memory, and whether it's limited, for some silly reason, to players on the pitch that he's playing on.

@rikka@ani.social

A solid and enjoyable episode despite the amount of cliches they manage to stuff in.

Well of course, some idiot has to challenge the transfer student who shattered the mana level detection crystal in front of everyone...

You'd think that story would have passed through the whole school quickly, but apparently it missed a few.

@rikka@ani.social

What else could we expect but a maid cafe?

And with a familiar-looking employee...

Takahashi does make a good point about maid cafes being a way for commoners to buy a taste of what it's like to be waited upon hand and foot by demure and attractive uniformed servants, while Veltol and Machina find the whole thing ridiculous because they've actually lived the real thing.

That's what Dragon Bank gets for not crediting their creators...

@rikka@ani.social

I have to give Haru credit for spotting this weakness in DB's business practices, and getting "Sekai No Horimoto" to join their team.

Now they actually need to come up with a brilliant product...

Jingle All The Way is an underrated classic.

The "must have" toy mania that it captures was newish then, but is normalized behavior now.

Just that a lot of it takes place over the internet, and there are even more speculators, and the manufacturers deliberately create artificial scarcity to drive profits.

This is a duplicate, minus some lettering, of https://ani.social/post/7690009

Destroy the bombers before they can escape to used against Ukraine, or any one else!

Any bets as to where Assad fled to?

Russia seems most likely, since his family fled there.

"Big Wheel" snort is that what Wham'o and Ma'tel are calling themselves now?

When they say he is still in the capitol, that means he's left the capitol.

It's brilliant commentary on human nature and development.

Children are unkind and cruel by nature, and that underlies adult behavior, even with socialization.