The Undead Fashion Models from New York™ vs. the Amazon Space Pirates

I haven't had time for much of anything for a while, since I was actually working on that article for Media Promenade (via Google Translation)... which I'll be posting on Bee Train Fan soon, as well.

But today I caught up with a backlog of a couple of things. First up was discs 2 & 3 of "Sol Bianca", which I started quite a while back. There's not much to say about it besides the fact that I thought it was enjoyable. Though it was more popcorn than profound, I still like how actualized the details of their universe were, and the characters were fun to watch. Girls-with-guns ain't hard to win me over, after all... Heh.

Also, I'd been neglecting "Red Garden", and caught up with eps 6, 7 & 8. 6 was quite the angst-o-rama, and featured the return of the melancholoy singing interlude, while the girls had to come to terms with yet another rule that defines their horrible existence -- they're all in it together, and if one quits, they all die. Ep 7 brings us a taste of backstory, and a glimpse into the "other side", showing the so-called bad guys may not be 100% "bad". Or, at least, they have what might be considered understandable motivations. Episode 8 was one of the most genuine so far, and actually amusing at times, and probably had the best breaking-into-song momentup to this point. The four girls are starting to bond, and feeling a little bit of hope of overcoming their dire situation.

Unfortunately, it seems like that hope might be falsely planted, though it's left rather vauge. I know that even though the moment itself seemed genuine, I couldn't help but thing the other shoe was about to drop. I'm glad it didn't in that episode, though, because that would have been a cheap cop-out, I think. It worked really well with it just the way it was, and it made up for some of the starkly brutal crap from earlier. Unfortunately, it also means that we're probably about to dive into another excessively brutal layer.

I don't know how many episodes this is supposed to be, though I can't see how they'd be able to stretch it to a full 26 without some crazy plot twist or change in scope. So if it's actually only 13, that means we'll be getting into some intense conflict and showdowns pretty soon.