hontou ni Stripey Insists Sisters Cry Oniichan Now

Bakuten Angels' Adolescence Vol.2

The first chapter of Vol.2, Act 6, is my favourite. Erica has already done a terrific summary and review of it at Okazu - though to nitpick, I don't think Amy asks Sei what Meg and Jo are doing (Meg has launched a flying glomp of Jo and they are probably making out on the living room floor) but "is there a purpose to record this kind of stuff?" (??????????????) More on the Jo x Meg dynamics of this chapter later.

Act 7. Jo apprehends a snatch thief. The brat kid of the grateful housewife pesters Jo about how she learnt her l33t skillz but she can't remember. "You so poor thing." Aw shucks, brats say the darnest things. Jo is shaken by this. Meanwhile a Skeletor wannabe is plotting Jo's downfall. Jo has a nightmare about being in a dome surrounded by bloodied corpses and her wearing military-style fatigues and having long hair. She awakens and then meets Skeletor by the sea for a duel. Despite him having the draw on her, she manages to shoot him down but finds herself surrounded by a zombie army.

Act 8. Jo is holding her own against the zombies but her odds look bleak. Meg rides to the rescue on a bicycle and a gift of an ultimate weapon - an iron pipe. LOL Skeletor guy (Fundingu) is actually either a tentacle monster or a Quintizon scientist! As the battle continues to rage, Sei and Amy decide to intervene.

Act 9. Sei becomes a hot chick in a tentacle flick, captured by Fundingu. However h4xx0r Amy saves the day by disabling the zombie army's control circuits. Fundingu is later sliced into half by yet another Jo hater.

Act 10. A burlgar, who resembles one of the mangakas, makes the mistake of trying to burgle the Jo x Meg household. After slashing his pride to shreds with her razor wit and malicious humour, Meg subdues him with a pistol draw and hands him over to the police. Meanwhile Jo has slept through the whole Meg vs Burglar confrontation. LOL

Act 11. A man with a similar make to Jo wanders the streets as if ill. He transforms into a monster and attacks the local populace. Jo grabs his second intended victim, a very young girl, and fights him with her under one arm. She kills it but it jogs memories and she sees similarities in herself. On top of that, the frightened girl's father expresses his gratitude by calling Jo a monster and the hitherto fleeing crowd joins in demanding for the safe return of the girl while looking generally threatening. Meg finds Jo in the rain but Jo pushes Meg away, telling her not to touch her. Classic miscommunication scenario. Jo feels that she doesn't deserve Meg but Meg thinks that Jo has dumped her.

Art/scene personal favourites:

p1. Jo sleeping on with her head on Meg's lap while the latter strokes her hair and looks at Jo tenderly. Aaaah so sweet.

p5. Apparently Jo's idea of sleepwear is to bandage up her breasts while Meg has full pajamas. From Meg's position, it looks like she felt asleep with her left arm around Meg's shoulders. And Jo has awful sleeping habits - she snores a lot and in different variations of sound and also tosses around a lot.

pp12-13. Simply hilarous - Meg's SD form with blush and drool at her very sexual fantasy.
Fantasy Jo: I'm not going to let you sleep tonight.
Fantasy Meg: I'm so happy...
RL Meg: Oh Jo, you tease!
RL Meg: Please be gentle with me. ♥ (all of this was out loud btw)
RL Jo (in the background, on the phone): I'd like to order two portions of soba.

p14. Jo's SD sleepyhead form was hilarous. Bo~~~~

p15. Jo ordering soba again!

pp28-33. Very nice buildup to another sweet (pp31-32 in photo above) Jo x Meg moment - over soba. Jo really seems to like soba. Meg is down because she saw how the real estate agent had divorced his wife and had limited vistation rights with his son. She worries about not being able to be with Jo. Jo's response is perfect. She doesn't make extravagent hollow promises as she doesn't know the future. Instead she feeds Meg a mouthful of soba noodles and says that the length of the noodles represent the amount of time they will be together as a pair. This is incredibly mushy stuff but because Jo says it with such sincerity, spontaneity and with her usual deadpan expression, it really works.

p34. SD Meg: Aan! (feeding soba noodles by chopstick, many empty trays on the table)
SD Jo: *chew* (sweatdrop and hugely bloated with soba)

p48. Meg looks so cute when she's laughing to herself in her sleep. Jo is wearing a t-shirt to bed instead of doing the Rei Ayanami gig again.

p67. Meg with her PJ top half unbuttoned.

pp81-82. Jo's surprise at Meg's iron pipe. The zombie army's bewilderment at their conversation.

p96. Meg clinging oh-so-cutely to Jo's arm. Note her breasts nestling against Jo's arm sigil.

p161. Jo's SD sleepyhead form never gets old.

pp189-191. Jo and Meg in the rain. Bit of a clichéd with rain representing the sad mood but it does help to set the scene.

Overall, I found myself enjoying the love comedy parts of the story more than the whole Jo's mysterious past thread. Cool fight scenes were great of course but I can really see why the removal of the first of the three above-mentioned legs of the Bakuten story really made the anime so wobbly.

Related posts:

1. Bakuten Angels' Adolescence Vol.1
2. Bakuten Angels' Adolescence Vol.3
3. BakuTen Infinity