There were bikinis! There were buns! There were weenies! It’s summertime on this week’s Simulblast, and our contestants are getting us in the summer mood with fake (and real!) beach episodes!

This Week’s Challenge: Spend at least one paragraph of your summary imagining a beach episode of your show for thirty points, and three decently-sized paragraphs forming a cohesive beach story (with a full plot and ending!) to earn a Token!

Samurai Jam ~Bakumatsu Rock~ (Episode Two)
Player: Kanashimi
Class: Boss

Ah, another refreshing episode of “why am I still watching this?”! In this episode there obviously wasn’t enough fanservice, so it’s time for the transformation sequences to take a break while our trio tries to head to the beach. Why you might ask? Well, the so called shaggy master, Yoshida, was last spotted there by our main hero. What was this guy’s name again? Oh yeah, Ryoma. So anyway, Ryoma, Kogorou, and Shinsaku search around for their master. Are they still looking for an invite into that audition? Not that they would be allowed what with “defeating” Heisuke, that’s against the law, right?

Obviously, Ryoma gets distracted, what with the radical waves and all, but even more so he spots the ama women of the area. Time for a history lesson! Ama were Japanese divers that have a sort of cultural fame for collecting pearls. The really neat thing here is that a good majority of them were women, and often times they wouldn’t use typical diving gear. In fact, even up to the 1950s these women were still jumping into the sea with just a loincloth to cover them (their chesticles were able to feel the wind, however). They didn’t simply go after pearls; that’s just where their notoriety comes from, but they often also grabbed seaweed, lobsters, and oysters. There’s some amazing picture collections from just a few decades ago of these lovely ladies, but obviously they aren’t safe for work considering their lack of attire.

So since Ryoma just seems to hit on ladies and yell at them to listen to his song, he repeats this process with the ama. He gets nowhere, and instead he gets crushed by a large wave and is left washed up on the beach. There’s a bit of laughter and jokes at Ryoma’s expense, but our day on the beach is interrupted by some of the government attempting to claim the diver’s haul from the sea because that’s what evil governments do. Of course, that means our trio gets to transform… and rock battle them. Sigh.

Or at least, that might be what happens if they had an actual beach episode, but since they didn’t and I made you read through that whole thing before the actual summary for points, I think there’s been enough stallin’. The episode actually starts with our trio in a mini-jam session with their two fans. Ryoma shouts a big, “Thank you!” in English to the crowd. They have no idea what it means, so he has to explain its how Americans express gratitude. Okay, I can’t get over the whole… them not really knowing what America would be at this point deal. Either way, Shinsaku argues with Ryoma and leaves the stage. Kogorou cites that he simply has a lot on his mind, and that they should wrap up their practice for today.

Then frickin’ Kondo of the Shinsengumi walks through the door! Kondo was known as the commander of the Shinsengumi; he was both a teacher and a man wishing to be employed by the Shogunate during a very unfortunate time. However, he did become a hatamoto in 1867, which means late in his life he was able to serve the Tokugawa Shogunate. He was falsely accused of murder; at least that’s my opinion, what really happened there is a mystery to this day. He was sadly beheaded instead of dying in battle due to being blamed for murder. Anywho, this Kondo seems generally impressed with Ryoma, but his technique is bad. In contrast, Shinsaku has amazing technique, but no passion behind his playing.

Blonde boy I don’t know the name of from the first episode is following Kondo. Evil bad guy I don’t know the name of is telling the emperor or someone that he has a Peace Soul, so rock can’t defeat them or something. Evil guy’s name is Li Naosuke, who I’ll assume is based off a daimyo… all I really know about this guy, in real life and not the show, is the fact that he enabled trade with American merchants via ports. Otherwise, I don’t have much to go on here. Sadly, he’s about as evil as possible in this anime, what with his long white hair and a black robe (he’s a wizard!). Anyway, something something Peace Soul, collect the others, what is this, Dragonball?

So a Peace Soul is a part of the Ultra Soul. Please don’t tell me they’re all gonna transform together near the end of the show. If there’s an anime god, please, save me from this shame… Anyway, they finally touch on Yoshida being missing, and Ryoma is like “let’s just play a bunch of concerts and attract him to us.” Well, sure, okay… makes about as much sense as anything. Sadly, they can’t perform since people are scared of letting them use a space to practice. Shinsaku doesn’t want to instead see the Shinsengumi preform like Ryoma (and as Kondo advised) because apparently his parents died when he was young, so the Lord’s servants took care of him, and one of them sacrificed himself over a dispute between Shinsaku and said Lord… or something. That was an extremely bad explanation, but a better one is that he goes against the government so the person who took care of him got the punishment.

Anyway, they convince Shinsaku to go to the glow stick stage of pretty boys. Hijikata and Okita talk backstage, and I’m just gonna say I absolutely hate this portrayal of Okita. He’s pretty much the biggest jerk he could be. Welp, hope he gets stabbed sooner than later.

I didn’t know that the Shinsengumi perfected auto-tuning so early… I like how they all sound the same, too. My thoughts are interrupted as Ryoma runs into the middle of the crowd claiming something is wrong with their music. It’s dead, twisted, and has no soul. Ryoma immediately begins to play guitar, and Kondo starts the music which I guess is a cue for them to have a song-off. They’re arguing in song; they’re legit arguing in song. Kogorou jumps on drums, because why not, this place has no security and everyone’s lost their katana. They’ve also turned to really poor CG for things in the background. It’s okay, though; Shinsaku is gonna jump in, yell at Ryoma, and continue their rock battle. Shinsaku’s Peace Soul lights up at the same time as Ryoma’s so they both have a moment of exploding clothes. The Shinsengumi give up around the same time that I have due to the dumb CG that appears out of nowhere.

Kondo appears on stage and tells them to leave so officials don’t take them away. He apparently staged this all so Hijikata and Okita don’t play such a relaxed performance ever again. Our trio on the other hand are like, “Whoa, new Peace Soul! Who didn’t see that coming?” So I assume Kogorou gets to activate his in the next episode. This show is really hard for me to watch, I’m not gonna lie. This episode was nowhere near as funny either. What a shame…

Watch Samurai Jam ~Bakumatsu Rock~ on Crunchyroll or talk about this episode on our forums.

Captain Earth (Episode Fourteen)
Player: Bobby Henshin
Class: DJ

The beach! Sun, sand, waves, and swimsuits. That’s right, everyone, it’s the beach episode! The challenge for this week was to pretend that your anime was having a beach episode. But, luckily for me, episode 14 of Captain Earth is a beach episode! So put on some sun screen and lets get started.

The train base has taken The Midsummer Knights to the beach. So, as always, Akari says that it’s time for a beach vacation. Although she has done nothing but go to restaurants and pools the entire trip… The others bring that to light as well. But Akari believes that they need as much rest as they can get because things may not be so peaceful in the future. The Captain and Vice-Captain agree and decide to go to a beach resort. Akari smirks as her plan goes into motion. What is this plan of hers?

They show up to the hotel; Akari hands everyone a room key, then sends them off. Daichi and Hana find out that their rooms are right next to each other. Daichi enters his room to find what looks like the best hotel room I’ve ever seen and can never afford. As he walks towards the balcony, we see Hana to the side looking out of the same window… What? Turns out that the rooms are joint rooms separated by half a wall. Akari’s plan was to give them a room together to move their romance along.

Meanwhile, at the Macbeth corporation, Moco and Amarok were brought into Kube’s office for a steak dinner and wine. Kube is furious to learn that they have been wasting origon energy tubes and taking the Goodfellows out without permission. Kube goes to Puck to see if he does have full control of them. Puck simply responds saying he can not lie. He makes sure by telling Puck that he still holds the self destruct button for Puck. Things are getting serious.

Moco and Amarok have their own conversation with Puck as they believe they have lost all need for Kube. Puck believes that they still need him, but believe that he still needs to learn a lesson of how powerless he is. So they decide to use one of his own creations against him. Orbiting the moon is an asteroid-type space ship that houses the select few chosen by Kube to create his own master race after the Kiltgangs wipe out the Earth. Well, the Kiltgangs believe it to be the perfect tool to show them what they can truly do. By using Puck, they send the asteroid on a collision course for Globe headquarters. But let’s see whats going on with the others at the beach!

The first night of the vacation goes by smoothly. Daichi tries to fall asleep, but opens his eyes to find Hana looking over him and crying. Then she runs and jumps back into her bed. Okay? What just happened? The next morning, at the beach, everyone is enjoying the water and the sun. As Hana heads back to the others on the sand, guys can’t help but stare in awe of the sight of Hana’s…
talents. Akari ends up having to beat them away from her. As they rest, Akari asks how their night went. Daichi can only say “fine,” and that he thinks Hana hates him. Akari will not take this as an answer, so she heads to the showers with Hana. She asks some roundabout questions to see how she feels about the Captain. Would you like some ice cream? Which flavor do you prefer? Chocolate or strawberry? Strawberry or the Captain? These were seriously the questions asked, and Hana had no hesitation when she said she liked the Captain. So Hana and Daichi are canon! Fan girls rejoice! If there are Captain Earth fan girls.

The next night, Hana is found looming over Daichi again and crying. Hana is crying because she believes Daichi will hate her if he finds out who she really is. Daichi lets her know that he will never hate her and tells her that he wants to kiss her. Wait… What!? What is this? An anime protagonist actually taking the chance for a kiss?! Captain Earth has broken the anime stereotype!

Just as they were going in for the kiss they receive a phone call from Rita. She pulls them all back from the vacation to tell them about the asteroid. If this hits, one third of Japan will be wiped out. The satellites aren’t powerful enough to stop it and there isn’t enough time to launch the engines. Kube is told about his satellite and has the look of complete dread on his face. Hana runs out to the beach and begins to sing. Daichi is hot on her tail. As the asteroid is entering the atmosphere, Hana summons a gigantic beam of blue light out of the ocean and destroys the asteroid in an instant. Okay, so you’re telling me Hana had a Deus-Ex canon in the ocean, and she chose now to activate it?! Do you know how many things could’ve been avoided with that?! Oh well, Daichi finds out and Hana is not happy. She runs crying from him and… well that’s the episode. Nothing much really. A beach episode followed by a freaking canon blast with more kick to it than Kana’s diet of hot wings.
Well I hope you enjoyed it. Hopefully next episode we get to see more of the relationship of Daichi and Hana take form. Also we see Setsuna again; in this series I don’t know if that is good or bad.

Watch Captain Earth on Crunchyroll or talk about this episode on our forums.

JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders (Episode Fourteen)
Player: Elk
Class: DJ

Hey everyone! Elk here, for my debut entry in the Ultra Summer Simulblast Turbo 2014 Edition. I missed last week’s due to sleep, and have corrected my schedule for the sole purpose of being able to do Simulblast on time this week. I mean, I could always just do it earlier in the week, but where would be the fun in that?

So to catch up, I’m going to start off with last week’s episode, which was totally a beach episode. Seriously guys, please don’t go and check. I’m totally not making this up. JoJo and the crew decide to take some time off and relax at an Indian beach-side resort. This episode is mainly fanservice for the ladies and gay dudes, as the only female character in this series is a young child… Unless you’re into that sorta of thing, in which case you’re either a creepy orangutan from a few episodes ago, or “I’d like you to have a seat over here.”

Of course, this episode turns out to be the most epic beach volleyball tournament ever, with Polnareff and Kakyoin vs. the JoJos. Unfortunately, Hermit Purple isn’t really that good of a Stand for volleyball, so it was pretty much just Jotaro vs. Kakyoin and Polnareff. Kakyoin and Polnareff took an early lead by being able to cover more ground, but JoJo, with the speed of Star Platinum, was able to keep things even. In the end, Joseph finally managed to play a part setting up a massive Star platinum spike.

But the volleyball was actually a Stand! It’s The Ball, and it stores energy imparted on it to increase it’s strength, and with all the punishment it’s taken it easily defeats the entire team. While everyone is lying in the sand defeated, Polnareff pulls the same move on the Ball that he did on JoJo’s crew. Expelling the armor from Silver Chariot, he speeds up faster than The Ball can dodge and pierces it with his sword. This causes a fairly large explosion since all the stored energy was released, but our heroes only sustained minor injuries. Fast forward to night, and we see one person is still out “sun” bathing. In the end, that’s how the Stand user hid their identity.

In the REAL last episode, JoJo’s coat was burned to ashes by an evil car. In a rare case of slight realism, JoJo actually has to buy a new one… Of course how he managed to find such an odd coat in the outskirts of Pakistan is beyond me.

Much like The Cat Came Back, the runaway girl also came back, and was put on a plane back to Hong Kong. She fights this decision until Joseph tells her they’re on a quest to save her daughter and JoJo’s mother and can’t have distractions. This calms her down, and the plane takes off just as JoJo arrives. So far so good. It’s interesting having an innocent person around for the heroes to have to consider while fighting, but now perhaps they’ll be let loose to REALLY fight.

OP break… wow, I’ve already written that much and we’re only just past the OP.

We learn a little about Pakistan and its long history before following out heroes on the road, making a stop at a small town. The episode even makes fun of how easy it was for JoJo to find a “Japanese school uniform.”

The city they find is completely covered in fog, and no one seems to be responsive at all. The crew find a dead body, and upon closer inspection it’s completely covered in holes, but there’s no blood. They realize it must be a Stand that killed the man and are on edge. They try to get an ill lady to call the police, but she just leaves with her children in an absentminded fashion.

What appears to be a skull forms in the sky, and the group is quite wary. When Joseph goes to jump into the car, he finds himself nearly impaled on a spiked fence. It seems the nature of the fog creates illusions.

Out of the fog an old lady shows up. It’s the evil witch, but JoJo and friends don’t know this. She says she runs a bed and breakfast, that John Lennon stayed at it, and that a 007 movie was filmed there. Though she quickly says she was just kidding. She calls out Joseph’s last name, and Jotaro asks her about it. On the spot she says Polnareff mentioned it, but I doubt JoJo bought that excuse.

They get to the hotel and everyone gets set in, but the TVs don’t work so Joseph, can’t use them with his Stand. Hol Horse shows up, and the witch reveals how her Stand works to us by killing him for letting her son die. Not only did the fog create the illusions, but it also put the holes in the dead man. Her Stand is Justice, and the fog can enter any wound and turn it into the even holes while sucking up the blood. She can then, like a puppeteer, use the holes and fog to control the person she’s injured.

Hol Horse tries to fight back, but ends up shooting himself in the head. Of course the fight caused quite a commotion, and Polnareff goes to check it out.

ED break! Next episode, toilet attack? Tongue piercings? Tune in next week to find out!

Watch JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders on Crunchyroll or talk about this episode on our forums.

The Irregular At Magic High School (Episode Fourteen)
Player: Kayarath
Class: Content Provider

The Nine Schools Competition continues with magical beach volleyball, which is like regular volleyball, but with magic! While First High School doesn’t have a history of volleyball under their belt, Tatsuya develops a cunning plan that invokes creating sand tornadoes to blind the opposing teams. The only flaw in his plan is that it obscures everyone’s view of the girls in their swimsuits. In order to avoid getting lynched by a mob of horny teenage boys, he arranged a swimsuit photo shoot for a special calendar. He even got his sister to to pose for it! Mayumi Saegusa looked very becoming in her orange two piece, but Tatsuya’s asexual response got her feeling the cold shoulder. Wait a minute…. It is the Nine School Competition, but I think I got the wrong event.

It is the second half of the show now, and that means new opening and closing pieces. I really like these tunes so that’s one improvement, and Tatsuya will finally go against someone who isn’t a jobber. Maybe things are looking up? The rival is known as the Crimson Prince, and he in the first opening piece animation, so you should be able to recognize him. After he introduced himself to Tatsuya in a dramatic stare down, we go on to the Ice Pillars finals.

First High School got first, second, and third place in it, so they could have skipped the finals, but Eimi Akechi was like, “Nope. Duel me, Miyuki!” and she’s like, “Alright.” Eimi was curb stomped so hard, she was crying afterwards. Then A-chan puts two and two together to figure out that Tatsuya is the legendary magic tech guy Silver. She’ll need a few episodes to process that information.

Then it’s time for Monolith Code! It’s the almost battlefield-like event where you have to get near the other team’s monolith to get a secret code. You can’t use physical attacks, but any non lethal magic is allowed. The First High school team got in an accident (if by accident you mean attacked by the mob) in one of the early matches. In a move that I should have seen coming, Tatsuya gets roped into replacing the injured team for Monolith Code. He wasn’t keen on the idea, but his classmates insisted upon him doing it. Insisting is another thing that happens a lot on this show.

If Tatsuya is gonna get pushed into an event, he’s gonna get pushed with his friends, so he requests Leo and Mikihiko the magic spirit guy to be on his team. He and the Crimson Prince bulldoze their way into a dramatic final confrontation, but I’ve been wrong about dramatic battles happening before. Well, Tatsuya did deploy the school counselor/ninja/secret agent to locate the mob base, so there’s a back plan at least. Here’s hoping things finally pick up!

Watch The Irregular at Magic High School on Daisuki or talk about this episode on our forums.

Terror in Resonance (Episode Two)
Player: Whiskahs
Class: Technomancer

Lisa makes it home late after having made it through the tower ordeal only to have her mother immediately begin freaking out at her. It seems that Lisa’s father had abandoned the two of them sometime ago, which seems to have left her mother on edge anytime that Lisa is away. After squeezing Lisa’s arms to the point of injury, she begins to blame Lisa for the situation and accuses her of planning to run away and leaving her behind like Lisa’s father did. After managing to wrench away from her mother’s grasp, Lisa shuts herself inside her room where she thinks about Nine and Twelve and what she has gotten herself into.

The next scene takes us to the debriefing of upper level officials in the police department about the bombing. They discuss how its impressive that no one died during the incident and how they are attempting to follow up the various leads. The only new piece of information added was that the forensics official had discovered that one of the bombs in the building had not been thermite, but TNT, and had the letters V-O-N written on it. This causes everyone in the room to gasp as Nine and Twelve had also spray painted the same letters in the facility they had robbed of plutonium months earlier. It turns out that people blowing up buildings in your city that also might have the means to make a nuclear weapon is unsettling..

Disguised as a ramen delivery man, Nine makes his way into one of Tokyo’s police stations, planting several small cameras as well as leaving a large bomb disguised as a food cart in the cafeteria. After this is done, a new video is released of Nine and Twelve in masks, under the alias of Sphinx, giving the police the Oedipus riddle (most folks might know it from Batman the Animated Series) and essentially saying another bombing is going to happen. This causes the police to freak out and immediately begin investigating possible targets. Eventually they dispatch all their men to a DNA analysis facility (associated with the answer to the riddle: “man”) leaving the building with the bomb empty.

While this is going on, Lisa wanders around the city a bit while wondering where Nine and Twelve had gone since they hadn’t been at school. She ends up in what I think is a bookstore of some sort, reading an Oedipus manga. It’s not entirely clear if this is coincidental or if she had been inspired to read it based off the video released earlier in the day. Twelve ends up bumping into and jokingly harassing her before leaving a cup of coke and green tea foaming over with mentos in her hand and running away. Lisa gives chase only to have Twelve threaten to kill her if she makes one wrong move. It’s right about then that the bomb goes off.

Just before the bomb detonates Shibasaki, the former detective from episode 1 calls the man who is currently occupying his old position to let him know that the building the police were inspecting for bombs was incorrect based on a less common version of the riddle where the answer hints that the bomb is actually in one of the police stations. Almost on cue the two receive news of the bombing upon which the current director (or whatever) of the Tokyo police asks Shibasaki to come back and help them deal with this threat. He also informs Shibasaki that the bombers are possibly related to the theft of plutonium several months prior, which leaves him aghast, not unlike the room of officials earlier in the episode.

A lot of the shots and music in this episode were very ambient, while the actual story felt a little slow, but not slow in a bad way. It seems like they really want you to pay attention to everything going on and get a feel for the different places and people that they actually introduce over the course of the story. It’s actually pretty relaxed given the fast paced nature of most anime out there today. It should be interesting to see where the next episode will take us.

Hm, there isn’t much by the way of material to go off of for a beach episode in this series quite yet, though I certainly don’t expect one. If there were to be one I would imagine it would go something like: Nine and Twelve setup a ruse to make the police believe that there is a bomb planted at one of several popular tourist attractions on the coastline. In the end, it would turn out that the bomb had actually been planted in a SDF base on the other side of the city that had been temporarily evacuated because of a gas leak. Lisa probably wouldn’t have anything to do with either event, but would go off to do something and in the process reveal some other crappy issue she is having in her life.

Watch Terror in Resonance on Funimation or talk about this episode on our forums.

DRAMAtical Murder (Episode Two)
Player: Sho
Class: Content Provider

So, let’s see, the last episode of DRAMAtical Murder ended DRAMAtically. Hehe, get it? Aoba was taken into a Rhyme battle suddenly and was pitted against lots and lots of bunnies. Then all of a sudden, he started talking differently, telling his All Mate, Ren, to use the Jubilation Set; which was a powerful attack that destroyed some of the bunnies. In this episode, it repeats that part of the episode and continues it. Aoba snaps out of whatever happened and continues being attacked by the annoying rabbits. He’s nearly defeated, but then he regains all of his life. Then *gasp* he goes into fighting mode again and destroys the bunnies.

After the opening, which is kind of catchy now, Aoba loses consciousness and some of his memories from the battle. And a character named Clear, who calls Aoba master for some reason, took Aoba back to safety. The rest of the show involves a lot of exposition, Aoba wondering about what happened, and people getting pulled into Rhyme games unexpectedly. I mean, this was interesting, but it doesn’t make really good commentary. To sum it up, lots of strange things are happening in Rhyme, and Clear is a funny and interesting character. I mean, we all really just want to see these characters on the beach right? Preferably with Aoba in a bikini.

Aoba in a bikini would be brilliant. Just imagine it. With his long luscious hair and girly face, there’s no doubt he would be forced against his will into a bikini. Some bullies would go in and attack him and tie him up before any of his friends come to help him. They’d hold him hostage on the beach in a bikini, definitely for ransom because they found out that all of the big teams have connections with Aoba. Then all of his friends would go out and team up against the bad guys! Rhyme matches ensue, and there’s a big spectacle with a lot of muscly dudes in swim trunks, maybe even a speedo if the fans are lucky. Then I’d expect Clear to show up and take the day, Saving Aoba and leaving the teams to fight amongst themselves until they realize Aoba is gone. Episode 2 was good wasn’t it?

Watch DRAMAtical Murder on Crunchyroll or talk about this episode on our forums.

Week 002 Tally

1. Kanashimi: 1335
2. Bobby Henshin: 1270
3. Elk: 1090
4. Kayarath: 1050
5. Whiskahs: 1030
6. Sho: 760
7. The Editor: 115

Week 002 Token Counts

1. Kanashimi: 3 Tokens
2. Bobby Henshin: 3 Token
3. Elk: 2 Tokens
4. Kayarath: 1 Token
5. Whiskahs: 1 Token
6. Sho: 1 Token
7. The Editor: 1 Token

Next week’s challenge: Think of the children! Especially your inner child. Tie your summary into a memory from your childhood for 30 points!

Make sure to vote for your favorite review below! You can give your favorite a Token!