Yun Iijima Character overview

Yun Iijima

Yun Iijima is part of the character design team at Eagle Jump. She fulfills the straight man role in the show New Game!! Whenever other characters get a little too obsessive in their otaku antics, she’s usually the one who tries to bring them back down to earth.

Character

Possibly the most overlooked among the main characters in the show, Yun is a vital part of the Eagle Jump design crew. Due to her family circumstances, it seems that she is in charge of taking care of her two younger siblings. She cooks, cleans and takes them to hero shows.

 

Her devotion to family is number one, seeing that she even leaves some of her work unfinished when called to help at home.

She seems to enjoy the hero shows almost as much as her two younger siblings. Although the enthusiasm for the shows are no where near as excited as Hajime.

Her past

Yun tends to be the most vocal towards Hajime, most likely due to them both being such close friends. Before joining Eagle Jump, Yun spent most of her days studying and playing video games. Moving to Tokyo, she decided to change her appearance by dressing more stylishly. As she opens up about her past, Hajime responds by saying, “it takes effort to come out of one’s comfort zone”. Although both come from different backgrounds, perhaps they are a lot more similar than we might have thought.

 

Development and growth

When the company holds a competition for a character design, Aoba and Hajime eagerly sign up. Yun questions Aoba’s decision, even stating that winning is probably not going to happen. But Aoba believes that there’s more to lose if she doesn’t try at all. However, we can see Yun’s true grown up nature when she apologizes to Aoba about how she believed entering the character design contest was a futile effort. And later stating that the fool was herself. Yun finishes the conversation inspired by Aoba to enter in the next competition.

 

Although there is really no need for Yun to apologize for something she feels internally, it helps those around see her weaknesses and appreciation.

Conclusion

Yun Iijima is an essential part of the character design team at Eagle Jump. She accepts her shortcomings and accepts others for theirs as well. She can sometimes be self conscious and afraid to ask for help. But she’s willing to learn and admit her mistakes. She’s an important part of the team and continues to grow along side them.

 

Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic Episode 2

 

The episode starts off with both of our heroes waking up in a shallow of water that has the ability to burn. Aladdin for the most part seems to be intrigued by his first dungeon. However, outside the dungeon, a projected villain seems to be looking for him.

Aladdin isn’t like his usual self. He is more reserved and soft spoken. His hunger seems to soften his abilities, perhaps he is more human than we think. It seems that when hungry, Aladdin can’t perform and has less magical energy. He is so weakened in fact, he gives no resistance to be chewed on by a giant dungeon insect.

The two find themselves in a pit filled with these green insect like creatures, who later combine and shoot fire. Fire seems to be a common trend in this dungeon. Every time the two avoid or defeat a monster, Aladdin noticeably grows more hungry…I mean fatigued.

As viewers, our curiosity deepens, asking the question of, “what is the true reason Alibaba wanted to enter this dungeon?”. As Aladdin is sleeping, Alibaba promises to explain to him, what his true goals and intentions are.

A bit of time passes when we encounter our red haired friend, who is not surprisingly still in chains. The group she enters with seems to want Aladdin, calling him a Magi. They pick him up to take him away while pushing aside Alibaba.

With a bit of bribing and sweet talk, our slave Lord allows Alibaba to help them escape the dungeon. It should be of no surprise to see Alibaba working for someone he doesn’t trust, only to secretly help his own agenda.

With the intent to save his friend, Alibaba must risk his life by reading foreign text on the dungeon wall. After solving the puzzle, he helps everyone escape except himself. Aladdin is now left with his captors and begins talking to our red haired friend.

Aladdin breaks the awkward silence between the two, with comedic facial expressions causing our girl to let out a small laugh. We soon learn that she is from a far off country that is known to be in poverty. With a small description from big sister, we learn that the country is actually full of life and much of what is known is misconception. We also learn that the evil Lord’s name is Jamil.

Suddenly we are relieved to see an unharmed Alibaba appear and fly off into the sky leaving Aladdin’s kidnappers. Our sister’s name is actually Morigana. And perhaps the chains that bound her as a slave aren’t physical and must be first broken in order for her to be free someday.

Blend-S: Who is Maika chan?

Introduction

Her name is Maika Sakuranomiya. If anything, you could call her the main lead in the show, Blend-S. Maika’s story starts off showing a rejected job application. Because of her unconscious glare, many people are afraid to approach her. This has caused her to develop a complex with her eyes, which prevents her from making friends because it scares even family members. Fortunately, her family love and worry about her regardless.

 

Design

Character design wise, she is from a very traditional Japanese house. Being sheltered her entire life, she finds some aspects of modern Japanese culture to be confusing. 

Such as wearing the cloth that comes with her swimsuit as a cape. This is a cute comedic scene and shows Maika’s purity and innocence. Maika also seems to put on a little bit of traditional Japanese red makeup on her eyes.

Her character is yearning for adventure, but is not the least bit spoiled by her upbringing. She’s insistent on making her own money rather than easily asking her father for funds to pay for a trip overseas. She’s curious about foreign things and is innocently naive about them as well. 

When the group is invited into Dino’s apartment, Maika is quickly disappointed to see him take off his shoes. Her view on different cultures might be warped due to the lack of interaction with foreigners, which cause her to have high expectations.

Personality

In the ending credits we see a younger Maika in wonder, listening to her older sister telling stories about different countries. As the song continues we see her allowing her imagination to run wild as she encounters many civilizations with our main characters acting as ambassadors to her dreaming voyage. Because she doesn’t know much about people in general due to her intense glare and her traditional lifestyle, she has expectations for different cultures to be…well..very different. She get’s impressed by her boss, Dino’s apartment, which has blinds and houseplants, even though it’s nothing more than average and simple to us viewers.

Working at Stile

Dino, Maika’s boss, is just as interested in Maika as she is in him. But maybe for different reasons. She’s impressed with his blonde hair, tall stature and kindness. Dino is able to see beyond Maika’s cold glare and see’s great potential for her in his Cafe, which requires many different archetypes for customers. He places the role of, “Sadistic” onto Maika as she is a natural. The other workers at Stile, clearly see Dino’s infatuation with her cuteness, but she is too pure hearted to see through him.

Maika has poor word choices and accidentally continues to call her customers pigs and worthless. She has a difficult time in the beginning and even questions her abilities. But as the series goes on, we see that she is not only very good at playing the “Sadistic” character. She is also a very hard worker and takes her job very seriously.

Maika is also interested in getting to know her coworkers and gets along with them very well. She is respectful to her senpai, Mafuyu, yet still sees her as adorable. And is impressed by the skills of Kaho at the arcade. Maika is even close enough to her sister to get mad at her when she visits her at work.

As the series progresses, she enjoys going on trips and non romantic dates with the cast. She’s definitely an honest, hardworking, yet naive and cheerful character. She’s just as interested in becoming friends with everyone just as much as she is working with them. She might come off as a bit boring to some people, but it would be better to see her as a person who continues to try her best even when life gives her unlucky odds. She is interested in everyone she meets and is afraid to cause trouble for others.

Conclusion

Well that concludes Maika Sakuranomiya, our cheerful naive Japanese girl from the past living in modern day japan. Next time I’ll be reviewing the cheerful yet tsundere, Kaho Hinata! Stay tuned!

Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic Episode 1 Summary

We start off the episode with a tiny watermelon eating creature, I mean little boy named Aladdin. He seems to be highly fascinated by melons in general… which I can probably guess, leads him into awkward situations in the future.

Later at night at Alibaba’s place, we see Aladdin creating some more annoyances to our friend. We hear about dungeons, treasure, mystical creatures and danger. Luckily Aladdin acts as our voice in this episode and asks questions regarding what these things might be.

It appears our blonde haired friend is interested in riches and can only obtain them through these dungeons. Although he is annoyed and uninterested at first in our tiny blue haired menace,  we can bet they will become good friends.

After a tangent about riches and women they bump into a red headed slave girl. She seems to be ashamed of her current situation and makes some clumsy mistakes as she drops a load of fruit. As she’s picking them up, Aladdin uses his flute to break her chains.

But we soon realize that everyone in this world seems to be subservient to some sort of higher authority. The reason for Aladdin’s innocent and naive behavior is most likely due to him not being part of this world. A little scuffle ensues Alibaba and his master and the two boys run away. It appears our blue haired friend is starting to interest our greed centered servant, and sees him as a potential  tool for his own gain.

The next day our heroes are traveling through the desert in order to transport wine.

We soon run into an angry alcoholic desert monster. The inhuman actions of Alibaba’s master are presented by him stressing about his cargo and not giving a second thought to the 2 slave girls, one of which is our red haired friend. This is actually a dramatic scene since we see a mother begging to save her child and a ruthless merchant only seeing slaves as disposable commodity.

Soon we see the true nature of our yellow haired friend. Realizing that the, “somebody” he’s been wishing for is actually himself. he decides to take action and tries to save the two girls. Aladdin summons his Djinn to open the monster’s grip.

Towards the end of the episode, Alibaba is counting his regrets while drowning and we are assured that our friend isn’t just a greedy yes man.

The episode concludes with both our heroes forming an alliance and leaving the merchant. I hope we see more of our red headed friend in the future as well as find out where Aladdin is from.