The relative volume of music to everything else left me struggling to decipher a pillows song from the filler bullshit. This episode also just sort of plodded along, and the action scenes were too static and lacking in energy. My #1 complaint about this whole sequel business is that it's just your run of the mill, middling to poor quality digital animation, without even an attempt at doing something visually interesting.

Just finished suffering through Episode 2.
Interesting to note that Yoko (noodles) sings that background vocals in the new version of The sun that will not rise. Sounds like it's gonna be really good.

I think this particular episode was outsourced. I saw some people noticed at the end of the credits that Production GoodBook was credited. I can't check the first episode because it's wants a cable provider login. :edit: I.G. did episode 1 for both Progressive and Alternative so far. So I'm seeing some complaints in general for the I.G. stuff so far, but a lot of people found this episode to be particularly janky animation wise. But plot wise, I think I like where this is going though.

I'm intrigued about Hidomi and Ide now. I cannot remember what happened in episode 1, so I think they missed on getting the ball rolling properly. Episode 1's Haruko's "teaching" scenes went over my head, like I got that she was brainwashing the kids and then checking for NO or something when she was exposing them to porn (also wtf, like I get it, but WTF) I didn't like Ide's friends in the first episode, at least I started warming up to rainbow shirt and skirt kid (but I can't remember his name so I don't think they did a good enough job establishing that). I think Marco's just along for the ride, lol. There's something strangely amusing about Marco but I can't put my finger on it.

Cool song choices and I don't even mind that they saved it all for the end sequence. If they had access to avex stuff they would have slapped Tokyo Zombie on this so hard lol.

[quote="Cloudy_One"]If they had access to avex stuff they would have slapped Tokyo Zombie on this so hard lol.[/quote]
haaaaaaaaaaaaa

As for the episode, I'm reserving judgment until the end of the season...

Really, I can put up with the animation if the story is engrossing enough. But I'm not very engaged at the moment, and I think that's just because I'm more of a TPB person than an issue-to-issue type; that is, I like to consume more significant, complete portions of story at a time, rather than one 20-minute bite once a week.

Still tuning in every week for The Pillows tho!

[quote="Cloudy_One"]Episode 1's Haruko's "teaching" scenes went over my head, like I got that she was brainwashing the kids and then checking for NO or something when she was exposing them to porn (also wtf, like I get it, but WTF)[/quote]
ooooohhhhhhhhh that's what she was doin. I couldn't figure it out.... :dum:

[quote="Cloudy_One"]There's something strangely amusing about Marco but I can't put my finger on it[/quote]
I think it's the straight man effect.

[quote="Mafu"]Interesting to note that Yoko (noodles) sings that background vocals in the new version of The sun that will not rise.[/quote]
oh I did pick up some female vocals but couldn't discern who it was, given how low the music is in the mix

Also, just wanted to remind everyone that [url=https://youtu.be/JCQKalFNyI4?t=19m30s]Moonlight Jellyfish did it first[/url].

Pretty much agree with everyone in here--the sparsity of the music is a huge bummer. Guess we can't realistically expect them to rerecord dozens of songs though.
As for ep.2, I really enjoyed the use of "Freebie" Honey in the fight scene. It's an intense song and it fit well, imo. Definitely the first scene that I found myself actively enjoying so far.
I'm kinda just rolling with the show to see what pillows songs they use for now, but man.. this seems bizarre and aimless, huh?

Perhaps Hidomi is in the process of discovering her sexual identity. We know she's having vivid dreams/nightmares involving themes of death/decomposing/being consumed. It could be an emerging subconscious fixation on submission. She also had the classic "anime nosebleed = arousal" moment to seeing Ide in a collar being whipped in the junkyard. I didn't understand what actually happened in the battle in episode 2, what with the little robot and what have you. I need to see it again. Jinyu and Haruko seem to have some significant connection, like two halves. So Jinyu is like the sub to Haruko's dom in that case. The maid outfit could be a visual gag to represent that, since she's working at Hidomi's Mother's Restaurant to monitor Hidomi while also trying to gain favor with them.

I got all of that from other people's observations of the plot so far, if anything ends up wrong don't look at me!

I need some damn subtitles, some gags and lines are whizzing over my head and I'm getting annoyed. Is anyone else noticing a lack of clarity in the line delivery? I wonder if my hearing is struggling.

New songs this week:
[b]Fool on the Planet[/b] (vocal)
[b]Tenshi mitai na Kimi ga Tatteita[/b] (instrumental)

Clip of Noboranai Taiyou again at the beginning.
TYMT and Freebie Honey make another appearance
A longer, but still instumental segment of Shiroi Natsu

I loved hearing Freebee Honey in ep. 2's fight scene, I always thought that song was an underrated treasure. Haven't seen the newest episode yet. I'm having a decent amount of fun with the show, but missing the crazy animation budget from the original series.

[b]The Third Eye[/b] in ep 4, plus My Foot and The Sun That Will Not Rise again.

This makes 12 songs (counting the two EDs), of the 14 songs Sawao said they recorded. If there is indeed a new recording of I Think I Can, that means that there's possibly only one more song to go.

[quote="Crescent"][b]The Third Eye[/b] in ep 4[/quote]
Awesome, I know tons of people have been waiting for "Third Eye" to pop up in a new episode.

[quote="Crescent"]This makes 12 songs (counting the two EDs), of the 14 songs Sawao said they recorded. If there is indeed a new recording of I Think I Can, that means that there's possibly only one more song to go.[/quote]
Crazy that we're already running low on songs, which is too bad because hearing some new pillows recordings in each new episode was a pretty big part of what kept me engaged when the season started.

Next episode is called "Fool on the Planet", apparently. Hope that means we get to hear a pretty significant chunk of "Fool on the Planet" as an insert song.

Have they released any of these re-records? I keep seeing them pop up on youtube with FLCL pics but it's just the standard studio cuts.

[quote="MyFoot"]Have they released any of these re-records? I keep seeing them pop up on youtube with FLCL pics but it's just the standard studio cuts.[/quote]

Nope. Absolutely no mention of a soundtrack yet I think.

Equivalent to "The Pillows - FLAME" and "The Pillows - Rever's Edge" on Kazaa are a million original versions of the original recordings marked as FLCL 2 SOUNDTRACK on Youtube.

Today I learned Kazaa is still a thing.

I haven't watched as single episode and I don't think I'm going to any time soon. At least FLCL got us another pillows tour in the US.