Zetsuen no Tempest – 12

Oh no, the world will be destroyed! Just like in 50% of all other action series! Yeah, if you want to do this, then you need to make it count.Just putting the world at stake at this point is adequate, but standalone it just doesn’t make enough impact, to the point where it can even feel shallow. Zetsuen no Tempest is very good at avoiding this.

In this series the world is at stake, and you really feel like the world is at stake. It keeps driving home that this can pretty much happen on a whim: it’s unknown what will happen, and wrong move will just blow everything up. The characters are just thrown between two huge trees, either of which is trying to make this happen. In this episode things started to get really out of control, and even though this series doesn’t show many people gathered at the same place or huge crowds, it did drive home that something really big is so easily about to happen. The shots of the businessmen trying to map everything that the tree was doing was enough for that.

Beyond that, I still love this series’ style of storytelling. It just takes what it has, and then uses one of its characters to completely turn over the logic in this series, again and again and again. I also love the way this series plays with logic: normally this is something that can’t be influenced, but here there are these two giant trees that are playing russian roulette with it. Very good depiction of the utterly hopeless situation that the characters are in.

Also, the soundtrack! The godly soundtrack! Really, I am going to write a post on my favorite soundtracks of the year. I can’t believe how many great soundtracks 2012 had in comparison to previous years. I just need to find a good way to publish it…
Rating: 6/8 (Awesome)

15 thoughts on “Zetsuen no Tempest – 12

  1. This episode just exemplifies the reason why i watch anime, who would have thought that seeing two giant trees fight violently would be this exciting, yet Zetsuen somehow managed to do it.

    That is only a small part of way this episode was impressive, the fact they expanded the three-way mind-games between Yoshino, Mahiro and Samon into the grander scheme of things and now we aren’t even sure if the Tree of Genesis is pulling strings from behind the curtains and manipulating things for its favor, or are these mere coincidences, or is it the Tree of Exodus which wants things to seem that way so that the followers of the Tree of Genesis turn against it (like Samon did), or is it a bit of both .. and how come Hakaze isn’t aware of the revival of the Tree of Genesis if she was supposed to be the one to resurrect it, and why would the Tree of Genesis cruelly attempt to kill Yoshino and Mahiro, did consider them dangerous to its existence or did it just deem them unnecessary (i.e fulfilled their task and were no longer needed, could that have been the fate of Aki), or was the whole “killing” thing just an accident due to the two trees fighting (highly unlikely due to the precision and timing of the attacks but still a possibility).

    And finally the gem of this episode was the Aki narration near the end of the episode while Hakaze was transporting herself and Yoshino to the ritual site .. that where did that voice come from .. was it just Yoshino hallucinating or was it real, and if it is real .. doesn’t it paint Aki as the villain here (or rather overly unsympathetic).

    Besides, why some people still think that the Tree of Genesis was turning people into metal, it was very clear that the fruits of the Tree of Exodus were responsible for that metal transformation .. the magic of the tree of Genesis shouldn’t include anything like turning people into metal (it’s just unnatural and against the logic of the world, that’s something the Tree of Exodus would do).. devouring them after they turned into statues of metal is a whole different story as it fits well with the established rules of the Tree of Genesis magic and what it is capable of (absorbing any metal objects that are products of civilization .. although the way they were made was unnatural they still count and are quite similar to the talisman Yoshino and Mahiro used).

    Phew .. so many questions and mysteries .. this show doesn’t fail to impress really, keep the twists and surprises coming (hopefully after the 2 weeks hiatus we will get some answers).

  2. Hunter, you’re wrong. As much as you don’t want to believe it, the Tree of Genesis is responsible for those deaths. In order to revive and fight the Tree of Exodus, it needs a lot of civilization artifacts. So it creates some by turning humans into metal to use them later. Samon himself said so. I don’t know why you refuse to believe him.

    That’s why the conflict between both trees is very hard to take a side for the Kusaribe clan. In theory, the Tree of Exodus is supposed to destroy the world. But the tree of Genesis will gladly do the same if it means the birth of a new and better world.

    1. Just becasue Samon said so doesn’t make it true (haven’t we already learned not to trust anyone here 100%), and i clearly don’t believe him because the transformation (metalization) coincides specifically with the fruits of Exodus .. as soon as they appear people start turning into metal .. i don’t see how the Tree of Genesis can be responsible for that.

      IMO if the tree of Genesis wanted to get civilizations artifacts there are plenty of them around (a city is chuck of of civilizations products .. buildings, cars, .. etc etc), wasting magic energy to transform humans into metal then absorb them seems counter-productive .. i can understand if the Tree of Genesis absorbed them metalized people just among the other products of civilization it was absorbing (buildings and cars and such), but to say it was intentional is really a big stretch.

  3. This is one of those shows I would not have checked out if it weren’t for this blog. The last couple of episodes were thrilling. This surprised me, considering the core elements of this story feel weak and rather far-fetched: A battle between two trees that are trying to remake the world and provide magical powers to their chosen (???).

    I hope the current atmosphere and intensity keeps up and I’m really curious about the direction the strory will take now that Hakaze has returned (which was an especially epic scene btw). I mus admit I’m sceptical if they can keep this up (for no good reason besides past experience with other anime).

  4. Totally did not expect Yoshino to get split in half. All I can say is that I love the direction this is going in. Watching two giant trees battle against each other is certainly something else.

  5. I can firmly say that any anime that has three people standing in the same place for three episodes ~just talking~ but making me grip the edge of my seat is going to be a permanent favourite. And it doesn’t hurt that it drew inspiration from my master’s thesis, The Shakespeare’s Tempest.

  6. I have to disagree. You can’t just pursue every line of logic to exhaustion. Eventually it just renders the subject moot. To me it’s like examining something to such an extreme that it loses meaning. Particularly when placing blame. Everybody just keeps flip-flopping too damn much with twist after twist after twist. Couple that with them just standing in one place doing all this and I am not a happy camper. When the trees started literally fighting each other I just couldn’t help but laugh.

    1. Not only that but the music was horribly pretentious too.

      Overall they have locked themselves into a plot dead end, and they are trying to get out of it by adding maho upon maho upon maho, until it doesn’t make any sense any more.

      Their tree graphics were a bit ugly from the beginning, but I would never have thought they would go as far as animating two ugly maho trees fighting.

      This show is an intellectual disaster. Not a trace of humor or distanciation. It takes itself so seriously while falling into pathetic nothingness.

      1. Even so I’m surprised how can you still watching this show despite your dislike.

        Perhaps you should check the genres first before watching. This anime’s genres are Drama, Fantasy, Mystery and Psychological. Which means you have to PAY attention to the theories of the anime to solve the mystery. But it seems you can’t handle the theory talk, so you just disregard it as intellectual disaster. Perhaps you should consider trying other anime without the “Psychological” genre?

  7. I keep getting vibes of creator vs. creations in this ep. And a lot of arguments they made about the intentions of the tree resemble arguments about the intentions of our God (if you believe that).
    Just throwing stuff out there.

  8. Great review, loving this show so much, this and Psycho-Pass are making this season totally awesome. This show is so addictive too.

    Also, hell yes, the soundtrack, Michiru Oshima has to be one of my favorite composers (FMA, Xam’d, D’Eon, etc.), it’s so great to hear again after hearing her work most recently in Xam’d which also had a fantastic soundtrack. 🙂

  9. marathoned the last few episodes in the last three days!

    loved it, I mean we had episode after episode of three people standing around trying to persuade each other to do what they want, and it was was tense.

    Brilliant use of music! The feel of the show is operatic, and I get the real sense of puny humans trying to control things that are beyond their control, and who would have thought they’d make an anime about
    TWO TREES BATTLING IT OUT

    The whole premise of the show is kinda absurd, but I do like the theme it’s bringing about what is the purpose of life and whether human lives matter as anything other than sacrifices, and offerings, and pawns.

  10. Actually, that’s a fantastic idea. I loved the soundtrack in this one and I’d be eager to discover the others. A post dedicated to the best soundtracks of 2012 might actually be a really cool idea.

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