Short Synopsis: Lyuze and Ringo return.
Highlights: How come Ringo and Casshern went to exactly the same place?
Overall Enjoyment Value: 7,5/10 (Good)
This episode returns us to the main storyline, when first Lyuze finally decides to show up and kill Casshern (she’s been following him everywhere, it seems). Even though Casshern still doesn’t remember what he did, he knows that he committed a horrible sin. As it turns out, Lyuze’s sister was the first he killed, and infected with that robot-breaking-down disease.
At the moment, Casshern is some sort of combination between human, robot and immortal being; there are so many facets to this guy: he doesn’t need any food, yet he can shed tears, he’s incredibly powerful, he can heal any sort of wound, and yet he suffers from memory loss and he’s got an alter ego that appears once he’s angry. I suppose that this alter-ego here is the key to everything. My guess is that Luna did something before she was killed, which tried to suppress Casshern’s violent personality, though only succeeded in this partially.
I was a bit disappointed when Casshern suddenly was able to save Ringo from out of nowhere, though. Has it been clearly mentioned that the two had the same destination, which I missed somewhere? Otherwise, it’s a pretty jarring coincidence on an otherwise excellent series. I already really like this series, but it’s just too early for my suspense of disbelief to just ignore these sorts of things. The point the creators tried to make with it was clear, though: up till now, Casshern’s violent side only disappeared when said side calmed down, but this time Ringo was able to call the guy out of it.
It’s very strange; this series is really well-written: the single dialogues are really detailed, and bring out the best of the different characters, and then there are a few things in the set-up that just don’t sit right. This episode too portrayed the ugly robots as much more evil than the human-like robots. It feels as if this series has a crappy guy behind the series composition, and yet the most amazing scriptwriters and art directors. Especially considering the former, this does make sense when you look at the staff-list, since the guy behind the series composition also did those of Claymore, Yume Tsukai and Shakugan no Shana. The chief animation-director also did the same for Mushishi, which could explain the amazing visuals, but I still have no bloody clue where that amazing dialogue comes from. Could it really be, that after directing countless of Dragonball Z-movies, the director suddenly saw the big bright light at the end of the tunnel or something?
This show was originally from the 70’s, so no matter how good the series composition is, if the original is outdated (which is most likely is) it’s going to show. You can’t exactly change the core of a show like that, sometimes.
First Seiya, then Shun, now we have Ikki, I wonder if the rest of the Bronze Saints are going to show up :P.
Keith: Watch Skullman(2007), maybe that will change your opinion.
green: Yeah, when my brother first watched this his immediate thought was Saint Seiya.
Do you think that Casshern’s slowly gaining consciousness over his alter-ego? I’m not sure myself.
As for the less humanoid robot in episode 4, I think he’s an exception because he did say he used to bodyguard the evil antagonist,forgot the name. It seems that if you’re in that form, having alot of power seems to actually give more intelligence to them.
Think of the folks in the ruin community. Had they kept searching for Casshern (though still alive), they would probably have turned into the same generic weak aggresive robots Casshern has been facing.
@ 1st comment: Actually, I started the old show (Casshan: Robot Hunter) and they’re very different. Even though some characters are the same, their roles are completely different. Robot Hunter is still interesting.
As for the “ugly robots being much more evil than the human-like robots”, well, either that, or they borrowed a few pages off Hokuto no Ken. Maybe the “ugly robots” are somewhat also “less-human” (… you know what I mean) in their programming to begin with?
Now that some people have mentioned it, the hairstyles seem reminiscent of Saint Seiya. But I’m not sure who’s being compared to Shun, and I have no idea who’s being compared to Ikki.
I’ve just watched this episode again. I don’t think Casshern infected anyone with anything. It seems like Luna served as some sort of “lifesource” for robots (hence called “Sun”), and when she supposedly died, robots started to deteriorate irreversibly. Any kind of damage only seems to accelerate this deterioration.
One of the things I find a bit odd in this episode is that Lyuze points out that Casshern cries as humans do (with the implication that robots normally don’t or couldn’t), and yet, when she failed to kill Casshern, it’s as if she “broke into tears”, but without any tears.
Speaking of which, given the range of emotions she has shown since the first episode, not to mention her appearance, it’s kind of difficult to think of Lyuze as a robot. I mean, she’s even more humanlike than Casshern who’s supposed to be part human or something. As I was watching the episode again, I think I’ve began to see Lyuze as more than just a pretty (or more accurately, “cute”) face. There’s just so much more to her (and in just a few episodes) in comparison to many female anime characters out there who are ironically human, a human clone, or a kind of humanized being. But maybe that’s just my narrowminded view.
By the way, has anyone else noticed that the katar-thing that projects out of Lyuze’s left arm may actually be the blade of her sister’s sword?
Lyuze’s sister is a robot, she doesn’t need to eat or drink, so I don’t think that she’s a human, although I guess that she’s some sort of very advanced robot, since she still has all of her sanity when compared to the other robots. I’m still not quite sure why some robots deteriorate faster than others (Ringo, for example).
I think that by “crying” Lyuze meant something with flowing tears. We’ve already seen that in this series, robots can possess the full spectrum of human emotions, but their bodies do remain of metal.
Wasn’t Lyuze bringing her sister food and drink in the flashback?
I didn’t say that I think Lyuze’s human. I was just saying that it’s hard not to see her as such. I mean, every other robot character (even Casshern himself) seems to have, more or less, a “one-track mind”. It’s as if their thinking can be easily summarized into a simple idea like; “I know I did something very wrong, but I can’t remember anything so will anyone please just kill me”, “I like pretty things”, “I like to fight because it makes me feel alive”, “devour Casshern in order to survive”, “take things into my own hands”, etc.
Lyuze, on the other hand, while having chosen to live her life to avenge her sister’s horrible death and rid the world of the menace known as “Casshern”, her thinking has not been reduced to the same. She reasons, she evaluates, she hesitates. Her personality, to me, is simply much more dynamic than anyone else’s. That’s why I’ve said that she’s more humanlike than even the title character who’s supposed to be part human.
Now that I think of it, I can see an OAV of Casshern Sins with the story seen from Lyuze’s perspective. I think it would’ve been somewhat better if that’s what they did with this series.