Short Synopsis: “It” has happened. I’m not going to spoil here what exactly “it” is, but you can pretty much guess.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8,5/10 (Awesome)
After the previous episode, I already had some suspicion that this episode would be awesome, and indeed it did deliver wonderfully. This episode formed an amazing climax of the first season, and really brought out the best in the characters. Does Keisei’s end beat Kamina’s? In my opinion, it does, but that may also be because I’m a much bigger fan of Shikabane Hime than that I was of Gurren Lagann. ^^;
My suspicion is that the second season is going to be a lot more linear than the first one: after all, we now have an established main couple, we have six enemies that need to be taken care of. Still, on the other hand it is going to benefit from really fleshed out characters. If it manages to use this build-up well, then we can expect something amazing from that second season.
Anyway, about the episode: it really was action-packed from beginning to end. Keisei went down like a real man: he knew his end was coming, and yet he tried to protect Ouri and Makina till the end, while trying to get rid of the human bad guy (name?!) at the same time, and at the same time Ouri has matured enough to realize that in these sorts of situations, he needs to take responsibility and grab his chance to protect others (in this case preventing Makina from turning into an ordinary Shikabane), even though it involves him getting hurt in the process.
This was indeed a great episode. Emotional and action packed.
I just wonder about the aftermath, how are Ouri and Makina going to function together when Makina is sure to have a huge dislike for him? He was already annoying her beforehand, but he technically murdered Keisei, which although not his fault would be a big thing for her.
This episode did suffer from a few cliches, mainly shounen cliches of generic evil bad guy being pounded by protagonist’s new power whilst some random bystander looks amazed and comments on how impressive everything is. In those situations, I would just favour a continuous stream of action rather than breaking it up with some important but very distruptive commentary.
So yeah, it seems this story is heading in some sort of direction. I’m not sure if I particularly prefer it, the first season had some great displays of simple atmospheric environments, whilst the next season will have that undertone of “beat the aforementioned bad guys”
That’s not necessarily bad, and any generic concept can turn out good if the execution is succesful – and that’s the case with this series, I think. But I do believe that Gainax or Studio Feel or whoever is in charge will have to add something that doesn’t turn the story into bland repetition of very overdone concepts seen before.
I’m optimistic, though. Makina and Ouri were always fairly distanced and now there should be some interesting development between them.
Another thing I like is the fact that essentially, the second series is going to function in the way that most new series work – bad guys established, good guys ready to go. But we have already seen the prequel, in the way, which could work out a great way of focusing more on the plot and such without needing to cram in tons of development.
Kuro will be a great addition to Winter, I expect.
Keeping it short. Really well done ending to the season. Story moved quickly until the very end. Very emotionally satisfying. Much to look forward to.
I think this one has a good dark atmosphere and all but still, the action scenes in there are not smooth and not excited enough , I don’t know but I always end up feeling like what!? So that’s it? everytime the fight ends. Hope there will be a plot twist in second season coz I feel like watching a generic anime somehow (although still have fun watching it).
And the human bad guy you say, it’s Akasha, right? I just feel sorry for him that you can’t remember his name ^^”.
it is Shishidou Akasha, he’s the only one so far who had control over all those dead people’s arms. I would say zombies, but traditionally, zombies were mindless, soulless bodies who ate brains.
Hey i love this serious, can you help a fellow fan out? Where do you watch the episodes a? I use the website hulu.com but there has to be a better one somewhere.