So, this mostly was a build-up episode in which Yuki travels to the main Giou mansion. We get to see some new characters who live there and a lot of hints at the long-awaited background of Yuki and Takashiro. This series often puts a lot of emphasis on travelling to build up its tension: first Yuki’s journey to the Twilight Mansion and now again.
The light hearted moments still are… awkward though. I understand what the creators are trying to do, but most of the attempts to create laughs worked mostly unintentional because of how stupid they were.
Despite that, this wasn’t a wasted episode at all, and thankfully we got a number of scenes that showed a bit of the depth of the characters. Takashiro’s worries were addressed here, plus one of the new characters (a genius professional shougi player) sent out a strong hint to Yuki at how serious the fight against the dumas should be taken.
Also, there’s a new OP and ED this week. The OP is fine, interestingly it’s Takashiro again who steals the show. But the ED… oh, god. Talk about an anti-climax. Who found it a good idea to end such a gloomy series with silly upbeat j-rock?
Rating: * (Good)
I totally agree with you, the ED was horrible.
It felt so completely out of place… and as it seems as if the series will turn darker from now on it’s even more questionable why they changed the ED to something like that.
Well, the rest of the episode was nice, although really only building up. Unfortunately the new characters stay a little bit flat so far but I hope that they will get some more fleshing out in the next episodes.
(and I’m still missing Yuki’s resolution about how to handle Reiga from now on… but I still have the hope they’llinclude it after he learns what Reiga is to Takashiro.)
All in all nice to watch.