This wasn’t what I was expecting from the third episode of this series. I mean, it wasn’t that this episode was badly executed, or that it wasn’t original. It’s just that more than half of it was spent on Fumiaki chasing after some girl he met in a restaurant.
It’s not that i can’t understand where this episode was trying to go. I mean, it’s a terrific way to flesh out Fumiaki and all. This also has to be the first moe girl who actually knows how to drive a car. But the thing is that it’s all just going very, very fast. The guy just walks into a restaurant who must get a lot more male customers, and a few days later she’s in love with him. It’s too fast. I’m not buying it. Especially with that kind of a voice actress. Seriously, was she trying to be this annoyingly moe on purpose?
But yeah, you could see that this episode was building up. Something has to be up here. We already know that this series has a tendency to not show anything inside the minds of anyone who isn’t a main character: this series is entirely told from the perspective of these two. Take that girl who randomly disappears for days: that has to be some sort of subtle hint for the future. That girl that Bumnei met is the same: in this episode we mostly saw Fumiaki’s hormones working: we don’t know at all what she’s hiding.
Because this episode was quite well written: it was very different from the first two episodes, and in a good way: this episode was great in bringing in a bit of variety in the series. Fumiaki’s character made leaps forward here and even though Maya played a small role, she still was very enjoyable to watch. I also love how the animators really managed to bring these characters to life. That animation realyl made up for those forced moe scenes.
Rating: ** (Excellent)
I am definitely suspicious of the girl Fumiaki meets. Their time together felt… off. Maybe she’s somehow related to the tengu storyline? Otherwise, why was she necessary?
Well, the reason why she may have a thing for timetravel-Fumiaki, is because she thought young Fumiaki on TV was cute, so it’s only reasonable to think that she would find the adult version of Fumiaki attractive as well.
It would be refreshing to see a show where the two main characters are not destined to get together at one point or another.
There were also some very funny scenes in this episode, like how Fumiaki took a “what if picture” and ended up seeing his rotting corpse on the ground 12 years from now. Not to mention the scene when Maya was crawling around in that cave when Fumiaki walks by with a girl at his side 😉
On a last note, It would actually be refreshing if the newly introduced low interest wasn’t hiding any dark secrets, because that’s basically what ALWAYS happens in these kinds of shows.
There’s definitely more than appear to this girl. For one she seems to have been intentionnally be seducing Fumiaki, which would never happen in this kind of anime innocently (lol).
She gave a couple of hints of knowing the past very well, while that might be merely because of the visiting the town aspect, I wonder if those are hints that she’s a lot older than she appears.
This also has to be the first moe girl who actually knows how to drive a car.
Yukari sensei doesn’t count as moe?
Wild theory,but I think Mikaze is Bunmei’s mum..
@C160: You think he forgot what his mom looked like?
She has to be more than just a waitress, there is something behind her. I mean, seriously, a Porsche? You can’t afford that on tips alone.
@johnson haha yes that theory is pretty out there,but since the series is dealing with the occult,I imagination tends to go towards the outrageous side..But it could happen you know,through time travels and other occultish stuff..or maybe not,now that I got my head on straight 😛
All they did was go out on a date together, not declare that they were connected by the red string of fate. He’s from somewhere else, good-looking, employed, and comes into their abandoned restaurant every night and orders the same thing, even though it takes them an hour to make it. It’s plausible that she’d think that he found her attractive and that she would find him attractive. A little strange that she did the asking, though.
It’s much more suspicious that she owns an expensive car that his child self just happens to be playing with in toy form, and apparently learned to drive by watching The Transporter. This show gives us bait, but then plays its cards pretty close. They also stress Chihiro’s machinations, but then in the future where Fumiaki pursues her (I laughed so hard) she certainly doesn’t look like a lieutenant in the alien invasion force.
I thought this was a pretty interesting way to develop Fumiaki. He’s sent from the future to accomplish an important mission and we see he’s really lazy and self-absorbed. When he gives lectures to the class he just reads out of the text. It’s especially funny, because in his time line he should have still learned Japanese history. Unless they’ve tricked me, his mother seems to be dead in his time, since he called her to hear her voice and began crying. He’s more sympathetic than the usual future hero character. He’s a former child star that got sent to the past to save the world only because he used to have psychic powers (maybe) and after they faded no one cared about him anymore. Spending his picking up women seems like a believable outcome.
Er… stop badmouthing moe. lol
But agreed on the great writing. I still want to see a mix of that smart writing with the manic series of events of the first two eps though.
I’m not sure why I didn’t like the first episode the first time I saw it but I’m sold on the series now. Nice slightly funny, slightly mysterious show we’ve got here 🙂
I don’t also the fact that Mikaze fell in love with him extremely quickly.
There are many possiblities though on how she came to like him:
°She’s the Tengu. or is somehow related to the Tengu. Or maybe even a complice of it.
°She’s Fum’s mother.
°She thinks that Fum’s cute (–‘).
Either way her Seiyuu’s extremely bad chosen –‘.
@11 : I’ve fallen for coffee shop girls after only visiting the shop a few times, it doesn’t take long for your brain to go, “OK, I am attracted to this person!” So it doesn’t at all seem rushed or unreasonable to me that she took a liking to him after he came over a few times.
I think the girl’s evil. Or on that side, at least. Although that’s mostly basing it off what I remember seeing in the OP. But like Brofessor said, the expensive car is suspicious as well.
I didn’t really like this episode, though. It was boring compared to the other two episodes so far… I guess I just wanted more occult. But there’s a few more episodes to fit some more in, I suppose.
I also am rather suspicious about the waitress. She could be related to the plot somehow, or she’ll just risk being eaten by the tengu, so that our hero would be triggeed into action.
As a matter of fact i didn’t quite understand why Fumiaki was so “gar” before the time shioft, and after he looks like a bum sitting there doing nothing.