I’m still not exactly sure why I like this series so much when it has just been building up. There’s also the amount of cliches and overused tropes here and having a kid as the lead character here also not the best for first impressions. Unlike Giant Killing, which started off immediately with a bang where it mixed often used tropes with very nice ideas, and immediately started to play with its characters, Nurarihyon no Mago has more shounen tropes against it and instead is clearly saving its trumps for later here.
The premise of this episode also was another kidnapping, which pretty much happens everywhere. I think it’s a combination of things that makes up for these cliches, which caused me to just mostly ignore them. The way in which the story is clearly promising to get more interesting is one thing, but on top of that I’m also really getting into the atmosphere here. The first half of this episode, for example was very good at that, and there definitely was this sense of urgency. The stories themselves are also well told and paced, and the characters are very good at conveying their emotions. I’m not sure whether this comes from the manga or the anime staff, but whoever is responsible is doing a very good job of putting everything into context.
My only real issue with this episode was that it devolved a bit into an “overkill fight”. You know, the part in which the good guys come with so much force at the bad guys that it works a bit as an an anti-climax. I know that it had its purpose in the story, but it also killed the tension that the rest of the episode had been building up to.
Now, something strange happened with the graphics in this episode. I’m not sure if it was there before (in that case I just didn’t notice), but there were some panels that were reduced to simple black and white lines. Now, I wonder whether the creators are going to use that more in the series. When they’re going to be consequent about it, it can lead to some neat effects. Speaking of the visuals here, that rat at the end of the episode looked really awesome. Kudos to the manga author for portraying such an interesting-looking transformation. If the rest of the manga has more of those scenes we’re in for some eye candy here.
Rating: * (Good)
Very interesting manga. Do you have any idea how long the anime is supposed to be? Sometimes the best shonens are ruined in anime form because they take just too long to tell the story.
@Gudo: around 24 episodes, all till the end of the T******* arc most probably.
Most probably there will be an S2 but I hope it will have more episodes as the upcoming arc will be too big so we would get far too many cuts…
Nice episode, I enjoyed watching it.
Although I have to say that I really disliked those black and white parts… especially at that scene where he brought the bakeneko home.
For the next episodes I hope that Rikou will soon become aware of his alter-ego. Unfortunately, at least the next episode doesn’t seem like it.
You would think a shonen show would be filled with shonen tropes.
At this current pace (its going at like 2 chapters of content per episode) and if they can make the ending not terrible (or a S2) this could turn out really decent. So far it seems okay.
I am curious as to how the relationship between Human-Rikuo and Demon-Rikuo develops or is used later on. As it is, it seems liek Demon-Rikuo takes over whenever he feels like it, and when he does his personality is so completely different from Human-Rikuo, so much so they can barely be considered the same person. As a human, I can’t see a scenario where Human-Rikuo gets strong enough to be able to handle situations without transforming into Demon-Rikuo, so it seems like he is destined to be a servant to his alter ego. Hope I didn’t make this too confusing 😛
Human and Demon Rikuo are the same, they seemed like two different entities since Rikuo didn’t want to accept his Joukai side, eventually this division doesn’t happend anymore.
What I disliked about this episode was the poor animation. Seems like the studio doesn’t know how to properly animate fights.
It seems like he becomes much colder and crueler when he is in demon form, not aiding his allies in the fight, and then when he got into the fight he went overkill with how he killed the rat demon boss.
For some reason I find it very hard to care about any of the characters in this series…
The black and white scnes are new for the anime but the manga does have some panels/pages that are in a more ink-and-brush style than normal, that’s probably where Deen got the idea from. I was kinda hoping they would use pictures like that in the OP/ED/commerical breaks, not in the show itself.
Well, he is the next Supreme Commander with his Night Parade of 100 Demons. So overkill is to be expected. 🙂
The ink style is actually closer to the manga style than the normal animation is, hope to see more of it.
anyways, any manga readers hope that after this season ends they announce nurarihyon:kyoto arc? Dunno if mentioning kyoto is spoilerish or not tho