Wow…. these are the kinds of episodes that blow you away. It did to me at least.
I already mentioned at the shoutbox that we had a beyond awesome staff working on this episode: Sayo Yamamoto, the director of Michiko e Hatchin doing the storyboard and the script written by Hiroshi Ounogi, who also wrote Noein and Birdy the Mighty. It’s like Superman having tea with Batman here. And seriously, even knowing that, this episode kicked ass beyond belief.
I don’t even know where to start with how magnificent this episode played out. So much happened at once (I guess that that was the point of the previous two episodes: becoming so quiet and dull in order to just strengthen the ridiculously huge impact this episode would have). Mikaze’s sex appeal went beyond the roof here (and it was actually used extremely well in the first half of this episode), the inner paranoia of her spells on Bunmei were wonderfully portrayed and the entire episode itself was just amazingly animated.
This episode was just disturbing. I mean, we could expect Mikaze to be up to something, but I absolutely loved how the creators just threw everyone’s hidden identity at your face here. Mikaze knowing the exact recipe of Bunmei’s cooking was just creepy. That kissing scene… I can’t believe how far and graphic that actually went. You could really see the influences of Michiko e Hatchin here. Another favourite was that scene in which Maya kicked the heck out of Bunmei here. Talk about brutal!
I mean, I’m just baffled by this series. The thing is that it had its share of mediocre episodes, and it is mostly awesome when it has the right episode staff (I really have to applaud the producers here in getting the best people they could get here). I mean, episodes 1, 6 and 11: I consider all three to be the three single best episodes out of any show that started in the past summer season. I found it really strange that right before the ending, this series would waste so much time on random stories. But I really didn’t expect the creators to bombard us with so much at once here.
Occult Gakuin, I applaud you.
Rating: **** (Fantastic)
This one made up for the last 3 for sure.
Up to eleven… or over 9000.. would describe this ep. First part was sort of ok, we expected this, 2nd part was … woah.
mind = blown.
the first 3/4 of the episode were pure awesomeness. all the sexual and psycho stuff were great.
but the last part was kind of a letdown.
i mean white and black mages? come on! the whole mikaze thing could be so much better than this.
I dropped this 2 episodes ago but now I’ll have to continue watching. It better be good, psgels :P.
a great episode until we ended up with the “magical girl”-esque transformations
come on! this episode rocked, I loved the fact that for a second, I thought they had killed maya and there would be some random alter-death version – definitely worth the wait
Wow, what happened here? They really like toying with us in this series. At times I can’t help but feel a bit like Bunmei myself.. clueless and out of my element.
I have been saying that Mikaze was Big Bad level right from the start. Finally, vindication!
I was thinking he would wake up from a dream, the episode was so atypical.
And how is it sexy to have a thumb put in your mouth?
The shoes were too much of a giveaway for Maya’s death.
We all knew Mikaze was up to something.
The magical girl stuff doesn’t sit well with me.
Other than that however it was a good episode.
Holy crap, was not expecting this… After the boring last eps, this is just what the series needed
That kissing scene OMG so well done, HOTD should take a clue on how to do fanservice 😛
Now lets just hope the quality remains until the end
This episode both met and subverted some of my expectations in an entertaining way. I always expected Chihiro’s skullduggery to be a red herring, and that Mikaze was manipulating Fumiaki to some ultimately negative purpose, but the way it played out was rather surprising. I had thought Mikaze would turn out to be using nefarious means to ends that she thought were good, rather than being so cartoonishly evil. Also the town’s descent into a mob was also unexpected, though given how victimized they have been by monsters it’s somewhat understandable. Even without the interesting visuals, I would have to give them some credit for managing to build the road to mind-screw.
The pornification of Mikaze was unsettling on its own, but it came with that rather nifty crystal ball scene and an insane mob, which made for a really interesting mood change for the show. On top of Mikaze and Chihiro’s reveals, even Maya’s behavior went against the grain, as she tried so hard to cheer up Fumiaki. If the degree of her kindness was exaggerated than so too was the level of her assault on Fumiaki when he doubted her.
It was quite interesting and entertaining to watch, though the details might give my brain some heartburn later. Still, it looks like the final arc of the show will have a lot going on if they keep at this pace.
I can’t help but hate this episode :/
Magical girl wtf..
This show has always had this B-Movie esque aspect to it. At first I was a bit annoyed at the stereotypes that suddenly appeared, but then I realised that the entire points of this series was to reference the classic horror/supernatural plots and characters, of all ranges.
And now it seems it’s going to be a fun ride. I mean hell, how long has it been since we’ve had a villain that’s evil for the sake of evil? They can be just as rewarding as the ones with motives or backstories.
And regarding the main “plot twist” of this episode, I actually can’t say I saw it coming at all. I truly never suspected Mikaze would be anything more than a separate subplot for Bunmei to have. And I never expected the vice-principal to NOT be the villain either. A total Red Herring on both sides for me. Not many shows can be good at that, surely?
And yeah, the animation and art in this episode was superb, both with the strange Crystal Ball and the ridiculously detailed scenes with Mikaze.
This show did not dissapoint – I can easily dismiss the staleness of the previous episodes with this.
really felt awkward about the graphic scenes on the first half…I wasn’t expecting it to reach on that extent for this anime…but anyhow, the latter half compensated it all!!! the revelations were truly shocking. The magical transformations were OK…I personally like the white mage! Kakkoii!!! I think it’s okay if they end the series at 13 or 14. Too much is overkill.^_^
I’d sort of filed this series into the “pleasantly mediocre” drawer based on the last bunch of episodes (they were okay to kill time with, but not likely to be anything I’d ever want to watch again).
I was not prepared for the utter over-the-top brilliance of this episode. Pure genius from start to finish.
I’ve thoroughly enjoyed this series, but I’ve stayed somewhat frustrated with Bunmei, as his character just hasn’t seemed to grow at all during the series. I would have liked to be next in line to kick the S#^@! out of him after Maya (if it would knock some sense into him or even a hint of backbone). Maybe now he’ll break out of the spell Mikaze placed on him and finally find the key?
So this show was actually a mahou shoujo series (complete with a transformation sequence)?
Anyway, this ep was awesome. I’m not sure about the mahou shoujo stuff, I guess we will see how it will play out in the next episode, but the rest of the episode was excellently directed and animated.
I haven’t followed this series so I just checked out this episode because of psgels’ rating and I was entertained. Great animation and soundtrack. The kiss scene was dumb, most people don’t drool buckets when they makeout.
Watched it just now. Definitely a step up from previous episodes. I really don’t like that they stuff all content relevant for the overall plot into the final few episodes, though.
I didn’t believe Maya was dead, since this stuff just never happens in anime; also because she miraculously had her shoes on, even though she left them (literally) in Bunmei’s back (I suspect this was done on purpose, so the audience could find out the truth on their own – a nice touch).
Cool animation going on in the scrying ball.
I sincerely did not expect the principal’s assistant to be one of the good guys. Hope they don’t kill her off right away, she did not get enough time to shine, at all.
I liked how the occult stuff with the runes and whatnot was handled, and I laughed at the magical-girl-like transformation. I think it was a nice joke.
After all, taking this series completely seriously does it a huge disservice.
It was definitely a good change of pace. I was pleasantly surprised that the Vice-principal was on the good side. Right up until near the end of this episode did I finally realize it. Obviously the shoes were the key as everyone above mentioned that Maya wasn’t dead. They put too much emphasis on her feet. I was also kind of surprised that Bunmei’s Gf was evil. I like animes that surprise me. And this episode had a bunch of surprises.
For some reason I really love this shot http://tinyurl.com/2ens58u
I’ve stopped watching the show but I don’t know why you guys are wtfed with “magical girl”. Seeing women magically transform doesn’t equates to a magical girl. If you think about it, rather than transforming, they’re “reverting back” considering they’re really like THAT.
Except for the magical girl stuff pure genius episode. I was still expecting something else, not … witches.
I’m just… meh. First of all, this episode was like BAM! in your face with it’s sudden strangeness and was not in pace with the rest of the series, so right off the bat things felt weird. I even wondered if I missed an ep somewhere along the way.
The fanservice stuff was just gross to me, and off putting because again, it came out of the blue in this series, and I’m a girl, so… lol. I’m not a prude but I didn’t care for it in a show like this one. I guess I expected something different from it.
The magical girl/witch thing I HATE – it’s fluff garbage as far as I’m concerned, the white one looked like a YuGiOh card, I half expected Kaiba to order her to attack. I just think it’s a stupid turn of events, and I preferred this show in the original direction it was headed in. I do like the twists of Mikaze being evil, vice-P being good, etc… But I thought this was going to be about aliens and finding a key, and certainly not insane drag queen makeup and an electrical tape outfit.
Animation was brilliant, though.