Amatsuki – 03

Very interesting. I originally thought that series as Macross Frontier, RD, Kurenai and Himitsu would have the most difficult dialogue to understand, but as it turns out Amatsuki is about to walk away with that title. No other series this season depends so much on its dialogue than Amatsuki, especially when characters start long monologues (especially the bald head of the temple is guilty of this) it becomes a real challenge to figure out what he’s talking about. Of course, Real Drive does take second place with its complex dialogue, and I do believe that it’s no coincidence at all that both shows are directed by the same person.

You wouldn’t say it from the outside, but this series focuses a lot on people’s history, and complex relationships. In this episode, we meet the older brother of a guy who was an assassin for Sakamoto Ryouma (a guy who planned to overthrow the Tokugawa dynasty), if I’m not mistaken. This older brother claims to have nothing to do with his brother, and yet the second half of the episode shows how he isn’t 100% trustworthy. It’s especially suspicious since he can see spirits as well.

What’s interesting as well, is how this series puts a lot of focus on the fact that Tokidoki went to school, before he came to this world. It’s surprising how many shows there are with the same theme of transferring someone to another (often less advanced) world, and hardly any of them try to use the protagonists’ knowledge about technology to improve their lives. It took me a while to understand it, but in the previous episode, Toki uses his chemical knowledge to get rid of one troublemaker, and in this episode the fact that he’s well-schooled catches this assassin’s brother’s interest.

This episode introduces another major character: the one with all the ear- and lip-piercings. What’s interesting is that he calls a certain “he” the enemy of the world. I’m not 100% sure whether or not this is Tokidoki, but it does look like it. I originally thought that he would be the bad guy, but now I’d call him more of an “antagonist”. In any case, he’s not on Tokidoki’s side, because he doesn’t appear in the OP.

I’m trying to find a good series to compare this to, but I can’t seem to think of anything. I can’t really seem to find any series that reminds me of this one, like how Kurenai reminds you of Red Garden, or SA looks like Ouran. And that’s really the great thing about this series: from the outside, it really looks like a mediocre series, it looks too brightly coloured, it’s been done before, and then it turns out surprisingly deep and complex.