Seriously, I couldn’t help but shed a tear at end of the episode. Now that the main focus of the anime has turned back to Shuran’s home village, and Eigetsu’s fate, it’s promising to be incredibly sad, and if the cliff-hanger was just a sign of things to come, then I can’t wait to see the next couple of episodes. Seriously, that was awesome, and most definitely one of the highlights of the entire series.
Most of the episode spends its time building up. Shuuran and Riou tell the meaning of the kanji that’s used for their names (and Riou isn’t his real name, by the way). If I had to guess, then the home-base of the cult indeed is in that village, and “Riou” somehow ended up involved with them (after all, he did spend his childhood with Shuuran, that is a fact).
We also finally get to know what happened to Kourin: she got captured, mistaken for Shuurei (again ^^; Shuuran also guesses that Kourin looks a lot like Shuurei). She then got locked up, along with about thirty people, suffering from the disease. Ever since, she managed to convince her guards to let her help them. Right now, she manages to escape with the help of Shuuran, and finally gets her teary reunion with Eigetsu! So sad.
Oh, and Ryuuren returns again. Seriously, when I first saw episode five, in which he got introduced, I never thought he’d have any big role, but he did turn into a vital supporting character, who provided lots of support to both his bosom buddies #1 and #2. We also see him more serious than ever when he turns up, it seems that he went to the village as fast as he could (by the way, how did he know where Eigetsu was locked up? Did he ask people at Korinjou?)
Anyway, it’s such a shame that the episodes only air once a week. I want more!!]]>
Author: psgels
Seirei no Moribito – 14
This one’s another plot-heavy episode, in which a few new things get explained regarding Chaggumu, by both Torogai-shi (who returns) and Shuga. We also get to see quite an exciting chase (god, that Torogai-shi is quite tough for her age), and Shuga gets locked up. Intentionally or by accident, I don’t know, however.
In any case, the reason why Torogai-shi went on a trip was to speak with a colony of water-spirits. Shuga meanwhile acquires the favour of two of the palace guards, so tat he can finally get a chance again to look at the old library we saw him in a couple of episodes ago, when he was ordered to research Chaggumu by Seidoushi. They both find out the same thing (and please, PLEASE correct me if I’m wrong, because it’s a MAJOR plot twist): Chaggumu’s existence won’t cause the drought.
It seems that two-hundred years, a similar story happened, when another boy got implanted with the egg of the water-spirit. If I understood things correctly, this boy eventually transformed into a water-spirit himself, and had to be slayed by the royal guards. Will the same thing happen to Chaggumu, or can he somehow be saved? Also, if you pay close attention to the episode, you see that Chaggumu is starting to behave like a mother to the egg inside of him. That really was kind of cute. ^^;
This episode also introduced a new party: the fire-nation, as one of their beings starts attacking Torogia-shi. I’m not sure why, it either doesn’t like intruders, or it doesn’t like Torogai’s involvement with the water-spirits.
In any case, I really enjoyed this episode. It was fairly easy to understand it, in terms of Seirei no Moribito, and I feel like I’ll be able to rely on other people’s summaries for the things that I missed, unlike the previous episode, where it took me a week to realize that the “ronin” actually was the leader of the royal hunters that noticed Barsa.]]>
Higurashi no Naku Koro ni – 27
So, basically because in Higurashi, every single detail counts, and the subs come out at bullet speed anyway, I’m going to continue to follow this series subbed instead of raw. And boy, does it deliver! Only Mononoke will probably be able to stand a chance of beating this series for the title of the best show of the summer-season.
So, basically, the current arc is the aftermath of the sixth arc, and meant to give the final clues, before the eighth arc will reveal everything. It does this by means of the hints that were given in the game, and translated in the AnimeSuki forums. I only read a few of the hints back when the series aired, so it’s going to be great to see them all lined up.
And the creators couldn’t have chosen a better and more awesome setting for this arc: 30 years in the future, with as main characters Oishi, Akasaka and a grown-up Rena!! I’m also really curious as to how long this arc will be, and what will be its climax?
Anyway, let’s start with the new OP, as it reveals quite a bit of information. It’s sad, instead of chaotic like the one for the first season. There are two things that immediately catch your mind: a strange girl, and the huge focus on Rika. Keep an eye out for this mysterious girl, because (having read one or two hints about her), something tells me that she’s playing a huge central role in this series. I’m also really glad to see that it seems like Rika will become the main character of the second season, when compared to Keiichi in the first one. Especially considering she’s my favourite character.
The episode starts with Akisaka with a guy who once was in charge of overseeing Hinamizawa, meeting up with Oishi in the bus stop that we all know so well. Hinamizawa is in ruins, and the disaster indeed happened after episode 26. Akisaka recaps a few things that happened in the fourth arc, after which he introduces Sawada (at least, I think he’s spelled that way. The fansubber refused to translate his name). Sawada now works for the self defence-force after he left Hinamizawa, and he used to be an underclassman of Akisaka when they were in college.
The fansubber also for some reason translated “Onigafuchi” to “Onigahuchi”, but I’ll keep with Onigafuchi in my future entries. It’s probably a translation-error anyways. In Onigafuchi, which has now been covered in concrete, and the ruins of the hospital Akisaka tells about his theories, backed up by online bloggers (this probably is the first time an anime referred to bloggers in any way ^^;). It basically starts out with a summary of the information we already knew at the sixth arc, when Rena received Takano’s scrapbooks.
His conclusion, in any case, is something we’ve been expecting all along: gas never erupted from the march in the first place. According to various people, it’s useless to seal up a gas leak with concrete. According to him, the three great families got in trouble when the original virus began to decline, so they tried to remake it. This failed, and it either killed the entire village, or it made the villagers kill themselves. The alien-part has to be fake, of course.
It also seems that the Self Defence Force knew somehow what was going on. They put up fences around the Onigafuchi-march, and frequently took blood-samples from their members for investigation. The question remains: if they knew, why didn’t they do something about it?
They then go towards the olds school-building, in order to meet with another familiar face: Rena. Oishi then starts asking her a few questions, since he’s the only one that met her before. It really seems that she suffered serious traumas after the disasters in Hinamizawa (by the way, I’d love to find out how both she and Keiichi in the third arc decided to live the rest of their lives).
Oishi then comes with some more facts: after we saw Rika claim that she finally wanted to become serious against the person that played the “endless game of June” with her, Irie committed suicide with poison, she again got killed and at dawn, the disaster took place. Rena was also hospitalized for a long time afterwards. Oishi also has the theory that she was brainwashed when she was there.
Rena then talks of one of the hints that I vaguely read once. Remember when Rena was hiding in the bus? Rika in “Oyashiro-mode” then visited Rena, in an attempt to save her. When Rena, however, became scared of her and yelled at her, Rika claimed that she had no more interest in the village, and that she wanted to move on to another one. This makes Akisaka remember the time he was with Rika as well.
Okay, so let’s combine these facts a bit. The fact does remain that it’s a bit too coincidental that Rena picked the exact evening to carry out her plan, right before the disaster occurred. This seems to suggest that someone was able to control the disaster, which suggests that information was about to become known that was not meant to come out.
Still, if that’s the case, then why was Rena the only one to survive? I can imagine that Keiichi would have survived in the third arc. He was unconscious and away from everyone, which means that he wasn’t exposed to the virus in any way. For Rena, though, this is different.
My theory is that Rena was one of the first people to be infected. Because of that, she also was one of the first to stand a chance of being cured. Notice the syringe Rika is holding in the flashback? Rika actually wanted to cure her, but Rena refused. Instead, Keiichi managed to cure her, in the same reason that Rena tried to cure Keiichi with in the first arc. It was only then that Rika realized that the virus could also be cured in a different way. Unfortunately, the realized this too late and got killed before she could take action. This suggests why the eighth arc is going to reveal everything: it’s because Rika will finally get serious.
I also assume that Rika was the one who cured Rena back in the first arc, in an attempt to get her to save Keiichi, but this failed, and after this she kept quiet for a long while, until Shion went crazy in the fifth arc. I also finally realize why Rika was able to predict her death so accurately: she already had lived the same timeline over and over again. Of course she’d get a bit sick of the same things happening again and again.
Going back to the disaster of Hinamizawa, I think that is the time that a certain someone awakened the virus in the entire population of Hinamizawa, and they began to kill each other. The reason Keiichi went crazy in the first arc was because of the weapon Rena showed him (probably under light influence of the virus, after which Rika probably came to her), which awakened the virus too early. The same can probably be said for Satoko when Keiichi petted her in the third arc, Shion losing her fingernails in the fifth arc and Rena getting Takano’s scrapbooks in the sixth arc.
The question remains: what does Rika’s little friend have to do with this? And where does Takano fit in this story? Why did Irie commit suicide? And are there possibly two Rikas?]]>
Some quick first impressions: Buzzer Beater, Code-E and Mushiuta
Buzzer Beater
Okay, you know when an anime is bad when it uses recycled Pandemos-designs from Master of Epic with varying skin-colours for its alien-designs. Yes, it’s that bad, and it immediately shows the image that the creators have of them: all aliens have horns, so they’re evil, while humans are good and they have to win. And believe it or not, but things are even worse on the earth-side. Somehow, the creators found themselves the most annoying brat, and gave him a star-spot on the basketball-team that’s supposed to finally defeat the aliens. How the heck did that happen!? Buzzer Beater enforces my opinion that most sports-anime are garbage, simply because they almost always include the near-impossible scenario of a 14-year-old brat that somehow becomes the best in the field. Buzzer Beater features one that has no team-spirit whatsoever, happens to be of the same level as grown-up players who trained their entire lives and continues to think that he’s king of the world. Don’t even bother to give this one a chance.
Code-E
With the director of Simoun, I just had to look forward to this. Unfortunately, it’s not anything special yet, apart from the OP and the climax. This episode was really meant to introduce the main character, who has the strange power to disrupt electrical equipment when startled or scared. She already was very shy, which may not have been the best personality-trait for this power. I liked how she’s cheerful in surroundings that she and is trusted with, but becomes incredibly scared when new things are introduced to her. So far, the first episode dabbled along nicely without getting boring, and there were smudges of hints that the future episodes will become intriguing (most notably, the climax), but I do have to say that the male lead must really improve over the next few episodes, as he’s rather horrible, both his character-design and his personality.
Mushiuta
After having watched the episode, I know for sure: this is going to be a very dark story. Even the light elements in this episode had a gloomy atmosphere. The story is based around the general premise of “bunch of people with powers fighting monsters”, and the main character seems to be the strongest of the team, a fourteen-year-old kid, and he acts like a timid person when he’s not involved in a mission. Still, despite this, he managed to distance himself from the other teenaged brats that we see so often. He’s not cocky, arrogant or whiny at all, due to the things that have already happened to him. Okay, he’s still inexperienced (he let a very easy target slip away at the beginning of the episode), but as far as characters like his go, I like him. If you’re looking for a dark story with high-school elements, this will be a fine pick. If it manages to stay away from fillers, that is.]]>
Ooedo Rocket – 14
I guess that this was one of those episodes that had a bit of everyone. Heck, half of the huge cast got a bit of development. The blue monster from the sky, Genzo, Seikichi, Sora, Kagiya, Shunpei, Tenhou, Tenten, a few of the hunters, Akai, Anui, the townsfolk, O-Ise and Genzo’s mother all play some kind of important role in this episode.
To start with O-Ise, in this episode she keeps bugging the townsfolk about a luxurious vacation she’s selling. Judging by the reaction of the townsfolk, they have experienced her vacations before, and left there with some baaaad memories. ^^; Oh, and she gets robbed afterwars, by the blue monster from the sky.
And poor Genzo! He’s now also been degraded to mere pigeon in the OP. And only now I realize that he was responsible for most of the calculations that Seiichi needed. It also took me till this episode to realize that he’s got a mother! It’s so cute of her to worry about him, and yet she thinks he’s on some sort of journey.
And boy, does the blue monster from the sky show a different side of her during this episode! The past few episodes portrayed her as an evil bitch, but she actually showed pity in this episode. The events of the previous episode really made her think, because I’m sure that she wants to return to the moon as well. It’s ironic that she of all people starts needing Genzo, since all of the townsfolk just took his existence for granted. I also finally realized why I can’t remember her name: she doesn’t have one!
Akai meanwhile, tries to use Kagiya’s daughter to try and get Seikichi, but it fails. Basically, he arranges it so that she gets assigned with the task f repairing the space-ship, with which he hopes she’ll go to Seikichi for advice. He didn’t take her “I don’t want to lose from that guy”-attitude. ^^; In any case, with this she finally got an important role, instead of being a side-character who shows up once every five episodes.
This episode also was a great one for the different couples on the show. Shunpei gets a bit closer to Anui, due to his frustrations with his brother. Seikichi and Sora keep doing random things in order to tweak the rocket (I’m actually not sure what the poles they made were for, but I guess we’ll see that in the next episode), and Tenhou gets a bit closer with her stalker. ^^;
I’m also glad to see that after Bokura no, other shows are coming with their new EDs to. I still liked the first one better, though, but this one also is quite fun to watch.]]>
Claymore – 14
Haha, I’m glad to see that in the end, Ophelia did turn into a memorable character. During episode 12 and 13, she didn’t really impress me much, and her background story felt too incomplete for me to care about her, but luckily this episode changed this. The fact remains that she already had the personality of an awakened being, and now that she has realy become one of them, her insanity didn’t increase, it decreased, and she spends the final minutes of her life in a surprisingly human state, after she realizes this.
It seems that Priscilla hasn’t been standing still, ever since she killed Teresa. We have still no clue about what she’s been up to, but we now know that she did kill Ophelia’s brother. Because of that, Ophelia began to develop her obsession for killing awakened beings. And now I finally realize what’s going to make Claire so special: she’s basically a combination of lots of great Claymore. She first had Teresa inside of her, and in this episode, Irene’s arm and Ophelia’s goal get added. Something tells me that she’ll take something from every major opponent she runs into to add this to her arsenal. I quite like this, in fact.
Still, that is no reason for me to like the immense power-up that Claire got after merging with Irene’s arm. I mean, Ophelia already was immensely powerful, and now that she has awakened, this power has only increased. The power-boost that Claire got from it could really have been more subtle, especially since it’s the first time she uses it. After all, the arm may be one thing, but what really makes it work the way it does is the link to your brain. It takes a while to get used to the power, and Claire, who couldn’t even come close to one tenth of the speed of Irene, should have had more trouble dealing with it.
Oh, and Irene dies in this episode, by the hands of number five, Rafaela. We also learn that of the top-five, Ophelia was actually the weakest. Next up, Claire is probably going to have to fight the remaining four, after which Priscilla comes. That’s one of the things I dislike about shounen-series, no matter how good the rest, they always follow the pattern of a great power that needs to be defeated, only to move on to the next, even stronger power, until the big boss is reached. The great shounen-series are the ones that manage to add more than just that, like the comedy and tactical battles in the Law of Ueki. For Claymore, this is going to be its explanation and characters. If it wants to be better than the other shounen-anime, the future enemies had better have the same level development of Ophelia, or even more.]]>
Bokura no – 13
Oh. My. God.
That was more shocking than I ever imagined. This episode introduces the second half of Bokura no, and holy god…. that was awesome, disturbing, touching, exciting and I couldn’t help but love it. Bokura no already was my favourite show of the spring-season, and here it comes and turns even better!!
I knew that the other robots were piloted by other children as well, but actually seeing these people, who were about to be killed by our group of kids made a huge impact on me. Fighting against other robots and planets is easy, but once you know who’s inside them, things go a whole lot different.
Apparently, judging by the fact that this episode featured a new ED, Bokura no will be 24-episodes long, and that with only five pilots left (seven, if you count the adults). I really wonder about the surprises that the second half of this show will bring us, and the next episode is promising to be awesome as well, since it’ll be focusing on Yosuki, whose case I’m really looking forward to. Also, what was up with the guys that tried to kidnap the females? They looked a bit different from your usual drunk guys assaulters.
Oh, and Maki! Her ending was so sweet, even though her case was relatively simple. In the end, she died, right after seeing her new brother.]]>
Some quick first impressions: School Days, Kenk Zenrakei Suieibu Umisho and Zombie Loan
School Days
I must praise this anime for being the first harem-anime that actually “gets on with it” so fast. Just watch the episode, and you’ll understand. I’ve seen quite a few first episodes of harem-shows during the overcrowded fall-season, but none went as far as the first episode of School Days. Unfortunately, that’s the only good and actually average point about this anime. Everything else is either sub-par or horrible. The dialogue was boring, and the male main character looks even worse than your average harem-lead. The animation was again nothing special, and the music was almost non-existent. And why must every school-based bishoujo harem, with no exception, have an energetic best friend who is a pervert and will never have a girl of his own and merely exists to be annoying and “comic” relief? So, basically what will happen is that we’ll be following a standard dating-sim, until the end where everyone kills each other? There’d better be enough serious scenes to keep me interested.
Kenko Zenrakei Suieibu Umisho
Okay… I think we’ve found our fanservice-series of the season. For an anime about swimming, there was bound to be some nudity, but this series carries this to a very next level. Basically, the story is about a mermaid who attacks a young boy while he’s swimming in the ocean, giving a fear of water for the rest of his life and visits his town a bunch of years later to make his life even more “miserable”. Oh, did I mention that this girl likes to swim around naked? Still, it does have a few good point, most importantly: the male lead actually looks different from all other male leads of series of the same genre. In comparison to, say School Days, this anime actually has some nice production-values, and it just looks good. The characters also were interesting enough, when fanservice wasn’t involved. Still, I’m worried about the excessive amount of fanservice, and I hope it’s not a bad sign of things to come.
Zombie Loan
Whoa, this one turned out good! I was a bit scared due to the cheesy title, the concept of zombies and the mediocre promo-art, but these worries were not needed at all. Zombie Loan actually is a freaky shoujo-anime, and it’s one of the few cases where the promo-art looks worse than the art of the actual anime. The art, background sounds, music and dialogue manage to create a really captivating atmosphere, and the characters have already managed to set themselves apart from the stereotypes in only the first episode. Let’s hope now that the series won’t degenerate into fillers at some point, but this episode already showed that it can deliver some great drama. I’d definitely recommend this one.]]>
Some quick first impressions: Shigurui, Nanatsuiro Drops and Doujin Work
Shigurui
The first series I checked out for the summer-season, and I think I’ve already found my favourite OP of the season. I love artsy OPs like this one, that do something else than just “oh, let’s display the different characters in a cool or sad way and add some random music to it”, not to mention that the melody rocks. Anyway, about Shigurui: let me first start with a warning. If you’ve got a weak heart, are rather young or just can’t stand gore: DO NOT WATCH THIS. This is a horror-show, focused at a select audience, and it tries to captivate it by combining an eerie mood and some of the most disturbing gore I’ve seen in anime. If I had to guess, than the entire anime is about the fight between two samurai, one missing an arm and one without eyesight, where most of the airtime is spent on fleshing out their backgrounds. It’s only been one episode, and already we’ve seen bloody broken fingers, a guy pulling out his own guts and another guy stabbing his own toe, in all graphic details. Personally, I like the show so far, but the scene where the guy broke his fingers was too much for me, and I just couldn’t bear to watch the screen anymore.
Nanatsuiro Drops
Oohh.. someone… PLEASE make Sumomo stop whining! Seriously, how more annoying can she get? Her character-designs suck, her voice-acting is way too drawn out and her personality is, just like the rest of the cast by the way, a cookie-cutter at best. I can’t believe the character-designer is famous, because what he shows here was just horrible. Anyway, about the story, it’s not much interesting either. A guy gets turned into a fluffy animal and needs Sumomo to catch sparkly thingies in order to change back. These sparkly thingies can draw the energy of the flowers, and if they do, Sumomo will cry because it’s so sad for the flowers… god, she needs to grow a spine. Oh, have I already mentioned the obligatory dark mysterious character who watches from afar and will probably get drawn into the main character’s harem at episode three? This is one to avoid.
Doujin Work
And here we have the anime about a group of doujin-artists. In this episode, a girl attends a doujin-convention, realizes how much money people can make in it and decides to become a doujin-artist herself… and that’s about it. There’s not much to say about this series anyway. The art is sub-par; the animation is not very good. The jokes manage to make sure that it doesn’t get boring too soon, but they’re not exactly funny. The characters are rather flat and one-dimensional, and I honestly can’t think of something that stands out. Let’s hope that this is one of these anime that needs a bit of time to warm up, as this episode didn’t impress me much. I liked the yuri-joke, though.]]>
El Cazador de la Bruja – 14
Haha! El Cazador is really getting fired up now! The first half did a great job of building up, and now the plot really starts moving! This episode, we get treated with an episode fully dedicated to showing Ellis’s time with the professor, before she shot him down (in fact, the cliff-hanger ends with the bang that killed the guy). My enthusiasm for this show is really growing rapidly with each episode!
This episode was entirely meant to show what the professor meant for Ellis. They’re the only two people who get some airtime, along with a couple of shots of Rozenberg. Ellis got first transferred to the professor’s house so that he could study her. Eventually, they began to have feelings for each other (cue insert song! ^^;). Not terribly original, but I still loved it. It also seems that the professor got shot down on thanksgiving, when Ellis first confessed her love for him.
The question, though, remains: how did the guy die. We do see a suspicious pair of feet enter the grounds of the mansion right before the shot sounds, but the fact also remains that there was a shot in the middle of Ellis’s package, right on the place of her chest. Where did that one come from? If I had to guess, then Rozenberg killed off the guy because he didn’t do what he wanted him to do (hence the shattered glass), but that doesn’t explain why Ellis blames herself for the murder either.
If El Cazador can be able to keep up this pace for most of the rest of the second half, this series can very well become one of the highlights of the spring-season. It’s going to be the highlight of this week in any case. The big question now remains: will the next episodes focus more on the plot, or degrade back to the cryptic first half? Only time will tell!]]>