Heh, and here I thought that Isako would soon befriend Yasako. This episode again showed that she’s got enough plans of her own. She really came to the city for a specific reason, and spent this episode recruiting Daiichi and his four comrades to help her do the dirty work.
This episode also introduces another character: Haraken. He seems to be the president of the biology-club, but he also is really knowledgeable about illegals, something that has rather interested Yasako after her own experiences with them. He joins Yasako and Fumie as they go after Isako, who might be after a huge ore of meta-bugs. They’re not the best trackers, though, and I believe that Isako knew about their plans, ever since she saw Oyaji spy on her.
In any case, Haraken’s skills are a big mystery, since he’s incredibly shy and never uses them. Even though he’s the leader of the biology club, his leadership capabilities are zero, and Fumie keeps saving him from things like Daichi’s pranks. Fumie also explains that Daichi has grown up like a reach brat. It first started when he found out that lifting skirts was fun. When he then got introduced to hacking, he kept bugging others with his pranks.
I also finally realized how people can actually get hurt. It’s probably already explained by now, but I finally realize that the cyber-world heavily uses radio-waves. Whenever Sacchi cleans up dirt, it also uses radio-waves, and it wouldn’t surprise me if the cyber-world entirely consists out of these radio-waves. I can indeed imagine that a long exposure to these radio-waves can get harmful. That’s why Daichi clinged to his friend when his body was affected by too much of these radio-waves, in order to turn back to normal a bit.
Anyway, basically Isako takes Daiichi and four of his friends to a bus-graveyard. In one of these buses, they find a number of explosive meta-bugs. At that point, Yasako and Fumie, who still were spying on them were surprised by a Sacchi and gave themselves away. In the confusion, one of the kids gets separated from the others: Akira, Fumie’s little brother. She doesn’t like it when she finds him, though, and tries to frame him into spying on Daichi. I’m not sure whether he’ll actually do this. 😛
We also see two or three scenes which feature a mysterious motorcyclist. I’m not sure what her role is, but she seems to be spying on Isako, and Isako doesn’t like it. We’ll probably know more about her in the future. The episode ends with something quite interesting: Haraken is able to manipulate the Sacchi. The question: how and why?
Overall, the episode was quite good. I especially like Yasako in this series, even though her role has been small up till now. I also love how Isako keeps messing with the others. Like how she knew that Yasako and Fumie were trailing her, causing her to throw some explosives in their direction. ^^]]>
Author: psgels
Kaze no Shoujo Emily – 10
Very interesting, a Teddy/Emily episode. Finally a side-character is put alongside Emily on the spotlight again. This mostly is because of a new teacher that arrives on the Blair Water School, who has especially influence on the two of them. He’s a rather middle-aged man who encourages everyone to work on their potential. That’s something that Teddy’s mother opposes with all her power. Here again we see how overprotective she is.
Emily, again, shows how overly poetic she is when she doesn’t like the new teacher because he jokingly insults her and her poetry when he first sees her (based on information he got from the previous teacher). It takes her nearly half an episode to forgive him. ^^; I also couldn’t help but notice that Emily and Teddy were quite close in this episode. 🙂
Perry, meanwhile, continues to slowly develop each episode. We only see him for a limited amount of time in each episode, but he’s definitely growing. This time, we see him participate in a class play to illustrate the battle of Waterloo, even though he’s not supposed to be in the class. We also see him envy Emily, Ilse and Teddy for actually having education. The best he has is Jimmy, who is more of a gardening-expert than a teacher. Ilse, meanwhile spent her time in the background. She never really was that important in the episode, but she was really fun to watch, with all her different antics. :)]]>
Ayatsuri Sakon – 22
I’m not sure how many others are still watching this anime, but that isn’t stopping me from really enjoying the current arc. This one might indeed have a very good chance of rivalling the second arc, and also for the first time since that arc, I’ve got absolutely no idea who the heck the culprit is. My best guess would be that Tsukiko is faking about losing her memories, but she sounded awfully genuine in the time we saw her.
It’s like everyone’s hiding something. Apart from Hoshie, everyone has at least one thing that doesn’t make any sense. Why kept Kobayashi visiting Numata’s sister? Was he the actual culprit? What is his father’s role, and why did he look worried? Why was Numata killed off in the first place? Did Tsukiko really survive such a fall and lost her memories? And why the heck did the culprit tape his victim and was stupid enough to lose this tape?
The background music also was truly excellent. If there was anything that could contribute to the already creepy mood, even though it just consists out of piano-tunes, it would be this one. I also laughed quite a bit when Sakon managed to sneak past a large number of police-agents, and Ukon was talking about Tachibana behind her back. ^^;
Luckily, The Ayatsuri-Sakon Project has the tendency to release the different arcs quite fast after each other, while the periods between the releases of the different arcs take up a few months. With a bit of hope, the final episode of the arc should arrive quite soon, as I’m really eager to find out whether it really is as good as I hope it to be. The past two episodes have already been excellent, now let’s hope for a good finish!]]>
Saiunkoku Monogatari – 49
Those horrible bastards! Seriously, they’re taking the rumours about Shuurei being the source of the epidemic way too seriously, shooting her with arrows like that!
Anyway, when I guessed last time that this episode would be awesome, I was wrong. The next episode is going to be awesome, this one merely built up for it. Next time, it seems that Kourin will meet up with Eigetsu, and something tells me that the arrows we saw at the cliff-hanger DID hit someone.
Still, that doesn’t mean that I didn’t love this episode, the past two episodes have been building up perfectly, after the dialogue-heavy previous arc. It’s interesting that there wasn’t really a main focus or anything. The entire episode just consists out of the different storylines which get developed further, and one new storyline to be introduced: the attempts of the bad guys to kill Shuurei. I didn’t pick up whether they were the ones behind the rumours or not, but the fact remains that we’ve got ourselves a group of warriors, and their leader has decided to kill off Shuurei. This really shows how easily people can be manipulated when stroke by something dangerous and unknown.
The biggest theme of the episode would probably be the villagers being moved in to the capital of the Sa-province. Remember the two kids from the previous episode? Well it seems that they encouraged their fellow villagers to move out, and after a while, they run into a group of soldiers, who offer them protection. It’s interesting how one of these soldiers actually doesn’t agree, and still thinks that the disease is contagious (which it obviously is not).
And god, Eigetsu looked horrible! Like I mentioned above, I’m so looking forward to when Kourin sees him again.]]>
Tales of Symphonia – 01
Yay! It’s finally here! Let me first say that it was well worth the wait!
Lloyd somehow turned less stubborn than in the game. He’s also way closer with Collette as well, which is quite interesting. Genius turned a bit clumsier, though, and in the game he was quite a bit smarter and down-to-earth. I liked the changes with Rain, she really looks like an evil teacher now. I can’t wait to see her go in her infamous “Ruin-mode”. ^^; Kratos was a bit disappointing, though. The creators dropped a few way too obvious hints about his real identity, something which came as a shock when he finally revealed it.
Anyway, about the anime. I had to get used a bit to the new character-designs, as they’re a bit different from the ones used in the game. After a bit, this turned out all-right. Seeing actual locations from the game return really accurate was really nice, though. Locations like the school, Lloyd’s and Genuis’s house really brought back memories.
One thing that I wasn’t enthusiastic about, though, was that Marble was left out. Right now, it seems that Lloyd’s decision to start his journey really has been dumbed down a bit. Originally, the Desians never attacked Collette in the first place, but this was done by people who dress like Desians. The people from the village of Iselia have made a treaty with the Desians: if they stay away from the human ranch, owned by the Desians, the Desians would stay away from the village. When it seems that a friend of Genius (Marble), who lived in the Desian-human ranch was getting into trouble there, Lloyd decided that the treaty was already broken and he interfered with these Desians to protect her. Because of this, the Desians set fire on the village, since they never broke the treaty in the first place. To make things even worse, they turn Marble into a monster, causing Lloyd and Genius to kill her. Heck, that’s why Genius gets his own exphere. It could have easily been included if less time was spent on introduction, and it would have been so much better than Lloyd’s mother interfering.
Still, overall, I loved it, mostly for nostalgic purposes. It’s been a while since I played the game, but I loved seeing everyone back again. Still, I do have to say that its predecessor was better. Tales of Phantasia was so great because it just skipped the introductions, and still remained understandable. Cless saying: “you had to burn our village, just for this?!”, combined with the context in which she said it, was enough to make us understand the grievances and motivations of the characters. I was secretly hoping for Tales of Symphonia to do the same, but they really decided to start with the beginning.
The next episodes, though, should promise to become even better, since now that episode one covered such a relative small part of the game, they really have to fasten up the pacing in order to be able to finish in time. I think the most plausible way for the episodes would be the following:
Episode 2: the journey through Sylvarant
Episode 3: the journey through Tethe’Alla, until the giant tree gets saved.
Episode 4: the conclusion, up till the destruction of Yggdrasil.
That means that in two episodes, my favourite characters will arrive: Presea and Regal. I can’t wait! For the next episode, it’s probably impossible to include every major event, though I do hope that the issues of the city of Palmacosta are addressed. For the later episodes, I really do hope we get to see Rain’s mother. Even though she just was in a side-quest, it really made clear why she and her brother lived their lives the way they did.]]>
Seirei no Moribito – 10
Remember any anime in which a member of royalty suddenly becomes a commoner? Well, all of them have the obligatory episode in which this royal person ends up in a crowded place, and has to get accustomed to the customs of the normal people, and often ends up doing something completely reckless. This was exactly such an episode. I kept wondering where it went.
While it was a bit disappointing to see nothing of Shuga, the episode itself focuses on Tooya, who finally managed to find Barsa, Tanda and Chaggumu. Barsa then asks him to take Chaggumu and explore the shopping areas of the city a bit, while Barsa would keep an eye on them from afar.
The two of them eventually end up near a group of entertainers who are hosting a local gambling game. Basically, you spin three coins in a round bowl, and try to guess how many coins fall with their shiny side up. Chaggumu manages to see that the entire game is just being manipulated, though initially he doesn’t do anything about it. Only when Tooya takes the initiative, but fails he gets in action and unmasks the guys.
While the plot progression in this episode was ridiculously close to zero, I quite liked the last quarter of it, when Chaggumu unmasked the plan, and people started to cheer on him. We’re only three episodes removed from episode thirteen, a point at which most anime insert some kind of climax to mark their halfway point. I wonder if Seirei no Moribito will be doing the same, or will it really be waiting till a random point until it takes off? Looking at the pacing of the past ten episodes, there really is no way to be able to predict this.]]>
Death Note – 34
Strangely enough, I’m beginning to like Near more and more. He first was an annoying brat, but during this episode, he grew on me. Probably because he finally showed some signs of actual action, rather than just continuous research.
Anyway, Death Note seems to be heading to quite an interesting ending. I mentioned it before, but this series has gotten way more consistent, and the past episodes all have been really enjoyable to watch, without any obvious bad points. When you compare this to the horrible Yotsuba-arc, it’s definitely an improvement.
With this episode, it indeed is clear now: Light is out of it. For the past five years, it’s been so easy to keep himself concealed that he got lazy. In the first episodes, he thought up some incredibly clever tricks to avoid being detected, like the bag of chips, or the method to keep the death note safe. However, as he kept getting closer to L, he actually found that using L’s name was actually the perfect way to clear any suspicion of him. He became too much used to this. So, what tricks does he use in the current episodes? How does he make sure that he gets his messages to Takada? Well, meet her in a room, on regular basis, and get rid of any video-cameras in order to talk to her via notes.
Obviously, it has to raise suspicion when you keep enforcing this rule, even though it’s perfectly possible to install some hidden cameras without Takada even noticing it. Still, this is not necessarily a bad thing. Heck, “Good Light” was far more annoying than “Grown-up Light”. It’s interesting to see the downfall of a former genius. It goes quite against the usual shounen-formula which dictates that main characters must keep growing stronger.
Obviously, Light is going to have a few more tricks up his sleeve. It looks like Near is going to execute his plans next time and we’ve still got three episodes left. Mello probably also is coming in action now that the person he’s been observing has been captured (and he’s been given enough time to come up with a plan of some sort). I’ve already been spoiled about Light’s fate, but unlike with L’s death, I’m actually really curious about how this anime will turn out. Who will survive? Who’ll die?
In any case, the final three episodes are promising to turn into something very interesting. I can’t wait. :)]]>
Ooedo Rocket – 10
Seriously, the episodes for Ooedo Rocket keep getting weirder and weirder. Unfortunately, this also means harder to understand. The current episode focuses on Tenhou and Tenten (finally I know their names), when they search in Hezo’s house (that was his name, wasn’t it?) after Seikichi and Sora have been missing.
It seems that at one time, they were street-performers, and quite good ones. Then, however, the law started to forbid them to carry out their practices. When they wondered what to do next, they got picked up by an official named Toyama Kinshiro (not to be confused with Ginjiro). They then started to work for him, to defeat criminals. Then they met Seikichi, and got inspired by his innocence, so they decided to watch over him. That’s why we’ve been seeing the two of them talking whenever Seikichi was in trouble.
That was about the part that made the most sense. For a majority of the episode, we follow them spying on Hezo because of what he did in the previous episode, commanding cats and all to take back the flyers revealing the location where Seikichi always carries out his fireworks-tests. Furthermore, Seikichi and Sora have been missing, and they suspect the guy behind this as well.
So, what’s his secret? Well, he’s got a machine that changes people into cats. The cats from the previous episode probably all were his servants who went into these machines. Seikichi and Sora went to his house for some Ohagi, got lost and accidentally ended up in these machines as well (by the way, seeing Tenhou, Tenten, Seikichi and Sora in cat-form were SO cute. Tenten with nekomimi also was just awesome ^^;).
This episode also introduced yet another new character: Mizuno. So far, he’s unimportant, though he could play a considerable role in the next episodes. He seems to be Kinshiro and Torii’s superior. We see the three talk with each other for a bit, and that part was just impossible to understand, since they toss all kinds of big words at each other (most of which I couldn’t even find in the dictionary), not to mention that Mizuno explores new depths of the word “Giddy”.
In any case, judging by the reaction of Kinshiro and Torii afterwards, though, he probably meant to tell them not to go after Hezo. Torii sends Ginjiro to go after Akai, who’s searching the guy’s house as well, while Kinshiro tries to find Tenten and Tenhou, but gets into trouble with the locals. This does result, however, in Tenhou and Tenten finding out about what Ginjiro has been up to and vice versa when the two parties notice each other. One thing that still puzzles me was what happened when the townsfolk found out about Kinshiro’s identity. It was probably filled with bad puns and references. Still, now that I wrote things down a bit, the episode makes much more sense. It really was a fun one, despite its strangeness. Now all that’s left to hope is that Shinsen will continue to sub this series for more than just one episode.
Anyway, to close off this post, I got an interesting comment on the last entry I wrote for this series, by Bomber D Rufi, who claims that this series might actually take up 26 episodes. While the series looks like it’ll just finish in two or three episodes, things could get very interesting if this rumour turned out to be true. After all, the OP-single gets released on July 4th, which is after the anime finished.]]>
Claymore – 10
Interesting, the current episode answered many questions the previous episodes have been hinting at, with the most important one being: did Claire inherit any of Teresa’s specialities? The answer is: yes.
Episode eight indeed made a huge impact on Claire, and she indeed has inherited Teresa’s ability of sensing Yoki, but because of the fact that she only is 1/4 Youma, instead of the usual 1/2, her physical strength is weak. I think that because of this, she decided to use her skills, rather than her strength.
Especially because this is a perfect way to fight Awakened Beings, which probably was the biggest reason for her to concentrate on this skill. I do wonder, though. What caused Deneve to develop her skill as it is? I mean, extra-fast regeneration definitely is useful, but only once or twice against a strong opponent. She probably won’t ever need it when she faces regular Youma. What caused her to actually need this skill?
Another thing that’s remarkable is Claire’s ability to stand, even though she’s got a lot of wounds. I’m not sure what’s up with that, but I can imagine that being under the care of a Youma for her entire childhood did make her body quite tough.
Also, if I understood things correctly, the party was sent to get killed off. The organization was aware that there was a male Youma in the vicinity, yet they didn’t notify Miria of this. I can understand Claire, being 47th and all, but why did they want to kill off the three others?
This episode was quite nice, but I’m actually more interested in the next one, to see how everyone changed after the events in this episode. One thing that annoyed me in this episode, though, was the lack of battle-tactics. These four Claymores just rush in, without knowing anything about each other. No planned moves, nothing. Heck, Miria first keeps telling that she wants to know as much of her companions as possible, but she doesn’t even know about Helen’s extended arms for god’s sake.]]>
Wellber no Monogatari – 10
This definitely was a cute episode. Basically, Rita and Tina make up again, after Rita finds out about the misunderstanding. It seems that this arc was mostly meant to flesh out the pair of them a bit before the finale starts. A “calm before the storm”, in a way, though that doesn’t mean that everything was light-hearted.
Both Rita and Tina turned out really touching. I have to say that, while the ending was a bit too coincidental, it was nicely found, and unlike any other Deus ex Machina I’ve seen. I really wonder what the creators have in stall for us for the final episodes. It definitely realizes that it needs to build up first, and something really tells me that they’ve been planning something very interesting for the finale of this anime.
About the only thing I felt disappointed over in this episode was that we never get to see the reunion of Tina and her boyfriend. After she wrote such a lovely letter to him, he came all the way to Sangatras just because of this. Apart from that, though, it was a great episode.
Oh, one thing though. Someone please tell the animators a few things about the English language. As if Bokura no’s “Garally” wasn’t bad enough…]]>
