Short Synopsis: Birdy starts to search for Natoru.
Episode Rating: 8,5/10 (Awesome)
And so this series continues its string of utterly incredible episodes. Oh boy, it sure has set a incredibly high standard for the rest of 2009. It’s going to be interesting whether the rest of the year can produce another series that at least can come close to the level that this series has been at. This episode was mostly building up for the finale of this series (only two more episodes left!), but it did this so well.
I liked how this episode used the school festival in order to bring some more life into Senkawa’s school. It was only meant to flesh out the setting a bit more, and the rest of the episode was about something completely different. With most anime, such a school festival usually is the most important topic going on.
But yeah, while the death of this episode was probably the least brutal of the bunch, it yet again made a lot of impact. In this case, Nataru only lives for his revenge, and he doesn’t care whether he has to slaughter children who never were the masterminds in anything, he just kills using the powers he obtained. It’s promising to be an incredible finale in any case.
I also wonder what the purpose was of Capella’s arrest. Was it just to wrap up one of the loose storylines, or was it meant to give the old hag a bit of development? It was pretty hilarious that she turned in Capella after keeping her in hiding for so long.
In any case, one thing in which the past Winter Season has stood out for me was the huge amount of series with good villains: the villains here are victims themselves, who have all the reason to defend themselves because Nataru keeps killing them off, and it’s not just this series: Satoshi in Michiko e Hatchin has been one of the best villains I’ve seen in a long while, Casshern Sins, Jigoku Shoujo and Tytania love playing with the definition of ‘villain’, and shows as Hajime no Ippo and Shikabane Hime Kuro have superbly characterized villains. Nearly all of them have intentions other than “I want to destroy the world because I’m evil”. Before this season started, I really disliked them, and hardly any series had a good villain. The only series in 2008 with really good villains like the ones shown in this season were Mouryou no Hako, Kaiba, Shion no Ou and Gunslinger Girl. That’s four series over an entire year! That’s nothing!
Even for another build-up episode, this still demonstrated high quality in all departments.
I can’t wait for the climax, it should be pretty awesome.
There’s one thing I did not get (unsurprisingly, since I don’t understand japanese). Why do the villains want a nuke? To erase Nataru? That doesn’t hold up, since they thought he was dead.
As for the finale, an easy bet is that Birdy will be the last “man” standing after some kind of mexican stand-off, the others being blown to bits after hefty amounts of angst. I wonder if the director will manage to surprise us in that area.
Yeah, that scene where Nataru murder’s Tasera by decapitation was downright brutal and sad.. she was a little girl who wanted to atone for what she was involved with and live in peace mourning for her brother (whom Nataru also killed) in peace. She was reading a picture book waiting for her foster parents, thinking she heard them at the door, she runs to the foyer only to run into Nataru…and then….. It was an extremely impacting scene, and hurt me to see that happen to her.