Short Synopsis: Dio and Leda run into some old acquaintances and Ouji reveals a few things about his past.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10 (Excellent)
It’s good to see that Dio and Leda get their fair share of attention. While they are my least favourite characters of this series, their extra development is quickly getting rid of these problems, and makes the two of them more enjoyable with every episode that focuses on them. In this episode, they meet Braiking Boss’ top soldiers before Dio and Leda arrived: Barkan and Mars. The two are still angry for the two of them taking their place.
The interesting thing here is that they too beat the crap out of Dio, though still all he can think about is how he can’t win of Casshern. Leda manages to save him and leads the two of them away, but something bugs me about her reaction when Dio returned (pumped up by Braiking Boss’ words of motivation): her joy at seeing Dio back was definitely acted. I’m still not exactly sure about what she’s planning, but she definitely has a hidden agenda. This series has shown by now that she simply isn’t as strong as Casshern or Dio, so instead she has to resort to trickery and deceit more.
Speaking of which, Braiking Boss also hasn’t been simply wandering around for no possible reason. Something’s telling me that he’s trying to set up Casshern and Dio against each other, but what especially bugs me is how in the ED, he’s lying right next to Luna. You’d think that that would be a place for Dune, so what’s he doing there?
But my favourite part of this episode was obviously Ouji’s background. He seems to be some sort of cyborg: mostly human, but with artificial limbs. It turns out that the reason he’s taking care of Ringo is because she saved him when he was at the bottom of despair, when she was only just an infant. That really begs the question to what she is, though. I can understand how Ouji is a cyborg: the guy was a scientist for Braiking Boss, so I guess that he also had enough time to experiment on his own body. But Ringo on one side is just a regular child who grows up, gets hurt, and apparently doesn’t need any food (at least, we’ve never seen the two of them eat so far), and at the same time she feels the effects of the destruction just like any other robot…
i am not sure that Ringo gets the ruin. In the episode where you first see braiking boss lyuze says to not go into the water because she would rust but she never did rust. I think ouji is just faking it on ringo so that she doesnt get extra attention from “bad” robots
After watching ep15 I began questioning even more about what she is. The ruin seems to be affecting her since Ouji created some sort of device to assist her breathing. But then again, what robot needs to breath? It is stated that the ruin is affecting both robots and humans, but it’s left to your imagination how it affects the latter. Unless you compare that breathing issue with the sypmtoms of that the human guy Casshern found on ep3. You can see Rigno bleeding in another episode as well. I’m thinking that maybe she is more like Casshern, not entirely human, not entirely machine.
Now we know that green crystal from the first ending isn’t a part of Casshern. So, it’s no indication that he’s going to die or anything. But of course, that doesn’t mean that he isn’t going to die.
I’m glad that this episode got its fair share of CxL action. At first, Lyuze seemed to have gone back to becoming aloof towards Casshern, but it turns out that isn’t really the case.
There are two “nice touches” in this episode from a shipping perspective. First would be Casshern reflected on the glass pendant as Lyuze was looking at it; and second would be Dio clutching Leda’s arm before gently moving it aside. The first somewhat underlines Casshern and Lyuze relationship; while the second is like Dio stating his claim to Leda (for lack of a better way of putting it). Until now, Dio seemed too passive regarding his relationship with Leda, so it’s nice to see him “assert himself” for a change. Even if Leda may not really “love” him, they still make quite a couple. I just hope that Leda wouldn’t start becoming aloof towards Dio.
Maybe Braiking Boss and Luna were intended to be a pair of some sort. Kinda like Ohji and Ringo.
@ Jako:
You must have missed that part of Ep. 13 in which Ringo shows a patch of rust on her cheek that is usually covered by her hair.
That’s indeed the strange thing: Casshern, Dio and Leda became half-human/half-robot because Ouji created them that way. If Ringo is also supposed to be a half-human/half-robot, it means that he has to have done something to her to get her in that state.
There was no indication that Ohji created anything half-human/half-robot. What he said back in Ep. 13 was “robots with a body composition that’s different from old (normal/usual) robots”. As I’ve mentioned before, we don’t know whether that’s organic or nanotech or something else. We just know that Ohji intended to replicate the human reproductive process in robots.
Apparently, Lyuze does in this episode.
Talk about suspicious, Mars and Vulcan so ready and willing to listen to Leda’s plea despite having such an urge to defeat the two who replaced them. Well Leda’s certainly cementing herself with Dio, thanks to Braiking Boss’ words XD.
Hm Ringo and Oji’s meeting is pretty odd, I always thought that Ringo and Casshern knew each other earlier (that Ringo was an earlier or slightly later model) but if Oji met Ringo when the Ruin had begun then Casshern and Ringo wouldn’t have met. But we do have that short flash back with Ringo telling Casshern it wasn’t his fault, lest he just started to think of Ringo. In any case she sure puts a big question, what the heck is she? Ringo seems to be both human and robot.
Ah well I do hope they plan to answer these questions soon, long as it isn’t a rushed explanation.
I definitely can’t wait for the next episode, the meeting with Luna is growing closer and closer~!
This episode is way better when I can understand the things being said. Casshern finally makes it clear that Lyuze and Ringo have become important to him; and he wants to protect them, and save them from the Ruin.
I was wrong about Casshern being reflected on the glass pendant. Lyuze saw Casshern through the glass. It was kind of literally looking through rose-tinted glasses, only it is green. I think the scene suggests that Lyuze already “likes” Casshern, but not fully. And it is that matter of him causing the Ruin that’s keeping her from fully “liking” him. And so, when she “happens to see” Casshern through the glass, it’s like she’s trying to look at him minus the atrocities and horrors of the Ruin – seeing the Casshern that she’s grown to “like”, on its own, apart from the Casshern that she hated. There must be a more efficient way of saying all that, but I just don’t have it right now.
Dio has always reminded me of Raoh from Hokuto no Ken. Him gaining a new reason to fight in this episode just adds to that – with it bringing to mind Raoh learning the secret to Musou Tensei.
Speaking of character references, I think the X-shaped scar on Ohji’s forehead is a reference to B’t X. But why Masami Kurumada’s characters are being used as basis for the character designs in this series to this extent, I don’t know. You’d think they’d draw more stuff from Tatsunoko series like the original Casshern, Gatchaman, and Tekkaman…
Nothing suspicious about that. Leda’s hot. That’s all there is to it.