Short Synopsis: Casshern vs. Luna
Episode Rating: 8/10 (Excellent)
Before I start with the episode, I’m going to have to say some negative things about this series. It’s one of my favourites of the currently airing series, so I’m not happy with it either, but I do want to say a few things about it. If the series had the luck to air half a year earlier, I probably wouldn’t have noticed this, but the past weeks some of the other currently airing shows have reminded me of the difference between an excellent series and a truly outstanding series. Ever since it aired, this series has been on this list of favourites. That creates some expectations, and in the past weeks I realized that in the end the series didn’t live up to it.
In the second half of this series, the show has become much more consistent and predictable when compared to the first half. It merely founds its pace, and consistently went along with it. It never hit any lows, nor did it hit any heights, and that’s the problem I’m getting to. In the end, my favourite episode of this series remains episode seven. In comparison, some of the other shows airing this season have truly surpassed themselves in the past month. For me, Michiko e Hatchin, Shikabane Hime, Clannad After Story, Jigoku Shoujo, Birdy The Mighty Decode, Druaga no Tou and Ride Back have been consistently getting better and better for their own standards, while Casshern’s level of quality has pretty much stayed the same, with the result that quite a few series have already caught up with it. At the end of February, I was fairly certain that my Top 3 of series that started airing in the past Fall Season would contain Casshern Sins, but at this point I’m not so sure anymore. For any regular series, it’s a real achievement to be able to produce an episode that is as good as your average Casshern episode, but this series already showed that it was excellent in its first quarter. For me, it did sort-of fail in meeting the stellar expectations it set in its beginning. I remember Himitsu faced the same problem, but at least that series turned significantly better in its final quarter, and it’s a shame that Casshern couldn’t follow.
But yeah, that doesn’t mean that this series isn’t getting any worse. This episode was yet again really good for a semi-final episode. What I especially liked was how Luna doesn’t have any combat abilities at all. That really prevents the ending from turning into a boring overblown fight between the main character and villain until one of them goes down. I also liked how many story threads were solved in this episode: Luna and Casshern both quit trying to make the other understand and went their own ways, Dio finally considered Leda, which is something which Leda really appreciated and saved her from her own darkness.
And finally we learn the cause of the ruin: when Casshern impaled her, her blood flowed throughout all the oceans of the earth. This transformed Luna from a goddess of destruction into a goddess of life. And indeed it sort-of makes sense that her new blood can be used to heal the effects of her old blood. Casshern then became the first one to experience the effects of her new blood, but as a side-effect he lost his memory.
The next episode is going to be a very interesting one, as it seems to be more centred around Braiking Boss and Luna than Casshern. The potential for an original ending is very good, so let’s hope that it’s not going to screw up. I remember how someone noted that there could be a second season, but I wouldn’t count on it: this is Madhouse, after all. They only very rarely make sequels (the perfect way to prevent you from milking out your own franchises). However, there is no way that that ending is going to wrap every single open thread in the storyline:
– What the heck was the point of the coloured rock anyway?
– What was the point of making Dio, Leda AND Casshern robots who could potentially reproduce? It feels a bit and unimportant to just include it for a small piece of Leda’s background. Apart from that it’s never really been used.
what I want at least in the next episode is the background of Braiking Boss. It would be a darn shame if he’d just impale Luna to make her blood flow across the rivers of the earth again and disappear. In this episode it became clear that he isn’t a bad guy after all, but he had just been searching for Luna as well, and making the right preparations to save the world. The question is however: what caused this change of heart? Wasn’t he the one who ordered to kill Luna? Of course he may have realized the mistakes of his actions, but I’d really like to see that confirmed.
That’s what I’ve been trying to say about Braiking Boss all along.
He used to be a tyrant-of-sorts, and as with all “power-hungry” individuals, the more they have have monopoly over dominance (or, the more dominance they have, for that matter), the better. Seeing that there was a growing number of “people” aligning with Luna, he ordered her assassination because she’s become a threat to his dominance. I think it was as simple as that.
But the effects of an assassination having been successfully carried out is as everyone can see. Braiking Boss wanted control of the world; not to destroy it. And now, I think, he’s doing the best thing(s) a person in his position/situation could do. After all, he was partly, if not fully, responsible for the Ruin.
Can’t find your email adress or something, I wanted to write you a mail, but couldn’t find it, so I’ll just put a random comment here.
Have you actually ever seen NANA ?
I really recommend it, and I couldn’t find a review on this blog yet, so , please , watch it. I really would like to see your comments on this series 😉 .
( Yeah, I know nothing of this has to do with Casshern Sins xd. )
Um … am I seeing things or is Leda Ringo’s mum? The fact that they met with no one else being around and that look Leda gave her made me think that Ringo must be her daughter. Come to think of it, their hair and eye colors are similar.
haven’t seen this episode but yeah, the show failed to meet my expectations too 🙁
so, how would you put it compared to Xam’d? now I’m quite positive that I’ll rate this show a bit lower than Xam’d, who also didn’t deliver at the end, but every episode except for the last one was better than the one before it.
Marc: I haven’t seen Nana yet, though it is on my to-watch list.
As for my e-mail address: psgels at yahoo dot com
Da_man: I’d rate this series a bit above Xam’d at the moment. While both failed to meet these expectations, Casshern’s finale has been far less rushed and incomplete than Xam’d’s
It’ll be interesting to see how the series ends since it’s still pretty much up in the air at the moment. I’m wondering how Ringo will play into all this since she has been hinted to be “special” throughout the series.
Wow… Luna was destructive then. Her blood was formerly poisonous. So when she was drained of blood, her nature changed. No wonder she said that she was changed by Casshern. But she doesn’t seem to like it.
We’ll see the purpose of the colored rock soon enough. Maybe it should be dipped in the water to counteract Luna’s former blood. Hmm, it’s sort of like the Wormwood object in the Bible.
I think that maybe Braking boss and Luna were combined earlier and then Braking boss then built casshern to screw over and destory Luna…. maybe… maybe not…. dunno.
And who knows what Ringo’s deal is…. I thought this episode could have been the last one…. thank god isn’t not.
Cool series though… and your argument about the pacing of Casshern…. I thought it did a pretty good job.. but your right… there is a pretty anti-climatic ending. It stayed at a steady pace and you were never captivated by the whole story… I feel even though Casshern wasn’t completely non-serial (SP?) It had a completely steady pace unlike most anime (IE: bonen no xamdou) which usually have an obvious story arc with an actual climax. Casshern is missing a climax to counter Soul Eater’s current climax which is fanservice up the wazoo…. Casshern misses that excitement.. even though every week it’s very good…. the episodes stand alone.
I actually really liked this episode. Leda and Dio actually got rather good. But my preference to the first ones remains unchanged.
I do wonder how many episodes this thing still has to go though.
TCoFA: this is the semi-final episode, the next one will be the last.
Thinking about it, it seems like the point of it all is some kind of existential…paradox? “One can only truly live if one can die.”
Well, this episode answers the question why Luna and Braiking Boss are together in the new ending. Also, I think Leda’s head was best drawn in this episode; the irony of it being with a partially-disfigured body.
I think I’ve got a pretty good guess on what the next episode is going to be like. For one thing, it’s probably going to aim to be “climatic”. The dialogue between Braiking Boss and Luna is a dead giveaway. I just hope it’s going to be a happy ending for Casshern and Lyuze after all has been said and done.
Sorry for the double post, but this came to my attention just now while checking for new comments, and I thought I’d try to answer it:
I think it’s some kind of reference to the original Casshern, being partly organic and all. In this series, Casshern has been 100% machine his entire life. I think, it’s to somehow bring this incarnation of Casshern closer to the original without incorporating the cyborg concept.
Also, it gave Casshern something to be depressed about in Ep. 13; that eventhough he wasn’t created to be a “killing machine” (and in sharp contrast, a machine that can “procreate”), that was the only thing he could be.
“- What was the point of making Dio, Leda AND Casshern robots who could potentially reproduce? It feels a bit and unimportant to just include it for a small piece of Leda’s background. Apart from that it’s never really been used.”
While it’s true that it was never really used, the point was to make robots truly superior to humans, or at least that is how I see it. Humans would be born and die, but they had the ability to reproduce. Robots had eternal life, but they never reproduced, therefore they never created true life. And life is all the point in this show…
Forgot to mention. Braiking Boss wanted to rule an empire of robots. People were joining Luna’s side as we all know, and therefore he sent Casshern to kill her.
But I think that we’re not thinking about the beginning of this episode. The robot saying “I’ll follow you Braiking Boss-sama, as you’ll heal me and prevent my death from the ruin”. I don’t see him as a villain, but he is no hero either. He wants an empire. Right now, the robots want to escape from the ruin. That’s why they followed Dio and Leda. That’s why the robots are now following him. Though he has learned something from his mistakes, since he says “I won’t make anybody else a grave” (or sth like that). What he did learn, I have no idea though.
Dio was so gar.
On other things, maybe Braiking Boss has learned a few things, but it seems one of them is to build a new forever-living empire… for robots? What about humans?
Seeing how loosely the word “gay” (and other homosexual slurs, and references to homosexuality) is being thrown around, I don’t really know what it’s supposed to mean anymore.
To be honest, I’m just sick of this whole “gay craze” thing. Unfortunately, I doubt it’s gonna go away, as it never seems to lose its’ convenience and “fun factor” for a lot of people.
What was it that Dio did again?
CASSHERNxLYUZE: What are you talking about? Nobody here said “gay”. Hurr wrote “gaR”. While it was initially a misspelled “gay” (which initially itself just meant “happy”), the meme GAR now means rather something like “admirable manly”.
While were at it: Although I usually dislike gay characters in anime because they tend to be overly trashy and stereotypical, Japanese are actually not hostile towards homosexuals in general unlike US-Americans and gay jokes usually aren’t insulting. So, it’s really just “fun” whereas in US culture it’s more often than not driven by homophobia even if people refuse to admit it. This difference in the view of homosexuality is probably caused by the so-called “Christian” religion which in reality is closer to Satan than Jesus. You see, even in old Europe like the Rome Empire and ancient Greece, long before the Christian religion existed, homo- and bisexual relations were quite normal and accepted. It was the Christian church, abusing biblical texts to establish the idea that homosexuality was against their god’s will. Of course similar can be said about Muslims but that’s just another branch of Mesopotamian monotheism. I don’t know what Jews think about homosexuality but I’d blame speading homophobia mostly on the old testament and these power hungry, anti-social world religions.
I stand corrected then. I didn’t know that. I thought it was some kind of euphemism for “gay”. Thanks for clearing it up.
However, the way it was said is still rather condescending, and phrased in a kind of “gay language”.
And in response to the latter part of your post; I guess it is somewhat appropriate that you’d say “anti-social” – as opposed to “socialism”. I hope that the next time you talk about homosexuality, homophobia, and religion; you won’t omit the faults of homosexuals just to get some kind of leverage against religion. Homosexuals are NOT faultless people. Homosexuality, to begin with, IS a perversity. They (self-identified gays and homosexuals) know it’s wrong; that’s why they sugarcoat it with pride.
But despite of all that pride and attitude they flaunt about, they’re not really very secure about themselves, are they? That’s why they like to slap their “gay” label onto everyone and everything they could get their hands on, and they seem to have a problem with anything that excludes them or disagrees with them.
I’m pretty sure that Leda is Ringo’s mom. Seeing it from that angle would piece together so many little things that might not have made sense before. Certainly, Leda’s reaction to Ringo’s appearance was a big hint.
The series is heavy on subtext and the implied rather than the directly stated. Watch episode 17 over again with Ringo as Leda’s daughter in mind. May make some puzzle pieces fit together.
Hey! I’m back again to tell you that you were right: I just finished watching the latest and last episode of Casshern Sins and am here to tell you that it DOES NOT dissapoint and I consider it the strongest episode of the second half of the show. Not many holes were cleared up but it did leave a strong if not sorrowful glossy impact bound to impress. I’m just was that it’s over and the way it left off it could perhaps get ovas or a spinoff lol. But I can’t wait to hear your response on it. This show has had it’s ups and downs (and I totally agree with he fact that the Nico episode was the best one out there no doubt it made me cry and I don’t cry often especially during anime shows) but I’m glad I stuck through the end after a slow start. It’s been a great ride and this certainly is a more mature/philosophical anime that’s totally different from anything I’ve ever seen. Sayonara Casshern! It was fun watching ;P
>And finally we learn the cause of the ruin: when Casshern impaled her, her blood flowed throughout all the oceans of the earth. This transformed Luna from a goddess of destruction into a goddess of life. And indeed it sort-of makes sense that her new blood can be used to heal the effects of her old blood. Casshern then became the first one to experience the effects of her new blood, but as a side-effect he lost his memory.
We already knew it was that accident that destroyed the world, but the given explanation is rather cheap and it didn’t really solve the issues. If Luna’s blood was lethal, why was Casshern blessed with eternal life when everything else perished? How did Luna survive and how her blood turned out “good”? It’s just pointless.
>I think it’s some kind of reference to the original Casshern
Now it’s you stating unexistent connections with the past serie. ^^;