Category: Birdy the Mighty Decode

Short Synopsis: The new enemies prove that they’re not so useless after all.
Episode Rating: 9/10 (Fantastic)
Jezus Christ! This show just keeps on getting better and better, and it was already among the best of the season! The first season is looking like one of the most generic series ever in comparison, for god’s sake. I’m so astounded as to what this series managed to do with only four freaking episodes.

In this episode, Birdy already finds out that something’s up with Natoru. It turns out that the two of them had to flee to earth because they were major suspects on a bombing of the headquarters of Birdy’s organization, while in fact one of their friends was behind it. That same friend who belongs to the group of aliens that Natoru has been killing off so systematically. I’m not exactly sure what they have to do with Ryunka, but they seem to be taking care of a new version of it.

And holy balls, this episode showed that they’re not as helpless as we originally believed, as they end up killing Natoru’s father in this episode (with the same brutal animation of the second season). To make matters even more disturbing, Natoru gets even more violent because of this, and brutally kills one of the frog-children of that group.

I must say that I had a lot of doubts about Kazuki Akane. Sure, it was a nice series and all, but it just didn’t live up to his previous works. Right now, I’m taking all of that back. The guy definitely hasn’t lost his touch yet, and he’s definitely my favourite director out there. It’s because of guys like him that I’m still watching anime.

Short Synopsis: Senkawa&co visit a refugee camp for a school project.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8,5/10 (Awesome)
ZOMG, is this really the same Birdy the Mighty as the first season? That first season was a nice series and all, but the teen-aged romances got into the way, with especially Senkawa being annoying. And here the second season comes and it’s been consistently awesome so far, with still no signs that the series has hit its height!

This episode may not have been as dark as the previous one (there was quite a bit of comedy there), but nevertheless it was a very important one: it showed where the people who lost their homes thanks to Nakasugi ended up, and with such detail! It’s awesome to see that the creators take their time to show these things: it shows that this isn’t a show where buildings are simply made out of cardboard: if you destroy a building once, it’s simply happens to be a building where no people live and magically disappear by the next episode. It’s simple, but I see many series forgetting this. It really adds more believability to the setting.

And yet again, this episode featured some gorgeous animation. Especially the scene where Natoru got beaten up by those punks was downright brutal, but also the quiet scenes were full of life (and really reminded me of Noein’s animation, which is ALWAYS a good thing ^^;). It’s also amazing how much depth the relationship between Natoru and Birdy already has. As it turns out, Birdy always used to save him when they were kids, and it looks like this still hasn’t changed a bit now that they’ve grown up, even though Natoru changed so incredibly.

This really reminds me of Escaflowne (again directed by the same guy, and again one of my absolute favourites): the first half of the series was good, but didn’t exactly catch my attention, but the second half showed an incredible increase in quality. Here too: the first season was nice and all, but the second season seems to be improving on it significantly in every single way!

Short Synopsis: Birdy meets her childhood friend again.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8,5/10 (Awesome)
Whoa!

I somewhat expected that the second season would be better than the first, but such a huge difference in quality, I never saw coming. The first two episodes were quiet and set up the basic premise for this series, with lots of Senkawa behind his teen-aged self. The second season however, immediately jumps into the action, the animation is consistently awesome, rather than usually average with awesome animation for the big action-scenes. Seriously, it looks like the second season is going to top the first season in just about every aspect, and with a bit of luck it’s going to be the best of the sequels that started airing in this Winter-season.

But my favourite change: Senkawa. The past two episodes showed no intention whatsoever to drag on his romantic relationship. In fact, it’s time for Birdy to have her romance, and that one’s also looking much more interesting than the romance of the first season. On top of that, Senkawa is now more experienced in love matters, so he can actually give Birdy a bit of advice here and there.

This episode also showed: the director of this series definitely also did Noein. The animation was fantastic, even during the quiet parts the characters are drawn in a very messy style, but this way they gestures and motions have extra expressivity, and they really make the cast come alive this time. It doesn’t make for the best screenshots, though. ^^;

I also love it when the writers go creative with ring-tones. It may be something small, but it’s fun to see what kind of tune the character in question has chosen, and it’s even small things like these that add to the fleshing out the character. It’s amazing how Natoru has only appeared for 2 episodes, and he already feels like a regular member of the cast. Especially during the big fight scene at the end of this episode. That was seriously brutal! Seriously, this second season has buckets of potential.

Short Synopsis: The finale of the first season of Birdy the Mighty: Stop Ryunka and save Nakasugi.
Highlights: Predictable, but satisfying.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8,25/10
Well, this episode turns out exactly like you’d expect: at the end of the episode, Ryunka is sealed, Nakasugi is saved and Senkawa is back in Birdy’s body. However, I still like this ending, because of the way it took the creators to get there. They succeeded to make the ending too straightforward, first by playing around with Mind-Games with Senkawa and Nakasugi, by keeping switching Nakasugi and Ryunka like someone with a bad personality disorder, followed by Senkawa finally getting the guts to kiss Nakasugi, taking over the Ryunka and thus sacrificing his own body, which he knows can be easily restored.

Seeing the relationship between Senkawa and Nakasugi coming together with that kiss really made up for the predictable finale, although I’m sceptic about the memory-reset the creators gave to Nakasugi. Memory loss can either work incredibly well or flop entirely. The creators really need to use the fact that she lost her memory, and not make it some convenient reset-button like on a gaming-console. For the second season, the creators also need to find a way to get rid of the fact that dead bodies can just be restored. It’s not going to make for good drama if characters can just be revived like it’s no problem. The creators need to find some sort of “Great will of the Universe”-solution (for those who watched Excel Saga) to keep this from happening.

Overall, when compared to Escaflowne and Noein’s halfway-climaxes, this one pretty much sucked, but with the standard of the past season, then it’s an above-average ending, based on the endings I’ve seen so far. It could have been better, but at the same time it also didn’t screw up at all, and I’ll be looking forward to that second season.

Short Synopsis: Syamalan + Ryunka = Destruction.
Highlights: Awesome animation and music and a less annoying Senkawa. What more could you want?
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8,5/10
Now this is more like it! Senkawa acted much less of a teenager in this episode, which made him much more enjoyable to watch. It’s really such a pity that this series has to work with a typical loser as the lead character, because there aren’t many roads you can go to with such a guy, and he’s already overplayed a lot. I think it would have been better to make Senkawa more like the male lead of True Tears.

And the twist, where Syamalan died so easily after executing his plans was a pretty nice one. It also shows that the finale of the first season will be between its three main characters: Birdy, Senkawa and Nakasugi. It’s really a finale that can go anywhere: it can become utter crap, where Senkawa spends the entire episode in a pointless argument with Birdy over whether or not to kill Nakasugi, or it can become amazing, like the director has shown many times before with Noein and Escaflowne with the help of some heavy-hitting character-development.

I also love the use of music in this series. The director is very much like Bee-Train, in the way that he puts a lot of emphasis on the music, but the difference between the two is that the music here is at its best when the tension is slowly rising, instead of the actual climaxes in Bee-Train’s case. The composer, Yuugo Kanno, is relatively unknown, and he’s only composed the music of a small amount of series, among which Hataraki Man and Library War. It’s interesting, because I remember noting in the first episode of Library Wars how great the music was, and then strangely enough the music dulled out afterwards. Now that the guy has teamed up with such an excellent director, it’s great to hear what he can really do for a soundtrack.

Short Synopsis: Birdy faces a difficult task: telling Senkawa that Ryunka is in Nakasugi.
Highlights: A bit predictable, but at the same time very interesting developments, considering that second season.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 7,5/10
Okay, so this had to happen: Senkawa had to learn the identity of Ryunka, and the fact that Birdy’s out to kill her. Birdy herself waited way too long, and ended up telling him at the worst possible moment, so he indeed had to retaliate and run off with Nakasugi. His character was a quite annoying, but when viewed as a means of building up, then it makes sense.

When Nakasugi and Tsutomu ran off, the creators laid a few parallels to other stories to try and spice it up. The two of them running away looks a lot like when Haruka and Yuu ran away in Noein, and also the story of Bonnie and Clyde that Nakasugi mentioned on the subway was interesting enough

It’s now clear how the creators are planning to end the first season: get rid of Syamalan and say goodbye to Nakasugi. The second season is also going to feature Senkawa and Birdy in separate bodies (which really makes me wonder how Senkawa’s going to remain the main character of this series). It does seem that the creators really intended the first season to stand apart from the second season, as a means of fleshing out the characters. My prediction is that Capella and the guy with glasses will play the main bad guys, and Muroto and Natsumi will likely also gain much bigger roles (which seems to hint at an increase in mystery).

It’s all going to matter on whether the creators can manage to develop Birdy and Senkawa sufficiently for that second season. I can imagine how both of them will change a lot after whatever’s going to happen in the next two episodes, but the trick is to keep things natural and subtle, rather than turning Senkawa into some battle-hardened tough warrior or something.

Short Synopsis: Senkawa and Nakasugi go on a date and Natsumi and Muroto go after some rumours about Syamalan.
Highlights: Yet another episode that delivers.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8,5/10
And here I thought that this would be a simple intermezzo, where the series takes a small break, and takes its time to introduce the next arc. Instead, the creators managed to turn this episode into both an intermezzo and an episode that yet again pushes the plot forward. Especially the mysteries around Syamalan continue to tighten as this series goes on.

I must say that I like this series more and more with every episode, and it’s really one of those examples of a series that starts off rather weak, and only picks up later in the story. In fact, I see the entire first season as just one big introduction for the second season. My guess is that this first season takes care of everything around Syamalan (consider him as a sort of mid-boss), so that the second season can focus on Capella, and the guy with shades and his boss.

I’m really curious to how the creators planned to end the first season. It’s probably just going to be an average climax, where Syamalan gets stopped, but I can’t help but think how both Noein and Escaflowne’s thirteenth episode were absolutely amazing. I wonder whether the director has the same in mind for Birdy the Mighty, or would he rather provide a solid introduction for the second season instead?

Short Synopsis: Just about every important character in this series gets attracted to what happened at the end of the previous episode
Highlights: Finally another great fight-scene!
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8,5/10
Okay, so this series still needs miles to go before it can call itself equal to the likes of Noein or Escaflowne, but nevertheless, the past few episodes have really impressed me. The past three episodes have shown an incredible contrast to the first six episodes, which goofed off beyond belief. This episode also answers what the heck happened to the budget of this series: it’s clearly been saved for the major fight scenes like the one here.

Just about every side-character apart from Senkawa’s random classmates got fleshed out some more and gained some extra depth in this episode. Keisuke Muroto turns out to be quite a nice guy, despite his rather forcing ambitions. The guy reminds me of the male policeman from Noein. Natsumi is just as curious as Senkawa was, back in episode one.

Sayaka still doesn’t seem to know anything about her “other side”, and neither does it seem that Birdy and Senkawa recognize her from the last episode. But then again, you don’t easily suspect your classmate from being a psychotic killer. Syamalan turns out to be quite a famous person, with even larger ambitions. What exactly did he find so special in the wrecks that Sayaka left? He does seem to know about her, since he knows Capella. I couldn’t pick it up exactly, but at the end of the episode, did Capella promise him to hand over Nakasugi’s other self if he cooperated? This Ryunka they keep talking about, is that Sayaka’s other self?

In the meantime, the goth-girl turns out to be an android, and the guy with the moustache whose name I don’t know also finally does something.

The guys in moon-suits who wielded fire weapons also really worked. I originally thought that this series would keep Senkawa’s classmates apart from perhaps Sayaka away from the action, but as it turns out, it has other plans. Again, much like Noein, they all play their own part, aside from providing some obligatory classmates for the lead character.